How People Make Money Online

In this day and age, not everyone needs to report to an office to earn a decent income. If you have certain skills and you would prefer to work at home, there are some online options for you. You might also want to work online on your free time or while waiting for a good work opportunity in an office.

This is not a comprehensive guide on how to earn online. For some people, finding opportunities online can be as challenging as finding offline employment. This article is only meant to give you a glimpse of how online workers generally earn online. If you want to explore any of these methods, you may want to use a search engine like Google for some in depth research.

Participation in Site Activities

Some websites offer a variety of activities that users can participate in and earn some money. Some of these activities include:

• Forum comment posting with earnings dependent on number of quality posts
• Article posting with earnings dependent on number of article views by readers
• Review writing with earnings dependent on number of quality reviews and on votes from other users
• Social network participation with earnings dependent on profile page views by other users and on participation
• Survey participation with earnings dependent on value of completed surveys
• Advertisement viewing with earnings dependent on number of advertisements viewed and action taken

Some of the sites that you can check for these activities include:

• Mylot
• Triond
• Associated Content
• Global Test Market

There are many other different sites and activities that offer online opportunities to earn. Most of these sites though pay very little and will take you a lot of time to earn. They are therefore not worth getting into if you need to pay for internet subscription just so you can participate in them. They are only good options if you have a computer and internet connection intended for other purposes and you participate in these site activities only as a past time on your free time.

Maintaining a Site or Blog

Among those who earn the most online are people who own websites and blogs. The idea is to set up your own site, put ads on them such as Google Adsense ads and earn from site visitors who click on them. There are some blogging platforms that will allow you to start blogs for free such as Blogger. Take note though that although this is one of the options with a great potential to earn, it is not an easy one to execute. In order to earn from ads you need to:

• get a lot of visitors to your site,that is, thousands of visitors. Among these thousands, a handful will click on ads. Having many visitors will also let you convince other advertisers to set up ads in your site;

• get search engines to notice you. This is the number one way to get visitors in the first place because people typically use search engines to find what they need. Search engines like blogs and sites with original content, well-placed keywords, links in other related sites and regularly updated content;

• post useful content. You need to have a site or blog about a topic or niche that many people are interested in. You then need to provide information that will be useful to readers. Good content is very important especially if you have a topic with a lot of other sites and blogs competing against yours. If other sites offer more useful information than yours, you will lose your visitors. You can use services like Google Insights to find out which topics people are interested in over a period of time.

Affiliate Marketing

In general, affiliate marketing involves introducing others to a service or product. If people sign up or purchase through you, you get to earn a commission. There are many different kinds of affiliate programs. Some will require you to pay a fee or pass an application screening before you can become an affiliate. Others have strict rules on payment. People that you refer must be able to complete purchases or levels of participation before you can be paid.

Services for Hire

This has been one of the most common money-making activities online. Many site owners will pay other people for such services as:

• writing content for foreign-owned websites and blogs
• answering questions from site clients
• designing websites
• solving technical website problems
• entering data in online forms
• providing online administrative, clerical or secretarial services

Some sites to visit to look for jobs like these include:

• Craigslist
• Get a Freelancer
• Odesk

Online jobs will pay well if you are able to get good clients and if you have the right skills. The problem is that many other online workers have the necessary skills. You may have to compete with other applicants to get a project. Most clients also offer only project-based work. This means you would have to look for other opportunities as soon as your current project ends.

Selling in Online Auctions

E-bay is perhaps the most popular online auction site in the Philippines. Many people have found good bargains on products like watches, bags and signature clothes that they want to buy on this site. You too can be a seller on E-bay. Of course, you need to find the kinds of items that Filipinos are most interested in. You would then have to compete with many other sellers who sell the same items. E-bay has some tools that will help you find out about popular items to sell.

In summary, it is correct to say that there are many online opportunities that will let you earn a good income. It is incorrect to think however that the internet offers get rich quick methods. You have to work hard to become successful online. You also need to have the instinct to quickly detect which opportunities are scams and which are legitimate high-paying ones. Just like in real life, the internet is full of con artists. You have to be careful.