The Ways to Make Money Online

There are thousands of websites on the internet that enable their visitors to earn money online, but only a few hundreds of them really work.

I am 17 and for the last 4 years I have been trying to earn online and believe me I made almost nothing. Last year I launched a website about photo uploading and put Google AdSense ads on it and after 4 months I made only $33. That's really disappointing when you spend $500 for getting the website created and $100 for its Search Engine Optimization (SEO). I tried more than 1000 websites over these 4 years which promised easy and fast money but none worked. I am into blogging now because most of the people who earn online earn through blogging. However, its not a fast medium to earn online but when it works, it can get you 6 figure income a month. Today, many bloggers who used to blog for fun a few years ago (say 2-4) are earning 6 figures today. I could have mentioned their names and websites here but I don't want you leave my blog and go there.

I have failed for tens or may be hundreds of times to make money online and today I know what are the things not to try, what are the things which are good to try and what are the things which are best to try.

Here are the ways which you should not waste time on:

1. Paid surveys - Paid survey is a set of questions set by a company to know what kind of products are most liked by customers (the people who give answers.) I once spent $30 to register on a website to get paid surveys. I was so excited as they told that I would get many surveys each month with each paying me $5-10 to fill. Days passed, months passed and then I got a few surveys after filling whom I earned $4 in total. NEVER TRY THEM AT ALL.

2. Paid visiting - In this program you are mostly required to visit advertisers' websites for a few seconds and you get a few cents (not more than 10 cents) per visit. The problem is that most of them are scams and some who pay have got very less websites (advertisers) for you to visit. So its not a good income source at all.

Here are the ways which are good to give a try:

1. Get paid writing - There are some websites which pay decent money to write. It can be of many types such as Paid reviews, paid writing articles etc. ReviewStream is a website where you can write a review on anything from airlines to electronics to websites (they accept everything.) But the review should look very honest. You get $2 for every review they think is very cool and $0.20 to $0.30 for every review they think is not so good but still can be put on the site. Another great thing is that whenever someone votes for your review you get $0.10. Shvoong is also a good place to get paid to write. You can write an article or review of anything of up to 900 words and post it on Shvoong and you get 10% of the advertising income generated by your post on Shvoong which depends on the number of times your post has been viewed. They pay you when you have at least $10 in your account. So, if you are a good writer, you can earn decent money here.

2. Get paid socializing - If you spend most of your time on MySpace, Facebook, Orkut, Hi5 or other social networking sites then this is the way to go. You get paid for your activities like uploading videos, photos, sending scraps, messages, writing posts, opening groups, making friends etc. But its not as easy as it seems because they pay very less part of the advertising revenue generated by your activities on the site for them. MyLot is one of them. It pays you for using it. It has a referral system also so the people referred by you will also get you some money when they use MyLot. They don't tell exactly how much they pay but its good for people who waste all of their time on the internet. Yuwie is also a social network that pays. Its better than Mylot but a bit boring. Its referral system is multi-tiered so its main strength is its referral system. Get as many people to sign up here and start earning a decent income.

Here are the best options to make money online:

1. Blogging - It is my favorite one and is the only one which proved itself to me. As mentioned already, many people who started blogging 2-3 years ago are earning today whopping 6 figures a month. There is a 15 year old boy who blogs about making money online like me and earns $x,xxx a month and he started it 2 years ago when his father insisted to do so. No, you guessed wrong, I won't mention the link to his blog otherwise you will not come back here as he is a much better writer than me. Now a days, most bloggers have their own domains for their blogs but there are many blogging services available like Blogger, LiveJournal, Wordpress etc. View this page for a good comparison between the top services. For me Blogger is the best one because it is free and puts no limitation on advertising which is very important to earn through blogging.

2. Affiliate marketing - Under this option, you have to become an affiliate of a website which sells something or provides a paid service. For every sale or lead you generate you get paid (commission.) For example, SpaceBankers which is an eBook about making money with social networks. Its cost is $97. So whenever someone clicks on your affiliate link which opens this website and buys the eBook you get about $63. I have never tried affiliate marketing but I have seen people making great money from it. All I can advice is find a good affiliate program which pays more and is highly in demand so that people buy it. You can generate sales by posting your link on blogs, forums, your profiles on social networks etc.

So, that was all for my first post on this blog. I hope you liked the post. Please comment on it with your feedback or any suggestions or any point you need to discuss about.