6 Sure ways of earning money online

5 minute read

Affiliate Marketing


For you to start earning all you need is a website, blog, social media platforms, landing pages, sales pages, banner ads, or e-commerce site of your own. Then, pick a hot affiliate niche market; one with many potential customers. Look at social media to ID trends and see what’s hot on sites like Amazon and CJ Affiliate.

When people visits your website or any web platform and click on a link to make a purchase, they are taken to your affiliate partner’s site to complete the transaction and after they make the payment, you will earn for every completed sale made on your platform. The best part is you don’t have to deal with shipping or customer service.

Affiliate marketing is one of the fastest and easiest ways to start an online business because all you have to do is promote the products. You don't have to worry about creating products, setting up payment and delivery systems, or handle customer support. You just simply drive the traffic and get them to click over to the companies you are promoting as an affiliate and if a sales is made you get a commission for referring that sale.

Selling on Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and Cragslist



To leverage the power of third-party sites is one of the quickest ways to earn money online. E-commerce giants like Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and Craigslist are powerful sales and marketing platforms with a built-in prospect base. Millions of people regularly shop on these sites, and the numbers keep growing.

These mega-sites make it easy to set up shop so customers can browse your products, and there's no need to build your own website. Also, you’ll find a built-in search feature so that interested buyers can easily find your online storefront. Plus, you get to use the site's shopping cart. In short, you avoid a lot of the expense and hassle of setting up an independent e-commerce website.

The common denominators among all three sites are that you need to use clear, high-quality photos of your products, keep product descriptions detailed and specific, and know what your competitors charge so you don't out-price yourself.

Consulting


Another way to make money online is via consulting. If you’re an expert in any field, you could potentially find people willing to pay you to counsel them on their personal or business goals. You might think you’re not important enough to consult for big companies, but you could be surprised at the types of expertise people will pay for.

My colleague Robert Farrington of The College Investor is a good example of someone who consulted online on the side in an unlikely industry. Robert told me that, after he had been blogging for a few years, a couple of brands reached out to him to ask him for help with social media and online marketing.

Robert said he did an average of 4-6 of these gigs per year for a while depending on his schedule and the work involved. The best part is, he charged a flat rate that usually worked out to around $100 per hour. And remember, this was pay he was earning to advise people on the best ways to use social media tools like Facebook and Pinterest to grow their brands.

If you want to start consulting but aren’t sure what steps to take next, you can also set up a free account through Clarity.fm. This website lets anyone who wants to offer consulting set up a free profile. Once your profile is set up, people will find you and book a session you’ll get paid for.

Have your Own YouTube Channel


Top YouTubers can make millions each year, and that includes 5 year-olds. Take PewDiePie who has made more than $15 million filming himself playing video games. But you don’t need millions of viewers to make money on YouTube.

Some ideas for valuable videos include how-tos such as recipes, unboxing (where you open a product for viewers), food and travel reviews, music videos, comedy skits, and so on.

Here's how to make money on YouTube:

Set up your YouTube channel, the place where your videos will live.

Upload videos consistently and be specific when describing the content in your video.

Make sure your videos are high-quality and contain useful or entertaining content.

You don't need a fancy camera to get going; a smartphone will suffice in the beginning.

Put the word out on your social media platforms like Facebook and your email marketing list.

You should also share the videos on social media or embed them on your blog or website.

Respond to comments from viewers to create a fan base. Your job is to attract and keep viewers.

Monetize your undertaking by allowing YouTube to include ads in your videos. When viewers click on an ad, you split the fee with Google. The more views, the more revenue for you.

One other thing to mention, you don't have to get in front of a camera to make money with YouTube videos. Many of the most successful YouTube channels are screen capture videos with tutorials of software or videos where you are seeing someone do something or do a voiceover; never having to actually appear on camera.

Blogging


Old-fashioned blogging is alive and thriving. If you provide valuable content on a regular basis, you attract like-minded people interested in your niche information and products. Your readers are compelled to keep reading to find out more and buy.

These people are primed to buy your products either via ads or affiliate links in your posts. Why? Because you’ve been providing useful free (targeted) content and people have come to know and trust you.

Also, you make your site / online storefront attractive in the eyes of Google by regularly adding useful information in the form of articles, videos, etc. This results in higher rankings in Google's search engine so, hopefully, you appear on page one because most people don’t go to page two on Google.

There are many ways you can monetize a blog and the taffic you get to it. You can promote products as an affiliate, promote your own products and services, and have ads on your blog as well.

Selling E-books


E-books represent about 20 percent of all book sales in the U.S. The good news is you don’t have to be a publisher with deep pockets to get in on the action. You can sell ebooks directly from your own website. You can sell your own works or sell a public domain work. Simply upload it to your website (or seller account on Amazon) and start publicizing it on your social media platforms, on your email list, your blog, website, etc.