With the poor economy and unemployment still expected to be high as we go into 2010, I thought I’d write the article on how to earn fast legit cash online. Making money online sounds like a good idea but it isn’t always easy or simple. In fact, it can be confusing and some techniques do take time, something that you may not have if you’re having financial trouble.

I wrote about How to Earn Cash Online Quick about this time last year. The techniques I described in that article will give you some ideas. In this article, I want to go over a few more ideas and mention a few other things you can do to help you weather a financial crisis of your own and fashion your own bailout.

Start Preparing Now for Financial Trouble

The best way to start earning fast legit cash is to work with what you already have, especially while you have a job. By doing this work while you have a steady income stream you’ll save yourself from having a lot of stress. If you’ve laid the groundwork ahead of time this will help you avoid going into a crisis mode when disaster strikes. I see two elements in doing this.

The first element is to make sure your finances are in order.

This means being on a realistic written budget where you know where your money is going. I prefer to use a weekly budget plan myself but find something that works for you and your family that’s effective and isn’t just winging it.

It’s quite easy to create little financial “rat holes” that can drain hundreds of dollars of cash away on a monthly basis. Getting these hidden drains plugged up can provide you with a decent amount of cash. Look for things like double billing or paying for services that you no longer use or use only rarely. If you have a written budget where each dollar is accounted for it makes it easy to spot them.

Also, work on paying down debt and avoid taking on new debt, especially for optional things like vacations and toys. There is a strong temptation when faced with a financial crisis to spend needlessly simply as an escape and denial mechanism. Resist this urge.

Finally, save cash so that you have enough of an emergency fund in cash to at least pay your major bills, house payment, food and utility bills and transportation, for at least a month. This will give you some breathing room when trouble strikes and will prevent you from increasing your debt load in the face of a crisis.

The second element is to lay the groundwork for an online business.

A problem I’ve seen several times is that people don’t get serious about making money online until they’re already in deep financial trouble. If you see trouble on the horizon, start now to develop your online business. If you already have the infrastructure, products and relationships in place, you’ll be ahead of the game. Due to the nature of the business, making quick money online either requires a lot of time or a lot of money. Since time is cheaper than money for most people, that’s what you’ll have to work with.

As for infrastructure, this means the underpinning of your online business. If you’re going to be SEO focused like me, this means having a series of supporting promotional sites and knowing where to get the links to promote both your supporting and money sites. For other types of online marketing, you’ll need to find information on what you need to have to accomplish the basic fundamentals of that method.

For products, this means having the software you need to automate and/or manage your business model. You don’t want to be in a position where you have the awful choice between buying a tool you need for $50 or buying food for the next week. Get what you need now, invest the time into learning how to use it properly and be prepared ahead of time.

As for relationships, this varies by the online business model you use too. This means finding people and companies that will help you make money online using the method you’ve selected as the best fit for you and your skills. It may mean finding the right affiliate programs, such as signing up for Adsense, Amazon affiliate or eBay Partner Network. It might mean finding a mentor who can help you with the confusing parts. If you’re into email marketing it would mean building a list of customers. If you establish these business relationships ahead of time you’ll avoid looking desperate and even spammy. 

Ways to Earn Fast Legit Cash Online

Now, let’s look at a few ways to earn fast legit money online by offering services to other webmasters and Internet marketers. Just remember though, if you haven’t done the prep work, these will be much more difficult.

Writing – There is a huge need for good content and people will pay for it as long as you deliver. Unfortunately, this market is glutted with low quality writers, most of whom aren’t native English writers and willing to sell their wares very cheaply. This means that you’ll have to use your relationships and word-of-mouth to set yourself above the crowd. I’ve found it most effective to sell articles as “private label rights” (PLR) packets of 10 to 25 300 to 500 word articles to a limited number of customers. If you play this right you can usually make $300-500 per packet.

Link Building – Like article writing, link building is tedious work so people tend to outsource it was well. This also is glutted at the low end of the market so you will need to bring quality and results to the table to stand out. Once again, building a good customer relationship ahead of time and having the proper tools, such as Bookmarking Demon and Fast Blog Finder, to do the job right is important.

People are generally looking for social bookmarking, blog commenting and forum posting and profile links. You might also set yourself apart by offering less common linking services, such as building and submitting PAD files or doing RSS submissions, or combining it with writing, such as doing press release management. This work is also best sold in packets to a manageable number of customers. In general, you’ll see this work selling for $5 to $50 per job.

Selling List of Links – Some people like to get their own supporting promotional links but it’s time consuming to search for high quality pages where you can put a legit link. You can put lists of these links together and sell them on popular webmaster forums. Just make sure that you put together a quality list of links so that you’ll get repeat business from your customers. These lists typically sell for between $5 and $30, depending on the number and quality of the links, and there’s really no need to limit the quantity sold on them.

Selling Other Services – There are other services you can sell to an online customer base provided you have the skills. The ones I mentioned above are ones just about anyone can do easily with a minimal amount of knowledge and experience. However, if you have skills in things like web design, graphic design, software development and so forth, you can find a market for these services too.

Marketing Your Services

Based on my experience and observations, for these methods to be effective you will have needed to establish a presence on various webmaster and Internet Marketing forums that have buy/sell sections setup. When people see you as a participant in the community they’re much more likely to buy from you. Just make sure that you budget your time carefully when using these forums since they can be huge time sinks. Alternatively, you can use strategies links blog commenting, email marketing and the like to promote your services.

You will need to use a soft touch to avoid getting branded as a spammer. That’s one reason why building up your business base and relationships ahead of time is so important. Also, avoid using sob stories to sell your products. While some personal details can help make you look legit, you don’t want to look as if you’re begging, this turns customers off and might bring your level of personal responsibility and accountability into question.

Final Thoughts

Well, this is another long article but I only post here when I have a lot to say anyway. Remember that the important thing about an online business is laying the groundwork. If you have a good foundation established this will help you be prepared for troubles that might come your way and you won’t have to scramble to find out how to earn fast legit cash online.

Frank Carr January 1st, 2010 Earning Money Online

Earning Money Online
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