With all the doom and gloom news about the economy, there's never
been a better time to make an extra paycheck online with a minimal
amount of time and effort.
If you have an internet connection, you
can get started on the road to having the internet pay for your
mortgage, car payment, kids' college tuition, or even that special
vacation you've wanted. Now, don't worry that you have to be a tech whiz
to start a business online--I'm a complete techno-dunce.
A perfect part-time business would have to be very easy to start,
require little time and money and no technical expertise, be easy to
maintain with just a few hours a week and have a proven track record
with a high probability of success.
There's actually one other
important criteria--it has to be perfect for you! Experience has taught
me that it's different strokes for different folks, and there is no "one
size fits all" perfect business. You're much more likely to be
successful if you do something you find fun and interesting.
With that in mind, here are five of the best ways to make extra cash moonlighting on the internet:
1. Information marketing:
We're in the information age, and the internet provides you with the
ideal medium to exchange know-how for money. Do you know the best
fishing holes? How to play guitar? The secrets to a successful marriage?
A recipe for moist and delicious brownies? A trick for saving gas?
Think
about your career, your hobbies and your interests. Virtually anything
you know can be turned into extra cash. And don't worry if you think
you're not an expert--as long as you know more than the average person
on the topic, that information is valuable.
However, if you don't
believe you know anything that others would pay for (highly unlikely),
you can take someone else's know-how and make money that way! It could
be as easy as interviewing a veterinarian to help you create a
dog-training product.
Ninety-two percent of people go online
looking for information, and you could be one of the many people cashing
in on selling it.
2. eBay: One of the largest
online marketplaces makes it a piece of cake to get your own business
going. You can open an account and start making money within hours on
eBay!
While I dislike that whole "sell your garbage on eBay"
thing, there is some validity to it as many people get their start on
eBay by selling items from their garage or attic that pre-eBay would
have been thrown out. This approach is fine, but where is the business
once you run out of those items? If you want to create an eBay business
that doesn't require tons of time and effort, you need to leverage
products that can be sold over and over again.
This is one of the
reasons I'm not a fan of the "eBay seller for hire" kinds of
opportunities, where you sell things on eBay for other people. You get
access to stuff people want to sell, but because each item is unique you
have to work to list each and every one. There's no leverage there!
Take
a look at some of the largest eBay PowerSellers and notice how they
specialize in very specific products (iPods, cell phones,
dog
grooming kits, etc.). This allows them to leverage their efforts. A
listing is created once, and money is collected over and over again.Unlike
information marketing, this business requires the handling of physical
goods, but even that can be automated, so it shouldn't prevent you from
considering this idea.
3. Affiliate marketing:
This may possibly be the absolute laziest way to make money because it
doesn't require you to have a product, make a sale or ever have any
interaction with customers.
This is essentially a "referral"
business, or as one of my book contributors likes to call it,
"passionate recommendations." Basically, you can get paid a referral
commission just for sending people to sites (or vendors) that are set up
to pay affiliate fees once a sale is made. The vendor does all the
selling, fulfills the purchase and handles any customer service
issues--and you just collect your check..not bad!
Some people
choose affiliates based on who or what is paying the highest
commissions, and that certainly is a viable option. Most people opt to
choose products or goods they are passionate about so that the process
is much more fun and engaging.
Insurance and credit card companies
pay high commissions for referrals that convert to customers ($40 to
$150 and up), but the competition is fierce. It may pay well, but is
this something you'll enjoy doing for the long haul?
Alternatively,
you could take a look at your hobbies and other things you enjoy and
see which affiliate programs are a good match. As always, do your
research to verify the viability of your market. A good place to look
for ideas (and downloadable products just waiting for an affiliate) is
ClickBank.com.
4. Blogging: This business is best
suited for folks who enjoy communicating about a particular subject.
Think of blogs as journals of sorts. Although you can have a personal
blog, writing about a particular topic will have a higher chance for
financial success.
The range of topics is virtually endless--photography, sports cars, parenting, dieting, star gazing, the latest gadgets,
Hollywood
gossip--you name it, as there are blogs on just about everything you
can imagine. Don't worry about competition. Folks who read one blog are
apt to read others on a topic they're passionate about, as long as you
have something interesting to say.Once your blog starts getting
traffic, you can make money passively with things like AdSense (Google's
ad revenue sharing plan) or actively by doing a little bit of affiliate
marketing. You can see both types of moneymaking strategies at
SparkleCat.com, which is a blog about a person's
cat
.
What makes it interesting is that it's written from the cat's
perspective and often refers to her "human." At the top of the page are
Google AdSense ads, and sprinkled throughout are suggestions for things
like cat furniture and premium cat food, which are tied to an affiliate
program. Pretty cool, no?
5. Yahoo! Store: This
business is very similar to eBay in the sense that it's a monster-sized
marketplace but more similar to a store in the true sense of the word.
Think having your own retail outlet but without the hassles of rent,
employees, utilities and all the other expenses of a traditional
brick-and-mortar store.
The neat thing is that it can be as
hands-on or as hands-off as you want it to be because of companies
called drop-shippers, which can do most of the work for you. In fact,
you don't even pay for the inventory until you make a sale. How cool is
that?
Most people think the hard part of this business is creating
your virtual store, but nothing could be further from the truth. Yahoo!
has made the templates and wizards so easy that, dare I say, even a
caveman can do it!
The best way to ensure your success is to do
your homework and research what products people most want to buy. You
need to find a niche. Once again, start with things you enjoy. Let's say
you love fishing. What products do fishing folks want to buy most? (Or
get even more specific, like, what are bass fishermen looking to buy?)
Then
the task is to find the right source of those products so you can carry
them in your Yahoo! Store. In most cases, you'll be able to pull
pictures and product descriptions directly from your sources and plug
them right into your store.
As you can see, this business requires
a little bit more upfront work, but once it's done it can be maintained
with very little regular input on your part.
There you have it--five perfect part-time businesses. Are you ready to start moonlighting on the internet now?
