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Everyone loves the idea of making passive income to supplement our regular income or be the main source of our income.

As a wife and mother of two young girls aged 9 and 4, with a very busy schedule, I have been looking for a business where you don’t have to put in a lot of hours and still achieve a sustainable income.

I did a research and found out that Internet Marketing offers an opportunity to build a business around your lifestyle probably putting in a couple of hours a day maximum. Once the business is set up correctly your input is very little as everything else runs on autopilot to make you money. Also this does not require you to be a hi tech guru.  Basic keyboard skills and a general understanding of day to day use of computers is all you need.

I am very comfortable with this as I don’t describe myself as a computer expert but can use basic computer literacy to build an internet business and make my first £1000!

As you follow me on my journey you will learn all the valuable information and secrets I am using to build this business.  You will be saved a lot of money and time to build your own business.  I will review as many tools and information out there so you make an informed decision before purchasing any product.  You will not be making the typical mistakes that newbies make with information overload and wasting their money on products that do not work! Stay tuned.

Back in the days growing up a child, I remember a few yards down the road from my house was a bread stall, where we got supplies every morning for breakfast. The seller became a friend after a while. Chatting to her regularly, I realized that she collected her stock from the local baker and sold it for commission. She only paid the baker after her sales for the day. She created a buying environment – her stall (now a site or blog), advertised for customers (traffic) by word of mouth or other methods (links) and made sales which resulted in commissions.

Today, it is referred to as Affiliate Marketing. In it’s simplest, this is an online practice to promote products for a commission. These products can be physical or information products like ebooks, videos, software etc.

As a newbie to Internet Marketing, the best place to start is Affiliate Marketing. It is easy to learn and you can still make money using free methods. All you need is your laptop or desktop. No overheads to worry about, you work at your own pace in the comfort of your home.

For the budget conscious it makes sense to work with a business model like this. It is not advisable for a newbie to spend a lot of money to start an online business.

My starting business model is promoting Amazon products. You may ask why. Amazon is huge and a household name. People have built their trust in them for sometime now. Their services are excellent. Amazon does not require you to have a website to join their affiliate program. Free blogs can be used.

In the last two weeks, one of my sites has made 30 sales! That is just for two weeks and as I am sure you are guessing, that means more commission for me and closer to my first £1000.

It takes determination to succeed in any business.

After setting up your website or blog for your business, it has to be promoted.  You want to be found when people search online for the keyword you have optimized.  Ideally, you want your site to rank no, 1 on the first page of Google for that keyword.

One of the ways to have a presence on the first page of Google is by Article Marketing.

Wikipedia defines Article Marketing as “A type of advertising in which businesses write short articles related to their respective industry. These articles are made available for distribution and publication in the marketplace”

A well written article should contain relevant information about the site or blog you are promoting.  It should also have references that link back to your site to create back links.  More traffic to your site is generated this way.

If you want your article to capture the interest of your target audience and to increase traffic, then it should conform to certain basic principles to gain the maximum benefit.

Title of Article

The title of your article should have the main keyword in it.  It should be very interesting, short and at a glance should contain what the article is about .  It should make anyone seeing it curious enough to click and read it.  After all, that is your objective, for the article to be read.  Think outside the box.  Be creative.  The title of your article has the most impact on how often your article is read.

Body of Article

This should be straight to the point, concise, short and sweet.  There are various recommendations for the number of words.  However, it is best to keep it between 350-600 words.  It has been proven that people tend to read more shorter articles than the opposite.

Make the content of your article unique.  If you duplicate content from somewhere else the main search engines like Google and the rest will penalize you.  Your blog or website will be removed from their index or it’s search engine ranking will be reduced.  Duplicate content when used should be modified to make it your own.  The top article directory – Ezine Articles is no exception for this principle of duplicate content.

The language should be simple and easy to understand.  Nothing complex.  Good basic grammar is all you need for effective communication.

Resource Box

In here you will create a link back to your site or blog. This link should be keywords you are trying to optimize.  The link created is what is referred to as back link.

Someone reading your article will hopefully click on this link and they will be taken to your site or blog.

Article Marketing has always proved successful as a free strategy to promote products and used in all aspects of Internet Marketing.

Getting the right mindset is the most important aspect of building any business.  Without a positive attitude at the start, you will find yourself struggling to overcome any challenges that you encounter and may just give up thinking I am always a failure.  This is not true, as we are all born with talents and probably have not found out yet how to tap into those talents to be successful!

Mindset is defined as “A fixed mental attitude or disposition that predetermines a person’s responses to and interpretations of situations”

Well, it is no surprise from the definition above that we as individuals shape our lives with fixed mental attitudes!  Ask yourself what you can do differently to make a change in yourself.  You will be surprised that the little changes you make to your daily lifestyle and attitude will speed up your way to success.

Without a positive attitude and a burning desire of achievement you cannot build a successful business online.

Dr J F Demartini in his book (one of my favorite books), ‘How to make one hell of a profit and still get to heaven‘, sums up Mindset as ‘To Be Is to Do Is to Have’. Change your beliefs, do something different every day towards your goals and objectives.  Don’t give and surely you will be rewarded.

I recently came across this phrase, ‘If you say I Can or if you say I Can’t both are true’.  I know I can what about you…?