Can You Make Money Online?

I admit it, I am a sucker for the "make money from the web" claims that we see so often. Really, who wouldn't like easy money? Click a few ads, write a few blog posts, visit a forum or two and the money should come rolling in. But does it really work that way? I set out to join as many websites that claim you can make money just by being online and here are my results.

First I started with using ads on my blog. It seems almost too simple, just fill out a short form then copy and paste some code into your blog, and you're done. The checks should come rolling in every month from people clicking on the ads right? Well, almost. If you have a website or a blog that draws a large amount of traffic each day then your revenue can be fairly good, but for most of us who are lucky to get a few hits a day you will probably only get a few dollars each month. If you want to increase your pay from the ads you need to market your site or blog, go out and tell everyone you know about it, put links referring back to it every where you visit online. But you cannot just expect to link to it and get results. You also need to make the content something worth reading, something that people will be drawn back to again and again. You can pick a topic that you are knowledgeable about and focus on becoming a top site in that area, or you can try a more personal approach. People love reading blogs about other's families. Make your site or blog a softer, more personal place and you will draw in interest from those interested in reading about your day.

Of course there are other ways to make money from your blog. Sites such as PayPerPost.com, Blogvertise.com, and Blogitive.com pay you to post about specific products, websites, or companies in your blog. Rather than putting up ads on your site you become the advertising, writing a few paragraphs that share your experiences and opinions on the product. Most posts can pay between $5 and $10 each, but the choices to blog about are limited. Some sites, like Blogvertise.com, assign you a topic that you can choose to accept or decline. Others, such as PayPerPost.com have a list of topics for you to choose from, if your bog meets certain requirements. It can be difficult to find topics that you are familiar with enough to write about that your blog is qualified to handle. Just yesterday I was excited to see that there was a $12.50 offer to write two paragraphs about the very cell phone that I had just recently purchased. I was excited to be able to brag about my phone and get paid for it, until I clicked the offer to find that my blog was not ranked high enough to be able to do that task. Often the topics that people are more excited to write about only want high ranking blogs talking about them, leaving newer bloggers with few options. Blogparty.com is a blog site that hosts you blog, places ads, and keeps everything organized for you. They share fifty percent of the profits from ads with you just for keeping a daily blog there.

So what if you want to get paid to post in forums? There are many paid-to-post forums and message sites online, most that pay from $0.01 to $0.05 per post and also offer a few cents for referrals. If you have enough few hours and like to talk you can easily make a few dollars each day. Places like mylot.com where you are paid to post and reply to other posts, and even a few cents to add images to their growing library. There is also forumworldwide.com, a newer site that has very few members so far. Posts are generally only $0.01 each, though they claim you can make up to $0.05 per post if the content is good and you draw many replies. For those with a lot of free time, or anyone who needs to spend tie on the internet these can be easy ways to make a few dollars per week just by asking questions and answers others. You can also use these kinds of forums to generate more hits for your blog or website by telling others about it and adding the link to your profile.

If you want to try something fun that does not require much time, your own site, or talking in forums there is mturks.com. This is a fun way to make a few cents from Amazon.com. You join the site then look over the list of opportunities available to find what you would like to do. Some of the jobs available include sharing a story about a place you have visited, looking over web pages and listing the top keywords for the page, or writing a short piece about your career choice. Most of the jobs only pay between $0.10 and $0.25 each, though there are some that can pay up to $0.75 each. Mturks.com can be fun to use, and you usually only need a few minutes to complete each task.

What about the writers out there? Well Associated Content has been the best site so far for writing and being paid online. If you are here then you know how writing an article or two (or three) each day can pull in several dollars each week. The better your writing the better your pay, and like most sites you can also receive a small amount of money by referring others to write here as well. A similar site available is constantcontent.com. At constantcontent.com, however, you only get paid if and when your articles are purchased by a third party buyer. You can host your articles on their site, tag them for easy reference, and share a brief part of your article to draw attention. Some sites and businesses looking for articles to place on their website use constantcontent.com to find what they need. If your article is used you get part of the money paid for it; the rest goes to constantcontent.com for their fees. There is also helium.com that claims to pay writers for writing short pieces about certain topics or answering certain questions. Helium.com has more of a message board style in that several writers can work on the same topic at once and the answers do not need to be as formalized as an article published elsewhere. Replies are compared side by side so that members can read them and rate which ones they feel are better, higher rating articles move higher up the pile and can get more page views. Payments are based on number of page views and number of ad clicks from each article. Though do not expect much money from Helium.com, in two months worth of writing I was only able to earn $15, something I can make in one article here at associatedcontent.com.

Some websites are paying people to use them as a search engine also. Slashmysearch.com is one such site. You simply use them as your homepage and do all of your searches with them. You can also refer others and earn a bit more from their searches well. The pay, however, is very low. Using slashmysearch.com nearly full time, and with a large number of referrals, I was only able to make $0.40. Agloco is another such site that is generating a lot of buzz online. You download their special toolbar and use it to make your searches online. The toolbar also displays ads that are related to your search. So far Agloco.com is still in beta, so there is no money to be made. But many people are building a network by referring others in hopes of gaining big.

So what were my results? Well, after spending an average of four hours each day at these various sites my earnings barely broke $50. The highest income came from associatedcontent.com, while most of the others paid only a few dollars each. While some claim to be able to make hundreds of dollars each month, I found that too difficult to achieve. Without enough free time to spend every day to put in it is nearly impossible to draw the large sums of money that many claim. If you're hoping to be able to make money on the web make sure that you have enough time and energy to devote every day towards it. But if you are just looking for a few dollars here and there, spending only a couple hours online every day can easily drawn that in for you. And who knows, maybe you will discover the next secret to making millions online.