How Can I Make Money on the Internet?

Each day many people will ask themselves “how can I make money at home?”. There are a number of ways that the average person can make money at home.

Do you want riches beyond your wildest dreams? Of course you do. But don’t believe every promise and claim you read on the internet. You’ll read articles that promise you riches beyond your wildest dreams without you having to lift a finger. If you believe that then I’ve got a bridge to sell you.

In life, you only get out what you put in. If you aren’t prepared to do some work then you’ll never make money online. Just because you have to work doesn’t mean that you won’t have fun doing it. Don’t give up your day job just yet either. You need to prove to yourself that you can make a sustainable living online before you write your resignation letter and tell your boss what you really think of them!

The methods highlighted in this article will help you to make some extra cash at the very least, even if it won’t enable you to leave your job immediately.

Here at ShuntMoney.co.uk we’ve found 10 reliable ways you can make money online.

Ebay

Ebay.com is one of the quickest ways you can make money on the internet. Get rid of those unwanted Christmas presents or anything you no longer use. If you really want to receive the most money for your listing then consider investing in a good camera. You want to make sure that your listing looks good; the more enticing your listing looks, the more money you are likely to get.

Remember, on Ebay the potential buyer is actively searching out for your product so make sure that your description can help close the sale. You don’t have to be the world’s greatest copywriter, but if you can write a compelling product description then you’re far more likely to close the sale. Take some time to learn some basic copywriting techniques; it is a skill that will serve you well in more than one discipline. Understand what objections the buyer might have and write copy that persuades them to buy your listing. Just make sure not to write any misleading descriptions or you’ll receive negative feedback.

On Ebay, you’ll also want to offer great customer support. Email payment details and any refund conditions to interested buyers. This will help you improve your feedback score and make it easier for you to sell more items.
You’ll also want to try and time the end of your auction at peak times. If your auction ends at 11 on a Monday morning then you probably won’t get the same price as if the auction ended in the evening.

Dropshipping

What is dropshipping you ask? Dropshipping enables you to sell real products without the need for a warehouse or distribution system. The good news is that you don’t need to start hiring van drivers or your own warehouse. You’ll get a percentage of each product that you sell. You can combine dropshipping with Ebay and sell to interested parties on Ebay, but starting your own ecommerce site is another possibility. This gives you more control than Ebay, however, you won’t have the built in market base that comes with Ebay.

Before you begin, you need to decide on which products to promote. While DVDs and electronics products are popular with dropshippers, they are also very competitive markets that will probably need a lot of initial investment. Instead, take your time to really research different niches. There are a lot of potentially lucrative niches that aren’t particularly competitive.

Take the time to source the right suppliers. Don’t be afraid to pick up the phone and try to negotiate a better deal for yourself. You’ll be surprised at how much you can accomplish with a friendly phone call.

You also need to perform due diligence on any company you are thinking of going into business with. The internet is littered with tales of woe from people burned by dropshipping companies who promised the Earth, but failed to deliver. Research each company online and find out if these companies are legitimate or if other people have had problems with them in the past. If you see complaints from people online then try to contact those people to see what their issues were. Also, make sure the company is registered with Companies House and is actually a real business who fall under UK law. Try to avoid dealing with foreign dropshippers unless you are certain that you won’t fall victim to any scams.

Ecommerce

Setting up your own ecommerce store is also another very good way to make money online. Contrary to the common perception, you don’t have to spend very much money on your online store. There are a number of different options if you don’t want to pay for an ecommerce platform. Magento, OS Commerce and OpenCart are all open source options that don’t cost anything to buy.

You can either choose to sell digital products or physical products. If you choose digital products then this will be much easier to source and package. If you want to sell physical products then you’ll need to find a reliable supplier. You’ll also need somewhere to store your stock and a way to deliver any products.

Before you embark on setting up an ecommerce site, try to learn the basics of search engine optimisation, PPC, web analytics and product searches.

Each of these skills will give you the skills to promote any website. Search engine optimisation (SEO) will mean that your site appears higher in Google and other major search engines for keywords related to your products. SEO can take time to take effect, so while you are waiting for your site to raise in the rankings you might want to try PPC.

You’ll need to pay for pay per click (PPC) advertising during the initial launch of your site. PPC are the ads which appear on search engines whenever a user types in a particular keyword. You can use the data from PPC to better inform your decisions about which keywords to target while your perform SEO on your site. The most well-known PPC program is Google Adwords, although Microsoft do also have their own PPC ad platform on Bing called MSNAdcenter.

Learning the basics of web analytics programs will help you determine which products are performing well and where your site has room for improvement. One of the most well-known packages is Google Analytics. It’s free, so there’s really reason why you shouldn’t have at least one analytics package on your site.

Don’t forget that people also use shopping specific search engines now to find the products they want. That means that you’ll want to be listed in Google Merchant Center (Google Shopping). The Google Shopping search engine is different from the main Google search. Read up on the various requirements to being accepted in the Google Shopping search engine.

Affiliate Marketing

If you don’t have your own products or find the idea of dropshipping too stressful then you might want to take a look at affiliate marketing. With affiliate marketing you promote a product to interested parties and if they purchase after having clicked on your link then you will receive a portion of the sale.

One of the most popular sites with affiliates is ClickBank.com. ClickBank has lots of different software and information products to promote. Clickbank is popular with affiliates because of their generous affiliate payouts. Generally most affiliates will receive at least 50% of any sale so Clickbank can quickly generate a profit provided that you find the right product.

Amazon is another site with an affiliate program. You can promote every product on the Amazon website and make money whenever somebody buys from the store after clicking on your link. Although Amazon generally have less generous rates of commission than other websites, the fact that Amazon is so ubiquitous means that you can still make a good amount of money each month.

Again, you really need to research your market and see a particular product is really worth promoting. You can use keyword research tools to identify keywords with high search volumes.

If you are planning on using affiliate marketing to make money online then you’ll need to know how to market the product online. Read general marketing books before you begin and be prepared to spend some money on PPC and SEO in order to attract qualified visitors to your site.

Adsense

The popularity of Adsense has waned somewhat over the last few years, however, it is still a very popular program. It is the very definition of passive income. You’ll receive money every time a visitor to your website clicks on an ad.

Each ad is priced differently, so clicks on a credit card advert are more valuable than ad clicks for CD sales.

You will also need to optimise where you place the ads on your site in order to make the most amount of money. Adsense already has some useful documentation on how to maximise ad click throughs.

It’s difficult to make lots of money with Adsense, although, with the right websites it is certainly possible to pay your rent or mortgage each month with these sites. Again, you will want to learn SEO if you want to increase visitors and clicks on your site.

It’s not very cost effective to use PPC to drive visitors to an Adsense based website, this is why you’ll need to learn how to effectively market your website using so-called “free traffic” sources, such as, social news sites like StumbleUpon, Digg and Reddit and SEO.

Advertising

Advertising is also a very popular method of making money online. One of the most popular forms of advertising is CPM advertising. CPM is the cost of an ad per 1000 impressions. Depending on the type of site you own you’ll be able to charge different rates for CPM advertising. If you own a website in the financial services industry then it’s more likely that you’ll receive a higher CPM advertising rate than if your site is about paper clips.

There are a number of reputable CPM advertising networks available to website owners.

Some of the larger advertising networks include:

• Tribal Fusion
• Value Click
• Vibrant Media
• SixApart
• Precision Click
• Casale Media
• Adify

Freelancing

Freelancing online is also another great way to make money. Provided you have some skills there are no shortage of businesses looking for talented and experienced individuals. If you can write then there are a number of website owners looking for content to put on their website. Simiarly, if you know a programming language or are able to perform SEO to a good standard then there will be lots of businesses willing to hire you.

The following sites are among the biggest for freelancing jobs.
http://www.elance.com/
http://www.guru.com/

With any freelancing website you will have to perform the work to a high-standard. Freelancers are rated by the business owners who employ them so if you fail to meet deadlines or the work isn’t to a good standard then you could find it more difficult to get gigs in the future.

If you are in the UK, you might also want to regularly check some classified ads boards like GumTree or Craig’s List. Business owners often post to these services.

Selling Domains

Buying and selling domains can be a lucrative business if you know where to look to buy and sell domains. Buying and selling domains can be a complicated business. Sign-up to our free newsletter to learn more about the places where you can buy cheap domains with authority and where you can sell the same domain names for a profit.

Surveys

Surveys are a great way to make money if you don’t have much experience online. However, despite that, you won’t make that much money taking part in these surveys. Don’t be fooled by the online marketing that exists out there that says you can make thousands of pounds in your spare-time by registering for hundreds of surveys.

One of the more reliable surveys you can part in is for YouGov. They pay different rate for survey completions and is a reliable way to make a small amount of money each month.

http://my.yougov.com/register.aspx