With the economy at 10 ½ % unemployment, it is more difficult for
people to earn extra money than in years past. A recent report on
CNN showed that many people don’t fall into the unemployment
number because they have jobs, but that an additional 7 – 9% of
Americans are under-employed. This means that they are working
less hours or are working only part-time. These Americans need to
make extra money to supplement their lost wages.
Then there are the baby-boomers that have lost a significant part of
their retirement income due to the decline in the stock market and the
housing market. This group needs to earn extra money to supplement
the shortfall in their retirement income.
The question is: Where is the best opportunity for these
Americans to make extra money?
We believe that the best opportunity to fill the gap in income is with
an online business.
More and more people are turning to the internet to earn extra money
online. Why? Unlike other segments of our economy, the Internet
continues to experience significant growth. For some it holds the
keys to wealth, for others it’s just a great place to earn additional
income.
There are nay-sayers and skeptics that say you can’t make extra
money online. They are wrong. The fact is there are thousands of
people that make money on the internet every day. Personally, I have
been making my living full time online for the last 11 years.
In fact, there is more opportunity to make money online today than
there was 11 years ago when I started marketing online. First, you
don’t have to be a technical geek. There are more and more websites
like Squidoo.com where you can create an online business without
knowing how to build a website or how to create a blog.
In the February 3, 2009 issue of US News and World Report there
was an article titled “7 Ways To Make Extra Money.” Three of the
seven ways was making money online.
One of the most frequently asked questions is: “How do I make
extra money online?”
Here is a list of online opportunities where you can earn extra money:
Blogs are fantastic because you don’t need to know anything about creating a website. Moreover, there are plenty of
Wordpress blog templates to use for your blog.
In addition, there is very little in the way of start up costs. You simply need to host your blog with a hosting
company so that other people can find you on the Internet. We recommend Hostgator.com as your hosting company.
Once you find a topic that is of interest, you simply start writing blog posts on the topic. You can monetize your
blog by including ads on your blog pages. When someone clicks on an ad, you make a little money. But if you can
drive a lot of traffic to your blog, you can make a lot of money.
2. You can create your own website
You can monetize your website by selling other peoples products. Selling other peoples products on the internet
is called affiliate marketing. When you sell someone else’s product you are paid a commission and commissions can
range from 3% to 75%.
One of the largest affiliate programs is Amazon. When you sell one of the products on Amazon you generally get
paid 3% to 5% commission. Another large affiliate program website is ClickBank.com. There you will find information
products where you can earn a commission of 35% - 75%.
3. Provide Freelance Services
There are people that are willing to pay for specialized services. These might include technical services such as
building a website, to non-technical services such as writing articles. For example, you can write articles for
eHow.com, a website that posts articles and then shares revenues from online ads with its writers.
Many online marketers will pay you to write a 500-word article or do a voice over if you have a good recording voice.
The point is, if you have a skill that others will pay for offline, you can sell your services to people online and pocket
the extra money you make.
4. You Can Buy Wholesale And Sell Retail
I remember when my wife’s grandmother used to go to garage sales every week, buy a lot of stuff really cheap, and
then sell it for a profit at her own garage sale. With Craigslist, garage sales have moved online. You can find just
about anything on Craigslist.
Some of the stuff you can purchase at huge discounts, other stuff is free. I know of people that make a lot of extra
money buying stuff on Craigslist and then turn around and resell it on Craigslist for a profit. Or, they will buy it from
Craigslist and then sell it on eBay.
5. You Can Sell Stuff On Ebay
eBay is the world’s largest auction website. One of the attractions of eBay is you can sell to anyone around the
world, and they pay for the shipping.
There are people that buy products for a bargain, then turn around and sell the same product for a profit. The trick to
making money on eBay is to sell a product for more than you paid for it. eBay takes a small commission on the sale.
Some of these opportunities don’t require you to know anything about Internet marketing for you to make money
online. This is the case with Craigslist and eBay. These websites do all the marketing for you and drive visitors to
their websites.
Other online opportunities require you to learn how to drive visitors to your website. They require you to become
educated in the strategies and techniques to get traffic. When you get good at implementing these strategies, you
can make a lot of money.