Why do people always daydream about quitting their day jobs? Don’t they enjoy what they are doing, are they bored or simply lazy and don’t want to work anymore? Let’s look at some legit ways to make money online because if you are willing to work hard, anything is possible.
Luckily, making money online from home is more possible today than ever before. There are just so many legit ways to make money online nowadays, it is just a matter of working out which one will be best for you.
In most cases, all you will need is a strong internet connection and a computer and the world is your oyster. You can learn to be anything online that you wish to be, and sometimes I think that learning online is soon going to become more effective than attending traditional schools and universities.
The problem comes in because most people think that making money online is simply a way to get rich quick.
And that’s partly due to the fact that you have seen so many ads with scammers trying to sell you on that dream of being rich overnight.
In reality, making money online takes persistence and a lot of time and effort. In my opinion, it’s tougher than making money offline. It is actually easier to go to work and get paid regularly each month by the company you work for. Just keep this in mind as entrepreneurship isn’t for everyone.
Your mindset plays a big part if you want to work for yourself. A lot of people start off well but then give up after a few months when the money doesn’t come flying in. The trick is to stay committed to what you choose and make it work no matter what. Only then are you likely to see some form of success when it comes to legit ways to make money online.
Legit Ways To Make Money Online
Here are just a few of the multitudes of ways one can make money online.
Blogging
A lot of people give up with this one when they realize how much work this will need before they will start making money. Unless you love writing and you have a blog about a topic you are passionate about, this one might not be for you.
However if you are persistent, as your blog becomes bigger and stronger over time, your blog could become a 7 to 9 figure income. This is not always the case, but the sky is the limit when it comes to blogging.
Running a successful blog is extremely rewarding and you can make money by selling things like courses, ebooks, advertising or even promoting other people’s products.
If you want to set up a blog there are many resources online, both free and paid, however, I highly recommend this company, as they have everything you will ever need if you want to make money with your blog.
There are of course thousands of resources out there to help you get started, but for a quick way to get started, you might want to take a closer look at Wealthy Affiliate, as you will save a lot of time and errors by doing things the right way the first time.
Affiliate Marketing
Building an affiliate site is becoming increasingly popular and more and more people are finding their way to financial freedom through this route.
It is similar to blogging above but is more aimed at writing product reviews and selling other people’s products on your website.
With blogging, your main goal is to build an audience of regular readers who eventually become customers. With affiliate marketing, you aim to grow your traffic and sell products in the quickest way possible.
Wealthy Affiliate teaches all one would ever need to know about affiliate marketing too.
Flipping Domains And Websites
Buying and selling both niche sites and domains can be a great way to make money online.
With websites you could either design your own from scratch or buy an existing website, renovate it by getting more backlinks, putting more content on it and generally making it more profitable with SEO.
This would normally take between four and six months and then you could resell the site at a profit.
If you’re still a little confused on how to do this, take a look at how Zach made money from flipping a website.
With Domain Names, you need to find some good solid ones to buy and if you get lucky you could make a lot of money off just one or two big sales.
If you are considering buying domains make sure you buy clean names that are catchy and easy to remember. Avoid names with symbols, hyphens, and numbers in them if you can, and remember a .com is always the best choice.
If you go to the auction sites at Go Daddy, you may find some gems for sale from people who let their websites expire.
Making money from flipping domains will take some form of capital to get started and quite a bit of experience in finding and identifying valuable names. The name of the game here is once again patience and persistence.
Email Marketing
If you ask any blogger or affiliate marketer what their most important asset is, and they’ll tell you it’s their email list.
This is because the marketer is able to contact their list over and over again with their subscriber’s permission, and as the email list grows, so does the income that the marketer earns.
Remember that you don’t always need to have a blog to build an email list. It can also serve as your standalone product.
To build an email list you will need to sign up with a good autoresponder. Sumo and Mail Chimp are great to start out with as they are free up until you have a certain amount of subscribers on your list.
I use this one, as it is easy to understand and is also free to try out.
Start Your Own Podcast
Doing podcasts is something that is growing more and more rapidly.
If you look at Joe Rogan, he is one example of somebody who is very successful using this method of legit ways to make money online.
He earns an estimated $50 – 100M of revenue per year from the ads alone.
If you are good at just talking you may find that podcasting is enjoyable and you can grow a wide audience even quicker than more popular methods like creating YouTube videos and blogging.
You will, of course, need some podcasting gear to get you started. Here are some basics. Click on the pictures if you want to find out more about the items.
Freelance Writer
If you are good at writing, why not get paid for it?
The web is booming with blogs of all sorts these days, and many of them need extra writing help. If you love writing, this type of thing can be very rewarding. If you are good at it you will get regular jobs and many are making a full-time income from doing this.
Although it may not be as scalable as some of the other ideas we’ve spoken about, it can certainly be very rewarding.
Take Elna Cain, who is a very good example of where freelance writing can get you. Today she is one of the top freelance writers in the world.
These are sites that help you to find writing jobs:
- Angel List
- We Work Remotely
- Pro Blogger
- Upwork
On Pro Blogger you can even get work as a proofreader if you like to do this sort of thing.
Write Your Own EBook
If you are an expert at something or if you have an interesting story to tell, this one will appeal to you.
These days you can even publish it yourself with your PDF software.
There are many places online you can sell your book once it is complete. These include:
- Selz
- Payhip
- Amazon
Become a YouTube Expert
Did you know that YouTube is the second most used website besides Google and it gets almost 500 billions video views every day?
Because so many people are doing this, you will need to make yourself stand out from the crowd.
The way to earn from YouTube is to place ads on your video’s. YouTube pays a percentage of the advertising amount to you depending on how many people watch the ads on your video’s.
Even if you get 1,000 views, if nobody clicks or watches the ads, you won’t make any money, but in most cases, you make about $2 – $5 for every 1000 views.
But typically, you’ll get $2-$5 per every 1000 views.
To get started, you’ll need to create a YouTube account and set up your channel.
Rent Out Your Home Or Property On Airbnb Or HomeAway
This is one of those great legit ways to make money online.
If you have a vacant room, flat, cottage or house that you’re willing to rent out, try listing it on HomeAway or Airbnb.
Unfortunately, this isn’t one of those passive incomes, as you will need to be around to greet your guests and make sure the accommodation is up to standard and clean. However, you can hire people to do this for you.
The first thing you’ll need to do it make an account on Airbnb or HomeAway. Click on ‘become a host.’ You can list your space on both sites, but be very careful you don’t double book your guests.
Data Capture
You can make legit money online by doing data capture for companies either as a freelancer or working for a company.
All you need is quick typing skills and attention to detail.
If you’re planning on freelancing, you can look for jobs in places like Craigslist, UpWork or Indeed.
If you’d rather work for a company, try applying to companies like Invensis and Virtua Polaris.
But in reality, most of them aren’t going to give you a full-time income right away, or perhaps ever. But you could earn some pretty decent side money depending on how much time you are willing to put in.
Sell Your Art And Craft Work On Etsy
If you love arts, crafts and making stuff, why not make money from this hobby.
I used to make extra money by knitting, and it was quite lucrative.
Anything you can think of from key chains, notebooks, ceramic animals, mosiac house numbers and baby jackets, you can make and sell on Etsy.
Selling on Etsy isn’t cheap, though, and the more money you make, the more you have to pay.
Etsy takes a 3.5% transaction fee, as well as $0.20 for every item posted.
But on the upside, joining Etsy is free, and you’re exposed to a huge network of around 33 million shoppers.
If you do this full time it may be well worth your while selling your wares off of your own website. You can learn how to build a website for your wares right here.
Sell Your Old Stuff
A very common way to make money online is to sell your stuff on Craigslist or Ebay. One man’s rubbish is another’s treasure as the saying goes.
This doesn’t require any special talent or too much effort but you do need to have stuff ready to sell.
In other words, if your house is cluttered, this will be perfect for you.
You can sell anything from used clothing to your old electronics.
There is a slight difference between Craigslist and eBay as Craigslist is more of a local buy and sell where you meet the people who buy your stuff.
With eBay, you can just ship it to them and accept money online through Ebay’s site.
Take Photos And Sell Them
If you’re a photographer or you love to take photo’s you can make a little extra money by selling your photos to a stock image company.
There are a few out there, namely:
- Adobe Stock
- Shutterstock
- Getty Images
If you want to take it further and make more money, you can also make your own stock photo website to sell your images. This company will teach you all you need to know about building websites.
You’ll have to do a lot of marketing so that people know you exist and go to you instead of one of these bigger companies but you’ll be able to keep all the profits and set your own terms and conditions.
Be A Virtual Assistant
Being a virtual assistant is the same as being an assistant, but it’s all done online.
This can be anything like bookkeeping, database entry, emailing, updating websites, writing, you name it. And it’s pretty easy to get into.
All you need to do is make an account with one or all of these sites:
- Fiverr
- Remote.co
- Indeed
- Upwork
- Task Rabbitt
You can start by applying for the smaller jobs that pay around $50 until you get your portfolio built up. Once people know you are good, you can apply for higher paying jobs, and many are lucky to get long term work in this way.
Become A Travel Blogger
If you love to travel, make a blog about all your travel adventures.
Once you get a following you can place advertising and affiliate links on your site so that people who click on the links and buy services through you will earn you commissions.
There are quite a few world travelers who make a full-time income doing this while traveling the world.
Many of them get offers to stay in hotels for free or eat in restaurants for free just to get a review written about them on the blog.
If you are not sure how to go about starting your own travel website, you can get all the training you need with this company.
So as you can see from the extensive list above, there is no reason to be miserable and broke. There are so many legit ways to make money online in this day and age that there are just no more excuses.
Please comment below if you know of any other legit ways to make money online.
I have been looking for a way to make some decent money online in order to quit my day job for some months now but only keep coming across scam after scam.
I have heard about people making good money online blogging but I don’t know how to do it myself or even how to get started.
I’ll check out this Wealthy Affiliate that you mentioned. Is it like a blogging course?
It is a course on internet marketing, using the power of blogging. Not only is there training, but also all the tools you need to get your blog up and profitable, like hosting and domain names.
All the best with your new venture and if you enjoy writing, you will enjoy this type of income earner.
Making money online cannot be more than all these options you have given here. Seriously, when I first started searching for a means to getting money online, I thought I would never stop being scammed. However, I got to know of blogging and Affiliate marketing. Also, I know of freelance writing too and its a very great way to make meaningful pay online. Thanks for this post, it will help others too and I will gladly share it to my social media platforms.
There are many choices nowadays that aren’t scams thankfully, but for myself I have always enjoyed writing and building websites.