If you want to start an online business and make a relatively decent amount of cash, without spending thousands of dollars or working full time on it, there are some ways to accomplish that. While there are many ways of earning money online, here are some examples of methods that have been shown to be profitable for many online entrepreneurs. These can be used to build a part time online business, however there is nothing that is really stopping you from turning these ideas into a full time online business if this is what you wish to do.

• Providing services

We have seen this in the micro online business article, and it really is the same concept. You provide services that are useful for business owners and online marketers and you get paid for it. Popular examples include: article writing, backlink creation, web design, ebook writing, etc.

The main difference is that you will be spending more time doing the work, around 20 to 30 hours per week should give you a very good part time income.

• Outsourced service creation

Same thing, but with a bit of a change. While you can do some of the work, you will be outsourcing most of it to other people for less than what the client is paying you and you will pocket the difference. So let’s say that someone pays you $12 to create a 1000 word article for them. You find a worker that can create quality articles on a forum or freelancing site and pay them let’s say $8 for it. You will then keep the $4 difference as profit. While this seems insignificant, if you get orders for 10 articles a day at $4 of profit, that’s $40 per day, and you didn’t do much work besides co-ordinating the work between what the client orders and what the outsourcer produces.

• Light Ebay selling

Ebay is the most popular online marketplace in the world, where some sellers have made millions by selling various kinds of merchandise to consumers. Of course, it’s not easy to earn 7 figures from the site, but it is well possible to make a few dozen dollars per day from it with a bit of effort and investment.

Selling on Ebay is the electronic equivalent of you having a stand at a flea market. You buy goods from a distributor at a low price and then re-sell them at a profit to the end consumer. All you are doing is applying the concept of buy low/sell high, which has existed for thousands of years.

So, for example, you would buy 10 cell phones at $300 each from a distributor that sells wholesale goods. You then resell them on Ebay for $400 and you keep the difference minus Ebay and PayPal fees. Basically, to be successful, all you would need to do is to find goods that are easy to acquire, in demand and easy to sell at a profit.

Whatever you are doing to make money online, chances are that you could benefit from having some people help you out with your projects. The thing is, while many of us would love to have our own office and have some staff members working for us, this is not always within the means of all of us. After all, if you hire workers, you will need to pay them an hourly wage, plus have to worry about things such as taxes, vacation pay, etc.

But, there is a way to make this possible. Instead of actually hiring people who will work in a physical office location, you would recruit a few virtual staff members who will be available to help you out with your projects. The main advantage of online outsourcing is that you won’t need to pay them a salary, you will just pay them to do specific projects when you need them. For example, you could pay an outsourcer $10 to design a logo or $50 to write the content for an entire website.

Of course, the question remains: where do you find people to be part of your virtual staff? There are 3 options.

Classified ads sites (Craigslist, Gumtree, Backpage, etc)

If you want to give local people the opportunity to earn money from home, then you can post an ad one one of these sites. Be sure to describe what the worker will need to do and what skills they will need to have (writing, web design, graphic design, etc.) Even though the economy is recovering, there are still many people who are unemployed and unable to find work in their field. This means you will probably get a few people who will respond to your ad.

The only downside is that you will have to pay them a bit more than if you found people on a forum or a freelancing site. But it will still be cost effective, as there are many people would be willing to work from home, even for $10 an hour.

Freelancing websites (GetAFreelancer, Freelancer.com, Fiverr, Microworkers, Odesk, etc)

These sites are basically marketplaces where service providers meet clients. You will post a description of the project and your requirements. Workers will then bid on the project and you can select one or more people to do the job (except on Fiverr, where all jobs are $5 and you contact people directly to see if they are interested in doing the work).

IM forums (Warrior Forum, Digital Point, etc)

IM forums have a section where service providers can make a thread detailing the services that they offer and clients can post threads detailing services that they need. IM forums are a great place to find people who will do some work for you on a regular basis.

Tomorrow, we will explore some ways to ensure that you are only recruiting the best people and how to manage the whole operation.

One of the most overlooked aspects of working online is hiring a contractor.

Let’s face it, not everyone can do everything online, and if they think they can they are joking themselves or they are taking way to much time to get work done because they are having to learn/struggle with every single aspect of web design, article writing, SEO, or some other area that is outside their expertise and they are spending way to much time on tasks that they are having to learn as they go or just take them a long time because of inexperience.

My niche is article writing. I was never found of writing in school, but I learned very quickly online that I was meant for it. I can write decently fast, not 90 words per minute, but I am able to get my ideas down on the “paper” as fast as I can think of them. I learned that when writing about subjects I enjoy I can write almost all day about them, hence why I write only on my niches I like to work on.

It could be different for you, maybe you love SEO, and playing the search engine game. That’s fine, it’s great even. Or maybe you are an awesome designer and just love creating useful art for websites, etc.

Whatever you do almost can be utilized online, however trying to learn everything else can be a mistake.

If you are a great web designer, why not hire a great copywriter to help you sell your services to potential clients instead of struggling to create website content to showcase your work?

If you are an SEO expert throw up a WordPress blog and hire a designer to create you a temple to showcase your SEO skills.

For me, as an article writer I am a bit SEO (but not all the way) with my keyword density, but I could hire both an SEO expert to get my on page SEO down and a designer to create my website for which I write.

Instead of trying to do things halfway, it is a lot easier and will save you a lot of time by simply hiring an outsourcer to do the work for you. Don’t be afraid to spend a little bit of money, because if the contractor is worth their weight, they will provide you with returns long after the work is completed.