How To Make Online Money

As I look back at my journey from Internet Marketing as a hobby to IM as a career, I think fondly of the early days.

In those first days, I would not spend a DIME out of pocket to make money.  Sure, sure, NOW I outsource coding work or SEO work to my Virtual Assistants in various parts of the world.  NOW I buy domain names like they are going out of style.

But when first starting out, I didn’t have the bankroll to invest like that.  And it was frustrating because all of the folks that were “making it” were all spending money.

It’s NOT true that to make money you have to spend money.  It does make it alot easier to make more money faster if you have some to spend…but if you don’t have anything to start with, how do you do it?

Here’s a quick list of ways to make money without buying domain names, or paying web hosting fees:

1. Leverage the free sites like Blogger, Squidoo, WordPress.com and HubPages.  You may be limited to a certain look or functionality, or may be at risk for having your site taken down if it’s too spammy.  But, it’s FREE.  And if you are doing IM correctly, there won’t be a reason for them to take it down.
2. Start with Adsense.  It’s the easiest way to start making money.  Affiliate marketing takes time to figure out.  With Adsense, it’s only a matter of having it on your site and getting traffic.  With Affiliate marketing, you have to do that, AND pick a good-converting product with an affiliate organization that is trustworthy.
3. Create your own content and publish it on Kindle.  Obviously this only works if you can write, but chances are you know SOMETHING that people would be interested in reading about.  Ask yourself, “what would someone be willing to take me out to McDonald’s to learn about?”  Whatever it is that you know in your head that is worth a burger, someone may buy for $7 or so on Kindle.  It adds up.
4. Lurk on the WarriorForums.  The War Room is worth paying for, but since this post is about free stuff, you will learn a TON of stuff from the site.  Even now that I don’t spend as much time there, since I’m actually DOING IM, and not just talking about it, I still go there weekly to be inspired.  Read, read, read.  Don’t pay for the guides…most of the guides are a distillation of what you can learn for free.  (Buying the right ones CAN be helpful because it clarifies and focuses you, but you’re trying to do this with no money, right?)
5. Offer your services for sale.  You can do this on the WarriorForum, or places like ODesk, eLance, getafreelancer.com, etc.  You can learn as you go, and earn as you go.

Remember…treat it like a business.  Put the money that you make away.  Then you can start investing in the easier ways to make money, which will include paying for domain names, hosting, an autoresponder like AWeber, etc.