How To Make Money Online for Free

You asked how to make money online for free.  Google returned 192,000,000 answers, none of which were very useful to a beginner.  So you started the easy way, with online paid surveys.  Only to learn that you have to give away your name, email, sometimes your credit card number for a ‘free’ trial that you then have to remember to cancel…it would be easier to get a job

Now you’re serious, and who has time to read 192,000,000 sites to get the real information?  Don’t worry, I’ve done it for you.  All 192,000,000. (Not really, but it seems so).  I’m ready to spill the beans, and I’m going to shoot straight, so if you aren’t serious, stop reading now, really.  There are only three steps to starting an internet business for free or otherwise.  They are neither simple nor easy, but a true entrepreneur will find it worthwhile to do them anyway.

Step one: Understand what goes into an internet business.

An internet business is just like any other business.  You must have a plan, you must have some idea how to conduct business in your chosen market, and you must have a budget.  The main difference is that with the internet, the budget can be significantly lower in terms of dollars than a brick-and-mortar business.  In fact, with a sufficient budget of time, the dollars are optional.

Start with a business plan.  If you don’t know how to create a business plan, there are many ways to research it on the internet, but here are the basics: What are you going to sell, a product, a service, or information?  Who will buy it? Where are you going to get it? How will you advertise it? How much will you sell it for? How will you accept payment?  What will be your profit?

Add to your plan the specifics of doing business on the internet, which I’ll cover in more detail in the next step.  Finally, assess your ability to follow through on the plan given your budget of time and/or money.

Step two: Commit to learning how to do each aspect of an internet business.

There are four main tasks to accomplish in order to make a profit online.  With a relatively small monetary budget, you would be able to outsource some of the following tasks. Whether or not you have that resource you will still need to know something about the tasks, if only to know whether your hired help is giving you quality work.  Here are the tasks, which closely follow your basic business plan:

1. Determine what to sell.

There are two schools of thought here.  The first is, go with your passion.  We’ve all heard the quote “Do something you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.”  That’s an admirable sentiment, however not necessarily profitable.  For example, I love to read novels.  Unfortunately no one has ever offered to pay me to do it.

The second school of thought is, go where the money is.  That seems to be the best idea, so your assignment is to learn how to find out where that is.  The great news is that there are a number of free resources to do the research.  Search for blogs on market research to learn how to use the tools. This research will not only help you decide what to sell, but also give you a good idea of who will buy it.

2. Determine where to get it.

There are three main ways to get your product, service or information for an internet business.  One, buy it. This usually relates to tangible products, such as one might sell on eBay. Since we’re starting this business for free and there are ways to do it without stocking your garage with products, we’ll move on.

Two, sell someone else’s product, i.e., become an affiliate marketer. This differs from ‘buy it’ in that you don’t necessarily have to buy the products you will sell, however I would recommend buying an example if you can. A millionaire in my acquaintance is fond of saying, "You can’t sell from an empty wagon unless you’re selling wagons." For reasons of credibility in your advertising, knowing whether you are selling a quality product, and knowing exactly what it is, does or teaches, you want to own it. But again, we’re starting for free, so just know that you don’t have to own an example of the product (in most cases) to be an affiliate seller.

The third way is to create it.  Do you have some sort of special knowledge or skill that you can leverage?  Are you willing to learn one?  Do you know someone who has it and can you interview them or help them write an ebook?  This could be your product.

3. Learn how to advertise it.

Here again we can break it down to the main ways.  I won’t go into the pros and cons here, because that would be an encyclopedia.  Know that there are many free resources to learn about these methods. In fact, this seems to be the main industry online right now.

What I’ve discovered is that the most credible providers of marketing and advertising information online are now giving away enormous amounts of valuable information in order to establish that credibility. Take advantage of it, but plan to spend some of your first profits on purchasing the advanced information so you can accelerate your business. It will mean the difference between a hobby business making a few dollars a month, and a serious business that can replace your employment income or even make you more money than you've ever dreamed possible.

Here’s a list of what you’ll want to know something about: search engine optimization (SEO), blogging, article marketing, social media, free classified advertising, copywriting, autoresponder/email marketing, list building. Whew! That alone could keep you busy studying for a couple of years! You'll find that the majority of marketers adhere to the axiom that the money is in the list (or in the relationship or followup with the list), so start with learning how to build a list. You can catch up with the rest step by step. When you’re ready to spend a little money, you’ll also want to know about Pay Per Click (PPC).

4. Learn about pricing, how to accept payments and profitability

As you study marketing and advertising, these subjects will become clearer almost by osmosis.  You’ll detect patterns in the pricing of information products that you’ll encounter while searching for the free stuff.  If you are doing affiliate marketing it will be done for you.  My recommendation at this point is to set this aside until you’ve accomplished the first three steps.  By the time that’s done, you may find that this one is done also.  If you plan to create your own product, you will want to engage a business coach at some point to maximize the profit.

Step Three: Take action!

It may come as no surprise to you that this is either the easiest or the hardest part.  Take stock of your personality traits.  Are you someone who decides to do something and then wades in with no plan or written goal?  If so, you are likely to make every mistake in the book, fail to make money, and either persist until your mistakes teach you what you need to know or give up in frustration.  Ask yourself if you can have the discipline to take the step-by-step approach instead.

Or are you someone who gathers all the facts, all the information, studies, catalogs, becomes an expert in the theory, but never takes any action toward implementing what you’ve learned?  You’d be a great example of the Boy Scout motto—be prepared—but you’re never going to make any money on the internet.  Ask yourself if you have the will to implement the strategies you are learning.

If you can blend these traits, you can create the lifestyle you want by providing value to the marketplace.  It doesn’t matter whether you have to start free or on a shoestring, you can do it.  Take a hint from Nike: Just do it!