Selling Online - Different Ways to Do It

Here are the basic methods people use to make money online:-

1. They use the Internet and a website as a tool for selling the products and services of their traditional business. Almost any business can generate sales or enquiries this way. There are two basic requirements - the first is that you have a website, the second that you must get people to visit the website. You do that by either using paid advertising such as Google Adwords, or by ensuring your website comes up when people search for your product or service. More on how to do both of those things in upcoming posts.

2. They sell a product online only. It might be a product they must pack and post, but it could also be something downloadable like eBooks or software. They too, generally require a website. If they have a website, they need to get people to visit the site - this by the way is called "generating traffic".

The other way to sell a product online is to have affiliate marketers do it for you. This involves paying other people a commission to sell your product. People who get affiliate marketers to sell for them are usually referred to as Merchants.

3. They sell a product online that is not actually theirs. This is called affiliate marketing. An affiliate marketer goes to websites such as Clixgalore, Commission Junction, Clickbank or Commission Monster, and chooses products they would like to sell. These sites list the affiliate products available and how much commission each one pays. It's worth having a look at those sites - you'll be surprised how many traditional and well known companies use affiliate marketers!

A good affiliate marketer will establish a website targeting people who would be most interested in the product they are selling. An example would be a website that gives visitors information about places they can travel to for camping holidays. On the website they would have a good amount of information about road trips and camping along with advertisements for the affiliate product - which might in this case be a hire car company or a camping store. The content of the website is important - that's what brings the traffic to the website. This is for some a great way to make a living because once they have set up the website and generated a certain amount of traffic to it, they don't actually need to do much. People click on the advertisement and it takes them to the business who owns the product. Any sales are registered as having been generated by the affiliate marketer's website and they receive the commissions! Passive income once you know what you're doing.

4. They freelance a skill - it may be writing, language translation, graphic design or any number of computer related services. There are numerous freelance websites (for example Elance and Freelancer) that have a tremendous number of jobs for people to bid on. The rates are not always great but if you have a marketable skill, these sites a worth investigating even if only for information about what is going on in the Internet world!

5. They set up websites or blogs and allow Google to place advertisements on the website. You'll notice the advertisements on this blog - as the traffic to this blog builds up, the number of people who click on the advertisements will increase. Each time someone clicks on an advertisement Google will pay me a small (very small) amount of money. We're talking cents - but some people have numerous websites containing advertisements and like anything if you multiply it, the amount is larger. This too, is a passive income once you have set up the sites. You may earn only $10 dollars a month from each one (although some people do much better) but if you have 100 sites - well, you can do the math.

6. They set up websites, build up content and traffic, then sell the website - such a website might be bought by an affiliate marketer who has products to sell related to the website content, or by someone who thinks they can earn money from the site.

7. Last but not least, are the scammers.

So as you can see, there are numerous ways to make legitimate money online! It does require work to set up anthing you do so don't believe anyone who tells you otherwise.