3 ways to make money online
Whether for full-time online job or juste for supplement income, there a lot of opportunities and ways to earn money online nowadays. In this tutorial, you will discover how to make money online by adopting one or all of the following 3 ways.
1. Doing online tasks
How to make money online taking surveys
One of the simplest ways to make money online is taking surveys. You can earn up to $100 this way. You can find paid survey sites by searching in the internet using any search engine like Google or Bing. Then sign up for multiple survey sites.
You will need to register with an email, and you must often check your inbox to quickly respond to new surveys.
Things to know:
- Always look for a privacy policy on the survey site to check if they are not selling your personal information
- Never pay to participate in a survey. Some fake companies may ask you to pay a fee. Just go away!
- Most surveys pay between $1 to $4 per completed survey
- A survey may take up to 45 min to complete
- You can get paid by gift cards or free products
How to make money online testing websites
Testing websites or remote usability testing means that you will navigate to new websites, testing some functionalities and giving your feedback to the website owner. You will get paid for each completed test.
Things to know:
- A test may take approximately 15 min
- You can earn up to $10 for each test
- Some tests involve executing a specific test scenario (Example: product purchase process) on the website and recording yourself doing it
- You will need a computer and a microphone for the recordings
Some remote usability testing sites:
Freelance online jobs and tasks
Focus on you expertise
Take your time and look into your experience, your knowledge and your talent. You may be expert in one or more fields such as website development, article writing or photo editing.
Make a short list of services or tasks you can offer online and search for freelance jobs websites.
Sign up for freelancer account
To be able to apply for jobs on freelance websites you must sign up for a freelancer account. Signing up is free for all these sites, but you will need to pay minimal fee to apply for a job or sign up for a plan with a number of applications.
Fill your data
You will be asked to fill in some personal data, your expertise domains, your experience and in some cases your bank data (For receiving paiements).
Search for a job
When you are ready, you can search for jobs by filtering according to many aspects, domain, service price, expertise level, …
Once you select a job that you judge adequate for you, you can apply for it. You must now that you will not be the only person that applies for this job, and wait for the selection results. If you are chosen for the job you will get a notification in the freelance site dashboard and by email.
Some freelance jobs websites:
3. Creating a niche website or a blog
Learn how niche websites and blogs work
A niche website is website that focuses on a specific topic with a very targeted audience. It provides useful content and information related to the niche. In general niche websites are build around specific keywords that matches the chosen domain, this way the website will generate good traffic. Coupled with an advertising system like Google Adsense or Adsterra, you can generate a passive income.
Find a profitable niche
Make a short list of the different topics and niches you can write articles on. Start with your interests as it is easier to talk about and write content of topics you like and you master. Also think about topics people are interested in.
Once you have your list, start doing keyword research for each topic. Evaluate the amount of keywords are used to search for each topic and the number of searches for each keyword. That will give you a clear idea about which topic can drive more traffic and which not.
Create your website
To create your website you can do it by yourself or hire an expert to do it for you. If you chose the seconde option you will just express your needs and pay the service. If you opt for creating the website yourself you will need to choose a website building platform as WordPress, Joomla or Drupal. Purchase a domain name and a hosting plan.
After that you will have to design and build your website using the chosen platform, fill it with content, test it and then upload it to your hosting server.
Check our article how to create a website: step by step tutorial for a detailed tutorial on how you can build your website.
Create content
The content of your website is the most important thing to care about. Always create content relevant content that people will find useful and interesting to read, to listen to or to watch (The content can be in text format, audio or video). This will help you rank higher in search engines and social medias so you will reach a lot of people (You can’t monetize without visitors).
Once again, keyword research can help you a lot to optimize your content and to find the best topics that will attract many visitors to your pages. For that you can use tools like Semrush or Ahrefs.
Monetize your website
This is the main method to earn money from your content websites (non-e-commerce websites). Choose an advertising platform like Google Adsense and Adsterra, or promote products you can sell to your niche audience.
You can also sell advertising spaces on your website, where you will display advertising banners of brands, organizations or products.
An other way of monetization is to affiliate marketing, that means that you will promote products for your niche by inserting link to the products page (text links or banners with links). When a visitor make a purchase you will receive a commission.
3. How to make money selling online
Building an online shop website
E-commerce and selling on internet is one of the best ways to make money online. To do this, you will need to build an online shop. For that you can use one of the E-commerce platforms such as Prestashop or Woocommerce.
Purchase a domain name and a hosting plan, purchase a template (or you can use the default template which is free), configure your online shop and set up your shipping methods and your paiement methods. Then add your products, with photos, product descriptions, characteristics, and prices.
Check our post on how to create an online shop for more details.
Selling on marketplaces
If you don’t want to create a shopping dedicated website, you can create your store on a marketplace such as Etsy, Amazon, Ebay or Shopify. In this store you can sell either physical products and digital products.
Selling physical products
Think about the products you will sell. Do some product searching and always choose products that are requested by customers. Make sure that you can send those products to your customers once the purchase is done (think about weight, size and available shipping methods).
Choose the platform you will create your store in, and sign up using your email, Facebook or Google account. Once you create your account select the option to convert your account into a seller’s account. Then you can create your store following guided and easy steps.
Once you have your store created, start listing your products. Upload product photos, write product descriptions and set prices.
Always take in consideration keyword research. The marketplace platforms have their own search and ranking algorithms like search engines. In order to make your products and your store ranking high in those platforms and consequently generate sells, you must optimize your product pages.
Selling digital products
Digital products refers to products that are mainly based on digital technology like ebooks, music, digital art, software, online courses or virtual goods in video games. Those products are delivered to the customers via download or by email.
You can make simple digital products using tools like Canva, which allows you to create designs and images that you can sell online.
You can also sell POD (Print On Demand) products using Canva or Figma. As a creator, you can create your designs on these platforms and upload them to POD platforms like Printify or Printful. The POD platform manages the printing (on objects like mugs or t-shirts), the ship and the customer service. You can link the POD platform with your store on the marketplace to sell your designs.
The main advantage of digital products is that you only have to create the product once, and sell it without stock limit. Also, you don’t have to manage shipping.