Three ways to start making
money online without fees
Since HubPages attracts so many
people that are trying to figure
out how to make money online,
I thought I'd put together the
basics. This is only intended to be
a starting point for each of the
ideas. To actually make them
work, it will require more
learning and individual
experimentation.
See all 7 photos
WikiPedia is the ultimate
collection of evergreen content
About.com is the king of
commercial evergreen content
and a great place to find ideas
for things to write about
If you can make content like
what's on About.com and
WikiPedia, then you can earn
income from the content with
AdSense.
Sharing Information and
AdSense
The Product
The product is written articles
that get traffic from search
engines. In order to be
successful, the content you
produce should be on evergreen
topics that people search for on
Google or other major search
engines. The key to success here
is high quality information. Like
making anything that is great, it
takes a lot of work to create a
high quality piece of content that
is worthy of ranking high in
google for competitive search
terms.
How You Make Money
You make money from AdSense.
AdSense places ads that match
the content of your writing.
Advertisers like placing ads
through AdSense since they are
so highly targeted. Users will
click on the ads if they are
interested in them. The amount
of money you can make
depends on the topic.
Commercial topics tend to pay
more and within commercial
topics, categories like finance are
among the top earning. I suggest
worrying less about the category
and focus on areas that you can
create the best piece of content
on in the world.
Challenges
When you are just starting out
with articles and AdSense it takes
time to gain traffic. Then, it's
usually between .5% and 4% of
people that will click on ads. So,
earnings can be very small at the
beginning. Secondly, you never
know how much traffic a piece
of content will get. Rarely do we
see someone make a hit with
their first hub. Instead, they will
make a few hubs that get zero
traffic and then they will make
one that does well. After they
have one good producing hub,
they are able to see the pattern
and create more, but this takes
time. I say it usually takes 30
Hubs before they get a
reasonable amount of traffic if
they have created high quality
content and focused on niche
search phrases. This upfront time
investment can be daunting
when you don't see results.
Getting through this dark period
is the major challenge.
Why I like it
I don't just like this model, I love
it. I love it so much I helped
create HubPages. Here's why.
First, there are no fees when
starting. It just takes time. And if
you like learning it's a double
bonus, because you will learn a
lot about how the internet
works. My second favorite part is
once you figure out how to
create content that gets traffic
and monetizes well that each
piece of content you create is
like putting money in the bank.
Every month it will earn money
and as long as the information is
current, it will continue to
produce. Third, I love that you
don't have to deal with inventory
(no products to order and ship,
no returns, no bad debt) and
you have total flexibility when
you work. Want to work in a
cafe, great. Want to work from
home fine. It's up to you. Lastly,
you don't have to sell your
friends, or push a product that
you don't believe in. You can
write about things you love.
Things you are passionate about.
And. Things that help people. It's
up to you to be successful. If you
create quality content over time,
you will earn money.
Lowermybills.com is an example
of a lead generation company
with good offers.
Commission Junction is a site
(cj.com) where you can become
an affiliate and earn commissions
by selling and generating leads
for numerous products.
Afflliate Marketing and Lead
Generation
The Product
The product can be a website,
an email newsletter, or even a
blog that promotes a product
for a commission or collects
information to generate a lead.
Examples could be promoting a
clickbank offer, selling an item
on eBay (to earn a commission),
or hosting a loan capture form.
How You Make Money
You make money based on an
action. For example, if you use
an affiliate link to promote an
eBay product and someone
purchases the product, then you
will earn a commission. The
commission is dependent upon
how much money the item sold
costs. It's pretty common for
more expensive items to pay
higher commissions. Lead
generation is similar, accept in
this case the action is getting
someone to submit their
personal information. For
example, you can become a
Leadpoint affiliate and get
people to submit their
information to refinance their
house. Every-time someone fills
out the form (with accurate
information) you earn a
commission for the lead.
Mortgage leads can be well over
$100 per lead, so it can be quite
lucrative if you can generate the
leads.
Challenges
Affiliate marketing and lead
generation is very hard work.
Most of the attractive categories
like new car leads, and
mortgages are filled with very
experienced marketers that
makes it hard to compete with
them. The trick is to acquire the
traffic at a rate that costs less
than the commissions earned.
Since you only get paid for an
action, as apposed to AdSense
(paid per click) it can take much
more traffic to earn anything.
Although, it's likely that the lump
affiliate commission is worth
several AdSense clicks. The other
challenge is that many affiliate
offers prey on other people. It's
hard for me to get too excited
about someone pushing an
eBook that is garbage or tricking
someone to fill out a form.
Why I like it
When done tastefully, affiliate
and lead generation can be an
excellent way to monetize traffic
at premium rates. This happens
when good quality traffic is
matched to an offer or to a lead
form. When everything is on the
up and up, the person making
the purchase or filling out the
form is satisfied and the
publisher can make a nice
commission for brokering the
deal.
Craigslist is the best classified ad
site on the internet. And. It's
absolutely free to post items for
sale.
EBay is the world's largest
auction site. For a fee, sellers can
list items and sell them to the
millions of monthly visitors.
Ecommerce: Selling Goods
Online
The Product
This can be anything you can sell
and deliver. The big difference
here is that you have to deliver
the good. There are types of
products that I think are better
for selling online. First, if you can
resell high margin products that
are small and easy to ship like
expensive watches, jewelry or
fashion items. Second is
something you make. This could
be holiday candy, knitted hats,
or a product that you figure out
how to manufacture. The key is
to sell products with significant
margins and a market available
that can move them.
How You Make Money
You make money when a
product is sold. The amount of
money you make is dependent
upon many variables that are
common to running a store, but
hopefully the listing fees are less
than a store's rent.
Challenges
Retailing is challenging. It can be
extremely difficult to become a
wholesaleor of brandname
products online. If you do get
the product, then you have to
pay for the inventory. When you
take on inventory, you take on
risk if you can actually sell the
products. Some manufacturers
will give you credit, but you still
have to sell the products. Then.
You have to deal with returns,
customers and in many cases stiff
competition on price. Internet
shoppers love to find the lowest
price. But, the lowest price can
eat away all the profits for a
small seller.
Why I like it
I believe that there is huge
opportunity for small retailers
online and it's perhaps the
easiest way to make money
online. You can simply go into
your house. Find five items that
are worth over $25 and list them
for free on Craigslist. I bet that
you will sell at least one of those
items in a few days. When you
sell things, Craigslist is a great
way to be part of a marketplace
for free. There is no other
marketplace in the world that
has high quaility buyers and
costs nothing to put up your
goods for sale. Craigslist is great
for many types of items, but not
all. However, eBay, Amazon and
having your own online store fill
the gaps, although they cost
more to list. For people that can
get access to high margin
products, or make their own
goods with great margins, then
selling online could be just the
ticket for you.
Take the Make Money Online
Poll
What's the best way to make
money online
Content with AdSense
Affiliate sales and lead
generation
Ecommerce
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Comments
jimmythejock 2 years ago
Nice information Paul Thanks for
this.....jimmy
Lissie 2 years ago
Nice hub Paul I find although I
get most of my money with
Adsense its actually the hardest
to do well with. In the hubpage
format I generally only get a
2-3% click thru: the articles are
just to well written! On my own
sites I can get up to 10% but its a
completely different format. The
other issue I have will Adsense
here is that I am almost certain
that I am smartpriced because of
the low click thru rate so at
some stage Iwill have to pull my
ID off hubpages to unprice it. I
think affiliates: especially the
ones that pay recurring fees are
the way to go - but they are a
lot harder work!
Carlosweb 2 years ago
Thank you for the information.
sminut13 2 years ago
great hub, really informative. i
really liked it that you put the
challenges and your likes as well.
it gives me another viewpoint.
though i have to admit that i'm
not good at any hehe thanks for
sharing.
Nicholas Chase 2 years ago
Paul,
Thank you for the excellent
information. The web can be a
daunting challenge for the new
marketer. Your enthusiam and
positive approach are
encouraging me to go for it!
Respectfully,
Nicholas Chase
waynet 2 years ago
The adsense way of earning
money is the easiest, as writing
articles I am slowly trying to get
used to writing something useful
that will last in the evergreen
sense, but there are lots of
things to do such as editing and
marketing, so a lot of planning
has to be done often for our
time to be managed effectively.
nice hub!
LouiseKnittel 2 years ago
Very nice Hub. Thanks somuch
for all the great infomation!
chloesdad 2 years ago
Very informative hub! Thank
you!
Lin on Love 2 years ago
Would you please comment on
Amazon specifically?
Thanks. Great hub.
Paul Edmondson 2 years ago
Amazon is a high quality affiliate
partner that we fill good about
having authors on HubPages
promote because they are
reputable and generally treat
customers well.
From an affiliate propspective,
Amazon tends to pay at the
lower end and it can take
sending a significant number of
clicks to Amazon to earn any
income since you only earn if
someone buys something. For
example, if 1% of people buy
something that click on your
affiliate offer to amazon, you
need to send 100 people to
amazon to make one sale. For
many people, they'll never send
100 people to amazon. However,
with pay per click ads, a small
publisher may send 50 clicks
earning 10 cents a click. They'll
earn $5, but may or may not
lead to any sales. When we back
out the affiliate commissions to
the number of clicks, we typically
see Amazon paying about 5 - 10
cents per click. This is less than
eBay and Google AdSense on
average.
So the short of it is, Amazon is a
high quality partner, but other
high quality partners tend to pay
more to publishers.
nancydodds1 2 years ago
Hi Paul, you had done nice work.
Its very interesting and nice. I
impresses about your hub. Really
its wonderful.
C.S.Alexis 2 years ago
There is a lot to learn and it
does take a lot of energy and
time but one of the keys to
success here is to keep writing
and keep learning. I have been
watching my progress for one
year and can see things building.
Great info if it is followed.
Thanks. C.S.
TravelMonkey 2 years ago
I have always been sceptical
about making money online,
especially with the super
competitive market. Hopefully i
can set up a nice little money
maker in the next couple of
years.
rcbonay 2 years ago
Paul,
It’s nice to have a responsible,
honest resource such as yourself
available to provide this valuable
information for free. In my rush
to achieve instant online success
I ’ve spent not too much but
more than should have for info I
could've gotten for free. I ’ve
become much more realistic in
terms of my expectations since
reading your hubpages. Keep
keeping it real!
WikiWeblog 2 years ago
It's been around month and a
half since I began my blog, and I
was wondering what's the
average traffic to a blog is
usually after a month or two, or
even 6 if they do take their time
and try out different marketing
techniques.
Paul Edmondson 2 years ago
Blog traffic is usually a function
of how much you post. Sort of
like a self fullfilling prophecy.
More posts, more often equals
more traffic. As long as you work
to make quality posts, then
traffic will grow.
Technorati posts statistics from
time to time on how often
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