Everyone wants to Make Money Online (MMO for short) however it seems like all to often we see people that are looking for the quick way to make money online. Theres nothing wrong with curiosity but the situation gets harder when you really don’t have much experience, in terms of blogging or the internet for that matter. I got an email recently that said the following:

Hi Enkay,
I know that you have been successful online but I want to know whats the easiest and fastest way to make money online? In your opinion, whats the best method to monetize my blog?
Sincerely,
xxxxxx

I usually don’t get those types of emails because I’m not a big time money maker but I like to say that I “get by”. Either way, this got me thinking. Well, to be honest, theres a few myths about MMO and I wanted to clear those up so lets take a look at those:

1) I Can Make Money Online Fast – Well, some can and some can’t but most of us really cant. You need to have two things for this to work: interesting content and traffic. Interesting content is necessary because without that you’re really not going to make people want to come back. Traffic is necessary because the more traffic you have, there is a higher probability of making more money.

2) All I Need Is A Blog - Technically thats true but in reality its really not. More than having a blog you need content (as I mentioned before) and above everything else you need a reputation. A reputation will help you gain people’s trust. Why believe me over someone else? Well, maybe because I have a better reputation in the sense that I have more proven knowledge about something or because I’m already at a certain level of success.

3) I Can Trick People Into Clicking On Ads – You surely can but don’t expect them to come back either. You can embed your ads in a manner where people accidentally click on them or are fooled into thinking its an internal link. Although this might make you a little bit of money quickly, its not going to lead up to anything in the future.

4) All I Need Is Backlinks, Right? – Its easy to think that you can just “get” backlinks from anyone and everyone to help raise up your traffic or Technorati but thats not as easy as it sounds. You have to really inspire someone or provide them with information that took a long time to compile for them to even want to link back to you. It may sound good, but its not that easy.

5) Time Commitment? Psshh, It’ll Take Me 5 Minutes Tops! – Sorry to burst your bubble but blogging doesn’t take five minutes, atleast if you’re a good blogger. Most everyone that blogs puts in at least 45 minutes to an hour into their blogs. Those who are full-time blogger commit their entire time to blogging. You have to realize that blogging requires a time commitment and if you’re running away from commitment then this isn’t for you.

6) I Don’t Need Friends, I’m A Force All By Myself - As much as you’d like to think so, this isn’t true and you do need friends, in the blogosphere and in your personal life. As much as you like to deny it, you really need to network in order to be able to sustain yourself in the blogosphere. You need people to discuss certain things with, give you feedback and share comments with. You may also want to indulge in Social Networking sites like Twitter, Plurk or Facebook.

7) Emails & Comments Are For Dummies - Wow, that sounds pretty conceited but I’m surprised by the amounts of bloggers that think that way. You really need to take time out to email people back and respond to their comments. I’ve always tried my hardest to respond back to comments and email people back. Its how you can relate to your readers and communicate with them also.

So I hope you enjoyed yet another list by me but I really feel strongly about this topic and I enjoy talking about it because I made some of those mistakes and I wouldn’t want other people to do the same things I did. In the end, I hope you guys take up some of these tips and pass it on to other bloggers!