7 Realistic Ways To Make Money Online

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 funnels and 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.
Related: How Can App Makers Improve Revenue and
Keep Users Engaged?
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's Didi), you could easily make a respectable
income. The hours are flexible and you can work
as you see fit, making it perfect even if you
currently have full-time employment but are
looking to make some money on the side.
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, a bike would
suffice.
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.
Related: What You'll Really Earn on Uber, Airbnb
and TaskRabbit Every Month
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.
Related: 5 Ways to Make Enough Side Money to
Eventually Quit Your Job
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.
Related: Making Money Online: 5 Major Online
Selling Opportunities for Any Entrepreneur
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.
Related: Why Affiliate Networks Are So Important to
Online Affiliate Marketing
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.
Related: 6 Ways to Turn Your Blog Into a Money
Maker
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.
Related: One of Facebook's First Employees Explains
Why Email Marketing Is Better Than Social Media
Marketing
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.