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15 internet oriented ideas to earn money online
Have you been looking out for opportunities to earn money online? The internet has thrown up plenty of opportunities to work online and earn money. This article highlights 15 best internet oriented ideas to tap various avenues on the internet and earn online.
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The internet is a treasure chest with plenty of opportunities waiting to knock the doors of a person who has the determination to tap the market. The internet has given us the access to millions of customers across the world to earn money online with minimal infrastructure cost and without much need for a huge qualification list to impress the employer. The web has a solution for every need and for every need, a customer. A person intending to earn from this world wide web just needs a computer and a broadband connection to start with this venture.
The internet is known as a best source of supplementary income and the income that a person can earn online is purely dependent on the time and efforts invested in this venture. Let’s have a look at the various income earning opportunities available online and decide on the avenue which suits us the most. I have also quoted live instances of known people who have actually earned money online.
Article writing
Job Avenue: Writing own blog, Guest blogging, content writers, technical writers, e-books, copy editors.
If writing is your passion and you want your literary work published, blogging is the key. A writer’s thoughts are worth a lot now. The scribbles can earn a million bucks if the writer can effectively market his blog. If one is unsure of his talent and just wants to judge his passion, just start a blog and check if you can keep the spark bright within you even after few weeks of continuous writing. However, there are thousands of bloggers flooding the web today and to get noticed, a blogger’s work should be better than others. Tips to improve traffic to blog can be had from the article How to submit an article for increasing blog traffic
Guest blogging can be a stepping stone to learn the nuances of this trade. Joining a writer’s community or submitting articles to other sites which help in improving writing and traffic to the writer’s work are the best options.
A web content writer is a lucrative option for people with good command over the language. Every website requires content to be developed for its audience and requires writers to who can write in such a way that the customers can be retained and new customers attracted regularly. Excellent analysis and quick thinking are the main skill sets required of a content writer. One can initially explore the world of blog writing and guest blogging to gain experience on SEO techniques before entry into the world of content writing.
Technical writing is a form of technical writing in the field of engineering, science, medical, hardware, software, electronics, bio-technology and so on. A technical writing provides communication about technical or specialized subjects by using technology or provides instructions of how to do a particular activity or process. Experts in certain fields can take up the avenue of technical writing for earning online.
E-books are another medium to earn money online. A person who has honed his skillset and is confident of being an expert in his field, he can pen his thoughts in the form of an e-book and publish it. One does not need a seller to publish it. The virtual bazaar is the best place to be tapped. Sites like amazon.com offer free direct publishing programme. E-books are in high demand nowadays and with the advent of tablets like I-Pad, Samsung tablets, the e-book craze has gone up and there are many people writing exclusively for this segment.
Instances of earning
An acquaintance joined freelance.com and started taking up content writing projects during free time. He started by taking up simple projects just to get a feel of the expectations of the clients. He later knew the nuances of the trade and started bidding appropriately and negotiated effectively with the clients. He also started taking some advance amount from the clients to avoid problems of defaulting payments. He has now started earning around Rs40000/- per month as extra income from this site.
I personally vouch for this site www.indiastudychannel.com which is an excellent platform to share knowledge and earn part time income by writing articles on various subjects, replying to queries in 'Ask Expert section' and so on.
Affiliate/Reseller
Job Avenue: Sign an affiliate program and market products/services
One of the best ways to earn money online for a person with strong marketing skills is to become an affiliate/ reseller. An affiliate is a person who promotes and markets the products of others, either through his website or through other websites selling articles like e-bay, and obtains a commission on every product sold. One need not own the product to be able to sell them online. The person just has to sign an affiliate program with a company and start selling the products under the referral link allocated to him.
Online enterprise through e-commerce portals
Job Avenue: Sale of products through marketing sites
The online web-world is a perfect stage for start-ups and small entrepreneurs who cannot afford to rent a shop. Maintaining a website and selling the products is a very good idea but costs in maintaining a website, time involved in maintaining the website and establishing the credibility in this huge market is a very tough task. The cost effective option for such people are the e-commerce sites and marketing sites like E-Bay.
Instances of earning
The newspaper Economic Times came out with the story of a young Indian from Gujarat who was fond of collecting autographs since childhood. He made his first money by selling copies of the autographs to an antique dealer. He then approached the E-bay site and started selling his autographs on this site. He also contacted a few autograph dealers abroad, offered 100% money back guarantee if autographs found fake and finally earned a good deal from this sale.
There are similar people on the web leveraging the internet mode to earn money online and create wealth. The web is known to have a buyer for everything and for everything, a seller.
Freelancing work
Job Avenue: Software projects,
Every professional expert in his field of work be it technology, writing, medicine, engineering or any other field where he can assure customer satisfaction with his own work can step into the world of freelance work. There are many contract oriented sites like Elance and O’desk which offers contracts on virtually every field from programming to content writing to data entry to interior designing to browsing and help many professionals earn money online. There are also some specific sites which focus on a particular field like chillibreeze.com, indiastudychannel.com all focus on writing skills.
Instances of earning
My friend started taking up software projects through bidding in www.odesk.com. He was working as a database manager in an IT company. He started working alongwith his two friends on projects after office hours and built a good reputation in the course of three to four years. He then quit his job, started a new software company and employed people to complete projects on time. The new company started bidding for many projects and completed them on time. Many clients started contacting his company independently and finalised contracts with this company. The success of this company which is based on purely online contracts is so huge that they had been awarded the most enterprising entrepreneur award by the state Government two years back. They are three partners and each of them earns around Rs2.50 lakhs per month.
E-tutoring
Job Avenue: Online tutors, webinars, online power point presentations
The demand for good tutors is increasing every day. A person with good teaching skills and who is an expert in any field can earn money online through this avenue of e-tutoring. Tutorvista is a very popular site for this online tutoring. Business opportunities for a e-tutor can be read in detail through the article How to earn online through e-tutoring.
Once established through these sites, the tutors can start their own website for teaching the students, providing webinars to them at a price and providing online assignments for all courses. There are many children willing to pay well for the tutions from the comfort of their homes.
Instances of earning
My aunt at Chennai had to leave her job to take of her family. She was however, uneasy and wanted to utilise her knowledge. She joined the site "tutorvista.com" and started conducting tution classes for two hours each day. She conducts those classes when her children are away to school and she has finished her household chores for the day. After the classes, she has sufficient time to prepare for the next day lessons, assignments, review the submitted assignments and so on. She earns around Rs20000 to Rs25000 per month on an average. This is much more than what she was earning as a teacher at school.
Many educations institutions have also started migrating to online coaching classes for their courses. These opportunities make e-tutoring a profitable money making avenue and earning money online.
Software applications development
Job Avenue: Games, music, business related, personal finance related, children knowledge world, science and medical concept related applications for smartphones and tablets.
The craze for smart phones and tablets is very high nowadays with all cadres of people. The demand for such devices is mainly due to the apps available at the online stores of these device corporates. The Apple I-tunes store has more than 3 million apps and Google Android phones have more than 1 million applications in their store. There are many software developers engaged in the business of developing applications for their stores and selling them online. Most of these apps sell like hot cakes. Developing and selling self-developed apps is a lucrative way of earning money online. These applications provide the highest profit margin as there are no investment costs to develop and market.
If developing an application and selling it so not viable for a start-up entrepreneur, then the leading app corporates and media entertainment companies invite applications from new developers, fine tune them and sell the applications in their own name in the app stores. The profit margin is shared proportionately as per the contract terms with the developer. The profit made through these kinds of tie-ups makes this option a lucrative opportunity to earn money online.
Instances of earning
An IT professional from an MNC corporate started developing applications for the Apple I tunes store. He developed small applications like finance dictionary, simple mind games, children alphabets in an animated way etc. He sold them at very low rates of 1 dollar per download but the traffic was not much. He then quit his job and started a separate office and employed two young software experts to assist him in developing applications. He also tied up with Rovio Media Entertainment company (who is the owner of the application Angry birds) to fine tune his application. They made changes to the already developed app, changed the look of the app, inserted some animation features in it and marketed it in their own name. The sales were tremendous. They had an agreement to share profits proportionately depending on the sale. The first application with tie-up has earned him around Rs.100,000/- in the initial month itself. He is now developing applications with more confidence and enthusiasm and is confident of earning better in future applications.
Medical transcription
Job Avenue: Writing and typing details as dictated by medical professionals
Medical transcription implies making printed copies of dictated material of doctors and other medical practitioners. The process might involve writing of medical history, laboratory reports, consultation notes, clinical analysis, letters and other medical reports. The material dictated by the medical personnel needs to be typed swiftly and accurately which in itself is a challenging job. However, the companies offer per document rates and over a period of time, when the accuracy and speed of a medical transcriptor develops, the earnings also increase. A medical transcript person requires good knowledge of medical terms and a good typing speed. Many medical students tap this avenue to earn money online.
Inbound call center
Job Avenue: Tele-calling, customer handling at home
Many companies prefer to hire the task of call centres to various people online rather than setting up an office and employing people. They grant contracts to people to attend to all calls at the convenience of their home, seek solutions from the computers at home and satisfy the customer queries in the process. The inbound call centre helps the company save on infrastructure costs.
Researching to trace the corporates offering inbound call centre agent opportunities can be a good and lucrative option of earning money online. The agents can work for two or more corporates at a time. This can be either full time or part time work as per the convenience of the person and provide a good avenue to earn money online.
Sale of photographs
Job Avenue: Online exhibition, free downloads, sale to corporates and magazines.
A good photographer can make money by selling his photos online. A person with a good photography skill and a good camera has a good opportunity of making money online by displaying his photographs online either through his own website or other sites like Fotolia, dreamstock etc and earn through every download of a photograph.
Similarly, online stores can be contacted for sale of photographs. Stock photography is a good option of making money. Detailed money making opportunities through photography can be read from the article How can creative people earn online from music, photography, graphic designing and artwork.
You Tube
Job Avenue: Music videos, children videos, cooking, travelogue, performance clippings etc.
Google’s ‘You Tube’ can be a great option for earning money online for any person who has a dramatic side hidden within him. A person can create their own video, be it music video or any performance and upload it in You Tube.
Similarly, a person who has good animation skills can develop animation videos and upload them in You Tube. Children rhymes, stories, cartoons and multi-media lessons are a hit in You Tube channel. A person can think of a good topic searched frequently by others and develop them in the form of a video to upload in You Tube to gain viewership.
One can sign with ‘You Tube Partnership Programme’ to earn good revenue and also the ads displayed on the video page helps a person earn revenue.
Advertising
Job Avenue: Sale of space in website/blog for ads, RSS feeds, display advertising.
Owner of a website can sell the space in their website or blog to companies who display ads in them and the owner of the website earns with every click on the ads. The placing of ads after sorting them is absolutely free of cost. The profit that can be earned from pay per click option can be determined by the traffic to the website or blog and also the contracted click cost and rate per click. Google Adsense is the best option to advertise others being Bidvertiser, Kontera, blogads and so on. RSS feeds and direct banner are also other modes of earning online through advertising.
Virtual office
Job Avenue: Data entry, Record maintenance, Online research, forum hosting, office secretary work, ticketing.
Every person is approaching and tapping the virtual world to get a good bargain and market his skills. Most of the small and medium companies prefer to outsource office and virtual assistant is the most sought after online job in present day. The companies need a person for running their day-to-day processes but do not wish to hire a full time employee. They rather prefer to utilise the services of people available online to perform the work of the corporate. The virtual assistant is expected to perform all tasks like a traditional secretary at a office would perform like typing, handle and manage bills, reimburse expenditure, keep a record of meetings and so on.
Similarly, individual tasks like data entry, ticketing, researching for corporates can be taken up as separate contracts and billed accordingly. The corporates also hire online personnel to write dossiers for their company and publish them through social networking sites.
Stock/ Forex trading
Job Avenue: Stock market, forex market, commodity market, mutual funds
A stock or forex market has been a time tested opportunity for people who have good knowledge of the stock and forex market and are ready to take risks in the process. Almost all financial institutions provide a stock trading platform to trade in stock and forex online. A person can invest in the shares of a particular company after research of its financial data and market movement of stock. He can sell the stocks when market turns good and the price of shares increases. Similarly the forex market also offers opportunities to make profit from the movement of currency rates around the world.
With steady investments, caution and informed decisions, people have been known to make huge profits through this online market. The tips and techniques of investing in stock market can be had from the article How to earn online through stock/forex trading.
A moderate risk taking investor can invest in good mutual funds online apart from commodity markets and earn profits by taking advantage of investment in multiple stocks with a small amount of money. A beginner in the field of mutual fund should invest only after knowledge of various terminologies and functioning of the mutual fund industry. A guide to investing in mutual funds can be had from the article Beginners guide to mutual funds.
Instances of earning
I have myself earned through stock trading though mutual funds have been a source of investment for me. I have a stock trading account with www.icicidirect.com. I am a medium risk taker and monitor the markets for about two hours every day in morning and mid-day. I place orders for trade during that period and earn around Rs5000 to Rs10000 depending on the market movement every month. A full time trader with a good appetite for risk earns in lakhs.
Internet marketing
Job Avenue: Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation, Referral marketing, Email marketing, Social network marketing, inbound marketing, video marketing.
Internet marketing generally refers to marketing of products or services online. This is also known as e-marketing, web advertising, web marketing and so on. Internet marketing not only involves marketing on the internet but also marketing through mails and wireless media. It involves combination of various processes like design, development and marketing like Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Search engine marketing (SEM), advertisements in different websites and blogs, mobile advertising, mail marketing.
Once a website is created, it needs to be optimised for SEO and after this optimisation, the search engine marketing takes over. A SEO/SEM expert can optimise a website and market it in various possible ways increasing the traffic to the website. Marketing across the net involves writing articles about the website, reviews, writing press release material, blog posting, submission of site to various search engines, social bookmarking etc. Most companies hire online SEO.SEM experts and pay them to conduct SEM for them.
GPT programme
Job Avenue: Paid to click/view, Paid to read, paid to search, paid to promote, paid to post, paid to refer
GPT implies ‘Get Paid To’ and these are websites which pay a person for signing up with various advertisers. Advertisers are always working with the aim of increasing traffic to a website by attracting new customers. The GPT sites come out with an option to sign up to their site so that the service can be utilised a very nominal cost and the person trying the product gets paid for it.
Nowadays, most websites offer money for just signing up on their websites, newsletters, games and filling online services. This type of option is suitable to people with no particular skill set but just want to earn some part time money from the internet. Online survey is a simple process of registering and answering questions with a legitimate site. Similarly, playing games can earn money or goodies online. Sites like ibibo.com, zapak.com offer goodies by way of playing games in their website. Some websites also offer cash for searching content on their site, posting content, referring someone to the site, and also to read their content. This option can help earn for a pocket money online.
Conclusion
There are millions of websites and opportunities on the web. A person should be cautious enough to choose the genuine sites by reading reviews and contacting other members of the site before entering any site to earn online. I have quoted Instances of earnings of people earning through these online means who are all known to me and have been very successful in the virtual world. They are a source for inspiration for me and many of them striving to make a mark in the world of internet. A determined and hard working person can combine various online money making avenues to earn huge amount regularly.
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| Author: Shaurya 27 Jun 2012 | Member Level: Bronze Points : 0 | A comprehensive article. very useful.
| | Author: Bhakti Savla 30 Jun 2012 | Member Level: Gold Points : 0 | Hi Aparna,
An extremely elaborative article! A perfect place to find all online earning options. Thanks for sharing some extremely valuable information.
| | Author: Aparna Shankarraman 30 Jun 2012 | Member Level: Gold Points : 0 | Thanks Bhakti!
| | Author: Aishwarya Rai 11 Jul 2012 | Member Level: Silver Points : 2 | Dear Aparna, I enjoyed reading your article. It's a well designed and planned at each level. You really did a great job. I appreciate your work.
This article helped me a ;ot in learning the ways to earn money through internet. I surfed through thousands of sites to know about how actually this earning process works. But finally I got it clearned here in ISC now. Credit goes to you.
I hope you keep writing such informative contents and contribute a lot to this site.
Thankyou.
With regards,
Aishwarya
Life is beautiful. Enjoy it!
| | Author: Aparna Shankarraman 11 Jul 2012 | Member Level: Gold Points : 0 | Thanks for appreciating this article, Aishwarya.....
| | Author: Meera Chandrasekharan 17 Jul 2012 | Member Level: Gold Points : 1 | Dear Aparna,
I have been here for more than six months, and I have been absent the last month because of my exams. Hence I hadn't seen any of your articles before. In my whole experience here, I haven't seen a more comprehensive and well-organised article, except for a few articles by Vandana Ma'am. Kudos. :)
| | Author: Aparna Shankarraman 18 Jul 2012 | Member Level: Gold Points : 0 | Thanks Meera for the encouragement. Such good comments motivate me to write more and better.
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