Whether you’re looking to earn some quick cash or long-term results that generate more sustainable income, there are certainly ways to earn money online today. The truth is that doing it is not as difficult as most believe, but it does require some discipline.
However, if you are looking for legit ways to start making money online now, then it really comes down to seven paths you can take to make a profit. Some will give you immediate results, helping you address your basic monthly needs like rent, utilities, and food, while others have the potential to transform your life by revolutionizing your finances in the long run.
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Regardless of the method, you choose to generate your income online, there is something very important for you to understand. Money can be earned and spent, saved and stolen, invested and wasted. No time. That is why time is much more valuable than money. You cannot recreate time. Once it is spent, it is gone forever.
When you don’t have 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 a life-sucking nine-to-five job? While the stability of full-time employment may allow most to get a good night’s sleep, it doesn’t empower their creative juices to pursue new income-generating strategies.
No matter what method you end up using to generate income on the web, you must adjust your mindset to help empower yourself rather than discourage you. The truth is, making money online can be fraught with avoidable pitfalls. Cancel noise by keeping in mind a few key guiding principles.
Legit Ways to Earn Money Online
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If you really want to generate income full-time and possibly more from your online activities, then you should focus on passive income rather than active income. Sure, the active income will help you survive. That’s the scarcity mentality at stake. But it’s the passive income ideas that will help you thrive.
Since you have a limited amount of time, passive income should make up a large part of your job. If you are serious about generating income online, passive income should be one of your only goals and ambitions. Why? Wouldn’t you rather do the job once and get paid repeatedly rather than relying on your time to generate that income? Invest the time on the front end so you can reap the benefits on the back end. This means putting on a little sweat and not getting paid today. Rather, you will get paid somewhere along the way. And you’ll keep getting paid whether you keep creating that passive income stream or stop doing it.
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Anyone who is interested in making money online should be looking for passive income, while also working with active income. There are many ways to passively generate income on the Internet, many of which start with the foundation of blogging, generating substantial traffic, and building an audience and list. Is not easy, but is worth it.
That doesn’t mean you should start a blog today to make money online. You can go a route other than that, but if you are looking for longevity in your internet income-generating skills, then a blog should be your main goal.
Take advantage of the app economy
If you’re looking to address some immediate financial needs, the app economics is probably right for you.
Uber: If you are in a place where you can find Uber or one of the many competitors around the world, the hours are flexible and you can work as you see fit, which makes it perfect, even if you currently have a full-time job but are looking to earn some extra money.
Food delivery: You don’t even need a car in some places to make money with these applications, Uber Eats, DiDi Food, Rappi, among others. In some major metropolitan areas like Manhattan, a bicycle would suffice.
iBotta – Earn: Cash rewards by purchasing featured products with top retailers. All you have to do is add refunds, go shopping, and then snap a photo of your receipt to earn your refund. Simple and effective.
Task Rabbit: Another simple and straightforward app for a little extra income is the Task Rabbit app. Tasks can range from simple repairs to more extensive endeavors. The app carefully vets each service provider to ensure the highest quality, and it’s a great way to earn extra income on your own terms.
Ebates – This app offers a simple way to earn money online by purchasing what has already been purchased and then earning a cash-back reward. With eBates, there is no receipt scanning. Just click a link in the app and buy it from the store. Your cash rewards will be automatically credited to you upon purchase along with an email confirmation.
Swagbucks: With this, there are several ways to earn money. You can shop online, watch videos, take surveys, and surf the web. The app offers you cashback and gift cards as a reward for your efforts.
Inbox Dollars: Another app that you can use to earn money online is Inbox Dollars, which pays you to watch TV, take surveys, and make purchases. There are cash deals here and it is relatively similar to some of the other apps in this field.
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Use existing websites
You can also choose to use existing websites to earn money. These include both active and passive income methods. For example, you can sell some used items or invest in creating some digital designs that can then be sold as merchandise. Again, spend a significant portion of your time on passive income so that you can slowly accumulate earnings that will come on autopilot without any additional effort.
Of course, a large part of these sites has their own respective applications. But these are certainly less involved in the concert economy, and more 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 for people looking to make a little extra cash. You can easily sell your used things, rent a spare room in your house or apartment and offer your services to the world.
Upwork: This website offers a large market to sell almost any professional service. You don’t need a merchant account, your own website, 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 keep in mind that you will have to compete with many others who are constantly looking for open positions.
Cafe Press: This website allows you to create digital designs that can then be sold on the platform. You’ll earn commission on everything you sell, and you’ll never have to deal with logistics like printing, warehousing, and customer service. If you have some graphic design skills, this is a great potential source for your web-based income.
Fiverr: Based in Israel, it was founded in 2010 by Shal Wininger and Micha Kaufam. You can host events starting at $5, but you also get paid a lot more for updates and add-ons.
Mechanical Turk: From Amazon is a resource for performing human-intelligence tasks, or as the site commonly calls them, HIT. You are paid a very small fee for any given HIT and you will need a large amount of volume to earn a substantial sum of money. But it is a resource that you can use in your spare time to generate a small income online.
Etsy: While Etsy’s popularity has recently waned, it is still a great resource for selling handmade items online. No need for complex e-commerce sites or business accounts or any kind of automation. The company charges a commission for each sale and charges a small listing fee per item. But many still use Etsy as their main source of income. The best part is that you can also sell digital products like poster designs.
Shutterstock and iStockPhoto: Do you have a keen eye for photography? Why not sell photos on some of the major photography sites? You will need some design software skills to go along with it. But if you have skills in this field, it is a great potential source of passive income.
Threadless: Similar to CafePress, Chicago-based Threadless also lets you sell digital designs in the form of T-shirts and other products, such as phone cases, mugs, beach towels, etc.
Zazzle: Another great resource for selling online is using Robert Beaver’s Zazzle. The site is somewhat similar to Etsy and practically anyone can make money online by selling a variety of items here. From art to handcrafted items to customizable products, you can sell just about anything here.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The apps or platforms that are available depending on your location.
Sell your own stuff
If you’re ready to get into busy e-commerce, you could sell your own stuff. Of course, on your own website, comes a lot of responsibilities and setup and technical requirements. To get started, you will need a website and a hosting account. You will also need a merchant account like those offered by Stripe or PayPal. Next, you’ll need to design that site, build a sales funnel, create a lead magnet, and do some email marketing.
You’ll also need e-commerce software, fulfillment software, worry about warehousing, customer service, and refunds. But that is not all. You will also need traffic. Consider search engine optimization, Facebook ads, and other social media campaigns. It’s hard work, especially on your own. You can go for the Amazon platform, which might be an easier route. But again, at the end of the day, this is serious business, one that could yield significant profits. So, you are in or not.
Shopify: Do you want to build your own store? You can choose to create a Shopify store. You can also install WooCommerce as a plugin and run your eCommerce store from your blog. You will need an SSL certificate and a way to process payments, but it may be easier for you to get up and running quickly to start selling right away.
Fulfilled-by-Amazon (FBA): You can start selling in the world’s largest online store and not waste time building your own infrastructure or worrying about traffic. You will have to pay a commission, but most of the other processes will be automated for you.
Drop Shipping: Amazon offers a drop shipping way, but there are other resources for drop-shipping products that you will never have to see or handle yourself. You simply have to close the sale. Vendors like SaleHoo, Worldwide Brands, and many others offer you a resource for direct shipping of your products.
High-cost consulting or coaching: You can sell your own high-cost consulting or coaching products from your website. You will still need a page, a merchant account, a sales funnel, a lead magnet, and many other items. But you can easily earn a substantial amount of money from each individual customer, which makes the arduous setup required well worth it.
Sell as an affiliate
There are many resources to earn money online as an affiliate. You can get products from ClickBank, Commission Junction, Rakuten Marketing, Share-a-Sale, Impact Radius, and many others. Additionally, many of the larger companies also have their own affiliate programs. Do your due diligence and find the right company with a product or service relevant 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 is not easy by any means, but if you have an audience, it can definitely represent a substantial amount of income.
Start a blog
If you really want to make money online, start a blog. Blogs are one of the easiest and most sustainable sources of income. As long as the blog is set up in the right way, in the right niche, with the right content targeting the right audience, and the offering is complementary to the content, you could get a massive amount of passive income from a blog.
While some might think that starting a blog is an arduous endeavor, when you understand the precise steps you need to take, it becomes a lot easier. It all starts with deciding to pick a profitable niche and pick the right domain name. From there, you must create your offers. You can easily sell things like email mini-courses, training sessions, and e-books.
Email marketing
If you are interested in online marketing, set up email software and create a lead magnet that you can use in your sales funnel. Then build that list. It is often said that you can expect to earn around $1 per subscriber per month. If you have a list of 10,000 subscribers, that means you can earn roughly 10,000 per month. You should offer value and not present them in every email, but it is a very achievable goal in a short period of time.
There are many legit ways to earn money online include people on your list. Lead magnets are one such resource. For example, you can create e-books, checklists, and cheat sheets. But you can also do content updates, such as PDF versions of an article with additional resources, 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 will eventually reap the rewards.
Webinars
Webinars are possibly one of the most powerful ways that you can earn an exorbitant amount of money online. You will need an audience to train and you will need to know what you are talking about. Of course, this generally requires having a website and something like an online presence. However, people can still conduct webinars without all of that. For example, you may have a sizeable following on social media and train them every week on something related to social media. But you will need a product to incorporate and sell at some point. Don’t worry about it at first.
Regardless of which method you choose to earn money online, understand that you may be able to earn cash quickly, but in order to get substantial returns, you will need a large amount of money. However, a year from now, you’ll be happy you started today. Remember, time is much more valuable than money. Focus on creating passive income streams that will free up time so you can leave the rat race and focus on the things that matter.