Through several years of experience in Internet marketing, I have started to see some things very clearly about the whole "make money online" thing. And some of those thoughts and ideas just got reinforced after I read this post.
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The most effective way to make a living from attention paid online is to earn trust, connect a tribe and then sell something that isn't online.
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And what not to do:
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Unfortunately, most people do it wrong. They use a long sales pitch letter with highlighted boxes and fake testimonials. They make grandiose promises of secret riches or long-hidden techniques. And most disappointing to those that would build trust, they enlist a legion of affiliate salespeople, linking to one another and gaming search results or buying fake search ads.
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And some points on moving the free line:
In both cases, the model is the same: it's free to get started. So free, in fact, that most people who engage discover that all they need is the free stuff. Since the marginal cost of sharing these samples is free, it costs them nothing to add one more person to the ever-growing list of those that trust, that pay attention and that gladly give permission to their teacher.
The magic comes in because of the inevitable movement of the most motivated students from free to paid. Not because the teacher has to hold anything back to sell out of panic or greed, but because the committed student is happy and eager to pay.
It's almost impossible to hold information hostage online. People are unlikely to sit still as you dangle something valuable but not share what's inside the box. The approach that Paul and Susan take is to eagerly share, and then to clearly delineate between what's free and what's not.
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Source:
Seth's Blog: Monetizing digital attention 
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