I Don't Work For Amazon, Amazon Works For Me!

          Making money. We're told we need to spend forty hours a week doing it. I believe in the concept of work, but I also believe in learning to work smarter, not harder. I am working to develop a series of ways to invest my time and efforts, to create projects that will make money while I'm sleeping. It is said that New York City is the city that never sleeps. While that may be true, the internet, the world wide web, is the true territory that knows no clocks. In the first three days of having this blog, there was only a two hour period during the early hours of the morning on the third day, 3:00-5:00 a.m. that no one looked at this blog. In the same three day period, about 1,200 people had viewed this blog. That is power. That is a market audience. YOU are my audience, and, simply by reading this, you are going to be making me money.
          How do I turn those, your views into dollars? Blogger, my blogging site, has built in ways of adding some ads and monetizing your blog through a program called AdSense. I am currently trying to set up an AdSense account. This will allow me to put ads on my website, but google, the company that controls AdSense (and Blogger), has to approve a person's website or blog before they can put ads on it. This can take between three days, and six months. I'm not that patient, so I turned to other methods. AdSense is also the company that allows you to monetize YouTube videos, and the accounts will be linked, which will be very convenient.
          In researching ways to make a website or blog make money, I discovered that a person can become an Amazon affiliate. I can post Amazon products on my website here and I get a commission on everything that people buy from my website. I googled "Amazon affiliate" and discovered how to do it. It took only a couple minutes to set it up. It took a bit longer to figure out how to add code from amazon to show products, because I know nothing about html. Luckily, my Blogger platform makes it easy for me to add html or JavaScript to my website. You do it through the "layout" tab on Blogger. Below is a YouTube video I made showing exactly how to add Amazon affiliate links to your blog, so everyone else doesn't have to muddle their way through the process like I did. To assure those who know little to nothing about coding, I know nothing about JavaScript, and it only makes me think of the characters from Star Wars. My knowledge of html isn't much better. Nevertheless, my blog is adequate. You can do it. (Watch for another post about tips about creating a blog)

          It is important to be careful when you are becoming an affiliate with different companies and posting different ads on your website. AdSense is very particular about whether or not they will qualify your website for ads. I did quite a bit of research, and it appears that I am allowed to have both Amazon ads and AdSense ads on the same page. I won't know for sure until I am either approved, or rejected for my AdSense account for the blog. It might end up being advantageous to drop the AdSense ads to make more money from other affiliate programs.
          It is important when you are adding affiliate items to your site that you don't post garbage. It is also important that the content is relevant to the message of your page, and that it is of value to your target audience. The books I have listed on the right are fantastic. If you have any sort of debt I would recommend The Total Money Makeoverby Dave Ramsey on the right. Rich Dad Poor Dad is another fantastic book about developing the habits of a rich person. The Tao of Twitter is one I am reading right now. It is about how to use twitter and social media generally to make money and to grow a business. I will only put books on my website that I personally can recommend. The internet says that you cannot earn a commission off of amazon products you buy off of your own blog. I cannot confirm this, as I haven't tried it, but it makes sense.
          Watch for an article on making a blog with Blogger, making money with AdSense, and other opportunities to use your internet presence to make millions. Subscribe by email on the right in order to be notified about new posts. If any of this is helpful, share it with your friends. Comment below if there are any subjects you want me to clarify, apps or money making opportunities you want me to research, or any other questions.