Making Money Online
First, here's a very brief rundown on just a few of the ways people make money online.
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Paid-to-Read or PTR programs You agree to view email advertisements by joining one or more of the many PTR web sites around. For each advertisement you view you earn a small amount eg. .0025 cents per 30 second view time. |
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Surf-for-cash traffic exchanges: Manual and auto surf traffic exchanges that pay you cash for viewing websites. Used wisely, they can earn you small amounts of cash. |
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Earn affiliate commissions: You join an existing internet business and become their affiliate. They provide you with a pre-designed website you can use. You promote this web site in the hope that some-one will buy what's advertised. |
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Operate your own niche-market web site: The idea is you establish a web site that appeals to a very narrow customer group (a niche market segment). Examples: spare parts business for Model T Ford owners; Swedish bread recipes, teaching children to ride donkeys etc. There are also affiliate programs available that target broader niche market categories such as golfers, swimmers, wine drinkers, and natural health.
If you have skills, experience or knowledge in a particular area or subject, then you may be able to market that knowledge and related products via a specialized niche web site (e-books or related products you sell as an affiliate for example). |
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Randomizers and Matrix Sites: You make a once-off cash outlay, say for $20 in total, made up of 3 or 4 smaller payments to individuals and an administration fee. You get a web site to promote and other people join from your site. When they do, you earn a proportion of their joining fee. With the better sites, joining entitles you to download a variety of software or get other benefits such as advertising. So the fee you pay is really your purchase cost for the software or benefit.
Some randomizer and matrix sites however are just electronic versions of the traditional chain letter schemes of old. These are illegal in most places. Don't join any of those. |
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Completing on-line surveys to earn cash, prizes, shopping points and coupons etc: Along with PTRs, people looking to earn only modest amounts of cash are often involved with these. Some people can do well with surveys by working at it full-time, belonging to as many as 400 or more different survey sites. |
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Shopping Mall sites: These are also popular with many people. Thats the problem. There are huge numbers of look-a-like sites being promoted by millions of people. FreeStoreClub alone claims to have around 1.8 million members with FSC stores on the web. So the chances of your particular site getting noticed are pretty slim.
Usually you pay a monthly 'store rental' to acquire a basic site, although there are some free ones around. You can have a look at TeleBay Mall to see a typical free site.
I suspect that no-one other than the promoters of these sites made any money (through their monthly store rental charge, rather than product sales). |
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Amazon Store: Things have changed on the shopping mall scene since the giant retailer Amazon entered this area. If you have your own website, (even if its just a blog), you can now include an 'Amazon Store' as a section of your site, or promote selected products that visitors to your website could be interested in. For example, if the theme of your site is 'electronics', you can build a 'store' with products relevant to that theme. You can see how a personal store works by going here (opens in a new window)
This feature enables owners of niche web sites to market relevant products as an affiliate of a well-known and trusted supplier. Becoming an affiliate costs you nothing. The commission rate is modest (around 4% of the sales value to start with, increasing with volume). But it is a useful way of generating a few hundred dollars of income per month provided you have a popular web site that attracts a lot of traffic.
Amazon have a variety of other ways you can market their products, and you can join the Amazon affiliate scheme here to find out more. |
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