How to Make Money Online Without a Website in 2023

Last Updated 1 month by Emily Standley-Allard

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If you want to make money without a website, there’s several ways to go about it. I highly advocate having your own website if you have an online business but today it’s not necessary with social selling making such an impact. So if you’re simply not interested in building, maintaining or promoting a website, there are plenty of other ways to make money online without a website. Let’s go over how!

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Ways to make money online without a website

The best way to make money online without a website is either via social media networks or affiliate marketing. You can even utilize both!

With affiliate marketing you simply place your affiliate links strategically out there and earn a percentage of a commission from the companies you’re promoting.

Now, it’s not as easy it sounds, there is a technique and strategy to it which is necessary to learn or you won’t be successful.

But once you get started it’s possible to make an unlimited, passive income from just about anywhere. Affiliate marketers online are making thousands of $$$ in commission income each month, as you can see from a couple of examples below!

affilotools image — Affiliate marketing earnings

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Remember: the key to being successful with affiliate marketing is to get your affiliate link in front of an interested audience – such as regular followers on your social media channels.

Below are several successful techniques, methods and tactics you could try to make money without a website.

This is a great way of getting a taste for affiliate marketing – all you have to do is find a product you’d like to promote, then start posting on blogs and forums with your affiliate link in your signature.

Of course, you should only post on social media posts that are relevant to the link you are promoting.

After all, you’re not going to get much interest for a beauty product for hair loss for instance, if you’re posting on a ‘surfing’ or unrelated type of social media site.

Similarly, you’ll find that you have a lot more success if you’re making useful and interesting posts that are directed towards solving your audience’s problems.

Once you have established yourself and gained more followers will begin to listen more to your opinion and will likely be more inclined to click on your affiliate link.

If you simply spam your social media sites with useless links, you’re likely to be banned and get your posts deleted.

The best selling course below is by Michelle Gardner who earns over $150K monthly via affiliate marketing. Check it out!

How to Build a Successful Social Media Strategy in 4 Simple Steps

How 37 Bloggers Earn $2K – $1Million Per Month

#2: Write a Viral eBook, PDF or Digital Product

A “viral” product is one that is designed to spread (often quickly) to a great many people – this can be a great way of getting your affiliate links out there without ever having to create a website.

You can produce a short 30-page eBook or a “special PDF report” on a particular subject. For example;

How to Build Your Epic Online Business

This is a perfect example.

It’s a detailed guide and proven strategy that offers entrepreneurs who want to start an online business, secrets, tips, ideas and resources for amazing ways to build a business online.

You don’t have to have a website to do affiliate marketing or make money online.

why you need to start an online business now and how by socialbuzzhive

An interactive eBook is an even more innovative idea as traditional eBooks are getting more phased out in today’s video crazed world.

Insert links to your affiliate products into it, then distribute your book through whatever means you like (on online forums, publishing directories and a host of other channels) – you could tell people that they’re welcome to give it away, sell it or put it on their websites.

You can also kick it off yourself by selling the eBook on eBay, iTunes or the Amazon Kindle Publishing Program for a small amount.

Thousands of people including myself have made a good chunk of change and created a fantastic side hustle for themselves doing this!

As long as your book is informative and valuable to the reader, rather than simply laden with non-relevant affiliate ads, you will find that it does quite well.

And… if it’s of an ‘evergreen’ content matter it can continue selling over time and you will continue making commissions from your affiliate links.

That’s what’s referred to as ‘passive income‘.

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#3: Create a YouTube series

YouTube has taken the world by storm with one billion unique visitors per month. You can use this to your advantage. It doesn’t take much more than a webcam/smartphone/tripod and some quirky or informative ideas to get a channel going.

Building a successful YouTube channel you can add affiliate links into your description, or over your video, and convert some of that fan base into affiliate profits.

Do some research to pick a popular niche and create a video series related to that topic, with a related affiliate promotion.

That way, the viewers you get will be a lot more likely to be interested in the affiliate product, as they already have some interest to be watching the video in the first place.

Here’s a post for you to create simple marketing videos for the beginner, intermediate or pro user. You can easily use your iphone or android as well!

Vimeo is another incredibly simple one that is great for beginners as well and can even be used from your ipad or phone.

The Simplest Way to Create the Best Marketing Videos

There are two main rules for creating engaging videos:

The content must be full of value for viewers.
If your video is obviously just there for you to make money from a link, you will get listed as spam, and your efforts will become useless. Producing something worthwhile is a lot more successful, you benefit by being known as an authority in your niche and you get the attention and respect of viewers and customers that way.
Don’t be misleading!
If your video is unrelated to your link, or your title or description claims something that isn’t in the video, you are violating YouTube’s policies. This is also something to avoid like the plague.

Video marketing on YouTube can be a little risky, because affiliate links can get listed as spam, but the best way to avoid this is just to be up front, honest, and useful. Avoid any spammy behaviors. Some quality content options could include:

Honest, informative product reviews
Instructional videos – i.e. how to use a certain software
Topical discussions – i.e. tips for how to travel with a toddler without losing your mind

Just have one link in the description, and possibly one over the video if it’s extremely relevant (such as a product review video). I would also note somewhere that you’re an affiliate or that the link is an affiliate link, and contact YouTube to check that you’ll be in the clear.

If your videos have a lot of value for the viewer, and that stands out more than your money-making efforts, this shouldn’t be a problem.

It only serves you well to be upfront and honest in the beginning.

#4: Write ads or reviews for classifieds websites

You’re probably already familiar with using sites like Craigslist or Ebay to look for old furniture or car parts, but you can also use classifieds sites or ‘affiliate directories’ to promote affiliate products.

Consider writing ads or reviews for affiliate products and posting them with your affiliate link.

A course like Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing goes over everything you need to know about how to do this the right way.

#5: YouTube Ads

Two popular ways to make money with YouTube videos include ads and sponsored videos. Ad revenue is as easy as connecting Google Adsense with YouTube.

If you don’t have a Google Adsense account, you can sign up for one for free.

With Adsense, you’ll earn a set amount for each 1,000 views your videos receive.

As you grow your YouTube audience, you may be invited to join a Multi-channel Network and the YouTube Partner Program.

This offers additional promotions and ad revenue opportunities that can turn into some serious money made without a website.

Don’t forget about the possibility of affiliate sales on YouTube.

Channels that focus on product reviews are perfect platforms for affiliate marketing. In fact, some people make all of their online income through affiliate sales.

Related

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YouTube Channels that Earn

Intrigued by making money online without a website by using YouTube? Some popular channel ideas include:

Vlogging – Video blogging =Vlogging. It’s just like a traditional blog but you are making video entries instead of written ones. You can vlog about whatever you’d like — current events, musings, motherhood, personal finance, etc.

Vlogging is one of the easiest way to get started since you don’t need anything more than a webcam and your own thoughts!

Product Reviews – As I mentioned, product review channels are easily monetized with ads and affiliate links. If you become popular enough, companies may even pay you to review their products in a sponsored video.

Read this post on how to pitch to brands to get sponsors which also includes a sample email to send to companies:

How to Pitch to Brands and Get Sponsors for Your Blog

#6. Revenue Share Sites

Getting traffic to your website or blog is no easy task.

You’ve heard the overused expression that content is King, well first you need traffic to get anyone to notice you.

That’s why so many people want to know how they can make money online without a website.

Many writers turn to the various revenue sharing sites as an easy way to start earning extra income.

Revenue sharing sites pay contributors a portion of revenue that the site generates.

Usually, this is from ad earnings, but some sites offer the opportunity to make affiliate sales.

The revenue you’ll earn likely depends on how many page views your content receives. It’s a good idea to promote your content on social media to get as many visitors as you can.

Some writers swear that popular platforms, like HubPages, offer consistent extra income, while others insist, they earn a full time living on revenue sharing sites.

If you’d like to try your hand at earning on these popular platforms, check out:

Carol Tice, over at Make a Living Writing, offers up some revenue share advice in her article How I Earn Good Money Writing for Revenue Share.

So, what are some popular topics that actually generate income on revenue share sites? Not surprisingly, the popular topics are those that seem universally in demand:

Health & Beauty
Wellness
Parenting
Finance
Business
Fitness
Relationships

What’s great about revenue sharing sites is the possibility to earn passive income.

You write the article once and can get paid over and over again each month.

Remember, when it comes to passive income, it takes some time to build up a decent stream of money.

While you might not see immediate results, after a few months you should start to notice an increase in money earned from older or ‘evergreen’posts.

For those with a lot to say needing a platform to share and earn, revenue share sites offer an easy-to-setup way to make money online without a website.

Money bills rolled up — Image by Pixabay.com

#7. Product Design

Have a great idea for a t-shirt? Think you’ve got the perfect drawing for a coffee mug? Sign up at a popular online ecommerce site like Shopify. to start selling your designs!

While these companies each work differently, the basic idea is the same:

You come up with a design
You place your design on a product like a t-shirt or shower curtain
The company offers it for sale on their website
When a product with your design sells, the site manufactures and ships it
You earn a percentage of each sale

You don’t have to worry about customer service, collecting payments or maintaining a website — it’s all taken care of for you!

Some people have had such great success on these popular sites that they can earn a full-time living designing and selling t-shirts or other items online.

While t-shirt sites are a popular way to make money online without a website, there are other platforms like Shopify that let you sell hot items directly from the manufacturer without ever having to store any products yourself!

This process is called Dropshipping.

For this method its best to have a website to direct customers to but building a site on Shopify is pretty easy and fun to get started and so much of the work is done for you it’s hard to pass up on a great ecommerce opportunity like this.

Update! Now that social selling has become so popular you can literally create a store on social platforms like Instagram and TikTok and sell directly from there!

Launch Your Shopify Store for a 6 Figure Business

Make Money Online Without a Website — Get Started!

While I can’t stress enough how amazing it is to earn a full-time living by bogging or creating great content, or the benefits of launching a money-making site, it’s also nice to know there are legitimate (and lucrative!) ways to make money online without a website via social media and or affiliate marketing techniques.

#8: Promote affiliate products directly through pay-per-click advertisements

This method quite frankly, is not one I do myself, but some people are quite successful with it.

This method involves creating pay-per-click campaigns through search engines like Google and Bing and promoting the merchant website directly through your affiliate link.

So instead of using PPC to promote your own website, you send them straight to the merchant.

There are however, a number of downsides to this method.

First, with Google’s AdWords in particular, there will only be one paid listing for a particular website displayed at any given time. This means that instead of competing against other advertisers for one of eight spots on the page, you’re competing for just one spot. If you bid a large amount and write an attractive ad then you might see your ad displayed, otherwise you can forget it.
Secondly, you have no control over the quality of the merchant page. Increasingly the search engines are looking at the page you’re promoting and deciding whether this offers a good experience for their users. If the merchant site has little content, or poor quality content, you could end up paying a much higher amount for your advertisements.

There are always new affiliates who see this as a fast and easy way to get started, but I really recommend that you try the other methods we’ve introduced first.

But that is just one method.

If you opt to an ad network like Monumetric that’s one way to monetize. And with a platform likeShare-A-Sale, you can set up affiliate links and monetize from thousands of merchants by using your social media sites and your You Tube channel without your own website.

You can use Monumetric even if your content only lives on another platform such as Facebook or Pinterest.

If your content is on another of these other platforms such as Skimlinks, in the Skimlinks sign-up form, simply provide any website URL for your site address, and then note in the comments section the other platforms where your content lives.

For more suggestions and best practices for using affiliate marketing on social networks, download Skimlinks’ Social Media Guide.

Resource – Skimlinks.com

You can also earn money from Pinterest by posting affiliate links without having a website! Read below!

Learn more details in this post:

How to Earn Money and Traffic From Pinterest

#9: Work for Amazon Mechanical Turk

Now, robots can’t do everything (although they’re certainly gaining an edge today with AI) – there still some jobs only humans can do.

This can take a bit of a long time and I think there are much better ways to earn an online income, but some people make some extra spending money from it.

Amazon Turk is a marketplace for work that requires human intelligence. It was created by Amazon based on the idea that there are some things that humans beings can do much more effectively than computers.

Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) is a crowdsourcing marketplace that makes it easier for individuals and businesses to outsource their processes and jobs to a distributed workforce who can perform these tasks virtually.

This could include anything from conducting simple data validation and research to more subjective tasks like survey participation, content moderation, and more. MTurk enables companies to harness the collective intelligence, skills, and insights from a global workforce to streamline business processes, augment data collection and analysis, and accelerate machine learning development.

Such tasks include selecting objects from a picture or video, writing product descriptions, transcribing audios, or searching data details.

Companies or developers that need tasks done can assess Amazon Turk’s marketplace of workers. Tasks are known as HITS (Human Intelligence Tasks) which are questions that need an answer.

It can take a while to do all of these tasks, but they do add up and you can make money from the comfort of your home while doing so.

Read about how Amazon Turk works here.

#10: Get Paid to Watch Videos

Get paid cash or in gift cards for things you enjoy doing everyday like watching videos, Netflix and TV shows! Learn more here!

#11 Write Content for Others

If you have a talent for writing use that to write for others and convert it into dollars!

There’s a huge shortage of talented writers out there that all industries need for web content, social, ad copy, white papers, email & content marketing, scripts and much more!

Even if you hate writing have an AI generate content for you with a software like WriteSonic or Jasper!

Here’s also 115 sites that pay writers between $50-$2,000 per article!

In Summary:

In this lesson you’ve learned some ways of getting your affiliate link out in front of an audience without having to build a website, such as…

Posting on social media channels
Writing a viral eBook, PDF or creating a Digital Download
Creating a YouTube video series
Writing ads or reviews for classifieds websites
Using Revenue Sharing Sites
Get Paid to Pin on Pinterest
Promoting your own products and services
Building a ‘Hub’ one page site
Promoting affiliate products through PPC Ads
Watching videos or completing surveys for cash or gift cards
Write content for businesses and individuals

Conclusion

These are just some of the ways you can make money online without the need of a website.

Next read >>>How Virtual Assistants are Earning $100 An Hour

Ways to make money online without a website

#1: Post on social media channels