Make Money Online
Making money online is one of the most rewarding and successful experiences any of us web users could have. But there are literally thousands of ways to make money online and because this site is geared towards creating websites, I will stick to that particular area of discussion.
1. Make money blogging, Wordpress is not difficult to install and it is the most popular blogging platform (Free wordpress installation service). Most people start off with a topic they are passionate about (the more you can write the better), with little to no web programming experience. However, as time passes they learn web development tips to help them improve their blog, and they learn more about their topic from user feedback.
As your blog becomes popular amongst users, begin reviewing products (with your referral link) or allow users to advertise on your site for a monthly fee. If your traffic numbers are high, most people are willing to spend upwards of $100-$500 per month depending on traffic and ad placement.
In order to really make money online, you need to build trust with your audience. Show them that you use the product, and if you have had success, let your visitors know about it. This tells your readers that if you are willing to sink money into a product, it must be worth it. However, blindly reviewing something for the chance of a quick buck is not a good idea.
Don't lie to your visitors either or try and use cheap sales gimmicks. For example, I subscribe to a few newsletters for different bloggers, well an EXTREMELY well-known affiliate marketer (whose name will remain anonymous) uses crummy sales gimmicks to get me to try and purchase from him. He uses lines like, "Selling at my cost" or "only 500 remaining", "only 4 hours left", or my personal favorite "Sales were so good, we're reopening the sale for another 24 hours". This honestly makes me lose respect for this marketer, and I feel insulted that he thought I would fall for his tomfoolery. Start a Wordpress Blog.
Become an affiliate marketer
2. In the previous section I mention reviewing a product and providing your referral link, this is referred to as affiliate marketing. You become an affiliate for a network of multiple websites and affiliate products OR you become an affiliate of one website and their products, either way they provide you with a link to present when you are reviewing a product. If someone follows through to your link and makes a purchase you get a commission, it's a lot like being a car salesman. Learn how affiliates earn money online.
3. Make money online using Google Adsense, this used to be THE only way people would make money, and some people still make a very comfortable living using Adsense. The trick is to find a concept you can write great content about and apply for the google adsense program. The more visitors you have coming to your site, the better off you'll be, some ads only pay out .01 - .50 per click, but some pay as much as a few dollars per click. If you have 20,000 visitors a day to your website and 200 of them click on your advertised adsense links at an average of .50 per click that's $100 per day, $3000/month isn't too shabby. Use Google Adsense.
4. The most obvious way to make money online is to sell your products or services using an ecommerce solution such as BigCommerce. This software is the most complete all-in-one selling tool on the market, they offer the ability to list your products on Facebook, Ebay, and other Shopping Sites online. Their program is search engine friendly, and integrates with PayPal and almost every well-known credit card processing company for easy payments into your bank account. It is ideal for someone with no programming experience that does not want to pay for web hosting or software development, all you pay is one monthly fee and they handle the rest. They offer a 15 day free trial during which time you can take their software for a test drive.
You will however need to choose a domain to use with your online store. I offer advice on choosing your domain.
5. Flipping Domains and websites, I don't have any experience with this concept but I understand how it works. Flipping a domain pertains to buying a domain that they think may be popular one day, such as: www.business.com for a minimal fee and then turning around and reselling it for a large profit, www.business.com sold for $350 million in 2007. Not bad considering domain names start at just $7.49/year at Godaddy. As you can imagine, practically every common domain of value has been purchased and is either up for auction, in use, or for sale if the price is right.
Flipping Websites is pretty much the same concept and involves someone building up a website, gaining a large user base either by blogging, or providing information and turning around and selling it once it is profitable.