 |
 MENUHomePage Submit your Site Recommended Tools Articles Webmasterism - The E-book
FAQS Contact Links Legal and Privacy |
Back To Articles 1. Buying Domain Names: This used to be a huge area of profit for forward-thinking people. Today it is a lot harder, but still feasible. It involves the registering of Domain Names, holding them for a period of time, and then selling them to large corporations. For example, the domain name business.com was sold for a ridiculous £20 million! Not bad considering the original holder only paid a couple of hundred pounds. The potential to earn money in this area is a lot harder than it used to be in the Internet Revolution because so many people in the world are doing this, especially as there are over a hundred domain names registered in the world PER DAY! But there is still the potential to make money in this way as long as you choose the right domain. Another advantage of this is the fact that you can now register domain names for less than £10. Since the recent innovation allowing domain names to contain up to 64 characters, and the increase in endings (.com, .net, .plc.uk etc) and the fact that everyone wants to put an e- in front of existing names to create new ones, the market still remains quite strong. 2. Getting Paid to Surf This is one of the latest ways to earn money on the net. Developed in America just over a year a go by AllAdvantage, an agency pays you to have an advert bar along the top or bottom of your screen. Ad Banners are rolled over one after the other. You get paid per advert rolled or per hour. Most companies distribute credits which are then converted to cash after a month rather than the few who pay so many pence / cents per hour. Normally there is nothing to buy, so you can sign up to these completely free. There is really nothing to lose, well, except for an inch off your screen! There are so many of these ad agencies now that they are all in competition with each other. Only the best will survive. Because of the huge number of these agencies, I have hand-picked a few to get you started (If you live in the UK my suggestion is Pays U): Pays U Alladvantage CashSurfers 3. Entering Online/Offline Competitions Believe it or not there are some individuals out there who are extremely successful at winning competitions. Of course they enter a significantly large amount to make this possible. There are thousands of online (and offline) competitions, and if you enter enough, the law of averages predicts that you will win something eventually. You can win things like gift vouchers for online shopping, money, software, flight tickets etc. If you enter offline competitions, it is a good idea to type up the entries if they have to go through normal post so that you can keep a record of the entry. 4. Earning a Commission There are a huge amount of commission services out there who pay you to sell things on behalf of them. This can be especially lucrative if you are in the right circumstances (e.g. run a book club etc) and you go with the right company. For example, if you join up with BOL and Amazon you can sell there books online. The commissions for someone buying a particular book from your website are at 15%. If you just send the individual to the Amazon site, then the commission is only 5%. To get 15%, the best way is to do a book review and do a personal recommendation so that the individual goes to buy that particular book. 5. Become a shareholder of free shares This involves a web site or web company issueing free shares to any one who wants them, in preparation for a floatation on the stock market at some point in the future. A famous example is Freeserve who issued free shares in the company to all members, and then floated on the stock exchange creating instant money to all shareholders. There have been other site that have done this and there will be definitely more in the future, so keep an eye on Internet news online and in the national press for a warning of free-share issues… 6. Becoming an Outworker Sometimes a company can have too much work on, which I may add is normally boring and repetitive stuff, and so instead of employing a full-time worker, companies recruit outworkers to do the dirty work! You may see advertisements in your local free press, so you will have to wait for the opportunity to appear. One word of advice: never take any work that involves you parting with any money, especially a registration fee because you may never see it again! Unfortunately, the work is never regular, so you have to keep your eyes peeled. If you do see anything, contact the company to find out what the work is and whether you can do it. Things to look out for in the press are phrases like "earn money with your PC" or "Urgent PC owning outworkers required" etc. Make sure you visit the company first and agree a fee in writing before you start. That way you are covered and you know the company is genuine. 7. CD-Writing If you have a CD-Writer or you can afford to get one, it will almost certainly pay for itself just by offering a CD copying service. You will have to advertise in the local free press and online; then there is the potential to earn money. The markets are unsigned bands and pub bands who are about to hold a gig or something of that nature and who would like to sell CD's; also small companies who can't afford a CD writer bu need to send a large file through the post. It may be worth sending out letters to local businesses in the area and getting in touch with local entertainment agents. I have a friend who is musically talented. He went to a local recording studio to get his music onto a CD. For recopies they charge a ridiculous price so I said I would do it for half that. He agreed and I have done many copies for him! I must also emphasis that you must never copy a CD for someone that has copyright without getting written permission from the owner. 8. Create a Web Directory This is perhaps one of the better ideas. If you have internet space and you want money then set up a directory. Contact all the local businesses in your local area and ask them if they would like to be included in the directory for a small fee. Customers can contact the small businesses directly of through yourself. This is a good idea and can make you a reasonable amount of money as long as you advertise your web directory in the local free press and other local papers/magazines. If your directory is well known, then businesses will want to be in it. And the more other businesses want to be in it, the more you can charge! The market is almost certainly local pubs, electricians, plumbers etc. If your local area is very tourist orientated, then a directory of all the local theme places is likely to be your market. 9. Involve yourself in Pyramid E-mails Almost certainly a scam, but it does work, or so they say! In the UK it is perfectly legal as long as you declare any profits to the taxman. All you do is send e-mails to every address that you can find, asking the receiver to send you a pound / dollar etc and send the other five names on the e-mail list a pound or dollar at the same time. After the receiver does so, they add their name to the top of the list, removing the bottom person off the list before passing the e-mail on to everyone they know. The theory is that a number of people will send a pound to all six names on the list and then add their own name to the list. This only works though if the other people do it. It should work if everyone does as they are supposed to. As the e-mail circulates, more people add their names, and more names get removed. But depending on how many names go on the list, your details remain on there for some time and you can make quite a sum for nothing. This must be the most unusual way I have seen to make money! 10. Fan Mail This idea is very good if you know where to look. I know what your thinking now - "But I don't know any famous people." You don't need to! There is a website out there which lists the e-mail addresses of a load of stars. It's called FanZine. (www.fanzine.co.uk) All you have to do is send e-mails to several stars and grovel, plead and tell them you are their biggest fan! Really make sure you ingratiate yourself with them and be completely flattering. Ask for their signed autograph and/or any souvenirs. If they believe you or feel sorry for you they will almost certainly send you something of some value. When you have a significant amount of things of value, you can sell them as a collection to a collector of some sort or another fan. There are people who sell things for thousands out there. I suppose that this proves that a PC can pay for itself. You may do enough of these ideas to create yourself a second income - some people do. There are plenty of ways to make money using your PC. This is just a small selection. (If you would like to know about more ways then subscribe to my E-zine [http://www.earning-potential.com]). If you would like to use this article in your e-zine / website, then please contact the author, Oliver Eames. |