9 Easy Ways to Make Your First Dollar Online NOW

Isn’t it great to make money online and have all the freedom and mobility to enjoy your life? At least this is the dream every online marketing guru is selling to newbies.

In fact, it is definitely possible to make money entirely online. I’ve been doing it for several years. I believe anybody can. It is just that some people give up too early. Some just think that they lack the talent to make it.

Well, one thing for sure is that nothing is “easy” if you want to build a long term online business that’s going to provide you 5-figure monthly income consistently. Hard work, persistence, never-quit-mindset is a must.

After years of getting involved in online marketing, here are some ways to make money online, especially if you want to make your first dollar now.

1. Become a Freelancer

Nothing beats this. You can make your first dollar online immediately if you can take up some jobs that can be delivered online. There are a lot of sites to start with. Try odesk.com, freelancer.com and many other sites that provide the similar service - letting freelancer to bid for jobs.
The pay might not make you a wealthy person. But it does let you work remotely, and make extra income. As long as you are computer-literate and have certain skills, you can bid for jobs ranging from article-writing, graphic design, to software programming.

The best part is that you are being paid to improve your skills that are needed to make your own online business a success.

2. Referring Someone to Shop Online

The largest online shopping site that pays for referrals is Amazon.com. Even when you are not living in USA, you can still refer shoppers to purchase on Amazon and get paid a referral fee.

I did that by having a list of US based email subscribers. Or you can build your list on Facebook fan page. As long as you have a list, it is easy to send an affiliate link for your subscribers to buy the relevant products.

Although we don’t have an “Amazon.my” yet, we have other sites that are targetting Malaysian shoppers. You can try Lazada.com.my affiliate program. It is just as easy as sharing some affiliate links on your Facebook status. Any purchase made through your link will grant you a commission.

3. Create a Squidoo Lense

I did a lot of content publishing with Squidoo.com years ago. Squidoo is a content publishing site which allowed their members, called Lensmaster to create web pages (known as Lenses).

The beauty of it is that you don’t have to learn any html language. They have the templates for you to start with. Inserting a link or image, embedding a video, and creating a full page of content is as easy as “point, click and drag”.

One of the lucky lense I made many years ago had produced more than US$500 income for me up to date.

4. Post a Gig on Fiverr.com

Fiverr is a very popular site nowadays, offering every gig for only five US dollars. As a gig provider, you can post whatever thing you can do for gig purchasers.

As a purchaser, I’ve ordered logo designs and also some very creative photographs made. One of it is a real photo of my website URL at The Great Pyramid of Giza. I also have another real picture of a pretty lady showing off my company hand-drawn logo.

Be creative. If you can come up with some useful service, I am sure there will be someone out there ordering your gig, for $5.

5. Create an AdSense Blog

It doesn’t have to be hard or technically-taxing at all to have a blog set up. The easiest way is to register a blog at www.blogger.com, which is own by Google. In fact, Google encourage that so they can have more “online real estate” to put up their customers’ advertisement.

This is where AdSense program comes in. You can easily sign up an AdSense account and put the code on your blog. Some random visitors visit your blog and click on the ads, you’ll get paid.

I don’t focus on AdSense site, yet I’m getting a few thousand ringgit every year paid via Western Union. You can definitely do this too.

6. Create your Online Shop>

There are many ways to do that. If you are already selling something on a retail space, it makes it even easier for you, since you don’t have to source for products.

The largest hosting company in Malaysia, Exabytes provide a service on Easy.my where you can set up your shop in minutes. The service include a full blown system for you to list your product, calculate shipping costs, managing your customers, and taking payment too.

7. eBay, Lelong, Mudah?

I first involved in eBay, online auction site back in 2001 in the US. I relocated there with my wife for more than a year. One easy way for me to make money at that time is to sell the Japanese VCD I brought there. After finish watching a series, it will be sold on eBay. I never failed to get a buyer though, during that period.

Sometimes, I also get cheap products by bidding smartly, and later sold it back on the market with a higher price.

Back to Malaysia, now you have eBay, Lelong, Mudah….and many other websites that I just can’t list down all of it here. Find some stuff that you no longer need. Sell it online on these sites and make your first dollar!

8. Royalty (Music, Photo)

I’ve made money on the music clips I listed on sites like AudioMicro.com and Audiojungle.com. These are marketplaces that let composers to put up their royalty-free music clips. Buyers who need music clips for their video production or some other products, purchase audio loops and music clips on these sites. I then get paid for the music clips sold, in the form of royalties.

It is also the similar arrangement for photo. iStockPhoto is one of such marketplace. If you are good with photography, why not give this a try?

9. Crowdfunding

This is a recent trend. Crowdfunding allow project owner to get funding from a diverse group of investors. Many documentary producers post their project on sites like Kickstarter and ask for the public funding.

When you get the fund to move your project forward, you only pay back the investor with your final products or collectible items. Crowdfunding is especially popular for those who want to publish books, comics, music album, video documentary, and some niche or futuristic products.

If you’ve got some brilliant ideas, by doing crowdfunding, you might be able to secure your first group of customers even before your product is completed.

Above are nine easy ways to make your first dollar online. So what are you waiting for? Just do it!