Make Money on Fiverr
Fiverr.com is a site where you can make money doing almost anything you can imagine for $5. Simply register for free and create gigs, offering people your services. Whether its singing a song for them, calling their kid and pretending to be Santa or teaching them a Spanish phrase or showing them how to make a facebook fan page, people are willing to pay you doing these things on Fiverr. You will be amazed at how easy it is to make money on Fiverr with things that you could never imagine someone paying you for it.
Get Paid to Play Games (game money)
On game sites like Farm Gold and Second Life, you can make virtual money, which can be exchanged for real money. I am sure you have heard of like Ansche Chung, which is the first person who become a millionaire, exchanging her virtual money earned from Second Life for real money, worth over a million dollar. Get paid to play games
Get Paid as a Game Tester
Very easy way to make money by doing something enjoyable. But, its hard to find legit sites that pay you to test games. If you look around hard enough, you may find a company or two. If I do find one, I will update this page and post it here. So be sure to bookmark this page and check back.
Make Money with Your Own Search Engine
Use Google to build your own custom search engine. Build a search engine for a specific topic like a search engine just for finding information related to music or what have you. To get it going, set up contests for searchers, and give a prize to the biggest searcher. You make your money when people search from your search engine and click on ads.
Make Money Freelance Writing Online
One of the most popular ways to make money online is freelance writing. You don’t need any money to invest, there is no need to own a website, (although having one helps) and best of all, you can make quick money. In most cases you get paid the same day you finish working on the project. There are tons of places online you can offer your writings. There are even some websites that pay you for writing exclusive content for them. Get paid to write
Get Paid to Comment on Blogs
In order to rank higher and attract more traffic to make money, bloggers need quality links pointing back to their blog from other blogs, more than anything else. You can do that for them by commenting on other peoples blog and charging $0.50 or so for each link back.
Become a Job Referrer
Some firms pay referral bonuses of up to $1,000 for referring the right person for a job. Develop relationships with recruiters, like temporary job finding services and refer people who you know are fit for the specific job. You can do this both online and offline.
Software Plus
Work on already developed softwares and make them better and easier to work with.
Convert Online Money
You can make money by converting, EGold money into Paypal money, etc. People charge up to 5%-10% to do the same thing.
Drop Shipping
Use sites like CaféPress to create a free storefront online and be a drop shipper. You don’t have to deal with anything but getting customer to visit your online store front.
Sell Craft and Art Work Online
Have free time on your hand and are good at making things? Well, use your skills to create art work and crafts to sell online. You can sell your art work and crafts either on ebay or classified sites, especially CraigsList.
Make Money with CPA
CPA is a much easier version of affiliate marketing, which most of the time you don’t have to sell anything. You just have to send leads to advertisers site. For example, some Advertiser will pay you up to $5, each time you send a lead to there page where the person enters an email address or a zip code in order to participate in a survey to win something. Although to get accepted by CPA networks you have to have a website or a blog, you don’t need a website or blog to make money as a CPA affiliate. CPA for beginners
Get paid to Socialize
Now that Social networking sites are becoming more popular, a lot of people want to get in the game and make money running their own social networking site. But, since they need some members to get the word out and make the site look active, they are willing to pay people to become members and post messages. Here are some social networking site you can get paid . Get paid for social networking 5 Social Networking Sites that pay you
There you have it, 53 online jobs you can use to earn money working from home. I hope this list can give you some ideas and inspirations for making money online. Please keep in mind that most of the above online money making ideas, are simply ways to make extra cash. They are not to be looked at as long term work at home business plans. Although, a few of them, like making money on ebay and making money with affiliate programs do provide fantastic work at home opportunities and are revered by many internet marketers as some of the best ways to make money online.
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Learn How To Make Money Online
Earn Money Designing Websites
If you are good at designing sites, why not make money doing so? There are even free softwares such as Kompozer that you can use to design and build nice looking websites without any knowledge of HTML. Use webmaster related forums like WarriorForum and DigitalPoints to find buyers.
Make Money Designing T-Shirts and Other Customizable Items
If you are good at making up catchy phrases and cool designs, you can make a decent amount of money designing and selling T-shirts on sites like CaféPress. Get paid to design t shirts
Make Money with Digital Scrap Booking Templates
I personally don’t get this, but many people love to scrapbook, and they do pay good money for templates. Make different kinds of templates and make it easy for people to use them.
Make Money on Youtube
One way to use YouTube is to use it as a tool to get yourself known. In this age of YouTube and instant super stardom, it’s not very far fetched to think you can become a star if you can sing. YouTube and other video sharing sites make it possible for anyone to have a chance to be discovered by record label companies. How to Make Money on You Tube
Make Money Making MySpace Backgrounds
They are all over the internet, those ad for MySpace background! And that means only one thing, there is a market for MySpace backgrounds! Creating MySpace backgrounds isn’t that hard. But, most users don’t have the time to do it or are simply lazy. You can provide them with this service and customize their MySpace pages and charge a fee for doing so. What better place to advertise your service than MySpace itself?…
Get Paid For Your videos
With the huge interest in videos online, there is always room for more. Create interesting videos of yourself or whatever and upload them to Web Sites like Revver and Break. They will share a percentage of their ad revenue with you. Plus, you get something for each download as well.
Get Paid To Read Emails
As the title suggest, you get paid for reading emails. Everyday you receive paid emails in your inbox with links to different websites, whcih you have to click and view for a few seconds. Not a lot of money, but its something extra. Get paid to read emails
Make Money with Reward Programs
Another one of those “quick” ways to make money online. Reward programs or as they are known online as GPT (stands for Get Paid To) are sites that pay their members for doing variety of things. Basically, you earn money for doing thing that you already do online in some way or another, such as signing up for freebies, registering with interesting sites, shopping, visiting different websites ad etc. GPT site are like middle man, they get paid from advertisers to drive leads (you) to them. They then give a percentage of what they earn from their advertisers with their members. GPT Sites
Earn Money Doing Directory Submission
In order for a website or blog to be successful and make money, it needs traffic. There are many ways to work on traffic. One way is to submit your site to website directories. But, many webmaster and blogger are busy with other aspects of running a site, so they don’t have time to do this. That’s where you can come in and offer to submit their site to directories for a fee. Use forums like SitePoints and DigitalPoint to offer your service to webmasters.
Get Paid To Review
Set up a website or a blog and start a review site. Website owners and bloggers will pay you to post a review of their site on your site. It helps them get the word out and helps you make money. You can also pick affiliate products and review them on your site and place your affiliate link for that product in the article. Every time someone buys that product using your link, you get a commission. Get Paid to Review
Make Money with a Niche Directory
You have seen those directory sites that have a list of specific sites in different categories. Set up one for yourself. Gather a list of site and sources related to a specific niche and list them on your site. Sell ad space to other webmasters. You can charge a monthly fee to have their ads shown on your site. BuySellAds.com is a good place to look for potential customers.
Get Paid to Search
Search engines are big money makers. No wonder every day new search engines pup up everywhere. But since they are not as big as Google and yahoo and some other engines, they pay you to use their site to search. Basically their sharing their earnings from their advertisers with you. Get Paid to Search
Make Extra Money Making Photo Mosaics
If you can make photo mosaics, set up a website and offer your Photo Mosaics service. You will be surprised how many people pay for these things.
Work as a Virtual Assistant
As more online based businesses are born every day, virtual assistant services are on high demand. People use virtual assistant for research, finding things, doing time consuming tasks, making phone calls and etc. Setup a free blog or site to offer your service. Make Money as a Virtual Assistant
Make Money Hosting Online Forums
Use softwares like SebFlipper to host hundreds of separate forums from a single web server. Make money by charging people to host a forum with you, or offer it for free, but show your ads on their forums and make money that way.
Get Paid To Install Applications
Most People have problem with installing different kinds of applications. If you are good at installing a particular app or a software, why not make some money while helping others?
Get Paid To Answer Questions
If you have knowledge about something (which you do, everybody knows about something that others may not know), put it to work for you. There are many websites that you can offer your expertise and knowledge in exchange for money. Get paid to answer questions
Pod Casting
Think of it as a voice or video blogging. Talk about interesting topics and make money from ads shown. If you are a good speaker, can provide useful information and have a nice voice, it’s not that hard to get hundreds of subscribers. You can use free sites like Odiogo.com to turn your blog into a podcast!
Make Money on eBay
Believe it or not, there are lots of people who don’t know how to sell on eBay. You can sell their stuff on eBay in exchange for a commission. You can take this one step farther and turn it into a bigger business by buying wholesale items and selling them individually on eBay. Don’t forget that garage sales are often good places to find worthy items for a fraction of the cost. How to Make Money on eBay
Make Money with Focus Groups
Focus group are basically the same as paid surveys, but unlike paid surveys, most focus groups are conducted in a physical location. Focus group studies are held in most major cities. You will be in with a group of other selected people, talking and answering question about whatever product or service the study is about. You can expect to get paid from $60 to $250 for an hour to a full day of study. Paid Focus Groups
Domain Drop Shipping
It’s basically selling domain registration for big domain registration sites like TuCows, which makes it easy for you to start your own private label domain registration. You can make money not only from the initial sale, but from renewals as well.
Create and Sell E-Books
You can make e-books about anything. If you have some knowledge about anything, whether its a recipe or a how to do this and that. Its not as hard as you think. Look at some e-books that are selling for $50-$100 or whatever, and you see what i mean (most of them are crap, but people do pay for them!). How to make an ebook for free
Make Money with Amazon Mechanical Turk
Its one of the biggest unknown ways of making money online, yet its so easy to do. You do simple tasks like differentiating pictures from text, and get paid for it. If you have enough time to invest in it, you can make good money with amazon turk. Make money with amazon mechanical turk
Get Paid to Review Softwares
WebSites like SoftwareJudge will pay you for using and reviewing any of the software available in their collection.
Make Money Blogging
Blogging is becoming increasingly popular. You can set up a blog in less than an hour. There are many free blogging platforms you can use at first. When you get comfortable, then pay for your own hosting and domain name. You can blog about anything you like, no matter how bizarre and unusual you may think it is. There is always an audience out ether. You can make money with your blog, showing ads on your blog using advertising programs like Google ad sense or selling affiliate products or even your own short reports and e-books. However, making money with blogs takes lots of work and time. You have to be patient and willing to put a lot of time and effort into it.
Earn Money Moderating a Forum
Forums are another great way to make some extra money. You probably already participate in a forum or two. Why not start a forum of your own? Pick a topic you like and build a forum based on it where people can talk about it and share their ideas and experiences about he subject with each other. You can make money showing ads. And if the forum becomes popular, you can charge people to join, or have a special room in the forum where one has to subscribe in order to participate. An example of that would be the WarRoom which only paid users of worrier forum have access to.
Get Paid For Data Entry
Not the scam one, we are talking about data entry for Google. Google pays people to take photos of businesses, and enter basic data such as hours of operation. You know how many business are located just next to your favorite grocery store? MyDataTeam
Make Money Creating Softwares
Know how to make a software? Then start writing software and plug-ins. One of the hottest plug-in markets is the blogging platforms like word press and blogger. Use forums to find out what bloggers need that you can make a plug-in for. Create your plug-in or software, and set up a free blog to advertise it.
Make Money Posting On Forums
People who start a new forums often pay people to post on their forums, so it will look active, therefore attracts more people to join the discussion. Many forums will pay up to $0.25 per post, which can be just a sentence or two. Again you can use established forums to find people who are looking for forum posters.
Ads On Forums
If you like participating in forums or are already a member of any forum, look for “ad share” sign in your user CP. Some forums offer a percentage of their earnings from ads, with their members.
Earn Money Online Translating Document
If you speak a second language, why not translate document online and offline, and get paid for it? Free classified sites are the best way to advertiser your service.
If you are good at designing sites, why not make money doing so? There are even free softwares such as Kompozer that you can use to design and build nice looking websites without any knowledge of HTML. Use webmaster related forums like WarriorForum and DigitalPoints to find buyers.
Make Money Designing T-Shirts and Other Customizable Items
If you are good at making up catchy phrases and cool designs, you can make a decent amount of money designing and selling T-shirts on sites like CaféPress. Get paid to design t shirts
Make Money with Digital Scrap Booking Templates
I personally don’t get this, but many people love to scrapbook, and they do pay good money for templates. Make different kinds of templates and make it easy for people to use them.
Make Money on Youtube
One way to use YouTube is to use it as a tool to get yourself known. In this age of YouTube and instant super stardom, it’s not very far fetched to think you can become a star if you can sing. YouTube and other video sharing sites make it possible for anyone to have a chance to be discovered by record label companies. How to Make Money on You Tube
Make Money Making MySpace Backgrounds
They are all over the internet, those ad for MySpace background! And that means only one thing, there is a market for MySpace backgrounds! Creating MySpace backgrounds isn’t that hard. But, most users don’t have the time to do it or are simply lazy. You can provide them with this service and customize their MySpace pages and charge a fee for doing so. What better place to advertise your service than MySpace itself?…
Get Paid For Your videos
With the huge interest in videos online, there is always room for more. Create interesting videos of yourself or whatever and upload them to Web Sites like Revver and Break. They will share a percentage of their ad revenue with you. Plus, you get something for each download as well.
Get Paid To Read Emails
As the title suggest, you get paid for reading emails. Everyday you receive paid emails in your inbox with links to different websites, whcih you have to click and view for a few seconds. Not a lot of money, but its something extra. Get paid to read emails
Make Money with Reward Programs
Another one of those “quick” ways to make money online. Reward programs or as they are known online as GPT (stands for Get Paid To) are sites that pay their members for doing variety of things. Basically, you earn money for doing thing that you already do online in some way or another, such as signing up for freebies, registering with interesting sites, shopping, visiting different websites ad etc. GPT site are like middle man, they get paid from advertisers to drive leads (you) to them. They then give a percentage of what they earn from their advertisers with their members. GPT Sites
Earn Money Doing Directory Submission
In order for a website or blog to be successful and make money, it needs traffic. There are many ways to work on traffic. One way is to submit your site to website directories. But, many webmaster and blogger are busy with other aspects of running a site, so they don’t have time to do this. That’s where you can come in and offer to submit their site to directories for a fee. Use forums like SitePoints and DigitalPoint to offer your service to webmasters.
Get Paid To Review
Set up a website or a blog and start a review site. Website owners and bloggers will pay you to post a review of their site on your site. It helps them get the word out and helps you make money. You can also pick affiliate products and review them on your site and place your affiliate link for that product in the article. Every time someone buys that product using your link, you get a commission. Get Paid to Review
Make Money with a Niche Directory
You have seen those directory sites that have a list of specific sites in different categories. Set up one for yourself. Gather a list of site and sources related to a specific niche and list them on your site. Sell ad space to other webmasters. You can charge a monthly fee to have their ads shown on your site. BuySellAds.com is a good place to look for potential customers.
Get Paid to Search
Search engines are big money makers. No wonder every day new search engines pup up everywhere. But since they are not as big as Google and yahoo and some other engines, they pay you to use their site to search. Basically their sharing their earnings from their advertisers with you. Get Paid to Search
Make Extra Money Making Photo Mosaics
If you can make photo mosaics, set up a website and offer your Photo Mosaics service. You will be surprised how many people pay for these things.
Work as a Virtual Assistant
As more online based businesses are born every day, virtual assistant services are on high demand. People use virtual assistant for research, finding things, doing time consuming tasks, making phone calls and etc. Setup a free blog or site to offer your service. Make Money as a Virtual Assistant
Make Money Hosting Online Forums
Use softwares like SebFlipper to host hundreds of separate forums from a single web server. Make money by charging people to host a forum with you, or offer it for free, but show your ads on their forums and make money that way.
Get Paid To Install Applications
Most People have problem with installing different kinds of applications. If you are good at installing a particular app or a software, why not make some money while helping others?
Get Paid To Answer Questions
If you have knowledge about something (which you do, everybody knows about something that others may not know), put it to work for you. There are many websites that you can offer your expertise and knowledge in exchange for money. Get paid to answer questions
Pod Casting
Think of it as a voice or video blogging. Talk about interesting topics and make money from ads shown. If you are a good speaker, can provide useful information and have a nice voice, it’s not that hard to get hundreds of subscribers. You can use free sites like Odiogo.com to turn your blog into a podcast!
Make Money on eBay
Believe it or not, there are lots of people who don’t know how to sell on eBay. You can sell their stuff on eBay in exchange for a commission. You can take this one step farther and turn it into a bigger business by buying wholesale items and selling them individually on eBay. Don’t forget that garage sales are often good places to find worthy items for a fraction of the cost. How to Make Money on eBay
Make Money with Focus Groups
Focus group are basically the same as paid surveys, but unlike paid surveys, most focus groups are conducted in a physical location. Focus group studies are held in most major cities. You will be in with a group of other selected people, talking and answering question about whatever product or service the study is about. You can expect to get paid from $60 to $250 for an hour to a full day of study. Paid Focus Groups
Domain Drop Shipping
It’s basically selling domain registration for big domain registration sites like TuCows, which makes it easy for you to start your own private label domain registration. You can make money not only from the initial sale, but from renewals as well.
Create and Sell E-Books
You can make e-books about anything. If you have some knowledge about anything, whether its a recipe or a how to do this and that. Its not as hard as you think. Look at some e-books that are selling for $50-$100 or whatever, and you see what i mean (most of them are crap, but people do pay for them!). How to make an ebook for free
Make Money with Amazon Mechanical Turk
Its one of the biggest unknown ways of making money online, yet its so easy to do. You do simple tasks like differentiating pictures from text, and get paid for it. If you have enough time to invest in it, you can make good money with amazon turk. Make money with amazon mechanical turk
Get Paid to Review Softwares
WebSites like SoftwareJudge will pay you for using and reviewing any of the software available in their collection.
Make Money Blogging
Blogging is becoming increasingly popular. You can set up a blog in less than an hour. There are many free blogging platforms you can use at first. When you get comfortable, then pay for your own hosting and domain name. You can blog about anything you like, no matter how bizarre and unusual you may think it is. There is always an audience out ether. You can make money with your blog, showing ads on your blog using advertising programs like Google ad sense or selling affiliate products or even your own short reports and e-books. However, making money with blogs takes lots of work and time. You have to be patient and willing to put a lot of time and effort into it.
Earn Money Moderating a Forum
Forums are another great way to make some extra money. You probably already participate in a forum or two. Why not start a forum of your own? Pick a topic you like and build a forum based on it where people can talk about it and share their ideas and experiences about he subject with each other. You can make money showing ads. And if the forum becomes popular, you can charge people to join, or have a special room in the forum where one has to subscribe in order to participate. An example of that would be the WarRoom which only paid users of worrier forum have access to.
Get Paid For Data Entry
Not the scam one, we are talking about data entry for Google. Google pays people to take photos of businesses, and enter basic data such as hours of operation. You know how many business are located just next to your favorite grocery store? MyDataTeam
Make Money Creating Softwares
Know how to make a software? Then start writing software and plug-ins. One of the hottest plug-in markets is the blogging platforms like word press and blogger. Use forums to find out what bloggers need that you can make a plug-in for. Create your plug-in or software, and set up a free blog to advertise it.
Make Money Posting On Forums
People who start a new forums often pay people to post on their forums, so it will look active, therefore attracts more people to join the discussion. Many forums will pay up to $0.25 per post, which can be just a sentence or two. Again you can use established forums to find people who are looking for forum posters.
Ads On Forums
If you like participating in forums or are already a member of any forum, look for “ad share” sign in your user CP. Some forums offer a percentage of their earnings from ads, with their members.
Earn Money Online Translating Document
If you speak a second language, why not translate document online and offline, and get paid for it? Free classified sites are the best way to advertiser your service.
Few Ways to Make Legit Money Online
Ways to make money online, search for it and you’ll find hundreds of them. Some are legitimate and real methods for making money online and others are scams and get rich quick schemes. In this post, you will find 53 legitimate ways to earn money online working from home, from making money with affiliate programs, blogging and freelancing to making money on eBay, online surveys, GPT programs and many easy ways to make money fast.
Although there are so many different ways to make money on the internet, making money on the internet isn’t always easy or quick. It takes hard work and dedication. Yes, there are some online jobs that are easier than others and there are some methods that are a bit quicker when it comes to making money online. But if you want to make real money, you have to work for it.
Earning money online is no different than making money offline. If you want to work at home, you need to have the right mind set. Forget about making money with a push of a button, free money or the magic money making method that is going to get you rich over night. Though, internet itself is a virtual world, there is nothing virtual about the need to work to make money online.
Earning money online takes hard work and consistency. And if you are willing to put enough time and effort into it, there are number of ways you can use the internet to make extra money. Here are 53 ways to make money online:
Note:
Wherever possible, I tried to provide other resources and information about some of these methods by linking to other more in dept and detailed articles, which will give you more information on how to make money online with that specific method. I hope it will be helpful.
Get Paid to Take Online Surveys
One of the best ways to make money online is doing online surveys. Market research companies get paid from manufacturers and companies to gather feedback from their consumers, which they do by conducting online surveys. They then share some of that money with their members who participate in online surveys they conduct. Although, paid survey scams have mad it harder for people to find legitimate paid surveys sites, there are still hundreds of legitimate paid survey companies out there, willing to pay you for your opinion. Legitimate Free Online Surveys
Making Money with Affiliate Programs
This is by far one of the top ways to make money online. You are basically selling other people’s stuff for a commission. You can find digital products like e-books and short reports to promote on sites like ClickBank and PayDotcom. Affiliate Marketing for beginners
Get Paid to Surf
Get paid to surf is kind of big on the internet. And of course, scammers are all over it as well. So, be careful and make sure you register with known and trusted sites. You won’t make much money, but not much work is required either. Get paid to surf
Make Money Selling Photos Online
If you like photography and can take interesting pictures, there are many sites you can upload your images too and get paid every time someone downloads an image of yours. The good thing is that one photo can sell over and over again. Imagine the potential of having 100s of images on few sites. Get Paid for Photos
Get Paid Sharing Files Online
There are a couple of document sharing sites that you can upload any kind of file you own to, and every time someone downloads it, you get paid for it. Files can be in almost any format, from TXT to PDF and everything in between. Get Paid to Upload
Earn Money as a Mystery Shopper
Mystery shopping is becoming a popular method for companies to evaluate there employees and their customer services skills. Although there are a lot of different opinions about this, mystery shopping is actually growing as an industry. You will be assigned to shop and dine in different places and report your experience back. Depending on specific assignments, you can expect to get paid anywhere from $40 to $300 or more per assignment. Of course, the amount that you spend buying goods and services will be reimbursed. Sometimes you get to keep the item you bought at no charge to you. Get Paid to Shop
Sell Unused Items on eBay and CraigsList
Almost everyone knows how to make money on eBay these days and you are probably tired of hearing about it. But the truth of the matter is that eBay is a really good way to make money. Another great place to sell unused stuff is CraigsList. CL is one of the most visited sites in the world, so your ad will get viewed by many potential buyers and its free to place an ad on CL. Look around your house and find things you don’t need and use any more. List them on eBay for a fair price. No mater how much money you end up making selling your unwanted stuff on eBay, its still better than letting them dust in your garage! How to Make Money on CraigsList
Make Money Designing Logos
Hundreds of new websites and blogs are born everyday. Most of them will need a logo, but not every site owner knows how to make a logo. If you have some design talent, you can make good money offering custom logo creations on webmaster related forums and classified ads sites. Don’t have a professional software? Use free imaging tools such as PhotoFilter to make stunning logos.
Make Money Flipping Website and Domain
Buy good domains and resell for a profit. Build a website or a blog, work on it for a while and get it going. It’s Just like flipping houses, when you get the site to a good point, put it up for sale. People like websites that are ready to go, and they do pay good money for it. Hundreds of website are bought and sold every day on sites like Flippa.com. Make Money Selling Domains
Although there are so many different ways to make money on the internet, making money on the internet isn’t always easy or quick. It takes hard work and dedication. Yes, there are some online jobs that are easier than others and there are some methods that are a bit quicker when it comes to making money online. But if you want to make real money, you have to work for it.
Earning money online is no different than making money offline. If you want to work at home, you need to have the right mind set. Forget about making money with a push of a button, free money or the magic money making method that is going to get you rich over night. Though, internet itself is a virtual world, there is nothing virtual about the need to work to make money online.
Earning money online takes hard work and consistency. And if you are willing to put enough time and effort into it, there are number of ways you can use the internet to make extra money. Here are 53 ways to make money online:
Note:
Wherever possible, I tried to provide other resources and information about some of these methods by linking to other more in dept and detailed articles, which will give you more information on how to make money online with that specific method. I hope it will be helpful.
Get Paid to Take Online Surveys
One of the best ways to make money online is doing online surveys. Market research companies get paid from manufacturers and companies to gather feedback from their consumers, which they do by conducting online surveys. They then share some of that money with their members who participate in online surveys they conduct. Although, paid survey scams have mad it harder for people to find legitimate paid surveys sites, there are still hundreds of legitimate paid survey companies out there, willing to pay you for your opinion. Legitimate Free Online Surveys
Making Money with Affiliate Programs
This is by far one of the top ways to make money online. You are basically selling other people’s stuff for a commission. You can find digital products like e-books and short reports to promote on sites like ClickBank and PayDotcom. Affiliate Marketing for beginners
Get Paid to Surf
Get paid to surf is kind of big on the internet. And of course, scammers are all over it as well. So, be careful and make sure you register with known and trusted sites. You won’t make much money, but not much work is required either. Get paid to surf
Make Money Selling Photos Online
If you like photography and can take interesting pictures, there are many sites you can upload your images too and get paid every time someone downloads an image of yours. The good thing is that one photo can sell over and over again. Imagine the potential of having 100s of images on few sites. Get Paid for Photos
Get Paid Sharing Files Online
There are a couple of document sharing sites that you can upload any kind of file you own to, and every time someone downloads it, you get paid for it. Files can be in almost any format, from TXT to PDF and everything in between. Get Paid to Upload
Earn Money as a Mystery Shopper
Mystery shopping is becoming a popular method for companies to evaluate there employees and their customer services skills. Although there are a lot of different opinions about this, mystery shopping is actually growing as an industry. You will be assigned to shop and dine in different places and report your experience back. Depending on specific assignments, you can expect to get paid anywhere from $40 to $300 or more per assignment. Of course, the amount that you spend buying goods and services will be reimbursed. Sometimes you get to keep the item you bought at no charge to you. Get Paid to Shop
Sell Unused Items on eBay and CraigsList
Almost everyone knows how to make money on eBay these days and you are probably tired of hearing about it. But the truth of the matter is that eBay is a really good way to make money. Another great place to sell unused stuff is CraigsList. CL is one of the most visited sites in the world, so your ad will get viewed by many potential buyers and its free to place an ad on CL. Look around your house and find things you don’t need and use any more. List them on eBay for a fair price. No mater how much money you end up making selling your unwanted stuff on eBay, its still better than letting them dust in your garage! How to Make Money on CraigsList
Make Money Designing Logos
Hundreds of new websites and blogs are born everyday. Most of them will need a logo, but not every site owner knows how to make a logo. If you have some design talent, you can make good money offering custom logo creations on webmaster related forums and classified ads sites. Don’t have a professional software? Use free imaging tools such as PhotoFilter to make stunning logos.
Make Money Flipping Website and Domain
Buy good domains and resell for a profit. Build a website or a blog, work on it for a while and get it going. It’s Just like flipping houses, when you get the site to a good point, put it up for sale. People like websites that are ready to go, and they do pay good money for it. Hundreds of website are bought and sold every day on sites like Flippa.com. Make Money Selling Domains
Three Business Ideas That Will Thrive In A Recession
We’ve all heard it in the news. “RECESSION!” scream the headlines. These headlines and news articles about upcoming recessions are designed to induce fear. However, instead of worrying about getting laid off, losing your house, or any of the other scenarios that the media loves to portray, I’d like you to consider this: What if the upcoming recession is an opportunity for you to make more money than you are now — and be happier to boot?
Let’s turn your fear of recession around into motivation. I have brainstormed three business ideas that you may want to consider as the economy hits the skids. Each business idea highlights reducing recurring costs. For businesses, recurring costs are mainly employees, services (phone company, Internet access) and service providers (accountants, lawyers, etc.) For people, the main cost burdens are monthly recurring costs for mortgages or rent, cell phones, cable TV, and electricity, as well as consumables like food, household supplies, and clothing. These costs can add up quickly, and your work to reduce these will pay dividends for the business or person you are helping for many years down the road.
#1: Offer “ninja” negotiation strategies to other people.
Are you the type who always seems to be able to bend service providers to your will? You’ve followed all the recommendations, read online forums excessively, and know exactly what promotions cell phone companies and cable companies offer…and know how to get them. As a result, you often get better deals when you sign up, and know who to talk to to get better rates once your contract period is up. Other people will definitely pay you for this! Most people pay full retail for their products and services. If you know the better places to shop, share them with an ebook or blog, or offer local classes. Get together deals where your ebook readers or seminar attendees can save money — and preferably, where you get a small piece of it if they do.
One word of caution here: make sure your #1 goal is to help other people. Sell them products and services they would benefit from, not just ones that make you money. I strongly recommend that you test all the products you offer to make sure they make sense for your customers. For instance, if you recommend that your customers switch phone companies, you need to be using the phone company you’re recommending. If you’re using another one because it is cheaper, but recommending one because it makes you more money, you are incongruent. Your customers will sense this and will be less likely to buy from you. Plus, personal testimonials from you are the best testimonials because they are honest.
#2: Consult with businesses to reduce cost and streamline systems.
This is another strategy that you can use as a consultant to make some extra money on the side — or write about to make more passive income. Start with businesses close to you — maybe a business a friend or family member owns. Explain that you would like to work with them to see where they can reduce costs. Ideally, you will be confident enough to only charge a percentage of the money you save them.
For instance, most businesses could save money by switching credit card merchant accounts or phone companies. You will do all the legwork of finding a new company, checking reviews and resources, making sure the new system will integrate properly with their existing systems, and finding the right people to get the system installed. You take 15% of the total savings — if a business could save $5000 per year, for instance, your fee is $750. These fees really start to add up if you can streamline and replace entire systems for multiple businesses in the same industry.
Most of your work here will be in the beginning — to find a system of great companies that you can rely on to provide excellent service, and that will work together. The dividends pay off when you do the same work for other companies in a similar industry. For instance, if you string together three companies in the technology industry — one that provides a web hosting service, one that provides a web design service, and one that provides a phone service — and figure out how to integrate the three quickly and easily, you will provide a system of great value to a business.
Add in a computer repair service and a company that provides excellent purchasing deals on computer systems, and you have a basically complete “IT system in a box” for small businesses in a specific market — say, accountants, or lawyers. Best of all, your overhead is practically zero… you’re just introducing companies that will benefit from working together. You can do the integration work yourself or find another company to do it. Building the relationships in this system and understanding how the companies will integrate is not easy at first, but it can be incredibly lucrative. Once you do one, you will quickly understand how to do it again and again for maximum profit…and you will have happy customers who did not want to do the legwork to find all these companies themselves.
#3: Help people simplify their lives.
Back in 2006, I mentioned that simple and frugal lifestyles would come back into vogue as the real estate bubble burst. I was more right than I realized. Frugal and simple living is now trendy and likely will continue to be for the next several years. Check out this recent CBS News segment for an example of what the media is portraying.
This is a sector that is poised to catch fire, and the #1 sector I would recommend anyone starting a business consider. Are you naturally frugal? Teaching classes on how to mend your own clothes, make your own gourmet coffee or beer, or even how to repair your own appliances may be your ticket to a comfortable lifestyle. All of these classes can, of course, be written as ebooks or online classes as well for a larger audience and more income potential. With this section, the more you can write, the better. If you are an expert at sewing, team up with someone who is an expert at buying fabric and offer joint classes or sell each others’ products. Expand outward: find fabric stores that will offer you a commission every time someone buys from them, and review the latest products in your industry — all with a focus on saving money.
One of the most popular magazines right now is called Real Simple. Flip through it and others like it. Look at the ads and the articles. What are people interested in? What can you write about, teach, or make a video about to reach this audience? Where does your expertise come in? Perhaps you’re an expert on gardening — reframe that to “How you can save over $200 a year with less than 1 hour of time a month” by growing your own herbs and vegetables.
What these business ideas have in common
There is a key point to each of these business ideas, and that is, in each business, you are helping either people or businesses save money and become more efficient. At the same time, you’re getting paid handsomely to do so.
One thing I would like to emphasize is: Do not be afraid to charge good money for valuable advice. If I told you there was a way you could save $100 this year with basically no work on your part, would you agree to pay me $20 of that? If you approach either people or businesses with integrity and make this offer, most will say yes — and those who say no are not worth your time. Even in a recession, the most valuable commodity we have is our time.
As a business owner, I assure you I didn’t want to spend an hour calling 10 different merchant account companies to find out who would give us a better rate to process credit cards. But if you do that legwork for me, show me how much I would save, tell me you’ll do the rest and make sure it all works with my existing systems, I would gladly pay you 15-20% of what I would save in the next year.
The same goes for your gardening, sewing, or recycling tips. People will pay you to tell them how to make a compost pile, for 50 pages of tips that will each save them $50 a year, or to show them a valuable skill like mending and hemming clothes. Find companies, people, and stores you want to work with who will pay a referral fee when you refer them business, and pair these resources with your expert advice. You might even find you will make more money doing this than you did in your job — as long as you remember that it’s perfectly OK to charge for sharing your expert knowledge.
Best of all, all of the above businesses can be started part-time as you work a regular job. That way, there’s little risk to you if they don’t work out or if you suddenly decide to switch gears.
These tips should get you started turning your fear into opportunity. What other businesses will work during a recession? Any further comments about the above business ideas? Please feel free to post in the comments below.
Let’s turn your fear of recession around into motivation. I have brainstormed three business ideas that you may want to consider as the economy hits the skids. Each business idea highlights reducing recurring costs. For businesses, recurring costs are mainly employees, services (phone company, Internet access) and service providers (accountants, lawyers, etc.) For people, the main cost burdens are monthly recurring costs for mortgages or rent, cell phones, cable TV, and electricity, as well as consumables like food, household supplies, and clothing. These costs can add up quickly, and your work to reduce these will pay dividends for the business or person you are helping for many years down the road.
#1: Offer “ninja” negotiation strategies to other people.
Are you the type who always seems to be able to bend service providers to your will? You’ve followed all the recommendations, read online forums excessively, and know exactly what promotions cell phone companies and cable companies offer…and know how to get them. As a result, you often get better deals when you sign up, and know who to talk to to get better rates once your contract period is up. Other people will definitely pay you for this! Most people pay full retail for their products and services. If you know the better places to shop, share them with an ebook or blog, or offer local classes. Get together deals where your ebook readers or seminar attendees can save money — and preferably, where you get a small piece of it if they do.
One word of caution here: make sure your #1 goal is to help other people. Sell them products and services they would benefit from, not just ones that make you money. I strongly recommend that you test all the products you offer to make sure they make sense for your customers. For instance, if you recommend that your customers switch phone companies, you need to be using the phone company you’re recommending. If you’re using another one because it is cheaper, but recommending one because it makes you more money, you are incongruent. Your customers will sense this and will be less likely to buy from you. Plus, personal testimonials from you are the best testimonials because they are honest.
#2: Consult with businesses to reduce cost and streamline systems.
This is another strategy that you can use as a consultant to make some extra money on the side — or write about to make more passive income. Start with businesses close to you — maybe a business a friend or family member owns. Explain that you would like to work with them to see where they can reduce costs. Ideally, you will be confident enough to only charge a percentage of the money you save them.
For instance, most businesses could save money by switching credit card merchant accounts or phone companies. You will do all the legwork of finding a new company, checking reviews and resources, making sure the new system will integrate properly with their existing systems, and finding the right people to get the system installed. You take 15% of the total savings — if a business could save $5000 per year, for instance, your fee is $750. These fees really start to add up if you can streamline and replace entire systems for multiple businesses in the same industry.
Most of your work here will be in the beginning — to find a system of great companies that you can rely on to provide excellent service, and that will work together. The dividends pay off when you do the same work for other companies in a similar industry. For instance, if you string together three companies in the technology industry — one that provides a web hosting service, one that provides a web design service, and one that provides a phone service — and figure out how to integrate the three quickly and easily, you will provide a system of great value to a business.
Add in a computer repair service and a company that provides excellent purchasing deals on computer systems, and you have a basically complete “IT system in a box” for small businesses in a specific market — say, accountants, or lawyers. Best of all, your overhead is practically zero… you’re just introducing companies that will benefit from working together. You can do the integration work yourself or find another company to do it. Building the relationships in this system and understanding how the companies will integrate is not easy at first, but it can be incredibly lucrative. Once you do one, you will quickly understand how to do it again and again for maximum profit…and you will have happy customers who did not want to do the legwork to find all these companies themselves.
#3: Help people simplify their lives.
Back in 2006, I mentioned that simple and frugal lifestyles would come back into vogue as the real estate bubble burst. I was more right than I realized. Frugal and simple living is now trendy and likely will continue to be for the next several years. Check out this recent CBS News segment for an example of what the media is portraying.
This is a sector that is poised to catch fire, and the #1 sector I would recommend anyone starting a business consider. Are you naturally frugal? Teaching classes on how to mend your own clothes, make your own gourmet coffee or beer, or even how to repair your own appliances may be your ticket to a comfortable lifestyle. All of these classes can, of course, be written as ebooks or online classes as well for a larger audience and more income potential. With this section, the more you can write, the better. If you are an expert at sewing, team up with someone who is an expert at buying fabric and offer joint classes or sell each others’ products. Expand outward: find fabric stores that will offer you a commission every time someone buys from them, and review the latest products in your industry — all with a focus on saving money.
One of the most popular magazines right now is called Real Simple. Flip through it and others like it. Look at the ads and the articles. What are people interested in? What can you write about, teach, or make a video about to reach this audience? Where does your expertise come in? Perhaps you’re an expert on gardening — reframe that to “How you can save over $200 a year with less than 1 hour of time a month” by growing your own herbs and vegetables.
What these business ideas have in common
There is a key point to each of these business ideas, and that is, in each business, you are helping either people or businesses save money and become more efficient. At the same time, you’re getting paid handsomely to do so.
One thing I would like to emphasize is: Do not be afraid to charge good money for valuable advice. If I told you there was a way you could save $100 this year with basically no work on your part, would you agree to pay me $20 of that? If you approach either people or businesses with integrity and make this offer, most will say yes — and those who say no are not worth your time. Even in a recession, the most valuable commodity we have is our time.
As a business owner, I assure you I didn’t want to spend an hour calling 10 different merchant account companies to find out who would give us a better rate to process credit cards. But if you do that legwork for me, show me how much I would save, tell me you’ll do the rest and make sure it all works with my existing systems, I would gladly pay you 15-20% of what I would save in the next year.
The same goes for your gardening, sewing, or recycling tips. People will pay you to tell them how to make a compost pile, for 50 pages of tips that will each save them $50 a year, or to show them a valuable skill like mending and hemming clothes. Find companies, people, and stores you want to work with who will pay a referral fee when you refer them business, and pair these resources with your expert advice. You might even find you will make more money doing this than you did in your job — as long as you remember that it’s perfectly OK to charge for sharing your expert knowledge.
Best of all, all of the above businesses can be started part-time as you work a regular job. That way, there’s little risk to you if they don’t work out or if you suddenly decide to switch gears.
These tips should get you started turning your fear into opportunity. What other businesses will work during a recession? Any further comments about the above business ideas? Please feel free to post in the comments below.
20 Scam-Free Ways to Make Money Online Fast
Make money online fast —
20 REAL ways people make money online.Cathy is in need of a legitimate way to make money online fast. She writes in: “I was a nurse for almost 30 years when I became disabled from a car wreck. I am a very tough person (I’m a redhead!) I went out last October and bought a new PC to try and make money online, but all I have succeeded in doing is getting further in debt. I know you know what I mean by all the scams that I fell into.
I have been reading A LOT and trying to learn as much as I can. I have run into conflicting stories, though. I just don’t know where to start. I am not a computer tech, nor that knowledgeable about how to start. I am NOT asking for a handout; just a helping hand in the right direction.
I’m not expecting to make tons of money today, but ANYTHING to help me get started in the right direction. I have saved thousands of lives and now I can’t even get through the month without running out of food!”
Cathy has the right attitude — she’s not looking for a get-rich-quick scheme, but instead a legitimate way to make some extra money online.
Having been sucked into some scams myself in the past, I know how difficult it can be to find real ways to make money online fast. Thus, I’ve compiled this list. Some ways require knowledge of certain skills, but all these skills can be learned. If you don’t know where to start, I suggest picking one of these ways and learning more about it, then trying it out!
Note: None of the 20 ways listed below contain affiliate links (that is, links that make me money if you click on them.) This list is for your benefit, not mine. Enjoy!
1. Amazon’s Mechanical Turk.
Mechanical Turk is a great way to make some extra cash. You probably won’t make much more than a few dollars an hour, but it’s also dead simple to complete many of the tasks. Most tasks take less than a minute to complete and pay a few pennies. If you do a lot of MTurk, it could add up to at least some fun spending money. Sign up for free, then complete qualifications to earn access to higher-paying tasks.
2. Sell stock photos.
iStockPhoto is just one site that allows you to sell stock photos; there are others. Before you decide to go crazy and upload your whole album, take note of what’s selling well and try your hand at doing something similar. iStockPhoto also works for those who know how to render images; some of their most popular images were created on a computer! Have three killer stock photos ready for iStockPhoto’s inspection; they will want them when you sign up.
3. Sell stuff on eBay.
Start by selling your own extra stuff. Then, once you get a feel for selling your extra stuff, go door-to-door in nicer neighborhoods in your town. Develop an eye for what will sell and what won’t (old laptops, for instance, could be a gold mine–if you know how to format them to get rid of the previous owner’s personal data.) Sign a contract where you take 25-30% (or more) of the gross sale. Your customers will be happy to get cash for their old junk, and you’ll make some good money selling other people’s stuff. eBay
4. Become a freelance article writer.
It may not pay well, but there is a growing demand for this. Write 200-300 word articles and submit them to article directories. Potential clients include bloggers, marketers, and small businesses. You can write articles in a niche in batches and sell them as a package to one or more clients, or you can offer your services for hire per word or article and let your client give you direction. A foundation of keyword research is important to succeed at this job (unless you’re just taking direction from a client), but keyword research is learnable.
5. Write articles for magazines or other publications.
If you have a background in journalism, or just a passion for it, you can try your hand at submitting articles to publications. Don’t just randomly fire off articles, however; have a plan and, preferably, a contact at the publication you wish to submit to. The good news is that there are publications in pretty much any niche you can think of. To see some publications that are hiring, visit Online Writing Jobs, PoeWar Freelance Jobs, and Writing.com.
6. Transcribe audio files.
An easy job; doesn’t pay well, but also a quick way to make some money. Sign up on eLance or oDesk to start, and/or advertise your services in entrepreneur forums. Requires good hearing and a good command of the English language. You may also want to invest in a foot pedal if you plan to transcribe often. Make sure you know how to transcribe interviews before you start your first job.
7. Become a virtual assistant (VA).
There are entire books written on how to become a virtual assistant, so this job is definitely worthy of more research. My advice: Focus on one niche (I just hired Lisa Morosky of VA for Bloggers, for instance.) Also, reach out to potential customers directly and let them know what you can do for them instead of hitting up freelance web sites. Finally, you may want to consider resources such as AssistU, which provides training for up-and-coming virtual assistants.
8. Write articles on eHow.com.
If you understand the basics of keyword research, you can make a good monthly income from eHow. eHow pays you a percentage of the ad revenue they make from each “How to” article you create. You can crank out a few articles a day with relative ease. Try this for a month; assuming your article titles match up with what people are searching for in Google, you can make a significant income. The great news is that you write your articles once and get paid month after month. I’ve seen figures of $100-$150/month for 30 articles. Make money writing for eHow.com.
9. Do some videos to promote affiliate products.
Enjoy making silly videos? Even short, silly videos can sell products online. Find an product worth promoting that has an affiliate program, then target your video toward potential customers of that product. In your video summary on YouTube, place your affiliate link for the product, and after the video, do a 30-second still frame showing a short URL where people can buy the product. If your video is funny, informative, or useful, you may sell some products. Big tip: Try to promote a product that makes you a fair amount of money for each sale, but doesn’t cost a whole lot for the potential customer. You can find products on Commission Junction, for one.
10. Write an ebook targeted to people who need help.
Alexis Dawes created a product called “Desperate Buyers Only”. I interview her for an upcoming case study on Inspiring Innovators, where she mentions that she is able to make up to $97 from ebooks as small as 12 pages. The key? Finding people who are incredibly desperate for the information you provide and then doing good research to find a real solution to their problems. The result? Happy customers whose problem is solved, and money for you — a win-win situation! Caveat: It may be tough to find a real desperate buyer niche (Alexis reveals some in her case study). Here are some hints: When were you last in a situation where information would have either saved you a lot of money or a lot of pain? Has someone else close to you been in a situation where they could have used information to avert pain? Think legal, medical, and financial niches.
11. Build a small niche website.
Yes, you can make money online.I run a few small niche websites. For instance, How to Convert PDF is a tiny site that has free videos on how to convert other types of documents into PDF format. It sells a piece of software called PDF Creator, and I make a few dollars every time someone buys from that site. I promoted the site using pay-per-click ads and it was profitable. Don’t copy me directly, but do find the intersection of people needing help and a tool, ebook, or software program that will help them fix their problem. Then, create a website designed to get them to buy it!
12. Help local businesses develop an online presence.
Local businesses are struggling. Many have websites, but aren’t getting any results from them. Others don’t have websites at all. You can help by learning search engine optimization, how to set up an email list, and more, and then implementing these for local businesses. If you typically hang around geeks, web marketers, or the Web 2.0 crowd, you may be surprised how many business owners are 10 years (or more) behind you! If you can deliver results, business owners will happily pay. Find customers by going door-to-door.
13. Learn WordPress, then offer to install plugins and upgrade it.
I hired David from Web Geek 4 Hire to upgrade my blogs and install new WordPress plugins. He charges $5 to upgrade a plugin…great for him, since most plugins only take a few minutes to upgrade, and great for me, since if anything breaks, David gets to clean up the mess! You can make this a full time position; there is a ton of demand for these services. Find customers by contacting bloggers directly. Get references from bloggers who understand the value of outsourcing these tasks.
14. Become the go-to person for installations of a particular piece of software.
Anything from Amember to Quickbooks is fair game here. In the hosting industry, iDevAffiliate and Plesk Billing were the pieces of software we would have paid a lot of money to have someone else deal with. The more niche and more complex/annoying/frustrating the software, the better! Even if the software company offers free installation, you can make hundreds or thousands of dollars training business owners or their employees on its usage. Focus on one piece of software and become the trusted expert. Create videos and tutorials using screencast software like Camtasia to increase your profitability; this may also lead into a niche product that you can sell. (Amember offers “free installation”, but it took my boyfriend and I over 10 hours to configure it properly. That’s definitely something I would outsource next time!)
15. Interview other people and sell the interviews.
I experimented with this in 2008 and made over $800 from one interview. The key here is to understand a pain point that people are experiencing, interview an expert, and ask the expert the questions that the people experiencing the problem are having. Then create a small website and sell the interview. There’s more to this, including having good copywriting skills so your website sells the interview well, and knowing where to advertise, so don’t expect to immediately pull in hundreds of dollars. That said, it’s a neat way to quickly create a product. Get the interviews transcribed, then string a few interviews in the same industry together as a membership site or bundle that you can sell for more money.
16. Become a freelance “web geek.”
From configuring a shopping cart to installing and tweaking blog themes, there are virtually unlimited projects out there for geeks who enjoy working with small business owners to get them up and running online. Find people looking for web geeks on the Warrior Forum or other places where entrepreneurs gather.
17. Enter logo and design contests.
Fancy yourself a good designer? Try your hand at creating a logo or other design that a company loves! 99 Designs is the most popular marketplace. Beware, however; you won’t get paid unless your logo wins against many others, which makes many designers unhappy. In my opinion, this is a great way for a budding designer to build a portfolio and learn quickly what clients love.
18. Create Twitter backgrounds and e-covers.
Competition is stiff, but if you are a savvy designer, this is a good way to pick up extra dollars. Even better, if you are an artist, this is a good way to make your art skills pay off. Consider that every design will need to have a reason why the customer should buy the book or follow that person on Twitter to have a real impact. Twitter backgrounds, in particular, are in hot demand right now. For measurements and caveats of Twitter backgrounds, read “How to create your own Twitter background.”
19. Submit websites or blog posts to social media websites.
Not very exciting work, but in high demand from bloggers and small businesses. This involves setting up accounts on all of the social bookmarking services and then bookmarking your clients’ websites or latest blog posts to help them get more traffic. You may be competing against software that does this, but in many folks’ opinions, it’s better to have a real person do it. Even better is if you can goose your accounts with plenty of friends and become a star on a few of the services; then every site you bookmark has higher credibility and you can charge more. To get an idea of the social media sites you will need to sign up for, start at socialmarker.com.
20. Edit audio for others.
This is something that is fairly easy to learn and also in high demand. On Windows, one good program to edit audio is Sony Sound Forge. I use Sound Forge Audio Studio, but if you are doing this professionally, you might consider the upgrade to Sound Forge 9. Get the hang of editing out “um”s and “ah”s from audio. Even better is understanding the “flow” of an interview conversation and editing out portions that don’t make sense. Finally, learning to find and add intro music really gives podcasts that professional touch. Advertise your services on oDesk or eLance. I pay people to do this for the podcasts I am setting up on Inspiring Innovators, and it’s a job that can definitely be done from your house.
20 REAL ways people make money online.Cathy is in need of a legitimate way to make money online fast. She writes in: “I was a nurse for almost 30 years when I became disabled from a car wreck. I am a very tough person (I’m a redhead!) I went out last October and bought a new PC to try and make money online, but all I have succeeded in doing is getting further in debt. I know you know what I mean by all the scams that I fell into.
I have been reading A LOT and trying to learn as much as I can. I have run into conflicting stories, though. I just don’t know where to start. I am not a computer tech, nor that knowledgeable about how to start. I am NOT asking for a handout; just a helping hand in the right direction.
I’m not expecting to make tons of money today, but ANYTHING to help me get started in the right direction. I have saved thousands of lives and now I can’t even get through the month without running out of food!”
Cathy has the right attitude — she’s not looking for a get-rich-quick scheme, but instead a legitimate way to make some extra money online.
Having been sucked into some scams myself in the past, I know how difficult it can be to find real ways to make money online fast. Thus, I’ve compiled this list. Some ways require knowledge of certain skills, but all these skills can be learned. If you don’t know where to start, I suggest picking one of these ways and learning more about it, then trying it out!
Note: None of the 20 ways listed below contain affiliate links (that is, links that make me money if you click on them.) This list is for your benefit, not mine. Enjoy!
1. Amazon’s Mechanical Turk.
Mechanical Turk is a great way to make some extra cash. You probably won’t make much more than a few dollars an hour, but it’s also dead simple to complete many of the tasks. Most tasks take less than a minute to complete and pay a few pennies. If you do a lot of MTurk, it could add up to at least some fun spending money. Sign up for free, then complete qualifications to earn access to higher-paying tasks.
2. Sell stock photos.
iStockPhoto is just one site that allows you to sell stock photos; there are others. Before you decide to go crazy and upload your whole album, take note of what’s selling well and try your hand at doing something similar. iStockPhoto also works for those who know how to render images; some of their most popular images were created on a computer! Have three killer stock photos ready for iStockPhoto’s inspection; they will want them when you sign up.
3. Sell stuff on eBay.
Start by selling your own extra stuff. Then, once you get a feel for selling your extra stuff, go door-to-door in nicer neighborhoods in your town. Develop an eye for what will sell and what won’t (old laptops, for instance, could be a gold mine–if you know how to format them to get rid of the previous owner’s personal data.) Sign a contract where you take 25-30% (or more) of the gross sale. Your customers will be happy to get cash for their old junk, and you’ll make some good money selling other people’s stuff. eBay
4. Become a freelance article writer.
It may not pay well, but there is a growing demand for this. Write 200-300 word articles and submit them to article directories. Potential clients include bloggers, marketers, and small businesses. You can write articles in a niche in batches and sell them as a package to one or more clients, or you can offer your services for hire per word or article and let your client give you direction. A foundation of keyword research is important to succeed at this job (unless you’re just taking direction from a client), but keyword research is learnable.
5. Write articles for magazines or other publications.
If you have a background in journalism, or just a passion for it, you can try your hand at submitting articles to publications. Don’t just randomly fire off articles, however; have a plan and, preferably, a contact at the publication you wish to submit to. The good news is that there are publications in pretty much any niche you can think of. To see some publications that are hiring, visit Online Writing Jobs, PoeWar Freelance Jobs, and Writing.com.
6. Transcribe audio files.
An easy job; doesn’t pay well, but also a quick way to make some money. Sign up on eLance or oDesk to start, and/or advertise your services in entrepreneur forums. Requires good hearing and a good command of the English language. You may also want to invest in a foot pedal if you plan to transcribe often. Make sure you know how to transcribe interviews before you start your first job.
7. Become a virtual assistant (VA).
There are entire books written on how to become a virtual assistant, so this job is definitely worthy of more research. My advice: Focus on one niche (I just hired Lisa Morosky of VA for Bloggers, for instance.) Also, reach out to potential customers directly and let them know what you can do for them instead of hitting up freelance web sites. Finally, you may want to consider resources such as AssistU, which provides training for up-and-coming virtual assistants.
8. Write articles on eHow.com.
If you understand the basics of keyword research, you can make a good monthly income from eHow. eHow pays you a percentage of the ad revenue they make from each “How to” article you create. You can crank out a few articles a day with relative ease. Try this for a month; assuming your article titles match up with what people are searching for in Google, you can make a significant income. The great news is that you write your articles once and get paid month after month. I’ve seen figures of $100-$150/month for 30 articles. Make money writing for eHow.com.
9. Do some videos to promote affiliate products.
Enjoy making silly videos? Even short, silly videos can sell products online. Find an product worth promoting that has an affiliate program, then target your video toward potential customers of that product. In your video summary on YouTube, place your affiliate link for the product, and after the video, do a 30-second still frame showing a short URL where people can buy the product. If your video is funny, informative, or useful, you may sell some products. Big tip: Try to promote a product that makes you a fair amount of money for each sale, but doesn’t cost a whole lot for the potential customer. You can find products on Commission Junction, for one.
10. Write an ebook targeted to people who need help.
Alexis Dawes created a product called “Desperate Buyers Only”. I interview her for an upcoming case study on Inspiring Innovators, where she mentions that she is able to make up to $97 from ebooks as small as 12 pages. The key? Finding people who are incredibly desperate for the information you provide and then doing good research to find a real solution to their problems. The result? Happy customers whose problem is solved, and money for you — a win-win situation! Caveat: It may be tough to find a real desperate buyer niche (Alexis reveals some in her case study). Here are some hints: When were you last in a situation where information would have either saved you a lot of money or a lot of pain? Has someone else close to you been in a situation where they could have used information to avert pain? Think legal, medical, and financial niches.
11. Build a small niche website.
Yes, you can make money online.I run a few small niche websites. For instance, How to Convert PDF is a tiny site that has free videos on how to convert other types of documents into PDF format. It sells a piece of software called PDF Creator, and I make a few dollars every time someone buys from that site. I promoted the site using pay-per-click ads and it was profitable. Don’t copy me directly, but do find the intersection of people needing help and a tool, ebook, or software program that will help them fix their problem. Then, create a website designed to get them to buy it!
12. Help local businesses develop an online presence.
Local businesses are struggling. Many have websites, but aren’t getting any results from them. Others don’t have websites at all. You can help by learning search engine optimization, how to set up an email list, and more, and then implementing these for local businesses. If you typically hang around geeks, web marketers, or the Web 2.0 crowd, you may be surprised how many business owners are 10 years (or more) behind you! If you can deliver results, business owners will happily pay. Find customers by going door-to-door.
13. Learn WordPress, then offer to install plugins and upgrade it.
I hired David from Web Geek 4 Hire to upgrade my blogs and install new WordPress plugins. He charges $5 to upgrade a plugin…great for him, since most plugins only take a few minutes to upgrade, and great for me, since if anything breaks, David gets to clean up the mess! You can make this a full time position; there is a ton of demand for these services. Find customers by contacting bloggers directly. Get references from bloggers who understand the value of outsourcing these tasks.
14. Become the go-to person for installations of a particular piece of software.
Anything from Amember to Quickbooks is fair game here. In the hosting industry, iDevAffiliate and Plesk Billing were the pieces of software we would have paid a lot of money to have someone else deal with. The more niche and more complex/annoying/frustrating the software, the better! Even if the software company offers free installation, you can make hundreds or thousands of dollars training business owners or their employees on its usage. Focus on one piece of software and become the trusted expert. Create videos and tutorials using screencast software like Camtasia to increase your profitability; this may also lead into a niche product that you can sell. (Amember offers “free installation”, but it took my boyfriend and I over 10 hours to configure it properly. That’s definitely something I would outsource next time!)
15. Interview other people and sell the interviews.
I experimented with this in 2008 and made over $800 from one interview. The key here is to understand a pain point that people are experiencing, interview an expert, and ask the expert the questions that the people experiencing the problem are having. Then create a small website and sell the interview. There’s more to this, including having good copywriting skills so your website sells the interview well, and knowing where to advertise, so don’t expect to immediately pull in hundreds of dollars. That said, it’s a neat way to quickly create a product. Get the interviews transcribed, then string a few interviews in the same industry together as a membership site or bundle that you can sell for more money.
16. Become a freelance “web geek.”
From configuring a shopping cart to installing and tweaking blog themes, there are virtually unlimited projects out there for geeks who enjoy working with small business owners to get them up and running online. Find people looking for web geeks on the Warrior Forum or other places where entrepreneurs gather.
17. Enter logo and design contests.
Fancy yourself a good designer? Try your hand at creating a logo or other design that a company loves! 99 Designs is the most popular marketplace. Beware, however; you won’t get paid unless your logo wins against many others, which makes many designers unhappy. In my opinion, this is a great way for a budding designer to build a portfolio and learn quickly what clients love.
18. Create Twitter backgrounds and e-covers.
Competition is stiff, but if you are a savvy designer, this is a good way to pick up extra dollars. Even better, if you are an artist, this is a good way to make your art skills pay off. Consider that every design will need to have a reason why the customer should buy the book or follow that person on Twitter to have a real impact. Twitter backgrounds, in particular, are in hot demand right now. For measurements and caveats of Twitter backgrounds, read “How to create your own Twitter background.”
19. Submit websites or blog posts to social media websites.
Not very exciting work, but in high demand from bloggers and small businesses. This involves setting up accounts on all of the social bookmarking services and then bookmarking your clients’ websites or latest blog posts to help them get more traffic. You may be competing against software that does this, but in many folks’ opinions, it’s better to have a real person do it. Even better is if you can goose your accounts with plenty of friends and become a star on a few of the services; then every site you bookmark has higher credibility and you can charge more. To get an idea of the social media sites you will need to sign up for, start at socialmarker.com.
20. Edit audio for others.
This is something that is fairly easy to learn and also in high demand. On Windows, one good program to edit audio is Sony Sound Forge. I use Sound Forge Audio Studio, but if you are doing this professionally, you might consider the upgrade to Sound Forge 9. Get the hang of editing out “um”s and “ah”s from audio. Even better is understanding the “flow” of an interview conversation and editing out portions that don’t make sense. Finally, learning to find and add intro music really gives podcasts that professional touch. Advertise your services on oDesk or eLance. I pay people to do this for the podcasts I am setting up on Inspiring Innovators, and it’s a job that can definitely be done from your house.
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