Welcome to Online Jobs

Making Money Online: a Beginner’s Guide

Author: Fred Omorogbe

Ok, you’ve heard its possible and decided to give it a try; Making money online… Made easy. You hop on the train to catch the jolly ride, thinking it’ll come out as smooth as you’ve been made to believe. You dabble from one site to the other, even threw in a few bucks here and there; just to hasten the “get rich quick” process. You eventually find out you’ve been going in circles and things are not always as easy as proposed in those “guru” adverts you’ve so gullibly followed.

The online money making scheme is a vast empire; one with so much potential. The economic situation worldwide and the ever insatiable want of man have helped trigger the foray of demands for alternative means of livelihood. The Internet, being a mega source of information transfer/exchange, naturally became a major target for information on ideas and solutions. Unfortunately, lots of scammers are also cashing in on the information craze; devouring unsuspecting victims in the process on a daily basis. You start off with the intention of “making money” but end up with “a hole in the pocket” after greedy, hurried, ill-informed attempts.

Now you’re back (maybe wiser), deciding to do a research first before venturing into the terrain (wise move). I’ve got news for you… You’re not alone; we’ve all gone through this at one point or the other during our pursuit of online wealth. You may have heard that making money online is as easy as ABC… Well, I’m sorry to shock you… THERE’S MORE TO IT! The only so called “easy money making” schemes out there could be “Pay per click” or maybe “survey” programs. You’ll find out too soon that even that is not as easy as it seems; after working your fingers to the bones from clicking for peanuts.

Take it or leave it, making money online is just like any other serious daily endeavor in life geared towards success. It involves Dedication, self motivation, self-belief, passion, interest, persistence and lots of patience; if any of these characteristics is missing in your life right now, you might do well to try and improve on it before you step into the online dungeon… If not, you’ll be frustrated out before you could say… “My money”!

Now, having said all these, there are websites you can join and make your own for free that allows you to trade and make money as a starter without financial investment. Good examples would be Weblog sites (blogs) like Blogger or Wordpress (to mention a few). With this in place… you have a launch pad to promote your activities online. However, there are some basic requirements needed for this trade:

1.Finding an informative Niche of interest (for you too)
2.Researching on keywords for the niche
3.Creativity, Frequency and conceptual Originality
4.Promoting using multiple channels

In all these, you’ll need to be “web savvy”, which means you need to have some basic ideas of web terminologies like URL, HTML, SEO, BACKLINKS and MONETIZATION… Etc. If you are confused about these terms now, don’t fret, do a search and read up on the terms… I’ll be elaborating on these in subsequent posts.

Some Ways of Making Money Online:

Let’s now delve into some ways of making money online. There are lots of ways of making money online, a few is listed below:

•Taking online surveys: some websites like YouGov pay you for completed surveys
•Pay-Per-Click campaign: Google adwords and Microsoft Adcenter stands out here (not a fan of the auto surf PPC programs though some are pretty lucrative on a long term).
•Affiliate Marketing: Clickbank, Amazon, Adtrader and Ebay come to mind here.
•E-commerce/Reseller Programs: Create, buy, sell or collect resale right from authors of products and services for sale/purchase.
•Online Real Estate: Domain name sales and acquisition
•Social Network Bookmarking
•Online auction Sale
•Message Board Posting: Webmaster-Talk and DigitalPoint pays for posting contents of interest on their message boards.
•Blogging: Blogger, Worpress is free… create a niche site that can generate money using say, AdSense, Bidvertiser or Kontera etc also, you get paid to blog on BlogiTive and PayPerPost
• Photography: IsTockPhoto and Fotolia pays for uploaded original photos of interest.
• Freelance and Virtual Jobs: eLance and oDesk allows members to sign up for advertised outsourced jobs and get paid on completion.
• Games: If you are a “games freak”, you could test your skills online and get paid while winning and collecting points. Try SecondLife or MooLa

Note this: Most successful Internet enterpreneur started off with a free blog. Success is not overnight... It is gradual and involves patience. Don't give up before your money starts rolling in. Be Smart and creative, People Centric, Focused and Dedicated... Success will surely come.

All in all, three major factors stand out in fueling the engine of online money making...

1. Finding a profitable niche (Think of it as your passion for providing solutions to problems in specific area of interest)
2. Creating a “landing Pad” for your would be customers (website, Weblog/Blog or VideoLog/Vlog will do just right)
3. Generating relevant traffic for conversions. (Where promoting comes to play).

If you are really serious about making good money online, you’ll need to invest a little of your time and resources in pursuit of these factors… They constitute the spring board for online success.

The Need for an e-mail list:

The three factors mentioned above is born out of the eventual overall target of having a LIST. Quality and relevant e-mail list for your chosen niche is very important for online business success. With good quality e-mail list of relevance and quality recommendations from time to time on your part, trust will be established and you’re virtually on your way to success. Ever wondered why most programs request that you enter your e-mail address for “newsletters”, "subscriptions", “10-day introductory course” etc? LIST GENERATION! This will prove useful when other ideas on money making hits the stands and you have a ready market in your list.

Stay focused.