As promised in my last post in this series, today I’ll introduce you to  the essential tools that you’ll need  to make a significant online income with “affiliate marketing”.

If you are only interested in absolutely free ways to make money online as a hobby or you simply cannot afford to spend any money at all to get your online business started, you can use the free money making techniques that I touched on earlier. These are great ways to get started and to learn the ropes of internet marketing.   Just understand that your efforts will require an awful lot of labor in exchange for a very limited earning potential. 

If you want to move beyond the simple techniques and make a good income from home on autopilot, there are a few must have tools that you need to consider.  They aren’t all free but they’re really not expensive either.  In fact, you can have your own web site with all the bells and whistles up and running for as little as $40. And these items will pay for themselves many times over if you put a little consistent effort into building your business, even if you can only do it on a part time basis.

Without further delay, here are those tools, the cost of each one and why you need them:

1.  A domain name (cost – less than $1.00 per month) – In order to create a truly autopilot business you are going to need at the very least a simple web page to market the product you are promoting.  As you probably already know, the domain name is just the name of your site or web page.  For example, the domain name for my site is “ReviewAroo.com”.  I own the name and pay $9.99 per year to keep it.

To register your domain name, use GoDaddy.com.  They have the best prices, are very user friendly and have good customer support.

2.  A web host (cost – $7.95 per month)  A web host is simply the party that stores all the pages of your website on their server (think  big, huge computer!) and makes those pages available to computers connected to the internet. In other words, when somebody enters your domain name into their internet browser’s address field, your website is loaded to that person’s computer from your web host.  I personally use and recommend  HostGator.com.  The cost of their “baby plan” is only $7.95 per month and it will be more than sufficient for your internet marketing needs.

3.  A Web Page/Site (cost – $0 to $75).  If you are looking to build a substantial online income, you will need to have a web page/site.  Depending on what you are marketing, your site can be as simple as a single page designed to collect names and email addresses of prospective customers ( aka a “squeeze page”) or it can be more sophisticated such as a blog or a traditional website.

If you are looking to market a specific product through pay-per-click advertising and don’t plan on building a site with a lot of content, then a squeeze page will be sufficient.  If you are planning on building a content rich site offering articles and advice on a particular area of expertise, you will want a traditional website and(or) blog.

In either case, it need not be an expensive undertaking.  In fact, if you are looking to go the “blog” route, you can create one exactly like mine for less than $40.  All you need is a web host like HostGator (discussed above), a free wordpress blog (which you can get at Wordpress.com) and an “autoresponder” (discussed in my next point).

If you want to know how to create a “squeeze page” to market a specific product, it’s all explained in my Ebook, 7 Days to Online Profits, which you will receive instantly when you subscribe to the ReviewAroo.com newsletter.   It covers everything from creating the web page yourself for free to getting it up and running on your web host’s server.

If you don’t want to go through the time and hassle of creating your own web pages, I would highly recommend referring the work out.  You’d be surprised how inexpensively you can get the work done.  Here is a screenshot of a “squeeze page” that I had created for me.  The total cost to have the web page created and installed on my web host’s server was only $75!!!  And having someone else do it saved me a lot of time and frustration.

If you want someone to do the same for you, check out Elance.com.  It’s a service that allows you to post jobs and have service providers from around the globe bid on them.  Because the bidding system invites competition, the price usually comes in at a fraction of what you would normally pay to hire a programmer.   And when you leave the design and programming to experts, you can use the extra free time to concentrate on marketing efforts instead of dealing with technical issues.

4. An “Autoresponder” (cost – $19 per month).  An autoresponder is a service  that automatically sends out email messages to your  potential customers so that you can keep in touch with them.

Why do you need an autoresponder? It’s fairly simple.  If you want to build a significant online income, it’s just not enough for you to create a web page/site and sprinkle your affiliate links throughout it.  No matter how compelling your sales message is, very few customers (usually less than 1%) will make a purchase at your website on their first visit. That’s why it’s important to have a way to follow up with your visitors in order to continue communicating with them.  Otherwise, they will leave your site and you will likely never be in contact with them again.  With an autoresponder, visitors enter their name and email address into your“opt-in” (i.e. sign-up) form on your squeeze page and your autoresponder sends out a series of pre-written emails to them at pre-determined intervals. Those emails allow you to provide your visitors with useful information that you think may be of interest to them.  (Note:  The content of  the emails that you send out to prospects will be the subject of a later post, but I highly recommend against sending out a series of  sales pitches for products to your email list.  Your prospects will feel used and just ignore you.  Instead, find a way to provide useful and educational information so that you can build trust and a long term relationship with your customers.)

Most internet marketing businesses use one of the following two autoresponder companies to manage their email lists:

- AWeber

- GetResponse

I personally use and recommend AWeber. It’s easy to use, very reliable and I have been extremely happy with it. However, GetResponse is also a popular and well respected provider. Both offer free trials so you can test them out and then decide later whether you want to continue.

So, there you have it.  4 tools I consider essential if you want to take your online money making efforts to the next level and beyond.  Now get out there and get going!

In my next post in this series, I’ll tell you how to write compelling  “copy” for your squeeze page that will have customers drooling over your affiliate products and, more importantly, reaching for their credit cards!

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