One of the questions I have gotten more than any other over my years of podcasting is some version of this: “Mark, how can I make a little extra money online?” Usually it is someone trying to cover a car payment, chip in on the mortgage, or just have some breathing room in the budget. They want to know how to make an extra $300 a month.
My answer has always been the same, and it still works in 2026. The concept is simple to understand. Actually executing it takes work, persistence, and some learning. But fundamentally, the math is really easy.
Break It Down to Dollars Per Day
If you need to make $300 a month online, what you are really saying is you need to make about $10 a day. When you frame it that way, it already sounds more achievable. Ten dollars a day is less than a fancy coffee drink at most cafes.
Now, how do you make $10 a day? One of the simplest approaches is affiliate marketing — you recommend products and earn a commission when someone buys through your link. Let me walk you through the math with a simple example.
Say you find a product in a niche you are interested in — maybe camping gear, kitchen gadgets, or home office equipment. The product sells for $50, and the affiliate program pays you a $5 commission per sale. To make $10 a day, you need to generate two sales per day.
The Conversion Math
Every website converts visitors into buyers at some rate. A well-built product review page might convert at 3 to 5 percent. Let us use 5 percent for this example, which means for every 100 visitors to your page, five people buy.
If five out of 100 visitors buy, you need 40 visitors to get two sales. Two sales at $5 each gives you your $10 per day.
So where do you get 40 visitors a day? Search engine traffic is still the most reliable free traffic source. If you rank on the first page of Google for a buying keyword like “best budget camping stove” or “top rated standing desk under 200,” you can expect to capture a meaningful percentage of those searches.
Research suggests the top result in Google gets roughly 30 to 40 percent of clicks. If 100 people per day search for your target keyword and you rank first, you get 30 to 40 visitors. That is right in the range you need.
The Formula Still Works
So the recipe is: find a keyword with at least 100 daily searches that indicates buying intent, create a genuinely helpful page targeting that keyword, earn a first-page ranking, and let the math do the rest.
Now, your numbers will vary. Maybe your conversion rate is lower because your content needs work. Maybe the commission is smaller or larger depending on the affiliate program. Maybe you need two keywords instead of one to hit your daily traffic target. The specifics change, but the framework does not.
What Has Changed Since I First Wrote This
When I originally published this post in 2010, the SEO landscape was simpler. You could rank a thin page with some backlinks and basic keyword targeting. In 2026, Google rewards genuine expertise and helpful content. Your page needs to actually be useful to the reader. Product reviews need to demonstrate real knowledge. Thin, keyword-stuffed content does not rank anymore, and it should not.
The good news is that this actually favors part-time entrepreneurs who focus on niches they genuinely know something about. If you are an avid camper writing about camping gear, or a home office enthusiast reviewing desks and monitors, your authentic experience gives you an edge over generic content farms.
The affiliate programs have also gotten better. Amazon Associates is still the easiest starting point for physical products, though the commissions are modest. Programs on networks like ShareASale, Impact, and CJ Affiliate often pay significantly higher commissions for specialized products and services.
The core idea has not changed in 16 years: break the big scary question down into simple math. Figure out your commission per sale, your conversion rate, and your required traffic. Then go build a page that earns that traffic. It really is that straightforward. The execution is where the work lives, but at least the roadmap is clear.
Thanks Mark – good stuff. The key shortcoming for us all in this area is focus. Courtney Tuttle gives a very specific method for getting to roughly $800 a month using hubpages and adsense – and he then shows his specific example of how he did just that it (found at the keyword academy). If you follow the thread, however, most people aren’t impressed by his earnings vs. the work involved – it seemed really “hard to do” and “a ton of work for $800/month”.
Court then gives a great example of someone deciding to circle the block in their car, but, then they quit after half the trip, put the car in park and complain it was too much work to drive around the block.
$300/month based on 30 hours of work really kind of stinks – why not just get a part time job somewhere making more money than that? Lack of focus and seeing a project through to the enjoyment of some recurring income – gets us every time.
I don’t know Court very well, but I have read some of his stuff and he seems sensible. Glad to hear you are getting some value out of Keyword Academy. I always thought that looked like a good deal.
Unfortunately when people make up these little plans or sell WSOs, they always use BCS math.
That’s Best Case Scenario Math. 5% conversion rates are a dream, .5% are the norm, sometimes worse. That slight change makes the amount of work increase by a factor of 10.
I think if you want to be realistic about the whole thing you should actually do the method, and keep a detailed record of your findings so that your numbers will be real, not just speculation. In Kent’s example of the person who quits early, the reason is because they’ve been lied to sooo many times that they stopped believing in the method before the end of the trial.
Hey Rick;
You are right. While I don’t consider this BCS, 5% is pretty high. Of course it depends on the traffic and the copy, but your point is very well taken. Thanks for pointing this out.
Thanks,
Mark
Really great post, I know a lot of people (college, go figure) that want to start into this marketing business but have no idea where to start or how the heck they are supposed to make any money in this business. I’ll definitely refer them to this post and that video as a starting reference.
Yes I also agree, in Internet Marketing we should have some knowledge, patience and hard work to achieve the target.
and we can also say that Internet marketing, also referred to as i-marketing, web-marketing, online-marketing, Search Engine Marketing (SEM) or e-Marketing.
Hey Mark!
I’ve always looked up to you and Josh for great tips on making income online. And I have quite a few little victories using your tips.
One thing that’s bothering me right now is Google’s Adword Keyword Tool. Where before I could use Adword Keyword Tool freely, nowadays Adword seems to have changed the rules and require users to log in and provide billing information.
I’ve always used Adword Keyword Tool for keyword research, do I now need to actually pay Adwords for these information? What’s up with Adwords?
Can you help me out please?
Jaime
As far as I know the tool is still free.
Hey Mark how’s it going?
Really great post. Thanks for giving some really easy to understand examples. Glad you posted this as it contains a lot of good stuff.
Thanks!
Peace,
Darren L Carter
I know that some people do really well with niche sites, but my experience has been that the amount of money I can make compared to the amount of time it takes to make money is not a great payoff per hour. However, I keep my eyes open looking to find the keyword that get lots of traffic with no competition.
Good post but it’s not good to exaggerate things. The standard conversion rate is closer to 0.5-1%. 5% is outstanding and is more an exception than the rule. You at least admit that much. And you are right, the concept is the same but it’s better to be on the conservative side, especially in this example dealing with inexperienced marketers. We all read those hyped up sales letters and how many products actually lived up to their own hype?
Your point is well taken. Of course the conversion rate will depend on the source of the traffic, the copy, and the traffic. But you are right — 5% would be really high.
Alice (and Rick above) – remember that the video here was made by Andrew, not Mark. I agree with Mark in that the video does a good job of simply breaking down the math. I do agree that the numbers are extremely high and could likely not be duplicated in short order by someone with no experience no matter how hard they try.
What most people don’t realize is – it takes a ton of hard work, and the numbers don’t work like basic percentages. Probably 95% of people quit too early, which is in line with numbers in other sales/marketing professions such as real estate, insurance, mlm, etc.
Kent F.
Kent — exactly correct.
Also, Andrew will tell you that if you target “buying keywords” that you can see dramatically improved conversion rates. He is basing his claims on his actual experience as well.
However, no matter what we decide about conversion rates, the point is not to focus on specific numbers. The point is to teach people how to think about the problem.
As you point out, the key ingredient is hard work.
Thanks!
Thank you….simple and very well said… so easy to understand…
Hansens course is just another example of trying to sell shovels and picks to would be gold miners. Hey newbies have you not figured it out yet! thats all these Gurus are doing, selling you the tools to go waste your time, they aint selling you a map they are selling you a dream. Hansen is just another would be Levi selling shuckster, with a touch of sincerity. 5% conversion! go dig a hole and lay in it!
Chinese maths to fool the fresh meat, 1% would be phenomenal and .001 would be normal.
Please dont try and justify this with saying its dependent on the keywords and the sales copy, it is, but 5% is just plain misleading, show us the figures in real time Mr Hansen,show us the figures, but you wont will you? You will however just show us the tried tested and dam hard work way of submitting Articles, Vids and Press Releases to get backlinks, good luck with that because all the best keywords are already being battled for and you will have to keep up the fight so that you dont fall victim to the Google shuffle.
The question I would like to ask to all these Gurus is “How come if your methods are so money churning good, then why are you spending lots of your valuable time putting together courses to flog to us”
Oh is your philanthropic nature isn’t it, you just want to give back LOL – do us a favor.
Hey Jack — sorry you feel that way. People are definately making money with affiliate marketing. Certainly you are not suggesting that people are not making money on line? Amazon reported over 1.3 million sellers sold products through Amazon’s World Wide Web sites in 2007. It is estimated that over 1/3 of their revenue comes from affiliates.
So, the money is out there. Your other question is a pretty good one. Why doesn’t Andrew just make money instead of teaching how to make money. You’ll have to ask Andrew about that one.
For me, I actually like “helping people profitably”. Just like selling bananas or pork bellies, when you and I interact, you put a value on that interaction. If you value it highly, you may choose to pay me to help you. It’s that simple for me.
The same thing that motivates me to publish your comment rather than hide out and delete it motivates me to help people. I want to make money, but that is not the only consideration (or even the most important one).
Hope that helps!
Thanks,
Mark
Hi Mark, Not suggesting that their isn’t “gold in them there hills” I know there is. Further I am certainly not casting any aspersions in your direction. I check out your blog most weeks as I consider your opinions and advice to be some of the best and I would recommend it to anyone interested in the subject.
What I do have objection too Mark is the amount of rubbish that is aimed directly at those new pools of marketing newbies who appear and then disappear on the windscreen of the internet like drops of condensation, being mopped up with misinformation and Chinese mathematics.
to answer my own question Mark, “How come if your methods are so money churning good, then why are you spending lots of your valuable time putting together courses to flog to us”
Maybe they spend so much time and effort creating these products because actually doing what they teach is far more time consuming and difficult and far less profitable than selling Pans and Picks.
BTW you and I know that the people who are really making a killing in IM are not using the methods that are going to be told to newbies.
I wish you and all your readers all the very best: Jack