If the answer to that question is no, I don’t have anymore reason and motivation to put up this website.
The NegosyoBuilder.com website is about building and running all aspects of an online business, with a little diversion on traditional businesses occasionally.
But for someone to be asking, “How do you make money online?” I think he is looking for an answer that is easier to digest.
Mind you, it’s not a stupid question. It’s a curious beginner’s question which deserves a straight-forward, but intelligent answer.
Here is my attempt to answer the question in a way that any sixth grader would understand. Here’s how you can make money online.
1. Sell Your Products and Services
In a traditional business, you make money by selling products, services or a combination of the two. The same thing happens when you go online.
In a traditional business, you have a physical store sitting on a specific location – that’s why they also call it bricks-and-mortar – where people can go and buy your products. If it’s a physical product, they can touch it, smell it, or even kiss it.
Online, your prospects (also called suspects if they are not buyers yet) can browse from the Products Catalog that you put from your website. With a few clicks, they are all set to place their orders and buy from you.
(See also : How To Setup A PayPal Account In The Philippines.)
I’m talking about selling products. Your job now is to imagine how it would be in the case of services.
And by the way, here are some business ideas (offering products or services) you can implement if you wanted to run a pure, virtual business online:
- Become an author and write your own ebooks. See lulu.com for details.
- Run a membership website where only paid, subscribed members can have access to specific contents.
- Offer Webinars on topics where you have expert knowledge.
These are just a few examples.
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2. Sell Advertising Space On Your Website
”It’s easy to make a buck. It’s a lot harder to make a difference.” –Tom Brokaw
I’m not sure if it is still the case today, but my favorite local newspaper company, The Philippine Daily Inquirer, at one point once admitted that the cost of producing a particular issue was actually greater than the price they were selling it to. Meaning, they were actually selling at a loss. But how do you think they survive until now?
Here’s the secret: They don’t make money by selling newspapers. That’s the newspaper boy’s business. They make money – and lots of it – by selling advertising spaces at various places in the paper.
Still wonder why bad news is everywhere whether in print, radio, TV and the Internet? Hint: Bad news is the real news.
If you have a website, you too can act like a small media company and deliver ads your web pages. It’s one of the quickest and easiest monetization strategies that anyone can do. You can contact an advertising agency’s website and simply sign-up for their program.
Here are some of my recommendations if you want to explore this option:
Tip: One of the mistakes new publishers make is they get too excited with this concept and immediately rush to fill their websites with various ads. This is not advisable if your website is relatively new with only a few pages to show. It’s best to work on your content first. Make lots of articles so that you can have a sizable base of audience who keeps coming back. Once you start developing your fans, that is when you should start populating your content with ads and put those ads only in strategic locations of your website.
3. Become A Middleman
“The shortest distance between two points is not a straight line – it’s a middleman.” –Ayn Rand
Here’s a sampling of the familiar middle men: real estate brokers, stock brokers, and insurance agents.
There are people who hate the middle man. But I’m here to tell you that the middle man – if you know how to pick the right one – could make your business transaction faster and your success easier.
People may criticize him for his lack of boxing skills, but Bob Arum is one of the finest businessmen in the world of boxing. As a promoter, he simply gets things done and makes millions of dollars happen – for everybody.
So don’t be afraid of the middleman. Instead, learn how to make use of his talents, skills and services to your advantage.
One of the ways you can make money online is by helping businesses sell their products and services. The image above is courtesy of Wealthy Affiliate Open Education Program. It shows how you can make money by referring products from Amazon.
In the online world, there are various names given to the middleman, including the following: affiliate, referral agent, leads generator and sales partner. But basically, here is how they make money:
- The referror sends traffic (site visitors) to the merchant’s website. This can be initiated in different ways like links from a website, emails, Facebook, Twitter or online ads campaign.
- When the visitor takes action like he buys the recommended stuff or signs up for a subscription, the referral agent gets compensated by the merchant. Think of it as the merchant’s way of saying, “Thank you for sending us the traffic.” In the online world where every business is hungry for attention, the modern middleman could save the day for the merchant.
The nice thing about building an online business around this concept is that it doesn’t require much financial capital to start with, therefore you minimize the risk of going bankrupt with the venture.
So there you have it, the three ways you can make money online. Which one do you think is a best fit for you? Do you see yourself implementing all three in one website? Well, that’s possible, too.