Make Money Online

How to Make Money Online

Welcome to one of the few “make money online” websites that actually encourages you to slow down and plan out your online journey.

The goal of this website is to explain exactly how to make money online, and how you can earn money by just signing up and reviewing products. I’ll be talking about the two ways I’ve earned money online — no theory, just actual instructions. Specifically, I’ll teach you how to:

* Make Money Fast With Project Payday.

* Build a Money-Making Website.

No, you don’t have to be a computer genius or have vast technical knowledge. If you have email, then you have the “technical” skills required to make money online — you don’t have to be a “geek” to earn money on the Internet. Plus, I’ve made it easier by writing completely free instructions guiding you every step of the way.

Quick-Start Guide to Making Money Online

Though there are thousands of websites dealing with earning money online, there are really only 2 ways to make money online that I endorse. If you want a small amount of money quickly, go with the first method. If you want a long-term full-time income, go with the second method.

Method 1: Project Payday

If your goal is to make a few hundred in a relatively short time-frame, then trying to make money fast is your best bet, which is why I’ve partnered with them to help you build an instant income. In an economy like what we’re seeing now, businesses are simply dying to get new customers.

They’re so desperate to advertise that they’re willing to give you an “incentive” just to check out their offers. Most of these websites are slanted in the business’ favor. However, there are a few websites that are now offering you free incentives. You sign up, you DON’T pay anything, and you can make a few hundred dollars.

Project Payday is a great example of this — and it’s free. You won’t get rich, but you can make $2,500 or so per month if you’re willing to check out the products. Again, it’s free — don’t pay any website to do this, considering you can sign up to Project Payday for free.

Note: if you do what they say and you can’t make money, let them know. They’ll give you $100 free as a guarantee.

Method 2: Build a Website Business

That said, out of the thousands of “online opportunities” out there, the best way to make money online is with your own website. This is how I earn my income online. This, however, isn’t good if you need quick money, or want to get rich quick. Building a website takes a ton of planning, a ton of work, and a ton of time.

It can take up to a year before you see a full-time income. It took me about 6 months. But it’s also a passive income.

I can stop working right now and go to the pool, but my websites will all still be up and earning an income from advertisements — my business makes money without me now. That’s the biggest pull. To learn more about building a website, read to the end of this page, or check out my 1o-step website plan.
How to Pick and Choose a Program

When it comes to picking out a way to make money, remember that you’re trying to make money, not spend money. In other words, only pick a project that guarantees that you’ll make money, and is free to sign up. Otherwise, make very, very sure you trust a program before giving them a red cent.

Thousands have learned this the hard way.

Don’t be a statistic. Sign up to learn more about a project before you spend money — if you ever do. Become acquainted with other similar programs before making a decision.

Check out free programs like Project Payday before “paid” programs. Ten minutes of research can save you hours of headache, and let you choose the right program so you can actually make money rather than get burned.
Making Money Online With a Website

The vast majority of this website is about starting your own website. The reason is simple: it’s the best way to make money online. Anyone can do it, it’s a passive income, and you can get started instantly. It’s not a job; it’s a business.

There are a lot of myths about websites, blogging and making money online in general. Check out my article How Websites Make Money Online to learn more about how websites actually make money.
Who Can Make Money Online?

Absolutely anyone can make money online. It’s an old myth that you have to be a “computer geek” to own a website, or have to be a genius to make money with a free program like Project Payday. Those days are over. If you can do email, then you can set up your own website.

That said, making money online with a website isn’t for everyone. You have to be willing to look ahead, make plans, and work hard. If you just want to slap a blog together, write a few things to put on it, and then forget it ever existed, you’re probably best sticking with Project Payday.

Project Payday is free, so there isn’t any risk. But starting a website costs anywhere from $100 to $300. This is still dirt cheap considering you’re starting a business, but if you aren’t willing to work at it, it’s just a waste.

Making money online isn’t about “getting rich quick”. If that’s what you’re after, it’s not possible. After all, if we could all get rich quick and easily, then we’d all be rich.

That said, you can achieve almost any online income goals if you’re willing to plan well and work hard. If anything, making money with a website is an anti-get-rich-quick scheme because you’ll have to work hard at it for a long period of time. It just takes a good plan and a strong work ethic.
What’s The Best Way to Make Money Online?

If the above sounds discouraging, don’t lose heart. Starting a website was the best financial decision of my life — so much that I’ve made this page a part of my financial planning website. I think everyone right now should at least try to start a website. Bill Gates once said:

“This is a fantastic time to be entering the business world, because business is going to change more in the next 10 years than it has in the last 50.”

As I’ve described above, the best way to make money online is with a website. A website only has to be created once, and it exists indefinitely. That means rather than getting paid “by the hour” or “by the day” you get paid forever. Work once, earn forever.

That’s why, in a nutshell, making money online has grown to extraordinary popularity in the past few years. It let’s anyone build a passive income online.
What Should I Do Now?

To help you in the website department, I wrote an article that details every step you’ll need to take to build a money-making website. It will hold your hand throughout the entire process. It’s called the ten-step plan. So what should you do right now? One of two things:

* Sign up for Project Payday. Sign up for Project Payday to make money to get started. After you make money with the program, make sure to come back to put your money to good use.

* Start up your website. When you buy your hosting and domain (you buy them together at the same time), make sure to come back here and keep reading.

Before you keep reading, I want to say something personal: the biggest mistake I made when trying out making money online for myself was that I waited nearly an entire year before I finally acted. I don’t even want to think about how much money I wasted by not being decisive. Wasting time is wasting money.

Before you get up from the computer, promise yourself to make a single real step towards making money online. I’ve received dozens of emails from people who said they’ve made this page their “home” page in order to constantly remind them to take action and actually start making money online, rather than put it off.

So take action… otherwise, you’ll hate yourself in 12 months. So either sign up for Project Payday or build a website like the ones I’ve built. Congratulations on your decision to make money online, and good luck!

Make Money

Blogging for DollarsHow do bloggers make money?
By Michael AggerPosted Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2008, at 6:28 PM ET

Professional blogger. Click image to expand.Professional bloggers face pressure to produce quantity over qualityLast week, the blog search engine Technorati released its 2008 State of the Blogosphere report with the slightly menacing promise to "deliver even deeper insights into the blogging mind." Bloggers create 900,000 blog posts a day worldwide, and some of them are actually making money. Blogs with 100,000 or more unique visitors a month earn an average of $75,000 annually—though that figure is skewed by the small percentage of blogs that make more than $200,000 a year. The estimates from a 2007 Business Week article are older but juicier: The LOLcat empire rakes in $5,600 per month; Overheard in New York gets $8,100 per month; and Perez Hilton, gossip king, scoops up $111,000 per month.
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With this kind of cash sloshing around, one wonders: What does it take to live the dream—to write what I know, and then watch the money flow?

From the perspective of someone who doesn't blog, blogging seems attractive. Bloggers such as Jason Kottke ($5,300/month) and the Fug girls ($6,240/month) pursue what naturally interests them without many constraints on length or style. While those two are genuine stars of the blogging world, there are plenty of smaller, personal blogs that bring in decent change with the Amazon Associates program (you receive a referral fee if someone buys a book, CD, etc. via a link from your blog) and search ads from Google. (The big G analyzes your site and places relevant ads; you get paid if people click on them.) Google-ad profiteering is an entire universe in and of itself—one blogger by the name of Shoemoney became famous (well, Digg-famous) when he posted a picture of himself with a check from Google for $132,994.97 for one month of clicks.

Blogs with decent traffic and a voice are also getting snapped up by blog-ad networks, which in turn package them as niche audiences to advertisers. On Blogads, advertisers can choose the "Blogs for Dudes!" hive or the "Jewish Republican Channel." Federated Media groups blogs into subjects such as "Parenting" and "News 2.0"; there is also a boutique network for blogs that don't want to cover themselves with ads called The Deck. These networks present blogs as "grassroots intellectual economy" and describe their audiences as loyal, engaged, and likely to see ads as not just ads, but useful bits of information. This may be a comfort to squeamish indie bloggers since it hints that putting ads on your site is not selling out but helping out.

While monetizing your blog may be easier than ever, all of this comes with an ever-present hammer: the need to drive traffic. This month, the writer/blogger/productivity thinker Merlin Mann opened a window onto his angst with an anniversary post. Mann is best-known as the creator of the Hipster PDA (index cards clipped together by a binder clip)* and his Inbox Zero talk (turn your e-mail into actions). In a post titled "Four Years," Mann sketches out how his site, 43 Folders, grew from a personal dumping ground for his "mental sausage" into a full-featured destination for productivity nerds and life-hackers. In 2005, he experienced a key transition:

At some point that year, 43f became the surreal and unexpected circus tent under which my family began drawing an increasing amount of its income. This was weird, but it was also exactly as gratifying as it sounds. Which is to say, "very." But, my small measure of something like success did not go unnoticed. In fact, the popularity of small blogs like 43 Folders contributed to the arrival of a gentrifying wagon train of carpetbaggers, speculators, and confidence men, all eager to pan the web's glistening riverbed for easy gold. And, brother, did these guys love to post and post and post.

Mann's problem was especially acute. His income was partially dependent on advertising, and ads are sold on a cost-per-impression basis. That is, the more traffic you have, the more ads you can sell (and also the more chances that someone will click on one of the Google ads or affiliate links on your site). But a site that teaches you how to streamline your tasks and free your time yet constantly shovels new posts, lists, and information at you is oxymoronic—and also kind of moronic.

Mann could have overlooked this contradiction, but he chose instead to live his advice. Declaring an end to "productivity pr0n," Mann has promised fewer, better posts and rolled out a new mission statement: "43 Folders is Merlin Mann's website about finding the time and attention to do your best creative work." The further irony here is that Mann's less-is-more strategy may prove to be more profitable. The usability guru Jakob Nielsen has long recommended that experts "write articles, not blog postings," with the idea that demonstrating expertise is the best way to distinguish yourself from Internet amateurs and ultimately persuade someone to pay you for your insights. In Mann's case, that might mean less ad revenue but more speaking engagements.

Once a blog hobbyist goes pro, he or she faces a daily pressure to churn out new material. In the wrong mind, that can lead to top-10 lists, recycled ideas, half-baked notions, lots of viral videos, and a general increase in information pollution. Is there any way out of this scenario? In 2005, Jason Kottke announced that he had quit his job to blog full-time and asked his readers to become "micropatrons" at a suggested rate of $30. He received $39,900 from 1,450 people but abandoned the experiment after a year. Kottke is vague about the reasons why he swore off micropatronage, but he suggests that he was worried that people wouldn't donate year after year. In order to build a bigger audience and potential new donors, he would have had to do some of the cheesy things to drive traffic (i.e., "Top Five Best" posts) and/or become a cult of personality (overshare, start flame wars, social network relentlessly). These days, he accepts ads as part of the Deck network.

The bloggers at the vanguard of the post-quality-vs.-post-quantity debate are those who work for Nick Denton's Gawker media. This year, Denton introduced a new pay system that gave his bloggers a base salary and also paid them a quarterly bonus based upon the amount of page views their items receive. Or to oversimplify, they were being paid by popularity. (To follow the complicated ins and outs of the "blogonomics" of the Gawker pay structure, read Felix Salmon's Portfolio blog.) The memo explains the decision as an effort to reward and encourage more original, scoopy items, but, as Denton's writers and ex-writers quickly pointed out, there's not an obvious correlation between quality and page views. Despite a few exceptions, such as the Tom Cruise Scientology video, no one can predict a Web hit.

Do we get the blogs we deserve? We vote by click, after all. Perhaps we shouldn't look at all those top 10 lists and Britney Spears photos. Successful blogs, such as Zen Habits, tend to balance the more fast-food type posts with longer, more complex ideas that will presumably keep readers coming back—although there are plenty of people who make a living posting dubious crap. Perhaps the escape route out of a hit-driven blogosphere is all of our newfound "friends." The Internet has always been very good at counting page views but not so great at assigning value to what's actually in those pages. Facebook, FriendFeed, StumbleUpon, and the sharing feature of Google Reader have their annoying, nudgy aspects, but they allow us to rely on one another to sort out what is interesting and worthy. Put it on a T-shirt: Friends Don't Let Friends Read Bad Content.