Extra Income Ideas: The Internet

Blogging – Blogging, short for web logging, is about setting up a simple website and making short but frequent comments about…well…anything that’s on your mind. The topics of some of these blogs are pure vanity and resemble a high school girl’s diary. Other blogs are highly targeted to a very narrow topic that could be about some aspect of a hobby, politics, religion, family life or a more commercial subject designed to make money.

The easy part about blogging is setting up a blog. Many websites like Blogger.com or Wordpress.com are set up with simple online tools for creating a custom blog out of their pre-designed templates. The more difficult task is getting interested readers to find and return to your blog and buy stuff.

I have read many books on the topic of how to set up and make money with a blog but none better than Ben Benwell’s Blogging to the Bank. He claims to have earned over $1 million with his different strategies working only part time. If you would like more information and to take advantage of a free blog template that Ben is giving away just click here: Blogging for Extra Income.

Affiliate Marketing – There are literally over 100,000 companies that will give a commission to almost anyone that will send buying visitors to their website. Just about every service and product you can imagine has an affiliate program.

Often, if you look at the bottom of a commercial web page, one of the links may say something like “affiliates” or “partners”. If you follow the link it will likely take you to a page that describes their affiliate program. After filling out an online application some companies will review it and insist that they approve of your pre-existing website. Most companies, however, will approve your application automatically and instantly via email even if you don’t have a website.

Upon approval you will have access to banners and coded text links to put on your blog or website. When one of your visitors clicks on a link they will be transferred to the website of that company. Your link contains your id code so that the company knows that you sent the visitor. If the visitor buys something you will be sent a payment. Your job is to send them potential buyers and they handle the credit card payments, shipping, returns and all customer service.

One of the most successful ways to sell affiliate products is to create a review site that compares the top 3 to 5 competitive products in the same category. The job of a review site is to pre-sell a potential buyer based on your recommendation before they go to the company site to buy.

In the beginning try selling digital products like software, eBooks, video lesson programs or online instructional courses. These items have little or no printing and shipping costs so they can be very profitable. Often the commissions on these items can be as high as 40% to 75% of the sell price. With hard goods like office supplies, you may be hard pressed to get 1% to 2% commissions.

Like many businesses, there are clever profit leaders that make millions of dollars every year and some that are content to earn an extra $500 per month. I have had success earning thousands of dollars every month for many years with affiliate marketing. I like the time flexibility and the fact that I can literally receive orders from far-away places like Australia while I sleep.

The best beginner book I have ever read, (and I have read about 100), is a book by, Rosalind Gardner, an air traffic controller turned Super Affiliate (she claims to have earned over $400,000 one year in affiliate commissions). The book is called The Super Affiliate Handbook.

For a lot more information about affiliate marketing and Rosalind’s eBook, click here.

Flipping Domain Names – A domain name is simply the name set aside for a website like this: BestExtraIncomeIdeas.com . It consists of two parts. The first part is the name (“BestExtraIncomeIdeas” )and the second part is the tld designation (.com).

Certain domain names have greater value than others. For example short names using one or two words or more valuable than 3 word phrases or more. A partial list of the other factors include:

·     Hyphenated words have less value than non-hyphenated – bluesguitar vs. blues-guitar.

·     Numbers in a domain name written as digits (1,2…101 etc.) are less valuable than numbers written in cursive

·     Correct spelling is more valuable than misspellings

·     Domain names ending in “.com” have the most value with “.net” pulling in second

It is important to know that if a proper name of a business, organization, product or person is purchased by someone other than an official of those organizations you may be legally forced to relinquish it. In the early days of the internet, scalping domain names was a common problem.

Names can easily be researched and purchase for about $10 for a year from websites like Godaddy.com.

Bookmark this page

Facebook Twitter Digg BlinkList Delicious Diigo Fark Google Bookmarks Livejournal Ma.gnolia Netvouz Newsvine Reddit Slashdot Smarking Spurl Stumbleupon Technorati Wists Yahoo My Web