2 Easy Ways To Make Money Online - Even If You're Flat Broke
By Erin P Smith
On the internet, there is no shortage of ways to earn a living. People are making money in every niche imaginable, leveraging just about every skill imaginable.
From dog grooming to shoes to even selling a gold mine on eBay (the price at the time was $2 million), there is no shortage of opportunities to earn a decent cash flow.
So why does it seem so hard for so many people? Why is it that everyone around you, including your next door neighbor and his goldfish, are earning millions on the internet, but you're left behind? Why is it so easy for them?
You're not alone.
I know the feeling.
If there's one thing I've learned being around the internet, it's that a really, really small percentage of people are actually making money! It's just that we happen to hear more about the insanely rich people because we want to believe their story will be our story.
It's the same thing with news stories... kidnappings get insane amounts of coverage, yet there were only 115 of the "Law and Order" type kidnappings in the entire United States in 2009. Compare that to 115 people dying per day from car crashes in the U.S. Which one do we hear more about?
Sorry for the little tangent... I just thought those numbers were fascinating.
The point is, there's nothing to be ashamed about if you haven't made your money yet on the internet.
How about we change that?
I understand that a lot of people who are looking to make money on the internet have little or no start-up money. People usually turn to the internet when they have bills to pay off immediately, hate their job, or need to pay off some debt.
Now, my two favorite ways to make money are to leverage your skills and build a network marketing business.
Each has its pros and cons.
A network marketing business can earn you boatloads of money, but it usually takes a little longer to get going. You can earn long-term residual income from the efforts of others.
Leveraging a skill can earn you instant income. You can do it as many times as you like, and there are plenty of places on the web where you can find people who are willing to pay for what you know how to do.
The only problem is, the instant you stop, the income stops. You get paid for what you do and not what a team can produce.
What skills can I earn money for?
I would first head on over to Elance.com. Elance is my favorite freelancing site where people post a job they want done, and people can come in and bid for it. Then, whoever posted the job decides who they want to pay.
I would check out Elance and browse through the different sections and see what people are willing to pay for.
Elance has tens of thousands of jobs posted at any one time, so the possibilities are limitless.
It's also a great place to see how others "describe" themselves. Find someone who's made a lot money on the site (it usually displays their career earnings on their profile), and see how they present themselves.
Now, the easiest skill to learn is writing articles.
There are always hundreds of people on Elance looking for people to write massive amounts of articles for them. Some are even looking for people to write for their blog over a long period of time.
These long-term jobs are an amazing way to earn some extra (virtually guaranteed) income for the foreseeable future doing something relatively easy.
But, finding people to write articles is like finding the haystack instead of the needle; they're all over the place. For that reason, most people won't pay more than 2$-5$ to write an article. If the articles require research, it may take you too much time to be worth it.
My all time favorite skill to leverage is setting up WordPress blogs. Because this skill is a little more specialized and technical, people will pay you more of a premium!
I've been building blogs for people for several months, and I've put as much as a $1,000 in a single month in my account, and all for no more than 10-15 hours of work.
I know, you're probably saying something like, "But I can't set up WordPress blogs! That's waaay to technical for me!"
As a rebuttal, let me tell you a little about myself.
I graduated college with a biology degree. Any real job I've had has involved working with animals or bra-fitting at J.C. Penney. I currently know less than 10 HTML codes, and I've never taken a class or read a book on web design, Photoshop, or anything to do with any internet techie stuff.
I had never even heard of WordPress 10 months ago.
Now? I can set up WordPress blogs, including headers, incorporating graphics and videos, setting up opt-in forms, installing themes and plugins, and everything else in my sleep. And... it takes me less than 3 hours.
So how'd I do it? How long did it take me to learn?
Believe me when I say that you can find a tutorial for anything you can think of on the internet. I basically taught myself by trial and error, and Googling for tutorials when I got stuck.
Within a week, I had my own WordPress blog set up, and had the process mastered.
If you're not sure of what plugins to install, Google it! If you don't know a good theme to use on someone else's blog, Google it!
If I told you that you could spend a week learning a skill, and then use that skill to make $1,000 a month (or more) whenever you wanted, would you do it?
Some people also believe that the header is really complicated to set up as well. The very first time that I ever played around with Photoshop was when I was trying to set up my very own header.
An hour later, my header was done. Not as hard as people think.
If you decide to learn a skill and have an open mind, willing to Google something when you get stuck, it really becomes easy to learn.
Of course, there are other skills that you can leverage, but they are usually much more complicated, like redesigning websites, writing iPhone applications, writing CSS and HTML codes, and other crazy stuff.
Now, you can head on over to elance.com, guru.com, and odesk.com. These are some of the most popular freelancing sites on the internet, where you can set up a profile and display your skill.
Then, spend some time every day browsing these sites and bidding on jobs that you would be willing to do. Of course, a lot of the jobs you won't win, so be sure to apply to more than you want to do.
You can easily get a few jobs a week and earn a significant income, or even a full time income if you dedicate enough time.
And the best part? All of this is free! That's the beauty of being taught by online videos and tutorials.
How can I build a network marketing business with no start up?
So, getting people to pay you for a skill is pretty cool, but you have to work and you lose money if you go on vacation.
So, the other option is to work on building a network marketing business. Of course, it's a little more difficult when you don't have money at the beginning, but read on to see how to overcome that.
The first step is to make a little bit of money so that you can buy some cool tools (they'll make life a lot easier) and join a network marketing business.
For now, you need to find a digital product that you can sell. Preferably, at this beginning phase, I would say it's not a good idea to use your own product.
The idea here is that you need to make some quick money to get into gear, and it doesn't even have to be very much. It would take you too long to develop your own product, plus it would be near impossible to avoid any set up or design fees.
Plus, if you use somebody else's products, you don't have to be bothered with returns, distribution of the product, product development, sales page creation, or customer service in general. Sounds perfect for your immediate goals.
The place to do this completely for free is at Clickbank.com. If you don't know what it is, it's basically a gigantic marketplace where people can come and post products that they have created. Anyone else can go on and find a product they like and start selling it for a commission.
Now, because you're working toward a network marketing business, pick a product that would appeal to most people in your niche.
Then, make sure that the product has a good track record. You can see the "grav" rating for each product, and the higher the number basically means that it sells more.
Another alternative (and the one I would go with), would be to purchase Magnetic Sponsoring by Mike Dillard. Not only is this probably the most well-known and successful eBook written on network marketing, but then you can sell ALL of his high-converting products.
The only problem is that you have to actually buy the eBook before you can sell his others... and that's $40.
However, once you generate a lead, that person is "coded" to you forever. If they buy another Magnetic Sponsoring product a year later, you still get the commission.
Plus, in the back office of Magnetic Sponsoring, you can see all of your leads and their info. Now, you can even follow up with them to increase your sales.
Like I said, I think this is the way to go to make some quick money because Magnetic Sponsoring is guaranteed to sell well, you get control of leads, and your people are coded to you. This adds up to some serious dough!
Now, how do you sell the product?
Without any money, it will take a little more blood and sweat to make it work.
The two suggestions I have are to post on Facebook groups and write articles.
The name of the game here is consistency with these two strategies, but hey, they're free!
For Facebook groups, the key is to be as widespread as you can. Join as many groups as possible, and write as many different ads or messages as you can.
Writing a generic ad about MLM success will produce the most results. In other words, don't post blatant ads about exactly what you're trying to sell. Sell them on benefits and curiosity, but if you say specifically what it is, no one will click through.
For placing articles, it comes down to writing on a variety of topics. It doesn't have to do with your product; in fact you'll do better if it's not a product pitch.
All you need to do is write articles about success tips for network marketing. Article directories allow you to place a resource box at the bottom of your posts.
There, you can say something like "Erin has helped lots of people to generate more leads for their businesses. Click here for more tips on how to generate free leads for your online business."
Then, the link goes to your product!
After you use these two free methods, eventually you'll be able to generate enough traffic to your sales page (or a capture page if you are using Magnetic Sponsoring) that you'll begin to see some results.
Really, as soon as you've generated even a couple hundred dollars, you can now invest in some tools to help you take your business to the next level.
First of all, you need an autoresponder, like AWeber. It gives you the capability to organize all of your leads' information and send out a mass email to everybody on your list whenever you like.
Every big business uses this same model; how many different companies send you emails or coupons in the mail?
These are companies that have collected your information, and are now able to market to you over and over again over a long period of time.
This is how you are able to build a long-term following of loyal prospects and eventually buyers.
Then, with AWeber, you can now create opt-in forms for your prospects to leave their name, email, and number. All you need now is a site to put it on!
In order to create your very own capture pages (basically sites with an opt-in form for capturing your prospects' info), you'll need software like Pagebreeze or NVU, both of which are free to download.
Now, with your very own capture pages, you'll also need something free to give away. I highly recommend creating a free report or video series. Although this can be time consuming, and maybe a little technical at first, it pays off huge dividends by branding you immediately as a leader.
However, creating quality capture pages and reports can be very difficult, if not impossible, to make look professional.
That's why I use My Lead System Pro because it already has capture pages and free offers incorporated in the system. Throw in top notch training for any lead generation strategy and that the system sells affiliate products on autopilot for you, and it's basically the fastest and most efficient way to be up and live on the internet.
Then, the last step is to join a company that you want to be a part of! I'm not going to go into details here, because everybody has their preferences.
Now you promote your company after your prospects go through your funnel and leave their information on your capture pages.
Here's a little recap on how you're going to build your business from scratch:
First, you're going to earn a little start-up money by using free strategies like article marketing and posting in Facebook groups to promote Magnetic Sponsoring or a ClickBank product. This takes a little time and consistency.
Next, you step it up a notch by purchasing a AWeber to build your subscriber list.
Then, you create a report and build your own capture pages, or simply use My Lead System Pro to take care of all the technical stuff.
Then, using these tools, you can now promote products and your MLM to your list using AWeber and by talking to them on the phone.
Of course, if you have a little money to burn, this whole process can be sped up to almost overnight. Or, you can leverage skills you have, and then use that money to skip past promoting a ClickBank product and immediately buy the essential tools necessary.
Anyway, I hope some of this will help you understand how you can begin to make money on the internet! Just realize that it takes dedication and consistency, and don't get down if it doesn't happen overnight.
Keep your long-term goals in sight, and don't do things that will endanger the continuing success of your business.
Erin wrote this article about Making Money Online to help the internet marketer know how to create an income stream for their business. Erin has helped hundreds of people generate leads for their business. If you want to learn how to generate 30+ leads a day for free, visit Erin Smith's MLM Secrets [http://art.attraction-marketing-success.com/].
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