.

What if I told you that you could make money with articles?  What if I told you that you don’t really need previous career-related experience?  Or that the beauty of it is, you can learn the ropes as you go?  Wouldn't that be fantastic?  That probably sounds impossible to you.  And yet, people do indeed make money with articles every day.  How does that happen?

Well, certainly there are skills that you have to  learn.  Given the time crunch of our daily lives, it is not practical for most of us to develop these skills via the traditional classroom learning model.  This presents a problem; if I must use my time to earn money to live, then where do I find time to make more money?  Fear not.  Many of the skills that you will need are skills that you can teach yourself or otherwise pick up along the way.

First, you will need to determine what content to post: in other words, you will need to learn how to pick out the articles that will make your sites successful.  There are many types of content, from free content to high dollar content, and each comes with its own advantages and disadvantages.  Typically (though not always), high dollar content is more likely to result in a successful site in the end.

Second, you will need to learn how to choose keywords that can get you a good amount of traffic.  This is more tricky than it sounds.  You are trying to get on the first or second page of search engines.  Certainly, you can research popular and highly competitive keywords, and sprinkle them throughout your text.  Unfortunately, that often leads into a trap.  How so?  Because if those exact words are already used by huge and established websites, it is very unlikely that your site will ever get enough views in order to move up to those desirable first two pages.  This point is often the undoing of many writers.  Beware!

 The third point is related.  You will also need to know how to optimize your websites for various search engines.  Learning how to write "custom" text, using learned search-engine optimization skills, will allow you to get high rankings for your chosen niche keywords.  These "designer" keywords can then help you attract more visitors, and make a profit.

Fourth, you may decide to produce a large website which will be the focus of most of your internet marketing career.   If so, you will need to know how to market your website to your intended audience through paid banner ads and text links.  On the other hand, you may prefer very small 2-5 page niche sites.  Allow me to give you some additional advice: promoting all of those niche site using paid banner ads and text links will not be cost effective!  Your sites will then eat up more profits than they are worth.

If you can identify these skills and work on them aggressively during your first few small websites, or the first few months of a larger website, then you will eventually become an expert.  I repeat, you can learn the ropes first-hand on your own!  The only thing that you will need to do before you begin your new career is to continue to read up on how to get started. 

Finally, you must make sure that you at least have the funds available to start a small site.  I'll cover more on that topic in a later post.

You may wish to purchase an internet marketing e-book or two if you are having trouble getting started, or need some inspiration.  Some of my best, high quality recommendations are in the sidebar on this page; feel free to explore them!  In the meantime, how about some free training from one of the most trusted sources of internet marketing, my personal mentor, Terry Dean.  Click here to download your personal copy, with my compliments!