Can one make a living online?
The truth is that an income we often dedicate 40hrs a week to earn is absolutely possible from the internet; with a little more diligence and some street smarts, even 6 figure incomes are possible.
Each of these types are proven and can be very lucrative, it is important to decide what suits you and your needs best.
Internet Business Types
One - eBay and auction sites; One of the best known of internet business models the principle means of creating income is through online auctioning of goods.
Regular eBay sellers also sometimes use a drop shipping service. This involves a warehouse company who provide a catalog of goods they have in stock. The eBay seller lists and sells some of these items and the drop shipping warehouse automatically fulfills and ships any order a seller creates. Increasingly businesses and factories are also cutting out all middle men by selling items direct from the production lines to the customer via eBay.
Advantages of using eBay and other auction sites include having access a world wide network of customers, and in the case of eBay a great deal of consumer research information such as market trends for Christmas selling.
eBay dot com is California based and operating in 30 countries. Requirements to join include having a bank account, a verifiable address and an account with PayPal for secure financial transactions. PayPal requirements are similar to eBay. There are also many other websites that help with different facets of eBay auctions, many are made available within eBay Help listings on their website.
Websites that make last minute bids for you to try and snag a great deal are called ’snipe programs’, and a well known one is called eSnipe dot com. Search for them under ’snipe auction’, or ’snipe auction bidding’.
Just a few of the many drop shipping companies who are experienced with eBay are Salehoo, WorldWide Brands, Doba. Search for them under ‘eBay drop shippers’ and ‘auction drop shippers’.
There are many tuition or ‘make money’ programs available online to help develop ones eBay skills all the way from a small hobby to a very high income home business. Some popular titles include; ‘Sky High Incomes for eBay’, ‘Auction Acrobat - CD/DVD Automation Delivery Software’, ‘eBay Millionaire Reveals the Step by Step Roadmap to Riches’, ‘Become an eBay Power Seller in 90 Days’, Auction Inspector - Niche Software for eBay’, The Silent Sales Machine Hiding on eBay’, and more.
Additionally eBay regularly runs ‘eBay University’, which are weekend workshops run by eBay top performers to teach some of the clever optimization techniques possible with eBay listings.
In addition to eBay almost every country has at least one well known internet auction site that is focused on its own national customer base. For example Trade Me dot com - New Zealand. To locate others search under; Internet auction site Australia, or Online Auction Ireland, etc.
To use them you’ll often have to establish that you’re a national resident with a verifiable address and phone number. Advantages include much less internet fraud, less internet viruses, greater ease of delivery to customers, not having to spend time filling out customs forms, easier and more trustworthy relations with your clients. Disadvantages include having a smaller customer base, therefore there can be less customer ‘excitement’ to drive bids higher as a large audience like eBay can.
Two - MLM, Multi Level Marketing or Network Marketing; Widely known both on and off line, income streams derive mainly from products that are offered to members at wholesale prices that they then sell onwards at retail prices to create a profitable ‘working from Home Based Business Strategy. Profits are developed further by introducing more and more new members to the company in long down lines, all of whom use and sell ‘the product’. MLM’s depend heavily on person to person networking. A percentage of all profits flow uphill to founding members, who reap the largest financial rewards, so joining such a company soon after its start up can be very lucrative. MLM’s can extend over the world and can generate large incomes. The advantages are that you are the boss of your own time, and that you’re operating within a well developed sales model that provides plenty of support, and if you’re a people person this will suit you well.
Disadvantages include having to be an enthusiastic sales person if you’re not that way inclined. There also have been accusations that these are pyramid schemes in disguise, and many are monitored by consumer groups and government watchdogs.
MLM or Network companies we’re all familiar with are Herbalife, Amway, and many others. Vitamins, diet products, cheap phone rates are just a few of many products being sold through MLM structured companies. If you want to locate one search; ‘MLM vitamin’, or’ network e-Marketing diet products’ etc.
Three - AdSense by Google; Google charges people to place their product ads on the internet. A percentage of these fees are paid to web site owners who allow Google to place the ads on their websites. The ads are put in place with a simple piece of HTML code supplied by Google. It is pasted into place on a website and automatically Google programming reads the website for the subject of the material and supplies a string of ads with the same theme as the website. This way visitors interested in snowboarding will finds ads for snowboard products alongside the website articles. The website owner is paid each time someone clicks on the ad. The amount earned can range from a few cents to over a hundred dollars per click in competitive markets such as credit cards and home loans.
A website owner can cleverly fine tune the website to attract maximum paying ads and also to attract maximum shopping visitors to the site. Once set up little maintenance is required. Google pays automatically every month, and websites with a lot of traffic can create an enormous income solely from people clicking on ads, all while you the site owner, are at the beach in Hawaii. This type of income can be very hands off once set in place, and a smart website owner might have a number of websites on many subjects. Disadvantages can include having to learn ways to build your own website, and master the internet world of SEO, or search engine optimization. SEO refers to how websites are ranked compared to the first page that shows up when someone performs a search. Popular sites tend to show up on page one where the largest volume of traffic visits. Getting a new site to show on page one is a real accomplishment and good SEO is sometimes referred to as something of an art form.
There are many books online about getting good SEO for your site, as well as ‘make money online’ programs such as;AdSense Secrets, Commission Blueprint, KeyWord Elite, Hyper VRE, AdSense Big, Cash Cow Guide to AdSense Wealth.
Four - AdWords by Google; Google AdWords involves you selling a product on the internet through advertising with Google. Unlike AdSense which places their ads on your site, AdWords places your ads on many topic related websites across the internet. You can choose what country will see these ads, and sometimes what demographic. Google AdWords supplies an accounting system online where you can monitor and modify your advertising campaigns. The seller’s highest priority is paying as little as possible for ads and achieving the maximum sales. To get your advert placed high on the website page where customers will see it more readily is ideal, and Google have in place a bidding system where you compete with others for that spot by offering higher prices per customer click. A number one position on a small website might cost twenty cents per customer click, the same position on a high traffic site might cost one dollar to a hundred dollars per customer click.
At peak times sales can be brisk and the profits high. It is also possible to automate the process so that only a little daily maintenance is required. Large incomes can be created by selling numerous products. Digital products like digitally formatted self help books can be very lucrative, and can be set up so that the sale and product delivery all happen automatically.
‘Drawback’, the caution needed is that advertising can be expensive, and a sound head for figures is necessary to keep fast moving costs under control.
‘Make Money Online’ training programs include; AdWords Profits, The AdWords Manifesto, Keyword Elite, Beating AdWords, Google Profits, Authority Blueprint X.
Five - Affiliate selling; An affiliate is a person that wants to make money by Internet Marketing someone else’s product for a commission. The products are often digital instructional or self help books, but can also be solid products such as discount pharmaceuticals and vitamin supplements. Affiliate selling is a good way for a business to have more sales people working for them without the overhead of an employment agreement. As an affiliate seller you usually carry no product, and simply direct buyers to the seller’s website. On this website the seller has provided you with either your own web page of products, or a piece of html code that identifies you. When the sale takes place the code identifies you and commissions are sent on a regular basis. You are entirely your own boss, and can work this full time or part time from your own home. It is not hard to create a business that requires little daily management. How you locate and drive customers to the web site is all up to you. Writing articles about the item you’re selling i.e. vitamins and submitting them to article publishing websites can bring a host of free customers who are interested in your product.
Affiliate selling is one of the most lucrative business methods on the internet, and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. There are many ‘make money online’ training programs available; Affiliate Elite, Reverse Funnel, Rich Jerk, Secret Affiliate Code.
Six - Cost Per Action or CPC; A person can place advertisements across the internet to attract a certain type of interested party, i.e. home insurance. When customers click on the advertisement they are taken to a site where they are asked to enter their email address if they want more information. As the person paying for the ads and bringing customers you are paid per email address that is gathered. Payment can be a few cents to tens of dollars per email address. Gathering names and email addresses and more to expand a businesses mailing list is common, can be lucrative, and can be set virtually on automatic. The caution is keeping your advertising costs down and locating interested customers as efficiently as possible.
CPA companies include; NeverBlue, Affiliate Future, MSM Media Network, FluxAds, Hydra Networks, Rocket Profits, Max Bounty.
Seven - Direct Sales: In this scenario a website is put online either as a business entire, or as an adjunct to a real bricks and mortar company. These function exactly in the manner of a regular business, selling a product, service or information, the financial transaction takes place online through a secure page at the website, and the website owner arranges for the product to be delivered to the customer. As the population becomes more comfortable doing business online a website is a crucial addition to a regular business. If one has a passion for something in particular, i.e. hand crafted bird cages, then starting a fully engaging business like this can be most rewarding.
Conclusion You can make money online, as readily as any other business and just like any other business the more you put into it, the more you’ll get out of it. Like real world businesses all internet businesses can be built and sold as going concerns and there are websites dedicated to selling them for top dollar. You can even buy into a small web business if it appeals to you not to build from scratch, and build it into a much larger business, and then sell it again. Your choices on the internet are as wide as any business in the ‘bricks and mortar’ world, with the advantage of a very large market as close as your fingertips, and consequently, a real opportunity ‘to knock one out of the park’. You might work 40 hours again, but you’ll be the master of your own destiny. The second 40 hours might be a well deserved vacation on a tropical island where, through your computer, you’ll still have the world at your fingertips.
