Hundreds of millions of people have websites and blogs up and running right now, but less than one percent of them are actually profitable. Some are not intended to be profitable, but most people would at least like to be making some money running ads or affiliate links on their website or blog. So, setting up a blog is very easy, with the advent of Blogger, WordPress, etc., but getting one to make you money is much, much less likely to happen for the average blog-o-preneur. What is the difference between websites and blogs that actually generate sales, and those that don’t? It’s simple: the knowledge of how to do it, the focus to execute on your plan every day, and the persistence and flexibility to tweak your actions until you make it work. In this piece, I am going to boil down into the simplest and most critical elements, how to go from blogger or website owner to successful entrepreneur.

First of all, let’s dispense with a few myths and topics of great discussion, worry and consternation for new online entrepreneurs.

Myth #1: “It matters what product I’m selling.” INCORRECT! You need to focus on your target market, and their wants and needs, your marketing message to them, and if they are responding well to it. Then, later, if you want to find a slightly better widget to sell, go nuts. But don’t spend two days of internet research trying to find the “perfect” product before you even know if you are going to be able to sell anything to anybody! Also, for purposes of this discussion, it doesn’t matter if you’re selling a physical product, a digital info product, a service, etc. If you can sell one, you can sell the other. Learn to sell first.

Myth #2: “But I’ve never sold anything before, what if I can’t sell?” NOPE, I’M NOT ACCEPTING THAT ONE EITHER! The beautiful thing about online marketing, if you are new to selling, is that you don’t have to interact face to face if you don’t want to. It would certainly help your business to hold Meetup groups and seminars relevant to your niche, but it’s not necessary. Plenty of awkward, anti-social geeks and other misfits have made millions of dollars selling online. So, just don’t worry about it. As to the technical stuff of how to execute the steps needed to sell something on your website or blog, it’s just not that hard anymore. I would venture to guess that with the advent of WordPress’s blogging and content management platform, PayPal’s one-stop shopping cart, and places like Amazon and ClickBank for products, selling online now requires 10% of the technical and set up time compared to 5 years ago. I may be talking about steps you’ve never taken before in this article, but trust me, from “in the trenches” I’m telling you, if you can find this piece online, and you can read and send emails, you’re ready to go.

Myth #3: “I have an old school HTML-table-style website, not a fancy WordPress blog.” While WordPress blogs are great for both content and selling, and I use them for both and constantly sing their praises, if you have an old school website and just want to make some money, don’t spend the time to get familiar with WordPress right now, just go with what you have so that you can convince yourself that you really can make money online. Then get a WordPress blog.

Okay, now that I’ve set the stage, let’s get right into the nuts and bolts of what to sell on your site and now to sell it.

Regarding what to sell, you need to put yourself in your market’s shoes. If you already have a large flow of traffic to your site, then figure out who those people are, what they want (using free Google Analytics, surveys, etc.) and give it to them. If you do not have traffic really coming to your site, then determine your target market. Don’t worry about whether or not your niche is “big enough”. There is probably a big enough niche in purple basket weaving to make a million dollars. Just worry about if your niche is the kind of people that are psychologically ready to buy, have the money to buy, and are motivated to buy. For example, selling pain medication to someone with back pain is a lot easier than selling a closet organizer to a college student (who doesn’t care about cleanliness and can’t afford it anyway). (Hint: the easiest niches to sell things in are things like real estate education, internet marketing education, health/wellness/vitamins, relationships/dating, stocks and wealth building, etc… i.e. things people really care a lot about changing in their lives.)

Once you’ve come up with a niche that meets the above criteria, go to sites like Amazon and Clickbank and find a good quality looking product to offer that is positioned and marketed such that it takes away someone’s pain in a certain area of their life or business. You want to be offering the cure to someone’s problem, not just some vague, wishy-washy “might help you” kind of thing. This will make your life much easier, because it won’t be so hard for you to actually make the sale. It can be a physical product or an info product, either is fine.

Next, go on eLance or craigslist or your neighborhood teenager and find someone you think is competent and trustworthy to add the code that Amazon or Clickbank gave you to your website or blog. This is assuming you don’t know how to do it yourself. You should be paying something like $25 for this service, not more than that, because this will take someone no time at all if they are good. If you’re using WordPress, just drop the code for the product advertisement from Amazon or Clickbank into an empty text widget and drag and drop it into one of your Sidebars, and you should be good to go.

Now, when thinking about how to sell your product, you want to identify the specific benefits of the product. A benefit is something like “helps them make money”, not “comes with two DVDs”. That second phrase is a feature, a description, not an actual benefit to the buyer. Then, make it very clear on your site what the benefits are. This is a common error – most people will hit you with lots of detailed features but not make it clear how that helps the buyer. Then, get at least three video testimonials from people who have used the product. Give away a few of the product if you have to, but video testimonials are super powerful because they provide real, live social proof that the product works and that you can be trusted as a seller to actually deliver the product. This is huge, especially because we’re talking about online marketing, not in person marketing, so you need to work extra hard to build trust and credibility. Video testimonials give you that trust and credibility.

Finally, make it easy for people to buy. I recommend PayPal’s very easy merchant service which is built into their service if you have a business account with them. They give you the code for a nice yellow “Buy Now” button, and you just drop it into your website (or have your “internet guy or gal” do that for you, like above). Then, people can either pay you with PayPal, or PayPal will process all the major credit cards for you and send you the money. This saves you the enormous hassle of setting up a merchant account before you even know if you are going to be doing any real business! Also, most people now trust PayPal, since it’s owned by eBay and processes lots of transactions successfully every day. So that helps your credibility too.

Author Bio: There are many ways to make money online, but nothing works unless you’re implementing the key, fundamental strategies. With tons of traffic in your niche, you can monetize it and generate cash. Sign up now for Taylor Garland’s FREE newsletter to learn how-Go here: http://CriticalInternetSecrets.com

Category: Business
Keywords: ecommerce, wordpress, make money blogging, make money online, fast cash, clickbank