Even a busy non-techie Mom can work at home and make money at home with these - I do!

How ordinary folk can work at home and make money off the Internet. 

I was blown away to learn that there is a bona-fide way for ordinary techno-peasants like me to earn substantial income from the Internet without having to get technical. In fact, without having a product, without having customers, credit card merchant accounts, without dealing with customer problems, etc. And I could work at home!

What do I mean by "substantial?"

Well, a 14-year old girl was earning $1000 a month working only a few hours a week. At the extreme level, some experts make 6-figure incomes from this approach, some working full time at it, some working only a few hours a week.

How did I find this opportunity?

My husband is far more comfortable with computers and the Internet than I am, and he has built web sites and written and sold books and eBooks ... but he's constantly been on the alert for a way that "ordinary folk", moms like me, can do this, because we have a lot of low-tech friends and family who would be more than happy to see a few extra bucks roll through the door every month, but haven't a clue how to make it a reality.

One Good Idea ... that we'll get back to later

At first we thought we'd found the Holy Grail of quick, easy Internet income for techno-idiots in the concept of Google Adwords. We bought and downloaded an excellent eBook called Google Cash by Chris Carpenter, and it opened up a whole new world of opportunity for us to work at home and make money. And while we still love it, (and some people make 4 figures a month, and even 5 figures off this alone), in reality we found two size-able obstacles that lead me to say, by all means buy it if you can afford 50 bucks without worrying, because it's a superb education in itself, a real eye-opener; but unless you know what I mean when I say "Landing Page," it's probably not for you any more. You are better off moving on to the ideas in the next section (The Affiliate Ah-Ha!).

I'm more impressed with this opportunity (below) than ever as I and my friends have become more experienced with it.

The Affiliate Ah-Ha!

The model that really clicked for us was when we read Rosalind Gardner's eBook, "Super Affiliate Handbook: How I Made $436,797 Last Year Selling Other People's Stuff Online." This is a superb how-to manual, the detail Rosalind goes into is mind-boggling; she pretty much assumes you know nothing to start with, which in my case was 100% on the nail. Rosalind is the "real deal;" she's been making $300,000+ a year for several years now without ever having a product of her own, and she started without knowing anything about the Internet.

Along with the Google Cash manual, Rosalind’s guide finally drove home the value of being an Affiliate for someone else's product. Duh! We'd simply never thought of it as being a significant opportunity before. Boy, were we wrong.

The concept is very simple. For merchants who sell products on the 'Net, the more visitors that arrive on their sales-oriented web site, the more products they sell and the more money they make. And because the Internet is so vast, there's simply no way they can personally reach everyone on the 'Net to try to persuade them to visit their site. So it makes sense for them to recruit an army of "Affiliates" whose job it is to market the merchant's product as much as they can, to cause as many (interested) people as possible to visit the merchant's web site. In a nutshell, their job is to drive qualified traffic to the merchant’s web site. The merchant is delighted to pay you a commission every time you bring someone to his or her site, and that someone buys a product.

The whole thing can be set-up easily and automatically so that when a visitor goes to the merchant's site as a result of YOUR promotional efforts, and buys a product, the merchant’s web site recognizes that the lead came from you, and you receive a commission ... literally within seconds, in some cases. That commission can be up to 75% on some products, by the way ... though most are in the 10% to 25% range. My first ever commission on a single sale of a product was $75.

So ... no customers, no credit cards, no customer complaints or questions to deal with, you just cause traffic to go to the merchant's site and (provided they buy) you get paid for it!

Which Is All Well and Good but ... HOW?

Well, there are actually lots of ways but the one I'm going to focus on here - and yes, I know I'm talking to non-techies, don't panic! - is to set up a web site of your own, attract traffic to your own web site, and on that web site tell people about the merchant's products, even recommend the products, in a sort of casual (non-pushy) way. Naturally you include a "link" to the merchant's site on your web site, so people can click through to the merchant site. And if they buy when they get there ... you receive a commission. This is called "Pre-Selling," by the way.

Which raises a whole slew of problems and obstacles and questions of course, the biggest ones being:

"But I don't have a web site! I don't know how to build a web site! I don't know how to attract traffic to a web site! I don't have any Affiliate arrangements with any merchants! I wouldn't even know where to look for merchants to do this with! And how much will all this cost even if I knew how to do it?"

At least, these were MY issues when my husband explained the Affiliate marketing opportunity to me.

The Rosalind Gardner book actually answers many of the questions, and provides some beautiful know-how and do-how guidance, but it still leaves you with some techie stuff to do.

But then my husband pointed me to an absolute gem of a service called Site Build It.

How a 100% Non-Techie Builds a Make Money At Home Site!

Site Build It (SBI) has an approach that deals with every single one of the obstacles I just raised. The approach is laid out in great detail in a free eBook that beautifully complements Rosalind Gardner's; it's not as strong as hers in some areas, but stronger in others. But the real beauty is, the how-to is tied to a service that handles all the techie stuff for you.

Make Sure There’s A Market

1. Following their approach, the first thing you do is find a topic (ideally one that interests you, but it doesn't have to) that is of interest to a LOT of people. How do you know? Simple.

As part of the SBI service they provide you with a piece of software that tells you approximately how many people are searching on any topic every month using search engines. For example, over a given period of time 350,000 people searched on the term "interior design." In that same period of time, 8,000 searched on "designed furniture." 20,000 searched on "bronze sculptures." At this stage you check lots of different search words or phrases connected to the subject area you’re interested in (and check out entirely different subject areas, if you're trying to find your own "niche" to work with).

The beauty of this is, that by the time you've finished this research - which can take a few minutes to an hour or two - you not only have PROOF that there's a sizeable market interested in the subject area, you also know EXACTLY which topics within that chosen subject area are of the most interest to people. This isn't just your or someone else's opinion ... it is proven by the fact that that number of people actually sat down and keyed the words in to their search engine! These are real people, all over the world, who are interested in the subject matter. The reason this is so valuable is that when you know EXACTLY what people are searching for, and exactly which keywords and phrases they are using, you can then develop each page of your web site in such a way that it's a "Search Engine magnet" for those people searching on that exact keyword or phrase. Combined with the rest of the Site Build It approach, that means you'll get a high ranking in Search Engines for those keywords ... and that, of course, translates into free TRAFFIC!

Now, if the volume of traffic for your subject matter looks good enough ...

Make Sure There's Money In It ... For You!

2. You go check that many of the people searching are actually prepared to spend money, on-line, in connection with the topic. Again, the SBI material tells you how to check this, in detail. Again, it's very easy - just a matter of minutes. All you need to know is how to use a web browser.

If the evidence confirms that there's money in this market ...

3. You check that there are merchants who sell products related to that topic and who are interested in having Affiliates. This, too is very simple and again the SBI material explains the how-to. You can go a bit further and check which merchants offer the best Affiliate programs - both the SBI materials and Rosalind Gardner's book give you explicit instructions on what to look for (or you can leave this to later).

At this point, if there ARE such merchants (and by the way, there are web sites that list THOUSANDS of merchants who register there specifically to find Affiliates) ... you know there's a high volume of interested traffic, AND there's money in it, AND there's an opportunity for YOU to have a share of it! The merchants would LOVE to pay you money because it means you've made them money.

So now you move into a new phase of work - without even a techie gene in your body, you're going to develop a web site that attracts lots of traffic and makes you money as it does so!

Choosing & Registering a Domain Name

4. The starting point is to choose and register a domain name for your site, for example www.togsfordogs.com (too late, I've got that one!). The SBI material walks you through the process of choosing a domain name for your own web site, then the SBI service handles all the registration details for you.

Generating Content!

5. Now YOU have to do some work. If you remember, in Step 1 you identified exactly what people were most interested in. Well ... that's already designed the shape of your web site for you! You are going to build a web site that includes one page for each of the highest-searched-on topics in your subject area. What do you put on those pages? INTERESTING CONTENT ON THAT TOPIC! From what you already know, or from books or magazines or other web sites (don't copy!), pick your friends' brains ... you can even hire a writer for a surprisingly low fee if you absolutely have to, who'll research the topic and write the copy for you.

6. All you need to do is pull together a few paragraphs on each topic area. You can add more content later. And, it doesn't have to be perfect! It just has to be on-topic to the page, and interesting to people who are already interested in the topic. You just type the words on your favourite word processor (or on Notepad, a simple text processor that's on everyone's pc).

Just Cut-And-Paste And You Have A Web Page!

7. Once you've got the first couple of pages of copy written, the SBI material then leads you in detail through the process of actually building the web site using nothing more than your text in the word processor. They provide templates for the page design, which means your site looks professional even if you have nothing else but text on it. They provide an incredibly simple way to take your words and convert them into a well-structured web page; all you have to do is be able to cut and paste (and they even tell you how to do this).

Also, as you build the web pages (which can include much more than just text, if you want ... SBI makes it easy to add graphics, links, animation etc) the SBI software tells you PRECISELY what to do in order to make your web pages highly attractive to the Search Engines. This is how you are able to get a good volume of traffic visiting your site, for free, once it's built; your site will almost inevitably be one of the first shown to people performing the search because if you follow the SBI guidelines, the whole web site is keyword rich and focused, and each individual web page is on-theme, keyword rich, and focused; and Search Engines love that.

Let The Search Engines Know Your Site Exists

8. As you finish each page (after much previewing and adjustments, typically) the SBI service then submits each web page to the search engines to be recognized and, some time later, visited and indexed and ranked. Eventually (a few days to a few weeks) the Search Engines (such as Google) visit your site, take note of what's there, and decide where to "rank" your site to people searching on the keywords that apply to your subject area and topic. The effectiveness of the SBI approach is proven by a survey that showed that more than half of the sites built through SBI are ranked in the top 6% of traffic on the 'Net; 30% within the top 3%.

So ... you've now done a decent job of putting up a few relevant pages, in a way that is very attractive to the Search Engines and also provides good content for your visitors. When they read your few paragraphs per page, it sounds like you know what you're talking about!

How long might this take you, to this point? For many, all of the above is 30 - 40 hours work over a month to 6 weeks, for example. There's no pressure; just work at your own pace, as time permits. A friend of ours took about 6 hours per page ... but he's filled his site with graphics and animation (not necessarily a good idea, by the way). He could probably have halved that. Chances are that as your site gets traffic and makes money, you'll add new pages that attract more visitors and give you more chances to make money ... but I'm getting ahead of myself here, because we haven't answered the most important question yet...

... How does the site make you money???

"Monetizing" Your Site!

9. Once you have some traffic flowing ... you capitalize on the Affiliate opportunities. You don't sell; the merchants do that. What you do is PRE-SELL. For example, if you had a web page on the topic of nutrition for parrots, you might include a sentence such as "By the way, lots of bird-owners are turning to organic parrot food; if you're interested, I'd recommend these folk." And you'd make the words "these folk" a link to the merchant that you have an Affiliate relationship with. Nothing pushy, nothing "salesy," just a recommendation to those who are interested.

Now, let's say you get to the point where you have hundreds of visitors a day (I just read of a site for parrot owners that receives 500 visitors a day on average, for example ... but many sites receive thousands of visitors a day) ... and let’s also say you have 5 - 15 merchants linked-to from your site (very simple to do) ... and assume for the moment that you get $5 to $50 every time someone buys, depending of course on retail prices and commission rates ... and if you’ve chosen merchants with decent selling sites it’s reasonable to assume you’ll get a 2% click-through-and-buy performance (Rosalind Gardner uses this as her base for predicting site revenue, based on 8 years of experience) ... well, you can see the potential.

Play a little numbers game here. 100 visitors a day with a 2% conversion rate of sales at your Merchants and an average $17.50 commission per sale equates to a little more than $1000 a month. (While your numbers can be a lot different, this gives you some idea of the scale.) And that's just a starting point, of course; in my description so far I haven't even mentioned the biggest money-making opportunity from this approach. That's for another day!

How About The Expenses?

You can do all this without Site Build It, of course. My husband pays $270 a year for a superb service that helps you come up with keywords (and much more), and he paid $67 for AdWord-Analyzer, another excellent piece of software that not only tells you how many people are searching for keywords but also how many advertising "campaigns" are being run for those words on Google. He pays $360 a year for a very good web hosting service, and $150 for software to optimize and submit his web pages to the Search Engines and track his placement. He paid $500 for software to track traffic through his sites, so he can analyze where people are staying or exiting, how many people click-through his links, etc. He also bought software to develop his web sites, for just under $200 (and he had to learn how to do it, of course). That's more than $900 one-time, and $630 a year for annual fees. He'd bought this before he knew about SBI, but even these expenses are trivial relative to the income from a good site.

But with SBI , I get pretty much all the same functionality for the first 12 months for US $299, just with their service; then it's US $299 a year renewal. Not chickenfeed, but a lot less than the "piecemeal" approach and a well conceived (using SBI Guidelines) "monetized" site pays for the investment in no time at all - a few days income for some sites. And if you just want to dip your toe in ... at the time I'm writing this, $250 gets you everything for 8 months (enough time to be generating money, comfortably).

We were so impressed that we recommended this to friends and family. One friend (almost computer illiterate, initially) has a partially completed site just reporting his first income although it's not yet listed on the big Search Engines. It's taken him 3 1/2 months, because he’ll go weeks without doing anything sometimes. His loss! He could have been making money a few weeks ago. Our niece is well on her way to a neat site. We expect my husband's partner's wife and daughter to have sites within 120 days. And I'm working on my second; I expect to have 3 or 4, within a year. My eldest daughter will build one as soon as she finishes University in Spring. And our youngest ... well, we'll see!

Back To The Holy Grail We Abandoned Earlier

I mentioned earlier that we thought Google Cash by Chris Carpenter was a dream come true ... but there was a significant obstacle. We loved it so much because it offered a way to have some income literally within MINUTES, if you're lucky, without ever even having a web site. Now you need to have a Landing Page. Then you just research keywords to find a market where there's good traffic but few advertisers, arrange Affiliate status with a merchant, then place Google ads pointing searchers directly to the merchant site. Beautifully simple, right?

Well, the main obstacle we (and many others) encounter is that many merchants won't give you Affiliate status unless you have a web site, because they simply don't understand the Google AdWords option. So, by going with SBI first and developing a professional looking site, we cured that problem. So now we have the SBI income AND the Google Cash income. Also I have to tell you that the Google Cash approach isn't as easy as it seemed to us (Chris Carpenter and his colleagues tell you flat out that the ones who succeed are the ones who put the work in! - but we thought we knew better, of course.) The search for good keywords is NOT a 2-minute task, most of the time. Nevertheless, it's great fun, it is simple, you can make great money, you can work at home, and it's the easiest of all the options.

But I still recommend SBI first!

It’s the best way I know for a regular person with limited computer skills and limited time to develop a monthly income that can easily be $1000 + (and grow to be many times that) with almost no investment of time needed beyond the initial set-up, unless you want to continuously improve the business (your choice). No dealing with customers, no selling, no multi-level, ... it's a sweet deal. And you get to work at home, your hours, when you want for as long as you want.

Now having a website up and running is one thing, but you need traffic at your site. You can do this by paying for ads, PayPerClick traffic, where you only pay when someone clicks on your ad. However, there is a new product on the market, that teaches you how to get traffic without this cost. Click here for more information on this.

If you want some tips for working at home, then click here.

Good luck, Mom!