Earning money in 2012
Filling out online surveys
Pros: Can start straight away, open to most people, no investment of time/money needed
Cons: Limited payouts, shortage of surveys for certain demographics, sometimes you get paid in credit not cash
There are lots of sites offering payment for filling out surveys online but I’m going to recommend just a few, Valued Opinions, MySurvey and Justtheanswer. These three all have a good reputation for paying on time and supplying plenty of surveys to fill out. The payout per survey will vary from 10p to £3.00 and how many you get offered will depend on your profile i.e. your job/gender/age/location so surveys can be hit and miss. I think the most you can realistically make is around £200 a year which doesn’t exactly get my pulse racing but could appeal to some.
Writing content
Pros: Very scalable – write more content and you make more, huge demand
Cons: You won’t earn much in the beginning, time consuming
I’ve spoken about this before on EarningMoneyOnline but most people are unaware of it. One of the main building blocks of any website is content and with 1000s of new sites being created every day there’s a huge demand for articles/blog posts and general text to go on these sites. Some people may think “I’m not good at writing” but even so there is a demand for all levels of content and if you’re a native English speaker you will definitely get work. Content is priced per word and how much you earn will depend on your reputation and the quality you produce. To start with you will probably write for 1p per word and you can get it up to 3 – 4p if you’re good, if you can get the work you could easily be making £20 – £30 a day. To get jobs you have 2 options, go to an agency like TextBroker who will get you writing jobs but take a cut or you can promote yourself on webmaster forums like DigitalPoint or Warrior forum to webmasters who need content. Remember if you build up a reputation as a reliable writer then webmasters will keep coming back for more and you won’t have to bid/look for work.
Freelancing web design/seo/programming
Pros: Make much more money than surveys or article writing, skills that will last for years
Cons: Lots of competition, you need to have a real skill
I bet the title of this has already put some people off! It’s important to realise that there are many different levels of web design/programming/marketing and while all require you to have that skill (to some extent) often the skill isn’t a difficult one to learn. Since many businesses are outsourcing these kinds of tasks freelancing sites like elance, freelancer and fiver (all jobs are $5 lol) have sprung up which allow employers to post projects which freelancers then bid on. Now the main issue is do you have a skill that you can sell, and if not what would it take to learn one? This is very difficult to say as I don’t know your circumstances but the best route would be to try out one of those “for dummies” books as I learnt php in around a week with one (the basics). Also remember the goal with this type of work is the same as the last example, you want to build up a reputation with clients so that eventually they can give you steady work and you don’t have to bid on the freelance sites (they can be a pain).
Niche affiliate marketing
Pros: Unlimited earnings, your own boss, work on projects your interested in, no technical knowledge required
Cons: Some investment of time and money
I’ve saved the best until last (in my opinion) and it’s the one I’ve talked most about on this blog. In short affiliate marketing is the process of building small niche websites which are used to attract traffic (website visitors). Because the website is geared around a specific subject the traffic is valuable to advertisers who will pay commission on the sales we generate for them. Ok so the above statement may be simplifying things a little as the main job is getting people to the site, but the unique aspect of this system is that a successful website can be making you money even when you sleep. If you are interested in this method then I will be bringing out a new and improved ebook very soon which explains exactly how to build a website (with no technical knowledge) and get it earning money fast.
Ok so that’s 4 great ways anyone can make money from the internet in 2012, there’s something here for people of all skill levels, time and financial constraints. As with everything your results will depend on how much you’re prepared to put into any system, there’s a reason people filling out surveys are only getting 50p a time, anyone can do it. Until next time…
PS. If you’re looking for motivation check out the video below by Anthony Robbins, it’s about how Sylvester Stallone got the movie Rocky made, amazing stuff.
Do you have to be unique to make it online?
Here’s a concept I’ve been thinking a lot about lately and that’s how unique or new does your business have to be to make it online? On the one hand you have the really big successes like Million dollar homepage which was a unique idea marketed perfectly, it was even on the news where I live! The problem with many great web ideas is that they don’t have the marketing strategy behind them to turn them into money spinners. I remember the guy on million dollar homepage generated lots of publicity at the start by contacting radio stations and newspapers about his site, he then sold some of the space at the beginning to family and friends. People often underestimate the value of hype because that site would never have gotten off the ground with it.
In some ways it does depend exactly what idea you’re trying to get off the ground because not every site is competing in the same type of market. However the principle of getting what you’re doing out to influential people holds firm no matter what your site is about. To me the basics are:
- Contact other bloggers, don’t just ask for a link but explain what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.
- Forums are a great way to get in touch with real people. But not just any forum, try to find one which is related to your industry, you need people who are engaged.
- Twitter/Facebook/Youtube have changed the game in terms of how fast you can become popular. It’s now possible to reach millions of people in a matter of hours, but only if you have viral content (that’s a big if).
You see whether you’re the exec at coca-cola or your some local mechanic trying to rank your site in your home city, the principles are the same, it’s just the scale that changes. At the heart of this game web promotion is a popularity contest and there’s a million ways to become popular (just like the real world).
The reason I’m pointing all this out is that so many people do have great and unique ideas for websites and ways to earn from them. But unless you have your marketing/seo/ppc strategy 100% then you’re going to fail. The problem still remains that even in 2011 internet marketing is the afterthought post web-design. Honestly id rather spend ¼ of the budget creating the website and the rest promotion, at least that way I have a real chance of making money.
So that’s it for this post, what crazy methods do you have for promoting your idea?
The skills required to be a great webmaster
So building a website is no longer the great mystery that it used to be, but there’s a difference between building a website and building a website that’s successful and makes money. To me it’s a complete package of skills and you’re only going to be successful if you master (at least in part) all of them. Here’s a rundown of what I think it takes:
- Some technical knowledge. Note I’m only saying some because you don’t really need to be able to program to build a website, most out of the box platforms look great from the start e.g wordpress, but it is handy to know a little html.
- Design know-how. Again I’m not really talking about this from a technical point of view, just from the viewpoint that you know what looks good and what doesn’t. Having an eye for creating something that people find easy to use is also very important.
- Marketing. Probably the most important factor and worthy of more than just a paragraph here. However you really have to know what you’re doing here if you’re investing money into the business, the only real way to learn is to practice so it’s best to start with a small project/site before going crazy.
- Perseverance. Also very important and actually the one that causes the most failures. It can take much longer that you expect to create a successful site so how are you going to keep going? Also what if it fails completely, do you have the willpower to start again, most people don’t.
- Analysation. Fancy word but all it means is the ability to figure out what’s working/not working for your site and why. This could be anything from what your seo efforts are not successful to why visitors aren’t converting into sales. It’s that ability to interpret stats into action and to adapt what you’re doing that separates great webmasters from the rest.
Five points seems a bit sparse for what can be a huge process, still you always need a base to start from so I hope it helps. Part of the problem I’m finding with trying to document a lot of this website building process is there’s just too much to cover, plus the fact that everyone has their own process for doing things and overloading people with too much info could do more harm than good! Still I hope the tips above help if you’re thinking about starting a site.
Are you gambling or making money?
You might not be aware but as I write this the US government is seizing some of the top online poker domains because they were illegally trading in the US. I think you’re not allowed to gamble in America unless it’s in Vegas (probably because they can’t tax it online). The reason I’m mentioning this is that for a long time many people saw playing poker on the internet as a realistic way to earn money online. I never did I have to mention, and not just because I’m terrible at poker but because 99% of people will never be good enough to make a living from it. The problem was that many people were selling poker playing as a legit way to make money from home, almost like it was a job lol. Again I’m not saying it doesn’t work for some people but if it does its because:
- Often these players have to play 100s of games to carve out a profit, even if you’re a great poker player you still only have a slight advantage. You have to maximise that advantage over 1000s of hands.
- They practice for years to actually get good at the game. All those eBooks that say you can beat the pros with 2 weeks training are lying.
You see to me given the above a much better investment of my time would be to create something worthwhile that attracts visitors and customers. Also I don’t want a living that can be wiped out by some government at the drop of a hat, what would you do if your main income source disappeared overnight?
But how do you create something that has value, especially on the internet where everything seems to have been done before? As I’ve mentioned a few times the online world has never been about being completely original as some of the best businesses just made better versions of existing ideas. What I’m talking about most though in terms of value is content, because ultimately content is what decides how successful a website is (and how rich you get). I forget how many times I’ve arrived at some ecommerce site that has technical stats on their products but no opinions/reviews/insights on why I should buy their product, its lazy marketing and it makes my head hurt.
So what content does actually “sell” online? Well for a start people really love product videos because they illustrate what you’re selling in a dynamic way. If a picture tells a thousand words then a video is probably a million. But what if your selling a service instead, I.e. yourself? Ok so if you’re trying to explain some business process then put it into an info-graphic with lots of nice colours/arrows/cartoon characters to explain what it is you do. The attention span of people online is about half of other types of media, get to the point of what you do and give them a chance to buy it. Webmasters seem to get stuck in this rut of overselling things, people just want the basics of what it does and trust that you’re going to get it to them.
As you can tell I’m still on the creating websites bandwagon because I think it’s one of the easiest ways for someone new to create an income online. But not only that, to me owning a website is like owning a property, it’s an actual assent and not some scheme like filling out surveys or trying to learn poker. The problem occurs when you ask people to make an investment of time and money into something like building a site, trying to win against a casino is more appealing! Still I know a lot of people who are getting into internet marketing these days with various rates of success, I’ve never said that it was easy.
So back to my original point about creating content that sells, there are 4 points that you want to stick too:
- All content on your site must be original and created by yourself, don’t outsource unless you really know what you’re doing.
- Different markets need different types of information, for instance my blog is mostly about information so it makes sense I have a lot of text. But if you’re selling RC helicopters then you need some videos up there.
- Find the right tone for your content, yes if you’re a solicitor then you can’t be too jokey but for most other general sites a casual tone is better.
- Give people some way to talk about your content and even make content for you. Allowing comments and reviews is great for involving people or take it a step further and create a forum. It does need managing as you have to delete any spam that gets though (which is inevitable) but the value you get in interaction with your customers is invaluable.
Ok so this post is getting a little long, I know some of you are just thinking when is this guy going to shut up and tell me an easy way to create and income fast! I suppose I could make something up and sell you some concept that’s never going to work, but what’s the point in that? There’s enough junk online already without me adding to it, then again did I mention I’ve just worked out a way to beat the roulette wheel?
Content is key to making money online
So i wanted to talk a little about why the content on your website is so important. One of the biggest mistakes people make when creating content for their site is that they make it way too formal. This can often put off people who are just casually browsing your site and looking for some general information. Indeed i think general is the keyword as it i would say 90% of the people who are surfing the web and browsing websites are not looking for technical information but a general overview of your subject, i suppose this is why people love bullet points and lists so much as it allows them to get to the key facts really quickly.
Speed is another important point when it comes to content, can the person browsing your site find the information they want quickly? If not then you could be in trouble as research has shown the average person will only wait around 8 seconds on your site before moving on sfgogomewhere else, can you capture their attention fast enough?
For many reasons the majority of the content on the internet is text but while it is the easiest medium to create its not always the best way to get information across to people, ie just look at the success of youtube. Text on the internet can be quite boring for people sometimes and a few pictures or videos here and there can really break up the monotony of a long article.
The way you write your content can also have a big impact on your overall sales, however many people still make the mistake of trying to sell to aggressively to their customers. People are now very wary of the hard sell and can often feel your content is a ploy to make you more money online, your customer should always feel like your product/service is there to help them first and foremost.
I know for some people creating content for the internet can be a real pain, this is why we see so many companies who just copy their generic sales brochures and product stats straight onto their new website. This is nearly always a mistake, if you can’t add unique value to your content then there really is no point too it. Similarly if your content is just another re-written copy of something someone else has created then it can often be pretty obvious to anyone reading it. For these reasons many people can be intimidated when trying to create content for the web, weather that is an article to help you earn money with your blog or a chart to show your latest sales it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you can convey the message quickly and clearly, essentially you need to give your visitors what they want (and not what you think they want).
Another big part of content building these days is creating content that people will want to link too. As i mentioned earlier links are the lifeblood of seo and anything that helps you to get more of them is a good thing. For many link building is a manual process but it doesn’t have to be if you are creating amazing content that lots of people want to reference on their sites and blogs. The key is to create something unique and compelling and that people feel the overwhelming desire to share. Easier said than done i know but if you can crack this particular problem then there’s a lot of money to be made with your blog.
One last thing i have to mention about creating content is that you should definitely create a lot of it. Of course you should always try to maintain quality when you are blogging but creating a lot of content will allow you to attract many more visitors to your site than you would originally. This is because people use so many weird and wonderful keywords to find things on the internet that if you do have one of these obscure key-phrases in your text then there’s a good chance you will show up on google if your seo is right. Indeed i remember a few years ago google mentioned that one out of every 5 keywords they get are new to them. If its new to google then its probably new to a lot of webmasters too and so the competition should be low. Now i know your thinking how can i optimise for a keyword i don’t know anything about? Well you cant, but what you can do is create alot of good quality content and wait for people to find you using whatever means they can!
