Make money online without spending a dime
2. Blogging
There are two ways to make money through blogging: either by earning commission from advertising banners placed alongside a blog of your own or by engaging in the (slightly dubious) practice of “sponsored” blogging. An array of third party tools is available in the case of the former option; Google’s AdSense remains one of the more popular solutions. Just establish yourself a decent blog, configure the ads and see what happens. Sponsored blogging on the other hand is an altogether more calculated affair, with specialists such as Blogitive and PayPerPost providing a platform through which companies essentially contract bloggers to post favourable content about their products in exchange for cash. Unethical, granted, though nonetheless undoubtedly fruitful for those subtle enough to get away with it.
3. Message boards
Every message board – both small-time niche operation and gargantuan general interest community alike – relies on posts from its members in order to sustain user interest. Newly-created forums are particularly dependent on regular contributions in order to encourage conversations and attract the registration of new members. This, of course, is where you come in. In exchange for a nominal fee of anywhere between £0.01 and £0.10 per post, message board administrators frequently advertise externally for “ringers” to sign up to their endeavours and get the ball rolling. Popular recruiting grounds include webmaster-talk and Digital Point.
4. Stock photography
If you’ve a keen eye for an impressive frame, or even just some half-decent camera kit at your disposal, selling pictures to any one of the plethora of stock photography agencies scattered across the web represents a sure-fire method of generating an income online. The likes of iStockPhoto and Fotolia offer budding photographers the incentive of earning potentially significant sums for their snaps on a per-download basis in exchange for their other royalty payment rights. Predictably, the most sought-after depictions are of a fairly mundane nature – think three-quarter view angles of pretty women dressed in suits – though equally inevitable is the high demand in some quarters for photographs of an altogether more risqué nature…