40 Ways to Make Money on the Internet
I did a little bookmark scrub this morning and thought I would share the remaining content of my "Online Money" folder. To warn you, there are certain things that I don't like and never bookmark so:
What's NOT included: Taking Paid Surveys, Getting Paid to Surf the Internet, MLM, Contest Sites, "Buy my DVD, CD, Audiobook", etc.
What IS included: Things you can use to legitimately make money online - Everything from Getting Paid to review software to good ole' Adsense.
- Infolinks - Infolinks is probably the highest paying option for your in-text advertising. On DLM, you will see underlined links scattered throughout articles. Those are a function of Infolinks and without disclosing too much, it's been a great source of income. Best is that they accept all sizes of websites and blogs. Just sign up and begin.
- Build a Niche Store - This is a simple store development platform which enables you to create content based sites that generate income through the eBay affiliate programs. Pretty darn simple and increasingly popular.
- Adbrite - Sell space on your site for text ads. This would work like the DLM Marketplace you see on the right of my pages although I chose to manage it myself.
- Amazon Affiliate Program
- Easily create a store or shopping section on your site instead of sending your visitors to Amazon. Amazon handles the shopping cart and fulfillment.
- Amazon Seller
- Sell your stuff on Amazon
- Associated Content - If you write a story, how-to, rant, how-to cut grass, etc., you can submit it to them and they will pay you $3-$20 per article if they like it.
- Yahoo! Merchant Solutions - This is a pretty simple and cheap way to create an online store.
- Azoogleads - Another ad program. They do have some decent companies lined up as advertisers. You provide space, they'll provide an ad.
- BidVertiser - PPC (pay per click) program with a low $10 payout amount.
- Blog - Start a blog and consistently write excellent content. With good ad placement, you may make some money. I detail my process here: Simply Said, How to Blog.
- Cafepress
- You provide a design, they'll toss it on a T-Shirt, Hat, etc. No upfront costs. Get a free online shop and promote your products on your website.
- Chitika - Their eMiniMalls service has shown great results for many Bloggers and site owners. You choose a keyword and they show relevant products on your site using a pretty unique interface.
- Clickbank - Quickly becoming my favorite affiliate program. They have thousands of things for you to advertise on your site.
- ClicknWork - Get paid $5-$150 per hour for basically doing freelance work on a per-assignment basis. You have to pass a pretty tough test to get in.
- Clicksor - These are the guys that generate contextual ads on sites that show up when you hover over a double-underlined word.
- Commission Junction - If you have a site, you can join Commission Junction. Once enrolled for free, you can choose companies whose ads are pertinent to your site. Companies have the ultimate say on working with you. There are easily over 1,000 companies to choose from here.
- CreamAid - For blogs only, advertisers provide you with a topic and you write about it on your site. To do this, you have to install a flash widget into your blog post. The more people you bring into the conversation through the widget, the more you get paid. It's difficult to explain.
- eefoof - Think of it as YouTube + Flickr + Music. You add original content and they pay you based on the visitors you attract.
- Ether - If you are an expert on something, Ether provides a way for people to pay you to talk about it in a one-on-one setting. If you want to charge $250/hr, that's fine. You have to do all the advertising so you should have a blog or site already established.
- eBay- Come on, you know what this is. Gather your junk and sell it!
- eBay Stores - If you have a real store and want to sell your stuff online, this is a decent option to get you started.
- ELance - Name gives it away. Programmers, Codes, Web Designers, Writers, Editors, can look for freelance opportunities.
- Feedvertising - This is an arm of Text Link Ads and is currently only good for Wordpress users. This does me no good currently, but as you can guess, they place ads in your feed(s).
- Feedburner / Google - Not only are they the best place to house your feeds, they will also add ads to your feed and website. You get paid per impression and if you implement Google Adsense to your feed, you are paid per click.
- Google Adsense - Come on, you don't need an explanation; these ads are all over the place. Google displays relevant ads based on your site's content
- Google Adwords - Create simple text ads and choose keywords that determine when they are displayed. This is where the Adsense Content comes from. You do not need a site for this.
- H3.com - Get paid to fill jobs. Commissions range from $50-$5,000. It all depends on how tough the job is to fill and how desperate the hiring company is. This is another one that's tough to explain.
- Indeed.com - Add their job board to your site. They then post jobs based on the geographic location of visitors and the position types you pre-select. I tried it and I they continually report that I sent 0 visitors and I know that's not right. Nevertheless, I may have an isolated problem so they make the list.
- InnerSell - If you have a customer that wants to buy something you cannot sell, you can sell the lead here.
- Jigsaw - It's a pretty flaky model but if you have a Rolodex full of good contacts, you can sell them here. I can't make sense of it but it looks like you get $0.10 per profile.
- LinkShare.com
- If you have a site, you can join Linkshare. Once enrolled for free, you can choose companies whose ads are pertinent to your site. Companies have the ultimate say on working with you. Like Commission Junction, there are a ton of companies waiting to evaluate your site.
- Microsoft Adcenter - Bid on keywords and Microsoft places your created ads then they are searched for. This is similar to Google Adwords. You do not need a site for this.
- Overstock.com - Sell your stuff on Overstock.com
- Pay Per Post - I don't agree with this model entirely but they have advertisers that will pay you to write about their products on your blog.
- Pheedo - If you have an RSS feed, run it through Pheedo. Like Feedburner, they can include ads into your feed and if you really become large, advertisers will pay a premium for you to show their ads.
- Shareasale.com - I've used them for a couple years for some banner advertising. They are similar to Commission Junction and Linkshare however they seem to have lower tiered companies with advertising offers.
- Shoemoney - This is a blog that can teach you a ton on making money online. I've spent hours reading his old stuff.
- Software Judge - They will pay you up to $50 to review software.
- Text Link Ads - I have never made a dime here but I know people that have. You can earn by sending advertisers to them or by selling spots on your site. You must have a real site or blog to do this - nothing on a shared domain (i.e. /blogspot).
- Vibrant Media - Don't bother unless your site has 500,000 page views of text based content a month. If you have that readership, these are the guys that display bubble box ads to underlined words on your site.
- West Work At Home Agent - Not entirely online but this is worth a mention because it's won awards and is very legitimate. If you are an at-home Mom or free-lancer without work, you should check this out.
A few of you may remember our October 2006 post regarding the multiple ways of making money on the internet.
We've recently come across several more ways to make a little coin online. We've used the same rules as qualifiers that I will recap here:
What's NOT included: Taking Surveys, Get Paid to Surf the Internet, MLM, Programs with a ton of negative user experiences (based on researching forums, googling them, etc.), Contest Sites, "Buy my DVD, CD, Audiobook", etc.
What IS included: Things you can use to legitimately make money online. Everything from product reviews to writing code, creating videos.
So with that, here we go:
- ReviewMe - In order to participate, you must have a blog and it has to be active. Companies go to ReviewMe to advertise a product and ReviewMe asks their members to write a review of the product in exchange for cash.
In regards to ethics, ReviewMe mandates that the blogger/site owner indicate that they are being compensated to write the review AND the advertiser cannot insist on a positive review. This is the opposite of other similar services that don't mandate trustworthy behavior. Ultimately the goal is to spread the word honestly.
You can expect to earn $20 - $200 per review that you write. - Revver - I have no idea how I missed this on the first list. You basically upload your video to Revver and they attach an ad to it. You get 50% of what the ad makes. If any of you have been on YouTube or other video sites, you can easily understand that some videos, even bad ones at times, go viral and thousands of people see it, and your ad! If you want to see a sample of this, here is a link to Revver's 'most watched' page.
- Vizu - I really like the sound of this one and may try it on Dumb Little Man. Instead of putting ads on your site, you insert polls. You get paid based on the CPM (cost per thousand) that you set. The better positioning on your site, the better you will do. The nice part of this is that everything is embedded into your site allowing visitors to participate without leaving. That is key. PS - I learned about this site today from Digital Inspiration.
- Break.com - Upload your videos and pictures all day. If they like them and place them on their homepage, they will pay you $400 for original videos (you know, snowboarding off a house onto a trampoline and breaking your arm, etc) and up to $2000 for short films. They also have other random contests that pay out $50 a picture.
- CelltradeUSA: Refer your visitors to CelltradeUSA. I wrote about them recently, but they offer an affiliate program now. In short, if people need to get out of a cell phone contract, cell trade helps them by matching them with someone that wants to enter into a phone contact without all the fees.
- Bitwine - If you are an expert or even mildly knowledgeable on something, Bitwine provides a way for you to set a per minute rate and charge people to talk to you in a private meeting space. Bitwine is currently in "beta" so they are waiving fees which at some point will most likely be a % of your earnings. This sounds similar to Ether, which is a service we discussed in July.
- Clickbooth - Clickbooth is a site that blog owners or site owners can join to place Cost Per Action ads on their site. It has a good base of advertisers and is similar to Commission Junction or Linkshare.
- LoudLaunch - This service has not officially launched yet but it's something to watch. I first learned about this onMicro Persuasion and the consensus seems to be that it is similar to Review Me (which is on this list).
- Rent-A-Coder: As I type this, there are 2,299 requests on this site. These requests are opportunities for coders to earn money. Take on a project, get it done and get paid. I like this concept because Rent-A-Coders doesn't get paid a thing until you do therefore it is in their best interest to keep you busy.
- Shopping.com - Add widgets to your site that display products based on keywords. For the ultra-skilled, you can even customize the entire user experience by tapping into their API. I guarantee you've seen sites with this installed and you never realized it.
What follows is a quick summary of my main income streams from blogging. Before you read it though – keep in mind that every blog is unique in how it can make money. Some of the following income streams will work on some blogs a lot better than others – the key is to experiment with as many as possible and see what works best for you.
I run a variety of affiliate programs on my blogs – most of which bring in smaller amounts of money that don’t really justify a category of their own (but which certainly add up).
Last time I did a wrap up of how I make money blogging this category did not exist for me – I didn’t really have any of my own products to sell at all. However in the last year or so I’ve released 3 E-books – 
This is another newer category for me but one that continues to grow.
Private ad sales directly to advertisers have fallen for me in the last year (they previously ranked #3 on this list). This is partly due to a change in my own focus but also partly due to the economy as it is. I should note that this area does vary a little from month to month depending upon the campaigns we’re asked to run – we’ve had a couple of months where it actually ranked #2 in the last year.
