In today’s tough times, most are hard-pressed in making ends meet even if you’re currently employed with a regular source of income. For some, a typical 9-6 job is no longer even enough. If this is the case the best thing to do is venture into making money online with the goal of supplementing, and even replacing a regular or traditional job income all together.
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This article outlines the top 6 online money making ideas that are not only quite lucrative but can also be quite fun and really tap into your creative spirit. Note- Each one requires varying degrees of work so depending upon how much effort you want to put into your new gig – whether you want it to be a side hustle or a full fledged all consuming career is completely up to you.
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How to Lead The Ultimate Lap Top Lifestyle
In the words of John Chow top blogger who earns 30K+ monthly… “I had a job for 8 months and it sucked! I hate working!”
I feel the same, which is why I love being a digital nomad and being my own boss. Blogging allows me to do this!
But you must have a passion for whatever it is you do. I don’t care what it is! Or else it will be drudgery my friends. And life is too short. Don’t get me wrong. Working for yourself is hard. But the options are endless and if you have what it takes (mental persistence) you can earn an unlimited amount vs. working for someone else = limited.
A lot of creative people use these methods to earn an extra part (or full time) income online that makes ends meet to help pay off bills, debt, student loans, go on vacation, purchase a new vehicle, or because they’re tired of the 9-6 grind and want a whole brand new career avenue.
To start an online business is scary but if your motivation is there and you have a burning desire that nothing can change, don’t let anything get in your way!
The internet has not only changed how we communicate and research for information but offers an unlimited amount of income opportunities out there to the ones who are willing to learn the ways to grab it!
There’s simply never been a better time in history to be an entrepreneur.
Let us count some of the ways…
How to Make Money Online in 2021
Become a Profitable Freelancer
One of the most common ways to make money aside from having a traditional job is to offer your services as a freelancer.
If you’re an artist, graphic designer, writer, SEO specialist, web developer, financial/tax advisor, bookkeeper, digital marketer, social media consultant, copywriter, content creator, health and wellness expert, there are literally hundreds of options out there.
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Teachable and Podia are one of several online course creation platforms that offer ways for people to build their own courses and market them online.
Whether you’re a blogger, a vlogger, artist, tutor, scrapbook creator, photographer or coder; Teachable and Podia or even Udemy can design a beautiful, professional course for you.
This is a great income source for someone who wants to share their knowledge with others.
My own course was created on the Podia platform in less than a week! Mastering the Art of Monetizing Social Media
Mastering the Art of Social Media – Scale, Grow and Monetize Your Business!
Podia is simply an incredible software that lets you create and sell all your digital products and courses with NO TECH OR CODING WHATSOEVER. I LOVE IT and their customer service is amazing. They take care of everything for you from payments to 3rd party app integration and everything in between.
Click on the banner to check them out. I think you’ll be amazed at what they can offer you.
Building an online portfolio is extremely pivotal to marketing your online business.
An artist/illustrator/photographer for example, needs to be able to show potential clients what they can offer them if they take them on as a client.
Independent authors and web publishers are constantly looking for people to design book covers, websites, infographics and logos for them.
If you can’t hire your own web designer there are tons of professional options from BluChic available in the form of themes, templates, landing pages and more.
Another popular way of making money as a freelancer is to become a freelance writer proofreader or editor.
Self-published books have exploded in recent years. Amazon and other numerous independent authors are looking for editors who would like to have their work edited for a more affordable price than the norm in the publishing world.
I published my ebook on Amazon through their KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) platform. It was simple, direct and fast.
You can take on editing jobs or even be a ghost writer to help the author craft the whole book, guide, resource or project. This is how I got started and now make $600 per day!
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A popular aspect of freelance writing is accepting article writing gigs and help online publishers like niche website owners and bloggers continuously feed their sites with fresh quality content.
The key here is quality content, to build ongoing relationships with your clients and build your reputation.
Freelance writing is a great money making idea because you can completely control how much work you take on.
If you’re just getting started in freelance writing you’ll see lots of websites like Upwork.com and other places to land your initial gigs.
However, I don’t really recommend ‘content mills’ for writers because you’re literally getting paid peanuts to pour your heart and soul out for valuable writing gigs and be in competition with other folks from other places who will work for close to nothing.
And…they take a cut of your profits too!
That won’t help pay your bills here in the US of A where your rent bill can be close to 80% of your expenses!
Pricing your service competitively will help you attract clients and build your reputation on these freelance job boards but if you’re considering to go this route on a long term basis, I suggest that you build your own website to build your reputation, attract more clients, and turn this into a real business that can potentially replace your day job.
If you’re interested in pursuing freelance writing as a profession I recommend you read this post for a huge wealth of resources and tips to get started:
How to Start Your Epic Career as a Freelance Writer
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Become An Online Retailer
Ever bought something off Amazon and eBay? Yello! Most of these sellers are people just like you and me operating their own bookstores, gadget shops or computer retail stores off their homes.
There are several ways you can start selling stuff as an online retailer. Read below!
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One way is by buying a stock of supplies and keeping inventory to ship yourself or to become a drop shipper where you partner with a drop shipping supplier that will ship your inventories to your buyers directly from their warehouses.
An example of a company that does dropshipping is: Alibaba.com, Doba, DropShipDirect, WholeSale Central, Megagoods, or Oberlo.
Benny Hsu from Get Busy Living sells his own t-shirts through a drop shipping company. Benny uses Teespring, a shirt and apparel drop shipping and manufacturing company that allows you to design your own products and sell them via its platform.
Benny earned $100,000 in five months through selling t-shirts. He tested several designs and after he found which ones sold well, he sat back and watched the sales come in.
The best way to get started with this money making idea is to create a website from from Wix, Squarespace or WordPress but if you’re not technically inclined I highly recommend Shopify for an easy do it yourself eCommerce site.
They make it so easy to build and manage your online store with templates and shopping carts, intuitive apps, SEO and social media built right in. Merchants pay zero transaction fees!
Oberlo btw, works exclusively with Shopify.
You can try Shopify out here with no credit card for 14 days for Free.
Once you do that you can start selling stuff you can find inside your home or upload items directly from Ebay or from a site like Aliexpress. I don’t know about you but when I went through my house I practically found thousands of dollars worth of items that I never used any longer!
Items like old jewelry, DVDs and unused craft items, kitchen items, garage items, tools, electronics, clothes, baby items, accessories, collectibles, and more.
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You can also buy things that are on sale at Walmart, Target etc. and sell them online for regular prices or get stuff from your local thrift stores or library sales.
This is called Retail Arbitrage – This does take a great deal of effort but read this article about this man who buys at big box stores, resells on Amazon and makes 200K doing it!
Facebook also has an online Marketplace where you can easily list your items right from your phone, set a description, a price, and the geography of where you want to sell.
Instagram is also into the game of online selling with their marketplace called Inselly.
Because Instagram is a real-time, visual network, that is what sets it apart from its other social media brothers and sisters.
Aaand it also means that you need to lead your sale with an eye-catching image. Take the time you need to get the photo right. That means selecting a photo that is square in shape, easy to identify, and void of distracting lighting issues.
If you’re going to be a reseller the key is on being able to check the current prices of the items you’re looking to resell before you buy them to make sure you’re actually going to make a profit.
This is where your smart phone will come handy, all you have to do is download price scanning/comparison apps like FOB Scan. Amazon also has a super easy to use scanner app that you can use right from your smart phone!
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Sell Fiverr Gigs
Yes, Fiverr gigs! It may not seem like much but Fiverr gigs are no longer limited to $5 per pop. There are people who make 6 figures on Fiverr!!
You can offer your initial service or product on the standard $5 pricing but you can offer upgrades from $20 to $50 per pop.
This is a great part time gig as so many of us don’t have time to do everything ourselves and need to outsource! Some of the jobs you can offer are:
- voice overs/jingles/sound effects
- small graphic jobs
- short videos
- SEO pushes
- Social Media
- Video
- Editing
- Creating Infographics
- Greeting Cards
- Resumes
- Research
- Transcription
- Banner Ads and more
- WordPress help
As well as tons of other jobs you can do for just a few minutes of your time or full time! I regularly hire folks from Fiverr for tasks I just don’t have time to do.
Open Up A YouTube Channel
YouTube users watch over 4 billion hours of video a month so there are always people willing to watch your videos. A person who plans to make money off of YouTube needs to decide on a niche or what they want to talk about in their videos. Do they want to teach a tutorial or give a commentary?
If someone owns all of their material legally, than they’re eligible for the partner program.
With original ideas and constant promotions, an internet entrepreneur can set up shop on YouTube in a matter of minutes. Although it might take a lot of work, the payment after a while can be pretty big but just like any other content marketing businesses, 10 YouTube videos won’t make you a happy camper.
It’s always a numbers game, think of it as having your own TV show where you’re the host, producer and channel owner.
This requires a great deal more planning, some technical know how – however there are youtubers out there who do everything with a smart phone and a microphone, some editing tools and good lighting!
Animoto is one company that makes it very easy to create simple yet professional videos.
Read the article below to learn more.
Become An Influencer On Instagram
Now, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy right? If you want to go for the big bucks Social media can reap you serious money but you do have to be in it to win it!
There are various levels of influencers hence; micro/mid tier/macro or mega influencers (the Beyoncé’s & Kardashian’s of the world)
Micro influencers are on the rise though and can command some serious money with Advertisers if they have between 1,000-100,000 followers on Instagram.
Add an affiliate marketing strategy onto that and you are raking in 6 figures easily.
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According to Charlotte Cowles from The Cut – There are three main ways to make money on Instagram. The first method is Sponsored content, which usually entails a flat fee that you or hopefully an agent have negotiated with a brand.
While sponsorships are widely considered to be the most lucrative strategy, one survey of 5,000 influencers showed that the majority of them — 42 percent — charge between $200 and $400 per post; not exactly quit-your-day-job cash. But! This can rack up nicely once you have enough sponsors.
Read this to connect with brands and get paid sponsors:
How to Pitch to Brands and Get Sponsors for Your Blog
Most influencers supplement that income with the second tactic: commissions from selling other brands’ products. And the third, most direct approach is to use Instagram to market your own products for sale, if you have them.
Monetizing Social Media
Which brings us to the next and most common method of monetizing Instagram: commissions. Earning a small sum for every customer they herd toward a brand is most micro-influencers’ entree into larger partnerships.
This is where affiliate platforms — third parties that help connect influencers, brands, and consumers — enter the picture. Some of the most popular ones are Skimlinks, Shopstyle Collective, Shopify, Clickbank, ShareASale, and Amazon’s affiliate program.
Although their commission models differ (some pay for clicks, others for sales), they all provide ways to trace an affiliated brand’s business back to the influencer who boosted it.
To sum it up, sponsorships, campaigns, commissions, and/or sales of their own products is how an influencer makes money on Instagram. But to attain this, your followers trust you, believe in you, and come back for more.”
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There is saturation in the industry, yet it’s showing NO signs of slowing down.
Affiliate marketing is set at a growth rate of 6.8 billion, yes billion my friends by 2020. Get in the Game NOW.
Create And Sell Your Own Products
A lot of online marketers found that they can make money faster with creating their own products than creating blogs or niche websites.
This of course is beyond the realities of most beginning online marketers but if you have some time to spare, product creation isn’t really that difficult as you may think.
Creating a physical product to sell on Etsy, Ebay or Shopify or a Digital info product (eBook, eCourse, Guide, Printable etc) on a subject that you know and love will reward you hundred times over.
Sell Other People’s Products Without Selling
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Come to think of it, if you have a product of your own, a lot of other affiliate marketers are willing to sell your products on their websites and email lists for a commission helping you reach a very wide audience that’s impossible for you to reach on your own.
Start a Self Hosted Blog
Building and publishing your own blog or website is the best way to build a long term business system that will build an excellent source of passive income depending upon the amount of time, energy and effort you have to put into it. It’s definitely a task that you are in for the long haul.
The first 3 items on the list will serve as a source of speedy income.
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Offer Much Needed Services
Offering freelance services on established freelance job boards helps you piggy back on their traffic being that they’re the “go to” places for people who are looking to outsource stuff they don’t like to do themselves.
Retailing on Amazon or eBay can also attract sales faster than if you’re going to build your own online store as they already have the traffic of shoppers whose mindset is to scout for products they want to buy online.
It’s free to list products on Amazon and you only get charged when you actually sell something while eBay will charge you a listing fee when you list a product for sale.
I do find that Amazon’s fees are a bit steep and that’s the reason Facebook and Instagram as well as other apps have gotten into the game.
Fiverr on the other hand is the world’s “go to” place for small jobs people want outsourced. It may not be as promising as the first two money making ideas listed herein but they do pay for each gig you deliver.
Pinterest VA services are HUGE!
If you’re seeking a flexible, lucrative career you can do from anywhere, THIS IS IT!
Pinterest marketing is a full time job in itself and numerous virtual assistants are taking advantage of this opportunity and making bank creating their own businesses from the sheer overwhelming need for it.
Click here to learn more about becoming a Pinterest Virtual Assistant on your own schedule!
Become an iBooks Author
Create and publish amazing books for iPad, iPhone and iMac. Available free on the Mac App Store, iBooks Author is an amazing app that allows anyone to create beautiful textbooks, a handbook or manual for business, or a travel journel for personal use — and just about any other kind of book — for iPad, iPhone, and Mac.
With galleries, video, interactive diagrams, 3D objects, mathematical expressions, and more, these books bring content to life in ways the printed page never could.
Once you’re ready to publish it has a step by step process so you can submit it to iBooks for purchase or free download.
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Conclusion
These are just some of the best ways to get started making money online which can earn you an income between $500-$5,000+ per month or a whole heck of lot more depending upon how much passion and effort you want to put into it.
These are NOT get rich quick overnight schemes but legitimate business formats. The best thing is that there’s no limit on the amount you can make. It’s completely up to you.
The hardest part is picking which one you will devote your time and energy towards.
I earn a full time living and then some from my blog and a mixture of these methods. There’s no reason you can’t live the lap top lifestyle and earn passive income any number of ways too! You just have to get started.
Don’t forget to check out my latest eBook!
Comment and let me know which method you chose! Remember to like and share on social:))
Wow thanks for sharing. Gets me excited and thinking… Well written blog with loads of info. a good for thought 🙂
Thanks for commenting! So many great opportunities out there to explore:)