The following is a guest post by Sam Bakker…

I recall when I first started trying to use blogging to make money online. I had arrived at the entrance of a cyber metropolis armed with an idea and a daft look on my face. It was a multifaceted space teeming with online users, all I had to do was establish myself and I’d be crowded with customers in no time. I had bought a product that would teach me how to build a home-based business. It told me I should start a blog and begin sharing with the rest of the internet world how to be successful making money through a home-based business.

I opened an account with Blogger.com and put my hands to the keyboard. For two months I typed away, completing a design and posting content up on a daily basis. For all this effort, I had one member and no sign of traffic. My blog was floating around in an alleyway when I wanted it to be across the street from Facebook. I wasn’t making money and my website wasn’t going anywhere.

It wasn’t until a year later that I found out (and corrected) what I had done wrong. In this article today, I am going to discuss what mistakes I made in my first attempt to make money blogging online and how you can avoid them. By dodging these classic mistakes, your journey to success will help you obtain an internet marketing lifestyle that is greatly to your advantage.

Firstly, it must be said that before anything else, you must plan out what your blog’s central focus will be. As is the general nature of entrepreneurs, we get an idea and jump in head-first without planting a base for ourselves. Planning is essential especially when it comes to blogging; you not only need to identify your audience and the value you can offer them, but you also need to find effective keywords.

Keywords are the driving force behind a blog’s organic search engine traffic. You need to find the most effective ones using a tool such as “Google Adwords Keywords” to research. This will show you where you can get your search engine traffic from and what terms will be most profitable when it comes to making money. If you launch your blog without keywords in mind, often Google will struggle to place you in the index. Much of the time this means that your blog’s potential is capped very early on and your chance of getting decent traffic flow from Google is reduced. Be sure that you conduct the appropriate keyword research for your website before buying your domain name.

When you first launch your blog online, it feels great. However, now the challenge is in getting it seen. In order for search engines to rank your website based on targeted key terms, you will need to generate some external links back to your website. Use websites such as Ezine Articles, Squidoo and write for other websites in your niche to get your blog rising in the search engines and producing traffic.

Use these tips to ensure that your blog doesn’t end up like my first one, gathering dust along some forgotten nook in cyberspace. Instead, implement the techniques I have discussed with you here to get your blog off to an excellent start.

Sam Bakker has been making money online for the past 7 years. If you would like to find out more about Sam Bakker or internet marketing you can view Sam’s website at SamBakker.com

When I first came online, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing or even know where to start. All I knew was that I wanted to make money online. A passion that has stuck with me even till today.

Once I was introduced to affiliate marketing, it started to make sense to me. Of course, everyone made it sound so easy. You know, the pie in the sky, hyped up promises… and so on and so forth.

I can assure you it’s not quite that easy, but that didn’t stop me from pursuing my passion and finally getting my own little slice of pie.

At the time I didn’t know anything about niches and why I should target a small niche rather than diving into a huge niche, such as the “work from home” niche. As it turns out, that’s why it’s been a struggle for me. Had I started over and did my research first, I would’ve gotten into a smaller niche where I could get my slice of the pie more quickly and maybe even get more than one slice.

But, while the “work from home” niche has its struggles, the rewards can be huge once you do gain momentum and become an authority site. Afterall, it’s one of the biggest niches on the entire internet.

I’m not going to tell you what niche you should or should not get into, but rather explain why affiliate marketing should be your choice for making money online. I believe it’s the way to go for most people… at least in the beginning.

Here’s 3 reasons why you should choose affiliate marketing:

1. You don’t need your own product – Unless you already have a solid plan in your mind from the start, a product is the furthest thing from people’s minds when they’re just looking for some extra income. This is why affiliate marketing is lucrative because it allows people to capitalize on other people’s products.
2. No special training required – One of the best things, I think, about affiliate marketing is that you can jump right into it head first without having a clue what you’re doing. That sounds like a bad thing, but when you think about it, there’s no better way to learn something than to just do it. And, affiliate marketing allows for this. You can learn while you go, and if you somehow manage to really mess up, there’s usually plenty of leeway for this and can easily be fixed.
3. Zero cost is required – Seriously, you can start making money with affiliate marketing for absolutely no money out of your pocket. Of course, there will come a time when you’ll want to setup your own website/blog, but the cost is less than $100 a year. But, that’s not necessary in the beginning, although I highly recommend it as it will help you further along from the start.

Now, rather than going for the big bucks at the beginning and picking a very competative niche, I recommend finding a smaller niche to start with. Besides, you can make a lot of money even with smaller niches, believe it or not.

What are you passionate about? Do you have a hobby?

Answering these questions will help you determine what niche you may want to get started in. It helps to like what you’re doing, not to mention being knowledgeable in that area will help tremendously.

Stay tuned as my upcoming post will detail how you can determine if the niche you want to get into will be profitable or not. You don’t want to waste your time if there’s not a big enough market in your niche. Weeding out the profitable niches from the duds will aide you in your decision.

In the meantime, here’s some homework for you. Write down all the hobbies and interests you have on a piece of paper. You could have 1 or 15… It doesn’t matter. Jot them down and save them for my next post as you’ll be using this list to narrow down your interests and hobbies to just one that you’ll target for your affiliate marketing venture.

However, if you want to skip this and go right for the big bucks and target the “work from home” niche (the most money online is spent in this niche) just as I am, I recommend reading this post.

See you soon.

Okay, here’s a quick and easy way to earn $10. My good friend Dennis Edell is giving away $10 to ten people. One of those people can be you.

Simply head over to his blog at DennisEdell.com and leave intelligent, thought provoking comments on any of his blog posts. If you’re in his top ten commentator list at the end of March, you’ll win $10.

Easy enough, right?

Well… better head to this post to read the rules first.

I’ll warn you now that the competition will be a bit fierce. I’ll also mention that I’ll be participating as well.

Comment if you dare!

Seriously, making money online doesn’t get much easier than this right here.

Learn how to build a website and make money by monetizing and marketing it. This no-cost, step-by-step guide will show you from start to finish how to build a money making website.

From preparation, finding affiliate programs, getting a domain name and hosting, building your website, adding content and marketing your website, this guide will help you every step of the way.

At only 13 pages long, it provides simple and easy to understand instructions that you can put into practice immediately.

Experienced webmasters and marketers won’t find anything new here. Complete beginners who are looking to start their own website and start making money online will find this guide very useful.

There are two main components to building a website: A domain name and web hosting. This guide will explain the process of registering a domain name and getting web hosting. From there, you’ll learn about affiliate marketing and how to earn commissions promoting other people’s products and services.

The key ingredient to making a website profitable is building traffic to your website. This guide will explain some proven techniques to market your website and generate targeted traffic to your site.

Again, this guide is mainly to help complete beginners. So, if that’s you, I highly recommend you grab your FREE copy now. You’ll be well on your way to building a money making website within a week or less.

There is absolutely zero cost. You don’t even have to give up your e-mail address. Free meaning really free.

Download Now!

You can simply right-click on the link and choose “Save Target” to download directly to your computer.

If you read this post where I stated I’ll pay you $10 for signing up for a new website and hosting, that offer still stands if you build a website through my links in this guide. I’ll also be available to answer any questions you have about building and marketing your new website.

I’m in the business of helping people, and this one way I can do just that. Let me help you make money online starting today.

We finally get to the end of our struggling internet marketer series (not that I was in any hurry), where I answered a key question yesterday about driving traffic and generating sales.

This post is going to cover the second question:

Is there another cool way of making money online from __________ (Wherever you are in the world)?

It’s a very good question, especially when so many people around the world are looking for a different way of making money than what they’re used to. Or, because of the global economic crisis, they have nothing and need a way to support their family.

In any case, there are many different legitimate work from home opportunities that are truly global opportunities.

Here are a couple posts I’ve written about various opportunities that I highly recommend:

• Flip Switch Profits
• SFI Marketing Group

Now, there are some other global opportunities I’ve tried firsthand but haven’t gotten around to writing about yet. I’ll simply post the links below, but keep on the lookout for when I do finally get around to reviewing them…

My Affiliate Power Site – A new opportunity created by my mentors that allows you to earn 6 streams of income from reputable businesses. It’s very new… only about 2 weeks into the launch, which is why I haven’t gotten a chance to write about it yet.

Online Data Entry Jobs – This one is great and is actually how I got into proofreading. It’s not your average “data entry” crap you usually see. It provides many different options out there depending on what interests you. A lot of training is provided for each area. Just so happened that I was already interested in proofreading before I checked this program out, and after, I was motivated and pointed in the right direction to get it going.

Each opportunity I listed is unique in it’s own way. I advise that you check each one out individually and see if it’s something that you think will work for you.

Be advised that there is no such thing as “get rich quick” and these opportunities don’t support that way of thinking. You will be required to actually work and put in months of time before you see any kind return. The amount of time it will take before you see income coming in will depend on your level of focus, determination and amount of time you spend making it work.

Of course, if you don’t find what you’re looking for here, you can just as well do a search on Google. There’s only a billion other opportunities out there that you’ve never heard of. Just be warned there are many scams out there. The opportunities I listed are legitimate and proven to work.

As always, do your own due diligence when researching work from home opportunities.

Today I have the opportunity to answer a couple of questions from a struggling marketer who came to me and is losing patience trying to make money online.

I’m going to keep the person anonymous, but I’ll provide the questions below along with my answers to those questions. I like these kind of posts as it gives you (my readers) a real example of people finding this whole internet marketing thing difficult, which is maybe where you’re at today. If so, I hope you find this post encouraging as well as helpful. This may turn into a two or three part series depending on how in-depth I get here.

So let’s begin. The questions are pretty specific, but I think there’s a lot of general information about each I can provide. The nice thing here is that I’ve already blogged about these topics in the past, so if you happened to miss them or weren’t sure how they related to the questions below, you’ll now be able to put them both together, and things will finally make sense (hopefully).

Here are the questions:

How do i drive traffic to my site that can generate sales?

Is there another cool way of making money online from __________ (Wherever you are in the world)?

From talking with this person I know he has about 6 months of time invested into his online business and has been working very rigorously at it.

Maybe you have less time, or maybe more time spent trying to build up your business. Perhaps you haven’t yet started but come here for the first time thinking about maybe giving an online business a chance, but you’re not sure if the time you spend will pay off in the end.

Well first of all, I just have to say that any type of internet business is just like any offline business. It takes a lot of time, dedication and focus. This isn’t something new that I’m saying for the first time, but a lot of people just don’t get it or haven’t completely grasped that concept. So, whether you’re only a month in or 6 months in, I can say with assurance that it hasn’t been long enough for you to see any substantial return on your time. Earning a comfortable amount of money online will take much longer, most likely a lot longer than you would like.

Every person is unique and has unique abilities and talents, and what might work for one person may not work for another. So, just because you know someone that may have “made it big” in only a few short months, doesn’t mean you’ll do the same. However, the good news is that as long as you stick with it and not give up, you’re time will come. You just have to be patient and keep pushing forward.

Trust me, I know from personal experience. I’ve been at this for a while, and I’m still not close to where I want to be. But, I believe everything happens for a reason, and there’s a reason that my time hasn’t come yet. I have faith that it will, but only if I keep pushing forward and don’t give up.

During my time online I’ve seen a fair number of people that have thrown in the towel and decided it’s not for them. Maybe that’s how you feel right now. But, let me ask you these questions:

Why did you try? (Or, why do you want to try?)

Why did you give up? (Or, why do you want to give up?)

If you could have did/do something differently, what would it be?

In my experience, it has appeared to me that everyone needs to know someone that has “been there, done that” and can learn from their experiences and know what IS working and can then apply it to their own business. Consider reaching out and saying “I need help!” Believe me, you won’t look like a desperate fool if you do. Unless of course you act like one and expect nothing but hand-outs.

A lot of people just need guidance and are looking for somewhere to turn and someone that can help them. I urge you if you’re at the point of failure, it’s time for you to reach out. Hope is not all lost.

Aside from reaching out, evaluate what you’re doing and why you’re not making money. Maybe the first step in getting help is realizing that you’re not putting in enough effort. It takes REAL work, and A LOT of it.

Okay, so right now I’ve just basically been lecturing a bit, but please stay with me here. Everything I said is important, so I hope that you’ll take it in. You seriously need to stop, think and evaluate where you are with your business. If you’re not making money, find out why. Find out what you need to do in order to start making money online.

If you’re not quite sure, then stay tuned for my next post as I’ll be answering the first question, which is “How do i drive traffic to my site that can generate sales?”

I’ve written many posts on this topic, but I’ll be combining everything I know into one jam-packed post, full of useful information you can apply to your own online business.

Hope to see you there.

Ahh… the first income report of the new year. This is where it gets really exciting as I can now use this report as a base for the next 11 reports of this year. I’ll be able to see how much my income is improving (or not) and tweak stuff as necessary to hopefully squeeze more money out of my site. All the while I’ll be improving on my marketing and driving more traffic to my site.

So, without further ado, here it goes.

• ClickBank: $63.70
• PayDotCom – $28.17
• Angela’s Backlinks: $7.50
• Paul’s Backlinks: $8
• Yarie: $43.81
• Google Adsense: $29.33
• SFI: $25.70
• Project Payday: $1.50 (commissions earned from promoting the program, not actually using it)
• Responsive Data: $9
• MaxBounty: $7.17

Total Income for the month comes out to: $223.88.

Now, I know that’s not a lot and nothing to get really excited about. But, you have to start somewhere and most never even get this far.

I’d like to introduce an exciting addition to my monthly income reports. I’ve been doing freelance internet marketing work for a very successful internet marketer for some time now. This has been great as I get to learn from him and at the same time make some additional income each month.

Total income for my internet marketing services totals $160.

Also, if you didn’t know I also do proofreading/re-writing freelance work as well. My total income from those services came out to $75 for last month.

So, total income from all three sources comes to $458.88

That’s it as far as income for January. I’ll be including all three of these sources in my monthly income reports from now on.

As you can see, making money online is very possible.

You may have numerous reasons why you want to make money online and work from home, but those reasons may just not be enough to make it happen. There are underlying factors, which you may not even be aware of, that will prevent you from ever making a single cent online.

Most of the time, systems work and people fail. That’s just the way it is. Very seldom will you find a system already in place that does not work. Systems are a series of processes put in place with each process working together to make everything run effeciently. At least that’s how I view systems.

So why is it that people fail even when they have a surefire system in place to help them succeed?

Here are 3 reasons I came up with why people fail and will never make money online.

1. Lack of Planning – This is different from just putting excuses aside and just doing it. I believe that eventually you just have to take action and dive in. However, this isn’t without at least planning on what you’re going to do and how you’re going to do it. Let’s face it, without a plan in place, you’re going to wander around like a chicken with your head cut off. Be safe and plan. You don’t need a sophisticated plan of action here, but at least jot down the steps you plan to take and how you’re going to reach your end goals.

2. Not Enough Effort – I see this time in and time out. Sad to say that the majority of people are just downright lazy. They would rather blame the system than blame themselves. When in reality, it’s their own lack of effort to be blamed for their failure. Maybe you were led to believe that this making money online stuff was a walk in the park. Okay, you’re off the hook there, but why just give up when you find out you have to actually work?! Seriously, you don’t get stuff for nothing, or rather, you don’t make money with zero effort. Period!

3. No Focus – Even I have difficulty with this one from time to time. Staying focused is plain hard when there are so many things going on, both online and offline. Forums are a great example as they can be valuable to learn new things, but at the same time they can be a total time waster. I recommend setting a certain time limit on how long you’re in a particular forum, and make sure your time spent there is productive. Another time waster is doing mundane tasks like checking email every 5 minutes (I’m at fault on that one),  looking up web stats, checking commission stats, etc. Yes, it’s nice to check those things every now and then, but seriously, you need to spend time actually working.

I’m sure there are a dozen other reasons why one might fail to make money online, so if you have any to add to the list, let me know by leaving a comment below…

One of my recent making money with work from home opportunities articles discusses the importance of finding a mentor or group of mentors to help you make money online. Because let’s face it, most people, and maybe yourself, are just plain lost and don’t know where to start.

It’s similar to when Columbus went sailing the ocean blue to find the new world. He didn’t know where he was or how he was going to get to where he was going. All he had was a dream and passion for finding new land.

Affiliate/Internet marketing is no different. Sure, you’ll get there eventually (Afterall, Columbus did), but it will take you a heck of a lot longer if you don’t get help.

I’ve been there myself, and I would still be there if it wasn’t for finding the right people and following after them. Most people don’t ever make any money online because they don’t look for a mentor or don’t follow in the footsteps of those that are successful.

It’s not about reinventing the wheel. It’s about knowing what to do and implementing it. And, with a little ingenuity, maybe even finding a better way to do it.

That’s what making money with work from home opportunities is all about. The steps are right there in front of you. The problem is piecing them together and making them work seamlessly. I recommend getting a mentor or group of mentors if you’re serious about making money online and working from home.

2009 was a great year as I started seeing momentum with my online business. I learned a lot about what I need to do, and also about what I don’t want to do. Everything is a learning experience that I can take with me and improve upon.

Now that we’re a full week into 2010, I’m starting to plan how I’m going to build up my online business to reach even greater heights. Planning and evaluation is an important process no matter what kind business you’re in. I need to evaluate the areas where I can improve, and then plan how I’m going to do so.

Along with planning, this is the time to set goals that you want to accomplish. The goals should be realistic and achievable. Don’t set them too high, but at the same time you don’t want to set them too low as you’ll only be cheating yourself.

When it comes to making money online, many prefer building multiple niche sites to earn income from. This is a great avenue to go down and may be easier than building just one authority site.

However, I personally want to focus my time on building ReplaceYourSalary.com as an authority site and blog. That has always been my intention from the start, and right now I don’t see that changing.

Eventually, I may pan out and start diversifying my efforts into some smaller niches, but that won’t happen until I have met my goals for this site.

I’m slowly getting there, but I have a long way to go before I reach the amount of growth and income I expect to get from this site. The potential is and always has been there. 2009 was very evident of that.

My goal for 2010 is to have systems in place that are going to help me reach my desired income. Systems can be anything from having the right people for the job, to having the right processes in place.

This means I’m going to be outsourcing a good majority of work this year in regards to marketing my website. This I feel is the only way I’m going to be able to be most productive and achieve the goals I have set for myself. I’ll still be doing a good portion myself, but there are some areas I’d rather leave to someone else.

There are also new processes I have learned and will implement this year that should dramatically boost my site and earnings. I’ll mainly be focusing on Web 2.0 sites and article marketing. This combination has proven to be effective, and I need to start utilizing this marketing strategy.

Another area I need to do more with is video marketing. I hadn’t done much on YouTube last year, and I want to change that this year. Video is an incredible medium with so much potential. I want to really grow my OnlineWealth channel up and get more exposure with my current videos and also future videos.

Specific goals I have set for this year are:

1. At least $1,000/month income
2. Blog minimum of 4 posts a week
3. Alexa Rank – 100,000 or less

These are the main areas I’ll be focusing on this year. Like most people, time is my biggest concern. This is why I’ll be outsourcing some work so that I can focus on other areas of my online business. If you look at all of the successful internet marketers and online business owners, every single one of them outsources. It’s time for me to follow that successful pattern.

What do you plan to accomplish this year? What are some goals you have for yourself personally or for your business? Share them in the comments below…