Top 10 Ways to Make Money on The Internet From Home

The internet is truly the miracle of our time. A few weeks ago my partners and I launched a new product and thanks to the internet produced over $30,000 worth of profit in less than a week. Never before has it been possible to reach people all over the world from the comfort of your own home.

There are several ways to make money online. Hopefully this article will help you decide which method is best for you.

1. Take Online Surveys

I mention survey work with a good deal of trepidation…the surveys are tedious, the pay is meager, and there are many sites that are dubious, or out and out scams.

The most legitimate operation I know is GlobalTestMarket.com. They offer real surveys, and they pay real money. Again…tedious, and earning takes a long, long time.

CashCrate.com also pays users to take online surveys. They strike me as legitimate, but I confess, I don’t have any first-hand experience with it, so approach with caution…

SurveyScout.com is another possibility, but unlike CashCrate, they charge a membership fee before you can get started (Boo!). I’ve also heard some negative feedback from users of this site, so proceed with caution (if you proceed at all!).

2. Sell Your Photos

At sites like istockphoto.com and shutterpoint.com you can upload still photos or videos for sale, and receive a royalty payment every time someone makes use of your content.

3. Blog With the Best of Them

If you don’t have a site of your own, starting a blog is pretty easy at sites like Blogger.com, and WordPress.com. Blogs make money through online advertising and affiliate sales, such as through the Amazon.com affiliates program. Blogger makes it very simple to automatically place Google Adsense ads on your blog.

Also, at Orble.com, you can take ownership of an abandoned blog with a specific focus, like Film, or Travel, and collect a portion of the ad revenues. The advantage of this is that the blog is already well-represented in search engines, and can often generate much more traffic than a new blog of your own. See Orble under the Resource links for more information.

4. Earn Money From Your Own Blog or Website

The key is to generate as much traffic as you can, and to have your visitors click on ads and affiliate links. The more people visiting your site, clicking on ads, and buying affiliate products, the more income you can earn. As good as this sounds, income is generally more a trickle than a flood. But again, steadily building your site (or sites), and building traffic, is the key to generating a steadily growing stream of income.

Google Adsense is the most commonly used service for placing banner and text ads on blogs and websites. As I’ve learned to maximize Adsense income over the years, I’ve come to recognize this as one of the best income-generating opportunities available.

You can also incorporate in-text ads (the colored, underlined text with small pop-up ads). I like InfoLinks.com for this, and Kontera.com is another commonly used service.

Affiliate ads usually pay whenever a sale is made for a product. Amazon.com has one of the most well-known affiliate programs that all you to sell books or other Amazon products on your site or blog, and earn a cut of the sale.

5. Check out Q&A Sites

I earn much of my income as an online researcher, answering folks questions on everything under the sun: investments, market research, divorce law, homework help…you name it. If this sounds like your cup of tea, here are some resources to explore:

The Association of Independent Information Professionals (aiip.org) can help you build you own Q&A website and business. I’ve built my research business at xooxleanswers.com, and it is a steadily growing source of income for me.

I also work with Uclue.com Though they are not accepting new researchers right now, it’s worth a look to see how a well-developed Q&A site works.

6. More Writing Opportunities

At SoftwareJudge.com, write reviews of select software products…top reviews earn up to $50 each.

Product Reviews. You may be familiar with epinions.com, but did you know they pay cash for good quality reviews. You won’t get rich, but you can get started.

Suggest domain names according to site descriptions at Pickydomains.com Get $25 for each name that is chosen.

At Xomba.com, write anything you feel like, and collect 50% of any advertising income from Adsense clicks on your page.

Become a fledgling journalist at examiner.com, and cover a special topic area in your neck of the woods…they pay pretty well. Other writing sites include associatedcontent.com, firehow.com, helium.com, and Squidoo.

7. Write Product Review

ConsumerSearch.com, a site owned by the N.Y. Times, pays freelance writers a minimum of $350 per article for product reviews. While that sounds like good money (and it is…and you can earn even more than that!), their particular brand of reviews requires good research and writing skills, and takes a lot of work. Check ’em out at consumersearch.com/jobs.

8. Freelance Work

If you have a skill to offer, check out the various freelance sites (sometimes called “personal outsourcing”), like elance.com and guru.com (see the Resources section for the links I mention).

You can post your skills at these sites, so potential customers can check you out, and you can also look around for freelance projects that others have posted.

There are tons of opportunities for freelancers, in very varied fields. Common projects, though, are writing, computer or graphics design work, creating web pages, programming, writing brochures or reports, illustration, photography, and so on.

Pay can be pretty good, especially after you’ve earned a quality rating at one or more of the freelancing sites. At the same time, though, keep in mind that you’re competing with freelancers from around the world. Take a look at the “How Elance Works” video on their main page to get a quick overview.

9. Scan The Available Steps

I’ve listed a lot of options in the steps that follow, all of them legitimate. Pick the one that seems the best fit for you and your skills, and start exploring.

10. Take Stock of What You Have to Offer

If you are a writer, programmer, designer, or photographer, there are oodles of opportunities for you. If you have a speciality of any sort; carpentry, raising kids, planning vacations or weddings, playing Guitar Hero 3; you can get paid for your expertise.

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