You’ve come here because you would like to know how to make money online. The problem is that there are a lot of scams out there that claim you can make thousands of dollars per week. They promise you financial freedom and other grandiose dreams, with a whole lot of talk and zero information. If you have to sign up to watch a video that “will change your life” or give your credit card information before even reading a simple explanation of this “amazing method”, please, do yourself a favor and close your browser quickly!!!
I have made money online now for 10+ years. Some months I have seen thousands of dollars come in, but it is not from just one place. The secret is to have numerous streams of revenue from various places that add up. I can show you how to find the legitimate sources and then just like in any other “job”, you work to make money at it. The more you put in, the more you get out. Finding a way to actually market and sell successfully is the hard part. Unlike what many of these “work at home schemes” may promise you, it’s not that easy.
I’m going to share some ways that I have personally made money online, and will continue to share ideas and legitimate sources of online income with you in future posts.
Blogging
Most importantly, you need to find a niche that you are knowledgeable in and enjoy writing about. A good blog needs good content, and lots of it. You can’t just spam your blog with links to products that you are selling or posts that you are getting paid for. People want information. However, thrown in with all that good information, you can actually get payed to review products. You can also sign up for Google Adsense where you get payed per click on ads relevant to your blog’s topics.
Affiliate Marketing
If you are not familiar with affiliate marketing, basically you are a “middle man” for other companies. For example, you can sell TVs from a big electronic retailer or baby shower invitations from a stationery store and make a commission off your sales. They handle all the stocking of products, transactions, shipping, and handling, while you market the product. There are many affiliate networks out there, but the ones that I see the best results with are the LinkShare Affiliate Program and Shareasale.com. You can also check out Commission Junction and of course Amazon’s affiliate program. You can link to specific products or you can create your own aStore like this one for Home Talkers.
Writing
Everyone has something to say! If you don’t want your own blog, you can still get your voice published. Try a site like Squidoo where you can easily monetize your article. It’s not big money, but again, if you work hard at it, write a lot of articles, and market yourself well, you can definitely make some cash. Remember, it all adds up.
There are also the “daily deal” type sites that pay you for referring friends. Plum District, for example, offers amazing daily deals. Local moms find businesses they love and share 50 – 80% savings with the rest of us. You earn $5 just for signing up and you can earn $5 each time a friend of yours purchases a deal. It’s not a lot, but it adds up for doing nothing other than passing along a good deal!
Moolala works a bit differently in that it’s multi-tiered. What this means is that you get money for each friend that signs up. You then get more money for each friend that they sign up and so on and so forth. You’re getting cents here (not dollars) but after enough sign ups, it will start to add up.
There really are endless ways to make money online. The challenge lies in trying to weed through the scams to find the real deal and also in knowing that it takes TIME and WORK to actually make a decent amount of money online. Stay tuned for more recommendations on legitimate sources of online income.
December 22, 2011
