Top 5 Ways To Make Money Online
Whew! Another long day at the office and all you want to do is plop down in front of the TV to catch the college game or the new episode of Two and a Half Men. Working a full time job is stressful and tiring, two things that have been shown to actually reduce life expectancy. I believe everyone should have the opportunity to at least try to make money with an online job, so I’ve compiled the top 5 list of online jobs and ways to earn money online.
1- Freelance
Everybody has that little thing that they’re good at. If yours is writing or designing, then you can easily make a solid income online. Freelancers work on a per-project basis, meaning you don’t have a boss to nag you and if you don’t really prefer a client you can always get rid of them after the project and work with a new one. Online marketplaces bring employers and freelancers together.
I personally got my start online through Freelancer.com- my first month working as a full time freelance writer I made a little over $900. It’s not a fortune, I know, but the next month I made a just under twice that amount. Now, I started at Freelancer, so I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for them, but there are other freelancing sites out there, some of the top ones being Elance.com and Guru.com. For freelance writing, graphic design, data entry, web development, even voice work, this is the place to start.
Ahhh yes, blogging. We all hear success stories about bloggers who get rich just by writing their opinions and providing them for all the world to see. Unfortunately, the percentage of this happening is pretty low compared to the sheer number of bloggers out there. To make money blogging, don’t write about your opinions. Focus the blog in some way. For example, I’ve worked in the SEO and affiliate marketing fields quite a bit, and I consider myself fairly knowledgeable, so I decided to make my blog about online jobs. Am I making money with this? Not much yet, but I’m experimenting as I go.
This blog was meant to provide helpful information, not be an outlet for my personal rants. I personally find blogs like that to be overwhelmingly boring, because in the end, what do I gain from that? To blog successfully, focus on one topic or niche and provide information that people can use. The money will be slow at first but the traffic will start to build up, and that’s what’s most important. Once you have enough traffic, you can really focus on monetizing.
3- Affiliate Marketing
This um…career choice…if fraught with scams, frauds, over-hyped sales pitch, and worthless products. Buyer beware, that kind of stuff. The fact that these elements saturate the world of affiliate marketing doesn’t mean that it can’t be a legitimate way to make money online though. Despite the crap, people will still purchase the products that you promote. If you can, however, focus on promoting only worthwhile products, products that provide value, then you’ll eventually start to gather a following and then the real money will start coming in. Take a look at my post Earn A Monthly Income With Linkshare In Just 3 Steps
The reason most people don’t decide to go that route is because it takes longer. It’s much easier to spam the internet with an already-hyped product, take your tiny wad of cash, and run than it is to build up a reputation and give people information about products that they can actually use. Either way you choose to do it, you can earn a solid income with affiliate marketing. For my own start, I ended up using Linkshare.
This is going to be a short section because it’s really a subsection of owning a website or a blog. Pay per click advertising is an ad that you host on your page that you get paid for every time someone clicks on it. This is a legitimate way to earn some extra money, because contrary to popular belief, the ads actually do lead to worthwhile websites, not just scams or pages with more viruses than flu season. If your content is directed and focused, then the ads will be relevant. A lot of people are afraid to put ads on their site because they seem to think that it will push people away, but statistically it doesn’t change a thing. The traffic levels don’t go up or down based on the ads. They just are. I advertise, therefore I am.
5- Sell Photography For Stock
Stock photography is in high demand by virtually every website and business out there. Every picture used for advertising comes from somewhere, and it’s a lot cheaper for a business to purchase stock photography from a site like iStockphoto, Fotolia, or Shutterstock than it is for them to hire a photographer to take the pictures themselves. If you have a decent camera and some skill as a photographer then it’s easy to begin earning royalties from your photos.
For all all of these methods, there is no shortage of success stories, but to become one yourself you need to be determined and goal oriented. They are viable ways of earning money, but unfortunately most people don’t ever get around to putting the effort in and waiting for the return. If you want to make 10,000 today, go buy a lottery ticket. You’ll have a better chance. If you want an opportunity to earn a living working online and doing what you love, then take this one step at a time. The money is out there, you just have to be patient and willing to do what it takes.
I just gave a little blurb for each of these methods of making money online, so if any of them interest you do some more reading or go to some of the links I provided. I earn an affiliate commission on Freelancer, so if you aren’t comfortable with the fact that I might earn money from it, you can always just type http://www.freelancer.com into your browser. The rest of the links are just informational.
Andrew Handley
