How To Make Money on the Internet – Back to Basics

I have been thinking to write this post from a couple of days, but I didn’t have much time to compile all the basic ways to make money online. Today it’s Sunday and I got couple of hours, so I am writing this post. This post is basically for newbies who come on the Internet to make some bucks. I’ll try to cover most basic ways to make money online. If I leave out something, please help me by commenting below 😉

I’ve been on the Internet since I was 11 years old and have been finding ways to make fortune since then.. So let’s start. Basically every geek on the Internet wants to make money online by doing something. I won’t go in very details, just a basic introduction to everything..

1. Make a Blog/Forum/Website:

Many young enthusiasts are coming on the Internet these days to start a blog or forum of their own. This is basically the most easiest way to make money online. If you don’t want to bother about domain name, you can get a blogger account, or a WordPress.com account. These services allow you to freely start a blog. Softwares like WordPress are available if you want to host your own blog with custom domain name.

You must choose a niche before you think about blogging. This step is important, as you must know what you’ll be writing about on your blog. Various niches include Technology, Health & Fitness, Marketing, Fashion, Sports, etc.. So, choose your niche wisely. Look out what you’re interested in and write about that.

You can also start a discussion forum if you want others to participate more interactively.. Softwares like Invision Power Board and vBulletin are paid forum softwares, while phpBB is the freely available version.

Now next step is to monetize your website. Newbies mostly go for Google Adsense, Chitika, Infolinks, etc.. Get approved by them and place ad codes on your website.

You can improve traffic to your website by social bookmarking (Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon), doing a little SEO, etc..

2. Affiliate Marketing:

Affiliate marketing is marketing about the products related to your niche. Commission Junction and ClickBank help you to sell digital products on your site and pay you the commission. Wide range of digital products are available. Amazon Inc’s Associate system lets you sell their products. In turn, they give pay you commission for the products which you help to sell. Lots of other sites are available, in different niches, for affiliate marketing.

3. Selling goods online:

If you have a business in your locality and want to bring it online, sites like eBay and Amazon can help you do so. Firstly, you list up your products online, then interested buyers can bid/buy your products. You get paid via PayPal or directly to your bank accounts.

4. Earn the Freelancer way:

A freelancer is somebody who is self-employed and is not committed to a particular employer long term.

–Wikipedia

A freelancer works according to his needs. Freelancers can work in the following fields:

• Web Designing
• Software Coding
• Game Development
• Logo Designing
• SEO Optimization
• Content Writing

You can find freelancing jobs via web. Here are the posts which have compiled a list of sites which offer freelancing jobs:

1. The Monster List of Freelancing Job Sites
2. Best 11 Freelance Sites
3. List of Freelance Sites

You can also find jobs on Webmaster forums like DigitalPoint.

5. Earn By Tweeting:

If you’re a Tweet-a-holic, this is a good news for you. You can make money by tweeting for any of the following ventures:

• Sponsored Tweets
• Magpie
• TwittAd
• Ad.ly

But, you’ll need quality followers for that, Spam doesn’t work.

6. Other Ways:

Other ways to make money online include:

• writing eBooks
• becoming a hosting & domain reseller
• selling direct advertisement on your website
• designing and selling web templates or scripts
• selling Stock Photos at sites like iStockPhoto
• become a security expert and get paid for fixing vulnerabilities on people’s websites
• etc..

A Few Last Words:

These are some of the ways to make money on the Internet. But, you’ll have to remain persistent and need to work honestly. You’re not going to earn just like that. There’s a lot of competition in every field. Thousands and thousands of blogs with same niche are present on the Internet. You need to make your blog outstanding. Similarly, lot of people work in the same filed of freelancing or sell similar items. You need to have patience in each and every field. Time is the answer to everything. Nothing happens at the first instance. So, don’t lose hope and keep working smartly.

If you have any other ways or blog posts related to this topic, please share them below..

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