5 Ways to Make Money Online

February 5, 2008 By Debbie Dragon

Whenever people tell me they’re thinking about getting a second job, or that they are having trouble making ends meet with their existing job- I tell them they just need to turn their computer into a way to earn money. Honestly, if you are using your computer to send and receive emails and play games, read profiles on myspace or watch videos on you tube- you have enough knowledge to make money with your computer.

Often the money you earn from working on your home computer (or from your work computer on your lunch hour?) is more than what you would earn if you got a part time job serving coffee or waiting tables after work. You don’t have as many (if any) expenses, no travel requirements, and you can almost always make more per hour than you would at a second job.

Here are 5 ways you can use your computer to make money:

1) Do “odd jobs” on freelance auction sites including:

• rentacoder.com
• getafreelancer.com
• getacoder.com

Despite their names- these sites have opportunities for people to complete all types of work for hire- not just programming or web design related work. So if you don’t have programming knowledge, you could look under categories for data entry, article writing, and other miscellaneous job postings to find projects you could complete in your spare time. You get to name your price, and if you win the job, you’ll be paid from the buyer. You might want to stick to the freelance sites that offer escrow services (they hold the money from the buyer and release it when the work is complete) so that you know you will get paid for your work. Otherwise- a good rule is to require 50% of the fee up front and the remainder upon successful completion of the work.

2) Check bloggerjobs.biz for paid blogging opportunities. If you can write about a page on a specific topic, you can get paid to write articles by blog owners looking for help maintaining the content on their blogs. Pay may range from $5 an article to $25 or more per article.

3) Craigslist.org is the ultimate resource for all job listings of all types! You can select a city and browse the job listings that most interest you. Once you’ve selected the job category, you can narrow down the search results to only jobs that are “telecommute”; which means you can do them from home. These are not home based business opportunities, but rather, jobs and employment opportunities from businesses needing additional help from freelancers and people like you.

4) Promote other people’s stuff. You can become an affiliate of just about any product and service these days, and it doesn’t cost anything to sign up for 99% of the affiliate opportunities. As an affiliate, you can promote another company’s products and services and in exchange, earn a commission on any sales your efforts have generated. This is a good opportunity for people who have some internet marketing experience or who are looking to experiment and learn. Try www.linkshare.com or www.clickbank.com for opportunities to become affiliates of products.

5) Provide virtual assistance to small business owners and internet marketers. There are thousands of small business owners out there who are pressed for time. They’re spending time doing routine and mundane tasks when they should be concentrating on working their business. If you can type, make or take phone calls, set up travel arrangements, format or edit documents, keep track of finances, or any number of secretarial or administration work- you might be a good candidate to become a work-at-home personal assistant or administrative assistant. You can bill per hour based on the skill level required for the task.

Posted in blogging, business, income, jobs, making money