Making Money Online in 2014

It’s hard to believe that 2014 is already upon us, but the New Year is here and that means it’s time to put your online money making activities into high gear. ‘14 looks promising for Internet entrepreneurs, particularly if you can be smart, crafty and driven like there’s no tomorrow. If you have the attributes to succeed and you just need a few ideas for making money online to get you started, the following tips should help to make this next year a very lucrative one indeed.

E-Commerce is Booming

Making money online becomes infinitely easier when you have an actual physical product to sell. The good news is that e-commerce is more popular than ever. In fact, quite a few brick-and-mortar retailers reported less-than-optimistic sales over this past holiday season. The reason? More people were buying their holiday gifts online than ever before. E-commerce has grown every year and this has offline retailers a little nervous. It’s good news for you, though, if you can manage to sell something consumers desire to make money online in 2014.

You can sell products on your own e-commerce website or you can sell items on eBay and Amazon. Focus on providing customers with terrific products and friendly customer service and you’ll be making money before you know it.

If you don’t have your own products, you can always sell someone else’s. You can put an ad on Craigslist offering to sell products for others, thus establishing an eBay Reseller business, or you can give affiliate marketing a try.

The bottom line is that selling online is hot right now and you may as well get started doing it if you haven’t already.

Freelance Opportunities Abound

Consumers are more comfortable buying both products and services online; and this opens the door for freelancers to sell their services to the highest bidders. If you’re a programmer, a search engine expert, a graphic designer, a writer, translator, customer service operator or an app developer, you only have to create a website, advertise your services and you will make money in 2014. There is also ODesk, ELance and other freelance job boards that will allow you to vie for top paying jobs against similar professionals in the field.

Targeting Mobile Users

We are entering the span of years when Microsoft predicted that mobile devices would overtake desktop computers for control of the Internet. We already see a proliferation of smartphones and the tablet industry has literally exploded in just the past few years. Whether you are selling physical products or services, you would be wise to focus your advertising on mobile users specifically. Let’s face it – Marketing is going mobile and you need to embrace it if you want to make money online this next year.

Social Media for High Visibility

It’s important to know where consumers are going when they use mobile devices, and Facebook is where you can find most people at least once per day. However you plan to make money online, make your efforts known on Facebook; but don’t forget about Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram and Tumblr. That list may seem intimidating, especially when you consider that making money online is a full-time job and will take up much of your time. The best advice is to take your social media activity day-by-day and post-by-post. Over time your posts will add up and you’ll find that you have a significant following. If your followers see you as personable, friendly, driven and customer-service oriented, they’ll be more likely to convert to actual paying customers.

Plan Heavily and Prepare for Obstacles

As with all efforts to make money online, you should start with a clear and solid plan. Keeping to a set amount of daily, weekly and monthly processes will keep you on track when you hit obstacles or feel like throwing in the towel. Plan for those obstacles now so that they’re not as stressful when and if they actually come to be. For instance, what will you do if you don’t hit your sales goals, or you have a high number of customer returns in a single month? Throw every worst-case scenario you can think of at your “Make Money in 2014” business plan and you’ll be that much closer to success.

Use the above ideas or use them to spark new ideas that will leave all of your competitors in your money-making wake. Here’s to making sure your 2014 business ideas flourish and prosper in the New Year and beyond. There’s no better time to get started than right now.

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