increase your income now: 30 steps to making money on the internet

Step1: Take stock of what you have to offer. If you are a writer, programmer, designer, or photographer, there are oodles of opportunities for you. If you have a speciality of any sort -- carpentry, raising kids, planning vacations or weddings, playing Guitar Hero 3 -- you can get paid for your expertise. Even if you think all you can offer is time, there are opportunities for you as well.

Step2: Scan the steps below. Pick the one that seems the best fit, and start exploring.

Step3: Freelance Work (sometimes called "personal outsourcing"). If you have a skill to offer, check out the various freelance sites like http://elance.com/and http://guru.com/ (see the Resources, below). You can post your skills at these sites, so potential customers can check you out, and you can also look around for freelance projects that others have posted.

Step4: There are tons of opportunities for freelancers, in very varied fields. Common projects, though, are writing, computer or design work -- creating web pages, programming, writing brochures or reports, illustration and photography, and so on. Pay can be pretty good, especially after you've earned a quality rating at one or more of the freelancing sites.Take a look at the "How Elance Works" video on their main page to get a quick overview.

Step5: Writing. There are a number of ways to take your skill as a writer and turn it into cash (links are in Resources, below).One of them is eHow. Write brief "How to" articles on any topic of your choosing, and get paid for the article. The more popular the article, the more income you can expect. A good article will bring in $50 per year or more. Write 10 articles, and that's $500. A hundred articles...you get the picture.

Step6: More writing. (a) At SoftwareJudge.com, write reviews of select software products...top reviews earn up to $50 each. (b) Product Reviews. You may be familiar with epinions.com, but did you know they pay cash for good quality reviews. You won't get rich, but you can get started. (c) Suggest domain names according to site descriptions at Pickydomains.com Get $25 for each name that is chosen. (d) At Xomba.com, write anything you feel like, and collect 50% of any advertising income from Adsense clicks on your page.

Step7: Research/Question and Answer (Q&A) Sites. I earn much of my income as an online researcher, answering folks questions on everything under the sun: investments, market research, divorce law, homework help...you name it. If this sounds like your cup of tea, take a look at the resources in the next step.

Step8: (a) The Association of Independent Information Professionals (aiip.org) can help you build you own Q&A website and business. (b) I work with Uclue.com Though they are not accepting new researchers right now, it's worth a look to see how a well-developed Q&A site works.(c) Another Q&A site is JustAnswer, and they offer small payments for answers to questions.

Step9: Use (or build) your own blog or website to make money online. The key is to generate as much traffic as you can, and to have your visitors click on ads and affiliate links. The more people visiting your site, clicking on ads, and buying affiliate products, the more income you can earn. As good as this sounds, income is generally more a trickle than a flood. But again, steadily building your site (or sites), and building traffic, is the key to generating a steadily growing stream of income. The resources in the next step can help get you started.

Step10: The best resources I know of for ads and affiliates are: (a) Google AdSense (b) AssociatePrograms.com (c) Commission Junction. Also, at Orble.com, you can take ownership of an abandoned blog with a specific focus, like Film, or Travel, and collect a portion of the ad revenues. The advantage of this is that the blog is already well-represented in search engines, and can often generate much more traffic than a new blog of your own. See Orble under the Resource links, below, for more information.

Step11: Photography...At http://istockphoto.com/you can upload still photos or videos for sale, and receive a small royalty payment every time someone makes use of your content.

Step12: Surveys. CashCrate.com makes it possible to get paid to take online surveys. They strike me as legitimate, but I confess, I don't have any first-hand experience with it, so approach with caution... SurveyScout.com is another possibility, but unlike CashCrate, they charge a membership fee before you can get started (Boo!). I've also heard some negative feedback from users of this site, so proceed with caution (if you proceed at all!).

Step13: Teaching/Tutoring. Search on [ Online tutoring ] and you'll uncover dozens of sites in this booming corner of the internet. Many accept applications for online tutors, with variable rates and topic areas. Two to consider are http://tutor.com/and ehomeworkhelp.com .

Step14: Online "Jury Duty". Here's an odd one. Lawyers looking for feedback on how a case will play before a jury use online e-jury sites to solicit input from the type of average citizens that show up on juries. Yes, you get paid. Fees for complex cases can run over $50, though $20 is more typical. To serve as an online juror, check out onlineverdict.com, or trialpractice.com . UPDATE: I've heard from some users that at least one online jury duty site has no real actual work to offer, so use these services with eyes wide open!

Step15: Virtual office assistant. At TeamDoubleClick, you can sign on for temporary jobs as an office assistant, handling correspondence, emails, bookkeeping, data entry, and other office jobs. Think of it as an online temp agency for virtual work. Pay is varied, but you are not obliged to take jobs that don't meet your financial needs.

Step16: Moola.com This is the strangest one yet, and I can't personally vouch for it (I've only tinkered with the site), but it looks legitimate. Moola starts you off by giving you a penny, which you can then double, and double again, through a variety of games and activities. Presumably, they make oodles of money through ads, and are willing to through some of it your way by participating in their zany set of games and marketing gimmicks. They call themselves a "Massively Multiplayer Rewards Game". It's too complicated to explain here, but worth a look.

Step17: Crowdsource design. "Crowdsourcing" is the buzzword for getting a lot of people to do your work for you. If you're good at designing things like t-shirts, logos, fancy fonts, and other graphics, take a look at the challenges at 99designs.com and threadless.com, where you can collect hundreds of dollars if your design is chosen.

Step18: Blogging. How does $100 a month sound for writing a few blog posts every week? That's what you can be paid (actual range is $84-140) if you get accepted as a blogger at Creative Weblogging. They are a large blog network, and seem to have mastered the art of monetizing their many sites. All they need are people to write them, and keep the content fresh.

Step19: Blogging, photos, video, you name it. Flixya offers 100% of ad revenue to anyone who posts at their website (you need to have your own Google Adsense account to participate). Words, pictures, videos, whatever ya got. Post it, bring in some traffic, and collect some ad clicks. (Haven't tried it yet myself, but flixya has a good reputation).

Step20: Thanks to commenter bseidel for pointing out good links to micro stock photography sites, where you can upload photographs, and get paid for every one purchased from the site. A good starting site is BNPS, where photographers get about 50% of the purchase price of every photo sold.

Step21: Another site that pays for content is mylot.com (in fact, they promise earnings everytime you use the site!). Haven't given them a test run yet, so if you have experience with them, please post a comment, below.

Step22: At slicethepie.com, you can get paid for listening to music. Say what!!! Yep, listen to upcoming artists, and review their music. The more reviews you write -- and the better you are at spotting new talent -- the more you can get paid. Some folks are pulling in several dollars per review.

Step23: If you have good typing skills, consider Speak-Write.com, an online dictation service.

Step24: You can participate in online focus groups, where you review a product you've used, or discuss an issue of interest to you. Payment ranges from about $50-150 per session. Participants are typically asked to join a group once or twice a year.

Step25: Woo Hoo! Google Knol is live. This online encylopedia-like site is a place where anyone can contribute content, and you can place Adsense ads on your article to generate revenue. Though a pretty new site, it's Google, and likely to generate a lot of traffic. Which means a good opportunity for advertising income.

Step26: Website review. You can get paid for reviewing websites. Usertesting.com pays $10 per website review. It's not open-ended...you have to be selected to test, based on your demographic profile.

Step27: Ready for this? You can earn money reading emails! Of course, there are ads involved, and you might be asked to click a few things, but it's not difficult. Expect to get 5-10 emails a day (more, if you register multiple email addresses), and earn a few pennies per email.

Step28: Little bit of everything. Genuinejobs.com is a legitimate work-at-home site that lists hundreds of jobs, none of which require a fee, and many of which can be done online. Registration is simple...worth checking out.

Step29: Write for the NY Times. Really! The Times owns two sites that regularly hire writers. ConsumerSearch.com uses freelance writers to create detailed reviews of common consumer products...minimum pay is $350 per write-up, and they do a lot of hiring. http://about.com/ , another Times property, hires writers as guides. These positions, paying $725/month or more, are tougher to get, but worth looking into.

Step30: If you can write pretty good articles, then write on a topic of your choosing and submit to article submission website like ehow.com, articlecity.com . I must say, I've found no better site than ehow.com for earning income online. In the six months or so since I first posted this article, (I'm up to about $1,000 a month!). At present, it's only available to residents in the US, but if that's you, give it a try.