How To Build A Long-Term Online Business Whilst Earning Money From Day One

There are so many different ways to make money Online it’s hard to know which route to follow. As stated in my Two Main Ways You Can Earn Money Online blog post, you can either be an Online business builder (run your own Online business) or a Service Provider (become a Virtual Assistant).
Both have their pros and cons and you normally choose between the two as to which one you want to do.
But let’s take another look at both routes and then see how mixing these two routes up and working both on a daily basis maybe the best of both worlds for you in the short-term, whilst keeping an eye on your long-term goals.
Sounds confusing?  Let me explain…

The Online Business Route

The thing is you need to understand that in order to build a successful and profitable Online business, it takes a lot of time. You will work hard every day building your business and not see any monetary reward for a few months.  This can be very discouraging (of which I know from personal experience) and is the main reason why 90% of Online business owners quit.
I can certainly relate to this as you really do need momentum to keep your motivation, determination and spirits high in order to keep plodding on.  But you don’t really have that momentum within the first few months while your building-up your Online business.
First of all you have to decide which Online business model you want to follow and set-up.
This could be:

• Blogging;
• Creating a bunch of hobby niche websites;
• Setting up an ecommerce website;
• Creating an authority static site.

Then you have to decide how you want to make money on your chosen platform, whether it be with:

• Affiliate marketing;
• Creating your own craft products or information products;
• Direct Advertising;
• Writing ebooks/Kindle books;
• PayPer Click on-site adverting;
• Email marketing;
• Or obviously a mixture of a few of the above.

Once you’ve decided all that (and it takes a lot of decision-making along with trial and errors), you have to start building up your website content (website pages or blog posts) and putting systems in place (creating information products or setting up an email marketing system for example).
This is an ongoing process, but you need a decent amount of pages on your blog before you decide to promote it.  Which leads me onto the biggest hurdle Online business owners face – getting people to visit their blog.  No visitors = no money!

So as you can see it takes weeks and even months before you get to the stage of driving at least 1,000 visitors a day to your Online business for you to start earning money.
Now having said all this, building an Online business is actually building an Online asset.  It will be there for months and years to come and eventually you can automate many systems and only work one or two hours a day just to keep it afloat and still earn more than a full-time wage doing so.
This is the reason why so many people try and stick with building an Online businss i.e. for the long-term value it gives you in the form of financial freedom whilst hardly doing any work. You have done all the hard work in the first few years and will reap the rewards after the initial outlay.

The Service Provider/Virtual Assistant Route

On the other hand, if you work Online as a Service Provider/Virtual Assistant you will be making money from day one.  You get paid for the time and hours you put in.  So this way of making money Online is a guaranteed way of earning a weekly or monthly income.
You just need to know what you can and can’t do as a service provider.  You need to know your skills and your limits.  Don’t offer services that you can’t do or not do to a very high standard.
The draw back is that you will still be doing a day job but will just be based at home instead. You will be trading your time for money and always will be, there’s no long-term financial freedom by working as a service provider.  Whereas with an Online business, you are building a foundation for long-term financial freedom (well, that’s always the goal anyway).

Consider Mixing The Two Routes Together

So maybe you’re thinking that both of these making money Online routes sound good, that’s great!  You can see the long-term potential of building an Internet Business to earn money for years to come but you can also see the potential of being a service provider to start earning money immediately.
Obviously it’s down to each individual on what type of Internet business (asset) they want to build and how they are going to trade time for money for immediate income – but here are a few scenarios to get you thinking:

Internet Business	Service Provider
Building A Community Blog	Completing Online Surveys
Building Hobby Niche Sites	Email Customer Support Agent
Creating a Niche Authority Website	Virtual Assistant
Building Hobby Niche Blogs	Being a Virtual Typist

Time permitting obviously, you can do both on a weekly basis.
Scenario One: You could spend two hours a day completing Online Surveys, then spend another two on Building up your Hobby Niche Blog business.
Scenario Two: Offer your services as a Virtual Typist for three hours a day and spend two hours in the evening creating an Authority Website.
Or if you have less time,
Scenario Three: You could spend three hours a day in your role as an Email Customer Support Agent, and then create your Community Blog with the spare five hours you have throughout the week.
It’s totally up to you on what your skills are, what your desired long-term goals are and what your interests, likes and dislikes are.
But as you can see, it’s totally do-able and you will be gaining a win-win scenario of building a long-term Online business asset whilst also earning money (and gaining momentum) in the short intermediate term.
What do you think?