Looking for New Ways to Make Money Online? How About 101 Ways….

Today I’m going to address another question frequently asked by our beloved MakingMoneyOnline.com readers:

Dear Making Money Online,
I’ve tried the blogging thing. Affiliate marketing was fun until Big G axed my money pages. Contributing posts to revenue sharing websites works OK, as long as I don’t want to earn any more than a Starbucks coffee (not even a Latte) each month. In short, I need some help: What other legitimate ways are there to make money online?
–Whiskey Pete

Well Whiskey Pete, you’re in luck, because this week I stumbled upon a site that’s intended for people just like you. My friend Brock Hamilton has put together what just may be the web’s most comprehensive list of legitimate ways to make money online. His website 101 Ways to Make Money is just the thing for anyone who feels like their online cash generating skills are in a rut.

Sure, you’ll find the usuals there, like making money with online surveys or blogging, but Brock has gone much further to help you find your own personal cash machine with such unusual tactics as scrap metal, animal ID tags, or even poetry.

How to Use HubPages to Make Money Online

There are thousands of ways to make money online and HubPages is one of the best ways to get started with it, especially if you are good at writing and new to making money online. Joining HubPages is free and easy and you don’t have to invest anything. You can write about anything you want whenever you want so you won’t be feeling the pressure to keep a posting frequency. And best of all you could be making money while writing about the things you like.

How to Make Money from HubPages

There are some direct ways and some indirect ways that you can make money with HubPages. First let’s look at the direct ways you can make money online.

• Adsense – HubPages is a revenue sharing site, whenever you build a hub (a page about something you like) Adsense ads are automatically inserted to it. They use a service called YieldBuild which calculates the best possible places for the Adsense ads so you can be sure that your Adsense ads are optimized. In your settings you can set your Adsense publisher id and you will get 60% of the impressions from your hub. Now some will argue that instead of getting the 60% of page impressions why not write a blog post about it and get all the impressions to you. Problem is it will be pretty hard for you to rank for those terms in Google and get search engine traffic. HubPages is a trusted site by Google and it’s easy to get good ranking for your Hubs and because of the internal linking structure of HubPages you will get lots of traffic from other related hubs as well. All these benefits mean you have a better chance to make more money from HubPages.
• Kontera – You can also enable Kontera ads in your hubs so you have more chances of earning money. I personally don’t use Kontera in my hubs because I think they get in the way of good user experience but you might want to check them out and see the results in your hubs.
• Amazon Widget – You can also add Amazon widgets to your hubs. You can set your Amazon partner id in the affiliate setting and when a user buys something via your widget you get a commission.

Those are some of the direct ways you can make money with HubPages but there are more advantages to using HubPages which can indirectly help your earnings.

• Creating Hubs for Affiliate products – I have mentioned this before in the article as well, Google places a lot of trust in HubPages and your Hub about some affiliate product can easily outrank your blog post about that same affiliate product. Of course building back links is the best way to rank in Google but because of the internal linking structure and the trust Google places in Hub Pages you have a definite advantage while using Hub Pages.
• To Build Back links – Hub Pages is a great way to build back links to your blog or website. It’s relatively easy to get a good PR for your Hubs and as long as you maintain a Hub score of more than 75 you will get nofollow back links from your pages. My blog about Make Money Blogging is ranked well for some good key words and the links from my hubs played a major role in doing that.

I joined HubPages in the hope of getting some back links… but I got back links, money and a whole lot of knowledge as well. Since it’s free to join you’ve got nothing to lose and I assure you, you have a lot to gain. Check out my hub about “Want one-way back links? Try guest posts” to get an idea of a hub. I’m sure you can find the create my own button in there

This “Guest Post” was written by Nishadha  Silva. You can learn more about  Nishadha at Make Money Blogging.

Lee Silber – Business Spotlight Interview

Lee Silber is one of my favorite authors, because his books are innovative, entertaining, highly motivational and easy to read. The timing for this article is perfect so I can introduce his latest book “Bored Games” which will become available August 18th. Lee is not only an accomplished author, but he also owns several businesses, travels the country hosting workshops and seminars, and somehow manages to have a happy family life with his wife and two children.

I asked Lee to answer a few questions that I thought would be helpful to our readers, and here are the questions and responses. There is also a link to his website if you would like more information about his books, workshops, seminars, or to sign up for his free newsletter (This is a no-brainer!). Thanks again Lee for being our inaugural Business of the Week spotlight!

Mark: I loved your book “Rock to Riches”.  Rather than just relying on your publisher to sell the book, how affective has adding online sales been to the success of this and your other books?

Lee: Bookstores are NOT a great place to sell books, believe it or not. For one thing, there are tens of thousands of titles to choose from and they are not organized that well. Plus, they only stock certain titles. Online booksellers are a blessing for the book buyer and the bookseller because it’s easier for the book buyer to find what they need, and online booksellers “carry” more titles (which they order as needed, so they have very little risk.) For many authors this point is mute because they can’t get their books in traditional bookstores to begin with, so online booksellers are key to their success.

Mark: What creative methods have you used to add sales through your website CreativeLee.com?

Lee: I think the best button on a website is the “FREE” button. By offering something for free to capture a potential purchaser’s e-mail address you have built up good will, given them a sample of your great work, and have a way to follow-up. So many times a person has asked for and received a free sample of a book or product and turned around and placed a large order that same day.

Mark: Your products are not only informative, but they are very entertaining and highly motivational. What tips could you share with other writers/bloggers for starting a business that would be helpful?

Lee: Businesses exist for one reason and one reason only. If you were thinking to turn a profit, you would only be half right. The bottom line is the bottom line for the business owner, but for the consumer the reason they buy is because you solve a problem for them. The saying, “Find a problem and solve it” makes sense because it’s true. No matter what the product or service is, it must make someone’s life or business better. Focus on figuring out what that is and then make sure that is the emphasis in any and all marketing efforts.

Mark: CreativeLee is the perfect name to describe how you get your message across to your readers. How do you keep coming up with such one of a kind ideas?

Lee: I made a list of a hundred possible names for my business. Guess what Creative-Lee Speaking was on that list. Exactly, number one. Most of us have great ideas; we just need to trust our instincts. Confidence in your creativity is the key to coming up with clever solutions. I wanted a name that said what I did but also was memorable. I wanted a name that when I told someone what I did, they would want to know more. So far, so good.

Mark: Music is definitely a passion of yours, and it seems fitting that your book focused on Rock and Roll as the main theme. How did you gain access to so many different artists in so many different fields of music for your stories? Were there any artists that you wish you could interview, but couldn’t? Which story was your favorite?

Lee: Every time we went to a manager, publicist, or record label to request an interview with a famous rock star (Steven Tyler is a good example) we were given one excuse after another why they couldn’t do the interview. But, when we were able to name drop and say we were referred by a person who knew the rocker, we were in. It really is who you know. What’s interesting is how we overlook the obvious. Our friends and family know people who know people who can open a lot of doors. It’s worthwhile to let the people around you know what you are doing and want to do so they can help.

Mark: Let’s say I wanted to become a motivational speaker, but had no idea how to get started. What would you recommend I do to start a career similar to the path you followed?

Lee: There are three ways to build a career as a paid professional presenter. The first is write a book that becomes a best seller, or wins rave reviews in a particular field. That’s the fastest way. Another is to do something that is so amazing people want to hear about it. To make sure enough people know about your amazing story, getting your name in print and on radio and television is important. In fact, fame of any kind can lead to lucrative speaking opportunities. Finally, there are seminar companies that pay you to give talks on topics they offer. You get to travel all over the world and make money training and teaching people skills.

Mark: What do you do once you have completed writing a book? Do you jump into promotions, or move onto the next book? How much feedback to you get from your viewers? Do you use a blog or network of your peers for inspiration on your projects?

Lee: To get a book from an idea, to a book deal, to a completed manuscript, to a bookstore takes a LONG time. But that’s only the beginning. The promotional part is the most important phase. I will spend weeks just on magazine and radio interviews, in-store events, and anything else that will help get the word out. That doesn’t mean I dislike this time. In fact, I love talking up one of my titles. It takes passion to get published, and that passion carries over into promotion or publicity.

Mark: The success of Amazon’s Kindle is growing. Are your books available on this format?

Lee: This is an interesting question. Kindle could (and I say “could” because we are at a crossroads) be the next big thing. The problem for Amazon is the iPhone is so popular and can do the same thing, it’s keeping the Kindle from becoming a phase and may make it an (expensive) fad. We’ll see.

Mark: What are some of your favorite websites that you like to visit on a regular basis?

Lee: Being a writer and speaker I find information fascinating so of course Google and Wikipedia are the best.

Mark: What do you think are some of the keys that have lead to your success? I am sure our readers would really love to know this.

Lee: I’ve been asked this question a lot lately and I think I have narrowed it down to two things. The first is, finish what you start and do what you say you are going to do. So many people have great ideas, but so few follow through. If it were simply talent or intelligence that determined success, well, I would be pretty average. What I do is go for it, no matter what the odds or how hard it seems. The saying “When there’s a will, there’s a way,” is my motto. And if I didn’t have a will, there’s no way I would do something. I pick projects I am passionate about and that helps me persist even when it looks like it’s impossible.

The second thing that motivates me, and this will surprise people, is the drive to not be average. I am sure a psychologist could have a field day with this one, but the will to be the best (or at least better than most) is a powerful force when harnessed and used for greater good. I truly want to help others and make a difference, but I also have a drive to be the best author in my field, the best speaker at a conference, and the best person I can be. It works for me.

Again, we want to thank Lee for taking the time out of his busy schedule to help with our first Business Spotlight interview. Please make sure and stop by his website, “CreativeLee.com” and learn more about about him and the products and services he has to offer.

Also, if you could please leave a comment below letting us know what you think of our first interview. Did you like the format and the type of questions asked? Our plan is to personalize the questions for each interview so we can get the information our reader would like to know. Hopefully we did that here.

Making Money Online Selling Posters

We decided to create a new section titled “Money Making Affiliate Programs”, where each week we will be talking about some of our favorite affiliate programs we have used over the years, or new ones that we think have a lot of potential.

Since summer is going to be over before we know it (sorry), I decided to talk about an affiliate program that has brought me in many 1000’s of dollars over the years and does exceptionally well at the end of summer. Not to say it doesn’t do great year-round for making money online, but I just seem to have promoted the products more at the beginning of the each school year.

So what type of product am I talking about? POSTERS! That’s right, just plain old posters… well not just “plain old posters”, as this company has over 500,000 in stock and they are adding more and more all the time. The company is called, All Posters, but that could be a little misleading as they have grown over the years and now they sell; posters, prints, stand-ups, magnets, apparel, and much, much more…

Like any legitimate affiliate program it costs nothing to join and they offer some very advanced linking methods to make promoting any type genre of poster a breeze.

You can actually earn money a couple of different ways, which I really like. You can earn money by selling posters directly to public, which is where I have made most of my money. Plus you can earn money recruiting other affiliates to market their products, which is called a two-tier commission structure.

So here is how the commission structure is broken down:

Tier 1
You earn 20% commission for any purchase someone makes on All Posters via your affiliate link. If they purchase anything on the site for up to 10 days after they clicked on your affiliate link, you will still earn the 20% commission. The one thing I have noticed about selling posters is hardly anyone purchases just one poster. Most people purchase several, plus they offer framing and all sorts of other products, so their total bill can grow pretty quickly.

Tier 2
You can earn up to $8.00 for each new affiliate you recruit, plus lifetime residual income.

• You get $3.00 when they make their first sale
• You earn $5.00 when they make their second sale
• You earn 5% of every sale they make for life (this can be very lucrative if you recruit yourself some super affiliates)

As for marketing posters, there are many ways to go about it. I created a really basic site, PosterDiscounters.com… many years ago (which really needs a major overhaul), and for not getting much traffic it has always done pretty well at converting sales. It does especially well when I spend some time and promote it.

But don’t think you need your own custom site to make money selling posters, as I have had a lot of success over the years using other more direct methods like promoting to my different mailing lists, PPC advertising, adding their dynamic code to niche sites, etc… The only limit to marketing posters is your own imagination. Once you sign-up you will see all the cool different ways you can add posters to your site(s).

So if you are interested in making money online and are looking for another potentially lucrative income stream, sign-up here.