Can You Make a Full Time Living Online?
Many people ask if they can make a full time income online. The answer is that many people can actually make a decent living, maybe even get rich online just as in the offline world. If you are considering your transition to the digital economy, consider these three methods of making a living online.
Become a Freelance Writer for Hire
Many people simply don’t have the skill or the time to write what they need written to support online efforts. They may be attempting to generate advertising revenue, or marketing some product or service. If you are a skilled writer there is a of work out there.
Sites like Demand Studios, Wisegeek and others will pay approved writers to produe articles starting with preselected titles. All the WiseGeek articles titles are in the form of a question, while Demand Studio’s has a stable of websites they produce content for. Both sites have a writer selection process. Expect to be paid between $4 and $15 per short article.
Constant Content is a better choice, though the rewards may not be as immediate because you submit articles and wait for buyers to purchase them. You set your pay rate which should be much more than than Demand Studios pays. For example I recently sold a 750 word article on a specialized topic for $150 at Constant Content. It was a topic I know all about, so zero research time went into that article. It did take a few months for the right buyer to arrive though. A nice little bonus is that authors who join based on your referral get 5% of your sales, out of the site’s site of the sale. I say little because with over 150 referred authors this has netted me just $38 so far. I obviously recommend Constant Content because I believe in it and I make money selling articles there, not because the referrals are very profitable.
Become a Professional Blogger
Blogging is not a get rich quick plan, but if you start, maintain and promote a focused blog after a while you will amass enough content, backlinks, pagerank and Alexa rank to get your blog noticed. Once your blog gets noticed opportunities will start coming your way and advertising starts to pay off.
Investigate good resources to help you build a better blog and monitize that blog. Innovative Passive Income is one resource (check out the resources page here for all kinds of ways to monetize a blog). Pat Flynn’s Smart Passive Income blog is another great resource of ideas and tools.
Become an Internet Marketer
Becoming an internet marketer is pretty straight forward, but pretty challenging at the same time. This post on 10 steps to make a living online details some key considerations as you embark on a quest to make money online as a marketer.
Can You Make a Living Online? 10 Steps
Many people ask “Can I make a living online?” The answer is… it depends. I know, not what you want to hear, but read on. Making a living online requires a few keys:
1. Making a living online is some combination of running your own business and freelancing. You need to understand some basic business concepts or you will never succeed (or if you find success through dumb luck, you will not be able to sustain it).
2. There is no boss online so you must be self motivated. If you need a time clock or someone to tell you what to do forget it – stick to a work for hire job.
3. Find something you love to do, a topic you care about. If you don’t believe in and love what you do life is drudgery. If you don’t love it, you will not stick with it. Also, lack of passion will show in your work and the monetary results.
Sure there are topics you could tackle that are not glamorous (marketing financial services anyone?) but every topic can be spun to be interesting somehow.
4. Be helpful. People don’t want to be sold, they want to be helped in the journey to buy. Provide great information and link to useful info, rather than pushing what you are selling. The benefits are many:
-others might link to or “like” your content helping out. There are SEO benefits to links and likes.
-visitors will feel more at ease.
-you deliver value to people and they than feel more comfortable buying from you. Blogger Pat Flynn exemplifies this principal as he delivers top quality informative content and only works in affiliate links to useful products he recommends, never hard selling them. Readers feel like rewarding Pat and he makes a very good living online.
-More quality informative content brings search engine traffic.
5. Think outside the box and don’t be afraid to jump into online business out of necessity. This blogger in Malaysia found that blogging pays more than engineering when he had trouble getting a job in a recession so he started a freebee site and than grow other web properties.
6. Learn about the tools to succeed online. Here are some places to start:
-There are many websites that share revenue and are great for building backlinks from.
-Autoresponders and mail programs are great for managing mailing lists
-Unique online content marketplaces like Constant Content are great for sourcing high quality content for your projects. Odesk is another great source for inexpensive help on your projects – no need to learn to build a website when you can have a nice website whipped up in India for $50 overnight.
7. If cash is needed faster, consider working for others freelancing as you develop your own passive income (from online properties) sources. Some places to start:
-(Constant Content is also a good place to earn money writing)
-Odesk is a fantastic freelance marketplace
-Demand Studios – I don’t recommend them, but many writers have some success here.
8. Find a good horse and ride it. This is what one of my early online inspirations WriterGig did, building up a very nice residual ehow income. When you find a good plan that works for you, wash, rinse and repeat – in her case hundreds of short ehow articles.
9. Never stop exploring new opportunities as you continue on a quest to earn a living online,. The online work is constantly changing and what works today might not work tomorrow. It might also work better tomorrow – you just never know. eHow died as an residual income opportunity, but WriterGig had already developed skills in niche sites and other areas she could make even more money from.
10. Have fun and always keep learning! Earning online is like a big puzzle, the scope of which keeps changing. Keep exploring and learning and you too will become an expert on earning online.
Tagged as: blog income, blogging, Smart Passive IncomeSPI 025 : More Online Business Success Stories from People Who Don’t Teach People How to Make Money Online – Part 2
In this session of the Smart Passive Income Podcast, we continue what we started in SPI Session #24 and bring in 4 more fantastic and inspiring success stories from people who are making a living online and generating a passive income without having to teach others how to make money online.
As I mentioned before, many people think that the only way to really make a living online is to talk about making money online, but these interviews prove that you don’t need to do that.
Jordan Cooper of FM Britain - Some of you might already know Jordan Cooper. He has a blog at NotAProBlog.com and you may have read his guest posts on Problogger or Copyblogger. What you probably didn’t know about Jordan (I didn’t!) is that he generates significant passive income from a website in a niche totally outside of the blogging world that involves a video game that I’m sure most of us in the United States have never heard of before. He’s a stand-up guy (and comedian!) who offers some golden advice in this interview.
Cara Faus of Health Home Happy - Cara’s success story is definitely one to admire. She’s not making millions, but she’s changing several lives and is able to support her family while doing so. In this interview Cara shares how GAPS (Gut and Psychology Syndrome) and her daughter inspired her to create a membership site that is helping hundreds of people – primarily through her own grain free meal plans.
David Risley from PCMech.com – I’m sure many of you know who David Risley is. His website at DavidRisley.com consistently provides some of the most useful blogging and make money online advice on the web.
“But Pat! I thought this session was about people who make money outside of that industry! What’s the deal?!”
The reason I included David in this series is because like myself, like Darren Rowse from Problogger.net, and like most of the other people I know who run successful websites that teach people how to blog and make money online – he first had success (and built proof) outside of this niche, and I recommend that anyone who wants to teach people how to make money online to do the same first.
David shares his journey from the beginning which eventually led him to his very profitable blog at PCMech.com, a technology-based website for normal people.
David being David, he shares some awesome advice for those of us who are just starting to get our feet wet online.
Cornelius Fichtner from Cornelius-Fichner.com (among other things!) – I met Cornelius right when I was first starting to do business online. We are both members of the Internet Business Mastery Academy and I’ve been hooked on his story ever since. It’s been long overdue, but I’m really happy to have Cornelius on the SPI Podcast because he’s doing extremely well online. In the interview, he also shares a HUGE mistake that he made when he first started out that he cannot undo. Those of us doing business online, even if we have a business already, should definitely not miss what he says.
In each of these interviews, we talk about:
What they were all doing before they started their online businesses, and when and why they decided to go online.Monetization techniques.The stuggles they experienced while building their online businesses.What they each love most about doing business online and earning a passive income.And more…A big thank you to all of the guests on today’s session for their stories and inspiration!
Oh, and just for fun, there’s a surprise guest appearance during this session – a 5th guest – someone who is a very very very special to me.
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Enjoy the show!
Cheers!
Transcript:
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Tagged as: podcastSPI 026 : The Two Types of Relationships You Must Develop Online in Order to Succeed
In this session of the Smart Passive Income Podcast, I talk about the importance of two different types of relationships that we need to develop and why they both play a major role in the success of an online business.
In the online world, if you try to go at it alone you’re going to be left behind. Here, I provide you with some helpful strategies, tips and examples that you can use to develop strong relationships with both your audience and your peers, which will help take your business to the next level.
In this session, I cover:
How relationships can increase your bottom line.Why offline relationships matter online too.How to love your readers and make them love you back.What the acronym R.A.O.K. stands for, and why it’s important.What I really think about “Networking”.How to find a mastermind group.Sock Knitting (lol!)And more…Right click here to download the MP3
Please subscribe below to the podcast to get automatic updates:
Thank you so much for your support, and if you have yet to leave a rating or review, please leave me an honest one on iTunes (we’re up to 194 5-star reviews!) by clicking here. It will help the show and its ranking in iTunes immensely! I appreciate it!
Enjoy the show!
Cheers!
Transcript:
Click Here to Download the Transcript (PDF)
Tagged as: podcast