How to make money online

Launch Your Own BlogBlogging can be done either as a hobby or as a full-time business. However, the business of blogging often starts as a hobby, becomes a profitable side business, and then becomes a brand-new, all-encompassing career.
One of the most beautiful and exciting qualities about blogging is that you can create a blog that deals with any subject area that you are either knowledgeable or passionate about (and preferably both!). You can write about personal finance, careers, real estate, getting into business, technology, cooking, travel, personal health, or just about any topic you choose.
You can set up a website, gradually build up the content (articles, videos, podcasts, etc.), then eventually monetize the site through advertising, affiliate marketing, or even the direct sale of specific products or services. Even better, you can generally find whatever services and technical assistance you need online and free of charge. Later on, when your site develops a reliable cash flow, you can begin working with paid providers who can take your blog to the next level.

Take Online SurveysThis might be the most commonly advertised way to make money online. The concept of taking surveys in exchange for money is simple, but you should do your research and tread lightly.
This is also a business that had more than a few scam operations! I even hesitate to include this category, but the subject of how to make money online wouldn’t be complete without including online survey companies that are truly legitimate.
Some will pay you cash to take surveys, but awarding points seems to be the more common method of compensation. You accumulate points by doing surveys, and the points can be redeemed for merchandise.

Invest with Peer to Peer LendingWhile this work at home “job” requires an investment on your part, you can do this entirely from home and on the web. It also is possible to get double-digit interest rate returns on your investment through peer-to-peer lending platforms, such as Lending Club and Prosper. When you consider the fact that bank investments typically pay less than 1%, it’s like getting 9% (or more) on your money for free!
When you invest with peer-to-peer lending sites, you are effectively functioning as a lender, lending directly to the borrowers who come to the site. The borrowers are vetted and rated based on credit profile, income, and the purpose of the loan.
You can earn above-average rates of return because peer-to-peer lending eliminates the bank function. That means that you participate in nearly the entire interest rate being paid by the borrower, rather than the less than 1% that you will typically earn with an online savings account. Not only that, but you can reduce your risk by investing in slices of hundreds of different loans.

Start a Facebook Ads BusinessFacebook Ads have become increasingly popular over the past few years, mostly because they’re so effective when it comes to reaching new audiences to buy products or services.
Each year, companies spend trillions of dollars trying to capture the attention of large audiences.
Due to the massive user-base Facebook garners, it has naturally become a hot-bed for companies – large and small – to spend some of their marketing budgets.
Running Facebook Ads is great for small businesses because there is no minimum amount of monthly ad spend. So, if a business only has a spare $100 to run ads, that will do just fine.
But, most small business owners simply don’t have the time or the know-how to run these ads.
That is where you come in.
By learning how to manage Facebook Ads for small companies, you can make a killing. And, (once you know what you’re doing) it really doesn’t take much work at all.
Starting a Facebook ads business is simple:
Learn how to run Facebook Ads (Psst…Complete this online Facebook Side Hustle Course.)
Reach out to local small businesses asking if they would like to expand their customer base through Facebook Ads.
Propose a simple business relationship in which the company sets a monthly Facebook Ad budget and pays you to run the ads.

Sell Homemade Items On Etsy.com If you are good at creating homemade items of almost any kind, you should try your hand at selling them on Etsy. This website is dedicated to the sale of crafts and other homemade items you can’t buy at a regular store. Etsy charges a fee of 3.5% of your sale, which is a lot lower than what other online marketplaces charge. The rest of the profits are yours, so it’s easy to see how you could earn a lot of money fast with the right homemade product.
The advantage with crafts is that they are creative in nature, and can work well if you are a creative type. In addition, since you are making the crafts, you’ll be able to better control your inventory, as well as the costs that go into it.

Rate Products and Services on MyPointsCompanies need to have their products and services evaluated – it’s a fundamental part of the marketing process. To do so, they often turn to individuals to review those products and services. This creates yet another opportunity for you to make money online and in your spare time.
A website for this purpose is MyPoints. This website lets you sign up to evaluate products and services before rendering your opinions with focus group companies. You earn money for your time, so it’s a win-win for everyone.

Become a Virtual AssistantOutsourcing is the new and dominant wave of the business world. As businesses shed employees, they increasingly turn to independent contractors to supply work that in-house staff used to complete. One of the ways they do this is through virtual assistants. These are people who provide certain tasks online. Businesses can use virtual assistants as much or as little as they need to. If you can make yourself available to multiple businesses, you might have plenty of work without ever leaving your house.
You can work as a virtual assistant through dedicated websites, such as Upwork or Zirtual. All kinds of skills are needed, and compensation can vary anywhere between $10 per hour to $100 or more. Obviously, the higher pay will be to people who have more technical skills, such as web building skills and marketing. But you can find work doing administrative tasks at the lower end of the pay scale.

Work from Home As a Nurse (For Nurses Only)If you are a registered nurse, there are opportunities to make money online and without ever leaving your home. There are businesses who need the expertise of a nurse to answer questions from customers, or to provide information and recommendations.
All kinds of companies need RNs for this purpose, including health insurance companies, hospital chains, and even medical recruiting companies. You can find them by checking out their job sites, and entering the key phrases “work at home” or “work from home” or “telecommuting”.
But you can also register with a company called Fonemed. They are in need of nurses to provide triage and medical information to their clients by phone. The clients are primarily doctors based in Canada and the United States.

Start a Product-Based WebsiteIs there a product or service that you are particularly enthusiastic about? If you are, you may be able to develop a website that is built around selling it. You don’t have to be the actual provider of the product or service either. There are many businesses that offer these products and will allow you to sell them on an affiliate basis. For example, you may be able to sell a product on your website for a commission of 20% or 30% of the sale price.
Shopify offers you the ability to create a fully operational website for this purpose.
This is a more technical way to make money online then most of the other strategies given. But you can get an excellent course on how to make it happen with Steve Chou’s Create a Profitable Online Store program. Steve and his wife have built a highly successful online store – selling wedding napkins – and he’s anxious to provide insider secrets to people who sign up for his course.

Become an Online Freelance WriterDo you see all of those articles, tutorials, and guides all over the Internet? Somebody wrote every one of them! If you have decent writing ability (no, you don’t need a journalism degree!), and knowledge in a few specific topic areas, you can be one of those writers. It’s an opportunity to make money online and without ever leaving your home. It’s also the kind of venture that can start out as a small side business but grow into a full-time career.
You can get started by offering your services as a content writer on a website like Upwork. That can be a good place to get started, though you’ll want to go full-on independent as your experience and reputation begin to grow.
Interested in building a freelance career on your own terms? Check out EarnMoreWriting.com.

Sell Other Online SkillsBeing an online freelance writer is one type of skill that you can use to make money online. But there are a wide variety of other skills that can be used in a similar manner. Every website and blog on the Internet needs technical skills. This can include graphic design, web design, search engine optimization, social media marketing and promotion, content editing, and so much more.
If you have any of these skills you can market them for websites such as 99Designs (which is mostly graphic design) and Upwork for other skills.
If you are more confident in your skills, you can also market directly to websites and blogs. You can contact the sites by email to market your services. That will also enable you to select the specific types of sites that you are more comfortable working with. Since there are literally thousands of websites and blogs on the web, the potential market is limitless.
Build up a large enough book of business, and you’ll never need to look for a job again!

Become an Online JurorDo you like watching court trials on TV? You might be able to turn that interest into a hobby that makes you some money.
There’s a site called eJury that will pay you a small amount of money to participate in pre-trial jury cases. These enable attorneys to determine in advance how a jury is likely to view the circumstances surrounding a certain case, and to make adjustments for the real trial.
The site advertises that they will pay you $5 to $10 depending on the length of the trial review (usually about 35 minutes). That’s not a big payday, but if you can get on several cases each week, it could be enough to make your car payment – who knows?

Dive Into Affiliate MarketingIf you already have an active blog or website, you can earn extra income – completely passive income at that – by adding affiliate marketing to your site.
With programs such as Amazon Affiliate, Google Adsense , and Media.net, you can have ads related to your content automatically placed on your site. This will provide you with an income every time someone clicks on one of the ads. This is the perfect way to add an extra income stream to your existing web platform.
If you have high enough web traffic, you can also participate in affiliate programs from various companies. They will typically pay you a certain amount of money every time someone signs up for a product or service that is advertised on your website. Thousands of websites are making a lot of money using affiliate marketing.

Get Paid to Watch and Rate Online VideosSwagbucks will actually pay you to watch videos, movies, and even news programs, and rate them when you’re done. That will earn you points for each video that you watch, and those can be redeemed for cash (through PayPal) or through gift cards.
You won’t make a fortune with Swagbucks, but it can provide a small extra monthly income, which you will earn in your spare time. And if you have a few hours to kill every night or even a few nights per month, why not earn some money on the side?

Get Paid to Review Software with SoftwareJudgeThis is another of the more technical online money-making strategies. SoftwareJudge will pay you to review the software that they produce. You have to try out the software, render a thorough review, and provide your opinion about your experience.
Obviously this is a venture for people who are very familiar with various types of software, and who know how to thoroughly investigate and evaluate each program. But it’s also one of those opportunities where you will start small, and your compensation will grow with experience and as they develop a greater degree of trust in your opinions.

Online Data EntryIf you have a lot of clerical experience, this might be your dream job – an opportunity to make money online and at home with some easy data entry work.
You can go through a website such as Upwork to get online data entry assignments. Otherwise, you can also check with job offerings for online data entry on Craigslist .
The jobs may only be temporary, or even related to a specific project. But if you’re only looking for some extra money, this can be the way to do it. And you never know – if you get on an assignment, and it becomes ongoing, you just might have that work-at-home-in-your-pajamas job that you always wanted!

Get Paid to Evaluate WebsitesA site called User Testing will actually pay you a fee to evaluate websites. This company typically pays you $10 for each video that you review – which typically takes about 20 minutes. If the work is there, and you are particularly good at it, you could earn up to $30 per hour.
That’s a pretty solid pay rate for a work-at-home job that doesn’t even require a college degree. You wouldn’t have to work a whole lot of hours to generate a decent part-time monthly income.

Participate in Online Focus GroupsThis is a variation of taking online surveys. You can participate through ProOpinion with this gig, and you’ll be compensated with points each time you complete a survey. Points are redeemable for cash (through PayPal), or with Amazon Gift Cards, iTunes Gift Cards, or you can elect to make a donation to the American Red Cross.
Once again, this is one of those ventures that won’t earn you a boatload of money. But it will enable you to earn some extra cash (or gift cards) just for participating in online focus groups.

Sign Up for Fiverr Fiverr is a website that helps workers connect with various micro-jobs. You can earn $5 for each task that you complete. And of course, the secret is to complete as many tasks as possible.
Those tasks can include either products or services. They can involve research, data entry, or any one of a number of small tasks that someone needs to outsource for a specific project. You may even be asked to perform unusual tasks! You can decide which tasks you want to take on, and which you want to ignore.
You can also sell certain products on Fiverr. Of course, this will include small items that will cost no more than $5, including shipping. You may even be able to use the $5 limit as an intro price on certain skills, such as graphic design or accounting, but charge higher fees for more complicated projects.
As you go along, you’ll also want to garner positive reviews. The more positive reviews you have, the more tasks that will become available, and the more income you will earn.

Get Connected with Various Work from Home JobsWorking Solutions is a web platform that matches agents – service providers – with clients who need those services. This is a way for you to land a work-at-home job.
The website has been around since 1996, and it even provides education to the agents to help them learn about the client’s business. They do this through a program called Working Solutions University, and is completely free to use.
Also check out FlexJobs.com, which is another website that connects people with an array of remote work opportunities around the United States.

Sell Your Lesson Plans on Teachers Pay Teachers (For Teachers Only)If you are a teacher, you can have an opportunity to sell your lesson plans on a site called Teachers Pay Teachers. This will provide you with an opportunity to make money online using a “product” that you already have – your lesson plans.
You can actually sell those plans on the website, which is particularly beneficial to new teachers, who probably have not yet created their own lesson plans. They may use your lesson plan entirely, or they may use it as a template to develop their own customized version. Either way, if they buy your lesson plan, you’ll get paid.
This is essentially a peer-to-peer platform for teachers. It is where they may come and share various teaching resources, as well as lesson plans.

Create and Sell Online Courses with UdemyUdemy offers another way to earn money on the education side of the universe. This is a website where you can sell educational courses, and it’s not just for teachers. Anyone can create a course and sell it on the Udemy platform.
It’s an excellent opportunity to offer technical training courses that teach people how to learn a much-needed skill, or accomplish an important task. It could also prove to be an important testing ground for your educational courses. If you are able to market your course on the site, against direct competition, you may be able to direct marketing to the general public, using a website, videos, or even an affiliate marketing program.
Much like creating an ebook or a video, educational courses on Udemy can also be an excellent source of passive income. And that can be an important part of your ability to make money online on a consistent basis.

Answer Technical Questions OnlineAs a professional in just about any field, you can offer your expertise on JustAnswer 1. This company is always looking for professionals in various fields who will provide answers to reader’s questions. You can make money online by answering these questions and pointing people in the right direction to get the solutions that they need.
The website doesn’t indicate how much money you can earn, but it is an opportunity to earn extra money doing what you know best, at home and in your spare time.

Write an eBookIs there a topic that you’re really strong in? You could write an ebook and start earning some extra money. This is also a passive venture. Once the ebook is written, you can begin getting sales through a thoroughly automated process.
People come to your ad page, make a payment, and are then directed to a download page where they can get their copy of your ebook. You won’t have to lift a finger. Get a few ebooks written and marketed, and well, you get the idea. “How to” ebooks are some of the best ones to provide, especially if you’re an expert in a given field.
There are different ways to market an ebook. One of the most common is through Amazon’s Kindle program. They can help you with all the steps to both publish and market your ebook through their incredibly popular platform. There are some specialized sets of writing software that will help with not only writing your ebook but also formatting it correctly for the Amazon market as well as Barnes & Noble and iTunes.
You can also market your ebook on your own website or blog, which can work pretty well if the site gets good traffic. Still, another method is affiliate marketing. You can offer to pay sites related to your ebook a percentage of the sale price – say, anywhere between 20% and 50% – for them to post an ad or linked article for your book on their site. This could enable you to market your ebook on multiple platforms for greater market exposure.

Monetize Your Twitter AccountIf you are active on Twitter and have a few thousand followers, you may be able to earn some money tweeting through PaidPerTweet. You can sign up for the app for free, and then earn money each time you tweet a message from one of their advertisers out to your followers.
The amount of pay that you will receive per tweet depends upon the number of followers that you have. Naturally, a person with 100,000 followers will receive higher compensation than someone with 5,000 followers.
It’s one of those strategies that can enable you to earn a decent amount of money from a slow drip of activity. For example, if you’re paid $5 per tweet, and you tweet two messages a day for a month, you can earn $300.
That’s a pretty good return on about five minutes worth of work per day.

Buy and Sell WebsitesHave you ever seen those shows on TV of people who buy dilapidated houses, and then rehab them and sell them for enormous profits? You can also do that with websites and web domains through a site called Flippa.com. It’s a virtual marketplace for websites and web domains.
It’s something akin to picking stocks. You want to buy undervalued domains, and sell them later on at a higher price. For example, you can pick a domain that is out of favor, but could be related to some future event. So if you decide that the stock market is likely to crash in the future, you can buy a domain that includes the words stock market crash during a rising market, and then sell it in a falling market.
You can also buy struggling websites and work to improve their appearance, revenue stream, and value. Once you do, you can sell the sites for more money than you paid for them. It’s kind of like doing property rehabs, but without getting your hands dirty.

Become an Online TranslatorWe’ve been hearing a lot about globalization in the past few decades, and that’s meant that more people who speak different languages are interacting on a day-to-day basis. That has created a major need for people to work as translators. If you are bilingual, this could be a real opportunity for you to make money online.
Proz.com 3 is a site where you can get paid to translate all kinds of documents, including files and even conversations. The site provides you with an opportunity to list your services as a translator. They offer opportunities in Spanish, German, Italian, Chinese, Arabic, Japanese and other languages, and specialize in legal, medical, technical and other fields.
If you are bilingual, and feel that you can translate any of these documents, this can be an opportunity for you to make money online and at home in your spare time.
Side Jobs You Can Do Partially OnlineWhile some jobs can be completed entirely online, others do require you to leave your home from time to time. Here are some of the best online money-making opportunities that may require you to leave home for certain components of the work.

Retail ArbitrageHave you ever watched Pawn Stars or Storage Wars on TV? That’s the general idea behind this money making venture.
It’s one of the oldest and most proven ways to make money – buy low, sell high. The buy low part comes from searching garage sales, estate sales, and even thrift stores to find items that are in good condition (“gently used”) but selling well below what they would if they were brand-new. In this way, you might be able to acquire an item for $5, and later sell it for $50.
You can sell the items on eBay and Craigslist 5. eBay is the better platform to sell small, high-priced, and unusual items. Craigslist is better for larger and more practical items.
A good book on how to make it work is Garage Sale Millionaire 1 by Aaron LePedis. The book will tell you everything that you need to know, from buying (including determining values) to marketing and selling.