Making money online is quite a quagmire of information to navigate, but in my research I have found that there are a few things that remain consistent across the board.
- While it is true that the potential to earn an income online is absolutely massive — it is no easy feat. Despite the ability to reach a seemingly endless audience of potential customers, there is also huge amounts of competition. Earning an income online is hard work and will take a serious investment in your time. This shouldn’t dissuade anyone, but anyone looking for “easy online money” is in for a reality check.
- The number one way to make money online is by selling a product. This shouldn’t be a surprise as this is no different than business carried out in the old brick and mortar way. People need to part with their money for you to earn an income and thus you need to provide them with something — a product. Even blogs are a product. If you want people to subscribe to and visit your site to earn an income from advertising or affiliate marketing you need to provide them with relevant content and information. Again, this is a product in itself.
- Volume is key. To get the organic search traffic required to sustain an online business a certain volume of content is necessary. This may require you to post to a blog several times a week or more to stay relevant with the search engine keywords for your niche.
- It takes time. Lots and lots of time, but persistence is key as in any other business. If you persist, it can happen, but don’t expect it to happen magically. There is no money tree.
So if you’re still with me, you may have some understanding that any type of business, regardless of its form, requires serious effort. If you are willing and able to put that time into creating a source of online income the benefits can be life changing.
Working online means a certain flexibility of location. Depending on your chosen niche or subject, you may be able to create your product or write your blog from anywhere, and on your own terms. This flexibility can often outweigh the possibility of a lower income.
The internet never sleeps, but you can. Your online products will be available 24 hours a day 7 days a week. There is no limit to what you can achieve, and making a passive income is a definite reality, and a potential for a great income that doesn’t require your 100% attention at all times. Unlike a job where you need to show up in order to earn. Working online allows you to create content whenever you like. It may still take 8 hours a day, but you can choose how those 8 hours go down.
There are a variety of ways to make money online which I have summarize below. This is by no means a definitive list, but should provide you with some insight into what options are available should you be looking to start your own online business.
- Online Publishing — I refer to it as publishing because that is what blogging has become. Earning a living from a blog is possible, but I think it’s best to look at it like a magazine. If you create quality useful content you are essentially publishing an online magazine. If you treat it as such you will have the chance to develop an audience over time. Income can be generated through advertising networks, direct advertising sales, affiliate marketing, and possibly even subscription fees. Once you have a captive audience your ability to sell them other products is not limited just to advertising
- Google AdSense / Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Ads — This is no longer an easy way to make money, but if you have a high traffic blog it can lead to good returns. To illustrate what kind of traffic it would take to earn a living from PPC consider this. A very generous click-through-rate (CTR) would be 1% for someone starting out. If 100 people came to your site, 1 person would click on an ad and you may earn as much as a few dollars, but likely more like a few cents. So even at $1 per 100 people you would need 10,000 people to visit your site to earn $100. That is quite a bit of traffic!
- Affiliate Marketing — This is where you advertise another product through your website an earn a commission when someone follows through with a purchase. There are good and bad kinds of affiliate marketing. Some are perceived as scams and some as legit. Huge companies have affiliate networks and some of them are for great products. Other products are kind of crappy, but can still earn you a living, and often have great commissions. At times there is a bit of a moral quandary around affiliate marketing, but nonetheless there is huge potential here.
- Article Marketing — This is where you right articles on your blog or on an article site to promote affiliate products. It can be a very effective tool to sell affiliate products, but can also require massive volume of articles to be effective depending on your niche.
- Stock Photography — Selling stock photos is getting more and more competitive, but if you have a unique style or a unique niche you may be able to earn a decent income from selling stock photos through a stock agency like iStockphoto.com. This is often referred to as Microstock photography.
- Write articles for an article site — If you are knowledgeable on a particular topic you may be able to earn some money through writing for sites like ezinearticles.com, ehow.com, or TrendHunter. All require a serious amount of volume, but you earn ad revenue off of the articles you write and those sites rank very highly in search engines. Much more highly than your new site will for a long time, so the benefit can be substantial. Some writers report incomes of $500-1000 per month with about 300-500 articles. That sounds like a lot, but those articles can live on for years and generally are not more than 500 words.
- Start an online store — This is probably the most obvious way to make money online. If you have a product or access to products that you can sell starting an online store can be a great way to supplement or create an income. Using techniques like outsourcing for customer service, billing, and order fulfillment can also simplify the process. It is now possible to run a store online without ever seeing the product in person, which means you don’t necessarily need a warehouse or big garage to do it.
Well that is an overview of some ways that it is possible for a beginner to start out making money online. If I’ve missed anything or if you have anything to add please feel free to leave a detailed comment below.
