You are looking for an honest answer to the question Can I make money online?
The truth is that everybody these days can make money online.
If you only think about it and never take action, you will never be able to make money online!
It is an honest answer to your question.
Dreams are great to have but unless you take the necessary steps to make them a reality, nothing will change.
People who ask this question tend to fall into two very different categories:
- The first one would like to earn extra money online
- The second one wants to be able to quit their job and live life on their own terms and conditions.
I don’t know which category you will fall into, so you can think about this for a while.
One thing most people regret on their deathbed is that they never took action and made their dreams come true.
Get Started to Make Money Online
Honestly, the question you need to ask yourself is:
Do I want to live my life dictated by others or would I rather live my life on my own terms and never have any regrets?
Remember that life is short and becomes what you make out of it.
Are you ready to start to make money online right now?
A good starting point will be the article 27 ways to make money online.
The article will teach you about the different opportunities that are currently available to you.
Another good way is to go through some of the free training that is offered on this blog.
You will find it here.
Based on your answers, I will send you an email where I explain what you should do to get started to make money online.
Do I Need Money to Make Money Online?
You might have heard someone on YouTube telling you that you need money to make money online. Even if this is true to one extent, there are free methods that you can use.
I recommend a mix of free and paid methods to make money online.
Free methods need “investment” too. To make free methods work, you need to invest time. It will take some time before you will see results.
Paid methods will cost you money but the results will come much faster.
Free methods take time to work as well, so you need to be patient.
So it all depends on how fast you want to get results, to be honest with you.
One of the best ways to make money online is with email marketing. This method will require a small investment, roughly between $9 to $35 per month.
Especially if you want to make money online with affiliate marketing.
If you want to get more information about how to start an email marketing business, you can read my review of three of the most popular autoresponders in the market.
Don’t worry if you didn’t understand everything that I wrote above.
In the article, I will explain everything in great detail to you.
I will not leave any stone unturned. All your questions will be answered after reading it.
Below, I will cover a few ways that will help you make money online.
Free Ways to Make Money Online
There are a number of free ways to make money online available today, which includes:
- YouTube
- Forums
- Quora
- Medium
- Snapchat
- Guest posting
- Blogging
I listed ten different completely free ways to make money online above. I recommend that you start with one or two of these methods.
These methods are “free” since they do not require any credit cards or other monetary resources.
However, there is a cost to it which most people, don’t think about for the most part.
Free traffic isn’t really free because you have to pay with your time.
If you are willing to pay with your time rather than money, then you should do it.
However, you should be aware that the key to succeeding with the freeways to make money online is consistency.
You might not know all the methods I have listed above, especially not if you are a complete beginner.
In my article How to Make Money for Free, I cover all the free methods that you can use to make money online.
Paid Ways to Make Money Online
Paid ways to make money online are not limited just to email marketing, which I discussed briefly above.
There are other ways as well, which includes:
- Solo Ads
- Pay Per Click
- Social Media Ads
One of the best-paid ways to make money online, is actually how I got started online myself.
It is through paid surveys.
You can read more about my journey in my article Make Money with Paid Surveys.
I have to write this, in all fairness, that it doesn’t cost you a lot to start.
The money you will make is minimal compared to other business models but is something you can do on the side if you don’t want to quit your 9-5 just yet.
It’s a great way to get a “taste” of how you can make money online.
However, if you are serious and want to start making some real money online, there is one thing you need to do first.
You need to start to invest in some paid ways to make money online.
Below, I share a little bit more in-depth training.
Solo Ads
Solo ads are probably the easiest and cheapest way to start buying paid advertising.
This model is essentially hiring someone’s email list and the owner will write the email for you.
You can find groups dedicated to this on Facebook.
There are also websites which specialise in connecting people with huge emails list and those who are willing to buy to start getting some instant traffic.
The owners of these lists are called vendors.
When you buy traffic from them, you know that it is of high-quality mostly.
Of course, some people will try to send you cheap, low-quality traffic from countries that will not ever buy anything you are offering.
I myself, never made any money with affiliate marketing until I bought some solo ads.
Even if that specific network does not exist any longer, I recommend this network to everyone who can spare at least $200 each month.
The key is to NOT spend any money you can’t afford to lose.
I will discuss the network I am referring to in a little bit more detail in the next section, where I also share some best practices with you.
Where Do I Recommend That You Buy Your Solo Ads?
I recommend that you buy your solo ads from a network called Udimi.
This network has been around for many years, so it is highly reputable within the online marketing community.
I know a lot of marketers, myself included, that has got sales from that network.
The great thing about this network is that you can see how many people who got sales.
If you join through my link, you will get my top recommended sellers on that particular network.
As a bonus, you will also get a $5 discount on your first purchase.
When you purchase on Udimi, I suggest that you:
- Only buy traffic from people who got at least 1,000 thumbs up
- Try to purchase mobile-only traffic if that option is possible since most people will look at their emails on mobile devices
- Only buy from tier 1 countries (see below)
- Buy from vendors who have at least 25% reported sales (the green $-sign)
- Do not look at the price only. The cheaper you buy, the lesser quality of subscribers you will get.
These are my personal recommendations for anyone who is trying to start investing in Solo Ads.
What Are Tier 1 Countries?
Above, I mention something called Tier 1 countries.
If you’re new to buying traffic, you need to understand that not all traffic is the same.
For this reason, visitors are divided into different tiers.
The different tiers will tell you where people live, and since this is an English site, the top tier countries are native English-speakers.
Tier 1 countries are native English-speaking countries (USA, UK, New Zealand, and Australia).
Tier 2 are non-native English-speaking European and some Asian countries while Tier 3 are the rest of the world.
Even if it is a bit more expensive, I suggest that you try to buy from sellers that have at least 80% or above of subscribers from Tier 1 countries.
You will find that statistics on Udimi.
Below is a screenshot that I took on the 1st of January 2020 with some explanatory text (in red) which is my own.
The division into tiers is solely based on their willingness and ability to buy things online.
For this reason, you always want to get as many people to sign up to your email list as possible from Tier 1 countries.
Sometimes Tier 1 countries are called “top tier” or simply “T1”.
The lower the tier number is, the more people have the financial means to buy courses, and vice versa.
If you take a moment and think about it, it makes a lot of sense.
When every day is a struggle to survive, and you don’t have a lot of money to buy the necessities of life (e.g. shelter, food, water), you will prioritise your survival.
It is one of our core instincts as humans.
When you have enough financial means to cover your necessities and are able to save money consistently, you will have the money to buy other things as well.
So, always strive to get as many people from Tier 1-countries as possible.
It will cost you more money, but you will also be more likely to get at least one sale. Of course, I cannot guarantee anything.
Pay Per Click (PPC)
Pay Per Click or PPC for short is another way to make money online.
There are a couple of networks that offer this service, which is quite self-explanatory.
You only pay when someone clicks on your ad, unlike Pay Per View-networks where you pay when people are viewing your product.
PPC is one of the oldest methods to invest in traffic online.
What Are Long-Tail Keywords?
Most search engines like Yahoo, Google, and Bing, will offer you to buy ads on their platforms and if you are a beginner, I recommend that you go for long-tail keywords.
These keywords consist of at least five words.
Of course, the longer the keywords are, the fewer are looking at it since most people would only type generic keywords like “make money online” or ask the search engine a question like “can I make money online”, which is the name of this article.
What you should focus on when you buy PPC-ads is NOT generic but specific keywords.
Generic Versus Specific Keywords
Do you think that someone who type generic phrases like “make money online” is ready to buy or is it more likely that this person is researching different ways to make money online?
I think you already know that the answer is that this person will not buy.
The reason that this kind of person is not willing to buy is that this person is doing research now before he or she will make the decision of buying.
For this reason, the more specific you can get, the better.
Even if there are fewer people typing in phrases like “earn extra money online” or “earn real money online”, they are more likely to buy what you are offering.
If you invest money, you want people to buy from you, right?
Of course, not everyone who will click on your ad will buy from you, and for that reason, you want to offer people to sign up to your free newsletter or buy from your links by offering bonuses as an incentive to buy from you.
I share one specific method to do this in my article How to Make Money with Paid Traffic.
PPC advertising is great for most offers that you can think of promoting as an affiliate or blogger.
The key is to use the right keywords and the learning curve is steep too.
Social Media Ads
The greatest benefit to leverage social media ads is the potential that your ad might go viral.
Most social media platforms are making most of their money from ads.
They can offer you as a user, to share your cute cat pictures or some other engaging content with your friends.
You can choose to advertise on:
- Kik
- Snapchat
- TikTok
These are just a couple of social media platforms that may allow you to post ads.
Truthfully, not every platform will allow all kinds of offers that you want to promote as an affiliate.
I highly recommend that you read through their guidelines before you start advertising on it.
One thing they all have in common is that they do not allow advertisement of political, provocative, or adult nature on their platform.
The most liberal one of the seven I listed above is Twitter.
To make it very clear for you, I have divided the different areas into two categories which I label as “okay” and “maybe”.
If you are uncertain, make sure you look at it before you decide to promote anything.
As a rule of thumb, adult material is not allowed on any of the social media marketing platforms that I mention in this article.
What Are “Okay” Areas in Social Media Marketing?
Okay areas are things like hobbies.
If you want to run ads on social media for things like:
- Aquarium fishes
- Bicycling
- Camping
- Dog training
- Fishing
- Green power
- Postcards
- Stamps
- Survival
- Woodworking
All of the hobbies above are okay to promote on all social media networks.
People who are into these hobbies are very passionate about them, and they use certain words and phrases, which you need to research yourself unless you are into one of the hobbies I mentioned above yourself.
If you already are passionate about one of them, you will love doing research, and share your knowledge in them too.
That is the most compelling reason to start a business around these kinds of hobbies.
What Are Considered “Maybe” Areas in Social Media Marketing?
Political campaigns always require a pre-approved process by the network before you can run an ad on any platform.
Facebook has the strictest of all ad policies for social networks.
So if that network approves it, you can probably get it passed on the other platforms too.
Here are some areas that falls into the “maybe” category:
- Affiliate marketing
- Cryptocurrency
- Dating and romance
- Diets and supplements
- Financial advice
- Health and fitness
- Stock investments
- Weightloss
If you follow the strategy that I suggest, you might be able to get ads approved.
What is my recommended strategy?
To build a brand, which I describe in further detail below.
Recommended Strategy Before You Buy Any Traffic on Social Media
Before you try to purchase any kind of traffic, or do paid ads, you need to do something first.
You need to post things on the social media network first.
Then you should start promoting some of your posts on that platform.
It is the most common reason why beginners fail to make money online with paid traffic.
Spending a little bit of money on the platform, and keeping people on it have several benefits to it.
First, you will begin learning about the platform, what works and what doesn’t work well.
Then, you start to send people to your page, and as a bonus, you will pay less to reach more people.
You will get an audience, who are interested in your offers.
It will make it more likely that they will buy from you if they want to know more about the products that you are offering them.
That will help you to make some money on ads that you can spend on more ads.
Your posts will also be able to reach more people when you post non-promotional content on the social media platform of your choice.
The way you should promote your content is:
- Write a compelling ad that stands out
- Send people to your post
- Send people from your post to your offer
Not sure on how to do it?
Join this free webinar that reveals the best way to launch with paid ads.
Can I Make Money Online?
As I have written in this article, everyone can make money online.
All you need to do is to choose one thing that you want to try out and test it.
There are many different answers to your question, and it is because not every way of making money will suit everybody.
There is not a universal solution since all humans are different and unique.
Can I Make Money Online Free?
Yes, it is possible for you to make money online without spending any money.
All it takes is persistence and patience.
Even if there are methods that can make you money online for free, there is still a waiting period of a couple of days before you can access that money.
What Are the Best Ways to Make Money Online Free?
The best ways to make money online without any advertising is by either using apps to earn points or other incentives, or by creating content like a podcast, videos, or blog posts around topics that interest you.
If you, for instance, are very good at sowing, you can create a sowing course and sell it on different platforms like Teachable or Udemy.