Making money online is not as difficult as it might seem as long as you are willing to put in the time and effort to reach your goal. Whether you want to start your own business or make money working for someone else, having the right frame of mind can be very helpful. If you realize that you are not going to get rich over night, you will not be disappointed and discouraged when your first weeks or months only generate a few dollars.
Like any new business, it takes time to cultivate an online business. You can not start out at the top and have to be willing to pay your dues whether working on your own or working for someone else. With those stipulations firmly in place, following are 10 of the best ways to make money online.
1. Writing Sites That Pay By the Word – Some sites will pay you to write short articles that have been submitted by clients. Most of these articles are used as material for ongoing websites or to increase search engine optimization (SEO). They usually pay you something like $1.00 per hundred words but the rate can vary depending on the skill level of the writer. You can select any articles to write that are at or below your skill level. Working this way, you can usually average about $5.00 per article so if you work hard, you can write enough articles to make about $200.00 per week.
2. Writing Sites That Pay Per View – Another type of writing pays you by the number of views your articles receive. The more people that click on your article, the more you can make. This can be very lucrative if you develop a following and write articles that thousands of people love to read. If you only get a handful of readers, you may not even make 25 cents for your efforts.
3. Magazine Articles – Writing for established online magazines requires a little higher skill level but can pay quite well. If you have a particular expertise such as travel destinations or finance, you can apply for freelance jobs that require several thousand words or more of original material and can pay $100 or much more per article. To get these jobs, you usually need several years of experience as a paid writer. The good thing about this type of work is that you can create an impressive portfolio that can lead to bigger and better writing jobs.
4. Blogging – Creating your own blog that attracts a large group of readers is one of the best ways to make a nice income online. It is also a very challenging endeavor as it is not always easy to attract a large enough regular audience to make your blog profitable. Bloggers get paid by placing advertising on their site and advertisers pay more depending on the total number of visitors. It is also possible to be paid by another site looking for regular content from guest bloggers. If you have great knowledge of a certain subject and are able to come up with new and interesting stories on a regular basis, blogging can be a good way to earn online income.
5. Selling Online – We have all seen the big auction and selling sites online. Here you can sell your own stuff or buy things wholesale and sell them at a markup for a nice profit.
6. Affiliate Marketing – Getting people to visit other sites and spend money is another way to make an income online. You receive a percentage of the sales you are responsible for generating. The more people you send to a particular site and the more they spend, the more you will make.
7. Surveys – Companies pay you for doing surveys. You may be paid a dollar or two for providing valuable marketing information to various companies and organizations. The work can be tedious, but if you work hard and take plenty of surveys, you can probably make a few hundred dollars each month.
8. Reading Emails – This is a very slow way of making money. All you do is click on the online ads of different companies and you earn money. Pay is usually less than a penny per click so it can take you a month to earn about $20.00
9. Mystery Shopper – Companies hire you to go to stores in your local area and they pay you cash or give you free meals or products for providing a report about the establishment you were asked to evaluate.
10. Taking Photographs – Another legitimate way to earn money online is to take and submit photographs to companies that buy and then retain the rights to those photographs. If you can produce high quality photographs that are needed by the various companies, you can earn a decent wage.