Mini Problogger: Top 5 Ways To Make Money From Home

This entire website is a testament that there are hundreds of different ways to make money, both online and off.

But today we are going to have a look at the top 5 most popular ways to make money online.

Make Money Building Niche Websites
Make Money Writing Your Own Blog
Make Money Advertising CPA Offers
Make Money Selling E-Books
Make Money Taking Surveys

Make Money Building Niche Websites

That’s why topical content sites are a great way of making money. You simply pick your topic, build a site around it and wait for the money to start coming in. So long as you focus on a profitable topic you’re home free…

We all know that your best shot at making money online is to appeal to a specific group of people – a niche market interested in a specific topic. If you try to appeal to everyone then very few people will actually buy what you’re selling.

That’s why topical content sites are a great way of making money. You simply pick your topic, build a site around it and wait for the money to start coming in. So long as you focus on a profitable topic you’re home free…

Topical content will always be of interest to the people that topic is aimed at. Your first step towards building a topical content site is to pick a topic which is always going to be popular. Do some research online, check various keyword topics to see how many searches each one received in the last month and pick a topic you like the look of.

You can easily choose a good domain name by paying attention to those keywords, and once you have your name and hosting sorted out you can start to build your website. Information is what people will want, so make sure you can source some relevant articles from article directories as well as writing some of your own to cover all aspects of the topic you have chosen.

Free articles will certainly help to build your site quickly, but there is nothing better than unique content which is why it will pay you to research the subject and include content of your own.
You will also want to monetize the site in order to make money from it, and there are several ways you can do this. Firstly you should join the Google Adsense program so you can have carefully targeted ads on each page. Once that is done, join one of the big affiliate websites such as ClickBank or Commission Junction and find some products or downloads that you can promote which would appeal to your audience.

You should also think about creating a regular newsletter to email to everyone who signs up to receive it. Place a box on the top half of your home page inviting people to sign up and offer a free report to entice them to do just that. Once you have a regular audience you can also promote some of your affiliate and commission based products in the newsletter, as well as offering more useful articles and information.

You should make sure your site has several pages – at least half a dozen – before you launch it, to make it worthwhile visiting. Once it is up and running you can work on developing it and adding more sections as appropriate. Many people find that once they have built one topical content site they get the urge to build more, and it can certainly be a profitable way to spend your time, provided you pick niches and topics that are going to attract visitors and customers.

Fancy having a go yourself? Why not start the research once you have left us a comment below? Good luck!

Make Money Writing Your Own Blog

More and more people are realising that blogging is one of the best ways to start your own online business. It requires minimal start up costs, you can build an impressive and loyal readership over time and once you know how to monetize your blog it can also bring in a decent income that will keep on coming even on the days when you don’t update your blog.

There are several ways to set up a blog online. You could use WordPress, Blogger, or another free site that hosts your blog for you; or alternatively you can set up your own blog under your own domain name.

If you want to make serious money from blogging, you must have complete control over your blog – and that’s something the free blogging accounts won’t give you. You’ll be bound by their terms and conditions and that usually includes not being able to actively promote anything. There are plenty of people who have established a blog only to have it removed without notice some weeks or months later.

It will cost you a few dollars to buy your domain name and set up a web server that will host your blog, but the benefits will far outweigh the cost involved. It can literally be as little as $20 a year we’re talking about here – and that buys you total freedom.

Once you’re ready to set your blog up you’ll need to choose a good theme and layout for it. You might find one that relates to your choice of subject (more on that in a moment) or else there might be one you just like the look of. But there are thousands of templates available for you to use – a simple search on Google will reveal the ones that will be best suited to your topic.

But perhaps the most important question is what you are going to blog about. The whole world is your oyster here – some people blog about their lives in general; some blog about their jobs; some blog about their hobbies; some tell the world about their kids and what it’s like to be a parent, and still others blog about the weird world of celebrities. But whatever you choose to blog about it needs to be something you are passionate about. Don’t forget, you are going to be writing about this topic several times a week, and if you don’t have the enthusiasm for it, that will show in your posts – and no one else will have the enthusiasm to read them.

Okay – so you’ve got your subject. Now you have to start writing your blog posts. If you take a look at just a few of the blogs already online, you’ll notice that the length of the posts varies a lot. Some people only write a paragraph or two each time, but you’ll get better results if you go for something a little longer than this. Around 400 to 500 words makes for a good post with a lot of information in it; some people write hugely long posts that are thousands of words long and could be called an e-book by another name.

But you can also take the format of this blog, by posting a short blog entry which leads into a longer article. This has the benefit of highlighting a lot of blog posts on the home page of the site, and people can then click through and read the ones they like the most.

You should remember however that there are no real rules when it comes to blogging. Over time you will naturally find what works for you, and your blog will settle down into a nice pattern that both you and your readers will enjoy. You’ll find your character and personality will start to come through in your writing too; don’t fight against this as it is one of the hallmarks of blogging. It is, after all, a personal account of an individual’s life and experiences, so show people what you’re made of! You’ll get a more loyal – and bigger – audience like this.

So you’ve got your blog up and running and you’re posting to it on a regular basis. The next step is to get it in front of as many interested eyeballs as possible.

One great way to do this is to submit it to as many of the social bookmarking sites as possible. You can also join social networking sites and build a profile which contains a link to your blog. Other no cost ways to generate traffic include writing free articles for article directories with a link to your blog at the end, and creating signatures at the end of any posts you make to internet forums, and also in all the emails you send out. When you really start thinking about it, you don’t actually need to spend anything to generate plenty of traffic.

All we need to do now is monetize the blog itself. You’ll want to generate some money from all the visitors you’ll start getting, and there are plenty of ways to do this easily. Google Adsense is probably the most well known method – you can join the program for free and display contextual ads that your visitors will be interested in to maximise your click through rate.

There are also a handful of websites which give you the opportunity to get paid for each blog post you make on a specific subject. Pay Per Post and Review Me are two such examples, and they will pay you a certain amount of money to review a product or website for the owner. In a similar vein you can also review and recommend other people’s products through affiliate links inserted into your blog posts, and earn money on commissions earned through any purchases people make.

And once you’re more established you can offer ad space on your blog too, and charge a fee for both classified and display ads if you wish. What could be better than setting your own price?

But there is one final step you can take with your blog if you enjoy a change of scene every now and again. You can sell your blog! Once it is established and has plenty of revenue and traffic, you can usually sell it for ten times its monthly revenue.

And then, you can start all over again with a whole new subject!

So that’s it – profitable blogging in a nutshell. If you have any questions feel free to leave your comments in the form below. And once you’ve done that, get out there and get started building your first blog today.

Make Money Advertising CPA Offers

With the internet such a large part of our lives today, more and more individuals are looking for opportunities to make money online. While some are doing it to bring in some extra cash, others are looking for full-time careers and are being quite successful with their endeavors. Many are doing this by becoming marketers of CPA opportunities. You, too, can make money marketing CPA offers.

What is CPA?

CPA (no, I don’t mean “certified public accountant”) stands for “Cost Per Action” and it is when someone is paid for an action resulting from a lead. CPA has been around for many years, but has become much more popular in recent years by mainstream marketers that saw the opportunity for profit.

When you’re marketing CPA offers, you don’t necessarily have to sell anything to get paid. For instance, if you’re making up advertisements for a product and a sale is made because of your advertisement, you’ll make money. CPA has become so popular because you can make money without having to actually make the sale yourself. Collecting leads such as names, email addresses and locations is the most effective way of marketing CPA offers. Becoming a marketer for CPA offers is easy, fast and can provide you with a lot of fun and money!

Becoming an online CPA marketer is not as difficult as one might think. You will need to have either a blog site or quality website set up before you can sign up as a CPA affiliate with a company or a CPA network (many are available on the web). Once you sign up, the companies will check out your site to ensure it meets their requirements.

Once this is done, they’ll contact you either by email or phone to ask you a few questions to make sure you know what becoming a CPA marketer entails as well as what your plans are as far as promoting their product or services.

They’ll want to know that you are aware of the rules and regulations regarding search engine and sale strategies. If you have any questions, this is the time to ask them so you’re well aware of what’s expected of you and what you can expect in terms of sales and money.

Know your Company

I know this is the internet and you can’t be expected to know every company that’s out there but, if you’re planning on being a CPA marketer, you want to make sure they are a legitimate company and will play by the rules and pay you.

Do some research about the company you’re considering working with. Make sure they are what they say and are legitimate. There are many sites where you can check on the legitimacy of internet companies. Do your homework and get reviews on these companies. Only agree to market CPA offers for companies that you’re comfortable working with. Once this is done, you’ll find you’re well on your way to a very promising and successful career as a CPA marketer.

Make Money Selling E-Books

Make no mistake – e-books are big business online. No matter what you search for there will be someone out there selling an e-book on it.

But the best thing about them is that they provide one of the most potentially lucrative businesses you could ever hope to start online. So long as you do your homework and don’t try and cut corners you can start making inroads into this business within days of deciding to get started. There is plenty to learn but none of it is beyond you – and even if you don’t think you’re up to the job there are plenty of people you can call on to help you.

Make no mistake – e-books are big business online. No matter what you search for there will be someone out there selling an e-book on it.

If you’re thinking of selling e-books to make money online, your best bet is to write your own

But why do that when there are plenty of affiliate e-books around that you can promote and earn a cut from?

The answer is simple. If you write and create your own e-book no one else will be selling anything quite like it. You’ve got a unique product that will draw attention since no one will have seen it before. As long as you do your research first, you could make a lot of money from one e-book alone.

So first thing’s first – how do you decide what to write an e-book about?

Think about what subjects are currently popular online. Making money will always be a great subject (look at this blog for example!) so anything that taps into this field which doesn’t cover the same ground as loads of other e-books could do well. Try and focus on a specific niche to get the best results; you could start by thinking about what you personally find interesting and see whether any of your hobbies might provide fertile ground to explore.

Once you’ve got some ideas see whether there are already any e-books doing well online on that subject. If there don’t seem to be any around you’ll need to dig a bit further to see if your subject is going to be popular enough to attract a lot of sales. A spot of keyword research and simply looking up related search terms on Google can help reveal the answer to this.

Okay – so let’s assume you now have an idea for an e-book you think will be popular. Next up you have to plan the contents and think of a great title. Titles are very important since they will give the potential buyer an idea of what to expect from the e-book itself. It needs to be specific and intriguing – and full of promise. Don’t worry if one doesn’t occur to you straightaway; quite often you will only think of it once the book is almost written.

The biggest problem when it comes to writing the book itself is staying on topic. It’s very easy to veer off course if you’re not careful, which is why having a pre-written outline to follow will keep you on track. If you plan this out before you begin writing you’ll find the whole process much easier to manage. If you don’t feel confident enough to write it yourself you can hire a ghostwriter to do it for you; there are plenty of sites online where you can hire a freelancer for a fixed fee that you decide on. This gives you complete control over the project.

Incidentally the word ‘e-book’ can be somewhat misleading for newbies to the business. An e-book can indeed be a hundred pages or more long, but it can also be no more than a dozen pages or so. The price for a shorter e-book will of course be lower, but it is still more than you might think given the length of the book itself.

Of course you need to think about more than just the e-book if you want to sell plenty of copies of it. You need to get the word out, and you need to have a great mini website to show it off. These mini websites are really single page sites which promote your e-book in a long sales letter. You would do well to spend as much time writing the sales letter as you did the e-book itself, since it has a very important job to do.

First off you need a stunning headline that will grab the attention. You need to really sell this to everyone who lands on your website so don’t be afraid to shout about the benefits of your e-book! You’ll notice I said benefits there and not features; that’s because the benefits will tell your readers what your book will do for them. That’s a very important point to understand since it could make the difference between getting a reasonable amount of sales and being buried under an avalanche of them!

Think about your price carefully too. Don’t be greedy – but at the same time don’t go too low either. You want to give an impression of quality. Do some research and see what similar titles in your subject area are selling for.

You can also sell more copies by offering bonuses along with the e-book itself. Could you write a number of special reports as well, each one a few pages long, which relate to the subject of your main book? Anything like this will encourage still more people to buy from you rather than going elsewhere for a similar title.

The ultimate goal for you should be to write a series of e-books which each have their own website to sell from. When you write each sales letter be sure to include plenty of keywords and phrases to attract a greater volume of search engine traffic to your site. Pick a good and relevant domain name too – it will help to draw in more people.

The hardest step is in writing that first e-book. Once you’ve got going and you’ve had some experience you’ll start writing them faster, picking better titles and subjects, and selling more copies as a result. Before you know it you’ll have a great business on your hands.

If you’d like to comment on this piece, please leave your message using the form below. Then get writing – your first e-book is there, you just have to get it out.

Make Money Taking Surveys

Are you looking for a legitimate way to make money online? Maybe you want some extra spending money. Or perhaps you need the money to pay bills. Either way, getting paid for filling out simple surveys can be a fun and lucrative way to earn that extra cash.

In fact, there’s quite a lot of money to be had — and the cool thing is that you can earn it in your spare time. Any time you can spare a few minutes — or a few hours, you can make money.

It’s easy too. Once you have signed up with the right survey companies, all you have to do is check your email and pick the best surveys, and you’re off to earning money every time you fill in the blanks.

And if you’re wondering why anyone would care about your opinion, let alone pay you good money for it, read on. There’s a reason why you can make real money with surveys:

Countless companies, including the largest international corporations, are desperately trying to find out what consumers want. And they’re willing to pay a whole lot of money for market research.

But they still have a problem. How can they connect with you, the consumer? It’s not all that easy, so they hire survey companies to help them find out what people think about their products and what they would be most likely to buy in the future. They also want to know what it will take to get people to buy…

And if you sign up, you’ll become part of that cutting edge market research.

It’s really cool. You may have the chance to find out about new products long before they actually become available in stores. You might get to play video games that haven’t even been released yet. And you might get to watch trailers for movies that haven’t even finished filming yet. And the best part…. you get paid for your “efforts.”

That’s because paying for you to take surveys is the quickest and easiest way for a company to get the information and feedback they need. And believe it or not, even when they pay thousands of people several dollars each for fill it in even one quick survey, it’s cheaper (and more effective) for them than many other forms of market research. And it’s way cheaper than making a costly mistake.

Remember the NEW Coke? What a disaster that was! And it would have been so easy to prevent. All they had to do was ask people what they thought of the idea and they would have known better than to mess with a tried and true formula.

But noooo. The company executives thought they knew what was best — and they fell flat on their face.

So surveys can be essential for a company’s survival. And they know it and are willing to pay for it. So why not let them pay you?

Now you’re probably wondering what it will take to connect with those big companies and get paid for sharing your opinion?

All you have to do is find the right surveys… And the easiest way to do that is to join a club that specializes in helping consumers like you and me to hook up with the surveys that pay the most money.

And the best one of those clubs we have found is a website called SurveyMastermind. Unlike a lot of other survey sites out there, it’s a Free Service. Not only that, but they also specialize in connecting you with surveys that actually pay. And as soon as you join and sign up with the companies they recommend, you will start receiving surveys to fill out… and start earning.

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Top 5 Ways To Make Money From Home

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