A friend asked me tonight, how much money do I need to invest in order to start an online business and make some extra income?
This is a pretty regular question, as many of us starting out do not have tons of money to invest for Internet Marketing and we are desperate to break free of the 9-5 and work at home.
In reality an online business is very unique because unlike the usual business models, you can literally start and make money whether it's full time or extra income, without investing a ton of money or even a single dime.
Eventually, I think you will need to spend some money, at the very least on a web hosting account but you can get started right away without spending a cent. And, you can use the money you make from bum marketing to finance future online campaigns and go on to build your own sites and blogs and bum marketing will teach you a lot about how to make money with Google Adsense, or with affiliate marketing and all for free!
Internet Marketing for Bums
Bum marketing is a nickname for launching online campaigns that are completely free of start up costs, not even hosting that will allow you to make money!
While you can use paid software to create websites, such as BANS, there are venues that allow you to build your own mini-sites that are hosted by someone else, but allow you to create your own piece of Internet real estate and launch your Internet Marketing campaign.
Some Benefits of Using Free Venues to Build Webpages
1. Great way to gain experience and learn the how-to's of Internet marketing affiliate marketing, creating a web page and more before engaging on a grander scale.
2. These sites allow you to make money online without spending any. They are easily integrated with many affiliate programs, such as eBay, Amazon, Adsense, or you can use whichever you want and these venues share their revenue so you can make some cash directly from them.
3. These venues rank on their own, and so you will piggyback off their rank and your pages can rank in the SERPS (search engine page results) much quicker and with a lot less work than a site launched from scratch giving you that magical search engine traffic.
Free Webpage Venues for Internet Marketing:
Squidoo Lenses - Building free Squidoo lenses to promote the products you choose is one of the best places to get your feet wet in Internet Marketing and start to make money online completely free.
In fact, even those of us who have been in this biz for a while continue to use Squidoo, I have 15 lenses myself, and several of them bring in a regular monthly income.
There are some tricks to build a lens correctly that will rank high in SERPS as well as promotion and easy code resources, learn more at my guide How-To Squidoo Steps to Building the Best Lens that will show everything you need to know to build a lens the right way as well as the important promotion techniques for lens rank to make money.
By the way, for those of you with sites, building Squidoo lenses is a great way to promote those sites and you can give yourself 100% do-follow backlinks from them. Several of my lenses are PR2, 3 and 4 and those are A+ links.
Hub Pages - Hub Pages rank very high in SERPS, depending on how competitive the keywords are. Basically the same concept as Squidoo, except that Hub Pages are more strict and monitored than Squidoo by their admin for quality content and spam. There is less flexibility in placing affiliate links and having the Hub Page be too commercial.
They LOVE fresh content at Hub Pages so focus on that and use your products to support the content. Integrate your Amazon, eBay, Adsense and Kontera affiliate accounts. Just read the TOS, and make sure to follow the rules.
The key to Hub Pages is really networking with other authors. Visit, comment and become a fan of other Hubbers and they will visit you. If you keyword optimize your Hub page properly, same as a Squidoo lens, then you can rank high in SERPS for those keywords.
I recommend Squidoo over Hub Pages, much more flexibility and no one nagging you about what you add to your webpage.
Step-by-Step Internet Marketing for Bums
Do some keyword research to find good keywords for your webpage. Aim for low competition keywords and focus on long tails. These are keyword phrases within a main keyword. Example, main keyword "laptop", long tail keyword: "Used Cheap Laptops." Long tails and micro niches can be found with a good amount of searchers and much less competition. Learn more and get tools at Step-by-Step Niche and Keyword Research.
2. Build a Webpage
Use one or more of the free venues to build webpages. As previously mentioned, I recommend Squidoo.
3. Article Marketing
Write a few related articles and link to those webpages from the resource box. Article marketing will bring traffic as well as backlinks.
- Use different keywords so you do not outrank yourself
- Submit to these top article sites:
Ezine Articles
Article Dashboard
Go Articles
Article City
Article Alley
Amazines
Articles Factory
4. Social Bookmarks
Use social sites and submit your content, see 70+ Social Bookmarks Sites.
5. Anchor Text
Make sure to use your keywords in the anchor text for any backlinks to your webpages, while Squidoo and Hub Pages rank on their own, those backlinks will just increase the ranking power. Learn more at: The Importance of Anchor Text in Link Building.
6. US Free Ads
Use US Free Ads classifieds to promote your webpages and drive traffic, traffic that is well targeted as those visitors are looking to buy! Free account gives you 2 adds with unlimited content. $10 a year gives you many more.
7. Internet Forums
You can also use Internet Forums to promote your webpages and get some links. Make sure they are relevant to your topic and then the traffic is very targeted. Use this list of 144 Do-Follow Forums by Niche to find some.
Be patient, keep at it and good luck!!!
As with any Internet Marketing campaign some testing is needed. Not all Bum Internet Marketing campaigns are big successes, as is with any online venture.
Some of my Squid lenses have never made a cent, while others are doing great. But, no matter what, you cannot beat the hands-on free Internet Marketing experience and the extra income potential with these resources.
I must say you never cease to amaze me with the amount of great marketing information you bring to the table!!
I personally didn’t know there were any free marketing venues out there – but you’ve proved me wrong!!
Taris Janitenss last blog post..My 100th Post!! Great Success!!
@Taris
Thanks!
Thanks for the great insight JR. I have been concentrating on my blogs but I would like to get into product sales and I think Squidoo will be a good place test.
I tried some commercialization on a WordPress.com blog and got shut down so be careful there.
Andy
Andy@mlm email leadss last blog post..MLM Email Leads For Profit
@Andy
Yes, WordPress.com is a whole different thing. Squidoo has no limitations as far as commercialization and monetezation.
I’ve been doing my own website marketing on the cheap for many years. Although the “free” approach is nice, it really helps to spend a little cash on your own domain hosting!
Hey JR,
Yet another well written and chalk-full-of-information post. I’m a fan of Hubpages and EzineArticles, for what its worth. Squidoo is on my list to check out this year.
This is a great guide for starting out with as little or no money as possible, but if someone is going to put much time into it, I would suggest investing a little cash in your own success and start with your own website or blog, and better control your destiny. Why start if you’re not going to shoot for the stars!
Steve, Pinnacle Trade Show Displays
PS. You could also add to your post that these “bums” should subscribe to your blog for your great (and free) advice!
@Steve
LOL, thanks Steve. I agree with the shoot for the stars, but there are those who have absolutely nothing to invest and so this way they can make money for free and then reinvest that income to those stars
Nice guide. i think the hardest thing with starting w/no startup capital is that you have to be ready to exert a lot of labor and efforts to maximize everything… I mean wehn I was new to this whole thing, Im almost in front of my pc for 10 hours a day, but again thats a long story anyway…
Melvins last blog post..Upcoming Contest And Some Announcements
@Melvin
LOL, I’ve been at this for a while and I’m still at the computer over 10 hours a day
Blogger is quite useful too as a free marketing solution, the scalability is very impressive!
@inauguration ticket
you are right, I was saving Blogger for another post, since Blogs are somewhat different than just a landing page.
You bought up squidoo, i have around 20-30 lens and they are free and easy to create. Some of my lens rank in the top ten of google for there keywords. Squidoo is a must for any bum marketer.
Jason
Jason @ Legitimate Home Based Businesss last blog post..Network Marketing – Mistakes You Shouldn’t Make
Good stuff as usual
I’ve seen you promote usfreeads a few times, you know they have an affiliate program, why not put your affiliate link there?
@Christine
. I love US Free, there is so much good targeted traffic there, and depending on the niche you can really get a lot of sales. Plus they rank in the SERPS really well, Google loves them!
LOL, shhhh…it’s all ready there
JR-
Great post. While I do think that you should at least invest the small amount for your own domain and hosting to get a blog started, I agree that there are some people who really have nothing to invest right now.
It also really gives people a taste of what is involved in Internet Marketing and lets them see that it is hard work and not necessarily a piece of cake. Once they have gotten their feet wet they can decide if the investment is worth it.
I really need to look into Squidoo more too- it sounds like I am missing out by not being on it.
Jen@TipsFromANetworkMarketers last blog post..Network Marketing Income- Generating Your Prospects 4 Different Ways
@Jen
Most definitely, build some Squid lenses, the backlink is great and it’s a great promotional tool for anything.
Follow Me on Twitter @: yansusanto
(1 comments)
This article makes a must read guide for anyone who aims to start online business. I love the way you lay out the “hows” with the proven practices. I’ve never heard of US Free Ads. Thanks for the tip, JR.
Yan
Yan@Reviews last blog post..How To Import PLR Articles to Your Blog Automatically?
@Yan
Thanks Yan! Definitely check out US FREE, great targeted traffic there and the ads rank VERY high in SERPS.
Hello JR
this is a very interesting blog post. I think, many people don’t know how “easy” online marketing can be. Unfortunately most give up after a short period of time, when they don’t see results. The most important is “Consistency” and a long term horizon.
Internet Marketing is not a quick making money scheme. An online business needs time to grow and having only a website is not enough.
Good article and very interesting blog. I will promote this article in my blog.
Have fun and success
Yani
http://www.successfulwebwomen.com/blog
@Yani
Thank you so much, I am glad you stopped by, looking forward to interacting with you more often.
@casas rurales en zamora,
You’re welcome!
Another GREAT post!!! A virtual gold mine of great information – as usual!! Thanks!
Kathy @ Virtual Impaxs last blog post..Do Small Business Social Media Blunders = Small Business Marketing Blunders?
The good thing about squidoo is that it allows dofollowed links from in your content – hubpages automatically nofollows links you place in your content, which is no good for you if you are building a network of sites.
@Stu
Thanks for commenting Stu, yes I love the do-follow on Squid, but I do believe the links on Hub are do-follow, just rechecked one of my hubs, checked link location and source code, it is a straight link without any rel tags and it’s do-follow.
Ah, ok.
i actually put a link to a squidoo page on a hubpages hub, and it’s definitely nofollowed.
Maybe hubpages just don’t like you linking out to squidoo pages?
@Stu
I just checked my Squid links on a Hub and its do-follow, I think maybe they no-follow after a certain amount of links, I seem to remember something like that, like if you have more than 3 links to the same domain, which is actually a violation of their TOS, and even though they maybe links to different lenses, the domain is still Squidoo, how many links do you have on one HUB?
@JR, that’s odd – I have one editorial link to a squidoo lens on the hubpages page, and it’s nofollowed
oh well, I like squidoo better anyway.
@Stu
That is weird! I like Squidoo much better as well, Hub Pages are so full of rules that are totally annoying!
It is possible to make money with zero start up by reading guides and applying them with your own twists!
.-= Andrew´s last blog ..Free ashampoo winoptimizer 6 =-.
Hub Pages isn’t worth the hassles. Squidoo gets my vote.
@ Pelican
I agree.
Lovely tips JR. Most of the times as an entrepreneur, you will find yourself with a zero startup. I’ll just bookmark this page just in case ;P
Follow Me on Twitter @: almoyen
(2 comments)
Wow! its my luck that I found this helpful post, I have also talked about how to make money using hubpages in my blog. I know hubpages is a wonderful site that can bring a lot of profit if you do the right thing.
I agree with the benefits of Squidoo. I am also taking advantage of publishing my lens here to market my services.
Small Business Competitors recently posted..Aug 19- Who are Your Small Business Competitors
JR -
I’m so glad I found your site. Great information. Thanks for the info.
Best to you,
Kaete
The Essential eBooker
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Squidoo Lenses and Hub Pages are good source of internet marketing but Hub pages are too advance for SERPS.
Got to love the title!
That alone would you high amounts of visitors. I agree, people can easily earn money through marketing using free stuff available in the web BUT I don’t think it would be enough to rely on that kind of income. I mean it’s good extra cash but not at all can provide for ourselves let alone a family. Unless we save up some money and invest to improve the website to earn more.
@Felixt
Most definitely favored. Squidoo is top notch.
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