Try to log into any internet marketing community without seeing a classic “How do I make money online?” thread. You can’t.
Some are from people who are really interested in making money online and some have wild reasoning assuming it will spark loads of people throwing them a magic key to unlock millions. There seems to be at least one time sensitive request daily where it’s a matter of life and death.. but a $5/day method will solve everything.
I’m not all about spoon feeding. If you ask anyone that is really successful online they will tell you they struggled A LOT in the beginning it they failed several times before they found their sweet spot. You have to be willing to work. If you are lazy or just want the keys to the PayPal Monkey Generator then leave this thread now.
I put together a list of SIMPLE things you can start RIGHT NOW that can earn you money. Not saying this will be an easy journey for you or guarantee you will make money. These are simply suggestions. People have made a lot of money from every single suggestion on this list.
Take one and run with it. If you get stuck or fail try something else. Hopefully this article can become a resource for noobs to read before they post the classic question we see daily. Think of all the server space those internet marketing communities will save!
1. Start a Blog
This is such an easy venture into online income, especially if you start a blog about a topic you are really into and can write about until your fingers blister. When you create awesome content and start to attract visitors it can really explode. Look at all the websites that started out as personal blogs with no intention of making money.. Perez Hilton.. Tech Crunch.. the list is endless.
They all grew because the person behind the site was into it. They posted multiple times a day and built up a loyal audience. You don’t want to worry about monetizing right away. Focus on building a following.
Then when you have steady traffic you can introduce AdSense, CPA offers, affiliate offers and direct advertising. If I can give you one piece of advice it would be this: build an email list from the beginning. Every email you collect is potential money down the road.
2. Write Content
This is the #1 easiest way to make instant money online.. if you can write. You know all the threads claiming they need to make money within 30 days, etc? Well, write content and you can potentially have money in your PayPal account in a matter of hours.
Content is one thing that every site needs.. and guess what? Good writers are hard to find. There are plenty of $5 article writers.. but they suck. People are finally understanding they can’t throw that crap on their site. Content is hot right now.. so if you can write well you can bank hard.
Even if you don’t want to build a writing business this is a great way to start and get seed money for anything you want to do. I know several people that started as writers and raised the money they needed to build websites and start other online businesses. Think of content writing as a means to an end.
3. Create a Digital Product
Take a look at ClickBank and count all of the digital products. You can’t because there are so many of them. There are products for anything you can think of.. picking up a girl, getting a boner, learning a new language, losing weight, curing acne.
You can take any hobby, interest, or area of expertise and create a digital product and promote it yourself and also have an army of affiliates working around the clock to promote it as well.
The key here is to create something that has a big enough audience to make it worth your time. You also need to think of ways to get traction in the beginning. Look for Facebook groups you can join and promote it in, etc.
You also will need some money.. for promotion as well as the website design, product design and affiliate system. Going cheap won’t make your offer stand out. You have to spend some money here.
4. Be a Virtual Assistant
If you have a computer and an Internet connection congratulations.. you are qualified to be a virtual assistant! This might not be a dream job for most, but it can provide you with steady income if times are tough. This can also be a way to get out of a hole and to build up money to support a side project.
You could work from 9-5 as a virtual assistant and then work all night on your own website or other online project. The last thing you want to do is go into debt and rack up credit card bills starting a business. What if it fails (most do).. then what will you do?
If you self fund your business by working as a VA at least if you fail you aren’t faced with a mountain of debt. Then you are really fucked. If you have a steady income and a project fails then you just start another idea without stressing about debt.
5. Become an eBay Seller
eBay is the biggest online marketplace. It receives crazy traffic numbers. There are two ways you could approach eBay.
#1) You could use it as a temporary way to raise some money for a business idea. Go through all your old clothes and items. I bet if you went through your house you could EASILY find some items that are collecting dust that you could sell off and put together a couple grand to start an online business. Get creative.
#2) You could set it up as a real business. Go to tag sales, flea markets, antique stores and find items to resell. This takes time and you have to know what you are doing. You will want to stick to a category you are very familiar with. The last thing you want to do is get stuck with a bunch of worthless inventory that will never sell.
6. Affiliate Marketing
This is something that so many people try and fail.. because of one reason: they don’t have any money! You can’t spam forums (we see it daily here) and spam on social media and expect to make quick sales. It doesn’t work that way.
You have to have a blog or website that has traffic or a budget to set up media buys, pay per click, do SEO, etc. There are so many success stories online about affiliates that make $20K a day, $50k a day, etc. What they don’t tell you is that most of that was spend on advertising. Don’t get me wrong, if you can make $50K a day and it costs you $45K in ads that is still $5K profit a day.. $1.5 Million a year. Pretty sweet.
But to think you can get started without any ad budget is crazy.
7. Re-sell Web Design
This one can be very lucrative, especially right now with the mobile update.. you can make money without knowing how to code or design. Sweet, huh?
You need to find someone you can outsource all of the work to. The BHW marketplace has you covered. You need to make sure they can do good work and meet deadlines. This is important. If you are outsourcing to a flake that sucks at communication it will make you look like a fool. You won’t get referrals and you might even lose deals because of it.
You will need a website yourself first, so this is a good way to test out a potential outsource partner. Make strict deadlines and requirements and see if they can deliver. This is a good way to test their quality as well. Don’t tell them it’s for you either.. they will try hard then suck.. give them a blind test.
8. Become a Link Builder
If you have some SEO knowledge and you’re good at writing cold emails and outreach emails then link building might be good for you. It can be lucrative if you are able to make connections with bloggers and editors at the major sites.
You can offer your service to other SEO agencies and direct to business owners. You need to figure out the game and build a system that allows you to obtain the most link placements. If you are good you can get a few hundred dollars per link in some situations.
This is good for people that are patient and can deal with a lot of rejection. It takes a lot of time and planning to make this one work.
9. Start Drop Shipping
Drop shipping is a legitimate option. The biggest obstacle you will face is avoiding scammers. The rule of thumb for this: use your brain. If it sounds too good to be true then it is. Do you seriously think some guy in a third world country really has access to 100 iPhones at $50 each? It amazes me how many people get ripped off in that section.
Air Jordan’s for only $2? Sure, legit! Rolex watches for only $7? Makes perfect sense!
Some easy ones to start out with are cell phone accessories.. and almost any electronic accessories. If I were to do this I would do accessories.. not the actual products. You aren’t going to find knock off accessories as much as you will the actual electronic products.
Sorry to ruin your dreams, but you aren’t going to get MacBook pros for $89 and sell them for $1,000.
10. Flip Domains
This isn’t easy. Before you can sell domains you need to know what to look for. There is automated software and tools that claim to be able to find domains. Ask him if he uses software and I am willing to bet he will laugh at you.
It is tedious manual work and you have to know what to look for and how to secure them. This is for more advanced people.. but still a potential source of making money online that I wanted to include.
11. Build Apps
Apps are a huge opportunity and you can get started with a reasonable budget. Look at BigBuddy’s threads here on BHW for some app building inspiration. He basically lays everything out on a silver platter.
If you can get some momentum and get cranking like he has you can make some serious money.. even while you sleep!
Mobile phones aren’t going anywhere.. everyone has them and everyone will continue to download and install apps. It all comes down to promoting them. You can create the same kind of games over and over.. and as long as you can promote them you will make money and get installs.
I would make sure you have some savings or a steady source of income first.. but this is a goldmine to get into if you can do it right. Apps are huge right now. You could even offer to design apps for local businesses and use the profit to make your own games. Lots of options here guys.
12. Become a Social Media Manager
This is a great opportunity for stay at home moms or someone that just wants to be a fulltime freelancer and work from home. Every business needs social media but not every one can find the time to do it or hire an employee to do it. That is where you come in.
You can manage their social media profiles and set up different monthly packages for various amounts of engagement and posts. If you use Hootsuite or something similar you can print out fancy reports that will make your work (that is easy as pie) look like a million bucks.
This is really an easy sell and it’s pretty stress free. Start small and you can scale and it’s easy to add additional staff if you grow large.
13. Create an E-Commerce Store
If you have an offline store then there is no reason you shouldn’t be selling online. So many businesses end up closing their physical store and they convert to a 100% online business model. This is because they eliminate the expensive retail space and operation costs can be cut in half.
There are a lot of WordPress themes that are plug and play and allow you to set up an online store with ease. They even have built in inventory control.. it’s never been easier to sell online!
SEO is going to help you big time here. You need to know how to optimize your products. When you can pull in organic traffic it really improves your profit. Read all the on-site SEO guides you can get your hands on if you are planning on selling online.. I have wrote a few – search them out here.
14. Trade Currency & Stocks
This one is tough.. there are plenty of people banking hard.. but there are way more that fail and lose it all. I included this because it is a real source of online income. But there are no get rick quick schemes here. You have to study, learn and be cautious.
If you Google “Timothy Skykes” you will see an example of someone that has done it. He now makes most of his money selling training.. but he still trades and documents everything. He is the only guru that actually has verifiable proof for everything he does. I’m not into currency and stock trading but if you are a financial wiz it’s an option.
15. Re-sell SEO Services
I’m not even going to dive into this here in details, because I covered this in a big post that you can read HERE.
It’s without a doubt one of the best ways to start making monday online.
There you have it! If you can’t find an idea on this list then go to your local McDonalds and become the head fry master..
Any questions or comments just fire away.. As always I hope you guys enjoyed the read. Until next time..
Tommy McDonald
Tommy is an SEO professional with years of experience running highly successful SEO companies, founded SerpLogic after noticing there was a major void when it came to options for SEO agencies needing a reliable and professional one-stop outsource solution.You can read all about me in the “About” page here on our blog!