20 Real Ways to Make Money on the Internet
You can make money in the new economy but it does take some thinking and some effort . Use the skills you already have wherever possible and you will be well ahead – expertise sells on the internet just like everywhere else , except your audience and market is much larger.. And it pays to remember that the more opportunities you pursue the more income streams it may be possible to generate. Every little bit helps and perseverance pays off in the long term.
1. Offer professional expertise online .These days, you can sell your professional capabilities in a marketplace just like you sell your old books via Amazon and your old Coach handbags via eBay—now. Now freelancing and project-oriented sites let companies who need help describe their projects. Freelancers and small businesses then offer bids, ideas or proposals and buyers choose what suits them best.
Elance covers everything from programming and writing to consulting and design,RentACoder focuses on software,. Graphic designer? check Design Outpost orLogoWorks– customers come to you. Then there's TechDirt’s Insight Community, a marketplace for ideas about technology marketing.
2. Sell photos on stock photography sites. If you think you've got some great Flickr pics, it’s easier than ever to get your photos out in front of the public, which omeans a lot of competition, but also a convenient to build up a secondary income stream. Where can you upload and market your photos: Fotolia,Dreamstime, Shutterstock, and Big Stock Photo.
3. Blog for Money. Good writers who can turn around a solidly-written post on an interesting topic quickly are hard to find. GigaOM is always looking for bloggerswith great content ideas and solid writing skills. How do you get noticed? Comment and link to blogging network sites. Write blog posts that are polished and not overly personal but still have some personality .
4. Start your own blog network. If you like the business side of things–selling advertising, hiring and managing employees, attracting investors–and have the stomach to go up against the likes of Weblogs, Inc., GigaOmniMedia, b5media, maybe you should make an entire business out of blogs. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’ll get a lot of time to write yourself though.
5. Provide service and support for open source software. Just because the software is free doesn’t mean you can’t make money on it–just ask Red Hat, a well-known distributor of Linux that sports a market cap of more than four billion dollars. As a solo web worker, you might not want to jump in and compete with big companies offering Linux support, but how about offering support for web content management systems like WordPress or Drupal? After getting comfortable with your own installation, you can pretty easily jump into helping other people set them up and configure them.
6. Online life coaching. Who has time to go meet a personal coach at an office? And don’t the new generation of web workers need to be met by their coaches in the same way that they work: via email, IM, and VoIP? You could, of course, go through some life coaching certification program, but on the web, reputation is more important than credentials. I bet Tony Robbins isn’t certified as a life coach–and no one can argue with his success. For an example of someone building up their profile and business online as a coach, check out Pamela Slim of Ganas Consulting and the Escape from Cubicle Nation blog.
7. Virtually assist other web workers. Freelancers and small businesses desperately need help running their businesses, but they’re not about to hire a secretary to come sit in the family room and answer phone calls. As a virtual assistant, you might do anything from making travel reservations to handling expense reimbursements to paying bills to arranging for a dog sitter. And you do it all from your own home office, interacting with your clients online and by phone. You can make $20 and up an hour doing this sort of work, depending on your expertise.
8. Build services on Amazon Web Services. Elastic computing on AWS is quite unique. You know you can’t even count on your virtual hard drive on EC2 to store your data permanently? People are making money right now by offering services on top of AWS so it's easier for people to use Amazon’s scalability web infrastructure like Enomaly has with elasticlive, a scalable web hosting platform built on AWS.
9. Write reviews for Money or Goods.Blog for any length of time on a particular topic–parenting, mobile phones, or PCs, for example–you could be approached to do book or product reviews. You can get free stuff this way. Is there any such thing as a free laptop? These are decisions you’ll have to make for yourself, because no one agrees upon what ethical rules apply to bloggers. Even less do people agree on services like PayPerPost that pay you to write reviews on your blog. Check out disclosure rules closely and see whether such a gig would meet your own personal standards or not.
11. Team up with Yahoo! to offer custom search services.
Yahoo! recently launched their BOSS API, which lets anyone build their own custom search engine or mashup using their search results. But you may have missed this teaser on their blog: “In the coming months, we’ll be launching a monetization platform for BOSS that will enable Yahoo! to expand its ad network and enable BOSS partners to jointly participate in the compelling economics of search.” The details of that platform aren’t out yet, but if you think you can come up with a compelling niche search offering, now’s the time to stake out your place in the market.
12. Sell freelance support.
Software and solutions like Copilot and Bomgar make it easier than ever to take over someone’s computer remotely, whether they know anything about how to let you connect or not. If you’re a whiz with solving operating systems and applications issues, why not sell your expertise to others who are less sure of themselves? At a reasonable hourly rate, you can still offer personal service that’s infinitely better than putting up with anonymous bored workers in a telecenter somewhere.
13. Create and maintain social networks.
While companies, organizations and individuals do see the value of marketing through social networks, many of them are afraid that they’ll “waste time” setting them up and maintaining them. Step in as their social network “developer” to determine the right places – MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, et. al. – to have accounts to help them achieve their goals. Then set up their pages and manage them on a regular basis. You can also submit reports that measure your clients’ online buzz and turn that in along with your monthly invoice.
14. Plan and host virtual events.
If you’re great at organizing, publicizing and managing events, why not offer your services online? Whether a live text chat on a client’s web site or a 3-dimensional avatar-based voice chat in a virtual world such as Second Life, companies and organizations could use your help developing and coordinating these events. You can even approach conferences and offer to create an online version of their event to reach a whole separate audience of people who cannot attend their offline happenings. Throw in some event hosting and moderating a la Oprah, and you’ve got yourself a global gig without having to jump on a plane.
15. Offer remote software demos and training.
So you’ve got a way with software, particularly newfangled Web-based applications. Offer your services as a Web apps trainer and hold online demos – for a fee. You can use GoToMeeting.com, Yugma, and similar services to broadcast your demos from your computer desktop to the computer screens of your audience members. Or approach the developers of these applications, show them you know their product almost better than they do, and offer to provide desktop demos to the media and to their higher dollar business customers.
16. Hold educational teleseminars.
Are you great at web design or online marketing or any other kind of Web work and have wanted to share your skills on a larger scale while getting paid to do it? If you’ve got the expertise, bottle it and sell it widely in the form of a live teleseminar where you charge a fee for participation and then archive it in your online store to generate recurring revenues. You can do simple web-based conference call coordination through Rondee or get fancier with simultaneous text chat and online documents with Calliflower.
17. Write part of Google’s encyclopedia.
Anyone can contribute to Google’s new Knol project, an encylopedic collection of knowledge in the tradition of Wikipedia. But unlike Wikipedia, Knol shows some prospect for paying its writers – because you can automatically hook up Google Ads to a Knol entry, and you’ll get a share of the take. If you’re an authority on some subject of interest, maintaining a Knol page could at least help pay for your internet usage.
18. Flip Web Sites For Money.
Forget trying to think of a brand new hot web site to launch. The New York Times recently reported on people who are making a good living by “flipping” existing sites. The idea: find a niche site with good potential but poor execution, and buy it. Invest your own sweat equity in a site redesign and search engine optimization, then turn around and sell it to someone else who actually wants to run the site. Repeat as often as you can.
19. Sell video footage.
We’ve covered the microstock photography market several times, but did you know that there’s a budding microstock video market too? If you’re a digital video fanatic, turn your high-quality b-roll into bucks using stock imaging sites that also carry video footage like Pond5, iStockPhoto Video and Pixelflow. Set your price, set your terms, and add this new revenue stream to your income.
20. Sell virtual goods.
From fashion to business tools to décor for virtual homes and offices, people who are avid users of virtual worlds are hungry for well-designed virtual goods. While there is a learning curve for each proprietary virtual environment such asThere.com, Kaneva, Lively, and Second Life, if there is a commerce component of the world that converts to real dollars, with a keen eye for design and detail and the right building skills, you can generate income from creating products made of bits and bytes. In Second Life, for example, some of the more successful clothing designers are bringing in thousands of dollars (US) a month selling items of clothing at 75 cents to $1.50 a pop. And if you're a decent artist, your virtual goods could sell for a pretty penny.
Here's 20 Ways to make Money with the Internet:
1. Offer professional expertise online .These days, you can sell your professional capabilities in a marketplace just like you sell your old books via Amazon and your old Coach handbags via eBay—now. Now freelancing and project-oriented sites let companies who need help describe their projects. Freelancers and small businesses then offer bids, ideas or proposals and buyers choose what suits them best.
Elance covers everything from programming and writing to consulting and design,RentACoder focuses on software,. Graphic designer? check Design Outpost orLogoWorks– customers come to you. Then there's TechDirt’s Insight Community, a marketplace for ideas about technology marketing.
2. Sell photos on stock photography sites. If you think you've got some great Flickr pics, it’s easier than ever to get your photos out in front of the public, which omeans a lot of competition, but also a convenient to build up a secondary income stream. Where can you upload and market your photos: Fotolia,Dreamstime, Shutterstock, and Big Stock Photo.
3. Blog for Money. Good writers who can turn around a solidly-written post on an interesting topic quickly are hard to find. GigaOM is always looking for bloggerswith great content ideas and solid writing skills. How do you get noticed? Comment and link to blogging network sites. Write blog posts that are polished and not overly personal but still have some personality .
4. Start your own blog network. If you like the business side of things–selling advertising, hiring and managing employees, attracting investors–and have the stomach to go up against the likes of Weblogs, Inc., GigaOmniMedia, b5media, maybe you should make an entire business out of blogs. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’ll get a lot of time to write yourself though.
5. Provide service and support for open source software. Just because the software is free doesn’t mean you can’t make money on it–just ask Red Hat, a well-known distributor of Linux that sports a market cap of more than four billion dollars. As a solo web worker, you might not want to jump in and compete with big companies offering Linux support, but how about offering support for web content management systems like WordPress or Drupal? After getting comfortable with your own installation, you can pretty easily jump into helping other people set them up and configure them.
6. Online life coaching. Who has time to go meet a personal coach at an office? And don’t the new generation of web workers need to be met by their coaches in the same way that they work: via email, IM, and VoIP? You could, of course, go through some life coaching certification program, but on the web, reputation is more important than credentials. I bet Tony Robbins isn’t certified as a life coach–and no one can argue with his success. For an example of someone building up their profile and business online as a coach, check out Pamela Slim of Ganas Consulting and the Escape from Cubicle Nation blog.
7. Virtually assist other web workers. Freelancers and small businesses desperately need help running their businesses, but they’re not about to hire a secretary to come sit in the family room and answer phone calls. As a virtual assistant, you might do anything from making travel reservations to handling expense reimbursements to paying bills to arranging for a dog sitter. And you do it all from your own home office, interacting with your clients online and by phone. You can make $20 and up an hour doing this sort of work, depending on your expertise.
8. Build services on Amazon Web Services. Elastic computing on AWS is quite unique. You know you can’t even count on your virtual hard drive on EC2 to store your data permanently? People are making money right now by offering services on top of AWS so it's easier for people to use Amazon’s scalability web infrastructure like Enomaly has with elasticlive, a scalable web hosting platform built on AWS.
9. Write reviews for Money or Goods.Blog for any length of time on a particular topic–parenting, mobile phones, or PCs, for example–you could be approached to do book or product reviews. You can get free stuff this way. Is there any such thing as a free laptop? These are decisions you’ll have to make for yourself, because no one agrees upon what ethical rules apply to bloggers. Even less do people agree on services like PayPerPost that pay you to write reviews on your blog. Check out disclosure rules closely and see whether such a gig would meet your own personal standards or not.
- Become a virtual gold farmer. A half million Chinese now earn income byacquiring and selling World of Warcraft gold to gamers in other countries. If you’re not a young person living in China, this probably isn’t a viable option for you. But what’s intriguing about it is the opportunity to make real money working in a virtual economy. People are making real-world money in Second Life too.
Yahoo! recently launched their BOSS API, which lets anyone build their own custom search engine or mashup using their search results. But you may have missed this teaser on their blog: “In the coming months, we’ll be launching a monetization platform for BOSS that will enable Yahoo! to expand its ad network and enable BOSS partners to jointly participate in the compelling economics of search.” The details of that platform aren’t out yet, but if you think you can come up with a compelling niche search offering, now’s the time to stake out your place in the market.
12. Sell freelance support.
Software and solutions like Copilot and Bomgar make it easier than ever to take over someone’s computer remotely, whether they know anything about how to let you connect or not. If you’re a whiz with solving operating systems and applications issues, why not sell your expertise to others who are less sure of themselves? At a reasonable hourly rate, you can still offer personal service that’s infinitely better than putting up with anonymous bored workers in a telecenter somewhere.
13. Create and maintain social networks.
While companies, organizations and individuals do see the value of marketing through social networks, many of them are afraid that they’ll “waste time” setting them up and maintaining them. Step in as their social network “developer” to determine the right places – MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, et. al. – to have accounts to help them achieve their goals. Then set up their pages and manage them on a regular basis. You can also submit reports that measure your clients’ online buzz and turn that in along with your monthly invoice.
14. Plan and host virtual events.
If you’re great at organizing, publicizing and managing events, why not offer your services online? Whether a live text chat on a client’s web site or a 3-dimensional avatar-based voice chat in a virtual world such as Second Life, companies and organizations could use your help developing and coordinating these events. You can even approach conferences and offer to create an online version of their event to reach a whole separate audience of people who cannot attend their offline happenings. Throw in some event hosting and moderating a la Oprah, and you’ve got yourself a global gig without having to jump on a plane.
15. Offer remote software demos and training.
So you’ve got a way with software, particularly newfangled Web-based applications. Offer your services as a Web apps trainer and hold online demos – for a fee. You can use GoToMeeting.com, Yugma, and similar services to broadcast your demos from your computer desktop to the computer screens of your audience members. Or approach the developers of these applications, show them you know their product almost better than they do, and offer to provide desktop demos to the media and to their higher dollar business customers.
16. Hold educational teleseminars.
Are you great at web design or online marketing or any other kind of Web work and have wanted to share your skills on a larger scale while getting paid to do it? If you’ve got the expertise, bottle it and sell it widely in the form of a live teleseminar where you charge a fee for participation and then archive it in your online store to generate recurring revenues. You can do simple web-based conference call coordination through Rondee or get fancier with simultaneous text chat and online documents with Calliflower.
17. Write part of Google’s encyclopedia.
Anyone can contribute to Google’s new Knol project, an encylopedic collection of knowledge in the tradition of Wikipedia. But unlike Wikipedia, Knol shows some prospect for paying its writers – because you can automatically hook up Google Ads to a Knol entry, and you’ll get a share of the take. If you’re an authority on some subject of interest, maintaining a Knol page could at least help pay for your internet usage.
18. Flip Web Sites For Money.
Forget trying to think of a brand new hot web site to launch. The New York Times recently reported on people who are making a good living by “flipping” existing sites. The idea: find a niche site with good potential but poor execution, and buy it. Invest your own sweat equity in a site redesign and search engine optimization, then turn around and sell it to someone else who actually wants to run the site. Repeat as often as you can.
19. Sell video footage.
We’ve covered the microstock photography market several times, but did you know that there’s a budding microstock video market too? If you’re a digital video fanatic, turn your high-quality b-roll into bucks using stock imaging sites that also carry video footage like Pond5, iStockPhoto Video and Pixelflow. Set your price, set your terms, and add this new revenue stream to your income.
20. Sell virtual goods.
From fashion to business tools to décor for virtual homes and offices, people who are avid users of virtual worlds are hungry for well-designed virtual goods. While there is a learning curve for each proprietary virtual environment such asThere.com, Kaneva, Lively, and Second Life, if there is a commerce component of the world that converts to real dollars, with a keen eye for design and detail and the right building skills, you can generate income from creating products made of bits and bytes. In Second Life, for example, some of the more successful clothing designers are bringing in thousands of dollars (US) a month selling items of clothing at 75 cents to $1.50 a pop. And if you're a decent artist, your virtual goods could sell for a pretty penny.
