Web The Steve Rhode Site

How to Make Extra Income Online

I'm a huge fan of small home businesses. It really is possible for you to start a small business and let it grow into something larger. I've done it myself. One online company I started in my attic grew to $12 million dollars a year in sales. Not too shabby. Done correctly, the additional income from your own Internet business can truly supplement what you are currently making. However, many people go about this all wrong. So here are some tips.

In case you were wondering why I'm sharing my best tips with you, it is simply because the Internet has been so good to me and there is plenty of untapped opportunity waiting to be explored. This is my way of sharing lessons learned to help others. I also wrote a seperate business guide to starting a successful online business without investing a dime in inventory.

Remember, do not start your own business with borrowed money. Only invest money you can afford to lose. Starting a business has no guarantee of success or failure. A small business has great rewards and great risks. If you are looking for something without excitement, risk, change or challenge, think government job.

1. The beauty of starting your own home-based Internet business is that you can keep your day job while it grows, you make money while you sleep, and you have a broad reach to people that are interested in what you have to offer.
   • Start Small You don't need to launch into a major expense to start making money. It is a huge mistake to invest big bucks into a new business idea when times are tight. Starting small is a really great approach. I started selling items on eBay after I had met with a 75 year old woman that was significantly supplementing her income with eBay sales. I thought it was too good to be true so I set out to test the waters.

     Selling on eBay is easier than you think. There are great support forums and the beauty is that you can begin selling with little or no up front costs. Saying I'm a huge fan of eBay would be an understatement. I'm probably one of the biggest fans they've got.

     In case you were wondering, my lovely 75 year old client visits yard sales and purchases old Christmas ornaments that she then sells on eBay for a nice profit. She makes an extra $600 to $800 a month to supplement her social security check.

     If you want to learn more about successfully starting a eBay sales business feel free to contact me and I can help you get started on the right foot.

     

   • Don't Buy Any Inventory! If you are going to start your own small business for the first time or grow an existing business, the worst thing you can do is carry inventory. Inventory costs money and until you prove that your ideas and concepts work there is no reason in the world to stock any inventory especially when companies likes Wholesale Marketer are around. You can carry over 150,000+ products without having to tie up your startup cash in inventory or hassle with fulfilling orders. You may also decide that drop shipping is a concept that works well for you. I love it and it is worth reading my business guide on drop shipping to learn more.

   • Think Internet The Internet is a fantastic tool that can be utilized to make you enough extra money each month to make the mortgage payment. The beauty of the net is that you can become a worldwide business from your bedroom desk.

     Getting started on the Internet, outside of eBay, can feel overwhelming. But let me show you how simple it can be. To get started on the net you need to do the following:

     • Register a domain name. (Approximately $10/yr)

     • If the domain name you wanted was taken, see if it is for sale. Many good domain names have been taken but not used. Most people don't realize that you can purchase good domain names for a little bit of money. Here is a more advanced tip. If you have a domain name that you are not using and you want to sell or generate some revenue with consider parking your domain name.

     • Get a simple web hosting plan (Approximately $10/month)

     • Have something worth selling. If you need some items to list on your site you can always participate in the Commission Junction program and earn a percentage of sales from links on your site. (FREE)

     • Promote your site. You are not going to sell anything unless you can drive traffic to your site. One way is to pay for site submission to search engines to get things going a little faster. I'm a big fan of advertising on Google.com and Overture. Google has a terrific adwords advertising program that can work wonders for you if you use it correctly. I'm here to help you with this if you want me to show you the ropes. Overture has a special going right now. Sign up and get a $25 credit.

     • Register for a PayPal business account (FREE). I like PayPal instead of paying to establish an expensive merchant account. People can pay you with credit cards through PayPal and more than 52 million people have PayPal accounts. Now that is an established client base.

     • Get your link swap pages running so you can trade links with other sites to help mutually build traffic.
       

   • Let It Build Naturally Let your business grow at its natural pace. If you try to make it grow too quickly you can easily lose more than you make. Investing a couple hundred dollars to get something going is about the limit of what I'm comfortable with if you've never had your own business. Let's learn as we go with a reasonable investment.

   • A Lot of a Little One secret to making money on the Internet is to diversify. One program I just love is the AdSense program from Google. There is no cost to join and you can add adds to your Web site, just like these below.
     
     Click on an ad to see how it works.

     Click the box above to become
     an approved Adsense site.
     (No charge)

     You will probably never be able to retire on the money you make from having ads on your site but $100 a month is easily doable with the right content and traffic.

2. Here are some ideas that may help you start your business.

   • If you think that the Internet business idea sound like something you would like to pursue then you should become a reseller of Internet services. For a little bit of money up front you can purchase your necessary Internet items at wholesale levels. That's exactly what I do. While everyone else is paying through the nose for hosting and domain names I pay a small fraction of the cost, and you can to. My sites I own cost me as little as $2.50 a month to host.
   • Get a Web site that looks like a million bucks for dirt cheap. This is something I wish I had learned about early on. I could have saved myself a lot of money. You can actually purchase a professionally designed Web site design for less than $20. I know that sound like you'd get cheap looking pages, but you don't. For any new site I launch I'm using these services from now on.

     I Really Wish I Found These Sites a Long Time Ago

     • TemplateMonster - An unbelievably great resource if you have a little bit of HTML experience.
     • Site2You - Build a professional looking site online in minutes for very little money.
     • TemplateTuning - For a little professional help to customize your new template.
     • Hit Web Design - Champagne sites on a beer budget.
   • Once you have proven your concept you can easily move your site up to a more robust ecommerce solution. I love the reliable web hosting from Yahoo! When you sign up for a business ecommerce site your domain name is included. It is a tight ecommerce site with easy use and it is never down. Some of my sites get over 10,000 hits a day.
   • Start a business for which you have a passion. Make sure it is something you love and understand. It is easily possible to turn a hobby into a business. I've done it several times amd currently have sites out there that have grown into more than a hobby by following my own commonsense advice.
   • Owning a business means you have to be comfortable with selling. If you spend all of your time planning to get started in business but never making a sale, that does not mean you are really in business, you're probably really in the spending money and not doing anything phase. If that sounds like you, do not start a business. There is an old saying, "Nobody makes money un till something gets sold." Rememebr that and get comfortable with selling. Many people think that selling is "dirty". A good salesperson cares about their customers and attempts to help the customer find the right product and service to meet the buyers needs.
   • Finally, the best product or service you can sell is one that provides a benefit to the buyer. You should never attempt to decive or put one over on your purchasers. Be a good business person and a good friend.

3. Putting the Pieces into Action Take a look at this sample site I built for you to see how all of the pieces fall into place.
   This is a little one page site that I built as an example of how to implement different features. I want you to notice the Google Adwords, feel free to click on one to see how it works. Also, look at the Amazon box on the bottom of the page. If your site has a specific focus you can add targeted content to your site by participating in the Amazon Associates program (look for the link at the bottom of the Amazon page). It is free to join and you will make a few pennies if someone buys a book. You'll never get rich with it but again, every little bit helps.
   This site is hosted on one of the very inexpensive hosting packages I told you about. The only thing the site does not include is some relevent eBay links. I could not think of anything that would really apply to this site focus so I've just tossed something in as an example of how you incorporate eBay content into your site.