Ways to make money online

My requirements:

• Can be done by myself.
• Is scalable.
• Is highly profitable.
• I am not afraid of learning new things.
• I am prepared to invest my time and money into it.

Googling…

The truth about making money online

Are you ready? Ok…

There is not 100, 50, 20, not even 5 ways of making money online.

“There is only one way to make money on internet!”

And that is when someone buys something.

There are numerous variations of buying and selling process – but one thing remains: It is a concept of exchange where two parties exchange something of value. It could be a product or service or a combination of both. Now you can sell directly to the consumer or you can be the middle man.

1. Selling my own product or service

Selling products and services is the number one earner online and offline. If you happen to have a physical product or service that you offer offline, you can probably sell it online also. Get yourself a website or/and  an online store and start promoting.

In my case, I don`t have a product. So what could I do? I found out that providing my skills is one of the options. I know some HTML, Web Design and have some marketing skills.

Providing my skills

I could provide services on my own website or on a marketplaces like Elance.com. There are hundreds of new jobs posted every day.

How much could I earn?

I could work for a few hours a day, but let`s assume I am working full-time (8 hours per day).  If I could average $30 an hour for working through Elance than I would earn $240 per day. With 20 working days that makes me $4800. So my income margin would be about $4800 per month or $57.600 per year.

Working as a freelancer scenario:

• Investment: none
• Knowledge required: my current skills of Web development would be ok.
• Time of hours per day: 8
• Income: $30/hour, $240/day, $4800/month, $57.600 per year.
• How much time to reach my goal – $51.000: 1 year

I could reach my goal of earning 51 Grand on internet, but I would probably spend most of it for living costs.

Selling an Ebook

Many people use their knowledge and write books or ebooks.

In order to earn 51 grand by selling ebooks, I would first need to write an ebook and than market it heavily. To do that I would need some writing skills as well as marketing skills and some advertising budget.

If I would price my book at $30 I would need to sell 1700 copies to earn 51 Grand. Compared to a freelancing job, selling an ebook will definitely not bring me money from day one I start selling it. But selling an ebook is is scalable, when freelancing is not.

Selling an Ebook scenario:

• Investment: plenty of time to write an ebook, advertising budget
• Knowledge required: writing skills, marketing skills
• Time of hours per day: hard to determine, writing an ebook can take several weeks or months, promotion can take from hour a day to several hours
• Income: With the price $30/book – I would need to sell 1700 copies to earn $51.000
• How much time to earn me $ 51.000:  it could be two months, six months or a year.

The only problem is I don`t have an ebook (yet). I might write one, when I have some experience to share, but for now, this is not an option.

Selling my own advertising space:

I do have a few websites, but not so many visitors I could earn 51 grand any time soon. But this can become very lucrative when you have a few thousand visitors each day.I could sell advertising space on my own (Direct Ad Sales) or join advertising networks that find advertisers for me (Google Adsense).

There are many other things you can sell on internet:

• domain names,
• complete websites,
• your own photos,
• services like web hosting,
• all kinds of software,
• and others.

2. Selling others products and services: Become an Affiliate

If selling products online is the number one earner, gues what is the second one. Millions of products are sold each day on internet and millions of dollars are earned. Some percentage of this money goes to the middle man – the affiliates.

The process is called Affiliate Marketing and describes promoting products and services for other companies in exchange for a commission. So your job is to sell someone elses product to consumers. There are similar methods used as if you were selling your own products, but the main difference is you don`t need to create a product and you get paid only a share of what consumer pays.

So why is it so popular?

• You can do it on your own and set your own pace.
• You can start with zero budget.
• Potential of  making $1000`s each day.

That does not mean affiliate marketing it is easy, but you can make a lot if you have DESIRE and are prepared to work hard. The biggest advantage over regular job is its scalability. Millions of people buy on internet every day and this is only going to increase.

Affiliate marketers are often unknown to the public, but there are some Super Affiliates that share their success. Check out Shoemoney, John Chow, Zac Johnson.

How much can I make?

To reach my goal of $51.000 I need to sell:

• 5100 products with $10 commission or
• 1020 products with $50 commission or
• 510 products with $100 commission.

Affiliate marketing scenario:

• Investment: None / Advertising budget to speed things up
• Knowledge required: Deep understanding of the product you are selling, writing skills, marketing skills, web development skills,…
• Time of hours per day: very time consuming at the beginning, once you gain knowledge you can set your own pace – it could be 2, 4 or 8 hours
• Income: starts with zero, could be extra $500 per month or $10.000 per day.

More than I am thinking, more I am seeing that affiliate marketing is my path to making money on internet. I will investigate this topic further.