Selling what You Know or Create
Teach online classes. Certain websites allow skilled or knowledgable people to record lessons that others can pay to view. The teachers then can participate in forums to help their students through difficult parts of their content. Doing this not only allows you to share your skills with other people, but also earns a steady stream of income if many people participate in your class.
Sell your hand-made goods online. People love buying interesting crafts and hand-made objects. Online stores like Etsy allow creative and crafty people to make money by selling their products. Be sure to enter the marketplace with something that differentiates your product from other offerings already available on the site.
Sell your skills. There are a number of sites that connect skilled individuals with people in need of those skills. Whether you are a graphic designer, lawyer, or translator, you can find someone willing to pay you a reasonable amount for your work. Try searching for "freelance work online" and check out the first few results.
Write an eBook. While it may seem like a daunting task to write an entire book, Ebooks do not need to be long to be informative and valuable. You just have to figure out what you know how to do that others would want to know and organize your information in book format. Of course the actual writing process will take time, but with online publishing services, publishing and selling your eBook will be a breeze. Your eBook can be easily published using a variety of online publishing services, such as those hosted by Google, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble. At each site you can submit your book and, once it is approved, will be listed for sale. Because your book is digital, the copies cost you nothing to sell. Excluding time to write and convert to eBook format, you may earn a profit. However, average revenues from an ebook are less than $300. There are lots of competitors, many of whom spend hours promoting their books. So you may earn money from this venture, but don't expect to bring in a huge profit.
Create YouTube Videos. YouTube allows content creators to earn money from advertising based on how many views they receive. The payout isn't much, about $1–$3 per 1000 views, but that can add up quickly with as you post more videos and gain more viewers. An added benefit here is that you can create videos about whatever you want, as long as you think others will want to watch it. Be aware that videos, like eBooks, are unlikely to bring in much money. You face an enormous amount of competition, and it's pretty unlikely your videos will be viewed by anyone other than family and friends.
Selling Your Time
Complete online surveys. There is a market for people willing to take various types of surveys provided by organizations and corporations. The pay is relatively low per survey, but doing a lot of them will net you a reasonable payout. Be advised that some of these survey sites pay in gift certificates or other non-cash forms of payment.
Become a virtual assistant. Another option is to become an online assistant for someone who lacks the time to complete simple tasks. These tasks could include writing emails, purchasing gifts, or making dinner reservations. This certainly could be among the most interesting ways to make money online. However, many of these assistants work full-time and this would require you to constantly be available for your employer during the day.
Work for Amazon's Mechanical Turk. This program allows you to quickly complete small tasks that Amazon's automated computers are unable to do, such as describing the color of a shirt. Each task only takes a few seconds, but also only earns a few cents for the worker. With practice and focus though, some workers are able to make up to minimum wage.
Selling Products for Others
Sell products on eBay on consignment. Selling on eBay doesn't always mean selling your own stuff or even buying the products at all. Many sellers make a business of selling on consignment and keeping a portion of the sale price. This can be done from home or with a brick and mortar store. Another option is to become an eBay trading assistant and do consignment work directly for eBay. See How to Make Money on eBay Selling Consignment for Others.
Become a wholesaler. A wholesaler buys products in bulk at a low rate and earns money by reselling that product to buyers at a higher rate. While many wholesalers have their own website, others run businesses directly through Amazon or other online retailers. Consider the market for your product, potential earnings, and inventory storage before deciding to become a wholesaler. See How to Buy Wholesale for more information on how to get started. Sell products through drop shipping. This process is essentially a simplified version of wholesaling, but instead of taking control of the inventory yourself, you simply sell the products and allow a third party to fulfill your order for you. That is, when your item is purchased from the online retailer where you've registered it (eBay, Amazon, etc.), the manufacturer takes care of shipping your product to the buyer. This reduces the risks of leftover inventory and complicated logistics that are common in wholesaling.
Promoting Affiliate Products
Find an affiliate product to promote. You will act as a middleman between the producer of the product and the consumer without ever touching the product. Be sure to choose a product that you believe is in demand and underrepresented by current advertising. You will need to buy a domain name, but you will not need to set up a website, as your domain name will redirect people to the product's website. Generally, you will get the biggest commissions on digital products. Digital products are defined as something that is downloaded directly to a customer's computer after purchasing, like electronic books or software. Since there is no extra cost per unit, no inventory and no shipping, the commissions are much greater than on regular "physical" goods. The most common commission on digital products is 50%. Sign up for an affiliate membership site as a reseller. This will allow you to build a residual income and the retention rate is much higher than just selling a product once and getting paid. After you sign up, you will get a unique affiliate link where you need to send people to purchase the product. Your affiliate link will have a special code that will tell the product owner that it's you who referred the customer. The affiliate link code will allow your commissions to be tracked correctly and assigned to you.
Get a domain name to redirect to your affiliate link. These can be purchased cheaply from a hosting website. It's important to note that unlike having your own website you don't have to pay for hosting which is usually more expensive than buying and registering a domain name. When someone types in your domain in their browser, it will go to your affiliate link. The visitor will see the website with the product you promote, and the commissions will be tracked correctly. The reason why you need a domain name is that it's memorable and it makes you look more trustworthy. Affiliate links tend to be too long and arouse suspicion. For example, most people would rather click on the link bestwidgets.com as opposed to abcwidgets.com?reseller=john.
Increase traffic going through your domain. In order to make sales, you need to get visitors to your domain name (which will forward them to the website of the product that you resell). You can pay for advertising and hope that your profit will be greater than advertising cost, or you can use free ways to generate traffic. The most effective way to get free targeted visitors to your domain name is by writing and submitting articles. You can write short articles on the topic related to the product that you promote and include your domain name at the end. You will then submit your articles to various websites, and allow them to publish your articles as long as your link is included. Your articles may be published in many places on the Internet (depending upon quality and relevance of the article to the website owner), and will be advertising your affiliate link at no cost to you whatsoever. People will read your articles, like what you have to say and click on your domain name link ready to buy.
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