Peng Joon

I’m in my car right now, going on a three and a half hours drive. It feels great to be able to share my life’s experiences and the 5 steps to passive income – the exact five steps that turned my financial life around.

You might think that making money online is all hyped up, from those who don’t care about your purse – but I do. No matter what you think, I’ve poured out my heart into this article.

Read it, implement the tips right away and don’t hesitate to share your success story with me. My ears are itching….

I’ve had my own share of internet struggles, when I first started out. I was in debt, and walked in ignorance. The major reason why you’re not making good money online is because you don’t know how to go about it.

Yes, there are thousands of articles and videos about making money. If you ask me, it’s all waste of time if you’re yet to make up your mind. Your destiny is in your hands and financial freedom is certain for anyone who dares to learn and act.

 

Without much ado, here are 5 steps to passive income:

1.    Identify a profitable niche

According to Wikipedia, “a niche is a subset of the market on which a particular product is focusing.”  When choosing a niche, make sure it’s based on your passion.

Whatever you enjoy doing, effortlessly, can bring you money online. I made my first millions in the gaming niche, because it’s what I enjoy doing.

And ultimately, this is the first step to earning passive income on the internet. It doesn’t really matter the business model, or where you’re working from. You need to find and stick to a profitable niche that you like (or love).

When I stay profitable, it simply means that you can sell a product (maybe an e-book) to the people in that niche and make money. Also, in this market, the people are always looking for answers.

 

Knowing a profitable niche

Most niches are not profitable. In order words, the people are not ready to buy from you. The best way to know a niche that’s profitable is to search for the main keyword on Google.

See if there are paid advertisements at the top middle and right hand side of Google search homepage.

Is weight loss a profitable niche? You can’t guess and in fact, doing so can lead to failure and make you broke. Instead, we’d need to experiment. Our keyword here is “web hosting service.” Type it in Google and hit search – here is what we got:

Now, look at the screenshot above. Did you see the red rectangular highlights? Those are paid advertisements from people (internet marketers) who are making money. Naturally, human beings don’t waste money on stuffs that will not bring rewards.

Since people like you are paying huge amounts of money to advertise their web hosting services and review blogs, it shows that they’re making good money, and you could make money from that niche, too – the niche is profitable.

That’s the way I determine the profitability of a niche before selecting it.  But that’s not enough…

 

Select a niche that’s not competitive

Yes, the niche you select can be extremely profitable, but if you don’t watch out for competition, it can be difficult to make money from that niche.

Google is going to be your #1 source for free targeted traffic – that means you’ve to take search engine optimization (SEO) serious.

Guess what? I still get more than 5 Million unique visitors from Google search engine to all my niche sites. Isn’t it fantastic? You should be happy for me…

Don’t forget to choose a niche that you’ve passion for. Most importantly, select key terms that have less than 500k competing web pages, with more 2000 monthly searches (locally or globally).

Niche selection is vital – so, I’m going to show you a typical example of a profitable niche that you can target, because the search engine result pages (SERPs) are fewer than other niches.

 

Google keywords tool is your best friend

Yes, Google keyword tool is my best friend when it comes to identifying a profitable niche. We’re looking for a profitable niche, with easy to rank keywords.

Make money online, web hosting, weight loss; lose weight, forex trading and so on are all profitable niches. But for our keyword research, I’ll use lose weight to hijack easy-to-rank key phrases.

Visit Google keyword tool and type in “lose weight” and hit search button (please don’t use quote around the seed term). After hitting the search button, move to the left hand side of the research interface, uncheck broad, “phrase” and only check the [exact] option.

See the screenshot of what I got:

As you can see from the screenshot, “easy ways to lose weight” is not that competitive. How did I know? Visit Google, type that key phrase into the blank and put double quotes (“”) around it. The term is searched more than 8000 times monthly.

When you search for it, the competing web pages are 334,000 results as at today, which are still less than 500K. So, it’s good to go.

If you work hard at content and link building, you could rank for easy ways to lose weight and similar key phrases in a span of 30 – 90 days.

 

2.    Publish fresh content

“Content is King, but Marketing is Queen… and that bitch runs the house”

You’ll need to write good content to promote your chosen product. And writing doesn’t have to be difficult – just select the keywords and key phrases especially the long tail terms (keywords which contain 3 or more words) and write on it.

The article must be valuable, evergreen (never expires), easy to read and practical. When someone reads the content, he or she should be able to implement the tips right away.

Apart from articles, you can also create videos, podcasts and webinars to promote your product. In my first few years of starting my online business, I only wrote articles. But now, I’ve hundreds of helpful videos and membership sites.

Here is a simple plan to help you write a valuable article:

• Write a catchy headline – The headline is the most important element in your article. Get it right and your article would be read by your target audience.
• The subheads – Use the subheads to convey your message. It’s like the summary of the entire article, which always precede the paragraph.
• The bullet points – It helps to break down complex idea and make it easy to understand. Bullet points are optional, but it can enhance your content persona.
• The paragraphs – There are no rule of thumb here, but ensure that the paragraphs connect with one another. The second paragraph must be related to the first, in context. Don’t clutter your paragraph with large chunks of texts. Three to four lines is fine because you want people to read, rather than scan the page.
• Call to action – before you conclude your article, tell the reader what to do next. You could ask the reader to click a link, subscribe to your email list or buy a product.

3.    Promote a product

You can make money either through selling your own product or affiliate marketing.

Both business models have their merits and demerits. I’ve created a lot of product in the past and I had a great success with Work From No Home & Membership Sites Blueprint.

Apart from my own products, I’m also a super affiliate. And I primarily promote Clickbank’s products because of the quality, the commission percentage, the brand and my ability to network with other successful affiliates. You’d find these links helpful:

10 Reasons Why You Should Write and Sell Ebooks Online

How I Launched A Clickbank #1 Product In 6 Days

Super Affiliate Marketing: What Makes The Super Affiliates Successful

The Four Truths About Affiliate Marketing That Can Make You Money

4.    Generate traffic

How do you fuel your internet business, so that you can start earning passive income online this month? It’s not just about driving thousands of people to your website or offer, but driving the right buyers.

If you’re promoting an e-book on how to lose weight in 7 days, either as an affiliate or your own product, you only need people who are desperately looking for ways to lose weight, very quickly.

In a nut shell, drive targeted traffic to your website/blog or salespage and you’d start making money online. I’ve discussed the two proven ways to drive real buyers to your website.

 

First traffic generation strategy:

1.    Your own product

Is it possible to drive traffic with your own product? Yes, it’s absolutely possible. And I’m willing to bet my life on it. Because I’ve used it countless times in the past, and my daily hits and income keeps growing at the speed of light. Wow… it’s like I’ve gone nut. Lol!

The secret is in the salespage. A salespage is usually written by a copywriter – and the purpose is to persuade potential buyers to buy your product right now. When you write the copy or hire a professional, it must follow:

The persuasion equation – what the heck is that?

So, you want to know how professional copywriters hook buyers’? How they convince you to flip your credit card and buy, even when you don’t want to? They simply follow the persuasion equation, which I’d explain below…

Don’t be confused, if you’ve ever convinced a girl or guy to do something that they wouldn’t do in their right senses, then, you’re my good friend.

That’s what I do – I persuade people to visit my page, read my salespage and buy from me. Here is a breakdown of the persuasion equation:

 

a). Urgent problem

Your target audience can do anything you ask them to, if you can proffer solutions to their problems. And when you capitalize on urgent or pressing problems, you’d be speaking to their minds.

It’s like knowing what grandma’s favorite food and serving her the meal on her 80th birthday – she’d give you the blessing of your life. I’m talking from experience.

You can’t solve all the problems in your niche no matter how you try. It’s going to be futile. Look out for pressing, embarrassing and current problems and do justice to at least one. You’d drive more potential customers to your website/offer.

b). Unique promise

A salespage must make a unique promise. Take an old or common idea and work new things into it.

A unique promise would always resonate with the prospect. People would visit your website and build up interest in your product if what you promised is different from what others had.

Study your product, determine the strongest benefit and use it to hook your ideal buyer. And consequently drive targeted traffic to you.

 

c). Unquestionable proof

Do you’ve unquestionable proofs that your product works? I mean, does it truly work or are you honing your skills and showcasing fake clickbank checks like some girls flaunt their bo*bs?

You’ll do yourself more harm than good if you hype up so much. Yes, I know that marketing hype exist (which usually works to an extent), but be minimal on this.

If your product is really helpful, you don’t need any hype or gimmick. Before your product is released to the market, or open to affiliates, ask Super Affiliates to test it. You need their endorsement. Also, get testimonial from customers; past and present.

And to make your proof real and trustworthy, you could create a short video, showing how you did a particular thing, what you did and how much you had made.

You can show “before” and “after” photos, especially in the weight loss niche. It’s going to boost your salespage efficacy and bring in more sales.

d). User-friendly proposition

Have you heard of the phrase “unique selling proposition?” Well, it’s what makes your product stand out in the midst of a million others. Take a look at Amazon and their Kindle. Did you realize that other companies also sell Kindle and wireless reading devices?

But Amazon’s Kindle sells like hot cake. I know that Amazon has become a household brand, but their USP, which is user friendly, is really supporting the sales.

Each of your products (e-books, membership sites, software et al) must have at least one unique feature that differentiates it from a stack load of similar products in the marketplace.

Why would someone buy your product rather than your rivals’? And you’ve to distill this unique benefit of your product unto the salespage. A potential buyer must recognize it within few minutes of accessing your site.

Examples of user-friendly propositions are:

“Get instant access to my coaching class worth $599 for FREE when you order now.”

“They’ll fight over it when you’re dead.” (Saddlebackleader.com)

“Purchase a Shoe; get a pair of new Shoes for a child in need.” (toms.com)

Want to model a site of mine that follows this exact 4 step copywriting technique model?

Head over to

Membership Sites Blueprint 

Second traffic generation strategy:

2.    Affiliate marketing

Do I need to beat my head over this? I don’t think so because it’s simple and one of the best ways to drive traffic to your website (salespage). All you’ve to do is create a product, usually information product and set up an affiliate program.

Yes, I’ve over 10,000 affiliates who send me thousands of targeted traffic daily. They work hard every day to send the traffic, because they want to earn a 50% commission on my products.

When you set up an affiliate program using clickbank, paydotcom or any other third party affiliate network, you can easily capture email leads of affiliates before sending them to the tools page.

And if you must earn passive income online, you need to build a list, and a responsive one at that – affiliate marketing is the best way to build the right list.

Once your affiliate program is set up, it’d start showing in the marketplace where thousands of newbie, intermediate and super affiliates hang out every second looking for hot and profitable products.

Here’s the typical clickbank marketplace:

5.    Automate

Wow, I’m sure you’re ready to earn passive income from home? But to ease out the entire process, you must automate.

Using myself as an example, I don’t have enough time to write articles, create videos, research new and profitable niches, host and attend webinars, hold speaking engagements in and out of my country and handle the accounting issues.

But when I automate, I can focus on the important aspects of my business, like networking with industry experts. I enjoy doing this and trust me – it’s one POWERFUL way to leverage your time for bigger profits. So, how can you automate your business?

a). Outsource

You can hire a contractor at oDesk, Elance or Freelancer. But I prefer oDesk because of the caliber of contractors/service providers who are ready to deliver quality and grow your business.

To successfully run a profitable business online and make good money, you must outsource tasks to professionals. Guess what? I’ve outsourced 65% of content I’d have written (which I don’t even have the time) to freelance writers.

I also have a help desk attendant. Customer service is the ultimate whether you’re marketing online or offline – so, I’ve an army of customer support attendants that can handle complaints and offer friendly solutions. What are you outsourcing?

Do you find keyword research, market research, writing, web development and other vital tasks daunting? You should outsource and do what you’ve passion for.

b). Automate the process:

I use a lot of tools ranging from social media to SEO. Truth is, you can actually tweet to your twitter timeline when you use gremln.com.

You can also distribute your website link to authority social media networks at once. Links are the currency of the web; you do need natural and quality links to rank highly in Google homepage.

You should use ping.fm to distribute your new blog post or product review to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and a host of other sites.

Automate keyword research, link building and other aspects of your business. Running your online business manually might not generate a sustainable income for you as such. Automation saves time and could bring a better result.

Passive income takeaway

Phew, this post is a long one – but I’m sure you’ve gained a lot of insights on how to make money online working from home, with just your PC and internet connection.

Don’t give up no matter the pressure from your family and friends. If you believe you can make it, financial freedom is yours. Take it now and I’ll see you at the top.

If you want more hand holding to take your online business to the next level, click on the banner below. Right now, this is the only online coaching program worth looking at. (other than my own, of course ;) )