Writing is an art that could be turned into online money making with broad spectrum in everyday life. It could be defined according to Wikipedia as a medium of human communication that represents language and emotion through the inscription or recording of signs and symbols. In most languages, writing is a complement to speech or spoken language. Writing is not a language but a form of technology that developed as tools developed with human society. Within a language system, writing relies on many of the same structures as speech, such as vocabulary, grammar and semantics, with the added dependency of a system of signs or symbols. The result of writing is generally called text, and the recipient of text is called a reader. The aggregate of texts is called content which is said to be king in the internet marketing circle. Motivations for writing include publication, storytelling, correspondence, diary and remotely money making. Writing has been instrumental in keeping history, maintaining culture, dissemination of knowledge through the media and the formation of legal systems.
As human societies emerged, the development of writing was driven by pragmatic exigencies such as exchanging information, maintaining financial accounts, codifying laws and recording history. Around the 4th millennium BCE, the complexity of trade and administration in Mesopotamia outgrew human memory, and writing became a more dependable method of recording and presenting transactions in a permanent form. In both ancient Egypt and Mesoamerica writing may have evolved through calendrics and a political necessity for recording historical and environmental events.
In this well packaged article, you will learn complete ways and techniques you can make money online from writing. According to internet marketers, if there is one skill that trumps all others in effectively earning money online it is the ability to write.
No other skill has the versatility that writing has. Good writers are sorely most times underrepresented. If you can write, you can make money online (with or without a blog) – guaranteed! Let’s now look at some interesting ways you can make money online from writing.
1.0 Blogging
The act of blogging in and of itself is often free, but that doesn’t mean that blogging can’t serve as a useful platform from which you can earn money online. Many people are earning fortunes a month “just blogging”, by combining it with things like affiliate sales, ad networks, and paid reviews.
From personal experience I will advice you start a blog with a purpose/passion – aside from making money. This will help you to sustain the tempo and be successful in the long run, as it is normal to spend many months blogging without earning anything. Here are some of the best blogging sites you can use to get started:
How To Start A Blog – There are a few simple steps that you will need to complete to start your blog:
- Choose your blogging platform
- Secure a domain name and get hosting in place with a good host
- Configure your blog
- Design your blog
- Start creating useful content that serves readers
Furthermore, to have a successful blog you must be careful in choosing a niche, finding readers for your blog, building community with your blog, and thinking about how to make money from it.
To start a blog you’ll need to select a blogging platform or a tool that helps you to get your content up onto the web.
There are many blogging platforms available but WordPress.org site is highly recommended.
WordPress is by far the most popular blogging platform and for good reason –
- It is free to use (although you do need to make a small investment in a domain and a server)
- It is easy to set up
- It has been around for many years and is a robust and secure system (however, you need to keep it up-to-date to maintain security)
- It has a whole industry of tool providers, designers and developers around it that will help you to customise your blog in many ways
Keep in mind that WordPress offer two tools:
- WordPress.com – where they host your blog, look after the back end, and give you access to have it on their own domain. It’s free to start but, you pay to upgrade different elements of it.
- WordPress.org – where you have complete control and host the blog on your own server, your own domain and have complete control over how it looks, operates and how you can monetise it. It is completely free to use but you need to arrange your own hosting, domain etc.
My recommendation is to go with WordPress.org – you’ll have a little more work in the setting up phase but in the long run you’ll have full control over the look, feel, features and monetization of your site. It could end up cheaper for you too!
It is hoped that, this step by step starting guide will help you to start your first blog.
Here are some of the best blogging sites you can use to get started:
Blog.com – Creates a free blog and hosts it for you for free. Your domain will look like yourdomain.blog.com.
Livejournal – A service for journals and blogs, that also offers privacy controls, photo storage, publishing tools, style templates, and online communities for many interests.
Tumblr – You can post anything (from anywhere!), customize everything, and find and follow what you love. Stay for what you discover, Turns out that when you make it easy to create interesting things, that’s exactly what people do. All those great, random blogs your friends send you, those are Tumblr blogs.
WordPress.com – Free blogs managed by the developers of the WordPress software. Includes custom design templates, integrated statistics, automatic spam protection . Your domain will look like yourdomain.wordpress.com It’s different from Word Press.org.
WordPress.org – A web-software you can use to create a beautiful website or blog, with your own domain name.
Hosting
Find below a few different hosts you can use for your blogs. One cannot say they are the best hosting around. There are thousands of hosts. I can say that they work, they are reliable/dependable, the sites go relatively fast and the support is relatively good. There may be better options out there, but these are certainly sufficient.
WPEngine: WP Engine is the industry leader in managed WordPress hosting. When it comes to security patches and WordPress core updates, WP Engine is proactive in keeping your site secure with automatic updates. WP Engine also performs proactive security and malware scans to ensure that all WordPress sites running on WP Engine are free from intrusions. Whether it’s a security update for a popular plug-in or emergency maintenance due to an issue with a data center, WP Engine’s technical support team will ensure you’re the first to know if your site is impacted by a security risk. You can sleep easily knowing that the WP Engine team strives to provide the most secure WordPress hosting solution on the market.
HostGator: HostGator provides every customer with the necessary tools to get a fully-functional website up and running as quickly as possible. Their shared hosting plan is solid and they have decent support.
SiteGround: They provide free website transfers as part of their on-boarding service since day one of their company. Currently the site received more than 3000 migration requests each month. The accumulated experience is tremendous and you can bet that their team has come across and solved (almost) any possible problem that can appear during a website transfer. The support is top notch.
2.0 Blog/Website Monetization
If you have a blog or a website with content and a following, I’m going to discuss a few ways you can monetize it through advertising and information products. Concerning the latter, you certainly don’t need a blog to pull it off.
Anyone can sell an ebook, for example. But it is just so typical for bloggers to do these things, because they tend to be more successful when you have an audience.
Still, if you don’t have a blog, you just need to think of another way to reach your target audience (like a forum, or a simple landing page).
3.0 Contextual Links and Sponsored Posts
If you have a blog there are many ways you can monetize the writing portion of it, such as reviews, sponsored posts, and more. This is actually how I started earning serious money online.
Often, companies will pay you to link to them on your blog because they want the increased exposure as well as the “link juice” that they get from an inbound link to their website. Be careful with this one because in some instances it can violate Google’s TOS, which, in the most extreme circumstances, can result in your website being removed from the search engines.
Blogitive – Get paid weekly via PayPal for posting stories that interest you.
Blogsvertise – Make money from advertising and generate ad income from your blog.
Blog ToProfit – Make $250 dollars or more by writing new posts on your blog.
Creative Weblogging – Write 7 to 10 posts per week for their network and they will pay you $225 per month.
Digital Journal – This is a digital media news network with thousands of Digital Journalists in 200 countries around the world.
Expo TV – Consumer generated video, social media and peer to peer recommendations enable influential consumers to share their authentic reviews and opinions.
LinkLift – An international online marketing service provider based in Berlin. Some marketers have personally used Linklift and profited hundreds of dollars from doing so.
LinkVehicle – This is an easy system to sell blog posts
LinkWorth– Easy textlink ads for advertisers and webmasters to boost link popularity.
LoudLaunch – Blog about the advertiser’s campaign releases that meet your interests. They pay once a month.
Pay Per Post– Get paid as much as $500 or more a month, writing articles and reviews of their sponsors on your blog.
PostJoint – PostJoint enables content marketers and publishers to swiftly arrange deals on their own terms. Marketers can quickly distribute their content and publishers can easily grow and monetize their sites.
ReviewMe – After your blog has been accepted in their network, they will pay you $20 to $200 per post that you write to review products/advertisers.
Smorty – Smorty is a community site that helps bloggers generate a better income, and it could be defined as a network devoted to blog advertising. The site is split into two main sections. Earn $6 to $100 dollars per post you write on your blog, depending on the overall popularity and page rank of your blog.
SponsoredReviews – A blog post service that connects advertisers with bloggers willing to write paid posts about their services and products. They charge a 35% transaction fee for their services.
Teliad – SEO company for international Writers and blogs. Some marketers have personally used Teliad and made nearly $1k doing so. They pay monthly.
Every month you can receive $130 from Teliad
4.0 eBooks
It seems that, just about every popular blogger has his or her own e-book(s) these days. Part of the reason is that there are just so few barriers to entry – if you want to write a book and self publish, go ahead! It can be a “passive” income stream for life (though that should not be confused with the fact that it can be a lot of upfront work).
bookbaby.com – Sell more eBooks with a professionally designed cover. The industry’s best place for valuable tips on how to promote and sell your book.
flickrocket.com – Set up your ebook own shop.
kindle.amazon.com – The Amazon Kindle is a series of e-book readers designed and marketed by Amazon.com. Amazon Kindle devices enable users to shop for, download and sell.
payhip.com – Upload e-books and sell directly on Twitter, Facebook or your website. Sell your e-books to your fans and followers and get paid instantly via PayPal.
Secure-ebook.com – A website with an integrated Blog engine that will help you sell more eBooks; the renowned Secure-eBook fully automated purchase process.
5.0 Podcasting
Podcasting is all the rage lately and it is becoming the new, preferred form over content to connect with your audience. In addition, it can also be a lucrative form of income if you draw in enough of an audience.
Consider Entrepreneur On Fire, a podcasting series/blog, which makes over $40k per month on direct advertising through their podcasting. Here are some popular business podcasts:
- ENTREPRENEUR ON FIRE – John Lee Dumas
- SIX PIXELS OF SEPARATION – Mitch Joel
- MARKETING OVER COFFEE – Chris Penn and John Wall
- MARKETING SMARTS – Kerry O’Shea Gorgone of marketingprofs
- THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW – Travis Jenkins
- SOCIAL TRIGGERS INSIDER – Derek Halpern
- EBOOK NINJAS – Joshua Tallent, Toby Stevenson, Chris Casey
- INSIDE PR – Gini Detrich, Joseph Thornley and Martin Waxman
- 350 THIRD – Anders Brownworth, Scott Barstow
- EVENTUAL MILLIONAIRE – Jaime Tardy
- YOUR GRAND IDEA – Todd Skaggs and Kevin Carter
- THE SOLOMO SHOW – Cory O’Brien & Adam Helweh
- THE FRIDAY FIVE – Tom Webster
- THE WORK TALK SHOW – DJ Waldow and Nick Westergaard
- INSPIRING WORDS OF ENCOURAGEMENT – Zig Ziglar
- ONLINE MARKETING MADE EASY – Amy Porterfield
- THE FIZZLE SHOW – Corbett Barr, Chase Reeve & Caleb Wojcik
- THE START UP SHOW – Seth Godin
- PODCAST ANSWER MAN – Cliff Ravenscraft
- THIS IS YOUR LIFE – Michael Hyatt
- SMART PASSIVE INCOME – Pat Flynn
- A&B GROUP THERAPY (Music Podcast)
6.0 Online Courses
It has been established that through online course you can make well over $2500 doing so. You will also get a bunch of contacts from talented individuals who took the class.
Again it requires a lot of upfront work but the ongoing work can be significantly less by comparison. There are many platforms that are built for you to specifically offer courses.
Or you can simply create your own on your website through a series of emails.
All of these are essentially free platforms for creating online courses:
- Claroline
- Coursecraft
- Coursesites
- Learnotopia
- Moodle
- Peer 2 Peer University
- Rcampus
- Udemy
7.0 Membership Site
Although this has been around forever I’ve particularly started noticing it quite recently and I LOVE IT, at least, as a business model.
The idea is basically to create a community of like-minded individuals and give them access to each other as well as instruction to help them achieve their mutual goals.
The math on these is quite astounding, as you generally see people charge between $20-$100/month. That means for each sign up they are getting a monthly recurring income of $20-$100. So, if you can get a few hundred sign ups leveraging your audience, well, do the math.
A few of the ones I am aware of (though there are many that are for sure) are:
Entrepreneur On Fire’s Podcasting Paradise – A community for podcasters from John Dumas.
Tung Tran Cloud Living Membership – Community For niche website builders.
8.0 PPC (Pay Per Click) Marketing
Most people have heard of adsense, which is Google’s advertising network. In reality, this is only one of over a hundred different ad networks.
These ads work off a variety of models whereby your pay is relative to the exposure the ad gets. What is actually required (a view, a click, a sign up) varies.
Ads come in a variety of forms, such as banners (of all different sizes), links, videos, and more. Pay per click marketing means that you get paid every time the ad gets clicked.
It is one of the most common forms of ad networks because, unlike a view, the advertiser has greater confidence that the user has purposefully interacted with the ad in some way.
Chitika – Develops real-time, scalable, on-demand contextual targeting services to help online businesses leverage their two biggest assets: content and online. It is similar to AdSense.
Clicksor – Clicksor offers webmasters the opportunity to earn additional income by using a selection of clickable text or targeted contextual banners on their websites or blogs. Payouts are made by PayPal with a minimum payout of $20.
CrispAds – Access to over six thousand advertisers in their pay-per-click program. Decide which advertisers suit you best.
Feedburner – FeedBurner is a web feed management provider launched in 2004. You can implement AdSense earnings to your feeds also through Feedburner/Google.
Google AdSense – Google AdSense provides a free, flexible way to earn money from your websites, mobile sites, and site search results with relevant and engaging ads. It is the leading advertising network in the internet to make money and usually offers the highest rates to their publishers through PPC (pay per click), CPM (cost per impression). Payment is done by check or direct deposit with a minimum payout of $100.
Infolinks – Infolinks leads the online advertising industry by driving new revenue opportunities for publishers while overcoming banner blindness for advertisers. Payment method PayPal, or check, minimum payouts are $50.
Media.net – Bing Network Contextual Ads program enables web publishers to easily and effectively earn advertising revenue.
Speedy Ads – Pay Per Click advertising
9.0 PPV (Pay-Per-View) Advertising
Pay per view advertising is similar to pay per click, except you can replace click with view. Your pay is largely based on the traffic you bring to the ad.
In general, ppv rates are lower than ppc because less is required of the user. For example, while 1000 people might see an ad, it is possible that only 5 (or less) will click it.
AdBrite – Approve or reject any ads purchased for your sites. You can also sell ads direct with “Your Ad Here” links.
AdKnowledge – Adknowledge is a digital advertising marketplace that efficiently gets results for your message wherever your audience happens to be: desktop, laptop, tablet etc.
Adsella – Buy and sell ad space.
Advertiise – This is an advertising marketplace for buying and selling online and offline media. Buy or Sell print, online, outdoor, ambient, event and many more advertising.
Bidvertiser – Online advertising directly on sites of your choice, internet marketing solution for online advertisers. Webmasters make money online by displaying text ads on your site and advertisers bid for placement.
BlogAds – Blogads is an online ad network that provides advertising services to both bloggers and advertisers. Average blogger makes anywhere from $50 to $5000 dollars a month selling blog ads.
Blog Her – PPV advertising network that you can apply to if you have a blog.
BuySellAds – BuySellAds.com is an online advertising network in which you can earn money by selling your ad space with your own rates. You can use this platform to get monthly ads for your food blog or niche site.
Direct CPV– Give your online marketing campaign the jolt it needs with DirectCPV’s pay per view advertising solution.
DoubleClick – DoubleClick is the ad technology foundation to create, transact, and manage digital advertising for the world’s buyers, creators and sellers.
IndustryBrains – This platform provides unique advertising and monetization services, for both advertisers and publishers by placing relevant contextual text listings and graphical ads on your site.
Lead Impact – This is an Online ad network.
Media Traffic – This is all about PPV Contextual Advertising .
MediaFed -Connects advertisers with hard to reach communities of affluent, informed and influential consumers.
PeakClick -Pay-Per-Click search engine, connecting advertisers with quality traffic that translates into sales. It provides automatic insertion of site targeted ads.
Pheedo – Providing online newsfeed and RSS marketing services.
Qumana – This is a Desktop blog publishing tool. It embeds ads directly into your posts.
ROIRocket – Online Marketing Fueled by Research
Traf ficVance– This is a Contextual Textlink and Display Advertising Platform that delivers high quality traffic to advertisers through high performing ad units, granular targeting, competitive pricing, and multiple optimization capabilities.
Tribal Fusion: This platform can be used to plan and execute campaigns based on your online audiences. Approval requires minimum of 2000 unique visitors/day and targeted designs are needed to qualify.
ValueClick media -Displaying ads through banners, pop-unders and rich media.
Vibrant Media – In-text contextual based advertisements.
Yes Advertising – Run ads from their sponsors as well as a referral program that pays 20% of the referred webmasters earnings.
10.0 Private Blog Networks
Again, debatable as to whether or not this belongs in blogging but it is bloggers from whom I am seeing these services and therefore included it in this section. I have also started to see this now more than ever, and it is individuals renting out their private blog networks for links.
Some SEOs are saying that one of the best ways to achieve rankings in the SERPS is through private blog networks, as they are very powerful and direct.
Here are a few private blog network services:
Authority Website Income – Private Blog Network service by Jon.
CloudIncome’s Rank Source – Private Blog Network run by Lewis Ogden.
God of SEO’s PBN – Private Blog Network run by Charles Floate.
11.0 Revenue Sharing
If you don’t have a blog of your own, there are plenty of other platforms that you can write for. Many websites operate as large, content networks that allow people to write for them.
In exchange, they will put ads in your writing and give you a revenue share of what your articles make. The benefit here is that they receive a lot of traffic, so receiving 75% commission on the ad revenue that these sites produce might be better than 100% on your own blog if it doesn’t receive much traffic.
The downside is that you are building up another person’s website instead of building something for yourself.
451 Press – Write about various subjects. Receive forty percent of all generated revenue.
About.com – A valuable resource for content that helps people to solve the large and small needs of everyday life. Become a paid guide writing articles for About.com.
Best Reviewer – A collection of reviews in the style of TOP X. 100% AdSense revenue share.
Bukisa – Share your knowledge via how to guides, tips & instructions. 60% revenue share via Adsense or Chitika.
Cracked: This is actually a ‘funny’ website filled with funny videos, pics, articles and a whole bunch of other funny stuff. Receive up to $100+ per article.
DemandStudios – Create content in your area of expertise.
HubPages – Online space to share your advice, reviews, useful tips, opinions and insights with hundreds of other authors. HubPages is completely free and offers an AdSense share of 60%
InfoBarrel – InfoBarrel is a social writing platform where writers from around the world come together to create media content. Currently, the revenue share model is based upon three programs; Google AdSense, Chitika and Amazon Associates. 75% of the time the publishers affiliate codes will be displayed and the other 25% the InfoBarrel codes are displayed. AdSense revenue share ranges from 75% to 90%.
Postloop: Make money by sharing informative articles and forum posts.
Rate It All – RateItAll is a consumer-review website that also incorporates social networking. Consumers review products and services, share information, and get paid for their reviews. 50% AdSense revenue share.
Seeyt – Make money writing original, reader-friendly articles. 70% revenue share via AdSense and Amazon.
SheToldMe – This is a Social bookmarking site with a 100% AdSense Revenue Sharing program.
Snipsly – Publish articles and earn money. Snipsly enables you to post nearly any kind of content you want. Create a Google AdSense Account and keep 80% of your article’s earnings.
Squidoo – Free site for creating single webpages on your interests and recommendations. The better the pages do the more money you earn.
SquidStop – Squidstop is a new bookmarking website. People who join this website can earn some cash with 100% revenue share via AdSense.
TipDrop – TipDrop is a place where people come to give and receive tips on just about anything. You will get 75% revenue share via AdSense.
Weblogs, Inc. – Weblogs, Inc. is a blog network of about 90 blogs, covering a variety of subjects. You are paid per post that you write.
WordFirm – Managed Editing provides editorial services—mainly copyediting and proofreading—for nonprofits, government agencies, publishers, and others.
WriterTown – Earn 100% ad revenue share (AdSense/Chitika/Clicksor required). You may include self-serving links, including affiliate links. They also promote your articles through their newsletter Break Studios.
12.0 Freelance Writing
Say you don’t have a blog, and don’t want to join in an ad revenue sharing agreement, you can get paid a flat rate to write articles. Personally, it was shown that experts have hired nearly a dozen writers to write articles for them and paid thousands of dollars to freelance writers.
There is definitely a huge demand for it although there is a lot of competition. I will not go into details on how best to become a freelance writer, as there are more experienced people to tell you that, however I do believe at least one aspect of it is building up a reputation.
Some of these sites can help you get started.
Associated Content – Submit your content and get paid relative to the views it gets.
Constant Content – Commission freelance content writers to create original content for your website. Find SEO content writing and writers. Trade your blog posts and articles for cash.
Demand Media – Application based freelance writing site that reportedly pays up to $15 per article.
Fool – Write financial stories and get paid to do so.
London Brokers – You don’t have to be a professional writer but a native English speaker.
Mashable – Mashable hires freelancers for a variety of categories.
Need An Article – This is an Article Writing Service that provides, SEO writing, business writing, technical articles, creative writing and more, business writing, technical articles, creative writing and more.
Seeking Alpha – Write articles for them and get paid to do so.
Text Brokers – Submit blog posts and articles in exchange for cash. I have personally bought articles from Textbrokers and the quality is good. On average they pay $4 per 400 word article (potentially more for better quality).
Writers Domain – Looking for highly skilled and qualified writers to compose blogs on various topics.
Following all the steps and guide provided freely above will obviously increase your income writing online.
