I have made money online thru two primary methods and I think that most people could use these ways to produce a nice side income initially and with time, effort and commitment a good full time income.

This income would also come with part time hours and freedom to travel and enjoy life as it was meant to be enjoyed without the constraints of a boss and J.O.B. (just over broke)!

This is reality for many people I personally now know.

Here are my two ways of making money online;

1/ Freelancing

I spent almost two years being fascinated by how people were making money online. I spent these two years reading, learning, reading, learning, experimenting, investing time and money finding out how to make money online and I began to offer my services to struggling small businesses helping them improve their online sales.

My clients were based all over the globe and operated in all industries. The one thing they had in common is that they have a web presence and they want it to make more sales/leads. Initially this accounted for around 80% of my income, but I expected that to become less than 25% of my income within 18 months. Update June 2017 I met this target ages ago.

Does that sound good to you?

Now you may think that you don’t have any skills that you can freelance over the internet, but I will bet you have. And, contrary to popular myth they don’t have to be highly skilled or non local. Ask yourself;

• Do you like to meet new people and have a chat? You can become an online conversational language tutor using Skype.
• Do you have a hobby that you really enjoy? Gardening? Playing guitar? Fishing? Making cakes? Knitting? Pie Baking? Make some simple videos with your digital camera/ mobile phone and either put them on YouTube (if they have mass appeal) or small samples on your online presence where people can then buy the full videos and download immediately! It’s soooooo easy!
• Do you have thrift shops nearby? Go to them and buy good quality used items cheaply and resell them on eBay or Amazon. Can you make money on eBay? Yes, definitely, Yes! Lots of people make a very good living doing this that they absolutely love. They are getting paid to find bargains!

I will, write a post dedicated to how anyone can make money online within 7 days asap. It’s simple, but not always easy lol. The biggest problem for most people is to actually get usable, actionable information and them to actually apply the information.

2/ Affiliate Marketing

If you’ve never heard of affiliate marketing it’s simply a way of introducing products and solutions to people and when people make a purchase from your introduction you get a commission. Simple and straightforward.

Affiliate Marketing, is in my experience, after freelancing, the one of the most lucrative and legit ways to make money online for free. You pay out nothing to promote a product and simply get commissions when a sale is made.

Normally you will need access to a computer with an internet connection and some form of online presence. This can be either a website, a blog, a Facebook or some social media account.

Don’t be worried or put off by thinking that you need any technical skills to have this online “shop window”.

You don’t and you can have a free web blog up and running within minutes with no technical skills at all.

It’s all point and click until, if ever, you want to get fancy……

When I started out I bought a simple to understand video course on the basics of setting up an online presence using a dead simple point and click blogging system and was up and running with my first website within 20 minutes!

Like all things in life there are simple ways of doing things and complicated ways of doing things.

My affiliate sites are simple, uncluttered and straightforward. No bells and whistles just easy on the eye, quick to load and easy to navigate.

I choose the simple and effective way every time.

You don’t need to know how your power company makes electricity, you just need to know that when it gets dark you can flick a switch and it becomes light!

It’s the same with making money online. You just need to know how to flick the switch!

Keep it simple, straightforward and take action.

Okay, but what do I sell?

Nothing! That’s right you don’t sell anything. With affiliate marketing you just do one of two things;

Search for problems then find a solution.

Search for ready made solutions and then find people who need the solution.

The vendors of the solutions do all the selling.

They are the experts in the product, it’s uses and it’s sales features and benefits.

You will be the expert in connecting people with solutions and products and vica versa.

If you are the type of person who likes helping people, who people ask for opinions, who offers solutions or alternative ways of doing things then affiliate marketing may just be the best way of making money you could ever imagine.

It is for me and I am at my happiest when I am helping others.

Is it hard to do?

No! Lol, like I said simple and straightforward. In fact I would go as far as to say that affiliate marketing is one of best ways to make money online from home 2017.

Okay, so I don’t sell anything, but where do I find the vendors who have ready made solutions or products?

The better question would be where don’t I find vendors? Most savvy online businesses have an affiliate program and if they don’t have one now, you can bet they will be putting one together as I type. Initially try;

• Clickbank
• Amazon
• Ebay
• Aliexpress
• Markethealth

How much money can I make online?

Physical products tend to range between 2% to 20% (don’t be put off by the 2% as this is the very, very lowest you can earn and a ball park figure is around 5%). My average is 6.2%.

Let’s just break this down a minute as this still seems to be quite low and it might seem to be a difficult way to make a decent income from this low commission.

Lets say we decide to promote a range of small kitchen appliances. Coffee makers, microwaves, blenders etc. They have an average price point of $79.99 and a commission of 6%. So we make $4.96 per sale.

We have a target income of $500pm from this campaign/site/project or whatever you like to call it (I always set my initial goals on the low side as it fits very well with my low impact view of life and business in general. This wasn’t always the way and remind me to tell you about my adventures in workplace stress that led me to this blissful point of not giving a f*ck lol)! 

Anyway $500/4.96=101 sales or just 3-4 sales a day. If even we have only 100 visitors a day to our offer you will achieve this income pretty damn quick.

Easy peasy, lemon  squeezy!

Ditto for info products. These products tend to have a commission of between 50% to 100%. Don’t drop below 50% unless you have a specific reason for doing so or just love the product.

Let’s say that you promote an info product that sells for $27.00 and you get 50% of that or £13.50 per sale. That’s only 38 sales per month or only 5 sales every 4 days! I mean 1.24 sales a day, to a targeted audience? Do you think you could do that? We haven’t even met, but the fact that you are reading this tells me that you can easily achieve this goal!

EASILY, you already have two key components of success…..desire and commitment.

How much does it cost to start an online business?

I started off with a budget of £100 which at the time was the rough equivalent of $154, but as time went on I actually spent more than £2500 ($3850) on training and tools.

Around 20% of this was invested wisely in good products and tools that helped me learn how to make money online, streamline my online business and the rest was wasted on empty promises, online scams and lousy products.

In reality you can have your online business setup and making money for zero, nahda, nowt, zilch.

How cool is that?

But it’s not all lemonade and doughnuts……

Three things I have learnt on my journey.

• If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Walk away!
• Making money online is very possible and very likely, but it requires effort, commitment and patience.
• Start small and learn by doing, experimenting and gaining new skills.
• Getting targeted traffic is the BIG thing. Take no notice when people tell you it’s easy to get targeted traffic. They are lying and probably trying to sell you a course on their latest shiny crap object!

Am I making money online?

Yes. I make on average $1,000 pm passively from my internet activities.

That doesn’t seem like much as I write it down, however there are some things that I need to make clear for both of us (and to provide a little clarity for my future direction);

• Most of 2016 has been a year of learning not doing. I am lazy by nature and a procrastinator by choice. Compound these fab personal attributes with that fact that I need to see results before diving into something e.g. Internet Marketing and you have a recipe for a long, but safe(ish) journey. I would like to become more active in my pursuit of passive income and try to increase my earnings to around $2,500 pm by the end of 2017. This is a big jump, but I have the proof that IM works so now it’s up to me to scale.
• I stopped working as a freelancer in early 2016. I will probably jump back into this way of making money from August 2017. My family will be away for three weeks so I will have time to get the ball rolling and brush up my skills on my own sites (I have four including this blog) so I will be able to freelance from a position of recent industry knowledge and skills. So, in a nutshell almost all of my online income for 2016 has been passive. WOW!!!! Every month people have put money into my bank account and all I have had to do is spend it!!!!
• $14,000 plus change in my bank account from last year just from picking up the check is proof enough for me to now pick up the ball and run with what is actually working. Nb I did dabble with drop shipping, ran a few more physical product campaigns, but only made a few sales and didn’t like the idea of getting burned by learning Facebook ads kinda put the dampeners on dropshipping.

So onwards and upwards guys.

Come on and join me guys, we are living in times of unprecedented opportunity, let’s have some fun and make some easy $$$$