What to invest with $500

You have already had some good advice in this thread, but let me give you my take on it.

There are many different ways to make money online, but as a newbie I strongly suggest that you start with a method that is simple to implement and where the "distance" between your work and your reward (money!) is short. The reason is that most newbies are enthusiastic in the beginning, but as soon as they stumble across even a minor problem many of them give up and start looking for the next "magic bullet".

A slightly "complicated" business such as importing products and building your own ecommerce store to market and sell those yourself has a lot more obstacles to overcome than a more simple method. ("Simple" does not mean "easy", you will still have to put in the work.)

Probably the simplest method is one suggested by someone else in this thread already, to provide services to other people like writing articles for example. However, I have a feeling that this is not what you are looking for...

You want a "money machine" that will produce cash 24/7 regardless if you work or not, right? There is nothing wrong with that, I have had many of those that have made me many millions of USD in profits over the years. Just be honest with yourself as to what you are looking for though, as this will help you to narrow down your options.

The next step up from doing work for others is probably publishing a book (or many) on Amazon Kindle or setting up an Adsense website. A Kindle book can be about anything that you have experience in, or even a completely fictional novel, (although I would go with a "how to" book for more predictable results since its easier to do keyword research). You don't need to write the entire book yourself, you can use some of that $500 to outsource part of the work and even use some PLR content (as long as you re-write it) to fill in the gaps.

Publishing a book on Amazon is a typical "money machine" type of business that will keep paying you for years without any further work needed from your side. The only problem is that its probably a relatively small "money machine" if you only publish one book, (which is mostly true for building an Adsense website as well). From my experience a kindle book that sells "ok" on amazon won't generate more than $50-$100 per month in profits, but others may have different experiences and done better. An Adsense website can make a lot more than that but requires more work in the form of updates, fresh content, new link acquisitions etc.

A "money machine" that will generate tens of thousands per month, (or more), can also be relatively "simple" to create, (remember: "simple" does not equal "easy").

I have done exactly that for the past decade with the following simple 3-step method:

1. Research a number of high paying niches that will pay a great affiliate commission, and find a number of keywords that are "buyer keywords" in that niche, and where the ranking competition is reasonable, (this step can take a lot of time).

2. Create a trustworthy and high quality website, (both design and content is important), in the chosen high-paying niche and review and recommend one or several products as an affiliate in that niche.

3. Drive targeted traffic to that website by getting good organic (free) rankings on Google for your chosen keywords.

Rinse & Repeat.

Most people will fail at step 3 so that is where you will need to focus if you want to succeed with this method. A lot of people will also "fail" at step 1. They will still succeed to some extent in that they actually make money, but only a fraction of what they could have done if they had chosen a better niche.

Step 2 can easily and cheaply be outsourced, (even with your small budget), as long as you are willing to review the content yourself in the end to make sure its top quality. Learning to design and build websites is probably the least productive use of your time if your goal is to make a lot of money. There is a huge amount of great designers and programmers available at low cost.

So in conclusion, start with something really simple like publishing a book on Amazon Kindle and get a small taste for making money online. (It's one of the best feelings in the world to know that there will be more money in your account when you wake up the next morning even though you were sleeping or on holiday or whatever. I never tire of it even after more than a decade in Internet Marketing. ). You can then you can re-evaluate and go for a slightly more complicated method once you have gained some more experience.

My last advice would be the following.

A lot of people on this forum focus on making money by selling information products that are mainly focused on "how to make money"!? Don't get stuck in this field as a newbie. Surely its a profitable niche with lots of hungry buyers, but from my own experience I can promise you that there are loads of other niches that are far less competitive and where you can actually have some credibility.

Let me give you an example.

If you have a dog and have experience from transporting your dog on an commercial airplane then you already have experience from one out of many thousands of high-paying niches, (pet travel by airplane), and you will come across as far more believable and trustworthy in that niche than if you try to teach someone "how to make a million online", (especially since that is something you haven't actually done yet).