Chapter 02 - What Makes the Internet Go Around?
If you’re new to internet marketing, then a lot of the basic concepts might be lost on you. You may be yet to fully understand precisely how it’s possible to make money online.
And if you’re someone who’s a little more experienced, then you still might not grasp the intricacies of the systems that run the web’s economy. What is driving it? Where does all the money come from? Where is it going?
Understanding this will help you to better manipulate those systems in order to start earning and it will help to demystify a lot of what we’re going to be looking at in subsequent chapters.
This is a chapter I wish my gran would read. She’s constantly asking me how I’m making my money and whether or not it’s legal!
To people who don’t understand how to make internet marketing work for them, it can seem a little like magic! Like you’re some kind of sorcerer who can conjure money out of thin air (and of course this is part of the appeal of understanding internet marketing).
When they learn that the money is rolling in while you’re snoring, you’ll find they’re even more amazed!
The Economy of the Web
Money comes and goes on the web and is driven by many of the same forces that drives it out here in the ‘real world’.
More specifically, most of the money is made by people buying things and for the most part, these are physical products (items from sites like eBay, Amazon, clothes shops or even grocers), digital products (eBooks on how to make money or get fit), services (legal services, consultation, dating websites, marketing, writing, photography), holidays and more.
These days, you probably make a lot of your own purchases online and so you’re probably familiar with this. And even if you don’t make the purchase online, you might well do the research online – you might search for the nearest local hairdresser or place to eat for instance.
Conventional businesses that you are likely very familiar with all make a lot of their money online and so too might yours.
But you probably don’t have time to set up a business like this. If you’re a busy professional then you’re not going to have time in the evenings to set up a hair salon, to start offering legal advice or to sell t-shirts.
These are business models that require monetary investment, lots of time, certain skills and knowledge etc.
This is not a business that you set up in your evenings!
One way you can get around this of course is to sell something that you can create in a short amount of time and that won’t involve too much of a financial investment. That might mean that you sell an ebook for example.
An ebook is really nothing more than a Word Document or a PDF file that you can create in MS Word. As such, it will require no specialist skills or knowledge to create, it will cost you nothing and you don’t need to store it anywhere.
What’s more, is that you can sell it countless times while only having to product it once. The same goes for apps, for games, for online courses and for other ‘digital products.
The Role of the Internet Marketer
The problem is that these types of product only appeal to a certain type of person and you need to do a lot of convincing in order to persuade someone to spend money on something they can’t physically hold in their hands.
And that’s where internet marketing comes in. One simple form of internet marketing is to sell a digital product and then to start profiting nearly endlessly from a single file that they created just once.
Your job in this case will largely revolve around paying for online advertising, trying to get to the top of Google (which takes more time) or mailing people in a mailing list.
But that’s only one way you can use those internet marketing skills Because all of those businesses need eyes. All of those clothes shops, all of those hair dressers and all of those holiday sites… they all need people to find them.
Thus, they are willing to pay other people in order to get the word out – both directly and indirectly.
This is how a lot of websites will make money from advertising, without actually having to sell anything on their site.
In this case, you can make money from people who pay you monthly fees to display banner ads on your website, or you can make money through Google ads and other networks that will pair advertisers with the right content creators.
In this latter scenario, you will often earn a very small amount each time someone clicks on your ad or each time it is shown to a new user. In both scenarios, the more visitors you can attract to your website, the more money you still stand to earn.
YouTube videos earn money in a similar way – by showing ads at the start of the video in most cases, or being paid by sponsors to show off products.
In this case, you can think of the way you make money as being similar to a free magazine that gets handed out on the subway.
You didn’t pay for that magazine but it is absolutely covered in adverts and those advertisers pay for the creation of the magazine knowing that it’s going to be seen by a very large number of people.
Alternatively, you can earn money to directly promote a product. This can happen by finding a sponsorship deal, as many of the Instagram and YouTube stars have managed, or it can happen by promoting affiliate products.
This latter option essentially amounts to selling a product for commission. Here, the seller will provide you with a unique link to their site that only you know and any purchases that come through that link will be credited to your account – earning you a percentage of each sale.
In short, the success of the internet marketer hinges on their ability to draw eyes to a subject matter and to say opinions. If you do that, then you can drive sales of both your own products and those of other creators and sellers.
As a busy professional, these skills can either allow you to grow your own business, or to start making lots of money on the side in your evenings.
And over the next chapters you’re going to learn how to do both those things with minimum time and effort.