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Top 10 Genius Ways How to
Make Money Online Legitimately in 2019
There’s no
catch, no tricks, and no up-sells here.
I’m sharing
everything I’ve learned over the past decade, pulling from my own experience in
earning a consistent $15,000/month or more in side income (on the side of my
day job) from online sources like affiliates, courses, freelancing and other
ways to make money online that we’re exploring in this guide.
Have questions? Check out my
monthly side income reports where I break down exactly how I’m
making money from my blog.
👋 And by now you
probably already know… one of the best ways you can start making money online
right now is launching a blog of your own. For that reason, I recently put
together a free master guide that breaks down how
to start a blog and
I share the exact strategies I’ve used to turn my blog into a more than
$40,000/month business.
I'm here to tell you that you can too—you can (relatively
quickly) learn how to make money online.
It won't always be easy,
and you'll of course have to work hard, push through mistakes and failures
along the way.
But here's the reality;
the internet has opened up so many possibilities to people regardless of age,
location, or background to build a sustainable, online business or side project
that can make extra money online every single month.
Alright, now let’s get into my ultimate guide of how to make
money online.
1. Build
a Niche Blog (or Website) and Use Affiliate Marketing
If
there’s a niche you’re interested in and you can build a decent audience around
it, starting a blog and using affiliate marketing to
generate income is an incredible way to make money online.
I know first-hand that
learning how to start a blog (let alone make money from it) can be a massive
undertaking.
So,
I put together a free master course for you to take
that spreads out all of the work involved in starting a blog, into a series of
action-packed lessons. My free course breaks the entire process of starting a blog down into an incredibly simple 7-day
process for going from 0 to brainstorming the best blog post
ideas, publishing (and promoting) your first blog post in just 1 week.
We also cover beginner and advanced ways to learn how to
make money blogging in the course. I can't recommend it enough.
2.
Launch and Grow a Startup
Do you have dreams of running your own business one day?
Building and scaling a high-growth startup, while by far the most difficult way
to make money online, arguably has the most potential upside.
By
the 3rd quarter of 2017, Venture Capitalists had invested over $61 billion into
close to 6,000 startups in the US alone.
There’s money in the
air, and if you can successfully create an online service, tool, or marketplace
that fulfills a rapidly growing need in the marketplace, you could be on track
for creating a very valuable business. However, it’ll undoubtedly take an
intense dedication of time, efforts, and financial resources.
Unlike a lot of the
other businesses we’re going to cover, startup founders face a whole slew of
variables and roadblocks that can get in the way of success.
For one, you’ll want to
have a high level of domain experience within the industry your startup is going
to operate. This means a deep understanding of your customers, the issues they
face, and an idea of potential solutions they’ll be willing to pay for. This is
the minimum you need to get
started.
After that, you’ll need
to be familiar with the other major players in the space who might be good
partners or acquisition opportunities, as well as an intimate knowledge of how
to raise funding, market your product, hire and manage the best talent, and
keep yourself financially above water.
*Whew*
Now, this may sound like
a lot, but the payoff is worth it.
So where do you start when building a startup?
The most important thing
you need before you do anything else is a problem. What do people need that
they don’t have? What solution is currently out there that you can do better?
This alone is the basis of every great startup.
Once you have that
problem or need nailed, the next step is to validate that idea and make sure
you’ve actually got customers who will pay for it. This means building a
minimum viable product, getting objective feedback from real customers,
incorporating updates, testing the market for demand, and getting pricing
feedback to ensure there’s enough of a margin between your costs and what
consumers are willing to pay.
3.
Build and Sell Software
Right now there’s an insatiable need for useful software.
Whether
it’s an important consumer application, a specialist app to solve a particular
niche problem, or even a time-wasting game you can play on your phone, you can
create a massively successful business if you build software that helps people.
(Look at the rise of Slack—the team communication software that went from side
project to billion-dollar company in just 2 years.)
Now,
I know what you’re thinking. Most of the software and apps you use on a regular
basis are made by massive companies or established development studios. Well,
yes. But many successful apps, particularly those in the Apple and Google
stores, are created and marketed by individuals and small businesses. In fact,
independent developers made $20 billion in the App Store in 2016
alone.
There are two basic ways
that you can make money online by building software products.
The first follows the
startup path we outlined above: You have a disruptive idea for an app or piece
of software, you validate the idea with real customers, and then raise money to
hire developers or a development studio to build, launch, and scale your
software. If you’ve done everything right, your software will be accepted to
the Apple and Google Stores and you’ll make money every time someone downloads
it or pays for a premium feature.
The
second (and cheaper) path assumes that you have the design and dev chops
yourself to build your dream software. Naturally, it’ll take more time to get
your product off the ground, but being able to bootstrap the development of
your software lets you retain more ownership in your business and be more in
control of your path, making this a lower-cost, but higher time investment to make money selling apps.
If
you’re willing to take the time to learn the development skills necessary to
build high-quality software products (or even MVPs to help you get funding),
there’s a growing roster of reputable online learning platforms like Treehouse, CodeAcademy, and Skillcrush to get you the skills you need.
4.
Start an eCommerce Site and Sell Physical Products
If finding a better solution to a problem
hundreds or thousands of people have doesn’t seem like an option right now, you
might be better off setting up a virtual shop and selling physical items.
These days, this couldn’t be easier. Sites like Shopify have
made it easier than ever to build a customizable, powerful eCommerce site in a
weekend and start selling products now.
This is probably one of the oldest and most
time-tested ways of making money online. Plenty of digital entrepreneurs have
created sustainable businesses by either:
1.
Creating physical
products they know people in their niche will love
2.
Purchasing low cost
goods manufactured in foreign countries, repackaging or combining them with
other products, and selling them for higher prices on domestic online
marketplaces
While you’ll certainly have higher levels of success if you can
nail creating and marketing your own unique product, from my own experience
(and that of many other entrepreneurs), I know the extremely high costs and
risk associated with starting a product-based
business.
Instead, if you can find a solid product that’s already being
manufactured at a reasonable price from a marketplace like AliExpress, LightInTheBox, or DinoDirect and market it to your audience, you’ll have the
start of a money-making eCommerce machine.
5. Find
Freelance Clients and Sell Your Services
If you have a marketable skill—like writing, designing, web development,
marketing, project management, or anything else—one of the easiest ways to make
sustainable extra money online is to start freelancing.
And while freelancing might not be as scalable as some of the
other ideas we’ve spoken about, it’s not uncommon for solopreneurs to build
healthy six-figure freelance businesses for themselves. (In fact,
I’ve interviewed tons of them on my podcast!)
Today, over 54
million Americans are
opting to forego traditional careers and start a freelance business.
There’s plenty of work and clients to be found. If you know
where to look. To start, you need to know if there is enough demand for your
skill to make it worth the effort to go out looking for work. Start by
searching for freelance postings on sites like Flexjobs, SolidGigs, Contena, greatcontent or
one of the dozens of other skill-specific freelance job boards.
How many postings are there for jobs similar
to what you do? If there’s a decent amount and it looks like there’s steady
demand, put those skills down on a shortlist and start researching the
companies and industries that are hiring.
6.
Start Online Coaching and Sell Your Advice
Similar to selling your freelance services, you can also start
selling your knowledge and advice in an area you specialize in as a coach or
consultant. If you can bill yourself as an expert, there are tons of people out
there willing to pay for your time.
Being an online coach or
consultant is a great way to make money online, as instead of giving your
client ongoing deliverables (like when you’re a freelancer), you’re teaching
them to be better, faster, stronger than the competition. Your expertise becomes the product you’re
selling.
Even better, if you can
find ways to package your experience and coaching skills into an easily
digestible program, you have the potential to significantly scale this business
model.
Now,
if you don’t know people who might want your coaching services, there are a
number of online tools and communities that make it incredibly easy to find
clients and teach, on just about any topic area you can think of. Community
driven platforms like Savvy.is, Clarity.fm, and Coach.me provide you with a network of potential clients to
interact with, as well an integrated payment solution.
And while it’s one of
the most limited businesses as you’re only able to charge for the time you can
provide, many online coaches make hundreds or even thousands for their
packages.
It’s also one of the
quickest ways you can get set up and start generating revenue. All you really
need is an account with one of the online coaching communities I mentioned
above and expertise to share.
7.
Create Online Courses to Productize Your Knowledge
If you’re already an expert in a topic—either
through your current job, freelance business, or coaching—you can package that
knowledge into a high-value course and sell it for years to come.
And while building, launching, and marketing
an online course does take a considerable amount of upfront effort, their
earning potential is through the roof (especially compared to a lot of the
other online ways to make money we’re talking about).
Courses and other knowledge products like
e-books, are what’s called passive income. That simply means that once the
upfront time and effort is put in, with just a bit of regular upkeep and
marketing you’ll be able to continue to sell and make money from them for
months and years.
8.
Launch a YouTube Channel to Entertain and Educate
While YouTube recently changed its monetization program, if you’re able to
hit their new minimum bar of 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of view time in
the past 12 months, it’s still an incredible place to make extra money online.
YouTube is arguably the world’s second largest search engine (after Google)
and is the third most-visited site in the world. In 2017, almost 5 billion
videos were watched on YouTube every single day!
Rather than making money through subscriptions, YouTube channels
are based on a traditional advertising system. Meaning the more viewers you
get, the more you make. Once you’re approved for the YouTube Partner Program and can start including ads on
your videos, with every 1,000 views, you will make approximately $2-$4. Which
might not seem like a lot, but if you have 100 videos with 5,000 views a month
each, that would be $1,000–$2,000 already. Just imagine if your videos start
hitting millions of views!
Building a YouTube channel is a lot like
starting a blog or website, except that you’re working in video—not writing.
The first step is to choose what kind of videos you’re going to create. Most
successful YouTube channels fall under one of two categories:
·
Educational
content: People always want to
find the quickest way to learn something new. And YouTube searches including
the phrase “How to” are growing 70% year over year, making YouTube an
incredible place to teach what you know.
·
Entertainment: Web series, product reviews, comedy
sketches and pranks, vlogs, even video game walkthroughs—there’s so many
different ways you can entertain people through your YouTube channel.
9.
Record a Podcast and Share Inspiring Stories
Podcasts are super hot right now, and for good
reason. With how busy our lives are getting, more and more people are looking
for passive ways to take in content. Which makes them both a great opportunity
to build an audience and to make money online.
And while it will take time to build up a big-enough audience to
attract advertisers and other ways to make extra income from your podcast, the
opportunity is there. John Lee Dumas interviews entrepreneurs seven days a week
for his podcast Entrepreneur on Fire and now makes more than $200,000 a month from it. In fact, John publishes all his income online and
showed that he’s made almost $13 million since launching in 2012.
The podcast market is constantly looking for
new, quality content. And luckily for anyone trying to get started, it’s now
easier than ever.
Starting a podcast, like making a YouTube
channel or blog, comes down to telling interesting stories and building an
engaged audience. I’m probably sounding like a broken record by now, but you
need a niche that you’re interested in and there’s already a demand for. Come
up with a list of topics you’d like to talk about and then search iTunes
charts, Google Trends and other podcast research sites like cast.market to see
what’s currently out there and popular.
Next, you’ll need the right tools. You can be as complicated or
simple as you want depending on your comfort with audio equipment, but at the
minimum you’ll want a microphone and software for recording your voice.
Companies like Behringer, Blue, Focusrite, and others sell
studio-quality plug-and-play podcast setups that can get you recording today.
Now, it’s time to plan out your show. If
you’re doing an interview-style show, you’ll now want to start getting some
guests involved. You can use your existing social network to reach out to
people you already know or are connected with on Twitter or Facebook. You can
also head to Medium or Amazon to find authors or experts on topics specific to
your niche.
10.
Join a Remote Company Part-Time (or Full-Time)
While most of the ideas for making money
online we’ve covered so far can be done on the side, if you’re looking to
completely change your career and start working online there are thousands of
companies looking to hire who don’t care where you are.
More and more companies and startups
especially are embracing remote work—where you use online collaboration and
communication tools to do your work from wherever you want. And you don’t have
to be a 20-something hotshot designer or coder to reap the benefits of working
remotely. Many remote positions are for customer support positions or other
customer-facing positions that don’t require specialized skill sets.
Better yet, they aren’t all full-time either,
meaning you can find a remote company and job that works as a way to make extra
money online.
If you’re interested, here’s a list of some of the best places
to find a remote job today:
·
Flexjobs
·
We Work Remotely
·
Remote.co
·
Remotive
·
Skip the Drive
·
Virtual Locations
·
Remote OK
·
Staff.com
·
Working Nomads
·
Jobspresso
·
Europeremotely
·
Jobscribe
·
WFH.IO
·
Outsourcely
·
PowerToFly
·
Landing.Jobs
·
AngelList
·
Authentic Jobs
·
The Muse
·
Idealist
What'd
I miss?
With the explosion of
online businesses, there has never been a better time to look for ways to make
money online.
From huge, life-changing
endeavors like starting a business, to taking on part-time consulting or
coaching clients or just answering surveys, there’s certainly a few ways you
can start making money online today and feeling more financially safe and
secure.
What did I miss?
Let me know your own
personal ways for making money online (in the comments), share some details,
and I’ll add them to the list.
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