Fifty Ways to Earn a Dollar a Day Online: Make a Passive Income on the Internet

Almost two years ago, I started blogging as a way to build up my in-person business. I discovered as I went along that there were all kinds of online earning opportunities, and I slowly began to see an income from my efforts. The first year, I made almost $200.00 from combined sources, and then in January of this year, I decided that I would put a significant amount of effort into learning how to make money online.

The very first thing I learned is not to depend on income from only one site, as I saw my earnings drop significantly when one site changed their rules, and I decided that I should diversify my efforts. So I decided to see if I could come up with a way to earn an average of $1.00 a day from each of fifty sources, which would bring me a yearly income of $18,250. And here are my own methods and sources for earning online!

Just so you know, this is not a get-rich-quick method. My first three months, I made fifty-eight cents. My first full year, I made about $200. My second full year, I made just over $950. By continuing to work, I am on track to make quite a bit of money next year -- and who knows where it will lead? (In January of 2011, I am at 178.5 per cent of my January 2010 earnings, so I have close to doubled what I made last year by this time.) My earnings method focuses on residuals, where I work one time, and get paid small amounts for a long time. While not every bit of work I have done has earned the cost of the time I put into it (yet), as they continue to earn, I expect over the next few years to see that my earnings will continue to improve relative to the time invested. Remember, this is a long-term strategy!

Most of the methods for making money online are from advertising, or affiliate sales. There is a cardinal rule to remember: Never ask someone to click on an ad! This is called a "fraudulent click" and may end up getting your account banned for life. So please do not ask people to click on ads. In fact, you should warn your friends and relatives who read your content never to click on ads. You don't want to jeopardize your future earning potential for the sake of a few pennies!

The same goes for affiliate sales. Do not ask people to click affiliate links. It's not good practice and can easily get you banned from the site, or at least have the money returned to the provider. Don't risk your online earning potential--play fair!

And finally: Do not write spammy, low-quality articles and ruin things for everyone. At least three excellent sites have either gone offline this year or are closed to new writers because people wrote innumerable variations on an article titled "How to Find Cheap Lunchboxes" and the content of their article was basically, to use Google to search for cheap lunchboxes. Write quality content and help not only your own earnings, but everyone else's, too!

Are you strongly opinionated, with informed opinions, or do you have a passion, or even a hobby? If you also have a good grasp of spelling and grammar, you have everything you need to write articles online.

Writing articles with unique and interesting content is the most stable way of earning online. You should not expect to see steady earnings from a site until you have at least 100 articles on that one site, and those 100 articles have been there for three to six months. (Yes, that's a lot of writing, and waiting!) If you're planning on writing for all of these sites, I encourage you to concentrate on just one site until you reach 100 articles, then diversify. And remember, you won't get rich quickly--you may not see any earnings for several months, or longer. Of course, HubPages should be first on your list! But there are lots of other places, including:

• Squidoo -- has a referral program that will pay you $5 when your referred person earns their first $15, and allows unlimited numbers of backlinks to certain pre-approved (whitelisted) sites. For non-whitelisted sites, a maximum of nine links per domain is allowed. Squidoo divides up their earnings so that people with top-rated lenses earn more, but you can also have affiliate links and affiliate modules.
• Seekyt -- pays a 70% share of Adsense impressions.
• Articleshare -- pays an 80% share of Adsense impressions. Articles must be 250-10,000 words and may have two outgoing links. No copied content, and no spam.
• EarnWrite -- Articles must be a minimum of 250 words. At first you will have a 50/50 Adsense share. After ten articles, you will have an 80/20 Adsense share. You add a website address in your account, and each article you write has a link back to your website. Publishers also earn from Amazon, and may earn from either Infolinks or Kontera, but not both.
• Excerptz -- Articles must be a minimum of 300 words, and must contain an image. Three outgoing links are allowed per article; these may be affiliate links. Pays an 80% share of Adsense impressions.
• Factoidz -- Articles must be a minimum of 400 words and there is an application process. Content may be republished elsewhere after having been published on the Factoidz site for thirty days.
• Infobarrel -- has an approval process. You must write at least ten articles that are approved manually by the staff; after that you are pre-approved and your articles will be live as soon as you publish them. Each article may have as many links to other Infobarrel articles as you like; you may have two outgoing links from each article, as long as those links appear after the first paragraph. Approximately one-quarter of your articles may have affiliate links. Infobarrel pays through Adsense, Chitika, and Amazon. Your share is 75% of impressions; contests each month allow you to increase that to 90% for the following month (the contest is a $100 Amazon gift card, and the points system in the contest allows you to increase your ad share). Infobarrel also has a referral program; they will allocate 2% of the site's ad impressions to the referrer. Infobarrel articles must be four hundred words or longer.
• Demand Studios I do not recommend working for Demand Studios because of their lack of transparency and questions about residual payments. Demand Studios pays either upfront, or via a "secret algorithm" for residuals. In addition, you will give up the copyright for your work. Paypal earnings are usually deposited by the 10th of the following month for residuals; you must earn a minimum of $10 for payout for residuals. Up-front payments are paid twice weekly.
• MyGeoInfo -- No longer active except for approved writers, because of an influx of poor-quality articles.
• TheInfoMine -- No longer active except for approved writers, because of an influx of poor-quality articles.
• GlobeTales -- articles must be about travel, 350-word minimum length. Two external links are allowed, but no affiliate links. 100% of Adsense revenue goes to you, but the parameters for signing up for this site differ from other Adsense sites in that you must specify certain settings in Adsense for this to work. Each article is manually reviewed before being posted on the site.
• Triond -- eligible for Adsense revenue after you have published five articles. Triond pays 50% of Adsense impressions and pays for views.
• Xomba -- Articles must be 300 words. You can no longer include an affiliate link. Xomba has discontinued their referral program. Xomba has a 60/40 Adsense impression share.
• Meshplex -- high-quality tutorials accepted. This is a wiki; you are responsible for inserting your own Adsense ID code and ad, and you must email the site admin to protect your page from someone else editing your page and inserting their code instead of yours.
• SmartInfoz -- I no longer recommend them as information published on there grants them a worldwide, royalty-free license to republish your work (without paying you for it). In addition, it is not truly passive as writers are required to publish ten articles per month. As if that were not enough, their links to their information pages about Adsense and their policies on linking return a 404 (page not found) error.
• The Free Resource -- accepts articles with a minimum of 700 words; these articles must be based on credible sources (they prefer sites in the .edu or .gov domains). Writers must be prepared to submit one article per month, and they share ad revenue (their term is "generous; my sources tell me 50%) but you do not have to have an Adsense account. Your article may also be offered an upfront payment.
• WonderHowTo -- make videos, write instructional articles, and more. Pays 100% of Adsense. All submissions are manually reviewed.
• Yahoo! Contributor -- formerly Associated Content, will offer either an upfront payment, revenue share, or a mixture thereof.
• TNTPages -- new, you submit your articles, which are manually approved, and then you will receive an invitation to add your Adsense code; they offer a 70% share. When you have "a large number of articles," that will be bumped to an 80% share.
• QWhatDo -- if you have intimate local knowledge, this may be just the site for you! Write about anything in your city or places you have visited, and receive 70% Adsense share.

All these sites except Demand Studios allow you to retain the copyright to your articles. Only Helium and GlobeTales allow you to publish your content elsewhere (a non-exclusive license). All the other sites require that your content be exclusive to the site where you publish it. Any place you choose to write for, make sure that you write useful and interesting articles. Just another "make money online" article with a referral or affiliate link at the end is not going to make you money in the long run. Without that original content, you're simply cluttering up the Internet!

There are many places that will allow you to earn through affiliate sales. By providing a link from an article or a blog post to a product that you believe in, you will be able to earn a small commission each time someone buys something from your link.

• Amazon -- the key here is to get people on to the Amazon site, by any means you can. Once there, most people will browse (if they have an account there already, stuff they have been searching for will be shown). How can you get people on to the Amazon site? Try a Listmania! list (for example, I have an article on upgrading your wardrobe that links to a listmania! list of upscale buttons on Amazon), a customer review, or link to a search page rather than an individual item. As long as you are using your affiliate ID in the code, you will receive credit from any sales from that sesson (look for the "Link to this page" link on the grey stripe, and read here how to shorten your URL)
• Zazzle -- You do not have to have items to sell on Zazzle. You can receive an affiliate commission for linking with your affiliate code to items someone else has put on Zazzle. So if you have a friend with a crafty bent, link to their items, give them some backlinks to their products, and earn an affiliate commission for yourself at the same time! In addition, if you are a photographer, or have a gift for pithy sayings, Zazzle is a great way to put products out there and make a little money, too! Even better, you have to be only 13 years old to start a Zazzle store and get paid, so this is a great entry program for teenagers to start to get a feeling for business!
• Art.com -- has a very generous affiliate commission program, a referral program, and gives you free pictures for your blog, website, or articles at the same time (some article sites do not allow you to use art.com and its sister site, allposters.com)!
• AllPosters.com -- like art.com, provides you with a commission program and a referral program, as well as free art for your blog, website, or articles (some article sites do not allow you to use art.com and allposters.com).
• Commission Junction -- You can be an affiliate and not actually design anything. The affiliate program is through Commission Junction. You are limited to fifty items per store,
• Plimus -- Mostly software and ebooks. I signed up because of one product I got that I thoroughly believe in and couldn't do without as a writer: Liquid Story Binder XE!
• Avangate -- again, a software product that turned out to be so valuable to me as a writer, I use this on every article, bookmark, and more that I write: Site Content Analyzer. You'll be glad you invested in this!
• Adsense Affiliates Network -- Target, Barnes and Noble, and many other stores, offer affiliate advertising commissions through the Adsense Affiliates Network. You must apply individually for each advertiser (I got turned down by Target for reasons which they refused to specify). Commissions are set by the individual advertiser: some are as high as 8%. These work by placing links in your articles or blog posts.

If you have a digital camera, it's fast to make money from it--repaying the cost of the camera is pretty easy! Be sure to read each site's Terms and Conditions carefully, and decide whether you want exclusive or non-exclusive agreements.

• Istockphoto
• Redgage -- You can display photos, here, too!
• FreeRangeStock -- 80%/20% split (in the photographer's favour, of course)
• Shutterstock
• Fotolia -- offers both exclusive and non-exclusive agreements.
• Mostphotos
• Alamy

That's right--you can promote the articles that you, or others, have written and get paid just for posting the link and a short summary! These can be individual blog entries, websites, articles, photos, or just about anything with an internet address. The best way is to write a new summary of 2 to 4 sentences in length, tweak the SEO a little, and get some different long tail keywords.

• Snipsly - 80% of ad impressions on your pages are on your account, 20% on theirs. Checked for duplicate content.
• RitePad - an 80/20 Adsense rotation. Articles must be a minimum of 300 words to get a maximum of two outgoing backlinks.
• Articleshare - 80% of the ad impressions are yours. Backlinks must be at least 250 words and may contain two outgoing links.
• Best-Reviewer -- List your three, five, or ten best of anything. A backlink from each of the items to your article. You get at least one Adsense block on each page. Premium membership (just over $2 per month) allows you all the Adsense blocks on your pages.
• Jevitt - 80% of the ad impressions on your pages are on your account, 20% on theirs.
• Fuelspace.com - 50% of the ad impressions on your pages are yours, 50% theirs. Go directly to the login page as unconfirmed reports of malware have been noted on the main site. However, I recently tested this and although I can log in, it is impossible for me to post anything.
• Flixya - you can create backlinks to anything. Be sure to disable displays of comments, or everything you create will be spammed with unrelated comments.
• Foodloversweb - Backlink to food and cooking articles here.
• Excerptz - Backlinks must be 50 words and must contain an image. One outgoing link is allowed. Pays an 80% share of Adsense impressions.
• SheToldMe - of the three ad blocks on pages of backlinks you create, two are yours. If you refer someone, the third ad block on their page is yours. No longer accepting new signups, because the owner is promoting his site, Best-Reviewer.
• Redgage - averages 86 cents per 1000 views. Some backlinks may be paid bonuses.
• Xomba -- Bookmarks must be 100 words, and each link must be original to the site. Xomba has a 60/40 ad impression share, and has discontinued their referral program. Xomba has once again changed their policy and will now allow you to link to your own work again.
• Infopirate -- 80% of the ad impressions are yours. For the referral program, the referred person gets 80%, you get 10%, site gets 10%.
• TipDrop - 75% of Adsense impressions are yours. You cannot post links until you have a credibility score of 110. In addition, if someone comes to Tipdrop through your referral link, all "site" pages show up with your Adsense ID.
• AddblogURL - 100% of Adsense revenue is yours.
• KarmaLynx - another leveraged backlink site. Again, from their site:

Our top contributor automatically gets 90% revenue share, and the rest of the top 10 receive 80% (2-10).
The contributor of our #1 visited article, automatically gets 90% revenue share.
Contributor with the most votes on any one article receives 90% revenue share.
Most conversation or discussion provoking article receives 80% revenue share.
Contribute 20 quality articles, get 70% revenue share.
Most Karma Points, get 70% revenue share.
Register today and get 60% revenue share.

• SiteIce - To enter your Adsense ID, click the bee at the top-right corner, scroll down to settings, and enter your Adsense publisher ID number. On my computer it took two tries.
• WebNuggetz - plugins for Amazon and Zazzle make this 100% Adsense revenue site a great place to promote your work. A picture is required on each post, and they allow art.com and allposters.com as the picture. 50 words required for each product promoted. Detailed instructions are available on how to set up Adsense to display banner ads in your signature, with pictures, big arrows, and circles to help you through the instructions. A forum is provided as well.
• YoStuff - although the pay structure is unclear, minimum payout is only $3.00

For most of these backlink sites, you can also publish articles that don't fit elsewhere (too short, not appropriate for another site, etc.). So if you have that 60-word cooking or auto maintenance tip, one or more of these sites might be the place to put it (rewrite it new for each site).

Yes, there are multiple ways to make money from blogging. Not only can you sell advertising space, but you can also use affiliate sales. And perhaps the newest and most exciting way is to let Amazon market your blog!

• Amazon store on your blog
• Affiliate product links in posts from independent affiliate marketing, amazon.com, art.com, zazzle, or cafepress.
• Google Adsense
• Chitika advertising
• Direct sale of advertising space
• YouSayToo - link your RSS feed and make money! (If you are having problems because your RSS feed is too short, you can set your RSS feed to full here.)
• Marketing your blog through Amazon by making it available on Kindle. Kindle subscribers pay either 99 cents or $1.99 to subscribe to your blog. Amazon pays you 30% of that. You can increase that to up to 36% if they buy their subscription through your affiliate link.

You can use Yieldbuild, which claims to optimize ads for your site. Their FAQ page says you will see greater income by using it (you will have to put a small amount of javascript on each page of your blog).

Yes, that's right--you can broadcast your own radio station through the internet! There are several ways you can make money through internet radio: you can ask for donations, sell newsletters and other kinds of subscriptions, or make certain features of the site available only to subscribers who pay a monthly fee; you can sell affiliate products or use Adsense or Chitika advertising, or sell your own products.

You can earn money from rating or reviewing stuff on line.

Epinions - Review products, get paid!

BestReviewer -- Adsense share for writing brief reviews. Just choose the "Top X" of anything and go to town. Allows backlinks and a one-click process to publish the review on SheToldMe. Approval is on an individual basis and make take a few days.

Juiuj - report stolen, lost, or found items, earn Adsense revenue! Can be used to list items you currently own and have possession of in case of theft or loss later. Reuniting people with their missing stuff is a worthy cause in any case.

On some sites, you can sign up, and after some minimal effort, you can make money solely on referrals. When others sign up under your referral link, you get your percentage from the site's side, not from your referral's side (the people you refer make the same amount of money as they would otherwise, so there's no reason not to use a referral link). These sites include:

Chitika advertising - You will make 10% of what your referrals earn for the first fifteen months after they are approved.

Squidoo - You get $5 when your referral earns $15 (this is a one-time payment).

Juiuj - get Adsense displayed on two tiers of referrals. Your referrals get discounts on their paid memberships.

Infobarrel - 2% of ad impressions from your referrals are yours.

Helium - Referrals are sent through email. You get 50 referrals in your account lifetime, so choose wisely and either mentor your referrals or choose experienced writers!

Xomba - has discontinued their referral program.

TipDrop - A generous referral program! When someone visits TipDrop through your referral link:

• The visitor will be tagged as referred by you, and 100% of all AdSense shown on the “house pages” (home page, search pages, category pages, etc.) will be keyed to your AdSense publisher ID. When folks click, you earn.
• The 25% of ad revenue that TipDrop usually keeps from user pages will instead be tagged for your AdSense publisher ID, and you will keep that revenue as well.

SheToldMe - the third ad block (at the bottom of the page) of your referrals are yours.

Art.com - get 5% commission on sales your referral makes.

Triond - after your first five articles, you are eligible for Adsense revenue. If you sign up with PayPal the payout minimum is 50 cents. Once you have reached payout, you are eligible to earn money off of your referrals.

YouSayToo - you get 15% from people you refer, plus 10% from people they refer!

Flixya - although it's not clear how you can earn 100% and still make money off referrals, Flixya claims to be able to do so. I hope to find a clear explanation soon!

QWhatDo - 10% rotation on your referrals' Adsense.

Yes, it's a lot of work. Yes, it's a huge investment of time. However, this is time that you can scrape up from other activities (I do backlinks while on hold on the phone, or when there is a commercial on television). Yes, it's complicated and hard to get your head around, at first. However, in the long run, it will pay off handsomely. And remember, there is no investment involved except for your time and brainpower! So if you have an internet connection, you can get started right now -- and a year or so from now, you can be earning a dollar a day from each of these sources, for $50 a day -- for life! (Yes, I am aware that I have provided more than fifty--not every source will be suitable for every person, so I would like my readers to have a choice.)

Good fortune to you!