Earning Money Online

One of the great entrepreneurial opportunities is to use the Internet to make money. There are many excellent examples out there. The biggest one is Google, with on-line contextual advertising. My Space and You Tube are examples of businesses that have been sold for hundreds of millions. Digg and Facebook are potential multimillion dollar businesses when they are sold. If one has a business like these, reading My Wealth Builder is not needed:-)

For the rest of us who are looking for opportunities, the title of this post should be Trying to Earn Money Online. Here's my experience with different online opportunities.

Surveys - These are online surveys by reputable research companies. American Consumer Opinion and Survey Savvy are the two I have tried. Survey payments are typically $1-2 for Survey Savvy, with occasional $15 or $25 surveys (that fill up fast) and $4-5 for Consumer Research Opinion. Overall, I've made very little income, primarily because I only qualify for about 5-10% of the surveys sent to me.
Mystery Shoppers. The Wall Street Journal, June 11, 2003, published an article about Jennifer Voitle , who was making about $80,000 a year as a mystery shopper. This income did not include the free items she received as part of her work. She shared that many mystery shopping jobs paid around $30 and that she found the jobs online from the Internet.

I signed up from Corporate Research International - Mysteryshop.com (CRI). CRI had many mystery shopper opportunities. However, the payments are typically $5 to $8 with a $1 to $3 reimbursement for a purchase, which is quite different from the article referenced above. The compensation covers both time (preparation, mystery shop, and report submission) and transportation. For me the compensation did not sufficiently cover the effort and time involved and I passed on taking any assignments.
Affiliate programs. In most affiliate programs, one becomes a commission based sales person for the product or service offered by a company. For example, as an affiliate of Amazon, My Wealth Builder has a product recommendation (WD-120GB Passport Hard Drive) and an Amazon search tool. Any purchases made by someone who accesses Amazon via this links earns My Wealth Builder a commission. While there are many who earn respectable commissions via affiliate links, My Wealth Builder has earned zero affiliate based income in nine months.

Advertising. This approach uses Google adsense, Text Link ads or other systems to provide advertising on a website or blog to earn income. Millionaire Bloggers posted at Worldwide Success shares estimated incomes from 9 bloggers ranging from $77,000 to almost $500,000 per year. The author also notes that the average blogger, of which there are over 50 million, make less that $100 per month.
Many bloggers hope to make sufficient income to replace their day job income and some do. However, the majority of bloggers may make enough to cover their out of pocket costs, but probably not enough to cover the time invested. Count My Wealth Builder among the majority of bloggers after nine months of blogging:-)
I have not tried selling items online nor writing posts for pay (e.g. Pay per Post or Review Me) and cannot comment on these forms forms of earning money based on personal experience.

For more on New Beginnings, check back every Sunday for a new segment.

Photo Credit: morgueFile.com, Jane M. Sawyer

This is not financial, or earning advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

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