Make money while you build your Steemit profile

I have mentioned a few times that I am new to Steemit but not new to this online "stuff", and it occurred to me that there will be quite a few people also new to Steemit, but who don't have the streams of income I do.

This article is here to help you supplement your Steemit ambitions with some $ :)

The joys of online

Problem I have, and that I share with a lot of people, is I am shy and introverted. In person.

Online, well you can be whoever you want to be. That's important because it opens up a lot of opportunities.

Also, online can be "time shifted" - you don't need to clock in a regular 9-5 in a certain place.

These factors allowed me to make a solid side income since 1994, and a full-time living since 2005. Online marketing pays my mortgage so I take it very seriously :)

Working remotely, being able to add streams of income, meant we could move as a family from the UK to Canada and still be able to pay rent in Canada AND still pay a mortgage while our UK home sold. I didn't have to go looking for a job right away, bills still got paid. We could eat!

"Make Money Online"

Back in the day, this used to be called MMO. Make Money Online. Ugh, just writing that out gives me stomach ache.

Not the actual thing, making money is great!

It's the reputation it gained.

The thing is a lot of people pushing "MMO" had never made any money online, they were just promoting as a get-rich scheme - making money by teaching other people to make money.

Actual businesses, well they usually were not in the MMO space. The people who stuck around usually started in niches outside of MMO, learned, worked, and shared their experience.

I started in IT an programming. Wrote books, magazine articles, coached coders, and worked for advertising and marketing agencies, where I picked up my copywriting and strategy chops. Just dipping my toe in the MMO space made me realize the culture wasn't for me, but some of the approaches were legit, and I am thankful for that.

So why am I telling you this?

1. Some of it works, and works well. Really well.
2. Don't follow advice from people who haven't got results that you seek.
3. There are a lot of scams out there, if you have to pay to play it's best avoided.

So what works?

• Search Engine Optimization - Search traffic is awesome and it is evergreen if you do it right. Right now my Maker Hacks site gets the bulk of its traffic from Google, pretty much on autopilot. That is important because I have a day job and a family, I can't always be working on what is, after all, a hobby.

• Email marketing - Social media has taken some of the shine off email but it is still the number one conversion method. Send good content, follow up with a "call to action" (a suggestion that someone take some action), and more people will take the action.

• Good content - I have written a fair bit about this, check out my profile. Bottom line though is you have to respect your audience, their time, and give them helpful and interesting content, consistently.

• Advertising revenue - Ads are the weakest way to make income, but it is relatively easy to start, just post videos on YouTube or sign up for Adsense and you can do it automagically. Problem is it needs a TON of traffic and visibility, which is why I prefer ...

• Affiliate marketing - This is where you get a sales commission by referring customers to a business. So if I mention a microphone or camera, I can link to that on Amazon. If someone buys, I get a few percentage as a referral commission. Nice! Crypto? You can do that too. Coinbase gives you and your referral $10 if someone signs up to Coinbase through your link, like my referral link right here. You have Coinbase right? Of course you do. Just always, always, disclose when you are using affiliate links, especially if you are USA based, it's the right thing and it is the legal thing to do.

• Your own products and services - Once you have shown you can get sales, why not cut out the middle man and sell your own product? Yeah I do well now with affiliates on Maker Hacks but to maintain my objectivity I can't be all about the "aff", so it's nice that I have my own 3D printing course that people can sign up to. Consider the fact that these companies are willing to pay for ads or referrals on your site, so it must be profitable for them. It can be more profitable for you to take 100% instead of a tiny slice of that. One company I work with received over $16,000 in sales from my referrals across a variety of products, I only get a small (but welcome!) bit of that cake.

Sounds like a lot of work?

Sure, it is! It won't happen over night.

But look at some of the people you admire here, do they make all their money from Steemit?

• @jerrybanfield runs online courses

• @trevonjb has a popular vlog

• @bycompoundfilms as his name suggests produces films

• @jo3potato teaches Python programming

The best part? Your Steemit blog can be the foundation.

I would recommend at some point you build a home base that you own, on your own domain, but you can cut your teeth and gather your audience here, on YouTube, and social media, and bring them home.

Please note: A few years ago I took a job with a nice company. They allow me to work remotely, and I love the team and the work we do, so I am happy in that job. Maybe I will write about why in a future post, but suffice to say I have nothing of my own to sell about all this online marketing stuff right now, I just still get a kick out of sharing about it.

Feel free to reach out and hit reply if you would like me to go deeper into this side of things :)