There are about as many success stories on how to make money online as tales of failure. To achieve success you must have a good functional website or blog and also traffic visiting these sites. However, large numbers of people never make a single cent because have failed to understand what it is that their websites are meant to achieve.

Were you to sell golf balls you would get more traffic into your store if it were situated by a golf course than if it were in the middle of the jungle – an extreme example, but many don’t appreciate that websites have to target customers just as a strip mall stores do. While you might get a lot of traffic, it won’t be the right type. What driver is going to purchase a cycle in the middle of nowhere?

A Website is Important

You need your shop (this is your website) to attract visitors and a good quality of potential customers (traffic and quality). Getting a website can be difficult. There are sites that explain how to set up a website, but these can be difficult to understand if you are inexperienced in using the internet in this way. If you prefer, you could pay a web designer a large sum of money to create a website for you. You shouldn’t pay out too much money until you are fairly sure that your plans will work, and people will pay for your product or service.

An alternative approach is to check out a few of the site available online that offer free websites, although many of these have a load of pop-up ads and adware attached to the deal. I found a good free website from such a company and was up and running within 24 hours.

Your Website is up and running – now what?

You now have your free website but you need to get traffic. Keyword research is the way to do this. Go to Google and search for the phrase “dog training” – I got over 45 million results. Now if we try ‘Puppy Dog Collars’ we get just 3 million – still high but a lot better than 45 million. Using targeted and specific keywords pays dividends in the long run.

What that means is no more than that you have less competition if you use that keyword or phrase as the focus of your page, and by competing with fewer other web pages (Google lists individual pages not entire sites) you are more likely to be successful.

Website set up and traffic generation should not be a gamble. Do not be misled into believing that all you have to do is set up a website and the cash will come rolling in. Unless you are rolling in cash and can outsource the work, you will have to promote your website yourself.

Blogging and Article Marketing

You will be doing just what I am doing right now if you want to make money online. Creating blogs and articles that advise people like yourself how to get started. It will be a while yet before you can give up the day job – I still work. Nevertheless, that time might come if you are patient, have the desire and are willing to study and learn from those that have achieved online success.

To generate traffic you will need a good keyword generation tool. There are plenty of them around if you search for them. When choosing one, make sure that they offer keywords with high relevance, good traffic, lowish competition and high commercial value. I will cover these in future articles but if you want to get started then these are the golden rules.

Everything is there for you: all the information you need to be successful is readily available – just learn the basics and apply them well. Whatever you do, do it the best you can and make sure you have good keywords and a website with individual pages optimized for each of them.

Website Set Up and Traffic Generation Summary

Let’s assume that you are interested in starting an online business to make money online. Firstly it takes effort, but you can speed it up by getting a good mentor and training. You will need a website that generates traffic and you will have to promote the website. Most people don’t have a great deal of spare cash – that’s why they are turning to the internet to make money – and should make use of all the free stuff going, such as blogs, writing articles, using social networking sites, Squidoo lenses and so on – in fact you must or you will never succeed.

Keywords are the way to get good quality traffic through blogs etc. Search engine optimization (SEO) is important, but it takes time to learn and can cost a great deal to pay somebody to do it for you, and PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising can cost a lot unless, once again, you understand how to use such ads. However, once you start you will enjoy it. focus on traffic generation, and get a good mentor. Then you will make money online. Wherever life takes you be sure it is you who has decided the course.