10 Easy Online Money Making Ideas That Actually Work!
If you search on Google for “online money making ideas,” you will stumble upon a lot of different ideas. Some of these will be legit, while the rest of them will be shady! And here’s the thing with making money online – Not all ideas are created equal, and some of them are nothing more than a joke!
In order to make real money which can even substitute for your day job (9 to 5), you need to work on established money-making ideas that are legit and which actually work! For starters, typing captcha jobs or online survey websites are not something that can help you leave your day job. In fact, the money earned via these ideas is peanuts and can’t be considered real money-making ideas!
When we talk about real money-making ideas, it involves drop shipping, freelancing, e-commerce, and so on. So without wasting time, let’s look at time-tested ideas which are legit and can actually help you earn money online!
10 Easy Online Money Making Ideas That Actually Work!
Let’s get started with our list of top 10 ways to make money online:
- Print on Demand
Recently, the ‘print of demand’ has emerged as a practical method of making money online. For graphic designers, this business model is very attractive since it allows them to sell their designs on products such as T-shirts, hoodies, and so on. Basically, they can sell their design/art on any clothing article and earn a commission whenever a sale is made.
Here’s how the print-on demand business model works:
- Join a print-on-demand platform that allows you to create unique designs and sell them as part of your brand. One such platform which is quite popular is printful.com.
- Create a unique and catchy design for the products, such as clothing articles (for example: T-shirts).
- Promote the products you have designed using various marketing strategies.
- Earn commission whenever a sale is made.
The benefit of this business model is that an artist or graphic designer doesn’t need to worry about printing, warehousing, or even shipping! As soon as an order is made for a product you have designed, the platform (Printful in this case) will handle the rest of the process!
This business model was designed so that graphic designers could focus on creating designs rather than worrying about shipping and all that stuff.
On top of that, the barrier to entry is also very low, which allows anyone to get their feet in the print-on-demand business. In fact, you can even use free marketing channels to promote your product, such as Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, and so on.
Now a lot of people may have questions like they are not good at making stunning designs. In that case, you can hire the services of a designer to create designs for you as well!
- Freelancing
Being a freelancer allows one to work on their terms and timeframe while also earning a handsome amount of money. In fact, a lot of people even ditch their 9 to 5 jobs to start freelancing full-time! Furthermore, there are a lot of skills that can be marketed to potential clients, such as graphic designing, programming, administration, accounting, writing, SEO, A.I., and so on.
Here’s how freelancing works:
- Join a popular freelancing platform such as Upwork, Fiver, Freelancer, and so on. For starters, it is better to create accounts on multiple platforms.
- Create your profile and list the skills that you plan to sell to potential clients.
- Apply for the available projects which match your skills. If you are a graphic designer, you can apply for projects related to designing and so on.
- Once you have been awarded a project, complete it within the agreed-upon time to earn the agreed amount.
Basically, you can sell any marketable skill to clients to earn money! As your reputation grows and you start making connections, you can easily earn a good amount of money via freelancing.
- Blogging
Blogging is as old as the internet itself (almost) and is one of the most reliable ways to make money online. If you have a thing for writing, you can turn it into a business by creating a blog! You can start a blog about anything such as cars, toys, health, fitness, games, and so on.
Here’s how to get started with blogging and to make money from it:
- Plan on the niche for your blog (The main focus of your blog). As mentioned earlier, you can create a blog on anything such as gaming, programming, technology, cars, toys, and so on.
- Choose a platform to host your blog – You can choose a free platform to get started (wordpress.com & blogger.com), or you can buy hosting and domain to launch your own stand-alone blog (You can buy hosting+domain from namecheap.com).
- Publish interesting and useful blog posts on your blog. For traffic, use of social media marketing and SEO.
- Monetize your blog with PPC networks (AdSense and others), CPA networks, or whatever you want (a lot of options).
- Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is yet another popular and proven way to make money online. And the best part about it is that you can become an affiliate for any popular company such as Amazon, eBay, Shopify, and so on.
Here’s how affiliate marketing works in a nutshell:
Once you have joined an affiliate program of a company such as Amazon, all you have got to do is to promote their products/services on various online channels. To promote these products/services, you will be provided with a special link using which the company can track the sales back to you. Once a sale is made, you will be given a fixed commission!
As you can see, affiliate marketing requires no warehousing, shipping, or even inventing your own products. All you have got to do is to promote others’ products/services and earn money!
For affiliate marketing, you can use a lot of different traffic sources such as blogging, YouTube, websites, emails, and so on.
- Create a Course
Do you have knowledge about something? If you believe yourself to be an expert, you can also create an online course and sell it to others for a profit. There are a lot of platforms that allow one to share their expertise by creating a course and then selling it to others.
Here’s how it works:
- Build a course on the subject of your choice. For example: graphic designing, programming, learning English, and so on.
- Join an online course platform such as Udemy and feature your course on it.
- Promote your course and earn money whenever someone buys your course!
People want to learn and gain valuable skills, and you can benefit from it by creating a course!
- App Development
If someone tells you that there is no money in mobile apps, then they are totally wrong! To give you an idea, the famous game PUBG Mobile’s revenue was $675 million in Q1 2020! Of course, your first mobile app or game will not even come close to these numbers, but you can definitely earn a good amount of money!
When we talk about their mobile apps, there are two categories:
- Mobile Games
- Mobile Apps
Once again, these 2 are divided into categories: Free and Paid. By creating free apps/games, a developer can earn money by showing ads to users or through in-app purchases. Another option is to add a price tag to your mobile app/game, and whenever someone buys your app/game, you earn money!
The two popular platforms for publishing your app or game are Apple’s App Store and Google Play Store.
- E-Commerce
Have you ever thought about selling products online? Just like there are shops in malls and plazas which sell products to earn money, you can also earn money by selling products online (This is called e-commerce).
Here’s how to earn money in e-commerce:
- Decide which type of product you want to sell.
- Join an e-commerce platform such as Amazon, Alibaba, or eBay.
- List the products you want to sell.
- Earn money whenever a sale is made!
- NFTs
NFTs are the new trend that has enabled even ordinary people to earn ridiculous amounts of money. NFT stands for ‘non fungible token’ which allows one to sell digital art, videos, and other files for cryptocurrencies. People have managed to earn millions of dollars by selling pictures of cats, memes, and even their own selfies!
Here’s how you can earn money by selling NFTs:
- Create a piece of digital art, video, or other files – To get an idea, you can also search for NFT on Google.
- Upload your digital files to popular NFT platforms such as NFT, Rarible, and others.
- Set a reasonable price (It can be anything you want and you can even set a $1 million price tag!).
- When someone purchases your NFT, you get paid in cryptocurrency!
- Sell Photographs
You may have heard the term ‘stock photography’ on various online websites. What this means is that there are many photo platforms where you can sell your pictures! After uploading your photographs on stock websites such as Shutterstock and others, you get paid whenever someone buys your photographs!
In order to make money online via this method, you need a good camera and the skills to capture great pictures!
- Become a VA (Virtual Assistant)
A virtual assistant is an assistant who works remotely (virtually) for clients all over the world! Businesses all over the globe usually have a lot of tasks that need to be done, and that’s where a V.A. comes into play. Some of the services that virtual assistants offer are data entry, writing, social media management, customer support, order processing, etc.
You can join freelancing platforms to start offering your V.A. services, or you can also join various classified websites to promote your V.A. services!