Instant Money
There
are thousands of websites and eBooks that tell you can earn thousands of
dollars a day by working online, if you will only buy their eBooks with the
magic formula for just 49.99 dollars or so! How much of this is true? There are
a lot of scams which spout some lame gibberish once they have relieved you of
some hard earned money. Those who fall for such tricks only have themselves to
blame. There no shortcuts to riches online. It’s just like real life, where you
work hard and sensibly and earn your daily bread.
Just
as in real life, you have to use the skills that you have and also keep
acquiring new ones. Just as in a real-time job, you have to work a certain
number of hours a day to earn your online living. And just as in real life,
only those workers who study their job well, steer clear of fraudsters and work
hard and skillfully will do well and earn a sizeable income online.
The
next chapters will take a hard look at the various ways you can earn money
online for every hour of work that you put in. There are millions of people all
over the world who are already working on these online jobs from the comfort of
their homes. You can be your own boss, decide how many hours you want to work
and get paid through international systems like PayPal or even by check in your
own local currency.
Google’s AdSense
One
of the most popular advertising programs on the Internet is Google’s Adsense.
Almost any website you open today has those ‘Ads by Google’ placed at the left
or right or bottom of the page. Sometimes they are even bang in the centre.
Every time you click on such an ad, that webmaster is paid a small amount by
the advertiser, through Google’s AdSense. Every day millions of dollars are
being paid out on AdSense clicks through billions of page views. This makes
Google’s AdSense the most popular Pay per Click (PPC) program in the world
today.
The payment per click can range from a few cents to even ten or twenty
dollars. Niche content relevant to certain specialized keywords can pay very
highly. But merely setting up a website with these high paying keywords and
placing AdSense ads on it isn’t going to work. The site has to contain
information that is valuable to the reader. Only then will it generate enough
traffic and genuine ad clicks. If you click on your own ads or ask your friends
to deliberately click to benefit you, AdSense admin will knock off the ads from
your webpage faster than you can say ‘click fraud’!
So
it is wise to set up a website or blog based on a subject you like, which is
also commercially viable – there have to be some advertisers who would like to
place their ads on your pages. Adsense bots will scan your webpages everyday
and then place ads relevant to your content.
Use
a traffic monitoring website like Sitemeter.com to check on how much page views
and hits you get every day. Your AdSense account page will also tell you how
many clicks have been made and how much you have earned. You can receive your
payment by various methods as explained on your account page. AdSense also has
good advice on how to place the ads for maximum profitability.
Mechanical Turk
Ever
wondered how you could make some extra dollars in your spare hours? Mechanical
Turk offers you just that.
This
website is owned by Amazon, the online marketing giant. Mturk.com displays
thousands of HITs (Human Intelligence Tasks) on its pages. These tasks range
from simple to complex and the payment for doing them also ranges from a few
cents upto even tens of dollars. The simpler tasks can involve taking a survey
or writing a few paragraphs on a given subject or commenting on a particular
forum. The more complex ones can require some web design or writing entire
reports or doing some market research. There are also audio transcription jobs
that can fetch you a few dollars for transcribing 5-10 minutes long audio clips
into text.
Mturk
is a great way to train up for more specialized online jobs. If you start
writing a few 100 or 200 word articles here, you can gain the skills and
confidence to take up larger freelance writing assignments on sites like ODesk,
Elance and GetAFreelancer, which we will discuss in the next chapters.
If
you get the hang of audio transcription and become reasonably accurate and fast
enough, you can eventually move on to fulltime medical or legal transcription
which are high paying fields. You have to train up for these specialized areas,
but Mechanical Turk gives you a good start with simple tasks.
Within
a few hours or days, your work is checked and payment is credited to your Mturk
account. The trick is to be on the lookout for high paying tasks, where for
example you earn a couple of dollars for a survey which takes only a few
minutes. Or writing a 400 word article on Tourism in Iceland which earns you 3
dollars! Even if you are not familiar with the topic, you can quickly read up
on the Net and make a fairly decent and factual presentation. After all that’s
what many journalists and media writers are doing today!
Payments
are made by checks in local currency (for certain countries) or transferred to
your bank account, or you can use the money in your account to purchase goods
from Amazon.com. A good way to get started on thousands of easy
tasks and train up for bigger things to come! Don’t let a spare hour go to
waste. Become a Turker today. And don’t forget to browse a good Turker forum
for the latest buzz and loads of good and useful advice.
Article Writing
Do
you love writing? Have you always dreamed of writing a bestseller novel? Well,
most successful novelists also had a day job. Here’s a day job that can keep
you in the writing field that you love so much and also pay you a decent
salary, so that you can still have time left over for your blockbuster novel!
Anyone
with a good grasp of the English language can write a few paragraphs of original
content. It is even easier to just read a given article and rewrite it. And
that is pretty much the job description for one of the most lucrative jobs on
the Internet today.
With
thousands of new websites being set up every hour, webmasters are in constant
need of new content for their webpages. Sometimes a number of websites are
developed by spinning the same content into several articles. Most buyers of
articles pay between one to two dollars for rewriting an article of 300-500
words. This task can be done in fifteen to thirty minutes depending on your
language skills and typing speed.
It
is important to write original content – say it all in your own words – as most
buyers check for duplication by using copy-detection software like Copyscape
and Plagium. If you just cut and paste from some other websites, that will show
up on Copyscape and you will lose your assignment and get negative reviews from
the buyer.
Proofread
your article thoroughly before submitting it, using SpellCheck if you use Word.
Even if you aren’t familiar with a topic like say acne or money management or
health topics, some time spent browsing relevant websites can give you enough
information to write a 500 word article.
That’s
the charm of freelance writing online. Your general knowledge improves vastly
with the articles you research and write everyday. That will surely help your
creative writing too, and pave the way for that blockbuster novel someday!
Teach
One
of the most enjoyable ways to earn money online is by selling some skill that
you are good at.
Can
you teach a language or show how to fix a clogged drain? Just pick up a digital
camera and shoot yourself doing your thing. Then upload it onto YouTube.
Circulate the link to everyone you know and also place it on related forums.
Then build a simple specialized website with more such learning videos. Arrange
to give access only to viewers who pay a small fee via credit card or PayPal.
Place the link to this website on your free YouTube videos.
As
your videos gain thousands of hits, your website will be visited by more
subscribers and you can begin to earn money. You can also create eBooks on your
particular subject and sell them on that website.
Place
a lot of related links to similar websites that may be useful to your members.
You may think this may take viewers away from your webpage. But subscribers
appreciate this kind of honesty and help and they will keep coming back to you.
This
way you keep doing what you love, and the world pays you for it. Setting up a
webpage or blog free of cost (Blogger.com), monitoring traffic (Sitemeter.com)
and creating eBooks (eBook Pro) are easily done by using any of the hundreds of
tools available on the Internet.
By
working at home, you have the advantage of using your home premises, utilities
and fixtures with no extra shop costs. You can set up a small studio to teach
an art skill like sculpting or making candles or even simple handmade cards.
There are thousands of YouTube videos teaching music and dance.
eBooks
When
the Internet first became popular, it was looked upon mostly as a portal for
information and communication. The information part was actually very poignant,
because people didn’t have such a splendid method of finding what they wanted
whenever they wanted. This impression of the Internet persists even today. Even
today, the Internet is an information superhighway and people with an astute
mind are making the most of it in various ways.
One
of the most significant ways is through creating and selling eBooks. EBooks, or
electronic books, are books filled with information on one particular subject.
It covers a part of that subject, and is generally (but not always) a self-help
guide. Well, those are the ones that make the most money and hence are the most
popular, anyway.
The
concept is simple. Take something that people are searching for information on,
and create an eBook about it. Write in a simple, crisp manner in a language
that even a layperson can understand. When you have the eBook ready, promote it
over the Internet. There are various ways to do that – make a webpage, create a
sales page, advertise through affiliates, promote the eBook on social
networking websites, etc. The more you make your eBook popular, the more people
will want to have it.
Now,
there are two ways in which you can make money out of your eBooks. You could
either sell them directly for money, or you could use them to sell a bigger
product. When you do the latter, you may not even charge for your eBook. The
concept of giving away is very much real on the Internet, and it does attract a
lot of interested people to buy bigger products.
So,
what can you write the eBook on? Think about anything you know that you think
people might like to know about. It could be about anything – about how to clean glass windows
the right way or about how to look for mortgage providers for your new nest.
The idea is to teach, and to make money out of that teaching.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate
marketing is a very popular concept on the Internet. Basically, it is a way in
which you promote someone else’s product on your webpage or blog and earn money
for driving people to the advertiser’s website. These people that you send are
known as traffic. The payment is usually through a PPC method (not unlike
Google AdSense). You are paid per click that you generate on the advertiser’s
website link. However, there are other payment models as well, such as PPS
(where you are paid per sale) and PPL (where you are paid per lead).
Now,
here is a method that can help you earn money even as you sleep. Once you set
up the ad and put your promotional campaigns in place, people will
automatically keep getting directed to the advertiser’s website, which means
you automatically start getting money. This kind of money, which comes in
without doing anything constantly, is known as residual income or passive
income.
Your
basic efforts here are at publicizing your own website or blog so that the
affiliate links on them become visible and more people click on them. Your
income is directly proportionate to the number of people that you manage to
send. You could popularize your website through several other instant cash
strategies mentioned here, such as article writing and submission, blogging,
etc.
Website Spinning
This
is an instant cash method that many people like. It makes good money, doesn’t
need a terrible lot of effort and is creative as well. However, you need to
have a modicum of technical knowledge to begin with. Again, that shouldn’t
deter you. Even if you don’t have the technical knowledge, you can still hire
someone to do things that you aren’t comfortable with.
So,
what is website spinning actually? This is a method in which people build
websites and then sell them over for a profit. The basic purpose of making the
website is to be able to sell it later. The profit can be good if the website
is good.
Here are a few
things that website spinners keep in mind.
→
They book great domain names. In fact, a lot of their talent lies
here. They make sure that the domain names are good SEO and that they have good
recall value as well.
→
They build short websites. The websites aren’t kept too large because
then it becomes difficult to flip them. A usual website that is designed for
flipping contains no more than 10 pages.
→
The websites are kept rich in content. The content is meant to
educate. Once again, the content is high SEO, containing a lot of keywords that
people commonly search for.
→
The design and the overall look of the website are kept quite basic.
The reason for that is to enable the buyer to tweak the website according to
their desires.
The
proceeds of the sale depend on how good the website is. The least you could
expect for a website of 10 pages is $50, which is not bad for starters. If your
website already has some popularity on Google, you could sell it for much
higher.
Technical Services
Any
kind of technical knowledge can be brilliantly used on the Internet to make
money. If you have knowledge of website designing, for example, you could get
work designing websites for other people on the Internet. You could get your
clients to pay you as much as $10 to $100 per page you design for them,
depending on various factors. Some of these factors are the complexity of the
webpage that you are designing for them, the budget of the website, your own
knowledge and reputation, etc.
Website
designing is just one such technical service that you can provide for a great
deal of money. There are several others in the similar categories. Graphics
designing is another very lucrative area. Even designing a logo for a company
could give you hundreds of dollars. Or, you could provide some animation or
videos to a client. There are numerous things that you can do.
So,
where do you find all this work? The best places to find them are on the
various freelance jobsites. Here are a few:-
On
these sites, you find work through a bidding system. People who are looking for
work make posts here and then you bid on those. Your bid will also mention the
timeframe you would be completing the job in. You could give samples to
increase your chances. The buyers check their bids and the samples and then
decide people who fit their bills in the best way.
Some Things to Remember
Remember
that even money you earn through the Internet sitting at home is taxable. You
are liable to pay your own taxes here. However, there are a very few clients
who will look into your taxation needs. These will be the people who will want
to retain you long-term. But when you are looking for instant cash methods, no
one is going to shoulder the burden of your taxation.
You
will need an online bank account. PayPal (http://www.paypal.com/) is the leading online bank today,
followed quite distantly by Moneybookers (http://www.moneybookers.com/). Most online
jobsites act as payment distributors as well. You can directly order checks
from them.
When
you are earning for yourself, it is quite easy to get distracted and lose
focus. Don’t do that, because when you are working on the Internet through
freelance websites, there’s a rating system. One bad rating could jeopardize
your future prospects. Your clients know you only through your rating and hence
you have to make sure that remains spotless.
Always
keep learning. On the Internet, the one who learns the most earns the most.
There are new techniques and strategies being developed almost every day and
people are making use of them to enhance their prospects. It doesn’t take time
for anything to become highly competitive on the Internet soon. So, make sure
you stay ahead of the competition.
Don’t
be dejected if you aren’t able to earn in bucketfuls right from the start. Most
instant cash strategies will pay you small amounts when you start out, but with
experience you can start demanding more. As you get more ratings, you enhance
your chances and the amount you earn too. Gather ratings as someone would
gather experience on their portfolios.
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