Whether
you're looking to make some fast cash, or you're after long-term,
more sustainable income-producing results, there are certainly ways you
can make money online today. The truth is that making money online isn't as
difficult as most make it out to seem. It does require some discipline.
Sure. Without discipline, you'll find it tough to make a buck both online or
offline.
However, if you're looking
for realistic ways you can start earning money
online now, then it really truly does boil down to seven paths
you can take towards profit. Some will provide you with immediate results,
helping you to address your basic monthly necessities such as rent, utilities
and groceries, while others have the potential to transform your life by
revolutionizing your finances in the long term.
No matter what method you
select for generating your online income, there's one very important thing to
understand. Today, across this globe, with its 7+ billion inhabitants, there
are two recurring things that people are looking for more of. Either people
want more time or they want more money. The truth? Time is far more valuable
than money. You can't recreate time. Once it's spent, it's gone forever. Not
money.
Money
can be earned and spent, saved and pilfered, invested and wasted. Not time.
That's why time is far more valuable than money. The point? When you lack the
luxury of time, making money online (or offline) can seem like an impossible
task. How are you supposed to do that when you're working at a life-sucking
nine-to-five job? While the stability of full-time employment might allow most
to sleep well at night, it doesn't empower your creative juices to search for
new income-producing strategies.
Now, this isn't about some get-rich-quick method here. If you want to get
rich quick, forget about trying to do it on the internet. Sure, Facebook ads
are all the craze, but without a serious understanding of the mechanics behind sales funnelsand conversion
optimizations, which only comes after years and years of
in-the-trenches work in the internet marketing field, you're largely wasting
your time trying to "get rich quick."
How to Make Money Online
No matter what method you end
up using to generate an income on the web, you need to adjust your mindset to
help empower you rather than discourage you. The truth? Making money online can
be fraught with avoidable pitfalls. There's no shortage to the rah-rah cheers
of internet marketers looking to find ways to ensure they part you from your
hard-earned cash. The trick? Cancel the noise and get to the real meat and
potatoes, so to speak.
To do that, you have to
harbor a few fundamental guiding principles in your mind. Today, if you're at
all serious about generating a full-time income (and more) from your online
activities, then you need to focus on passive income as
opposed to active income. Sure, the active income will help you survive. That's
the scarcity mentality at play. But it's the passive income
ideas that will help you thrive.
Considering that you have a finite amount of time, passive income should make
up a large part of your work. And if you're serious about generating any
semblance of income online, then passive income should be one of your sole
goals and ambitions. Why? Simply this. Wouldn't you prefer to do the work one
time and get paid repeatedly as opposed to relying on your time to generate
that income?
Since time is the most
precious commodity on this earth, invest the time at the front-end so that you
can reap the benefits on the back-end. This means putting in a bit of sweat
equity and not getting paid today. Rather, you'll get paid somewhere down the
road. And you'll continue getting paid whether you keep building that passive
income stream or you stop. It's obvious that this is the preferred route, but
clearly the road less traveled.
Anyone interested in making
money online should be pursuing passive income, while also working on active
income. There are loads of ways to generate an income passively on the
internet, many of which start at the foundation of having a blog, generating
substantial traffic and building an audience and a list. Is it easy? Nope. Is
it worth it? It sure is. But that doesn't mean you need to start a blog to make
money online today.
You could opt for a
non-blog-starting route. Sure. But if you're looking for longevity in your
income-producing abilities on the internet, then a blog should be your primary
aim.
1. Leverage the app economy.
If you're looking to address
some immediate financial needs, then the app economy is likely right for you.
Thanks to the global sharing phenomenon, launched in part by our smartphones
and ever-burgeoning global connectivity, you could easily opt for some quick
active income by using well-known apps. From ride sharing to deliveries and
even quick tasks, there's an app for that today, as the saying goes.
Drive for Uber or Lyft: If you're in a locale where you
can find Uber or Lyft (or even one of the many competitors around the world
such as China
Deliver
for Postmates: Apps
like Postmates are a dime a dozen today. Still, Postmates is by far the most
popular, and you don't even need a car in some locations to make money with
this app. In some urban developments and major metropolises like Manhattan
iBotta: Earn cash back rewards by purchasing
featured products at major retailers. All you have to do is add rebates, go
shopping, then snap a photo of your receipt to earn your cash back. Simple and
effective. Plus this app has over 50,000 five-star reviews on the App
Store.
Task
Rabbit: Another
simple and straightforward app for making a bit of side-hustle
income is the Task Rabbit app. Tasks can be anything from
simple repairs to more exhaustive undertakings. The app carefully vets each
service provider to ensure the highest quality, and it's a great way to make
some extra income on the side on your own terms.
Ebates: This app offers
a simple way to make money online by buying whatever you're already buying and
then getting a cash-back reward. With eBates, there's no scanning receipts.
Simply click a link in the app and buy from the store. You'll automatically be
credited your cash rewards upon purchase along with receiving an email
confirmation.
Swagbucks: With Swagbucks, there are a number of
ways you can make money. You can shop online, watch videos, answer surveys
and surf the web. The app gives you both cash back and gift cards as a
reward for your efforts.
Inbox Dollars: Another app you can use to make money
online is Inbox Dollars, which pays you for watching television, taking surveys
and shopping. There are cash offers here and it's relatively similar to some of
the other apps in this arena.
2. Use existing websites.
You could also opt to use
existing websites for making money. These include both active income and
passive income methods. For example, you could sell some used items or invest
in creating some digital designs that then can be sold on merchandise. Again,
devote a sizable portion of your time to passive income so that you can slowly
build up earnings that will arrive on autopilot without any extra added
effort.
Of course, a large portion of these sites do have their own respective apps.
But these are certainly less involved in the gig economy, and more so in the
longer term projects that exist in the fields of photography, online marketing,
graphic design and web development, for example.
Craigslist: This site has been the go-to resource
for over a decade now for people that are looking to make a bit of extra money
online. You can easily sell your used stuff, rent out a spare room in your home
or apartment, and offer up your services to the world.
Upwork: This website offers a great
marketplace for selling just about any professional service. You don't need a
merchant account, website of your own or anything else for that matter. All you
need to do is be able to provide a high-quality service at a reasonable price.
But be informed, you will have to compete with many others that are constantly
bidding on open jobs.
Cafe Press: This website allows you to create
digital designs that can then be sold on the platform. You'll earn a commission
for everything that sells and you'll never have to deal with printing,
warehousing, customer service and so on. The site has over 2 million
independent designers that have created products being sold online here. If you
have some graphic design skills, then this is a great potential source for your
web-based income.
Fiverr: Israeli-based
Fivver was started in 2010 by Shal Wininger and Micha Kaufam. It's a great
resource for selling just about any service online. You can offer gigs as low
as $5 but also get paid much more for upgrades and add-ons. There are plenty of
providers earning 6 figures on Fiverr so it's definitely a worthwhile cause for
generating a healthy income. Just ensure that you provide some serious
value.
Mechanical
Turk: Amazon's
Mechanical Turk is a resource for doing human-intelligence tasks, or as the
site commonly refers to them, HITs. You get paid a very small fee for any given
HIT and you'll need a good deal of volume to make a substantial amount of
money. But it is a resource you can use in your spare time to generate a small
income online.
Flippa: If you have a penchant for buying and
selling, you could use Flippa, and its higher-end counterpart, Deal
Flow Brokerage to buy and sell websites for a profit. You'll need to know
what you're doing here, but you could easily make a sizable income by flipping
income-generating websites for profit.
Etsy: While Etsy's popularity has
declined recently, it's still a great resource for selling handmade items
online. No need for complex ecommerce sites or merchant accounts or any sort of
automation. The company takes a commission of every sale and charges a small
listing fee per item. But many still use Etsy as their primary source of income.
The best part is that you can also sell digital products on here such as poster
designs.
Shutterstock and iStockPhoto: Have a keen eye for photography? Why
not sell photos on some of the leading photography sites. You'll need some
design software skills to tag along. But if you do have skill in this arena,
it's a great potential source for passive income.
Threadless: Similar to CafePress, Chicago-based
Threadless also allows you to sell digital designs in the form of t-shirts and
other merchandise such as phone cases, mugs, beach towels and so on.
Zazzle: Another great resource for selling
online is to use Robert Beaver's Zazzle. The site is somewhat similar to Etsy
and virtually anyone can make money online selling a variety of items here.
From art to handmade items and customizable products, you can pretty much sell
anything here.
3. Sell your own stuff.
Ready to enter the ecommerce
fray? Why not sell your own stuff. Of course, along with selling your own stuff
on your own website comes a whole slew of both responsibilities and technical
configuration and requirements. For starters, you'll need a website and a
hosting account. You'll also need a merchant account (sure you can use Stripe or PayPal).
Then you'll need to design that site, build a sales funnel, create a lead
magnet and do some email marketing.
You'll also need ecommerce software, fulfillment software, worry about
warehousing, customer service, refunds and so on. But that's not all. You'll
also need traffic. Think search engine optimization, Facebook ads, and
other social media campaigns. Sound like a lot of work? Sure, it is. Especially
if you do it all on your own. You could opt for Amazon's platform, which might
be the easier route. But, then again, at the end of the day, this is a serious
business, which could produce significant profits. So you're either all in or
you're not.
Shopify Ecommerce: Want to build your own storefront? You
could opt to create a Shopify store. You could also install WooCommerce as
a plugin and run your ecommerce store from your blog. You'll need an SSL
certificate and a way to process payments, but you might find this easier to
get up and running fast to start selling immediately.
Fulfilled-by-Amazon (FBA): You could easily start selling on
the largest online store in the world and forget all the muss and fuss about
building out your own infrastructure and worrying about traffic. You will need
to pay a commission, but most of the other processes will be automated for
you.
Drop-shipping: Amazon offers
one form of drop-shipping, but there are other resources for drop-shipping
products that you'll never actually have to see or handle yourself. You'll
simply need to close the sale. Providers like SaleHoo, Worldwide Brands,and
many others, offer you a great resource for drop-shipping your
products.
High-ticket consulting or coaching: You could sell your own high-ticket consulting or coaching
products from your website. You'll still need a website, merchant account,
sales funnel, lead magnet and many other items. But you can easily earn a
substantial amount of money from each individual customer, making it well worth
the arduous setup required.
4. Sell as an affiliate.
There are loads of resources
for making money online as an affiliate. You could source products from ClickBank, Commission Junction, Rakuten Marketing, Share-a-Sale, Impact Radius and
many others. Plus, many of the larger companies have their own affiliate
programs as well. Do your due diligence and find the right company with a
relevant product or service to your audience that you can sell as an affiliate.
In some cases, you will need
an active website with substantial traffic to get approved. Selling as an
affiliate isn't easy by any means, but if you do have the audience, it can
definitely amount to a substantial amount of income.
5. Start a blog.
If you're serious about
making money online, start a blog. Blogging is one of the easiest and most
sustainable income sources. As long as the blog is setup the right way, in the
right niche, with the right content targeted at the right audience, and the
offer is complementary to the content, you could make a tremendous amount of
passive income from a blog.
While some might think that starting
a blog is an arduous effort, when you understand the precise steps you
need to take, it becomes far easier. It all starts in the decision of choosing
a profitable niche and picking the right domain name. From there, you need to
build your offers. You can easily sell things like mini-email courses,
full-blown trainings, ebooks, and so on.
6. Email marketing.
The money is most certainly
in the list. If you're at all interested in online marketing, setup email
software and create a lead magnet that you can use in your sales funnel. Then,
build up that list. It's often said that you can expect to earn about $1 per
subscriber per month. If you have a list of 10,000 subscribers, that means you
can earn roughly around $10,000 per month. You will need to deliver value and
not pitch them on every email, but it is a very achievable goal in a short
period.
There are many ways to get people onto your list. Lead magnets are one such
resource. For example, you can build ebooks, checklists and cheat sheets. But
you can also do content upgrades, such as PDF versions of an article with added
resources in them, four-part video training series, and more. Think about your
audience and what you can offer them to better serve them, then treat them with
some respect and you'll eventually reap the rewards.
7. Webinars trainings.
Webinars are quite
possibly one of the most potent ways you can make an exorbitant amount of money
online. Russell Brunson often says that if you do a webinar every single week
for a year, you'll be a millionaire at the end of it. You'll need an audience
to train and you'll need to know what you're talking about. Of course, this
usually requires having a website and some semblance of an online presence.
However, people can still do
webinars without all of that. For example, you might have a sizable social
media following and you train them every week on something to do with social
media. But you will need a product to embed and sell at some point. Don't worry
about it in the beginning. And by far, the best webinar platform out there is
certainly GoToWebinar. Hands down, there isn't even another platform that
comes close.
However, not matter what method you choose to make money online, understand
that you might be able to make some money fast, but for the sizable
returns, you'll need significant sweat equity. However, a year from now, you'll
be happy you started today. Remember, time is far more valuable than money.
Focus on creating passive income streams that will free up your time so that
you can quit the rat race and focus on the things that matter. That's
the important thing here.
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