Instead of writing about the best ways to make money online, I thought I’d mention what I believe to be the worst ways to make money online. This is so you can avoid wasting your time signing up for this stuff when you see it advertised online. This is based on my own trials with these things in the past.

Paid Email

Paid email is probably the most brainless way to make pennies online. You sign up for an account and then the company sends you hoards of email advertisements that you click and get paid poorly in return. Although it sounds like an easy way to make some extra money on the side, most emails pay 1 or 2 cents at the most.

After signing up, your email box gets flooded with ads, plus you get spammed with non-paid email messages. Paid email sites also provide referral programs where you can earn percentages of what your referrals earn, but this is worthless since the site itself is not profitable whatsoever. Most people quit soon after clicking a few messages. This is probably the worst way to make money online and the biggest waste of time in my opinion.

Paid To Surf

You surf tons of sites and get paid for it, but it pays horribly and it’s extremely boring. Along with paid email, paid to surf is probably one of the most crappiest ways to earn money online. There are a slew of paid to surf scams on the Web and even the legit ones pay very little, usually pennies at best. You would have to surf thousands of sites all day long to make any real money. Time is better spent writing articles, or researching keywords and ideas for your own site.

MLM (Multi-Level Marketing)

I know MLM works for some folks, but I have tried it and found it to be a waste of my time. I’m talking about sites where the only way to make money is by getting referrals and then hopefully earn commissions on whatever money they make from their own referrals (if they even get any).

A lot of these types of sites are not free. Global Domains International is an example of this. You must pay to join and then work hard at getting referrals, hoping they buy a membership or get referrals. The reality is that many people sign up under you and then quit soon after. While you can make some money, it costs money to get started and getting people to sign up, pay, or stay active on the site is difficult.

The biggest problem with MLM sites is that your earnings entirely depend on the money your referrals make from the site itself, so if you get signups, but they don’t make any money from their referrals, you won’t make any money either, unless you’re getting paid in the beginning for a free sign up, in which case, it’s a lot easier to make money.

What Are the Best Ways to Make Money Online?

If you are looking for a fast way to make money online then you might want to open a free account at Project Payday and get paid to complete paid surveys and trial offers. It’s pretty easy and great for beginners eager to earn their first dollar online. There are many legit ways to profit online, but ultimately, it’s best to focus on building your own site to make money online. Although putting a blog together does take time, the site will be your own and you will have numerous ways to make money from it year after year.

Other than making money from your own site, you can make money writing articles for other people. There are so many sites that cater to freelancers. You don’t have to be a great writer to make money writing for your own site, or for someone else. If you only want to earn a few bucks, you can take paid online surveys, but it doesn’t provide any reliable income, only extra money for groceries.

Hopefully you found this article useful so you can avoid the worst ways to make money online and start making some money today with something that works.