Of course this is burning question that everyone is wondering.

Well what do I say?

The answer is Yes of course.

You can make money online, in fact you can make a full time living online but…there is always a but…it takes time.

“I knew he was going to say that”

An online business is just that…a business.  Therefore assuming that it will take no initial blueprinting or planning before jumping in is a bit unrealistic.  Also assuming that you can make some quick cash after the first month is also a bit far fetched.
Actually let me take that back.   You can make money after 30 days of being online with certain online models of business but those models are never long term.  In fact all they are to me is a distraction from the big picture.

Do you want quick cash now (which is generally only supplemental) or a steady full-time online income for years to come?

My guess is the latter.

You need to start looking at the “Big Picture“.

These are the questions that need to be answered.

1.  What do you want your online presence to be?

2.  Do you already have an off-line or brick and mortar business that you want to bring online?

A.  If you do have an off-line business, how can you translate it to online?

3.  How are you going to Brand yourself?

4.  Do you already have an off-line Brand?

I have a friend who is an architect.  He has been having some problems finding work.  Recently in the last couple years he’s been asked to do some private residential projects.  He will draw up plans for a house and then build that house.  He loves designing and building.

He hasn’t had too much success with keeping the business steady.  Obviously at this point most of what he gets is word of mouth, and in a recession, not many people have the money to build a house from scratch.

He was thinking of marketing himself online.  So I asked him of his plan.

He said put up a website , throw some pictures on there and let it go “viral”.

Now I hope most of you realize that creating a website and putting content on your website is a good start but certainly not enough to go “viral”.  Maybe your hosting account can get your site listed in certain directories, but because there are so many new sites that are created every hour of every day, your one site will probably just get lost in the shuffle collecting dust.  Going “viral” is the thing of the past.  There is too much competition.

So I asked him “who is your audience, who are you appealing to?”

This is the other important question.  If he wanted to create a store front website for his custom home designs then his audience becomes consumers looking to hire him.

He also said to me that one of his favorite aspects of house design and building was creating these custom counter tops out of concrete.

(I have seen them, they are amazing.)

I then said to him, what if you were to create videos showing step by step how to make those concrete counter tops?  There are more people out there that are interested in doing the work themselves if it will save them the money.

Having a site that saves people money by showing them a do it yourself system might be more wide range in terms of appeal.  It will also help to builds a certain amount of trust.  From there if people trust you then chances are they will be interested in getting more from you.  His design business can then flourish.

This is an example of creating a blue-print for your business.  Creating a plan. Discovering your Niche.  Creating a strategy and then implementing that strategy is the key to a successful long term internet business.

This is not a quick fix, in fact it will take some time but there is no other business that I can think of that requires so little start up cost and that once your plan is complete only takes days to weeks to implement and not months to years.

You must Create the intention and then live that intention.  Make a plan and then put it into action.