Here's the thing, we all know too well about all the silly get rich quick schemes, the pyramid marketing ploys, the affiliate programs that do nothing but waste time and let's not forget those insane Nigerian Prince investment scams.
Making money online isn't difficult, I said it, but nobody gives money away for free. Instead of telling you about ways i've heard of people making money online, I'm going to share what I've done to earn a living off the web. Tips and tricks as well as methods and services I have personally used and still use in some cases! If you would like to check out my profiles on these services to confirm I use them like anyone else, I'm not shy to share them privately!
I really hope this helps, you may or may not have heard of some of these services/methods, but hey, you guys helped me find the perfect batch of books to buy and now a new billiards table, I owe you.
[I will not be adding links, just type in the service/method names in google if you would like to find them as I don't want to break any TLF rules.]
1. I'm a Designer/Developer, I create logos, brand identities, websites, android apps at times and so on, and I offer my services mainly off of Elance. I'm fairly sure most of you have heard of Elance. It's one of the largest freelance markets on the web. It's rather simple and absolutely free to make an account, there's a lot of verifying that needs to be done, verify your number so they confirm what part of the world you reside in etc, but it's all for security purposes. You then create a profile, list what type of services you want to offer and fix up your portfolio then start bidding on projects posted by potential clients all around the world. You get 40 connects when you register, that means you can place 40 bids, make them wisely as future connects cost a few cents each. If you place smart bids, you'll land jobs early on and won't need to worry about purchasing connects as you can do so with profits earned, all pays for itself.
Anyway, services you can offer range from writing services, proof reading services, to more technical things like art/design/development/construction, or even virtual assistant services and more. It's a massive market with something for everyone. Price your services competitively and you'll land work, it's inevitable.
Methods of collecting payments:
- Paypal, you get to withdraw cash directly to paypal.
- Wire transfer, simply add your bank details and voila, you get to withdraw funds earned by having Elance wire you the fees. Note: wire transfers are free ONCE a month, if you withdraw money more often / month then you end up paying a withdrawal fee of like $20. I withdraw my earnings once a month for free via wire transfer, cheaper that way.
2. Fiverr. Now, some might cringe and scream in horror at the mention of fiverr, thinking it's an under priced service, but I disagree. I've made decent money for the time invested using the service and it's super easy to use. Free to register, you make a profile then offer people items and services you're willing to give for $5 (you make $4 after the fees are auto deducted by the site etc)
You can offer to review someones ebook, post a positive comment on amazon for them, really simple things that people are willing to pay a fiver for. The great thing about this site is after 10 successful sales, you can then add EXTRAS, meaning you can charge more for your gigs by saying, for 5bucks i'll do this, BUT, for 10-20-40 I can do THIS, this and this. make sense? Offer additional services for extra cash that way you'll be making much more.
I made almost a thousand over the year just offering to convert peoples handwriting into fonts, for a personal touch when they write emails or documents etc. It takes me 15min to do and they love the end result, win win.
Check the site out for an idea of what micro easy peeeeesy services you can offer people in return for some quick cash.
Methods of collecting payments:
-Paypal, you add it in your profile then click withdraw cash.
-Debit card - amazing method, you just get the cash withdrawn to a debit card you order for free from the site, I use it on the go, works on most cash machines and at large supermarkets (mastercard debit card). Your earnings get added to it when you click withdraw within the site, there's a -$1 fee every time you cash money out with your card but that's normal.
3. iWriter - I honestly tried this site for just 3 days and made $25 then stopped using it. It works, but it's really boring and you don't have as much control over what you do as the above two services, but it works, so here goes.
with iWriter, you make a free account and then then take on writing assignments. There are different categories and descriptions for articles and you pick one. You have only 12hours I think it was to deliver the finished product so that's another negative factor I didn't like.
Clients submit the title, describe what they want and give you how many words they want the article to be (250words = $2.5 / 500words = $4 / 750 words = $7 / 1000words = i think 12$ or something i forgot).
You click 'write article' and the clock starts ticking, you have to research and write about the topic within 12hours then submit it for their review. You're asked to slip in certain keywords within the article a certain number of times which is easy enough.
Now the trick to using this site effectively is, don't ever write articles for any new members or ones with a i high rate of DECLINES. that means they decline articles frequently and will waste your time. Pick the ones with a lot of approvals and not as many declines and write for them. You can check their feedback for an idea of who you're dealing with if that helps.
It's not the site for me, pay isnt great, the timer thing is a put off, but other than that, it's the easiest site to land jobs. You sign in, click write articles and earn, pretty easy. You then get to withdraw your cash every other Wednesday or every 30th of the month, you select which option.
Methods of collecting payments:
-Paypal is the only method of withdrawing money as you input it into your profile.
Now those are 3 of the many services I have tried that I'll put my neck out there for and say they're legit. I have used other services, some with blah results, others where I ended up getting payouts but the effort was not worth it, so I don't feel the need to list those here.
Now there are other sites like Elance, such as Odesk and Freelancer but I didn't mention them in detail as I have never personally used them.
I also blog, and earn a good bit off of blogging too, so here is a bit about that.
Blogging isn't rocket science but earning from blogging, is way way more difficult than some try to make it out to be. It's not as easy as just writing articles and putting up ads using adsense or whatever, no way. Adsense never worked great for me, I think the largest google adsense check I ever got was $38 or something, after several months of using adsense, so I personally would not recommend adsense since you need a blog generating ten's of thousands of unique visitors a month to make any serious ad money.
The way I earn off of my blogs is simple. I generate a small loyal following, reader base if you like, I tweet and such so more people check out my blog and I focus on a niche/industry. Once I have a large number of articles published and a good number of loyal readers and backlinks out there, I reach out to small local businesses and other smaller sites online within the same industry/niche and offer them cheap/affordable advertisement space on my blog.
Tip: Once you have a blog, you can use fiverr (service i mentioned above) and offer ads on your site for $5 a week, then add extras to write a review about peoples products on your blog for $20+ and so on.
One last thing I can think of off the top of my head for now would be, a product site. You make a product, hand made, and want to sell it, simply build a one page site and market it online, drop links off here and there and land a few extra sales.
Conclusion:
I have personally earned the most off of Elance but that's because I put a lot of time and effort into that site offering multiple services, Fiverr has been the most fun and rewarding services as the time I spend per gig is well worth the $5 i earn. iWriter wasn't for me but others seem to be making much more so hey, to each their own, it works though as I've tried it. Blogging works if you love the niche you're blogging about and are willing to do it for a month or two at first to build a reader base, after that, it gets much easier to monetize your blog. Product sites work great, the effort you put into marketing it online usually ='s the results, roughly anyway so it's worth it.
That's it, you won't become rich per say, but the above services/methods are not get rich quick schemes, they're legitimate ways that I have used and some, still use, to make a little extra cash on the side. Use multiple services/techniques and earnings add up to make a comfy monthly paycheck.
Oh, and for those wondering about blogging and building products sites, it may seem like a lot of work if you have no idea of where to start but it's actually fairly easy and costs next to nothing to get started. All you need is a domain, some cheap but reliable hosting and you're 90% there. Domains cost like $3...cheap affordable hosting will set you back like 60$ a year, less if you use 3rd party shared hosting, domain+hosting then could cost under $35 a year. Now you're thinking, ok it's cheap but I don't know anything about building sites, pffft. Hosting companies now have one click installs, you need a blog, you click on their auto install wordpress icon and you have a blog in under 30 seconds. You select a pretty looking theme and you're ready to go. Learning curve is not all that nerve racking, you can get started on blogging within 30min of watching the WP tutorials, it's very user friendly.
How cool is that? Genuinely hope this helps someone out there. If you have any questions of any sort, post them and I'll do my best to help answer them.
:roundgrin
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Update: I'll add more things to this thread at a later date to expand on the methods and services as well as bring other techniques and newer services that I may eventually use.