An online friend, Codrut Turcanu has interviewed and posted his results with 22 professional bloggers asking them about how they earn money online.  After reading the 22 responses, I thought I should share some of my favorite ideas.

Selling Your Services

A common theme is to sell services.  These could be design services, article writing services, web development, link building services, social media services, consulting services, coaching, and an offline service such as computer repair.  This type of freelancing is always nice because you’re getting paid when you work.  With many other types of online work, you can do work but not get paid, such as with affiliate marketing.

This is one of my favorite methods of earning money online, and has consistently been one of the best ways that I earn money online.  On top of selling services and earning money, you make a lot of friends and connections that can be valuable down the road.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing has never really been something that I’ve cared for.  Why should I sell your product and get 50% of the earnings when I could create my own product and keep 100% of the earnings, then hire affiliate marketers to sell the product and give them 50% and keep 50% after doing nothing?  Well, the truth is that creating that product and marketing it is a very difficult task.  Your product needs to stand out among other similar products, then you need either a large list, or a way to get the word out to a lot of people.  Definitely not as easy as it sounds.

Product Reviews

I’ve done a few product reviews in the past and have been happy to do them.  They’re usually fun and easy to do. I only do product reviews when the company is willing to send me the product if I don’t already own it.  I wouldn’t review a product that I’ve never used myself.  I’ve been sent a military grade encryption USB drive, and a few other small items to review.

Selling Links or Paid Posts

5 years ago I would imagine that 75% of bloggers would consider this their main form of income.  With Google cracking down on paid posts and selling links many people are scared to venture into that territory. The best new strategy is to build links naturally.