Online Alternatives

Not sure about the hard sell but want to earn some extra cash, give writing online a chance. The business start up: share a topic you love and promote products your readers will find useful. For this you must have patience to see any return on the time you spend writing and the ability to write interestingly and informatively about topics that people want to learn more about. Write about niche topics that interest you, become known in your field. Share your expertise in your subject with readers so they build trust in your opinion. Don’t be too pushy or people won’t read what you have to say but be convincing if you are recommending a product. Be ethical in the ways you promote goods, and be clear if you are benefiting if your readers purchase something, rather than claiming to conduct independent reviews for example, this is a big no no and readers won’t return if they feel they have been tricked or misled. And the number one rule, always publish original content!

Squidoo/Hubpages- Use one of these well established writing platforms to get your articles noticed by search engines. They are both easy to use and incorporate easy to follow guides about how to write and how to monetize your article. Squidoo in particular makes linking with external websites particularly easy. Earn commission on any sales made from your article. Be prepared to publish a number of articles and update them regularly to keep them ranking highly.

Blog- Start your own writing page, choose any topic that suits you and type away! Be consistent and try to stay on topic, general blogs do not tend to perform as well. You need to build a loyal following who are interested in what you have to say. Update your blog regularly you don’t want readers to forget you exist. The most popular blogging platforms are Blogger run by Google or Wordpress both sites are easy to use and make posting blogs and designing your page simple. To make money you have to get a good following and a regular high number of hits, you can track your progress using Google Analytics. Once you feel confident your blog has been noticed offer businesses the opportunity to advertise on your page, make sure the adverts do not become overpowering though and keep them targeted and of interest to your readers. Another way to do this is to allow Google Adsense to list targeted adverts on your blog earning you money per click.

Affiliate Schemes- If you have your own web page, blog or belong to one of the writing platforms above join an affiliate scheme. Many websites run these now, including Amazon. Sign up to as many schemes as you like but keep on topic as to what you write about. When you visit websites scroll to the very bottom of the page to see if there is an affiliate or marketing partner link, this will show you how to sign up and how commission will be paid. Link with sites that have products your readers will like, if you talk about the products directly make it clear you will earn money from the sale.

Sell, Sell, Sell - Online

Do you want flexibility, to work at home? To work your own hours? Then the internet has opened up a whole range of opportunities for you. Your business idea: to sell goods online. For these types of business you need to be able to spot a gap in the market a niche, a place in the market you can call your own. You need to have confidence predicting markets and a great eye for figures. You will have to buy stock, the right stock and know that you will be able to sell it on for a profit. Otherwise you risk losing the money you invest. Build an online identity that users can trust, this can be much harder than businesses that sell face to face with consumers. You need to keep in contact with customers, answer their queries, provide a great service and this should help you gain the positive feedback that is crucial in increasing consumer trust and therefore sales. Be as informative and open as possible, in a shop a user can see and try any item, you have to recreate this using only words and photographs. Practice your writing and methods of photographing your goods in an interesting way to get customers hooked. Describe how the product looks, feels smell, how and when the customer will use it. What will it add to their lives, how will purchasing your product make them feel?

Selling platforms-

Ebay- The king of online selling. Most of you will have sold a couple of things on Ebay, but how to do it professionally? Buy in bulk, a great way to do this is at auctions. This will give you the volume to sell your products in a range of sizes and styles. List regularly so your items show up at the top of searches and experiment with titles and descriptions see which one works best then replicate this on your other listings. Decide carefully whether to use the auction, buy now or a combination of settings. Open a shop rather than selling as an individual on the site so once visitors have clicked one of your products they can see a full range. An alternative to Ebay is Price Minister.

Amazon- You don’t just have to sell books, Amazon is now a market leader in a range of products. Listing is easy and quick, but it is easy to get lost in the crowd. Pick a niche of books or product to sell. It is easy to see what competitors are charging for exactly the same product so be prepared to be competitive with your pricing and your feedback ratings will be key. Remember to send out a business card or promo leaflet with orders so shoppers remember to search for your store again.

Etsy/ Folksy/ Deviant Art- For the creative amongst you, sell your own hand made products. These sites are great for setting up a small online store to sell your crafts to a world-wide market. Remember to promote your store on other sites, facebook, twitter, LinkedIn or a book marking site to gain a following. And get involved with the online community built into these sites including the blogs, teams, circles, treasuries, and forums the more you put in the more you will get out of it.

Zazzle/Café Press- Don’t have time to make your own products? But still want to create something unique or never seen before, use one of these sites. As long as you hold the rights to your image or design you can upload it onto one of hundreds of products. Keep strict control of your designs or allow your customers to customize them to their needs, the choice is yours. The best part? These sites handle the order fulfillment, payments, and returns. You just take a commission payment on every sale! You can increase your income by earning a volume bonus on sales or by referring people to your shop or others on the site and taking a percentage of any sale made!

Your Own Website- Want even more control over the type of online store you run? The best option- to set up your own website, you can sell whatever you like and keep all of the profit! Sounds great but remember you may need to pay to have someone design your site, users will have to have confidence that you will fulfill sales, and you need to set up a trusted payment system that customers will be happy to use, paypal for example. But the hardest part? Getting people into your store, it will take a lot of time and dedication to get people to find your site and then even more effort to create interesting content that will make them stay and actually buy something. Consider using google adwords where you can design your advert and a daily budget. The key-EXPERIMENT, find out, which ads work and those that don’t, play with titles and keywords and do your SEO research carefully! But the effort of setting up your own site could definitely pay off in the future!