6 Realistic Ways to Make Money Online

I am yet to meet someone who would not like to make money online, quit their 9 to 5 job and work from home. There are certainly ways to do it, you can make enough money online to quit your job, but what is realistic?

I think before I go into the list it is important to note that there really is not quick way of doing it. If you are after a get rich quick scheme you will not find it. In fact any get rich quick scheme you encounter is undoubtedly a scam. The hard truth is to make money online, or anywhere for that matter requires dedication, a commitment of your time, and just some old fashion hard work. 

Take a look at my recent blog, How Long Will It Take To Make Money Online? an uncensored account of how long it took me to earn my first sale, it doesn’t happen over night. 

Do not let the above scare you off trying to make money online. It isn’t as difficult as most make it out to seem it just requires discipline. 

What Options Do I Have To Make Money Online?

So when we talk about making money online there are a few avenues, from simply using the app economy to get paid for your services, to creating your own website and promoting products through it. Ultimately it boils down to your interests your skill set and which one appeals to you the most. 

No matter what you choose, you need to ensure you are approaching it with the right mindset. Online business is full of avoidable pitfalls, and most of them focus on peoples impatience, naivety and desire to make money immediately. Think of your online venture as an investment in your future time.

Set something up now that will slowly grow over time, to the point where you have a passive income stream, that requires little work from yourself. In this way you have a completely free lifestyle to focus on what you love. 

Now with all of that our of the way lets dive into the list!

1. Leverage the app economy

The app economy is essentially any app that is designed to monetise your skills, or offer you incentives to do certain things. I have included this in the list, as it is generally the best way to make an immediate return.

Most of the apps you get paid for a service, so it is more of a job, than what I would truly consider making money online. But if you have no job, and need money immediately its a good place to start. 

Uber or Lyft: It would be hard not to know about these, get paid to drive people somewhere. Simple. Be sure to consider the costs of running your car etc, as when factored in, it does add up. I found a great article that breaks it down, How Much Does an Uber Driver Make in 2019.

Postmates: Food delivery service, you don’t even need a car a bike will do! 

iBotta: Simply a cash back service. Really only works if you need the product you are buying, then you save a bit of money. 

Task Rabbit: A service economy app. People post jobs, you accept and provide a service for an agreed price. Literally anything you can image people will pay you for. 

Ebates: The same as iBotta, a cash back service that is only beneficial if you are actually buying the product. 

Swagbucks: Takes the iBotta and Ebates system one step further and offers rewards for watching videos, and taking surveys.  Won’t earn you a lot, but its better than nothing.

Many many more, google is your friend!

2. Use existing websites

Similar to the above, but instead of using an app you use an existing website to complete tasks, offer your services or sell products. Obviously with these websites they all generally have their own apps as well, so we are just slightly deviating from the app economy.  

What we are talking about here is generally referred to as the gig economy. Short term projects of a few hours, right up to month long projects are available on these platforms such as photography, online marketing, graphic design and web development.

Craigslist: Craigslist has been around for years. Sell your stuff, rent a room, offer your services.

Upwork: An online marketplace for professional services. Review all the job listings, bid for your price and land the gig. Be warned its highly competitive. 

Cafe Press: A website that allows you to sell your digital designs. They handle printing, customer etc and you earn a commission on every sale.

Fiverr: Fivver  started in 2010 offering low value $5 gigs. It has now expanded to higher paying work such as upwork, but allows you to buy services at different levels of service, with value adds.

Mechanical Turk: is a crowd sourcing marketplace for outsources processes and jobs virtually. Get paid for simple data entry all the way to content moderation and research.

Flippa: A site used to buy and sell websites, domains and businesses. Fairly niche but great if that’s within your skill set.

Etsy: Well known for selling hand made products, Etsy is just a eCommerce platform where you can sell your products. Etsy takes a small commission for each sale in return for the eCommerce infrastructure.

Shutterstock and iStockPhoto: Simple image banks for you to sell your photos.

3. Sell your own stuff or someone else’s

At some point in your life you will undoubtedly need to sell something online. Old computers, iPads or iPhones, why not make a living out of it. You may be thinking, you do not have anything to sell – there are sites for that as well.

Most sites focus on the ease of entry into the market. They offer a market place, easy payment gateways, sales funnels, and marketing service and integrations. You can either use their sites or start your own. You will also need to sign up for a merchant account, such as Stripe or PayPal. 

When you are just starting out the simplest way is to use all their services. Then all you will need to do is get your payment gateway and use their site designer. If you are looking to move into this space, I would recommend drop shipping. This is where you sell someone else’s product, and they handle all the shipping, customer service and any returns.

Some options are:

Shopify: Shopify is one of the most common eCommerce sites that allows you to build a storefront easily. In a few simple steps you can follow their guides and have a store front running in less than a couple of hours.

Fulfilled-by-Amazon (FBA): Sell products using their marketplace and infrastructure for a simple commission. They fully automate all other processes for you.

Drop-shipping: I mentioned this before you sell others products, just get the sale. Amazon provides this service along with others like SaleHoo, Worldwide Brands – just pick your products!  

High-ticket consulting or coaching: This requires a large network to sell to. But if you have marketable skills, and are successful you can sell consulting or coaching services. 

4. Sell as an affiliate

Affiliate marketing is a $4.1 Billion industry. If you have an interest in a particular industry or product, there is more than likely an affiliate marketing opportunity foryou.   

When choosing an affiliate partner it is important to do your due diligence. It is important the company has a valuable product IE you are not simple selling an affiliate program, to other affiliates. If the product can stand alone, without an affiliate program avenue, then you the company has longevityt of sale. Meaning you will not be setting up our funnels only to find they have been shut down for dodgy tactics.

Secondly obviously you want good commission. I suggest staying away from MLM products. Their commission plans are highly complex and generally to appear more attractive than they really are. Partner with someone who pays you a flat % per say, 30% or above.

Finally ensure they have a great support network to help close the sale. If you are funnelling them leads, you want to know they can actually close. Alternatively you can set up your own funnels, handling the entire sales process yourself.

There are many different affiliate programs to choose from, as an affiliate marketer myself I have a preference. Legendary Marketer sells valuable training courses, to help people make money online. So partnering with them kills two birds with one stone. You have something to sell, and learn how to sell it. They have a great commission structure, and have sales coaches who CLOSE FOR YOU.

You can sign up here for their marketers club to get started. 

But in the spirit of transparency some other program you may be interested in, and are the most well known are ClickBank, Rakuten Marketing, Share-a-Sale,Impact Radius and ClickFunnels. The choice is yours.

5. Start a blog

Blogging is one of the easiest ways to create a long term, sustainable passive income stream. If you set your blog up the right way, targeting the right audience, in the righ niche you can make a great amount of money from blogging.  

By consistently posting content you will develop a highly targeted content bank for search engines to index. SEO is one of the greatest ways to get free traffic to your site, but it takes time. 

Once you have created your blog you can leverage it, and the audience you cultivate to sell your own products, others or promote affiliate links, training and eBooks. Combining blogs with affiliate marketing is one of the best and easiest ways to start making money online. 

6. Email marketing

Email marketing is, in my opinion becoming harder and less effective in today’s society. With open rates plummeting it is getting harder and harder to reach your leads via email marketing.

However if you are using one of the other mediums to make money online, it doesn’t hurt to start to develop a subscriber list. The benefits of such is that you are developing a list of people who are specifically interested in what you are marketing. 

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 can develop lists via your blog, asking for subscribers to newsletters, offering free products via an email opt in. The key here is understanding it is hard word building a list, and many will not open your content, so this is definitely not your fist choice. 

If you are serious about making money online, join the marketers club to learn all the secrets to online marketing: