Legitimate Ways To Make Money Online


The ideas below are for informational purposes only. No guarantees are made that you will actually make money from them. Some will cost you money to begin, which you may or may not recoup, some cost nothing but time and effort. We take no responsibility for any losses or problems you encounter from using any of these ideas, and strongly advise you to thoroughly research anything before undertaking it.

The ideas discussed below are, to our knowledge, legal, legitimate ways to make money online. They are not scams or Pyramid Schemes. Any money earned through them should be declared in your tax return, and to any other government agency that requires this (such as your local unemployment or pension agency), as with any other income.

The ideas are unbiased (except by our opinions and experiences) and any of the sites/entities mentioned are in no way related to us, and we will make no money (or other reward) by mentioning them to you.

Your options for making money online will greatly depend on your skills and the time you have available. Some are quite simple, but probably won't earn you a lot, some require having, or obtaining, skills and will take quite a bit of work, but may potentially earn substantially more. Some of the ideas may work really well for some people, yet not for others. You will need to research, and choose what suits you personally best.



WEBSITES WITH PAY PER CLICK/PAY PER ACTION ADVERTISING

If you have the skills and creativity to build a quality website (preferably about a topic you are interested in, and have at least some knowledge of), or better still already have a site, this can quite a lucrative way to make money online. Rather than having to worry about selling advertising yourself, you can join various free advertising programs, which then serve ads to your site, in the places where you add their code.

Setting up a proper website has certain costs, such as domain registration and hosting, but if your site is successful, it can easily be covered. The fees are not huge- look around for what is available, there's a wide range... but also check out any adverse references to any of them, as often you get what you pay for! If you really can't afford it, you can set up a free blog- got to www.blogger.com and follow the instructions. Some people have success with blogs, although if at all financially possible, we would suggest having your own site.

Probably the best of the pay per click programs for many people is Google Adsense. Adsense serves contextual ads to your site- ads that match the content on that page. So, if you are writing about gardening, various garden related ads should appear.

When the visitor to your page clicks on this ad it earns you money. Be very aware however that clicking on your own ads, asking friends to click on your ads, or stating on your site that people should click on your ads (such as "Help support us, by clicking on our ads!") is very much against the Adsense terms and conditions. As is using Adsense on sites related to mature content, drugs, gambling, weapons, hate and the like.

If you are considering trying Adsense, go to www.google.com/adsense and fully read all the information. Become familiar with all their policies, terms, conditions, guidelines etc.

There are traps for the unwary, where you can inadvertently breach their rules, and get banned from the program... and a ban is usually forever!

Other good places to get ongoing information and help are webmaster forums, such as Digital Point http://forums.digitalpoint.com/ and Webmaster World http://www.webmasterworld.com/home.htm These both have dedicated Adsense forum sections, as well as a wealth of information on other website related topics.

There are other similar programs to Adsense, some only available to residents of certain countries, and a lot of people have less success with them... however, they may work better for you. Look on the forums for info about them. Others that offer programs are Yahoo, Kontera, Widgetbucks, Adbrite and many more.

There are also a lot of affiliate marketing companies, which allow you to choose an add from a company which is listed with them, and place it on your page. These are usually "pay per action" (though some pay per click), which involves the visitor actually purchasing something, or performing some kind of required action, before you get paid. But they are usually higher paid than pay per click. Once again, check out the forums for info. These include places such as Amazon, clixGalore, Commission Monster, Commission Junction, Chitika etc.

One thing to remember, unless you have an aged site and a large visitor number, earning money with a site can be a slow process. You need to build good, quality content and increase visitor numbers. It can take many months of hard work before you see good results- and some people never do. It depends a lot on your site niche (topic), Search Engine Optimisation and the amount of traffic you can attract. It's easy to give up in the early stages, but persevere, seek out info and advice, and in time you can make quite a good amount. Then build more quality sites, if you have the time and enthusiasm. In fact, the sky's the limit... or beyond! Some people make quite a decent living using these methods, from their websites alone.

If you would like to ask any specific questions about making a website and using Adsense, we'd be happy to answer whatever we can.



ARTICLE WRITING, SITE DESIGN, PROGRAMMING ETC

If you are good at writing articles, or at website design or logo design, or programming etc there are often people looking for help with these things on a casual, or sometimes semi-permanent basis. The pay rate is not always very high, so you need to consider what you would be willing to accept for your work. Examples of your work will probably be required, and sometimes there are a lot of people vying for the work available.

Make sure that you offer only quality, original work, and that you understand exactly what is required beforehand, and that you deliver what you agreed, on time.

A good place to find these kind of job offers is once again Digital Point http://forums.digitalpoint.com/forumdisplay.php?f=60 Check out the Content Creation, Design and Programming sections, depending on what you are interested in. You will need to join the forum (free) to be able to post, and therefore communicate with the person offering the work. There are no doubt other forums etc which post these types of offers.



PAID FORUM POSTING

People starting up new forums, or trying to breathe life into stagnant ones, often pay people to post in their forum. The pay isn't high, but if you've got a bit of time to spare at the computer, you can accrue a few extra dollars. Some knowledge of a certain topic may be required for some forums. Posts should be good useful comments... not just "Me too." or "Congratulations" type of thing. Payment is often made through PayPal. As above, check out/join Digital Point http://forums.digitalpoint.com/forumdisplay.php?f=102 and other forums for these offers.

EMAILCASH and PURE PROFILE

You can join Emailcash http://emailcash.com.au/ (this is the Australian one) and earn points for reading advertising emails, answering surveys etc. These points can later be cashed in for money or products. It can be slow, but eventually you can get something out of it.

Pure Profile is similar, but only pays in cash (as far as we know). Go to www.pureprofile.com