Ways You Can Make Money Online

Ok, this post is more for the noobies just starting out. Either way, there are still plenty of tips and tricks some of you seasoned pro’s might not have thought of so it’s definitely worth a read. Besides, you can also help a noob by reading this over and adding your opinion in the comments below.

Selling A Digital Product

Ok selling digital products is my favorite way to make money online. You have unlimited income potential and the start-up costs are very minimal.  The most common type of digital product anyone can sell is information in a form of an ebook.  You might be thinking, “ya right, me write a book?” Now wait, don’t get your panties in a bunch. Writing an ebook can be as simple as doing some research on a topic that interests you (or better yet, on a topic that interests other people so you can sell this info)  and then summarizing it all into your own words and packaging it into what’s called an ebook (digital book) Ok obviously there is more to it then this, more then I can cover in this quick overview of how to make money online….but the point I’m trying to make is that thousands of people do this and make a very comftorable living online. (The pros actually make millions creating information products) Once you get the hang of it, you can start writing ebooks covering a variety of different topics and build yourself an information/ebook empire   P.S. – I promise to eventually do a follow up post with more information on how to make money creating/writing your own ebook.

Are you a Web designer who wants out of the 9-5? Why not use your skills to design templates that can be sold over and over again. Templates are another form of digital product that can make you a ton of money.  The key here is to target a specific market and avoid trying to compete with templatemonster.com Some of the more successful designers jumped in early on the wordpress craze and have been making a fortune selling wordpress templates.  Wordpress is just one example, what other scripts have a large enough customer base where you can start designing templates for its customers? There are some hidden gems that are still open and waiting for a designer to bring them the goods.  Search hotscripts.com and see what you can find

Developers looking to get out of freelancing or working for “the man” also have endless opportunities. I just don’t get some of you guys, why freelance when you can develop your own product and sell it over and over again creating a passive income? On top of that, having your own product opens the door to even more income by providing customization services to customers who purchase your product/script. Hell, I’m not even a developer but I have released scripts in the past (through JV deals) that have brought in revenues of 6 figures a year NOT including offering customization services. If you’re not developing your own products, you really are losing out on some serious money. If marketing is not your game, and that’s all that is holding you back, then you can either JV with someone like me    or just dive in head first and learn as you go along. Get active in the forums and ask for advice from other developers who have successfully developed their own profitable digital products.

Sell A Service

Selling a service is a great way for noobies to get started online with literally no money needed. Having money helps, but I know there are some of you that just don’t have much to start with…so selling a service is where I recommend you start.

No website, no problem. Wth the many freelance marketplaces online, you can now take your skills and sell them globally without needing a website. Obviously you can’t take your massaging skills and sell them through the freelance marketplaces, but if you take a look at www.elance.com, you can see some of the services that sell well in an online freelance marketplace.  For more information about selling your services online using freelance marketplaces, I suggest taking a look at elance university: http://www.elance.com/p/elanceuniversity/index.html

Other popular freelance marketplaces

www.Elance.com
www.Guru.com
www.ifreelance.com
www.odesk.com
www.GetaFreelancer.com

These are just a handful of places. Doing a search on google for “freelance marketplace” or “freelance website” will give you hundreds maybe thousands of more options. Don’t forget to also search for freelance marketplaces that cater to specific types of jobs. Example: if you’re a writer, search for “writing freelance marketplace”

Once you have built up some cash-flow, you should really look into re-investing your profits into having a website designed. This will give you a more professional and trustworthy image. It’s also the only way to grow your business and start finding clients using other marketing tactics. Oh, and let’s not forget about that portfolio. Having your own website to showcase you work will also help land those larger clients with deep pocket books.

The Henry Ford Model

Don’t have any skills? Don’t let that stop you from selling services online. Did Henry Ford know how to build a car? Not a chance, he employed people with the  brains to build them for him.  Using the Henry Ford model, you can seek out freelancers and reseller their services through a website of your own.  Mark up the price, land the sales, and simply outsource the work to your freelance contacts. By becoming the middle man, you can take on much more work. There is only so much work you can take on being the actual “worker”  Outsource the work and concentrate on driving those sales.

Money Through Selling Ads

You can make a fortune selling advertising, but without a high traffic website, no-one is going to purchase your ad space. Therfore, this really isn’t a topic for the noobie who is just starting out. Either way, I’ll give you a brief overview how this is done…

First you obviously need a high traffic and popular website. The next step would be to put up a page that specifically talks about the ad space you have available for sale. You must also include all the statistics like the amount of unique visitors and page views your site receives, length of time spent on your site by the average user, demographic of your visitors, etc.  The more information you provide, the better.  My opinion is that you should set-up an email form with autoresponder if people want to know the ad rates. Anyone looking for more information can submit their email address and your auto responder will deliver the details. Reason behind this is you can build a list of potential advertisers that you can market to later. You never know when you might have unsold ad space available you want to sell at a discount. Having these emails allows you to announce this special to people who already showed an interest at one time or another.

Lastly, if you don’t have adspace sold, you can always check out Googles adsense program where they will pay you to show ads on your site on a per click basis.  If this interests you, Google has all the details. Go to Google.com and click on the “Advertising Programs” link

Affiliate Programs

I should have probably talked about this first, but my #1 suggestion to all noobies is to start here. In affiliate marketing you have nothing of your own to market. And you are not offering any goods or services for sale. What you are doing is placing advertisements and links to other businesses or websites, on your own site or blog. You will usually write a few words about the product or service to arouse the interest of the visitors to your site or blog, and encourage them to click on the advertisement or link.

The trick here is to be able to make the visitor to your site or blog want to know more about the product or service without actually sounding like you are selling it – you are trying to attract people without looking like a salesman which often puts people off.  A common and very effective way to make money as an affiliate is to start a review site where you review the products you have affiliated with. Example: You can review hosting companies and the different hosting packages they offer. When someone comes to your review site looking for more information about hosting, they will read your reviews and click to visit the hosting companines you have affiliated with. If you did your job successfully, and your affiliate partner can turn that visitor into a sale, you will make earn commision

How do you know how much money you made? Well, your affiliate partner will use software to keep track of how many visitors to your site purchased their service or product, and based on your agreement, you will be paid a commission for every person who followed the link from your site and placed an order. Usually this information is available to you 24 hours a day and in real time.

Affiliate marketing is a great way to start learning how to make money online. Low risk, low start-up costs, and the ability to earn an unlimited amount of passive income from the comfort of your own home make this my top pick for all noobies.

Places I recommend you find affiliate products to promote:

www.ShareAsale.com
www.ClickBank.com
www.Azoogle.com
www.MarketLeverage.com

Sell A Physical Product

Ok to be honest, I have never sold physical products online aside from a few transactions over ebay and craigslist.org  However I can still give you a very brief overview of how people make money selling physical products online (a very brief overview). With this method you find a product you want to sell, then contact a distributor/wholesaler to make arrangements to purchase the items at a discount.  The products can then be listed in an online store where people can purchase them through your website 24 hours a day. Another option to get your feet wet is to sell products without a website and use auction sites like ebay.com and classifieds like craigslist.org or kijijji.com  The downside to all this is you need to come up with the money upfront for the products you sell, and you are responsible for all of the shipping arrangments.  My personal opinion is that if you’re still new to all this, I would avoid starting an online business that requires a lot of captial to get started until you know a little more about the ins and outs of marketing your business online.

Another option which would allow you to sell a product online without the high initial investment is to find a distributor that offers drop shipping.  Using this method, when a person purchases a product from your website, you are responsible for handling the sale. You in then place the order with your dropshipper, and they take care of packing and shipping the item.  You will receive fewer profits for each item sold, but there are a lot fewer upfront expenses, and you never have to actually handle the product. The big downside to this is it could be difficult to compete with other more established sites online that can undercut your price point. They key to success here is to find a niche market that’s not overly crowded and where price isn’t going to be an issue. Do your research before jumping into dropshipping.

So there you have it, a quick overview of how you can make money online. For the pro’s that just read this, how about helping a noobie out by contributing your thoughts in the comments below.

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