Simple ways to make money online

By glblguy

Making money online, even in today’s economy isn’t difficult. But like anything else, it requires hard work. Here are just a few simple ways you can start making money online:

Start a blog

Contrary to what many say, blogs to make money. If you obtain decent search engine traffic and establish a good reader base, they can actually earn a full-time revenue. The trick to having a successful blog is finding a niche that you’re interested (and knowledgeable) on AND that people are interested in reading about. A great way to find what people are interested in is by using Google Trends. The other important part of building an online community and blog is to be authoritative but be personal.

If a blog is something you’re interested in, do your research and set one up from the beginning the right way. If you aren’t sure how to get started, engage a professional blog consultant to help you. The initial cost will payoff in the long run.

Start an online affiliate store

An affiliate store is different than a typical online store. With an affiliate store, you don’t actual sell the merchandise or ship it, you just market it. An affiliate store is a front-end to other online stores and when you refer your visitors to those stores and the visitors buy, you get paid for it. Generally the amount is a % of the overall sale. For example, one of my online stores sells MPG meters. I discuss the products, write reviews, and offer links visitors can use to actually buy the products. The actual sellers are Amazon.com and EBay, both of which have affiliate programs that pay a percentage of sale. Now that gas prices are back down, my income is very small but last year when gas prices were high, I made a decent amount of money from the site. This is just one of about 10 different affiliate marketing sites (online stores) I have, and between them they provide a decent passive income.

You can read all about how to start an online store by reading my article: Starting an online store.

Pay per click advertising

I’ll warn you, this is easy to set-up and start but in order to be successful and actually make money, it requires a great deal of time and knowledge.   It also requires a decent amount of up front money. BUT with all this said, if you’re successful, it can be very lucrative and their are many people making a great deal of money doing this.

The best example of pay per click advertising is Google Adsense. Advertisers pay Google to place these ads. 90% of the time these ads (when clicked) direct you an affiliate marketing site (or store) where the advertiser hopes you’ll make a purchase and they’ll get paid. If done correctly and the ads convert well, the payback on the cost of these ads can be significant.

I tried PPC (Pay per click) advertising for a while, but didn’t care for it much. I preferred blogging and setting up online stores. If you are considering PPC advertising, I’ll highly recommend a training program called PPC Coach. The program is run by a highly successful PPC marketer, and will teach you everything you need to know about how to be successful doing PPC marketing.

Build it and they will come

While that as a great line from a baseball movie, it does not apply to the world of internet sites. Many people have the false idea that you can just build a website and people will automagically find it. NOT TRUE. Getting people to your site involves a great deal of marketing, social network involvement, and hard work. Don’t underestimate the amount of work required, and don’t think that building a site is easy money. For two years, I worked on average 10-12 hours a week here on Gather Little by Little alone. That time included: writing articles, researching article topics, keeping the site updated, marketing, social media participation, participation in forums and about a million other little things.

The good news is that the fruits of your labor can be well worth it financially and emotionally. Not sure how to start? Don’t over think it, just do some research, read a few articles and start. The worst thing you can do is hesitate. Sure, you may fail but better to have tried and failed than to never have tried at all. When you do fail, use what you’ve learned to make your next effort even better.


33 Responses (including trackbacks) to “Simple ways to make money online”

  1. Craig Says:

    I wouldn’t title it “simple” but understand what you mean. It’s difficult work to make any side income from blogs or affiliate stores. Lots or content building and networking and luck on top of that. No guarantees with it.

  2. sir jorge Says:

    it’s definitely a lot of work, even at my most popular, my site brings in chump change to say the least

  3. TriNi - Make Money Online Free Says:

    These are some great ways that you listed to make money online. I highly recommend that people start a blog. And most people tend to think they need to make a blog about making money online. They really don’t have to. Everyone has knowledge about some particular field.. whether it might be cars, books, movies, music, or even makeup! And that’s what they need to focus on. Then the second step is learning SEO to build traffic to their blog.. and then they can earn money in tons of different ways using their blog.. eg. Adsense, affiliate programs, etc!

    But you’re right.. it takes alot of work. And lazy people can’t make money online! Great post.. and I really like your blog. :) Nice clean layout and some good info! Keep up the good work!

  4. Funny about Money Says:

    How to use Google Trends escapes me. “Mama Got Run Over by a Reindeer” lyrics…that’s hot? Really, I don’t see anything else there that I feel any more moved to write about…which is to say, huh?

    Thanks for the leads about online affiliate stores and the PPC coach. I’ll check those out!

  5. Big John Says:

    the best way that i ever made money online legitly is through Clix Sense.. its a great site.. if you don’t believe me do a google search on it and see for yourself..lol here’s the link

    http://www.clixsense.com/?2892407

    if you do like it, please click my referral link to sign up.. would greatly appreciate it..;)

  6. Robert Says:

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  7. DDFD at Defensive-Entrepreneurship.com Says:

    Great post– nothing worthwhile is easy. Online is a great place to moonlight or have a side gig . . .

  8. http://easywaytomakemoney.awardspace.co.uk Says:

    I agree with you, DDFF grate post.

  9. local news Says:

    very informative post… you might also find this article to be of some use as well – reading it certainly changed the way i handle things now. best of luck and i look forward to reading future posts from you!

  10. Wilbur Woods Says:

    loving your blog,

    I’ll sure come back more often!

    keep up the great job,

    Wilbur Woods

  11. Wilbur Woods Says:

    great post!

    I’ll sure come back more often :-)

    keep up the great job,

    Wilbur Woods

  12. Alex@Complaints Says:

    Right now since I am still a beginner at making money online the most reliable source I have found as of yet are paid surveys. But for more long term and higher yield placing your site (selling something) within the right niche and building a loyal audience will give better results.

  13. Stephanie Says:

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  14. Tabetha Says:

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  15. St. Louis Programmer Says:

    There is obviously a lot to know about this, but you did a good job covering it

  16. Latest Breaking News Says:

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  17. IVAN Says:

    I’m always looking for more information about this, thanks for the awesome post, keep them coming!

  18. Jack Mender Says:

    It seems like business is still getting hit hard. Is anybody seeing an upswing in their respective niches? Health reform seems like a mess. I generate long term care insurance leads and annuity leads for the insurance industry, but volume has been terrible in the last two months. I am afraid the worst is yet to come, but maybe it is just my attitude.

  19. Magic Tickets Says:

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  20. Heat Tickets Says:

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  21. Mason Chan Says:

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  22. Jaykay Bak Says:

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  23. jorge Says:

    i make money is from here http://100kblogging.com/?hop=chrisd10 made few bucks not alot but help me with some of my bills hope it helps

  24. Jamian Says:

    You’re right Affiliate Marketing is good way to make money online, there no products to ship and handling any invoices all you need to do is send qualified visitors to merchants site and make commission from each sales that you referred . That being said of course you need to learn how to find your niche and how to promote the product once you find the product.

  25. Make money with abdul Says:

    ClixSense might just be the right program for you to make money online.

    Take care,
    Abdul Rehman Agha

  26. Jason Days Says:

    Hm.. making cash at home has sometimes really been extremely difficult; almost always I purchase some programs and get money from those. although they are extremely expensive! Trying to make money without any sort of job experience is even harder. A lot of stuff are just worthless, but this post surprisingly Taught me so much. Thanks A lot! :)

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