Many people dream of replacing their monthly paychecks with an online income. Just think of the possibilities – waking up whenever you wanted to and working in your pajamas, being able to work from anywhere as long as you have a laptop and an Internet connection and then of course there’s the bonus of not having a boss. Finally, by starting and maintaining an online income, you will be able to say goodbye to your overbearing boss who’s constantly breathing down your neck. If you want to start making an online income to replace your day job and your current ‘hamster wheel’ lifestyle, you’ve come to the right place.
Start Making an Online Income – Diversification
The best way to start making an online income is to start with a solid plan. This plan will spell out exactly how you expect to start earning an online income, the steps you take, the time it should take and even some pitfalls you’re likely to encounter and some strategies for getting around those pitfalls. While the creation of an online marketing business plan is the subject of an entirely new blog, we’ll give an example of how one might achieve an online income right now that completely replaces their day job.
Your plan to make a living online should focus on diversifying your income streams if you hope to create and sustain a viable online income over time. Have you ever heard the term, “Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket?” If that basket tips over, or if one of your income streams goes splat, you’ll be left high and dry and dead broke.
To remedy this, we want to diversify by planning several income streams that will pay off in big dividends over time.
For our example, we are going to start making an online income with three basic techniques:
- Provide a Service: If you have a marketable skill, you have a terrific way of making an online income. Start advertising your services on popular forums or via paid ads and you should get some nibbles soon.
- Ad Revenue: By hosting a popular blog or website, or by filming a famous online video, you can start making an online income via ad revenue from top online advertising platforms like Google.
- Affiliate Marketing: If you don’t have a product to sell, the next best thing is to sell someone else’s. Affiliate marketing allows you to earn an income on every product you sell, as long as you are responsible for the traffic that leads to the sale.
With these three basic techniques, we will have three separate income streams that will keep us solvent even if one of them runs dry. Of course there are many more techniques that allow you to start making an online income, but these three will do nicely for now.
Plan of Action
Every online marketing plan needs a plan of action to produce an online income. For our three marketing techniques, the actions to take include:
- Service Provider: We are going to provide graphic design services. Our first task is to get a resume together and some samples of our work. We are going to begin by responding to ads and by contacting graphic design firms who may need a freelance provider.
- Ad Revenue: We are going to set up a website that includes a blog for our graphic design services. While we are actively responding to ads, we can set up a website that can capture leads as they come in. This can lead to more work as long as the site looks good, feels good and contains excellent content. We are then going to place ads on the site and blog, which we will populate with regular content.
- Affiliate Marketing: We are going to place ads on our site, our blog and we will create product review videos (That will also gather ad revenue) in order to push more traffic towards our affiliate offers.
Keeping the Pace
Obviously we can’t do all of that in one day. It is going to require time and that is why it is essential that you keep to your marketing plan. Some days you are going to fizzle out and you’re not going to want to proceed. You’ll feel like you’re doing all of this for nothing and that nothing is even happening from the results you’ve put in.
As any expert will tell you, you usually feel like throwing in the towel right before things begin to pop. You won’t be able to quit your day job right away. You must start making on online income slowly and build on your success over time. That’s how to create a sustainable business that won’t easily topple the moment things begin to get rough.
Remember to diversify your streams, put solid plans of action into place and then stick to your plan until your plan bears fruit. In this case, the fruit your waiting for is cold hard cash.
You can make an online income to replace your day job as long as you heed this advice and remember that you are likely to experience resistance the moment things start happening. It’s all part of the experience.
