Q: What is the easiest way to earn $ 1000 online? Should you launch a coaching program? Sell affiliate products? Create an Amazon e-book, create a blog, try contextual ads … or just put my hands up and give up now? Will my income improve if I listen to the gurus, or buy the best gadget or gimmick that promises perpetual heaps of button earnings … without lifting a finger?
Do any of these questions sound familiar to you? In this article we’re going to take a quick and easy look at the EXACT, step-by-step system that used to make my first $ 1000 online in 2007 or so, and why it works EXACTLY the same way today.
Filed Under: I’ll save you the backstory in order to save space … but suffice it to say, my story probably looks a lot like yours. I was smart, I was successful in the real world, and I was trying to turn my love of marketing into a powerful and profitable online business that I could run from home or anywhere in the world … but I had surprisingly little success in achieving it.
Desperate, after investing literally thousands of dollars in things that did not work, I was inspired to try a new approach and BUILD something that had authentic value to someone in the real world, and simply try to recover monetary value in return. .
Basically the linear marketing method I used was this.
Step 1: Identify a high-value market with a lot of competition (in my case, I decided on cosmetic dentistry)
Step 2: Identify a hyperspecific geography where this competition is particularly fierce (I chose Los Angeles, California … and was living outside of Atlantic City, NJ at the time, so it wasn’t even in the market itself)
Step 3: Register a hyperlocal premium domain name in that market that would have empirical value to a local professional in that area. (in my case I just chose the name of a heavily populated part of LA + and added cosmetic dentistry)
Step 4: Create a blog on that domain, with content curated from around the web … using hyperlocal post titles and blog content.
Step 5: Create some links to the site, attach some social media profiles, and do some very generic SEO-style stuff. (note: the landscape is MUCH different today than it was then, social media is much easier and SEO is MUCH less important … so many of these steps would be different and easier to do today too )
Step 6: Find a buyer! In my case, literally … I just ran Los Angeles Craigslist ads with the site name and a live link for a period of about a week before I got a serious offer. (which was actually several thousand dollars and included my agreement to do a bunch of backend services behind the sale)
That’s. There is no special sauce or secret strategy. BUILD SOMETHING that has value, and then build your own brand, business, and bank account to continue creating value in the marketplace.
In my own practice now as a business coach, whenever I hit a routine … or get tired of a particular strategy, or get frustrated with the state of affairs in the online marketing space, I go back to that place. and build again.
It will work for you, and it will work exactly as described above. You can do it better, faster, and have more fun, or it may take a little longer, and your first sale may be smaller. But I promise you this: stick with it and you will achieve it. (No gimmicks, no gadgets, and no need for GURUS!)