If you’d claimed it was possible for
the average guy on the street to make
millions of dollars online just a decade ago, the chances are
good you’d have heard nothing but laughter in response. Today, though, there
are countless Internet millionaires who turned a great
idea into obscene profit, used the power of the web to promote their offline
business or simply worked their butt off to sell their skills online.
While it’s unlikely that you’ll ever
earn enough to buy your own island, there’s nothing to stop you from using your
skills to make a comfortable living online. In fact, while
the media would have you believe that online success stories are limited to
just a few lucky, hard working people who stumbled on a great idea that went on
to make millions, the reality is that there are tens of thousands of people who
make a living exclusively online. Here are just ten ways you can join
them.
How To Make Money Online
1. Sell Stock
Photography
The Internet has
caused an explosion in the demand for stock photography. As the number of media
and commercial outlets has increased dramatically with the growth of online
media there’s an enormous need for high quality stock photos.
Yuri Arcurs is the man everyone turns to for
their stock photo needs. As the world’s top selling stock photographer he sells
an image every 8 seconds, 24 hours a day (that works out to over 4 million
images each year). Arcurs makes millions of dollars each year simply by being
the best at what he does. There are lots of great photographers in the world
and the barrier to entry is as low as ownership of a camera, but Arcurs has
managed to build a reputation online for consistent, high quality and
imaginative images.
If you’re a professional photographer (or even just a hobbyist) you
should consider the possibilities of selling stock images online.
2. Tweet For
Sponsors
Sponsoretweets.com is an online
platform that allows you to make money on
Twitter by charging sponsors for communicating their advertising messages
to your followers. You set the amount you want to get paid for every tweet you
make, choose a category and select keywords you want to work with. You then
wait for advertisers to contact you and take you up on your offer, paying you
the amount you specified for each tweet that you make.
All throughout the process, the tweeter has full control over his or her
account, and may choose the wordings of the tweets, or may choose to reject the
tweet altogether.
3. Blog for Ad
Revenues
If, however, you
already have a blog with a devoted following it should be easy for you to
leverage your readers into hard cash. Ad networks such as Google AdSense pay big money to place their ads
on your site, and you’ll receive a payment every time a reader clicks one.
While it’s easy to go overboard and fill every spare pixel, if you place your
ads well it’s possible to make a comfortable income from your site.
One of the most successful bloggers around today is John Chow.
a Canafian blogger. who makes more than $40,000 a month
through ad sales and other revenue streams. Ironically, his blog is about ways to make money online.
4. Sell Affiliate
Products
If you have a flair for sales copy you could try your hand at selling
products for affiliates. While many people take the seedy route of selling diet
pills and penis enlargement products, if you want to keep your conscience clear
you’ll find that Amazon runs a very successful affiliate program that allows
you to make money advertising any of the products for sale on their site. eBay
also have a pretty good affiliate setup, with their top affiliates earning $1.3
Million a month, WOW!
5. Write an e Book
In recent years the
self-publishing world has exploded online to the point at which you don’t even
have to run your own site in order to promote a book. Amazon, Barnes &
Noble and Kobo are just a few of the sites on which you could self-publish
today, with commission rates of around 70% available on every sale.
The number of eBooks on Amazon reached 8 million last year, and
Amazon stated that eBooks are outselling hard backs 2 to 1, 62% of ebook sales
fell into the Thriller and Mystery genre, so if you feel that you could pull
this style of genre off then you will be in for a good chance of sales.
26 year old self published author, Amanda Hocking from Minnesota makes more than
$2 Million a year from her ebook sales. Amanda Hocking’s stories about,
trolls, vampires and zombies and ‘supernatural teen romances’ sell for
$2.99 or for as little as $.99.
6. Become a Virtual
Assistant
Every small businessman would love to hire a full time assistant to take
care of the little things, but many simply can’t afford one. Thanks to the Internet,
though, they can now hire part time assistants who work for a whole host of
clients, and all at a much lower cost than a full time staff member.
If you work from home this may be a
perfect opportunity to make a consistent income. Virtual assistants can earn
$20 an hour in return for booking travel tickets,
interacting with clients and dealing with the daily needs of small businesses.
7. Lease Your
Skills
Most people have at
least one skill that carries a market value, though until now that skill may
have been impossible to monetize in the traditional
job market.
Sites such as 99Designs, Elance, Freelancer and iWriter allow people to
hire out their skills as writers, coders, designers, translators and lots more
on a contract basis. Freelancing sites are a great way to boost your income in
your free time, and with enough motivation and hard work you could find
yourself earning a comfortable full time income from them.
8. Selling on eBay
eBay is a great way
to turn your unwanted things into a little spending money, but it isn’t just a
place to sell your old Star Wars action figures. In fact, eBay’s global
marketplace can offer a great way for canny traders to buy and sell their way
to profit
By buying wholesale you can sell anything with a mark up. Even better, if you
have the skills to make things people want to buy you could start your own
home-based craft business, selling to customers around the world. Miles &
Amanda Clarkson are a successful couple who so far have
managed to make over $8 Million in eBay sales.
9. Become A
Mobile App Tester
People that are
rather uncertain of their application development potential can still make
some money through the usage of iPhone
apps.
People that have the time and desire
to test iPhone apps and discover
bugs can be rewarded payments for their efforts. Utest is one such application. Individuals that have
signed up will also build some reputation on the basis of the testing they have
done so far.
Better reputation signifies access to more profitable app testing
opportunities.
10. Designing
T-Shirts
Finally, if you have something of an artistic streak you could kick off the
next viral sensation with your own range of funky,
arty t-shirts. Sites such as CafePress allow users to upload their own t-shirt designs and sell them on their personal online store.
You can also contact distributors such as threadless.com or designbyhumans.com
to release your t-shirt designs to the masses.
If
your designs catch the eye you could be looking at enormous profits when they
take off in a big way.
Conclusion
As you can see, to make money online you don’t have to be particularly
skilled with computers. You don’t need to be know how to build your own website
from the ground up, and you don’t have to be a mogul with millions of dollars
to invest in success. If you have any kind of artistic skills, creativity or
business savvy you can turn it into profit.
In
short, you should understand that the online world is just like real life. The
same opportunities are there for the taking, but instead of drawing your
customers from just your home town you can reach out with your great ideas to
the far reaches of the earth.
So
why not start today?
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