Basic tips for starting an internet business

There are some basic tips for starting a small home based business. I wrote before about how a lot of people give up and don't persist with a home based business because of the time, energy and sometimes seemingly needless costs (however small) that come with it. Although there is plenty of free information to get you started working on the internet, like online advice or e-books, you mostly need determination and motivation when you see that the rewards are very slow in coming your way. You need to remember however, that online businesses are easy to set up and require very small investments. You can start right away if you have internet and a credit card. If you don't have a credit card, you can use the services of paypal.com. They will collect money for online services from your bank account. You will also get paid for services and products in this way, since paypal is a trusted method of electronic money transfer by many. The most solid way for you to make a profit would be to obtain a blog or website of your own. That's the best way to make sure your product reaches the designated audience. Your site should be keyword optimized so that even more audience reaches you. There are many ways to get traffic to your site. Free traffic will take more time to build, but you can utilize social networks, traffic exchange websites, article and forum marketing to get it. Don't try all these marketing strategies at once. Take time to learn them and see if they work for you. You can use more than one method after you decide what works for your situation.

Make money writing articles

The one thing everyone is looking for when going on the internet, is information. Have you ever tried using a search engine like Google, while inputting words such as "how to make...", "how can I...", "who is..."? I'm sure you have. Searches like these will bring up "how-to" sites. These sites get their articles written by me and you. Do you have knowledge about anything at all in life, that you would like to share with the world and maybe make some money from it too? You can write about things you know on websites of this kind and get paid for it. If you decide to do this, in my opinion, you should be very knowledgeable in spelling and grammar. Readers will be annoyed if they can't understand what you've written, and they won't give your article half a chance. Websites to consider for this type of online job, are the same ones from witch you most likely get your own "how-to" information from. About.com, ehow.com and hubpages are the sites that most people go to, in order to obtain this type of info. You can be the writer for any imaginable niche out there. It's a little like writing for a blog, but without having to stick to one subject. You will have to write many hours a day to have substantial income from this, because these websites pay you a part of the revenue they make, from readers clicking on ads located on your article. But if you have good knowledge on technological gadgets or you are a mother with tips on how to handle your kids and manage your household, you are likely to make some residual income. I say some, because because you would need several hundreds of readers per article every day and they would have to show some interest on the ads displayed by clicking on them. Each of your articles is required to be anywhere from 400 words and over, so fast typing is required in order to write many per day. My advise would be, if you decide to take this route, that you write a lot of material before hand and have it ready for copy and paste. For example, edit four articles, but only submit two.

Freelance Writers

This is one more, no money down, home based business. Freelancers are basically independent contractors. You do piece work for someone on the internet. If you have good writing and editing skills, are fast in typing and/or have technical knowledge about anything at all, you can work in this field. There are two main legitimate sites for freelancers, guru.com and elance.com. If you sign up, you will be given a list of available assignments that you may want to complete. Apply for as many as you see fit.  In reality, you might apply for ten of them, before you are accepted for one. There is a good reason for this. Freelancers are many and just like any other profession out there, a lot of them are not very reliable. The ones that are reliable, are visible to the persons and businesses posting the assignments, because they've been around for some time and their work has been proven.
It might take a while for you to build up a reputation for yourself. When you start an internet home business of any kind, it will take time and effort before it can become established. Especially businesses that start with a no money down guarantee. This is where many people give up. But if you persist, you can end up making a living from freelance writing, working on assignments just four to five hours a day.

Affiliate Marketing - Anyone can do it!

Affiliate marketing is great, because you need little or no money to get started in it. You would maybe need to spend some money, to purchase a domain, because free blogging platforms have loads of limitations on how far you can go to advertise things. Also, web hosting services, that provide you with free sub domains (like for example www.yourname.webs.com) are frowned upon by the general public and don't register well in the ranks of Google. So by all means, buy a domain if you want to freely display ads and market products. Otherwise, do what many others are doing, and use free Twitter and Facebook accounts to promote your product. Facebook especially has never frowned upon it's members making a buck through their accounts. If you have a number of friends on social platforms like these, you can promote a product and make a buck. Anyone can become an affiliate with clickbank.com. You can go there and pick your product carefully. Whatever you pick, it has to be something you believe in. Otherwise, you won't make a buck from it. You can't be discouraged if something takes a while to catch on either. There's fierce competition on the internet. Think of the needs of your audience and try promoting more than one product at a time. Try being an affiliate to something that is a big niche. And expand your audience. Sometimes you receive invitations on facebook from people you don't know. They are usually trying to network with you. Respond to these strangers. They may be interested in your product as well. 

Domain Names - Your online "real estate"

If you have some money to invest in a sure thing, you can once more do the buy and sell, only this time with domain names and ready made websites. When considering buying and selling domains, you need to think like you would in real estate. The famous "location, location" logo of property ownership, fits the internet just as well. A .com domain versus other top level domains like .net, will sell for a much bigger profit. Consider that a good domain name can cost as much as a house, or more sometimes. You will need to spend allot of time looking for the best domains and sites to sell them on. You should never overprice anything in real estate and you shouldn't here either, otherwise you will drive good buyers away. However, it would be really bad if you ended up selling for much less than what it's worth, so you would also need to find out how much other, similar domains are selling for and who might be buying them. You can even get your domain appraised. The shorter and catchier the name, the more it will go for. When buying internet property, you should only go to websites with many satisfied customers like godaddy.com. When you want to sell however, you should start with websitebroker.com. They even have a valuation tool for their customers. Buying and selling domains...the possibilities are endless.

Survey anyone?

Surveys can be a colossal waste of time if  a person doesn't know what they're doing. The important thing to remember with online jobs of any kind, is that you must never pay them money to work for them. You wouldn't pay your prospective employer to give you a job as an assistant, would you? The same stands here. It's also not plausible that you make a lot of money this way, only extra income. So, survey sites promising a lot of money in return are scams. Mom's would probably make more money this way, as companies need and value their opinions. Also, not all countries are allowed to participate in survey sites, because the products available here are not the same as in other countries and the marketing methods are different. On average, you may spend 20 minutes to an hour filling out a survey. I know it doesn't sound like much, but it adds up, especially if you have more important things to do. There will be many days were you can't get a single survey to fill out, because the first few questions are designed to determine if the survey is relevant to you. If it's not, they won't let you fill it out. The best authority so far in legitimate survey sites is the website of surveypolice.com. There, you will find information and reviews about most survey sites.

Mystery Shoppers unite!

Mystery shopping is a great way to enjoy some everyday services for free. You would need to check with the Mystery Shopping Providers Association (MSPA) to find out which ones are legitimate. You will not earn much money with this, but you may be able to shop or dine with monetary refund. This means that you will first pay out of pocket for the product or service provided, followed by a refund from the mystery shopping company for which you finished the assignment.
In my opinion, this is also a way for store owners and institutions to potentially attract more customers to their business. Because if you like something about a place, you might end up going back there to spend your money. Mystery shopping is like doing detective work for someone, only without the big money. You need gadgets like a camera phone, voice recorders and a scanner to send in your receipts through the net. Another thing is that there are many mystery shoppers out there, applying for the same shops as you. So you may not always be picked. Beware of the frauds, there are too many of them. When they promise too much money or have a website one minute and not the next then they are frauds. Stick with the mspa.com website and you'll be okay.

Buy and sell (or just save hundreds)

If you have hours to spare and like the idea of buying and selling, then you could try to dabble into the wacky world of penny auctions. High end electronics, jewelery and other expensive items can be found there for ridiculous prices. As the word suggests, these are auction sites, so getting the item can become quite tricky. But, if you end up winning items, you can resell them, some for hundreds of dollars in profit. You can also save a lot of money in gifts and household items.
However, many of these sites are scams. You can always visit a site like pennyauctionwatch.com or others and you'll get detailed reviews on all of these sites. Another way to detect a scam penny auction site, would be to sign up for a site and monitor if a particular auction item ends up selling for way too much money. Also, not all penny auction sites cater to all countries. Pennyauctionlist.com has lists as well as reviews of sites and countries that can buy this way.

Saving money using the internet

How would you like to save some extra money each month? You can utilize the internet to eliminate phone bills and cable bills. Your home phone bill can be as little as $3.00 a month or even zero if you choose not to call any landlines. You can do this by downloading Skype or Live Messenger to your computer. You might want to purchase a web camera for your computer (they can cost as little as $40 or cheaper when on sale), although you can get service without it. Downside is: the call quality will fluctuate from good to bad, but you need to remember that it's free.
Now, if you're still paying for cable, just quit doing it (if you have the internet at home that is). Everything and anything a person might want to watch is located on the internet. Just visit www.buttermouth.com or www.ovguide.com and you'll be guided into the wonderful world of online tv and movies all completely free and no downloads necessary. You can also go to your favorite electronics store and buy a connection to transfer image from the computer to your tv. Downsides are: it may take a few tries to get a good link,  pop-up blocker is a must otherwise the pops will make you give up the movie and you'll need to download DivX player if you don't have it (that way you can watch more links).