making money online step by step for beginner

 All you need to start making money online 2023

Since its beginning, Internet has become a place where everything can be found. It all started as a local network for military purposes, turn into a messaging and collaboration network between universities and evolves into a global network as we know it.

Everything is on the net today, whether it is news for something that happens just a minute ago, information about weather conditions tomorrow, places you never visit and people you’ve never met, an old image of my grand grand father, books, sites and more. Absolutely everything.

In this crowded ever expanding space everything is available sometimes free but much often you will have to pay for a service, membership of a site, a training course, or just buy something from an online store. Actually nothing is free on the internet. Even if you don’t have to pay for something, you’ll have to spend time reading or click on advertising that leads to another place where something else is offering for sale.

Using the internet just for gathering information is free, but don’t you think it needs a small effort, connection and time, and time is money, right?

Think about internet as the ultimate marketplace. Everything is there and everything is for sale, even your time. So, why not get in and try to get your piece of the pie.

Sounds good but also terrifying. Don’t worry, you are already part of all of this, just maybe not aware yet. Yes, You are

there: you have an email, profile on Facebook, have paid for a membership on a local site, have subscribed on several YouTube channels, have purchased stuff from eBay etc. And it is normal, everybody is doing it on a daily basis and it is the way the things work.

What if you can leverage internet to make money?

 

Sounds good but is it possible? Sure it is. Internet gives the opportunities beyond all other. Just will need few hours of your time, a will to start, few more things and this ebook as guide. But first lets go with the basics.

Internet is everywhere

Use it everywhere, at home, at work, while you waiting for a public transport (but not when you’re driving). Technology has make it possible to be connected everywhere and access to internet has become easier then ever. You can connect with your smart phone pretty much where ever you are (except you’re in a desert, at sea or on top of a mountain). Connection speeds are getting faster so you can open your social media profile and see what is going on in a second.

Use the newest technology

If possible, use the newest technology (if can afford it). A new laptop performs much better then the old one. Same for software. New gadgets and equipment are released, try to keep up or at least get informed about new trends and technologies.

Get the newest software

To do a task on your device will need software of a kind. Use the latest version. If can not afford it, use a free (or open

source) alternative. Many applications are moving online, so you can find a good web service that does its job. Cell phone apps are getting better and better matching the functionalities of desktop applications.

Keep your self updated

Knowing the latest news and trends is good and feels good. Keep yourself informed. Knowledge is power. Things are constantly changing and have to keep up. Get yourself updated about subjects you are interested in. Same with people, keep in touch with friends, old and new and especially with people sharing similar interests whether at work place or private.

Always read the latest articles and posts about a subject. Visit and read another article about same subject. You have to decide which one is better and will you follow it. Different views offer different perspectives.

Search the internet

With all the information and data on the net, there are lot of incorrect and fake information and sometimes is hard to find the line between truth and false info. In earlier days, the internet was not so crowded and much less sites exists then today, so navigation and finding correct answers was easier. Yet, search engine technology improves much since then and relevant information is on your finger tips – will need just to type what you search for in your browser e.g. “GOOGLE it”. But still results may be not exactly accurate so you’ll need to be more specific in your searches.

When searching the internet e.g. typing in the search bar of the browser instead of typing a word of two, be as specific as

possible – type the whole sentence if you must. It will narrow the results and give you the closest answers to your search phrase.

Use a voice search

 

Build your reputation

Being expert in tour field doesn’t matter much out of your workplace. You have to express yourself and share the word about your knowledge and achievements. Here comes the social media, especially LinkedIn and Facebook. These two above all will help you build a brand name for You and your business.

Depending what you’ll focus on, most important thing is to create a name for your brand/business or a nickname (pseudonym) for yourself. It should be related to you/your business, easy to spell and easy to remember, so choose wisely.

Brand name is a starting point of any business.

 

Learn new things

Always learn and acquire new skills. This will help you get relevant knowledge and new skills that may be handy.

Do your research

Always make a research before start planning some venture. Search for related topics. Search for sites offering information or providing the product or service you need. Read comments. Search and read reviews and customer satisfaction. Always read Terms of service, Privacy policy and Legal rights. If it is a paid service, double check prices and fees, and what you’ll get if upgrade. Do this and you’ll always be on a safe side.

These are few things you should keep in mind when using internet.

Now you may feel ready to start thinking seriously about making money online, but there are few more things to consider first.

Things To do before start thinking seriously about making money online:

–  Prepare yourself physically and mentally as this is going to be a long and hard process

–  Get everything documented

–  Will need a starting point

–  Start with only one opportunity

–  Separate jobs in smaller tasks

–  Don’t do everything at once

–  Make a schedule

–  Do your research. This ebook is just a quick guide that helps you start looking for opportunities but at the end of the day you will have to look further and choose by yourself

–  Join sites that looks promising after the research and reviews

–  Start as free member

–  Learn how it works

–  Search for another opportunity

–  Test and compare

–  Analyze results

–  Go with the best promising one

–  Keep on going

Things you should never do before start making money online:

–  Not prepare at all

–  Not done any of the above steps needed to be done

–  Think it will be easy

–  Being lazy

–  Not having a plan

–  Despair if the first thing you try doesn’t work

–  Procrastinate

–  Don’t quit your daily job (or even think about quitting, until you establish well your online business and start earning at least twice your salary at a monthly basis over and over in the next 6 months or a year)

 

Requirements

If all previous sound terrifying, don’t despair, it is not so bad as seems. Take a deep breath and start with the preparations. This will take a lot of your time so you must stay calm and proceed.

For a start you’ll need these tools:

• Assumingyou have a computer or a laptop (phones and tablets have smaller screens but will need them later).
• An internet connection (speed doesn’t really matter butfaster is better).

• A web browser. Any will do no matter is it Chrome,Firefox, Opera, Safary or Brave. Any other browser you may think of will be good also.
• An email adress (preferably Gmail) as it most handy,giving access to Google services and can be used as a login on many other sites.
• A text editor like notepad or similar (preferably with linenumbering and syntax highlight). It is essential to stay organized. Write down the sites you visit. Later, you might need it for other tasks like writing, editing your texts, writing blog posts or even programming as most have programming language syntax highlighting feature. Really good one with lot of options (free and Open Source) is Notepad++
• Animage viewer (it is already installed on your computer).
• An office suite like Open Office or Libre Office (both arefree and open source). Both contains several more programs that will need later.
• Spreadsheet (excell like program) of a kind as it is moreconvenient way to stay organized. Write all the data you need during your research including site URLs you’ve visited, programs and services you’ve joined, their category, login details, description and how they perform. Add your own rating system and rate the sites you visit by their earning potential or other criteria. A sample blank spreadsheet of my own is available on my blog for free download.
• Alist of sites promising to earn you money or show you

how, related blogs, review sites, online tools etc or use this ebook as a reference.

• Apayment service provider – online payment system or a credit card / bank account

These are the basic requirements you’ll need for a start. Later you might need more.

It is time to proceed.

 

 

 

 

Somme Idea

Making money online is something that every person have thought of (You must admit it). Especially if you are looking for a new opportunity in life, are between jobs or must stay at home because of a virus outbreak. The idea of making money online itself is very appealing one.

No matter if it is few extra bucks you’ll get as bonus for joining a site, a discount you’ve get when buying online or get paid for some job you’ve done online for a person on the other part of the world, it is money after all.

 

Money is always needed.

 

There are lot of ways to make money especially online. Ads suggesting ways to earn a fortune, on the site you visit, on social media, on your phone are popping everywhere. But must be careful.

Sitting behind my computer, just surfing the net to find something to read, few ads came to my attention. One of them

was an article about Multiple Streams of Income. Searching a bit I’ve found few more. In short, they suggest generating income from multiple sources – several different opportunities to earn money with little or no effort, each not too much time consuming, all together working in the same time. This sounds like a dream of a lazy man, but makes sense in a way.

Generating a fortune (100-200K in 3 months or less, as some internet gurus promise, is impossible when starting from nothing with no initial investments), but making a steady 3-5 different income streams that work together can be nice addition to a home budget or even replace your monthly salary month after month. This is a realistic objective to achieve.

All previous make me think about the ways how to make money online.

Opportunities are everywhere just have to look

 

So I’ve started my research. Every day after I came back from work I sit on a computer and search Google for terms like: “make money online”, “ways to make money”, “online opportunities”, “generate income” and similar. I’m running a blog in this niche, so I have to do this anyway. It helps me get ideas for new titles and blog posts but also make me think of something bigger.

After 2-3 months of extensive internet research and many hours spend behind a computer, I had a plan where to start and how, and it will cost me nothing to try except my time.

 

 

The Plan

During the months of research I’ve gathered a list of possible

ways to earn money online and put them on an EXCELL spreadsheet. When categorized from simplest to the most complex the short list looks like this:

• Programsadvertised as “Get paid for something you already doing”
• Earnby using your skills and expertise
• Onlinestore and selling
• Marketingrelated
• Workfrom home opportunities (everything above not mentioned)

Actually the list of online opportunities is much bigger than this and contains jobs that are not related to internet and computers at all, just using internet as a sales funnel.

Negative categorization would be:

 

–  time wasters

 

–  work from home the job you already do at your work place

 

–  try to sell something

 

–  do what you want and try to live from it But lets stay positive.

Believe it or not most of the opportunities work. Some more, some less, any of them can earn you some amount and some opportunities may even get you rich which is really hard to achieve but not impossible. So let be realistic.

How much do you expect to earn?

Depending of what you choose in the first month of starting don’t expect to earn more then 50-100$ if find a good opportunity and worked on it.

You can try and utilize another method to double earnings.

 

For a start focus just on one opportunity. Whatever it is you must work hard and grow.

To grow, promotion must be done properly (paying for ads or hire somebody to help).

You can start solely by yourself with no investments at all, by joining sites and services for free. Most sites offer basic services for free but paid upgrades gives more options and possibilities. In time your earnings will grow and as business expands you’ll be unable to manage everything by yourself and will need to hire some help.

Set your goals

You have to decide how much money you need and how much time and effort are ready to spend to achieve,

Don’t set your goals too high

 

If you expect  to earn 1000$ in your first month and grow further, you are miles away from success.

Setting expectations too high and not achieving results will lead to quit and all the time and effort you’ve spent will be lost. Instead, set your goals much lower 50-100$ a month in the first month and few months that follows. Can go a little more up lets say 250$ which is enough and achievable. In 2-3 months you can grow more. During this time will learn how the opportunity you chose works and what have to expect from it.

Start with just one opportunity or two. Don’t go with five or all at once. You’ll be overwhelmed of all the tasks you’ll need to do and in short time get you tired leading you to quit.

Have to consider discipline. You must have a schedule of tasks to do on a daily basis, stick to it and work properly day after day. You must use 2 or 3 hours of your spare time each and every day working on your project:

PROJECT ONLINE INCOME

Think that this would be almost all you need before starting this project: to make online income. Will need just one more thing.

 

 

Payment Service Provider (PSP)

You’ll need a way to get the money You’ve earned.

 

If you want to buy/sell on the internet you’ll need a credit card or other conventional method/currency!?

Credit cards are widely used everywhere but what if you don’t have one or don’t want to use it online.

There are online payment systems (web currencies or a virtual money) that can be used for payments.

They offer a fast way of sending and receiving money, transaction security as with credit card processors and usually a low fees. Joining them is free and most of them have not monthly or setup fees, just a small transaction fee.

You can always use your credit card or a wired transfer as alternative way to get your earnings from a site that provides

services or vice versa.

 

When it is about my money I wouldn’t use my personal bank account nor my Master card to pay for a service to a site I’ve just visited. Instead I’ll use an online payment solution or a specialized internet payment card instead.

PayPal is the most widely used online payment system on the internet trusted by millions worldwide. It is used as a payment processor almost everywhere: in online shops, shopping carts, auctions sites and all mayor sites and social media accept and prioritize PayPal over other methods.

Paypal is very easy to use and that is one of the things that makes it so popular.

To make a purchase on an online shop, you just check the item you want and select Paypal as payment, just have to click a button and will be get to PayPal site to authorize the payment with your email address and password.

With Paypal, you can add/connect a credit card so you can add/receive funds directly to a credit card.

There is a BUY NOW (very handy for selling single items) and Donation buttons as option which are easy to set up as – copy/ paste a few lines of code into your site (pointing you as a receiver).

Implementing PayPal service in an online store is very easy, but instead of personal you might need to upgrade into merchant account.

There are some limitation in the amounts (in personal account) you can send/receive, but that doesn’t really matters and can always upgrade and lift the limits off.

Using it is free and fees for sending/receiving is lowest then on most of the competition and much lower then if using a credit card.

Another widely used payment method is Skrill (previously Moneybookers). It works similar to PayPal with little differences. It is used worldwide and you can receive funds to your bank account directly, credit card or by check.

There are many more payment providers, more than 900 worldwide. Offering same or similar services.

You can use your bank account via wire transfer to get your earnings or a credit card. But still I don’t recommend these two.

Instead of your personal credit/debit card better solution is to get a specialized internet payment card from your bank. It works just like the card/s you have, just for online purchasing (e.g. you put funds when you need it instead connecting it to all your savings).

You can even look further and check for a Payoneer card. Despite higher fees, it is handy, works with every ATM, worldwide.

 

 

Crypto currency wallet

Cryptocurrencies are here and many sites accept Bitcoin as a legitimate way of payment. So You might have to think acquiring a crypto wallet to be able to accept payments in Bitcoin or some other cryptocurrency. There are different types of crypto wallets but I suggest some online wallet that supports

several different crypto currencies beside Bitcoin.

 

Whatever you use, keep it safe and don’t share any sensible information

May share your paypal address when requesting payment from a person you know, or making purchase from a large, well known and trusted site (trusted sites use secured version of the payment page – it starts with HTTPS instead http but it is not always a guarantee).

About other sensitive personal information – never share it (this includes your Personal ID, social security number, driver license, passport). Sometimes the largest sites like Facebook, PayPal and some others will ask you to provide some of these to verify your identity. Then and only then you can show this info but check first if they are using HTTPS version of the site, and be 100% sure that it is the correct site – not a misspelled one (phishing site that looks the same as original but its only purpose is to gather your information and misuse it by selling it or for other illegal purposes).

Now, with all requirements covered, may proceed to making money online and the opportunities offered out there.

I: METHODS OF EARNING ONLINE WITH NO PARTICULAR SKILLS

Many methods promising to make you money online doesn’t need any investment, nor skills, just internet and your time. These are the easiest to start. You can use your computer or your phone to do online tasks, playing games, collecting rewards and similar.

PTC

PTC (Paid to click) and PayToView (PTV) is usually a site where you register for free and after that you start browsing the sites advertised by the PTC site, click on ads and get paid for doing it. Usually these kind of sites offer several other ways to earn beside clicking and viewing sites.

You’ll have to click on an advertisement, view the ads or a site for 10-30 second and click the appropriate image or text to get credited for your click and to go to next one. Some sites get you back on the browse ads page.

For every click you are paid in credits/points or in cash. Points sometimes may be exchanged for cash or You may use them as advertising credits to put your site/s to be viewed by other members of the PTC site so you get views and visitors for yours. This might be useful for getting visitors and building traffic for your site.

It is OK if you just want to increase visits and Alexa ranking, but if showing ads on your site this will harm your earnings. So go for the money instead.

Payment rates are usually 0.01$ (e.g. 1 cent) per click/view or less, so don’t expect too much. As the payment rates are very

low, another way to increase earnings is to get referrals – members that signed membership on a site under your recommendation (you as the referrer, refer them to join and get a percentage or a fix amount for this).

Acquiring a referrals is another way to make money which will be discussed later in another chapter.

There are many PTC and some have worked. But is that really worth? Have to click hundreds of sites for   just 1 dollar!?? Don’t think so. Personally I’ve skipped this method, so should You.

PTCs were are a big hype in the early days of internet and worked till some 5 – 10 years ago but to be honest never like the pay rate. Some are still working by the way and Clixsense is one of the oldest PTC sites out there (it changed its name into ySense).

If want to learn more, there were a lot of articles, tutorials and ebooks on how to start earning with Neobux as it has a unique scheme for getting/renting referrals to increase earnings.

Autosurf & Paid to Surf programs (PTS)

Same as PTC, but this time you don’t have to click, the advertised sites rotate automatically after some time interval. In fact you’re paid for surfing. This kind of sites are very rare and the existing ones are often SCAM.

Very similar to PTC and PTS are traffic exchange sites where instead of earning money for surfing or clicking and viewing ads, you earn credits/points which can be exchanged for traffic to your site/s. This can be very useful for building site traffic but also harmful for your site.

Paid surveys

After registering you are allowed to do paid surveys. Most of the surveys are US based so if you are from other country you can not participate.

PTP

PTP (PaidToPromote) sites have elements of all previous. Their purpose is to promote rotated sites thru clicking ads, surfing, reading ads and e-mails, vote and rate sites, watching ads, play games, surveys etc. Payment for these tasks is in cash or points.

Micro tasks

You can search for “micro jobs”, “small tasks” or “micro tasks”. Sites that you’ll get as a result of your search offer to pay you for doing different simple tasks (other then on Paid To Promote sites). These kind of sites are often reputable and you’ll not get scammed. althoughgh payments are not very high, but the tasks are pretty simple like clicking, rating images, adding descriptions and many more.

Link shorteners

There are link shortheners that pays you for sharing links. Actually, by using their link shorthening service (nobody really like  those ugly    links    that               are      a          mile    long,             such    as: https://www.projectonlineincome.com/2020/03/two-side- projects-on-its-way.html) so by using a link shortener, you’ll get      a          short link     which when             clicked,                will show      an advertisement first (interstitial or a banner) before opening the target URL.

Will have to share the short link as much as possible to get 1000 clicks to earn a few dollars. As social media ban paid link shortheners a long time ago, you’ll have to manage where to share your links that pays.

Don’t share your short links on social media or you’ll get your account suspended

Apps that pay

On mobile phones, apps that pays were always popular. You can find them on the market, install on your phone and do the tasks. These apps usually require you to:

• watchads
• clickon sites
• watchvideos
• survey
• installmore apps
• rateother apps
• playgames

These apps offer all the above on same place as an app on your phone instead in a browser. Payments are low too.

About previous simple methods

 

All the previous needs a lot of your time. Many sites combine the above methods.

You register for free and even pay for an upgrade. Still, if started with a such, will end clicking a whole day for a dollar or

two at most. Payout is usually once you get to a certain amount (10$) which is hard to reach and will take weeks (or months) to get paid.

Idea behind all is to grow you referrals to get portion of their earnings (so they will work for you). This is a basic of affiliate marketing I’ll talk about in CHAPTER V which is easy to learn but hard to master. For now, lets go on.

HYIP

HYIP stands for High Yield Investment Programs. HYIP is way of investment thru a web site to get you a high profit. This is very similar like mutual investment funds and the pension system funding but runs solely online. Idea is to invest and in a quick time (a month or less get back your initial investment + high percent of net revenue).

For example: You pay 100$ and in 10 days you get 150$ or something like that. This sounds good, but be very careful with these sites, 99% are SCAMs and after you join and deposit first amount, you get nothing, not even the money you have invested or even worse the site has disappears after a week. Sometimes you’ll manage to get paid (the first time).

To avoid fraud and not get burned, simply forget this method.

Giveaways

Giveaway is something you get for free which normally has to be purchased. This usually applies to software, games, apps, books or even the newest phones and gadgets. It is a great way to get something for free instead of buying it.

Sweepstakes

Sweepstakes are very similar to lottery but participation is free (if you pay to participate – it is gambling). Sweepstakes are mostly used as a way of a marketing promotion where You have to participate (join a website or a competition of a kind) and if get drawn you get a prize. Prizes may be vouchers, discount codes, coupons, free launch, but also a real products, sometimes even very expensive ones.

While there are many sites specialized for sweepstakes and listing sweepstakes offers, most of the largest companies are involved in. Sweepstakes are a great way to draw attention to their newest products and to reward existing customers.

Competitions and contests

Same as sweepstakes, participation is usually free (sometimes a small tuition fee is required to cover the organizational costs). Instead of getting drawn you submit a vote, and the most voted participants gets the prizes.

There are lot of competitions and contests about every subject you can imagine: photo contests, logo contests, a best article, the funniest photo etc.

There are also local offline competitions you can join and participate if advertised online.

Very interesting are photo contests where everyone can participate and win a prize. Phones are getting better every year and some competitions accept mobile phone photography. So, why not give a shot to this opportunity. There are a lot of places where you can offer your photos for sale (and mobile apps).

There are also design contests where artists and graphic designers can show their concepts and if win get the prize and get recognition. Personally, have participate on several t-shirt design contests on print on demand sites like Threadless but didn’t won any (yet). Feeling is great when you can show your creation and get comments.

Freerolls

FREEROLL – as the name says it all, it is a free competition for real prizes for playing games. Competitions varies from poker tournaments, to competitions in some not so popular table games such as Yahtzee, Backgammon and Mahjong. A bit hard to find, there are some really good free rolls on the net (usually on the betting sites).

Paid to play

Many phone apps offer free games with cash prizes. They show a lot of ads. Games offered includes: scratches, daily lottery, bingo, wheel of fortune. Believe it or not, some of these apps actually pays by sharing part of their income from ads as prizes for lucky winners. I have even won 50$ once on an app called Luckyday (use code UBGWSBK). Installation and use is free, but may not get paid ever.

Be careful with these apps, find and check reviews first.

 

Beside phone apps, there are several sites where You can play games face to face against a real person. Games like yahtzee, backgammon, card games, table games. But you have to deposit first to play for real money.

This is kind of gambling after all.

All the above methods mentioned are free to join and doesn’t require any knowledge or particular skills. While they are easy to use and don’t need anything special to participate, their earning potential is questionable.

If you want to earn money, You must work and get a job. But sometimes you can work online or even better, from the comfort of your home doing the same tasks as on your workplace, getting all the credits and earnings, doing something you like.

 EARNING MONEY ONLINE WITH YOUR SKILLS AND EXPERTISE

 

Now it is time to get to the real online work opportunities and to use all your professional skills, knowledge and experience. There are 3 possible scenarios:

1. No matter which subject you are specialized for, there areonline jobs that fits your profile, just have to search a bit. Instead of a regular 9-5 work + an hour to your workplace and back, you will still work 8 working hours a day if you accept a remote job, but from comfort of your home – telecommuting.

2. Get the things in your own hands and start working foryourself, setting your own hours, accepting only tasks and projects you want – freelance.
3. Third and most appealing, is to do something you reallywant, unleash your artistic potential and make unique creations whether it is in field of writing, graphic design or something else, by becoming an independent author/designer

– indie.

 

All three paths have their own pros and cons:

 

	PRO	CON
Telecommuting	–  replaces your regular job –  no need to go to workplace	–  not so easy to find   –  40+ working hours per week   –  almost same as your old job
Freelance	–  select on which projects to work –  make your own working hours –  good for making extra money –  can replace your daily job –  can buid good reputation	–  work not always available –  sometimes too busy   –  have to search and apply for work –  not all projects suits your skills –  possible revisions   –  working hours may vary   –  too much competition
Indie	– totally independent	– must have money aside

–  love your work   –  make your own working hours –  feels good   –  can build a brand

for living   –  have to sell your creations –  results are not always predictable

 

 

Introduction to telecommuting / teleworking

No matter which profession you’re specialized for, there are many sites that look for a person with your skills and expertise. I’m not talking about a job listing sites althoughgh you can find some jobs there too. Instead, look for a remote job positions.

You must have a good professional CV (Curiculum Vitae) first, showing your experience and skills. It must contain your previous work experience and list of company/companies you’ve worked including your position there, job responsibilities and competencies. Can list your skills and projects you’ve completed successfully. If already not have a CV, can check and create your CV for free.

A professional profile on LinkedIn is a must. It can be very helpful for your professional career. Potential employers can see your profile and skills. Somebody just might need a person with your expertise and experience.

Types of work that can be done remotely really varies a lot. Many are specialized about, mentoring, coaching, virtual assistance and help desk support. This includes typing and writing jobs also.

But it is not strictly about mentioned only. So try and search for:

Remote jobs

You can find many remote jobs matching your specific career path. Just type in the search box in your browser “remote jobs” (without the quotes of course) and the result will lead you to thousands of sites listing remote jobs e.g. jobs that doesn’t require physically to be on your work place. Some require to be in the same country or same city and be able to visit the main office from time to time, but some doesn’t require that. You can be working from your home for a company on the other part of the world.

The job can be part time or full time, this depends of the employer and agreement between him and you but what matters always are results and productivity, not the time spent doing the job.

Most are remote work listing sites so you communicate directly with the employer. Some need to join the site offering this kind of opportunity, apply for a job and if hired start working in your field of expertise. Same rule applies for freelance sites with some limitations and instead working as on a regular jobs, you work on short term projects.

Freelancing

Freelancing e.g. working as a freelancer means working something you want to do, by using your skills and expertise. If you have skills in writing, programming, graphic and web design, data entry jobs, virtual assistance, consulting, tech support, marketing and promotion, SEO etc. freelancing is the right opportunity for you to make an extra income online.

What do you need? Almost nothing – just your skills (a computer, internet and some software).

After a registration on a freelance site (which is free) you’ll be able to apply for jobs and projects and get paid for it.

With a basic membership you find a strict monthly number of projects you can apply for, so a good idea is to upgrade to get larger monthly quota and be able to apply for more projects each month. On some sites, if your proposal is not accepted, you get your bid back and can be used to apply on another project. Basics are same just different rules applies.

If chosen for a project, you have to provide the promised result, produce final files you’ve created or deliver a service as agreed. This may include not just the final files but all the source files, text and images used and derivative work.

Sometimes when win a project must sign an NDA (Non Disclosure Act). NDA is agreement that you will not use, nor share the creation you’ve made for that project, nor parts of it, not even for your portfolio. In wider legal terms NDA means not to even talk about it. Be careful when NDA is required.

Some of the best places to start as a freelancer are:

 

1. Upwork

Upwork is one of the best freelance sites to start. Registration is free (Basic plan) but can upgrade anytime to get more bids (connections).

After registration will have to fill your hourly rate, availability for work (working hours per week), skills, profile page, choose payment method for your pay out and few more things.

You can actually create several different specialized profiles

for every kind of job you plan to apply. You can create different profile for graphic related jobs and another one specialized for applying on jobs related to writing. This is very useful feature.

After completing the registration and related stuff you can search for jobs / projects thru categories you’ve chose during registration or thru the search box to get a list of available projects you can apply (submit proposal).

There are 2 types of projects: fixed-price and hourly. Fixed- price projects are those you’ll get paid on the completion (usually simple and can be done in short time) and Hourly by the agreed hourly price x hours spent working on the project you’ve been selected. Hourly projects can last for months, so this can become your temporary full time job.

You can set partial payments if project is too long or be paid in full on completion.

Upwork has its own time tracking software that has to be installed and running when working on hourly projects.

With a basic plan you are given 60 point to apply on projects. This doesn’t mean you have 60 available projects a month, as it needs 2 or more points to apply. Anyway 60 points are just enough for a start and you can start applying for jobs either fixed-priced or hourly and upgrade when you feel ready for more work. If you apply for a project and not chosen, you get the points back.

When submitting proposal you set the price you want to get paid (fixed or hourly rate). This don’t have to be the hourly rate set on your specialized profile. Try to bid lower.

You propose a time of delivery when applying for fixed-price projects.

You can upload a mock up (a sample) of the job required to be done, sample of previous similar work if allowed or even your portfolio if have it as a file.

Links are generally not allowed on freelance sites when bidding on projects (except in your profile).

If been selected for a job by the buyer (creator of the project – employer) you have to start working. In fixed project you can deliver the final result when done in the time frame you’ve promised when bidding. Delivery includes the results, but may also include all the source files, code, writing, concepts, images used etc. depending of the project. This is agreed between buyer and you as a freelancer during applying and negotiation eg. before project start.

If an hourly project it is wise to agree partial payments when applying, so you get paid for the work done every week till the completion. You have to use and run the upwork time tracking software to be able to be paid on an hourly base.

Payments are going thru the site itself, so there no way you’ll get bullied and not paid. Payments are done thru PayPal, Payoneer Card or Wire Transfer.

2. Freelancer

Freelancer is the biggest freelance site on the internet and the oldest one. Personally, I’ve started my freelancing career on this site (it was called Get A Freelancer then) but things changed much since. Site itself acquired several other freelance sites thru the years and changed its look and usability many times.

Looking and applying for projects, is similar as on Upwork. It has fixed and hourly projects. Has its own time tracking

software also.

 

Unfortunately, with a free plan (Intro), you will get only 15 bids per month and they are not refundable. Freelancer has several upgrade plans, so once you earn some money upgrade immediately.

While has all the features as Upwork, on Freelancer can find a lot more features and even an affiliate program.

Contests are a separate category where usually are posted logo design projects where when applying for a contest you must submit your design/s (mock ups). When applying on regular projects, you don’t have an option to attach a mock up (a feature that once existed but removed).

For your work you’re being paid by PayPal, Payoneer Card or Wire Transfer.

Freelancer have more users, meaning more competition.

 

3. Fiverr

Instead as a previous classic freelance sites where you compete for a job, on Fiverr you can sell your services instead of bidding for projects. You can also buy services (for a fixed price), similar like posting a project on other sites. After all, Fiverr is a different type of freelancing.

Think of Fiverr as a marketplace where you offer your services.

Listings (services) are called Gigs. They are actually a simple sales pages where you describe your service and what the buyer will get for a fixed price of 5$ or more. For more options, faster delivery or revisions there is an extra (an extra price to be paid, up to 3 extras), so sometimes gigs are not so

inexpensive as advertised.

 

Good and also bad thing about gigs is that there are so many gigs, so yours will hardly be seen.

You have to promote your gigs to get noticed and hired so you can sell your service and get paid. But seems it works if you are good in marketing and promoting.

Fees are a bit questionable but it is OK if there is constant need for your gigs.

Payments are thru Paypal, Bank transfer or Fiverr revenue card.

Beside these, there are many more freelance sites but for a start concentrate on just one (or all 3) and then look for other freelance sites.

These are the three largest and most used freelance sites. If looking for more, can check for a list of freelance sites, but more or less all works similar as these three.

Tips for good start as a freelancer

Freelancing has good and bad sides you have to be aware of:

 

Freelancing

–  select on which projects to work –  make your own working hours –  good for making extra money –  can replace your daily job

–  work is not always available –  sometimes too busy   –  have to search and apply for work –  not all projects suits your skills

– can build good reputation

–  possible revisions   –  working hours may vary   –  too much competition

 

 

But don’t worry and follow some rules I had to learn the hard way:

• Build aportfolio website. You can use your bio and promote your skills. Add examples of your previous work (if the buyer agree to allow you to use it for your portfolio. You’ll have to ask before do this, but a reference only and a link to it will do the job also if not signed NDA)
• Puta commenting system like Disqus and ask for opinions about your creations
• On your portfolio site put links to profiles on freelancesites
• Share a link to your portfolio site and include it in yourfreelance profile/s
• Make a pdf version of your portfolio site or a collage likeimage of your previous work that can easily be shared, printed or shown if asked
• Startwith only one freelance site and later join few others
• Bid only in categories you have skills, in the given timeframe,
• Bidonly on projects you are 100% sure you can finish

as required and on time, getting the customer satisfied so you might be hired from the same person again in his future projects

• On the start, apply for work on smaller projects till youbuild reputation and improve skills
• Bidlow. This will help you won a project
• Always prepare a mock up when bidding. May use yourportfolio also
• Whileworking on the project keep in touch and communicate with your customer. A good communication will help the final results to match customer satisfaction and lead to a great review and possible more work from the same person
• When project is done and customer satisfied, ask him togive a positive review about the service provided
• Askyour employer to allow you to use a watermarked or other way protected low definition small sized image of the work you’ve created for your portfolio. A link to the work you’ve done would be fine too
• When earn some money, upgrade your membership.This will allow you to bid on more projects and other benefits
• Asyou grow, apply for larger and better paid projects
• OnFiverr and freelance sites of the same type, create gigs and share them on social media to get attention
• Use paid promotion to get more work later when youwon several projects

• If have too much work, outsource some of your work to otherfreelancers (eg. create a project and hire help for cheaper price). This is a good opportunity to get others do the dirty work while you get the price difference
• Try to gather freelancers in your vicinity and gather ateam, if not, assemble a team of freelancers that previously work for you and you can rely on
• Ifable to get projects often or have steady customer with many future projects, have established a team, freelancing can become a business instead of way to earn some extra money online

This would be all you have to know to start and become successful freelancer. It is up to you to decide on which projects to apply, do you have the necessary skills and time to complete projects you applied for. If lack any of these don’t bid on projects at all and concentrate on promoting and selling your services on Fiverr.

Types of online jobs

There are many kind of jobs that can be found on the freelance and remote jobs sites. I’ll try to list them all but I’m sure I’ll miss some because there are many and list is growing.

Jobs and work that can be acquired online but have to be done on the place are not listed here. You can find in section VII as other work from home opportunities.

Counseling

When I say counseling I don’t mean a professional psychology therapist, but an expert in their field who coach clients to do something with a help of an expert. This includes legal advises

and law related jobs, business consulting, engineering, construction, logistics, health and much more.

Consulting type of work can be found on freelance sites and few other sites. You can try Fixya for free just to get the feeling how it works, just ask a question and will get answers or step by step instructions. You may answer some questions and provide help for free even.

Instead doing this for free you’ll get paid if apply for this kind of jobs on freelance sites. But notice that you can end working 8- 10 hours a day even if it is from the comfort of your home.

Another good place to start and earn with your expertise is

JustAnswer.com

 

Admin jobs

Administrative jobs, unlike consulting are more likely to be found. In fact you are working for somebody else doing daily jobs in the area of your expertise.

Help desk support

Help desk support and technical support are on high demand. You get a basic training about a product or service and start working as a support technician remotely providing help and solution to problems related to a product or service offered by your employer. Support is provided by email, real time messenger, remote desktop app or by phone.

Virtual assistant

Similar as previous, you will do various tasks on demand of your client. Virtual assistant job consists mainly of administrative related stuff, data entry and more.

Social media manager

This is actually a virtual assistant for social media networks. This person manages social media accounts, create and post on social media, run marketing campaigns etc. on behalf of a client. If you’re active on different social media, have several accounts per each, have a large number of followers/subscribers and already become an influencer, this is the right opportunity for you.

Translation and transcription

If speak other languages than your mother tonque you may try translation from text to text or from audio to text.

Narator – voice over

If have a pleasant voice you may look for this kind of job as there is a growing number of videos created for Youtube that need audio to be added.

A good place to search for the last two opportunities, is

Lionbridge.com

 

Web research and data mining

No matter is it an academic research or a list need to be created for a blog post the data is on the internet, just need to be collected.

Data entry

This is a bit dull, typing kind of work. Consists of populating shopping carts with products, making address books, populating databases with all kind of data, typing captchas and similar. Usually lower pay rates, paid on hourly basis.

Data science & Analytics

Gathered data has to be examined, analysed, structured and different reports to be created assuring quality and testing for more reliable results. Different methods and techniques exists. Mostly used for AI and business analysis.

Programming (coding)

Also known as coding is the process of creating a set of instructions that tells a device to perform a task. As today there are different kind of machines, computers, mobile devices, web technologies and each use different operating systems and programming languages, there is always lack of programmers.

If you know any programming or scripting language, you can find work anytime.

Once you learn one programming language you’ll want to learn few more. Many have similar syntax, and are easy to learn. Depending what type of programming you are up to, is it for desktop, mobile or web development, there are different languages for each but some works on all devices like JAVA, JavaScript and HTML.

Easiest to learn are HTML5/CSS3 and JavaScript. Those were meant for use on the web but can be used as a standalone desktop applications and on mobile phones. JavaScript is widely used in mobile and game development.

All you need is a text editor like notepad, few tutorials and a will to learn.

There are programming tools where you just drag and drop elements, code is generated automatically and you just tweak

the look and functionality.

 

By the way, programming is one of the best paid professions.

Web development

This doesn’t only require coding with front end (the look of the website), making graphics for UI (user interface), but also the functionality as a whole which has a great impact on usability and UX (user experience). Modern websites use HTML5/CSS3 as a front end and are built on bootstrap (a library including scripts, code snippets and short codes for creating websites).

To include functionalities and especially to store data, you’ll need a database (MySQL and PHP programming language). You’ll need a lot more, this is just for a start.

With all these you can create a professional website like those you visit every day.

You will have no problem to get projects and work if already created a few sites from a scratch. Web development have many aspects to take care but it is very interesting, fun and great for your portfolio.

Mobile development

Developing mobile apps is another programming related job. There are hundreds of new apps every day on the app stores. Depending of the mobile platform, Android or IOS there are different coding tools but once you figure one you can do both.

Specific with mobile development are implementing code to work with phone sensors, cameras, calls and other apps.

Game development

Another aspect of programming. This is a very creative job where a lot of coding and good graphic design is involved There are many tools for making games but the 2 most used are Unreal Engine and Unity.

There are many more, some are more user friendly and easy to learn than others but may lack some functionality.

Quality Assurance & Testing

When finished programming, a complete product, software, app, game or a website is ready to see the light of the day. Not so fast! It has to be tested first, before published and put on sale.

Here comes the role of testers, to check, test, find possible flaws, review and approve before Beta release becomes a finished Alfa version of the complete fully functional product ready for the market.

May want to try testbirds.com for this kind of work.

 

Graphic design

Generally graphic design incorporate all the work related to creating and editing graphic content, images and photos. This includes creating all kind of images for screen or printing: logos, banners, brochures, book covers, images for social media and sites, designing of user interfaces, graphics for games, t-shirt designs and everything you can imagine.

For graphic design must have previous experience, creativity and software to create all that. Images can be raster or vector. While rasters are mostly used for any purpose they have one

flaw, their resolution in DPI (dots per inch) which when zoomed and resized loose quality, vector images don’t loose any quality when scaled.

Depending what you are creating, vectors are good for printing and logos, while for web raster type and JPG format is mostly used. Another popular formats are PNG and GIF.

For graphic design you must have tools. While Photoshop is the professional standard for editing images and photos many other exist. Even online editors can do the job but Krita is a really good offline software you get for free and definitely a must have especially for artists and illustrators. Might need several more tools like a color picker, a screen measurement tool etc.

Art and illustration

Creating original arts and illustrations, comic characters, coloring books etc.

Photography related

Photo editing, photo retouching, background removal (superimposing images on white background), color corrections, sorting, file rename, resizing are some of the jobs related to photography. Sometimes you may be asked to purchase photos from stock photo sites like iStockPhoto on behalf of a customer or take shots of a pidgeon on the roof.

That would be all about graphic related jobs. As somebody says:

“A picture is worth a thousand words”

 

There is constant need for graphic editors and designers so you can easily win and work on some freelance projects or

even get hired for regular work.

 

3D jobs

Creating 3D models of physical items and products, creating 3D characters for games, VR and AR, CAD for engineering projects. Preparing files to be printed on a 3D printer or animate movement of characters are some of the jobs.

While professional software is really expensive there are open source alternatives and free online tools.

Animation

Simplest of all, are animated GIF images which are a sequence of several still images changing one by one in a short time like a slideshow but much faster (12-24 frames per second). This is basic 2D animation. Both 2D and 3D animations are on high demand.

Specialized software is required for both types of animation. Results are in different file formats mostly video files. Can create animation and explanatory videos.

Video production and editing

Video production and video editing are the last of the visuals and also on highest demand. Teaching video courses, video ads, animated videos, presentation videos of any kind and short movies are some of the projects you can work on.

There are good free open source alternatives for a professional software which has much more extras. Online tools and phone apps can be found too.

Writing

Projects covering area of writing are everywhere. Writing articles on selected subjects for various clients and writing blog posts, beside on freelance sites can be found on specialized sites and many blogs are searching for new content. Just need to search a bit. My tip is to check on Textbroker.com .

Ghost writing

This is generally any writing for a client where the client get all the credit for your work and you are not mentioned at all.

Technical writing

Writing manuals, tutorials and how tos. Have to be familiar with the products and subjects you write.

Copywriting

Writing for advertising and promotional materials. This includes writing sales pages and blog posts.

Editing and proofreading

Written text should be read, checked and edited to correct grammar, typing errors and other mistakes before being published.

Marketing

This includes a lot of positions (some are mentioned) related to marketing and promotion both online and offline marketing.

SEO & SEM

Search engine optimization and Search engine marketing. Both related to web, marketing, content, graphics, optimizations and more with a goal to get be listed first on the first page on search engine results page (SERP), and get more organic website traffic and visitors. This have sense because nobody opens even the second page and not to speak about results on page 22.

 

 

Although sometimes the right thing you’ve been looking for is not always on the first page.

These would be all about freelance, remote work and telecommuting. Indies have the opportunity to do some of the more creative work by using their skills and creativity to make their own unique creations and sell it under their brand name. Indie authors will be mentioned again in next chapters.

 

 SELL ON INTERNET

 

“INTERNET IS THE ULTIMATE MARKETPLACE”

 

With several trillion dollars spent online each year, internet is truly a large marketplace where you can find and buy almost everything or sell something and earn. But where to start?

Simply, with your favorite social media – Facebook. There are facebook groups in your vicinity where you can put an image and description of the item you want to sell and its price. Same as classifieds ads and yellow pages in a local newspaper or on Craiglist.

This was just a sample. First let see what e-commerce or online shopping is, types of stores, who are the bigest players in the industry, how the trade is done, delivery of goods and how much it will cost you.

Is this opportunity right for you and how to use it to sell your stuff?

You can sell your old stuff, your own products, services, products you don’t own. Can sell almost anything. Can sell even yourself.

From the beginning of time people trade – buy and sell items. Times has changed, no longer need to go to the store, buy apples and pay for it on the counter. Apples can be ordered online, paid by Paypal and delivered to your door (it will cost a bit more then go to the grocery yourself, but this is an example).

Think in reverse, you sell apples, you get an order on email or thru a website, then get a message that you receive a payment (you’ve got paid), so you call a local delivery service, give them the apples been purchased to deliver to your customers home. That’s it!

You have to think about: the price you charge = price of apples

+ payment fee + cost of delivery + taxes + amount you’ll get as profit.

Costs

This was a simplified example but in fact you have to think about all these things when setting a price:

• Production costs (or if you are a retailer, the price youpay to buy the goods you’ll going to resell further)
• Amortizationof assets if you’re producing your own physical products
• If using an online store to sell stuff, there is a monthlymembership fee or fee per item sold that must be considered and added into the final price of the product
• Payment processing costs, your bank fees, this must beincluded in final price too
• Deliverycosts are the costs that must be paid for delivering/shipping the goods.

If buyer pays the delivery cost then it is OK for you for as a seller, but must calculate and display how much the shipping cost is before purchase is made.

Instead, if you say FREE DELIVERY, you have to deliver the goods by your self (if near you) or pay for the dellivery and include it in the final price, so the buyer don’t have to pay anything additional as you already covered this cost. In this case you have to incorporate your costs of delivery into the final price.

There are some variations when comes to shipping/delivery of goods and services. While digital goods are always shipped free, for physical products different rules applies.

If you offer free delivery:

 

Has to include the costs in the final price and raise the price, or calculate and show the price of shipping separately of the product price

I deliberately repeated myself about shipping costs, as this is very important thing to have in mind. Shipping/delivery has a large influence and can greatly increase price and make your product more expensive then those of the competitors. This will lead to less sells and smaller revenue.

If can, offer a FREE SHIPPING, even if you get less proffit.

If want to sell internationally, you may need to check international terms of trade INCOTERMS. These explains costs and obligations of the buyer and seller during international trade and are used by companies worldwide.

• Must have in mind VAT, taxes and other law regulatedexpenses that must be paid
• Ifselling internationally, additional costs may appear
• Mayalso consider some additional expenses like: printing labels, packaging, dispatching goods to the delivery service, hiring a freelancer to design cover etc.

All these are costs has to be included in the price of a product. Have to think about your profit also. The final price of the product you sell looks like this:

ALL EXPENCES + YOUR PROFIT = FINAL PRICE

Your profit is a fixed amount or percentage that is added on top of all costs resulting in final price the buyer has to pay when buying your product.

Profit

While costs can be easily calculated, profit you’ll get is another thing. It is the pure net income for you. It may be a fixed amount you add on the calculated costs (let say you add 2$ per product – or 100$) or a percentage (can be 10% – 25%, 50% or 100% or more) on top of calculated costs. This is your profit margin. Which type you choose is up to you, but percentage is mostly used.

How much to charge and which will be the final price? It depends:

• Onhow your product is percieved on the market. If it is a new product, unless you don’t run targeted marketing campaign and increase awareness for your product, you have to go with lower price
• Analyze the competitors and prices of similar products.Can go up or down depending which product is better
• If your product has already built awareness, it is anestablished brand or offer much more then competitors, go with higher price
• Product lifetime. Depending of the quality and the needfor your product, you may estimate its lifetime and volume of products you can sell during that time. This needs a lot of analysis to predict but you can come with some numbers before product launch

But how much exactly?

Price should match the product. It should be cheaper then competition, while covering all costs and still get you planned revenue.

Let say you have a product with a steady supply you’ve bought for 9$ each and ready to resell. You may aim for a lot of sales with a lower profit margin or sell just a small number of items and get the same amount of profit. Personally I should go with the smaller price.

It is better to sell 100 items for a price of 10$ (getting only 1$ per sale, a 100$ total), instead of selling 20 for a price of 14$ (you will get your 5$ per sale, a 100$ total). Your profit will be same, but less people will be willing to buy the more expensive product.

In some situations, for some luxury products and services just the opposite is valid.

Types of products

On the internet you can sell almost anything you can imagine, physical or digital:

• Yourold stuff and items you don’t need anymore
• If you’re a solopreneur working from home, you can sellyour own products
• Ifdon’t have products of your own, can buy items in high demand and resell them. Don’t even need to keep a supply as you may want try dropshipping
• Buy discounted products from a local store and resellthem online
• Ifrunning a subscription service on your site you can

offer to sell paid membership for more options

 

• Ifgood in your field of expertise can create and sell video courses
• Cancreate an android app and sell it on app markets (or offer it for free and earn thru displaying ads)
• Samefor games and other types of software
• Graphicdesigners can sell their designs on specialized sites or sell products with their designs printed on
• Writerscan self publish and sell their books
• Canbuy and sell domains and sites
• Cansell products with your brand (printed on t-shirts, cups etc.)

This is just a shortlist. Many possibilities exist.

 

Places where to sell

There are different places to start selling online. Where to sell greatly depends of the type of product you want to sell. You don’t need to have a website or running an online store to start selling.

Selling on Facebook

Facebook is the social media with the largest number of users. It has several options others don’t offer and is ideal to start selling your stuff for free.

There are many facebook groups in your vicinity to join where you can put an image and description of the thing you want to

sell, its price and the way you can deliver. These are local groups and are ideal for selling your old stuff that don’t need anymore, but also this way you can sell your car, find a house to buy etc. If somebody is interested for the item you sell, you’ll be contacted by (facebook) messenger to agree the price (if negotiable) and delivery. Usually, delivery is made by a local delivery company, and buyer pays them cash (COD – Cash On Delivery) and you get your payment from the local delivery service after the buyer get the item and give them the money.

Local facebook buy/sell/trade groups works fine this way for single items. If you have a large stock of the same product, you can post once, sell it and after some time post again in the same group.

For selling the same products instead selling into groups, you can open a Facebook page and offer your products there. Shipping is made thru a local delivery service and payment is still COD. This way is fail proof.

You may want to accept other methods of payment such as Paypal and option to choose different way of shipping. In this case You’ll have to to incorporate a shopping cart on your facebook page which may not be a free service, try to do it your own or open an online store elsewhere and use your facebook page as a channel to drive customers to your online shop.

For digital products you can add a download button with a link to your sales page or Paypal purchase link which when pressed leads the customer to Paypal page to pay for the product and after completion gives the download address. Personally I avoid this way and use a specialized online store for my digital products. It is a bit more expensive but more secure.

Facebook has a huge membership and marketing your products on facebook page and in groups gives results. If have a budget go with facebook ads and see sales rise.

There are lot of articles, books and youtube videos on how to start a facebook business page, post your products, make a sales copy that drives attention and run paid marketing campaigns on Facebook. Have to search a bit by yourself to learn more. There are so many resources about this subject, just find a few and start using it. After a sale or two, you’ll get idea how selling on facebook really works.

Selling crafts on ETSY

If you are a creative person, make handcrafts, arts, have some vintage goods or unique items Etsy is the right place for you. You can open a free account – no monthly fee. Still have to pay small fees when selling your creations but these fees are very low and you can include them in your price.

Shipping is by FedEx, USPS, post office.

 

You don’t even have to sell your crafts. Etsy has an affiliate program and you can earn by promoting crafts from other sellers on your blog or on social media.

EBAY

This was the place where selling items online started. In time many other online stores appeared, but Ebay is still one of the largest and easiest to use, used by many. While membership is basically free, there are paid membership options for sellers, especially if you want to open an ebay store, set a shopping cart and list more items for sell.

Selling fees are reasonable, but shipping is what bothers the

most. Either you can offer a free shipping and cover the costs, which is OK for selling small objects and ship them via post office, or calculate the costs and show separately from the price of the product itself.

Sales are 99% thru PayPal. Other options exist but paypal is most convenient.

On eBay you can sell everything: single items (used or new), books, collectibles, gadgets, parts, complete machines, even houses.

While usually items are sold with a fixed price per item, you can set an auction type where you have to set a start up price and time till auction ends. This means, interested potential buyers can Place a Bid (this is a button), type the price they are prepared to pay and by confirming, price goes higher.

Auction is very usefull when you have a single item you’re not sure how much it worth so you set auction and see how high it will go. After auction is finished you have to deliver to the highest bidder.

Shipping of items is usually done by post/UPS.

 

Amazon

The largest online marketplace (in US). While it provides different services Amazon is focused on selling. You can open a free Amazon account to access it all. Some services require paid subscription but basic membership is free. If want to sell on Amazon up to 40 items a month it is still free, you pay a small fee per item sold. This not include shipping costs, so you have to take care of shipping. If plan to sell more you’ll have to get a monthly subscription plan which is not so cheap but will get a lot more.

Lets stay with the free plan for now.

 

On Amazon you can sell almost anything. Have to select category and build product details page. Set the price and shipping.

And that’s it. While may cost more then others, Amazon offers many additional paid services:

This includes FBA (Fulfilment by Amazon) which is a complete logistic solution for storage, packaging and shipping of your products without worryng about your stock yourself. Amazon Prime paid membership include free fast shipping for eligible products and purchases. Amazon Kindle is place where you can sell, buy, lease or lend books. AWS (Amazon Web Services) is the best cloud service available, etc.

Amazon associate program is one of the best affiliate programs. Don’t have to sell, just promote a store or items and get commissions.

Other online stores

Beside these there are many other sites offering online stores for free or for a paid monthly membership.

Shopify is a place where anyone can open an online store for a monthly fee. There is no free option, except 90 days trial.

On Cafepress you can open a store for free and sell your designs printed on t-shirts, apparel, cups, phone cases. You’ll get commission on every sale when your design is printed.

Aliexpress is the largest chinese marketplace similar to Amazon where you can find everything you can think of for bargain prices. Its big brother Alibaba is specialized for large amounts and wholesale.

There are many specialized sites offering free online shops for their members. Just need to search for and find a suitable one to start selling.

If you don’t have products, you can buy items in a local shop and sell them online.

May not even need to have the items physically on stock to run an online shop, you can dropshop.

Drop shipping means reselling products you don’t have on stock. Actually, you show products on your site or on your online shop like your own, without running a stock at all, and sell them. When a buyer buys a product, you get the payment, pay to the supplier (dropshipper) and order him to deliver to your buyer’s address (your customer) instead of you. You’ll have to pay for the product itself so you must sell at higher price they you buy it from the dropshipper.

There are many dropshipping sites that offer this service. Some have automated this process so it is indistinguishable from regular resellers.

You can always buy a domain, hosting, set up a shopping cart, add products, images, descriptions and start selling. You can buy and sell websites too.

If have one or a few products you own or if you are a creator of digital goods, paid membership subscriptions, ebooks, software or an app, you can just add a “Buy now” button from Paypal on your blog (or social post) and get paid for selling. When customer pays you through Paypal you get the payment and he gets what he paid: a physical product, monthly membership, a service or a download link to your ebook or any other digital goods.

You can sell affiliate products, by just promoting the stuff. If a visitor is interested, he click an ad, get redirected to the sales page and buy the product, you get a percent of the sale (an affiliate commission). As simple as that, affiliate sales and affiliate marketing are to be discussed later in chapter V.

 

EARN MONEY WITH A WEBSITE

 

At some point, sooner or later you’ll need your own website. Whether it is a portfolio site, an online store, forum, a blog or unique custom designed website for any purpose, you must have one (or several).

Your website is your starting point where you can build your brand. You can do that on social media directly, but having a place where you can always get back, post your content, get audience and spread it on social media, while having different options to monetize the process is far much better.

To build a simple site, you don’t need any technical skills as there many online WYSIWIG (What You See Is What You Get) services where you can choose a template, drag and drop site elements and widgets and you’ll get a nice looking website in minutes.

But let start from a beginning.

 

Domain name

The first thing You’ll need is the adress of your website – a Domain name. This is the specific readable name of your site,

otherwise the address is just a server location IP adress, something like 62.53.50.146. Instead of the numbers (IP adress), domain name looks like “YOURSITE.COM”. This can be read and remembered easily. And it refers to your brand or niche even better.

When sign up for a free service, you’ll get a subdomain. Subdomains are usually free. They look like: “yoursitename.something.com”                                            or “anothersite.com/yoursitename.com” or yoursitename.co.cc. you have the idea what I’m talking about – they are long and make your site look unprofesional and bad for the search engine results. So may forget about subdomains and get a domain from the beginning.

In my case projectonlineincome.com was ideal, as it explains what my site is about and was lucky that it was still available e.g. someone else didn’t registered it already.

There are many domains out there: .com, .net, org, .edu are Top Level Domains (TLD) and most desirable of all is the .COM.

Beside those original four, there are many more TLDs such as .ws, .tv, .aero, .name, .eu,… Also there are TLDs for countries: .fr(France), .ca(Canada) .mx(Mexico) etc.

You’ll have to register and pay for it to get a Top Level Domain.

While, till now you haven’t need to spend a dime (if don’t want), now, you must spend few dollars and buy a domain. It is a must!

But don’t worry, domains are cheap. A regular .COM registration cost about  9 – 15$ (depending where you buy

from) for 1 year. This is a cost you must pay.

 

While registering a domain is cheap, some domains may cost more, even thousands. Those are domains registered very long ago, running a successful site with lot of content and visitors and have short very descriptive name.

For now, it is better to register a new domain name that is meaningful and associated with you, your company, your brand or the things your site is about (niche), build a successful site and get a lot of visitors. This way you’ll site and domain name will get a greater value.

If you want to be recognizable a top level domain is a must.

Before deciding on the name and get it, should consider some things first:

• Namewill point to your site so should be associated with the niche, product or a goal you want to achieve/promote as this will help protect and build your brand in future.
• Find a name that is easy to remember. Short names arebetter. Name should be associated with the site.
• Stayaway from numbers in the name or whole combinations like the 458.com.
• Special characters like !@$%^&, are not allowed, butcan use hyphens – as a word spacer. Search engines can read separated words by hyphens but avoid them and not use them at all.
• Shouldcheck if the domain name you desire is available e.g. is not already registered.

Checking a domain name availability is made thru a domain registrar or a hosting company. Actually it is a search form where you put a desired name and check if it is available. If available, it will be listed along with available alternative suggestions and their prices. You can register and buy it immediately.

There are many sites specialized for domain name registration. I personally prefer Name.com which I have used before and was satisfied with the service.

By default a domain is registered for 1 year and renewed each year but you may choose to register on longer term.

Can purchase additional services such as whois privacy – this means your info will stay hidden when someone search for information about who owns the site, where is registered, hosted etc. May add SSL (Secure Server Layer). Additionally can purchase an email account for your domain eg. [email protected]. Can buy a hosting – web space.

If a domain name is already registered. You may back order it to be bought by you when registration expires. This might not work always if somebody preorder before you, so don’t waste some 50$ and think about some other name that is available.

There are places to buy and sell already registered domain names and complete established websites runninig for years that have tons of visitors and making money for their owners.

About the price of a domain name, it usually varies, currently between 9 – 15$ plus additional services. Hosting companies may include the price of domain in their hosting plans which is simpler, but I prefer to have a domain name and hosting registered on separate sites.

It is easier to move to a new hosting then to transfer a domain.

Now, when you have a domain, you have to set it to point to your site if have one. It is an easy process but takes a couple of hours to start showing your site. Tutorials how to do this is on the registrars and hosting help pages, sometimes automatic, but if you’re doing yourself (DIY) will have to read the manual.

Web hosting

This is the web space you buy, where your site is placed. While many sites offer hosting free of charge, by charging for other services (like online shops), there are free hosts (with limitations like showing their ads, limited monthly visitors, some content is not available, no databases, not able to include your ads etc.) and paid hosts where you pay and you get what you’ve paid for with no limitations (except space and speed). With paid hosting you are your own boss, have the complete controll over your site thru a control panel (usually cPanel) . Can customize your site exactly like you want, add your content, install scripts, and run the site the way you want.

Paid hosting companies offer different plans:

 

• Shared hosting. Your resources are shared with otherusers. You’re not limited much, but as you share resources with others site speed is slower. This may not bother you, but slower sites get less visitors because of the more time needed to load the complete site and its content.

Shared hosting is cheapest and best for beginners.

 

• WordPresshosting. Same as shared hosting resources

are shared between users, but optimized for blogging with Wordpress.org. On some hostings wordpress is preinstalled, on some you have to install it yourself by using Scriptalicious web scripts installer. You may install other CMS (content management systems) and blogging platforms other then wordpress, even e- commerce scripts.

WordPress hosting is optimized for blogging and best value between speed/price.

• VPShosting. Resources e.g. Hardware (processor power, memory and disk space) are still shared, but between just a few. More expensive, best for companies.
• Dedicatedhosting. This means you get a physical hardware not sharing with anyone. While you have all the server power and resources in your hands, it is not cheap at all.
• Cloud hosting. This is acceptable alternative, somethingbetween shared, VPS and dedicated hosting. Instead of one server, your site (its complete content is shared in the cloud on 2,3 or more servers on different locations) so when a visitor opens your site, content is loaded from the nearest location). You pay for each server location additionaly.

If have a spare computer, large bandwith and dedicated IP address you can run your own server (if know how to do it). Just have to point the domain name to your website running a web server software on your computer.

With your own server you can even share resources and open your own hosting business.

You have a domain name and/or hosting. What is next? What kind of a website you have in mind.

Should it be a simple, just a page or two which is perfect for portfolio sites and sales pages. Some sites offer free service for portfolio sites and there are free hosting options.

You can open an online store on other sites (free or paid) instead of paying for hosting.

If want to run a blog, paid wordpress hosting is best option, while free options are available too.

If run a company site or a uniquely designed website, with custom features, must pay for hosting.

Build your own site

This is mostly a technical part, but before start lets consider few things.

To build a simple site, you don’t need any technical skills as there many online WYSIWIG (What You See Is What You Get) services where you can choose a template, simply drag and drop site elements and widgets and you’ll get a nice looking website in minutes. You’ll don’t even need to pay for hosting.

It is good for web presentations, portfolio and even may include simple web cart with few products to sell. If this is what you need, try Wix, Google Sites or WebFlow.

If it is too simple for you and may need more options, may get a shared hosting, buy a domain, go to a control panel of your host and install the script you need.

Installing a site thru a site control panel (usually cPanel as

most used) is very easy. Somewhere on the page you will find Scriptalicious web scripts installer. You may install CMS (content management systems) including WordPress or other blogging platform, a forum or e-commerce scripts. Once you choose your script, install it. Will be asked to fill details such as site name, description and some more but whole proces takes just a few minutes and anyone can do it. The installation process is more or less same for any script even when not installing them from a Scriptalicious.

You can get AMPPS and install it on your computer, just to see how it works. Now you have your own server right on your desktop! You can not use it online, just on your desktop (localhost) or any device on your home network (or WiFi).

You can choose and install wordpress on your server. This is very useful for testing your wordpress blog (or any other CMS) offline. What you correct on your desktop you can copy to your live site or upload images and files thru an FTP (like Filezilla) when ready.

You can build your site from scratch (or hire freelancer). You’ll need to use HTM5 and CSS3, Bootstrap, JavaScript, PHP, MySQL database and some other web design and graphic software. Seems overwhelming but it is not so hard and is great fun once you get involved, You can test your creations on your computer/server right in your browser.

If interested in web development and programming, you can start learning for free from the tutorials on w3schools.

In short this is how websites are made.

 

Start a blog

If want to start a website, in general the best option is to start

with a blog (web log) and start blogging about subjects you know. Most of the sites (almost half of all sites on internet) are blogs. Originally started as an online diaries and personal websites to express their authors oppinions, blogs and blogging spread and evolved to its current state and now they are everywhere whether it is personal or business.

There are blogs about any subject (Niche) you can imagine. Many offer similar subjects and content and it is a bit hard to stand up from a crowd when starting a new blog.

Blogs are easy to set up and maintain and you don’t need anything particular to start and run a blog, just imagination and content to post.

There are free blogging platforms like Blogger and WordPress.com. Both are free but you are limited in some ways, so it is better to buy a domain name and paid hosting. With paid hosting you can install wordpress on your site (open source software from wordpress.org – instead of wordpress.com which is a free hosting for wordpress platform).

Will need to select a theme (free or get a paid one) that looks nice, install a few plugins, add widgets (if want or have need of), add sharing buttons (if not included in the theme), associate accounts for social media, facelift the theme, add analytics, ads etc.

Once wordpress is installed and your blog set, you can start blogging. Write your first blog post, add images and links and press PUBLISH button when done.

But why would you want to start a blog in the first place?

 

Blogging is a way to express yourself, share thoughts, ideas and experience and help others in way. A personal

satisfaction. A way to show yourself to the world and build a name. But there are other reasons too.

With a blog, you can build an audience. You can do this on social media but it is not the same. With blogging you build content for your blog first and then spread it on social media to get visitors.

Visits and views are the main currency on internet.

 

Every visit to your blog counts. Visits, views and visitors can be monetized in many ways. Monetization is the real reason why there are so many blogs out there.

Blogging

Blogging is creative work that takes time and results are not immediately visible. It consists of creating content for your blog. This in general means a lot of writing, creating images, graphics and videos is also included. But blogging is not just that.

Before starting a blog you’ll have a fade idea what your blog will be about and what you should expect.

First thing is your ”NICHE”. It is the main subject/s you’ll write about on your blog. What you’ll write about, is up to you. Should choose a blog name that is appropriate and related to your niche/s. Its best to cover only one subject or just a few as writing about anything and everything will not get you anywhere.

Next is to get a domain name that relates to your niche (if not already got one). A paid hosting with wordpress and necessary plugins installed. Your site is online and ready to be populated with your content. Not so fast!

You’ll need a blogging strategy. And this might scare you. Blogging consists of all of these:

• Searchingfor new ideas
• Searchingfor subjects to write
• Blogpost resumes
• Blogpost titles
• Creatingcontent (writing blog posts)
• Creatinggraphics and video
• Curatingposts
• Includingkeywords in a post
• Publishingnew posts
• Pingnew post
• Promotionon social media networks
• Answeringon comments
• Recycle/republishan old post
• Commentingon other blogs and social media
• Buildingrelations with other bloggers
• Guestblogging on other blogs
• Trafficanalysis
• Othertraffic growth methods

• Choosingad formats (to monetize)
• Adsplacement
• Performancetracking
• Optimization
• Visualimprovement
• OnsiteSEO
• OffsiteSEO
• Offlinepromotion
• Creatingincentives
• Writingan ebook
• Runningan email list and get subscribers (leads and potential customers)
• Creatinga product or service
• Monetization
• Sideprojects
• Startinga second blog

Blogging is not easy!

 

Will need much more time to type post and articles

Blogging requires time. At start will need to work hard, but later when establish your blog and visitors start coming, some 2-3 hours a day is enough for blogging even if it is your primary

and only income stream. Will need to do a schedule of daily tasks to do such as content creation, searching for ideas for next blogs, sharing on social media and SEO. More complex work as adding a theme or polishing the blog look has to be done when setting the blog or once in a few months. Analytics, visits and ads performance should be checked daily, once in a few days or weekly.

You have to work hard and lack of time is just an excuse

 

Have to set your goals and expectations, to be exact. This means a plan how to reach a certain amount of site visits a month and according this you can expect to monetize by showing ads as a simplest way of blog monetization. If your blog is new, don’t expect too much. 1000 visits in your first month of blogging is just all right. May be much more if work hard on promotion, but even this small number is OK for a start. In a few months visits will grow if you stay consistent in creating content and work on promoting your blog. Results will be much better after 6 months.

Working hard on blogging may worth, but only 1% of all bloggers succeeded in creating a blog that became a business. All other 99% of bloggers struggle to cover the costs and earn. Be stubborn, keep blogging and promoting your blog.

Split the job into smaller tasks This way you’ll not get overwhelmed. Stay to your schedule

Will need to stick to your schedule and organize the daily tasks. Be consistent and don’t be lazy. No excuses!

Build your content first

What is a blog without blog posts. In start, must create a lot of posts. Must create quality content regularly. More content means more posts shared on social media. And this means more traffic to your blog.

A typical blog post is a written text, an article. It should include images and photos. If can include a video even better as video and graphics drive attention better and long text with no images is hard to read. Write in smaller paragraphs. Add a link or two to other sites.

Blog post should be long. Not just a few sentences. This does’t work anymore. Your post should be easy to read, informative and bring value to the visitors. It has to be written well enough to explain the subject to the point and deliver value, help the visitor in a way, to inform, solve a problem or explain how.

If a blog post is excellent and engaging you may expect much traffic and lot of shares, likes and comments. This helps you build yourself as an authority in a subject and build a brand as a blogger for you and your blog. Engagement drives traffic.

If want to rank well on search results, posts should be very long, at least 2000 words (more is better) and must include graphics and/or video. If plan to compete for a rank on the first page, your post should be even longer, as 4000 – 5000 words.

Creating your content may require some tools, like text processor (Open Office or just a notepad), an image editing software and Youtube. You can upload your video to Youtube get the code and embeded on your blog. This way you’ll have your video on your blog while not wasting bandwith.

Content must be your own. Should be good and unique – so you have to write your own topics and posts, and create unique graphics.

DO NOT copy from others

 

While creating your content must think of SEO and include your desired keywords (keyword phrases) in your blog post. Another important thing is ALT tag for images. Certain wordpress plugins makes this process a lot easier.

Work hard on promotion

 

A great practice among bloggers is something known as 20/80 rule. Use 20% of the time for bulding content and 80% promoting it and searching for ideas for next posts. Promotion can be done in many ways. Social media sites are a great source of traffic by the way.

SEO is important

 

Search Engine Optimization is also very important. In your first months of blogging while struggling to build content you will not see much difference but on long term SEO gives great results so don’t forget it.

SEO itself is too large subject to explain here. It is about keywords and keyword phrases included in your content, links on your site and backlinks from sites pointing to your blog (or some post on your blog), social signals, unique visits…

But SEO is not just that. Many other things and factors are included (more than 200 factors apply how good will your site ranks in searches). More about SEO and how to do it, can be found online, just type “SEO” in your browser. A well done SEO drives traffic and visitors   in a long term and this matters a lot when it comes to monetization.

Monetizing a blog

Once you have the blog running and have content posted, it is

time to think about monetizing your efforts.

 

Displaying ads

This is the easiest way. Must have content first (at least 20 posts, about, terms and contact pages) to work. And traffic.

Easiest to start is Adsense. You should sign up for Adsense. They review your site if it is eligible to show their ads. Get some codes for the ads formats that suits your site design, paste it on your site and you are ready to monetize your blog with showing Ads.

Process applies to all other ad networks. Some ad networks require a lot of monthly traffic but some doesn’t have minimum limits. Different ad formats and sizes are available, but if start with adsense there is option for auto ads (best suited if your site is on blogger). On wordpress you have install a plugin, paste ad codes there and choose where the ads to be shown. Another way and the simplest is to copy an ad code and paste it directly in your post right there where you want to appear.

May even combine ads from 2 different advertising networks while it is alowed by both their terms and ads from both networks are visible at all time e.g. there is no pop up covering the ads present and ads from different networks are distinguished from each other.

There are different types of ads but in terms of how you get paid for displaying ads, there are PPM and PPV (Paid Per Click or Paid Per View). Most ad networks combine those two methods.

CPM (Cost per Mile is the price advertiser pays for 1000 views). RPM stand for Revenue per Mile (Revenue per 1000 views). This means you get paid for 1000 views/impressions.

RPM rates are up to 2$ at most per 1000 views. although some keywords pay much more. You’ll need to have a lot of traffic.

CPC stand for Cost per Click. This is the cost (price an adveriser pays for a click / or one thousand clicks). This is actually how you’ll get paid if a visitor clicks an ad. In practice Click Thru Rate (CTR) is what matters here. CTR = number of clicks / impressions.

You’ll want to increase your RPM and CTR to increase income, but it is not so easy to achieve. Research for high paid CPC keywords thru Adwords (Google) keyword planner and include them in your content. Don’t try to cheat! If try to click your own ads, you’ll get banned for good.

Third one is CPA (Cost per Action) where you get paid if a visitor views an advertisement, click on it and perform action (e.g. buy). While not so easy to achieve, affiliate offers work this way.

In fact these terms are meant for the advertisers as that is advertisement costs in fact, but doesn’t really matter while you get the dollar they pay.

You’ll need to read terms of use before joining, as not always your site will be elegible. Be careful to join as Publisher, not as an advertiser. Follow the rules and don’t go with merky tactics.

Never click your own ads or try to cheat the system

 

Sell affiliate products

Can post affiliate products and sell them on your blog. You can display the offer as an ad or write a blog post about. In fact you can sell anything on your blog, but affiliate products are easy

because you just have to copy/paste few lines of code to show the ad. Will need to promote and see visitors coming (or not). If the ad is clicked, visitor is redirected to the main products page. You get paid a percent of the sale.

Affiliate products include ebooks, online courses, all kinds of software, paid monthly subscription plans, but physical products too.

Affiliate sites such as Clickbank and Commission Junction offer thousands of products to choose from and promote. Most sites on the net have their own affiliate programs too.

You just have to choose what to promote on your blog, paste a code and promote offers and products and get commission when a sale is made.

Sell your products and services

Instead of promoting other people products you can sell your own products. Can create an ebook, an online course videos, an app and start selling them on your site.

Start a subscription service

You can offer content free on your blog, or offer a paid membership for accessing your premium content (or a service with more options and functionality).

Sponsored posts

If your blog has authority you may offer to write a review for a product from your niche and get paid for it. You may even proposed to publish a ready made article on your blog and get paid for this or post it for free (guest blogging). Guest blogging is a great way a blog owner to get new content for free without

any effort and the guest blogger gets a product promotion. This is a good way to make partnerships.

Sell ad space

Instead of displaying ads from networks or show affiliate products ads, you may offer to rent a space on your blog directly. This is usually a banner 300×250 in your blog sidebar. Have to negotiate the price directly with interested party (if any).

Accept donations

You can accept donations on your site, but forget this if already displaying ads from some ad network. Doing this may be against their terms of use.

These are just a few methods how to monetize your blog. Can combine some or even figure out new ones.

Network of sites

Once you create a site about one niche, you may think of adding more subjects to write about. You can include them in your existing site or a better option is to start a new blog just about that. This way you’ll have two different targeted audiences instead of visitors interested only in one subject. If you run a blog about gardening and want to add category about cars, visitors coming are not interested in cars (except if you grow flowers in your car), and visitors interested in cars are not really fans of gardens.

If one site is not enough, create another one or several more

Will need to work twice as much but if the first one has already

become successful, this is the next logical step if you want to grow your blogging business.

You can think even bigger, running a whole network of 10-20 sites. Make a quick calculation. If you’re displaying ads on a blog with as little as 5000 visits per month, earning 10-20$, running 20 blogs will earn between 200 – 400$ monthly. May not seem much, but 5000 visits a month is merely a start. Promote your blogs and sites and will multiply visits and earnings in no time.

 

 

Side projects

Running a blog may seem like a daily routine and boring. If not receiving expected results you’ll lose interest and quit. Instead, from time to time, do something else, something that is not included in your daily routine.

Write a free ebook

One thing you can do is to write a free ebook. You already have the content from your blog, just need to polish it a bit, add your affiliate links and offer it as free ebook to your visitors. You can just add a download button, but it is far better to add a submission form where a visitor has to put his/her name and email to get the free ebook. This way, you’ll get a visitors email, add to your mailing list, and you can send promotional emails to them (if they subscribed) to receive mails from you.

Another way is to add a content locker. Visitor has to click a button first to share on social media of choice to be able to get your free ebook. This way you get social signals and shares for free.

Create a video course

If creating videos are part of your content strategy, you may create several videos about a subject. Explanation and do it your self videos are always on high demand. Can put them on your site or on Youtube (then embed on your site). You can monetize your videos thru AdSense.

Combine marketing and monetization

 

You can sell your courses and ebooks if the content is really useful and on high demand.

On the other hand, offering something for free is what your visitors will really appreciate.

Decision will you want to sell or give it for free is up to you, but doing both is even better.

Write a free ebook (add affiliate links if possible) and give it for free. In your free ebook announce more resources available with a paid download.

Create a video course series and place first one or two for free, visible to the visitors. Ask for mail subscription or paid membership for access to your premium content and rest of the courses. This way will grow your mailing list and earn money in the same time, while giving something to your audience for free.

Everyone love FREE stuff

 

 

Buy and sell sites

Once you have build a successful site, that drive audience and

generate revenue (almost on autopilot), have started a new blog and it is on a good way to become successful as the previous, or you just need the money, you can sell your complete site together with its domain.

Can buy or sell domains only. Can post offers that the site is on sale or go to a broker.

The right place to buy/sell domains and complete sites is

Flippa.com or some other website broker.

 

If you decide to sell your complete site you’ll need to transfer domain, content of your site, emails related and ownership of the site to the buyer. Website brokers can make the selling easier, but it is better to negotiate with interested buyer directly. Website value is measured by the number of visitors and income potential.

Depending how much revenue your site generate per month, you can sell it for about 12-24 times that value or more.

For domains only, price is negotiable but you can check the free domain appraisal on GoDaddy. Generally, the shorter domain name is, price is higher. If meaningful, more expensive it is. If both applies, than you can expect at least 1000$ from a single domain sale if there are parties interested in buying your domain.

MARKETING AND PROMOTION

 

Marketing is present everywhere, in everyday life. Internet is not an exception. The internet marketing also known as online marketing or eMarketing has all the characteristics as the ordinary traditional offline marketing and some more. Online marketing has a worldwide audience and the meaning to reach such a wide audience is to increase website traffic – to increase number of visitors, turn them into potential customers (leads) for a purpose to get profit from selling products and services, get commissions for this or get paid for displaying ads.

Internet is the ultimate marketplace where the main product is the advertisement and the main currency is traffic.

Then why bother with any of the previous methods?

 

All the previous shows you where and how to start, but reading between the lines you may notice that most of the services offer affiliate programs where you get commission if a sale is made and buyer comes from your affiliate link.

 

 

Affiliate marketing

Simple to start. You join the affiliate program, get an affiliate link and promotional material (banners and links, or a piece of code to place on your site that does the work). Next is to promote the affiliate product and try to drive customers.

Best and most common places to find affiliate products to

promote are: Shareasale, Commission Junction, Amazon associates, Affiliate.com, Clickbank. But can find even more alternatives if search a bit.

Placing affiliate offers on your site or blog can be very profitable if you promote the right product to the right people and have a lot of visitors on your site. If a visitor is interested, he clicks an ad, get redirected to the main site sales page and buy the product, you get a percent of the sale (an affiliate commission). As simple as that.

Part of affiliate marketing is MLM (Multi Level Marketing) also called Network marketing. In MLM main purpose is to get more customers/sales/traffic by creating a downline of members (distributors) in multiple levels (tiers) of compensation. This is also called a refferal schema. With MLM, you still promote your referral links and get many people sign up under your affiliate link and becomes referrals in your downline. You’ll get commission from their commission, and from users signed under their referral links too. You’ll earn more if they refer more new members.

This suspiciously looks like a SCAM pyramid scheme. Internet is full of scams, but legitimate working MLMs exist too. Should examine, check reviews and decide will you join or not.

Purpose of every marketing process is to promote and make more sales

Promotion

Promotion on the internet depends in a whole on the traffic driven to the thing you promote. Running a blog is ideal to place affiliate offers in form of banner ads. Additionally you can promote the page where affiliate ads are placed and while driving traffic to your blog, you get leads for your affiliate links

too.

 

To have results you’ll need audience and traffic, As traffic consists of visitors and more visitors = more leads (potential customers). Imagine earning potential of a website with 10 000 visitors a day if only 1% percent of the visitors perceive the product (or service) advertised as useful. That is 100 potential customers (leads) and if every 10^th of them decide to join or buy, that is 10 customers a day.

Multiply the number of sales with the commission amount you earn from each sale, and then multiply this with a number of sites and programs you’re promoting and you’ll get quite a nice number.

Sounds good, but the hard part is:

 

Getting traffic to your site

This is the ultimate test for every e-marketer – how to get more traffic and leads.

When you set up your site and make the basic SEO, you have noticed that the site is getting few visitors a day or less. This number must grow. There are free and paid methods. Free methods need your time and attention and paid ones need money. Combining both is the way to grow traffic. At beginning start with the free methods.

SEO

Search Engine Optimization is very important.

 

It is a way to drive visitors to your site organically. You try to position on first page of search results when a user type for a particular search term (keyword).

Keyword as the name says is a key word, but single word keywords don’t work long ago. When thinking of improving SEO use long tail keywords in your content. These are keyword phrases consisting of 2, 3, 4, 5 or more words. By using a keyword phrase you narrow the search to the more specific results containing that keyword phrase.

As search engines evolve and use of AI (Artificial inteligence) it makes sense to use a whole sentence instead just a phrase.

Keywords have to be included in your content 2-3 times at least, and in the title of your posts.

If using images in your posts, always use an ALT tag to describe the image. Best practice is to include the desired keyword phrase here too.

Using META tags may be useful as this describe your site, its name, author, and main keywords may be included. If can, check the HEAD of your site homepage code and add theese.

OGG tags are the tags used when sharing content on social media: image, image description, post title, content, link to the content and author.

Hashtags are widely used on social media. Similar as keywords but has the symbol # (#hashtag). Widely used on Twitter but on other social media too to pinpoint the subject.

The way how well a site is built matters. A clean code, a unique theme, site speed, security, internal site structure, navigation and internal links matter in SEO.

Think about your site structure. Overall number of links is a ranking factor, and you can improve the number of internal links easily. Create a good navigation structure, try to interlink posts and add links to other posts on your site, tags and main

navbar. Instead of read more or click here, use the whole post title (which contains keywords).

Every post has to contain outgoing links. Links that point to another site other then yours.

Building backlinks (links that point to you site also called inlinks – incoming links). The more you have, more authority you’ll get. This is one of the most important SEO factors. There are many strategies to build backlinks to your site.

Some of the most used tactics to build backlinks is to include them in to blog comments, forum posts, editable pages on Wikipedia, posting answers on Yahoo!Answers and Quora, guest posting and social media shares.

Backlinks should come from different places. If all links come from one single site will not have a ranking power and are useless.

Don’t just put your backlinks everywhere.

 

Backlinks should come from authority sites related to your niche, should contain your keywords, and should be “Dofollow” links (meaning the link will be indexed and will count in improving SEO). Nofollow links are not counted in search engine ranking algorithms, (noffolow excludes them) but have another purpose – to be used with affliate links.

Search engines don’t like affiliate URLs, so when you have an affiliate link which usually looks like: http://youraffiliateproduct.com/ref=youraffiliateID always use “NoFollow” tag. You can use a link shortener for social media sharing or on your site but the anchor text (visible text) should be readable and meaningful e.g. not click here or read more.

A large number of links on one page is not good if not have

enough content. A simple list of 100 links and thin text is even worse even if they are not affiliate links at all.

Social media sharing

While sharing links on social media as social signals are a ranking factor, its real power comes in driving traffic directly without SEO. Sharing your link on a social media where have a lot of followers interested in your content will give better results. But this is just a one time traffic. Will have to share again and again to continue receiving visits.

Facebook groups, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest deliver the best results.

Email marketing

Having an Opt-in page or optin form on your site or blog give the ability to gather email in a mailing list for marketing purposes. You’ll have to offer something of value in return to get email address from a visitor. Free ebooks are ideal for this.

Opt-in form should ask for a visitors name and email. Other info is unnecessary but may ask for country and other more personal details which I don’t recommend. Name and email address are just enough. And a checkbox a visitor has to agree to receive promotional email from you. If Opt In, visitor gets the free stuff and you get his/her email adress.

Gathering a list of emails into a mailing list is easy as there are many paid services specialized in email marketing that help you create an opt-in form, guide and run the process almost automatically. You just have to show the form on your site and write, schedule and send the promotional emails on a timely base.

It is important to send a welcome email when visitor subscribe, a cover letter, thanking for his interest and for joining the mailing list. You have to put an option to unsubscribe if don’t want to receive mails anymore at the bottom of every promotional email you send.

You send promotional emails, when you have new offers or new content or in a time frame once a week, but once a month is better as you’ll not bother mail owner which already have a bunch of mails every day and not read at all half of them.

With email marketing you can drive traffic on demand. You send your promotional email and see traffic coming from subscribers interested in whatever your offer is.

There are many email marketing services that automates the whole process. Most offer a free plan for a start or for up to a certain number of contacts. If have more subscribers will have to go with paid plan. There is a constant struggle between email marketing services and I don’t want to prioritise any, so you’ll have to search yourself.

While all these are free methods of promotion, there are paid methods where you have to invest money to get traffic.

Use all the marketing tricks you know: offer discounts and even give a product for free, ask for reviews and promote further on all channels

Paid ads

Free methods give results but if you want to go to the next level in some point you’ll have to start investing in promotion and run paid marketing campaigns.

When it comes to paid advertising, two bidding types are

available:

 

CPM (Cost Per Mile = Cost per 1000 impressions). Where you as an advertiser bid and pay a price for 1000 impressions. With CPM clicks are not guaranteed but it increases your ad visibility. If you bid (and pay) lets say 2$ for 1000 impression (a mile) you’ll get 1000 views on your ad but may not get any clicks on it, so nobody will came and make an action.

PPC biding is the second type. Here really matters the CPC (Cost Per Click) you’ll have to pay when click on your ad is made. Rates here are higher and calculated per one or per 1000 clicks.

If want to run a paid campaing you’ll have to pay for an advertising plan consisting of 1000 (1K), 10K, 100K or 1M impressions (or clicks) depending which type you choose.

Ads itself may be text ads usually showing on search results pages and display ads that came in various formats such as banners of different sizes and responsive ads that fits the advertising space automatically.

While most ads looks like banners in different sizes you can create your own sizes or customize look. Some advertisers offer landing pages that capture attention of visitors and drive them to your website. You can use landing pages on facebook and on your site.

Landing page (like opt-in / subscription forms) does not need to be a whole screen page necessary, a widget in a sidebar or pop-under is fine. Have to contain captivating headline, functional layout and Call to Action that drive clicks to filling a contact form or downloading a resource. Including your keyword phrases in a landing page is necessary.

Target audience by understanding your audience. Audience came from different places, countries, ages and share different views and interests. You may focus on the majority or narrow to a specific group.

Ad Networks

There are many ad networks where you can start your paid marketing campaign. The most popular are the biggest players Google, Bing, Facebook and then come other social media and the rest.

Google Ads (Google AdWords) distribute ads across the internet thru partner websites like Youtube. Bing does similar.

Facebook is the largest social media and they offer ads on their platform only. You can target audience by several options: demographics, age etc. Interesting is that facebook ads use retargeting so you may achieve good results even if not apply for a certain targeting group.

Other social media offer ads on their platforms too.

 

But there are much more ad networks available, some cost more, some less, offering different types of display and contextual ads and have different payout rates (for publishers who show ads on their sites and get paid for it).

Be carefull when starting a paid campaign. Should start with facebook ads on Facebook as it is much cheaper and very well targeted. Boosting a post cost as low as 5$ or minimum 1$ a day. Google, Bing and other ad networks have expensive plans, which are recuring and may cost thousands.

Offline marketing

You can always add a classified ads on a local tv or in a

newspaper. It may cost a lot.

 

May print flyers and give it away in a public place or together with other products bought from a shop if you negotiate with the shop owner and offer him a commission (or just bribe the person on the counter to do that).

Combine free and paid promotion. Once you get your first earning, no matter how much it is, split it on half and use half for marketing and promotion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 MAKE MONEY WITH MONEY :

 

Once you start earning online, You’ll see how easy (or hard) it is. Anyway whatever you choose to do it will bring you money (eventually). I’m kidding, of course it will!

There are ways to make money with your money by investing in profitable business, stocks, cryptocurency, real estates or trading on the stock market. This is a real business and lot of money are involved. So, if you have put a thousand dollars a side to spare, you may try some of these. Some are very risky, so be careful.

Binary options

Easiest and cheapest to start are binary options.

 

Binary options are financial instrument that pays a fixed return

for correct market prediction of the predetermined time frame (or expiry time).

To start trading binary options you may deposit just 10$ only. Binary options is like betting on high or low in fact. You put 10$ on price of oil to go up in the next period (next minute, or next 10 minutes, an hour, a day or even months depending of the broker platform), if you win you’ll get 85% profit + your initial investment eg 18.5$. If you loose, you still get back some amount let say 10%. Wining rates may go up to 95% but if you loose you’ll get nothing.

This is kind of betting and you can loose your deposit very quickly

You can try a free demo account if it is available to see how the trading looks. If still want to try binary options for real, check for Expertoption.com or IQ Option.

Similar are Digital options (CFDs) where the winnings are much higher.

You can win fast, but can loose even faster

 

Forex

Foreign currency exchange markets.

 

Foreign currency markets or forex, are marketplaces where currencies are exchanged in each other. There are currency pairs USD – EUR; EUR – USD; USD – JPY; JPY – EUR, EUR

– AUD; USD-AUD etc.

 

Deposit here is at least 100$ to start trading for real. Have to correctly predict if the price will go up or down in the next 60 seconds for the selected currency pair.

Can earn a lot, but can loose even more

 

Trading platforms

Trade is similar as previous, have to predict price if it will go up or down. Difference is that more financial instruments are available including stocks. You have initial amount of lets say 1000$ and start trading. You are not limited with a time frame and can buy or sell when you want e.g. you don’t get a prize for correct prediction but a profit (or loss) as the difference of the price you payed when buying assets and their selling price in the moment you sell.

On trading platforms like eToro you can trade on different markets and assets. Have to deposit at least 200$ to start trading ETFs, stocks, indices, commodities, currencies and crypto currencies. While stocks and commodities are more secure, profit from them is lower then on financial markets, forex and crypto.

Still can loose money, so be careful.

 

Personally, I would go with stocks, can buy them lower and not sell them until the price goes up. It can be in a few minutes, or after couple of months. For stocks a fee is calculated daily so when you sell you may not get the expected profit. Can do the same with crypto currencies.

There are markups, ticketing and management fees when trading or keeping assets to have in mind. A simple excell list with your portfolio and formulas will help you stay profitale and notify the price above which you can sell the asset.

Cryptocurrencies

Bitcoin is the most known cryptocurrency. But there are many

more. Complete   list   of   all   cryptos   can   be   found   on

coimarketcap.com.

 

Unlike fiat money, digital currencies and cryptos are in digital form. The concept is similar to any physical money and asset – they have value. Bitcoin value rised up to almost 20000$ at the end of 2017, but shortly after dropped 60%. Still one Bitcoin worth more then 7000$ at the moment of writing. As its price fluctuate, there is great probability it will rise again and go even higher. When will this happens is uncertain.

The whole concept of cryptocurrencies is based on blockchain. Coins never truly leave the blockchain itself, just move from one adress to another as transactions are made and the chain grows larger.

To store, get, buy or sell bitcoins (and other cryptocurrencies) you’ll need a crypto wallet. The crypto wallet consists of pair of public and private keys, crypto adress generated on on base of both public and private keys as a location to which coins can be sent to. It has to have connection to internet to generate necessary information, interact with blockchain network, make transactions and write it in the blockchain.

Wallets can be:

 

• Web wallets – a web site to access blockchain withoutinstalling anything. Transactions are made thru a browser.
• Desktop wallets – complete blockchain and software isdownloaded and executed on your computer
• Mobilewallets – a combination of previous two
• Hardwarewallets – usually an USB stick with the

blockchain and software to generate keys. Most secure of all.

• Paperwallets – a piece of paper with a crypto adress and its private key printed as a QR code.

To receive cryptos you’ll need to provide or show your wallet address.

To send cryptocurrency will need a wallet, and a wallet address of a person you’re sending coins. Your wallet creates a transaction which you authorize with your private key. This transaction will be registered on the blockchain, and after few turns (transactions/computations/or new wallet addresses generated) will be confirmed and receiver will get the coins you’ve send.

This is how the cryptocurrencies work.

 

Bad news is that you’ll need different wallet for every cryptocurrency you own. May use web or mobile wallets as they can be used for several most used cryptos from one place.

How to get crypto currencies

In early days when blockchain was young and small a computer with a good graphic card was enough to mine Bitcoin. Now days you’ll need expensive powerful ASIC miner that cost several thousands if not more.

Cloud mining is a cheaper option where you pay for a crypto to be mined. You don’t need to have hardware just rent the use of it.

Can buy Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum and few more better known cryptocurencies for money. Can get cryptos traded on

cryptocurrency exchanges and even on regular trading platforms.

When it comes to money it is always lack of it.

 

There are ways to get money when needed for starting a business and I’m not talking about getting a loan from a bank.

Crowdfunding

If you want to start a business, have the idea, have created a business plan but lacks money, you can go to crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter, present your idea or a working model and get the money you need initially to start your your business by getting donation of a kind for exchange of a working product when production starts.

This is far much better the asking you boss to lend you money to start your own business.

Another way to get the money you need for your start up is to look for angel investors. These are the people with capital on hand which if interested can fund your project (for a shares in your business or percent of profit

By using these services you may start your business fast especially if your idea is The Next Big Thing.

 

 

 

 FEW MORE IDEAS TO MAKE MONEY ONLINE

 

Till now, most of the methods you can use to start making money online without need of leaving the comfort of your

home were listed. What follows next will need creativity, inspiration and maybe some outdoor activities.

Taking photos

Get your phone and go outside. You may take photos everywhere. You can use them on your blog or sell them. There are sites and phone apps that help you sell photos taken with your phone camera and there are photo contests regularly.

Sceneries and objects are always on demand. Try to avoid taking pictures of people and/or copyrighted materials (brands, logos, trademarks).

Creating videos

Creating videos can be your daily activity. Depending on what niche you choose, you can create or shoot videos on a related subject.

You’ll only need a cell phone to start. Take videos of outdoor activities, fun stuff, or just nature are some of the subjects you can cover. Screen recording is another option.

If consistent, you’ll have a ton of videos in no time.

 

Next thing is to edit your videos. You can do it on your computer, on your phone or even online. Can add intros, transitions, effects, text, music or speech. Can trim, cut and crop your videos and music with editing software like OpenShot on your computer or some of the phone apps till you create your final video ready to be published online.

The best place to post your videos is Youtube. You create a channel first, upload a video, add description and keyword

tags and publish it.

 

Have to promote your channel and videos, SEO applies here so name your video titles to be optimized for search and contain the keywords you target.

If have a lot of visits on your videos, you can start showing ads and monetize thru AdSense.

Youtube is not the only video hosting platform but the largest one and very easy to use.

Streaming

Instead of creating videos, you can go live. You can subscribe to streaming platforms like Youtube, Facebook live, Periscope or Crackle. This is ideal for running online courses and teaching.

You can even stream your daily activities.

 

Gaming

Gaming e.g. playing games. While most people play games for fun, serious gamers turn this to a business. Don’t need to have a powerful gaming computer, a laptop or a cell phone would be sufficient if you are skillful player. Just need to install and run an open source streaming software from Streamlabs or similar while playing your favorite games and stream your gameplay.

Twitch.tv is a streaming platform specialized for gamers where you can monetize your channel if have audience and subscribers. But can do this with Youtube also.

Write a book or an ebook

If have a spare time, you’re good in writing or have ever run a blog, you should start writing and I’m not talking about just writing an article, but a more complex project, a book (or an ebook).

To start writing, you’ll need idea, a subject and time. Go with popular stuff and everyday subjects. May go further and start writing fiction instead. It is completely up to you what you’ll write about.

But must start writing. Sometimes you’ll lack inspiration but it will come to you, so don’t worry just take a break and keep on later.

A book can be written in Word or similar software that you already have on your computer, but must use a computer or a laptop, as small screens can be bad for your eyes and with no keyboard typing can be really hard.

Book should be at least 50 pages (sometimes less), but more (more is better) is suggested if want to be accepted for publishing. For an ebook (digital book) you’ll don’t need anything special, not even an ISBN which is required for printed books.

Should have appealing book cover and a title that drives attention.

Once you’ve written your ebook, you may give it away for free (and get affirmation only) or sell it (you’ll get credits and money).

How much will you earn with an ebook if decide to publish and sell?

Let say you’ve writen a book and want to sell it on Amazon Kindle. It takes you 20 days x 5 hours a day writing. That would be 100 working hours x 20$ an hour = 2000$). After finished writing, you’ve found a proofreader to check, edit and correct grammar and overall book style. This person charge you a bargain price of 200$ for his service. A graphic designer charge you another 50$ to design book cover. The math looks like this: 2000 + 200 + 50 = 2250$. That is 2250$ in costs alone.

If doing all by yourself in your spare time, will cost much less, down to 500$. Whatever your expectations are and no matter how good your book is, don’t expect to sell more than 250 copies the first year. May sell a lot more but let go with 250. You’ll have to cover all the costs of 500$ first and get some profit later.

You can self publish your book thru Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) for free. You may even get a free ISBN there. But must have in mind fees that publisher takes for selling your books.

To cover the costs only you’ll have to price your book like 500$

/ 250 = 2$ per copy. The price of your book is now 2$ and when a fee of 35% is calculated = 2.70$ is the price you’ll have to set just to cover the costs. To get some revenue, will have to set the price higher than this.

Of course you may set the price lower or higher than that, but

2.70 is the treshold will you go higher and make profit or not. If promote well and can sell more than 250 copies go with lower price.

My advice is to set price lower, as nobody will buy an expensive book from an unknown author.

It’s best to go as low as you can and change the price late. Go down to 0.99$ for ebooks and up to 12$ for paperbacks. Occasionally you may run discount sales and free giveaways to increase number of downloads.

Don’t forget other ways of promotion

 

Turn your hobby into business

No matter what it is, you can make money out of your hobby by selling your crafts and collection items. You can run a blog about your hobby, post your creations there and promote your passion. There are people with same interests, interested in what you have to offer, just have to find them.

Rent your apartment

If have own a second house or an apartment you can rent them thru Airbnb. There is always a demand for a place to stay especially in the tourist areas as not everyone can afford an expensive hotel room.

Earn with your vehicle

You can use your car to make money by driving passengers. Uber offers such a service bringing passengers in need for a drive in many cities over the world. But you can also find similar services in your vicinity.

Can rent bicycles, scooters, boats and organize tours. You can always buy old cars, repar, tune them and sell.

Use technology to earn

If have bought a 3D printer, printed few objects and you don’t

need it anymore, you can join some of 3D print on demand sites and lease it if there is a demand for a printed 3D objects in your area.

IOT (Internet of Things)

 

It is about all that sensors that makes our life easier and we are not aware of their presence. Combining, programming and usage of sensors in everyday life is technology that will grow in the years to come.

AI (Artificial Intelligence) is another innovative technology that will grow. AI is using Big Data from many sources to improve itself. Still human assistance is needed.

 

 

Good old labor

If nothing previous doesn’t work for you, You can always turn to good old labor work. I’m not speaking about drilling a well, but something not such exhausting.

Moving furniture, waiting in lines on behalf of somebody else, go to a store, buy and deliver to a person directly, pick up and delivery and similar related stuff.

If have knowledge in house keeping, decoration, electricity, plumbing or construction, you can use your skills.

While these are local jobs and you must be on the place to do them, you can check for such kind of opportunities , in local facebook groups or classified ads online or in a local newspaper.

CONCLUSION

 

These are the opportunities how to make money online in 2020 and beyond. You’ll need internet, a computer, a phone, time and a little money for advertising if you don’t want to start from a scratch.

Choose just one path, try with an opportunity that suits you most.

Learn how it works.

 

Try another one but don’t forget the first if it is giving results. Document everything.

Make a schedule.

 

Stay consistent in what you’re doing.

 

Always do your homework. Research and check user opinions and reviews about the sites and services you want to join.

Be careful where personal data and payment details are required. Always check for a secure version of the site (that starting with HTTPS://).

Always read Terms of service, privacy, copyrights and other legal stuff. This is something most of us doesn’t do but is very important.

Run marketing campaigns both free and paid to get more traffic and customers.

Whatever you choose, it will pay off if you work hard.

It is up to you what will you start with. Personally, I would skip most of the Chapter 1 and go with freelancing or shopping as a good way to start if have skills or a starting budget.

Blogging could be a nice money maker on long term if you chose a good niche and know how to drive traffic. Same applies for affiliate marketing and shopping.

Keep in mind that what works for me, may not work as good for your. And something that works for you may not work at all for somebody else.

No matter how much money you need or if you are looking for a way to replace your sallary, is it just a few dollars, couple of hundreds, thousands, or even the “Six figures” it is a hard process where a lot of time, money and personal sacrifice is required.

But you must start anyway. These are not the opportunities you want to miss. Sooner you start, the better.

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