Q: So, what do you do?
A: I do stuff on the internet.
The reaction is never good, I need to start re-phrasing that, it often takes me several minutes explaining that I mean I’m an online entrepreneur. After I get the (right) picture across most people ask me how they too can make extra income online, or often in today’s economy people just want to know how they can make any income online. So here you are, this post took me a while but contains all legitimate ways to make real money online. Version 2009… tell me what you think! (P.S. None of these links or sites are endorsed by me, i.e. I don’t get a penny if you click through or anything)
1. Sell stuff on eBay. This is how I got started at the tender age of 19, the entrepreneur within me burned with an intense fire so I started selling crap I found at pawn shops & flea markets. Soon after I realized selling crap is usually a bad business plan (unless your Walmart.. ooo burn!) I began finding that if I wanted to make a profit I had to sell something that people would pay more for than I bought it for. This (basic) business sense led me to finding product sources online, which if you spend some time studying there are plenty of. From dropshippers to merchants in foreign countries where your currency goes farther… there is a plethora of places to get items for less than you can sell them on eBay. If you want tons of info on how to make a living on eBay you can check the site I created to help Powersellers make money.
2. eHow. If you can write you can make money on eHow. Even if you can’t write well you can make money on eHow. Will you make lots of money? No. Will it make you rich & famous… probably not. Could it potentially fund your monthly car payment… Yes. If you love to tell people how to do things (and have even the slightest bit of knowledge about the subject) you can write a small article and then for all of eternity eHow will give you a small slice of the pie depending on how popular your article is. A great resource for would be eHow-ers is the Smart Passive Income Blog’s section devoted to making money on eHow.
3. Become the next Youtube sensation. Are you funny? Do you have funny pets, funny family members or funny friends? Are you a nerd? Do you dress up like Star Wars characters & swing your invisible light saber while humming the Imperial march theme? Then people want to see you! On Youtube you can become a sensation overnight for a variety of reasons, put an iPhone in a blender, cry over people being mean to Britney Spears, video tape your crazy baby… anything flies. Sometimes it flies very, very well. Examples of a cast of characters who make full time livings on Youtube advertising cuts would be the guys behind Chad Vader. Check it out, get inspired, if your funny, poetic or good with a video camera give it a try.
4. Be a Freelancer. If you have any kind of computer skill, can transcribe video or podcasts, or write well try out freelancing for starts. I know a guy who does it as a full time career & actually is so good at it he wrote an ebook on how others can do it themselves, see he did a double dip to make real money online… he started freelancing and that led to an ebook which is even cooler since its a passive form of online income.
5. Write an ebook that rocks. People buy ebooks, whether you believe it or not you probably have at least one ebook worth of information in your brain. Do you know how to hack iPhones? Are you savvy at getting the best girl in the room to say yes to a date? Do you know how to find the best local places to tour in Europe? Though these are small niches they are still profitable niches. If you can rank high when someone searches for ‘Best places to see in Europe’ or pay for the privilege using adwords you have a good chance to sell because the market your targeting is obviously looking for that information. Ebooks can be between 10-infinity pages long. It just depends on how long it takes for you to make a worthwhile ebook, one that offers more value than you charge for it. For tips to write an ebook, actually for a step-by-step outlined plan, check out Smart Passive Income again… he outlines exactly how its done.
6. Another great passive income opportunity is Interview Information Products. People love interviews, if you search keywords to do with interviews you’ll find thousands type that into search engines each month. It is the reason I am in the process of building out cewebrities.tv which will be a web celebrity interview site… mine is for free but you can charge for yours. You can interview several people within a certain market or field and create a reference of success stories for others. There are several books that are nothing but ‘interviews’ most famously Chicken Soup for the Soul. That franchise has made millions off of others thoughts & stories. Interviews is how it started. Best part is that if you create a product based around industry interviews you can record it or write it once & then resell it and collect passive income forever.
7. Businesses in Boxes. Do you know how to start anything? A car, a real estate agency, a day care that runs from your home? Well if so there are those out there who need you! Put all of your know how into a box (metaphorically) by creating how to videos, tutorials, copies of all the systems, spreadsheets & lists you use and wrap it up in a nice little package (also known as an ebook cover design) and Voila you’ve got yourself a biz in a box. These can fetch anywhere from $97 to thousands depending on the amount of info inside and how well they work in real life. If you currently have a dog walking biz that brings in 4k a month and you started it on $500 people want to hear you story, learn your secrets & replicate success. Its like a mini version of franchising, but faster & cheaper to put together!
8. Ghostwrite. Like the song “Ghostwriter in the sky”… oh wait, that isn’t right. Anyways, sign up with oDesk, or eLance to offer your writing skills to the highest bidder. Many, many people who have websites do not write their own content (I do obviously as you can see from the misspells and atrocious grammar). If you have the skill cash in on this big market that you can participate in from the comfort of your own home… in your jammies!
9. Create an online store. If you are at all good at keyword research (which isn’t hard considering I am good at it) then log onto Google’s keyword tool & start researching things you think may sell and perhaps the market hasn’t be sufficiently tapped yet. If you notice that the market for women’s zinc vitamins is huge but the websites selling a good product just aren’t cutting it get in there yourself & outdo them! You can literally never touch a product like vitamins & still sell it for a much higher mark up than you pay. Just find dependable companies that will private label & ship out for you.
10. Write a blog, become a Guru & take your show on the road. Experts are created now born. If you know more than the next person about X and you sufficiently self promote and/or share lots of valuable info with the world (online, through social media, etc) you can reach “expert” status quickly. Now you probably aren’t going to be as good, at first, as a “real” expert whose been doing it for years and years but you’ll get there eventually and people will still pay you to speak, read your blog & bring you some nice adsense revenue while you make that climb. People ask me to speak, and if you’ve seen my youtube videos you’ll know I’m a mumbler and I tend to lose track of thoughts easily, but they still think I have valuable info to share! Crazy but true 
So get out there, make yourself an expert in something and start growing your knowledge base as you grow your clientele and online presence.
Alright now get out there and make Mama some money! But seriously, do comment and let me know if any of these ways to make real money online work for you or have worked in the past. If I left anything out too I’d love to hear about how you make money online.
