Imagine what life would be like, if you had the time to truly relax and enjoy it with your family and friends. And not just on weekends, holidays, and the two week vacation which you look forward to all year long.

Are you bold enough to accept that challenge for a moment? To let go of your current perception of reality, and consider the fact that there is an alternative way of earning a living, that will actually enable you to, well, live.

If you are, then I’d like to welcome you to the world of online marketing.

Believe it or not, people just like you and me, earn a substantial and comfortable living via the internet every day. In my experience, younger people find it easier to embrace this concept, because they have grown up in the digital age, however I have also met quite a few of their parents who are enjoying their golden years to the fullest, because they’ve harnessed the power of the internet to fund their lifestyle.

It’s all right if you’re skeptical, I certainly was in the beginning, and I was one of the first diamond dealers to sell diamonds online, way back in 1996. My web site Nice Ice is recognized throughout the diamond industry as one of the ones which blazed the trail for the internet diamond industry that we all benefit from today, and I’ll tell you, those early days were a lot like the Wild West, every day was a new adventure, we never knew what to expect.

Right about this point in the conversation, a lot of my clients will begin to tell me all about how they want to learn how to earn money online; how they’ve heard of people earning stacks of cash online, but how those stories are probably urban legends; and how if they’re true, those people must have gotten in on the ground floor of the opportunity, at just the right time, and how they could never do it; after all, what do they know about online marketing?

The 3 Ways to Earn Money Online:

Well the first thing that you need to know about online marketing, is that there are really only three ways to earn money online, quite simply, you either:

1. Create your own products and services, which provide a solution or solve a problem.
2. Promote and sell other people’s products and services.
3. Advertise other people’s products and services.

That’s it, the only three ways to earn money online. Now people have a lot more ways of describing the processes of advertising and selling products and services online, but if we boil all those down, at the end of the day, we can place each of them into one of these three categories.

How to Get Started Earning Money Online:

Obviously one of the most rewarding and profitable ways to earn money online is to create your own products and services, and market them through various forms of social media, such as blog posts, Facebook, Google +, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest.

But it can take some time to get the hang of all that, let alone the time and money that it takes to produce a product, or a program, that people will want to buy from somebody who they don’t know on the internet…

So while you’re working on creating your own products and services, you can earn some money, and develop an audience by writing reviews for things which you have purchased and found to be beneficial… be very selective about this, don’t promote everything that you think will sell, that’s not how to develop an audience which will trust your opinion, limit your promotions to products and services which you have truly found to be great!

For instance, I talk a lot about Natalie Sisson’s book, The Suitcase Entrepreneur, because Natalie has been instrumental in helping me to take my online business to the next level, by showing me that it is possible to run my online business from anywhere in the world where there is a stable internet connection, by doing so herself and blogging about it every step of the way!

Natalie’s experience inspired me to sell my house, close my brick and mortar location, and embrace the challenge of operating an online business without being tied down to a physical location, the last year has been an amazing journey, and it’s only going to get more interesting, as I prepare to continue the journey by driving through Mexico, down to Costa Rica, or wherever else my heart desires… maybe I’ll see you there.

This happens to be Day 10 of Natalie’s 30 Day Blog Challenge, during which she is freely sharing her advice about how to build a successful online business that will enable you to be location independent. Be sure to click here to visit The Suitcase Entrepreneur web site if you want to learn how to create freedom in business and adventure in life!

Now obviously this is a working example of how to market products and services created by other people, when you click on any of the links above, and purchase a book, program, or other kind of product, or service, I receive a small commission for making the introduction, this is basically a form of advertising, but it is based on trust and not just a desire to make money.

I’m comfortable promoting Natalie’s business coaching programs because we have a working relationship built upon trust, and because I have personally benefited from following her advice. You can call this “affiliate marketing” if you’d like, but I prefer to think of it as “trust marketing” which is a phrase coined by internet marketing guru, Nick Reese.

And finally, you can use the space on your web site or blog, as advertising space for other companies, who will pay you small commissions for any click through traffic generated from your web site. One of the most popular services for this is Google Adwords, but note that I find this to be the least of my income streams.

Day 10 of Natalie’s 30 Day Blog Challenge:

On this, Day 10 of Natalie Sisson’s 30 Day Blog Challenge, she asks “What are the key ways in which you want to make money online in your chosen business. ~ OR ~ Which are the key online revenue streams you want to focus on in your existing business?

And as you can see, I turned those questions into a blog post designed to teach you about the three ways to earn money online, by providing you with working examples of how I do so every day.

If you want to see a working example of how I use “trust marketing” to convert my Click & Mortar Business, into an educational blog, which provides consumers with in-depth diamond grading tutorials and diamond buying advice, while providing me with a stable income, visit my diamond web site Nice Ice, and read a few of the articles. You will see how I am able to use my years of experience as a diamond buyer for the mutual benefit of my customers, myself, and my affiliate partners. And the best part is that it doesn’t cost my customers a dime, all fees are paid by the vendors as advertising expense.

And of course, I am in the process of creating my own coaching programs, which are designed to  teach people strategies for improving their relationships and lives, and which will be sold online. So I incorporate all three methods of earning money online, and therein lies the clue to a successful online business.

Now I have to go “pin” the pictures in this article to my Pinterest Account, in hopes that people will like it well enough to re-pin it on one of their pin boards, so that more more traffic will be generated for this blog post, and so goes the process of marketing yourself online.

Oh that reminds me… if you’re thinking about using Pinterest as a platform for your affiliate marketing endeavors, and I certainly recommend that you do, be sure to use a Link Cloaking Software because otherwise the software used on the back end of Pinterest will strip your link of your affiliate ID and replace it with their own, so that they make the money for the sale and not you! Don’t bother with the more well known services such as Tiny URL and more well known URL shorteners, the programmers at Pinterest have already taken those into account.

I hope you learned a little something from the examples I’ve provided in this post about the three ways to earn money online, and look forward to your hearing your online success story!