Revealed: How To Actually Earn Money Online In 2024 [Step By Step Guide]
Get-Rich-Quick-Schemes Don't Work.
This is not just another post on the internet about earning money online. I won’t be trying to sell you some weird tool or method that generates money for you in some mysterious ways. Stop looking for get-rich-quick-schemes because they simply don’t work. I studied many books, courses, methods, videos, tutorials… I was never satisfied. Almost all information you can find on this topic consists of the following principle: Buy this magic software, buy a ticket for this course/seminar, get a premium membership and then you will be living the high life on the beach! Sounds familiar? Let’s get real!
My method is powerful because it has the following characteristics:
- Short time to get started: You don’t want to spend months of preparation in order to start earning some money. You will see results within a few days or weeks (depending on your time investment).
- No or small initial money investment: The provided method does not require any initial investment.
- Scalable: Once you implemented the provided strategy, you will be able to scale it (earn a lot more) without having to invest additional time.
But keep it real!
Nobody will throw money at you. The provided method only works, if you’re serious about earning money online and if you are willing to put work into it. If you think you can get rich overnight, then you might as well leave this blog post right now. Success doesn’t come easy. It must be earned. You must commit and take action.
Send me an email if you have any questions or feedback on this post: james@revealnuggets.com
Content of this post:
- What is Affiliate Marketing?
- My Step-By-Step Guide
- Step 1: Get to know the platform
- Step 2: Landing Pages and Email Marketing
- Step 3 (optional): Custom Domain Name
- Step 4: Create Content
- Step 5: Get Traffic
- Step 6: Scale!
- Do You Need Help?
Let's get started!
What is Affiliate Marketing?
The idea is simple: You promote other people’s products or services. You will get a commission if somebody makes a purchase. My method is based on this simple idea.
However, the implementation is where most people fail. You can’t just throw some products or services at some random people and expect them to buy it. You need to be smarter than that. This post will show you how it's done right.
My Step-By-Step Guide
Step 1: Get to know the platform
You need some kind of platform that provides you products or services that you can promote. I tested many of them and failed, failed, and failed again. I eventually found a cool marketplace where freelancers sell thousands of services starting at $5. You can promote its services and as soon as someone new signs up with your link and buys a service, you will get a commission (up to $150 per sale!).
You are wondering how this mighty platform is called? It’s called Fiverr.
Fiverr is the largest marketplace for online freelancing services - from marketing to design to tech, there’s a solution available for every need.
To promote those services, you need to sign up for Fiverr Affiliates.
Sign up on Fiverr too and get familiar with this platform.
Note: Your Fiverr account is independent of your Fiverr Affiliates account. Those are 2 separate logins with different passwords. Strictly speaking, you only need the login for Fiverr Affiliates. But I strongly recommend to create a Fiverr account as well. After all, you will be promoting these services and you need to know what Fiverr is all about.
Here’s a short promotional video of Fiverr:
Fiverr Affiliates will provide you with everything you need to promote Fiverr’s services and earn commissions. You can simply watch their official guides (5 videos each between 1 and 2 minutes) on YouTube: Click here to watch on Youtube
The commission depends on many factors. Click here to check out the commission plan!
More questions? Click here to read the FAQ’s.
Step 2: Landing Pages and Email Marketing
You need some kind of website to promote Fiverr and its services. I tried many different tools and platforms. They are either too expensive or don’t offer all the tools I need. I built many websites by myself (I have a technical background), wrote some articles and posts about Fiverr and published. This process was time-consuming and it was never perfect. Then I came across ConvertKit.
ConvertKit is one of the fastest-growing email marketing companies around. There are 3 reasons I prefer ConvertKit over any other tool:
- ConvertKit combines email-marketing and landing page creation. In the past, I used one tool for doing the email marketing and another tool for the creation of landing pages. With ConvertKit, you can manage everything in one single tool. It allows you to create landing pages and customizable sign-up forms with ease – you don’t need any technical background. Managing your subscribers is very easy. You can even build a landing page BEFORE you create a free account. Click here to build a landing page!
- It’s a challenge to meet the FTC's CAN-SPAM Act requirement for a physical address. The law says that every email that you send has to have a physical address at the end of the email. You must be able to receive physical mail at this address. A lot people are not comfortable providing their private address. ConvertKit is the only platform that I’m aware of that offers you to use their physical address – for free. If someone reaches out with a legal notice, ConvertKit will open it, scan the mail, and email you the PDF. Click HERE to read the official article about this topic. This reason alone convinced me to use ConvertKit!
- ConvertKit is totally free for up to 1000 subscribers. Sign up for free and you are able to use almost all features. As soon as you hit 1000 subscribers, you will be making money and you won’t care to spend some money for an upgrade to manage more subscribers. The important thing is, you can start for free and then check how it turns out without any risk!
The free plan includes:
- Unlimited landing pages
- Unlimited, customizable CTAs & signup forms
- 30+ premium landing page templates
- Unlimited traffic
- Customizable domain setup
- Mobile responsive designs
- Manage up to 1000 subscribers
- Unlimited Email broadcasts
- Subscriber tagging
- Seamless Unsplash integration
- Creator community
You must now take your time to explore ConvertKit by clicking around your account. They also provide very helpful tutorials for using ConvertKit
Step 3 (optional): Custom Domain Name
ConvertKit will generate URLs for all your forms and landing pages. This will work by default and without any configuration. Those URLs work, but they look rather ugly, because they are a randomized set of words and numbers (e.g. creative-writer-13.ck.page). Read this article if you don't know what I'm talking about.
The free domain might be good enough to start off, but I strongly recommend you get your own domain that expresses your intention. If you write reviews, you might want a domain that includes the word "review". ConvertKit published an awesome tutorial about this topic HERE.
I recommend you buy your domain name on Namecheap. They are the cheapest out there and their support is great! You can chat with the support 24/7 - they never let me down.
Step 4: Create Content
Warning: This step is the most important step and it’s also the step most people fail. You now need to create content that turns into profit. It’s also the part where you need to be creative by yourself and do research.
The 2 Critical Factors
I wasn’t successful at the beginning when I started with affiliate marketing. I set up a simple website and paid for traffic by buying Microsoft and Google ads. I made a few sales, but it never really turned into profit. What was I doing wrong?
- I cared only about myself. Don’t just write about how great Fiverr is and don’t try to force them to register and buy a service. Your sales pitch needs to be about how Fiverr or a particular service on Fiverr can and will benefit them. Whatever you write, don’t make it about selling something. Make it about helping somebody to solve a particular problem. It’s not sufficient to say «Fiverr exists and is great so buy from it». You need to give them a compelling reason. Nobody cares about you. They only care about themselves! YOU NEED TO EDUCATE AND HELP THEM. HELP THEM TO MAKE A BETTER BUYING DECISION.
- I didn’t use email marketing. A dream visitor comes to your site, clicks on your affiliate links and makes a purchase. Such visitors barley exists. You need to gather email addresses and get back to your visitors by sending them emails. Most people visiting your site don’t want to buy anything at the moment. They are doing research in order to solve some problem they have and they are looking for a solution for it. Or worse, they are not even aware of the problem they have. You need to get back to those people by email marketing. It’s your job to educate them about solving their problem so they are empowered to make the best buying decision.
Create Content that makes a difference!
Your success is dependent on your ability to craft a killer sales pitch. You need to be able to write marketing messages that sell. Search Google for any kind of service. Most of the pages you will see don’t stand out – try to be different! Be creative and don’t do what everyone else does! Be specific. Stand out. You can promote a service category or even a particular service. For example, you can write a post about hiring a designer to create a logo and link either the entire category or certain services (make sure you use an affiliate link provided in your affiliate-dashboard). Tell your visitors why you would choose Fiverr and what value Fiverr gives them.
It's essential that you figure out what people actually want to buy. Which services are popular at the moment? There is no point in trying to sell a certain service or category on Fiverr which nobody wants to buy. You need to do market research. Which services are selling well? What are people looking for at the moment? Whatever it is, you will find services on Fiverr to solve problems people have.
The Headline
The headline is important. It must grab attention! Look for emotional triggers with words like "exposed", "revealed", "discover", "guaranteed", "secret", "finally", "eliminate", and many many more! Using numbers makes your intention clear. Read your headline aloud and ask yourself if this headline forces someone to read more about it. A few examples:
- 6 [Alarming / Shocking / Unexpected] Things You Must Know Before [...]
- 3 Common Mistakes To Avoid When Hiring [...]
- How To Hire [...] even if you [...]. (It's Not What You Think! / It Will Blow Your Mind!)
- [Somebody] Reveals How To [...]
- 4 Ways To Do [Something] Without [...]
- Revealed: 10 Things [Someone] Would Never Tell You
- [Problem / Issue]? Get [Something]
- Where To Find [Something] Without [Something]
- The Truth About [Something]
- [Question]? I Suggest You Read This
Use Bullet Points
Catchy bullet points are always a good idea. For example, list the benefits somebody gets by using Fiverr. Show them why Fiverr is the best solution to the problem they have. List the benefits of Fiverr. List the reasons you think that Fiverr is the best.
Address The Fear And Give a Guarantee
One of the most important thing to highlight is guarantee. People are skeptical by nature, even more so when they are online. You need to tell people that they are not taking any risk with Fiverr; if problems arise, Fiverr staff will always step in and fix the problem. If something doesn't work out, they get all their money refunded. Guaranteed. Take away their fears! Make sure they can't resist signing up on Fiverr and get to know this platform! Explain why it's an awesome platform! Be specific. Explain why they can't lose anything by signing up on Fiverr and buying a service. Educate them on how Fiverr works and what to look out for (e.g. rating of the services). Make sure they understand that the solution to their problem is Fiverr. They must understand that Fiverr is the best option for them. Explain why. To highlight the rating of a service is a great idea too - if they know that 500 people rated a certain service 5 stars, they are a lot more likely to buy this service too.
How to get people to subscribe to your newsletter
Nobody gives away their email address without any compelling reason to do so. You must offer them something in return for the opt-in. Some ideas are:
- PDF download (e.g. report on something that matters to your visitor or a guide)
- Audio or video download
- Offer free consulting (email, phone call)
- Download of a checklist
Show them a visual representation of what they're getting. You have to make the viewer curious about it. Whatever you give away, it must offer your potential customers an incredible value. You want to exceed their expectations. That's how you can build trust. Instead of shouting "BUY NOW!" you show your visitors that you're actually helping them. You don't ask your visitors to buy anything in return! Your only goal is to collect their email address. You will get back to them and shift them into buying mode with your email marketing.
Writing & Sending Emails
ConvertKit makes it very easy to send emails to your subscribers. You don't have to study the technical stuff to get your emails delivered. However, you must take care of the content. The emails must be valuable and entertaining to the person receiving it. Don't just send some offers and scream "Buy!" in the emails. Those are the emails that get deleted right away. First, you must provide value. Make the emails look personal. They should not look like the 99 other emails in the inbox from businesses that want to sell something. Because if it does, it gets deleted like the others. In other words, your email must never look commercial. It's important that you don't disappoint the readers of your emails, because if you do, they will delete your future emails right away. Your emails must not be boring! They must make the reader smile.
I prefer plain-text emails. They look like an email from your friend and not from a company. That makes it personal. Make short sentences and don't overwhelm the reader with an essay.
The most important thing is the subject line. Because if this line sucks, people will not even open your email. The subject line should be the same as you would use for a friend. I suggest you limit the subject line to a few words and all lower-case. You may ask a question or address a certain topic. Make sure the reader gets curious and wants to open the email. It's important that you satisfy the created curiosity in the email because if not, the reader will feel played and never open your emails again. In conclusion, the subject line should be short, personal, and make the reader curious.
Step 5: Get Traffic
There are many ways to get traffic for free. I don't cover this topic, because a simple Google search will give you plenty of websites and blogs that cover "free traffic". But I recommend that you don't waste too much time with that. Free traffic is nice, but relying solely on that won't make your business scalable and predictable.
To make your business scalable, you must invest in traffic. Today, you can buy as many website visitors as you want. You have access to millions of potential customers. In my experience, there are 3 platforms that you need to consider:
- Google Ads
- Facebook Ads
- Microsoft Ads
The 2 big players are definitely Google and Facebook. Did you know that Google processes over 40'000 search queries every second? And there are over 2 billion active Facebook users! Microsoft with Bing is a lot smaller, but it's definitely worth mentioning too. There are plenty of tutorials on how to use those platforms. You won't understand each and every feature on the first day you sign up; it will take some time till you really understand how those platforms work.
Imaging you buy 100 clicks to your site for $100 and those clicks convert the following way:
- 8 visitors immediately sign up on Fiverr. 1 of those 8 makes a purchase right away. Another one makes a purchase after 3 months and another one after 6 months. The other 5 never make a purchase.
- 6 visitors subscribe to your newsletter. You send them emails regularly. 2 of the 6 subscribers purchase something on Fiverr within the next 6 months.
You just made 5 sales within 6 months with only $100 investment! You get paid $200, assuming the average commission per sale is $40 (it could be higher!). You just made $100 profit!
The catch? YOU need to create content that matters and that makes people want to buy something on Fiverr (look at step 4). With content I mean articles, emails, and ads.
Fact: Traffic is not your problem anymore. Today, it's all about conversions. It's about figuring out how you can turn the visitors into profit. In our case, you must make sure the visitors buy something on Fiverr so you get the commission. The key is to turn advertising into profit. You must get more money back than you're spending on ads!
Creating Ads
You must create ads that are different from your competition. Don't write something like "Hire [someone] Today". Only a few people will click on it because it's the same as any other ad and it only speaks to people that are in buying mode. You miss out on the majority of people that are just looking for information - you must also speak to them, gather their email, and shift them into buying mode. Your ad must demand attention. Don't sell them anything in the ad! Your ads only purpose is to get clicks to your landing page. Apply the same principle as for the creation of the headline (see above). Check out what your competition says and do the opposite. Create multiple ads and test them. You will notice that some ads get a lot of clicks while others don't. You must find a killer ad.
If you decide to use Facebook ads, I recommend you make it look like exclusive stuff or breaking news. You must think about it this way: What will stop an average user scrolling through Facebook? Your goal with the ad is to get the user clicking on your ad. This is done by making the user curious. Very curious. Here are a few ideas:
- [Somebody] Fears [Something]. [Somebody] Explains Why.
- Secret / Hidden [Something] Finally Revealed / Exposed.
- [Somebody] Is Doing [Something]. Learn Why.
- Breaking News / Revealed: How I [Something]
- Expert says [Something]. Learn Why.
Your Facebook ad image should look like normal content that somebody would share on Facebook. People jump over ads while sleeping. We see ads everywhere and a lot people are tired of it. Make it look like a normal article!
No matter where you publish your ads, you must ask yourself if you would click on it. Does it make you curious? Does it attract you? Does it demand attention? It's also a good idea to show the ad to a friend and ask him or her those questions.
Learn & Optimize!
You will need to optimize your content over and over again. You won’t be successful in the first round, probably not even in the third. Some people say that you need at least 10 attempts to get your ad, your landing page, and your emails right. You need to learn and adapt. It will take hard work! It’s not going to happen overnight! You must educate yourself about marketing strategies! Learn how to promote and sell those services! Learn, learn, learn! Optimize, optimize, optimize!
Step 6: Scale!
As soon as you know which articles, which emails and which ads are perfect, you can go ahead and scale it, meaning you buy a lot more traffic. A good return value is at least 150%, meaning if you spend $200 in ads in one day, you want to get at least $300 back in sales, so your daily profit will be $100. But I’m sure you can do a lot better than 150%, if you put enough hard work into your content. It's truly amazing, because as soon as you know that for every $1 you spend on ads you get $2, $3, $5 or even $10 back with commissions, you will be spending as much money on ads as you can. Because you just created a system that turns ads into profit! The hard part is to create this system, but with this blog post I gave you all the information you need to succeed.
Keep in mind that the sales often come in weeks or even months later than the sign-ups. Don’t be surprised if your affiliate-dashboard shows you a lot of sign-ups and not many First-Time-Buyers (FTB). A lot of people will not make their first purchase on Fiverr within the first few weeks. You are eligible for the commission during the first 12 months of a sign up!
Do You Need Help?
If you want to outsource something (no matter if its proofreading your content, creating a logo or simply need someone to set something up), you will find a freelancer on Fiverr that does this for a great price. I think it’s good practice to outsource time-consuming things that someone else can do, because you don’t want to waste time with that (unless you have all the time in the world). And yes, the Fiverr link is my affiliate link to Fiverr. Thanks for supporting me! :)
Any comments, questions, or suggestions? Please write me an email! james@revealnuggets.com