Making money on the internet can get hard at times or even seem impossible, but you have no excuse to not give it your best try. There are many products out there that seem to position themselves as a magic pill and that just by buying them many beginners believe that they will automatically start making heaps of money as the photos and testimonials on the sales page suggest. Sadly, this is not the case and nobody is going to make any money for you, only your discipline and hard work will help you earn money online. Here I dressed up a list of the main options you have into making money online.

1. Blogging for dollars

Blogging is a convenient way to make money online. Typically the blogger produces content that attracts readers to their blogs. The traffic generated on the blog is valuable because the readers have wants and needs and also have financial power to buy a certain product. Therefore the traffic can be monetized by turning readers into customers of different products and services - this can be done simply by joining ad networks and displaying ads on the blog. Joining different ad networks and affiliate programs is actually the easier part and I'll get into that on another post, but the more challenging part consists in getting readers and traffic to a blog/site. There's also many tactics one can use to get traffic, and it will be covered in another post as well - for today, I just want to quickly go over the main ways to make money online.

2.Consulting/Coaching

A consultant is someone expert in a field who, for a fee, gives lessons and advises individuals or businesses on a given subject. From chess lessons to psychological help and small business consulting, there is a wide range of consulting services out there but to gain trust from potential customers, you need to be recognized as a specialist in your field and also have a good overall reputation. Some sites like ether.com provide a way to connect in a one-on-one setting and you can set your own hourly rates. However you need to do all the advertising so you should at least have a web page with your portfolio on it.

3. Selling on Ebay

Apparently many people are making a living from ebay...just find a wholesale provider in your area or on the internet that you can buy products from and resell them for bellow retail price on ebay for a profit. Some people do it part time to complement their other sources of revenue. I actually knew a guy at school involved with selling on ebay but it's been a while that I haven't heard of him.

4. Drop Shipping

Drop shipping is a method of selling goods but without the inventory space involved. Typically, you partner with a special wholesale company that gives you access to their products at wholesale price while setting your own prices to your customers. It is a similar concept than that of affiliate programs but has the advantage of custommers remembering your own webstore name and brand and not the one of affiliates. After you make a sale, the drop ship company takes care of both the shipping and the packaging and they usually put your labels/logos on the box, leaving you with a nice little profit margin. But to find customers to your site in the first place, you will need a decent level of traffic on your webstore/website. My personal impression is that drop shipping doesn't work well : simply because it is not real wholesale and it does not escape basic economic principles - think about it, someone that buys one thousand copies of a product is likely to get it for much cheaper than somebody that buys just a single product. Most drop shipping companies also charge you a flat monthly fee for accessing their website and services. However since I have not personally tried this and that a few websites seem to do this, I have decided to still put it as a way to make money online.

5. Making money from Forums/Discussion groups

There are many forums out there that will let you have a signature with a link at the end of your posts. If you are part of any affiliate programs then you can use your affiliate links as a signature in those forums/discussion groups. If someone from the forum or even a non-registered user clicks that link and makes a purchase, enters a zip code or whatever it is that the affiliate action is then you will get a commission. This concept is just like a website's ad exposure, but instead of doing it from a website, you do it right from your forum posts. Therefore, you can join multiple forums that allows you to have a signature and extend your reach by posting in a variety of forums. Also keep in mind that junk posts that don't contribute much will be deleted and probably get you banned. A good strategy would be to start new topics that would engage replies and keep the topic on the top of the list, gaining more exposure this way. If you consistently help people with their questions and really add value to the community then you will gain trust and people will just be more likely to click on your affiliate links. An example of a good affiliate would be the Pepperjam Network.

6. Completing surveys

This is probably the worst way to make money online. Indeed, companies do want to know consumer's opinions in order to generate more sales, but what they don't want is to put money in your pockets. If you're lucky and have a fast pace, you can expect 5-10$/hour but not more. Survey sites make money usually by expecting to get you discouraged and quit before you've even reached the minimum funds required for the payout. This method is NOT recommended... however if you're still keen to try then you can always go to  Surveys4cash.com

7. Freelancing

A freelance worker or freelancer is a self-employed person who does jobs without a long term commitment to a particular employer. Freelancing is especially common in the areas of writing, editing and proofreading, software development, website design, website promotion, copy editing and others. Since the internet is a worldwide economy, there is a considerable number of  freelance jobs that are took by students or people living in poor countries. The possibilities in freelancing are limitless because of the fact that your time is flexible and you don't have a boss to always tell you what to do, a good freelancer should at least have a blog/website showing his portfolio and/or the services he offers.

8. Creating your own content/product

A good number of people are putting their articles into ebook format and up for sale on sites like clickbank.com , where a whole community of webmasters - big and small - can promote their e-books for a cut on the sale price. If your e-book is good, it will have unlimited financial potential because of the large reach it has on affiliate networks like clickbank.com. If you're good with videos you can also make money off those as there is a huge potential for videos on the web; an example is with the stunning success of Susan Boyle over Youtube and the internet.

9. Internet real estate / flipping websites

It is a known trend that people are watching less television and instead spending more of that time on the internet. Subsequently, there is more and more money poured into the internet by companies wanting to reach out customers, not even the economic lowdowns have slowed that trend. As more businesses and individuals are looking to grab a portion of internet space, the value of domain names is increasing. All you need is a bit of imagination as swell as some pocket change to grab an available domain name resell the site for profit. There's also a number of websites that are for sale, and if you think that they have potential, then you can flip them for profit. Websites typically sell for about 5 to 20 times the price of their monthly income and as for domain names it depends on whether the name is catchy and easy to remember, premium domain names can sell for hundreds of thousands to millions. But for the sake of being conservative, I'd say that a new, quickly made website can easily go for a hundred bucks or more. This method is worth considering, having a good judgment here is critical.A good place to buy/sell websites would be on the digitalpoint forums

10. Starting an online business

If you have enough money and experience, you can also startup an online business. For example you can hire bloggers and build a network of blogs or information sites, you can start a web hosting company, start up a large news company, etc. It's basically hiring people to do work, keeping a cut of the income and paying a share to your employees. Importing/exporting is also in this category. The internet has opened up a lot of potential into this field. If you have enough money to play with then you can make the contact between wholesale suppliers and retailers and get a cut of the transaction. I'm not at this stage yet but my day will come!!


As you can see, there are many ways to make money online and most of them do not require much money if at all. In all these ways there is a chance for you to not be successful..as with everything else in life after all. But if you're decided and really have a strong will to make money online then I don't see why you can't achieve it. Most people don't even know that you have a reasonable chance to make money from the internet and work from home so if someone calls you crazy then you should ignore them. Remember, live your own life and your own dreams - not the one of others. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger... but still, eat your brocoli!

Well I hope you enjoyed this article, if I've missed anything and you'd like to add something or share an experience then feel free to comment below.

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