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 private 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
SponsoredTweets.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 Canadian 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.
Matt & 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.
Checkout our article The Top 10 Tips On Starting Your Own Successful Clothing Line, this should give you an idea on how to kick things off.
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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