A quick way to make some money online and clear up that clutter!
Depending on where you are located in the world, your either just ending winter or summer. Either way, the change of seasons can be a great time to clean out some old things from your cupboards and organize your life a bit more. I like to use this opportunity of going into spring to do a bit of spring cleaning of things I don’t need or want any more. Usually these are small items like CDs that I didn’t like or PlayStation games that I’ve finished and are happy to get rid of.
In the past I’ve listed these on eBay and while I continue to do so I’d be interested to hear from readers if they prefer to use other services to sell their used items.
So the advantage of using a site like ebay is pretty obvious to most of us who are used to buying online, but basically you can get your item that is for sale out to a much wider audience than normally possible, especially through the local trading post.
I like to collect about 5-10 items and then set up auctions for them on eBay and then set them starting about 1 every hour or so. Depending on the value will affect how you set up the auction rules.
Some things I have sold and been very happy with the amount of money I made on eBay include but are not limited to:
- Old 2nd Gen Ipod.
- Various CDs and DVDs, some of which i made more than I bought them for due to value packs or discount bins!
- Playstation 1 and 2 games
- Old mobile phones and a PDA
- Some McDonald happy meal toys from the 1980’s. I was actually going to throw these in the bin, but someone paid about $50 for a few pens that they wanted for their collection. Could not believe it but was very happy with that one!
- Computer accessories such as keyboards, USB hubs and cables.
- Photos that I have taken and had printed (Landscape photography is one of my favourite past-times)
- Camera lenses and video accessories
So far I haven’t really made any money from clothing items, but I know plenty of friends who have picked up bargains, such as new jeans for like 10 bucks. I think also I tend to wear my clothes so long that they aren’t worth the effort of selling only to have them not sell. I’d rather give them to the Goodwill or another charity.
I’m sure many people have had great success selling random things on eBay like furniture, cars or collectibles. There are plenty of people who are making some serious money by trading stuff one bay every day. It takes some hard work though so don’t expect to quit your job overnight!
How to maximize how much money your making online
It has often been said in the business world to not put all of your eggs in the one basket if you want to make money. This could be true for investing on the stock market, types of assets you own such as property, or the area that your business specializes in. The reason people say not to put all your eggs into the one basket is to diversify risk and also returns. It is a much safer strategy to various assets or ventures rather than only one. The reason is that if that one avenue of investment or business fails…then quite possibly you have lost everything.
So, how does this apply to the online world? It is still very true. If you have one great website that is your only source of income, what happens if Google suddenly decides it doesn’t like it any more and it disappears from all search results? Or perhaps it is on a topic / product that becomes out of date very quickly. Where is your source of income if the focus shifts then?
Well, given the current economic climate especially now is a great time to analyse and evaluate where your income is coming from online. If you have one site only that is generating you a steady income then have you thought about branching out and starting up another site? I personally have several sites with different niches / products covered so that I can maximise returns on popular areas while not relying on one specific site for my income. This may be true also for the ways you generate revenue on your site.
For instance, if your site makes money only from Google Adsense and nothing else, then have you thought about branching out and offering some product referrals for affiliate commissions, or selling sponsored advertising on your site directly to the advertiser? Even within one site it is best practice to branch out and diversify how your site generates income for you.
On this site for instance you will notice that I sell various products that I personally use and recommend but also sell advertising places in addition to displaying Google Adsense. I’m also looking into other options in the future to take this futher.
Does all of this really maximise how much your making online? Well if done correctly, yes. You see there will always be people who don’t click on Google Adsense ads, so your not going to make any money from them, but they may be interested in the product your referring or perhaps one of your sponsors, so its a matter of catering to various tastes.
If your providing useful information and people are wanting to donate something to you for your services, then you can even add a facility to accept donations from your visitors.
I like the idea of building up a small group of very powerful sites though as this will provide a much larger area of coverage on the internet and your ability to make some serious money online will increase as each site becomes a dominate force in the related niche. And when one site is doing well, that is a great time to invest in another site so that in time, all of your sites will be strong and filling your pockets with money. It is also a safeguard against the unimaginable of a site getting banned, becoming unpopular, or similarly overtaken by bigger and better sites.
Even though the saying to not put all your eggs in the one basket is true, its also even more relevant to know that its no use spreading yourself or your resources out so thinly that you don’t succeed in any. If you want to make serious money online then build each site up gradually and dedicate the required time to making it a successful site. As discussed in other posts it could be 2 or more years before your making a decent income from one site, depending on the level of skill, competition and various other factors, so make sure you stick at it. Every day there are new sites popping up all over the internet hoping to make money online and many of them are here one day and gone the next. The only ones that make any money are those that are in it for the long term.
Why you need a business plan to make money
If you have been thinking about starting up a little side business recently, or want to go out and become your own boss you need to really start the process by developing a business plan. A business plan is the best way to make sure you are on your way to success and can either save you money or help you to make money in the long run.
A lot of businesses fail, their owners might go bankrupt or lose all of their savings, on an idea that they had that they thought would take off and make them rich but in the end they rushed into it before really dealing with the idea, and developing a plan for success.
So what can you do to make sure that your business idea flourishes and you can prevent any nasty surprises? Well, I have written a list of steps you should follow before you do anything. If you want to really make money from your hobby or business idea you need to start acting like it is a business from the start, so get a pen and paper and think about the following.
1. Define your idea
Is it a service or a real product that you plan on selling? Really flesh it out and work through all of your thoughts, concept and strategy. Some questions to think about are, is this already available? What is your competition? Is it something you are passionate about? A lot of people change direction in their lives to something that they don’t actually have much interest in it, but think it is a well paid area or something that they can make a lot of money quickly from but in reality without passion for something you will never be able to succeed with it.
2. Test your idea
Once you have really defined your idea for your business then start to test it. This could include some market research, bouncing the idea off some professionals, such as your accountant, or even just friends and family. A lot of people will set aside a small budget to setup a basic webpage just to collect some info and pay for some Google Adwords. You might set aside $500 for this and see what the response is like. You don’t even have to have finished the product yet but collect their details, ask what they would want from your product or service and see what the response is like. If you don’t get any traffic then maybe people aren’t looking for what your offering…
3. Decide to proceed or not
Some of the most successful people in business know when to say no. This might be very hard, especially if your passionate about your idea but if it looks like it won’t work out, don’t waste your time, money and risk losing everything on something that is most likely going to fail anyway. The principle, throwing a whole lot of mud at the wall, and some of it will stick doesn’t apply to a new business. If your aiming at something that can’t be reached, then you still won’t hit the target, no matter how much resources and time, energy etc you put into it. Sometimes its better to realise ok, I need to go back to step 1 and redfine my idea, or perhaps look into a different area that your passionate about.
4. Proceed with more planning
So your ready to give it a go. You have a great idea and you want to take it to the world…or at least your local neighborhood. Start by documenting everything down, such as your goals, your costs, your ambitions, the risks, the obstacles and competition. You could do this via flowcharts or spreadsheets, whatever works. Be aware of everything from the start. If you need to get a product developed, how much is it going to cost you? How much do you need to sell the product for to break even and make a profit? How many products or services do you need to sell a week? A day?
I’m not going to go into heaps of detail here as this is a massive area. My advice would be to seek some professional advice from a local expert as whatever I say will be subject to your individual needs, idea, concept and country where your based. You might need to seek legal advice as well to make sure you are abiding by the local laws and rules.
5. Review
After you have developed your business plan, I strongly urge you to review it regurlarly. Is it still relevant, based on what you know now, has it changed since you wrote it. Are you heading in the same direction you wanted to 12 months ago?
The final point I would like to make is that most businesses struggle in their early years. Take some massive companies like Google and Microsoft for instance. Both of whom started from a garage with a handful of people. Don’t expect to get rich overnight. Work at it, do everything carefully and don’t take risks that aren’t worth taking. Unless you can back it up by some serious market research its probably better to save your money and put it into an existing company via shares or even just a cash deposit account than waste it on a business that was never destined to succeed.
Good luck!
Making Money Online: What’s the fuss all about?
With more and more people having access to the internet these days, the whole economy is changing as far as the way people are interacting with each other, both on a social and personal level and also a commercial and business level. The opportunities to reach a mass audience have grown beyond the local newspaper or phone book to potentially people right around the globe in hundreds of countries.
With the rise of the internet and the marketing and business opportunities available, more and more people are realising their dream of making money online. How are they doing this? Well people who have previously had some desire to create wealth in a passive way or an active way are using the tools available to sell their product or service in ways never before possible.
The main tool that is available of course is Google. This search engine is the core behind many people’s success. with such a stronghold and significant brand across the globe, whenever we want to find something we want, we log onto Google and search for it. And if you don’t rank in Google, then you don’t get your business. Simple as that. The trick is, its not as easy as it sounds.
More and more people today are hearing about success stories of people who have made it big on the internet. This might be from the local neighborhood mum who was working from home part time while looking after the kids. Perhaps she started a recipe blog for her favourite recipes, and within a few months noticed her traffic was spiking with regular readers and commentors and next thing you know it, she is selling a book or teaching classes. This is still happening all the time. People are making it big by just doing what they love and are great at.
What are you really good at? If you were to start a site online to make money from it, what would you rank as your best credientials or skill set or knowledge base. Some people have made money online by simply providing free information to people. If its an area that a lot of people are interested in then its relatively straight forward to build a following and usually people put some advertising on their site to support the cost of running it. With enough people viewing ones site, it is possible to make a small income from running Google Adsense or some of the other advertising options, such as selling ads to local businesses.
Generally you need at least 100,000 visitors per month if you want to make money from Google Adsense, and this might take one, two or even more years to get to this point. The only real way you build this type of following is to simply provide valuable content. Its amazing how things can take off once people see that you are providing real value and information that is useful to them.
Remember also that if you want to make your hobby into a part time income and make money from it, then you will need to do something different to everyone else on the internet. While this is hard work, it is worth it in the long term if you stick with it. You might work on your site for a couple of years before it makes you any money but once your generating traffic it will be much easier to increase the level of readers and also you have the option to provide other services, such as recommendations of products or charge more for your advertising.
But, back on track to the title of this post, what is all the fuss about making money online. Well lets put it simply. While it can take some really hard work, lots of patience and a bit of creative energy to get something started, once you are making money online it can keep going for as long as you manage it or want to. For example, this site, when I first started it, it took at least 6 months before I made any money from Google Adsense, but each month the number of visitors increases and so therefore does the income. This is only ever continuing to increase as I add more content, more value and build relationships with my readers. Some of my oldest posts that have been up for over 12 months are the ones that generate me the most hits from Google, so its amazing how something that I produced so long ago, is now starting to provide income. Thats why its important not to give up. Continue creating content. When you produce something that is worth reading and post it onto the internet, it might not be found for several months or even years. But eventually someone will discover it, and assuming it is worth reading, will pass it onto someone else who may benefit and before you know it your little site will be making you money online.
Make Money Online from your website
There are many people out there promoting how easy it is to make money online from the internet, by using your own website. They might be saying all you need to do is register a domain name, plug a template website onto it and within a few short weeks you will start to see the cheques / bank transfers of thousands of dollars start to line your letter box.
In reality this is simply not possible or how it works. Beware of scam sites that are promoting instant ways to overnight riches. The only way to make money online is by hard work, creativity and more hard work. Even if you have the most amazing product or service, its going to take a lot of persistence and patience for people to even discover your site. On average Google takes 3 weeks to even really discover brand new sites and rank them so unless you can plug immediately into advertising no one is even going to see your website!
The reason so many people fail to make any money online from their websites is that they just don’t stick at it.
I have been around computers, the internet and business for several years. I had my own personal laptop since early days in school and taught myself coding, various media applications and other tools that help to improve how a computer runs. I also have been very entrepreneurial from a young age, by doing things such as yearly garage sales to sell all my old stuff to make some money, or sell photographs that I was taking of landscapes on ebay or even teaching young kids music at a local school after hours. The thing is that all of this, along with two degrees in computer science and commerce has lead me to where I am now. Making money from the internet isn’t an easy thing. Depending on the timing on when you start, your niche area and how much money you can invest you might be working for free for quite a few months until your site generates money. For me it was at least 12 months before I started seeing a postive return. Why did it take so long? Well, for this site in particurlar, the keyword ‘make money online’ is incredibly competitive. There are like 100 million other search results for the term in Google and new blogs, sites, and also those scam sites I mentioned earlier popping up all the time. Its a big sea of opportunity, but you need to be a big fish to make an impact.
For people that want to make money in a reasonably quick time, its probably best to look at a smaller niche where there is high demand , but low competition. This will allow you to be the big fish in a small ocean and see returns much quicker. Of course it helps if you chose an area that your passionate about as you find it much hard to succeed if you aren’t passionate about your business.
