Stone Evans wrote an ebook called Dotcomology, the science of making money online that can be used to help you get more international clients. .
First, there’s a solid set of lessons for anyone interested in making money online, past self-advertising, and these same lessons can be taken to a higher level when it comes to landing international clients.
A zen story to learn
Evans begins, after an announcement, with a zen story that I’ll summarize.
A young man read all the books he could find on Zen. He heard about a great Zen teacher and made an appointment. After some time, the teacher suggested that they drink tea. The teacher began to pour tea into the student’s cup. He poured until it was full and kept pouring. The tea slid off the rim of the cup and onto the table. The master continued to serve as the tea dribbled off the table and onto the floor. Finally, the student could contain himself no longer.
He shouted: “Stop! Stop pouring! The cup is full, no more will go in!”
The teacher stopped pouring and said, “Like this cup, your mind is filled with your own opinions and preconceived ideas. How can you learn anything unless you first empty your cup?”
Evans’s point is that to benefit from any book on the Internet it’s good to empty your cup and start drinking what’s served to you. Don’t listen to the ‘experts’, or at least forget for a while what they said, and take everything as new. Often experts are experts because they read all the books.
Earn large amounts of money online
Do you want to earn a million dollars selling “green widgets”? Find someone who has already done it and talk to that person. Don’t talk to someone who made a million selling just widgets, it’s not the same. They may be closed, but it’s not the same.
Evans goes over the basics, most people assume everyone knows:
- Make your site attractive, interesting and attractive
- have good content
- Make your information easily accessible
- Design your pages cleanly
- Eliminate all download and usability issues
- Proof. Try again. Ask someone else to test for you.
A very important point to remember is that your audience changes. When you’re making your site attractive, it doesn’t have to be attractive to you, but to your target audience. Be culturally aware of your target audience when you are working through each of the bullet points above.
Some people want to make millions overnight. In theory this is possible because it has happened before. A better idea would be to answer these four questions.
- Are you taking advantage of everything the Internet has to offer?
- What businesses are successful now that you can duplicate?
- Should you sell a service or a product?
- Do you up-sell and cross-sell?
If you’re not taking advantage of all the internet has to offer, then you’re limiting yourself.
Do you have an affiliate group you can work with?
Just because someone doesn’t buy from you doesn’t mean a sale can’t be made. If someone leaves your site, make sure the last thing they have is a popup offering the best deal ever, or a link to a partner site.
SEO
Evans has a detailed section on how search engines work and what you can do to make them work for you. Search engine usage, pay per click, link popularity and link analytics.
It also covers optimizing your site and tracking your progress.
At the end of this section you have a very complicated section on spam. don’t do it That’s what it says, word for word “Don’t do it.”
Affiliate programs, email marketing, newsletters
Stone Evans has made a lot of money through affiliate programs, so he has a nice 100 page section on this topic.
This is where the “Do you want to make a million dollars selling horseshoes?” is relevant. Find someone who has already done it. Evans has made money through affiliate programs, email marketing, and newsletters from him, so he reads these sections to learn from the master.
Evans goes further on the subject of affiliate programs to explain how to build software, even if you’re not a programmer. This is a powerful section. I have used it to develop widgets and toolbars for my websites. These simple software programs are very popular and I get international traffic to my websites just for downloading these tools.
one final warning
Evans says something that I really appreciate.
Internet beginners make a common mistake that they should never make. “The fact is that the fact that you can automate many redundant tasks to make money online does not mean that the streets of the Internet are paved with gold. Like any opportunity, there are scams and dangers. As you set up your online business it is It’s important to stay alert, use common sense and keep your feet firmly on the ground.
Advertisements aside, this is a great read for anyone starting out with an internet business, and did I mention the price?
It’s free.