There are many legit ways to make money online. Below you will find a comprehensive list of 27 different ways that will allow you to make money online in legit ways.
- Do what you already love and make money
- Share your knowledge or ideas with the world and get paid
- Do some small work for companies and make money
This article contains a lot of different opportunities that will help you earn some extra cash. It does have some affiliate links since this is one of the ways that I make money from this blog. I hope that you are sharing this article with like-minded people as well. You can roughly divide this article into three parts:
If you do not have any skill set or knowledge you think is valid online, I will share some places to learn this.
What You Need to Know About Making Money Online
DISCLAIMER: Any numbers mentioned throughout this article are only there to show you the potential of the money you can make online. However, income is not guaranteed. You must understand this. Most people never make anything online. Mainly because they never do anything or they do things the wrong way. The purpose of this article is to cover as many ways as possible to show you the potential to make money online.
Please note that any mentioning of companies or services is purely coincidental. Each trademark belongs to its respective company.
Make Money with Paid Surveys
I highly recommend that you get started with paid surveys.
I started making money online in 2015, and it is a good and legit way to make money online, and it is also beginner-friendly.
Most of these surveys do not pay very well. However, I have found a couple of them that indeed pay very well. One of the significant benefits is that it does not need any investment upfront except for your time.
Companies will pay you for your opinions.
Your input and information are valuable to companies. They want to know what you think about the services or products.
It will help them improve their services and products and increase their sales.
Satisfying and understanding the customer’s needs is vital in any business. The bigger and broader the customer base is, the more money they will have to make more money.
If you are answering surveys from big companies and well-known brands, they will be able to pay more than a small-sized family-owned and run business.
In my article Make Money with Paid Surveys, I cover this more detail.
Make Money with Blogging
Blogging can be a great resource to make money online. You can use ad networks and affiliate networks to make money from your visitors or sell your product or services.
However, blogging does come with a few startup costs.
To do blogging to make money, you need to purchase a domain name and hosting. I cover both of these topics in the articles: A Complete Guide to Naming Your Blog or Website and Which Hosting Company Is the Best for My Blog?
I will discuss every one of these methods in explicit detail below.
Make Money with Affiliate Marketing
One of the most profitable ways to make money online is affiliate marketing. You will earn money from selling other people’s products and services for a commission. I have done this for the last three years on my previous blogs. It is something I am doing right now on this blog.
If you have joined my email list, you know that I am doing this.
You have probably also noticed that I promote my course, which shows you how to make money with affiliate marketing.
It is one of the first articles I have ever published on this blog.
If you subscribe to my newsletter, you have probably noticed that I offer you products where I get a commission if you decide to purchase them.
However, I never force you to buy anything or try to promote products that I do not believe are helpful.
Trust me.
The main reason why I am doing this is to help you, not me, make money. I would never make a single buck from this website if I did. Instead, I want to share the best ways to help you make money online.
Read more about how I got started in the article Can I Make Money Online?
A. Where to Begin with Affiliate Marketing
There are two ways to make money with affiliate marketing:
- Join an affiliate network. You can join any of these networks for free. Then you will have a lot of things that you can potentially sell to your customers. Some of the most famous are Clickbank, JVZoo, OfferVault, Commission Junction, and Amazon Associates. I have written an article about the pros and cons of each network on this blog as well.
- Join a private affiliate program. Individual affiliate programs are companies that are not listed on affiliate networks but rather companies who run their affiliate programs. Most of them require you to register first. Then you have to go through an application process to get accepted as an affiliate before you are allowed to promote it. Big companies like Apple, Alibaba, Microsoft, Nike, Adidas, Google, and Target all have affiliate programs. If you don’t believe me, google it by entering the name of the brand + affiliate program.
If you want to start with affiliate marketing, you need to go through some training.
I have found a beneficial and reliable source to help you get the training you need to make affiliate marketing work.
Click here to start with affiliate marketing the right way.
Make Money with E-commerce
For the last couple of years, this has been popular in the make money online and business opportunity niche.
E-commerce is not as simple as some entrepreneurs try to make it sound.
It does require a lot of work and a lot of upfront costs.
Only after a while will you make money since you need to spend a lot of time and money setting up your marketing and targeting.
You also need to buy a lot of inventory and rent a warehouse before getting started.
Then you might have to get a deal with a supplier to handle all the shipping for you while you take care of the customer service, including chargebacks and refunds yourself.
Of course, you can outsource this as well.
Don’t get me wrong, e-commerce works. It is a great business model, but it still requires much investment if you want to take this route.
I just wanted to be honest with you to prepare for this before starting.
If this is something you want to know more about, I recommend reading my article Is It Possible to Make Money with E-commerce?
Make Money By Testing Apps
Another great way to make money is by testing apps on your phone.
It, of course, requires that you have a smartphone.
That is the only absolute requirement to make money by testing apps.
Companies are willing to pay you to test apps and see how things work before releasing them to the public.
You, of course, need to report any problems to the companies so they can fix them.
You will get paid for doing something you already enjoy.
The only downside is that some companies do not pay very high commissions unless you go through a highly reputable company that will help you find many different apps and pay you regularly, like the one I recommend below.
Click here if you are interested in making money by testing apps using your smartphone.
Make Money Buying And Selling Domain Names
Flipping websites, which buying and selling domain names, also is referred to, is another way to make money off the Internet.
You need to have some skin in the game before you try this out.
It is a good and legit way to make money online, but it is not something I recommend if you are a complete beginner.
Instead, I recommend starting with affiliate marketing, freelancing, becoming a virtual assistant, or blogging.
As with any business, you need to understand that there is a cost upfront that you need to pay for yourself.
You need to own the domain, and then you need to keep it for some time or do something that adds value before you can sell it with a profit.
That is the reason why I do not recommend this for beginners.
It is, however, a great way to make money buying and selling domain names since you can do this while you are still working a 9-5 job and earn some extra cash passively.
After a while, you will scale it up and make this a full-time income.
I would recommend that you keep your job until you consistently make more money with flipping domains than you do at your day job.
Selling on Amazon
The e-commerce giant Amazon.com is probably one of the best legit ways to make money. You can even sell your used items like books and get paid for them.
Pretty good if you do not want those old books that are just collecting dust anyway, right?
It is probably one of the easiest ways to make legit money online.
You can even buy and sell new things for a profit which I will discuss next.
Click here to get started selling on Amazon right now.
Sell on Amazon FBA
Selling physical products online can be pretty painful, especially if you don’t know how to negotiate deals with companies that will handle your shipping. It is one of the most common reasons people hesitate to start their e-commerce empire.
Amazon realized this and started Amazon FBA, Fulfilled By Amazon.
By doing so, you can ship products that you buy in foreign countries for a low price to other countries where you can sell them with a profit.
Your products will ship to Amazon’s warehouse, and they will take care of all your shipping, handling, and customer service for you.
Pretty neat, right?
All you need to do is to pay them a small commission. You also need to ensure that the product gets delivered to their warehouse.
It is called dropshipping.
If this sounds interesting, you can read my article Amazon FBA Dropshipping Simplified.
Selling Your Ebook
If you are a writer or have something interesting to write about, you can sell your books on Amazon.
I do not refer to a physical but an electronic book, an ebook.
Amazon has the Kindle platform. I am sure that you have heard about it and maybe even bought some books from their platform. I know that I have done that, and those books are excellent.
Maybe you have done it too.
So, why do not make money online by creating and selling an ebook? It is not that hard!
Click here to sell your ebook on Kindle now.
Selling Your Services as a Freelancer
One of the best things about selling your services as a freelancer is that it requires absolutely no startup cost for you.
It is an excellent opportunity to write, logo design, graphic design, edit videos, or any other skill set.
A. Popular Freelancer Sites
Some popular sites are Fiverr.com, Freelancer.com, PeoplePerHour.com, Upwork.com, and Guru.com.
You can get paid anything from $5 to $1,000+ if you are a professional.
The great thing about this model is that you will not only get paid.
You can also set your work hours, and the potential is endless.
B. Where to Begin Your Freelancing Career
One of the biggest struggles for most people who start as freelancers is that they do not have any work to show potential clients.
However, it is easily solved.
Just invest some of your time right now and begin to create samples of the kind of work you will be offering to clients.
Then you can show your work to future clients.
You can even reach out to companies, offer your services, and be upfront that you would typically charge them but are willing to do some work for free since you are building your portfolio. You can then ask them if it is okay to show the work you have done for them for free to future clients.
Most companies are more than willing to do this as long as you are professional and upfront with how you want to use it.
I recommend that you start with Fiverr. Then I suggest that you move on to the other freelancing websites I listed above once you have created a good reputation and got some paid work done for clients.
Sell Audio Books
If you aren’t a good writer and you don’t like to show your face in front of a camera, selling audiobooks might be an alternative for you.
Especially if you have some experience in radio or recording audiobooks or podcasts in the past, you will have some knowledge that you can use. Your voice might create an excellent extra income or even a full-time income for you.
People hate to read books but love to hear someone read them aloud to them.
It all goes back to your childhood when an adult or an older sibling read a bedtime story to you before you fell asleep.
Your voice will potentially have a substantial psychological impact on the listener, making the person remember those treasured moments from their childhood.
No doubt about it: This is by far the coziest way to make legit money online.
Excellent services that you might like are Sellfy, Feyr, and Audible.
Create an App
If you are a developer and know how to code, you could build an app yourself.
Today, you do not even need to code to build an app. All you need is an idea for an app. Then you need to sell it on Apple’s App Store or Google Play for Android phones and -tablets.
You can use a drag-and-drop system to build your app and test it before releasing it to the public.
The process is slightly different, depending on which system you decide to use.
One of the things you need to decide is whether your app will be free to purchase packages inside or if it will be a paid and professional app.
If you want to create your app, I recommend reading this article from Make Tech Easier.
Email Marketing
Yes, I have tried email marketing, and this works very well.
It is one of the ways that I am monetizing this blog through email marketing.
You might have heard the expression “the money is in the list,” and it is right to a certain extent.
However, as an experienced email marketer myself, I would argue that “the money is not in the list but in the relationship you have with your list.”
If you are serious about making money online, you have to start building a list as soon as possible.
Between 80-97% of all successful affiliate marketers on ClickBank have an email list. The only “push one button to make money instantly” works!
A. Keys to a Successful Email Marketing Campaign
Because the key to building a successful email marketing campaign is to:
- Always provide value. Never sell things for the sake of money. If you try that, you may earn some money in the beginning. However, if you never give people value, they won’t buy from you again and again. People these days are savvy and will know whether you are just in it for the quick buck or if you are an expert.
- Be relatable. To sell, you need to become someone that your list can relate too. Be a real person and be upfront at all times. In this article, for example, I share my experiences and my failures with you. Even if you are reading this article or are on this blog for the very first time, you should know that I am just as much of a screwup as you are. It makes me relatable. Share your story with your audience.
- Respond to your reader’s issues. From time to time, I survey my list. It is not by coincidence I do this. It all goes back to number 1 on this list to provide value. What most beginners fail to understand is that the moment you start to build your list and get your first subscriber, your list isn’t about you any longer, but it is all about your subscribers from this point on.
- Respond to people’s comments everywhere. On your blog, as well as on your social media, always address people’s issues and questions. You can get awesome topic ideas for your blog when you do that. Always answer people’s questions. You will notice that people start to like and trust you a lot, which will ultimately help you to earn more money.
- Never take things personally. If somebody does not agree with you, complains at your content, or unsubscribes from your list, it is so easy to start taking things personally. However, you should not take this personally. My advice to you is that you try to address these issues maturely. Always respond to them most nicely and politely possible and thank them for their input. Remember that it is an actual human who took time from their day to answer you.
If you want to start an email marketing business or use it for your eCommerce business or affiliate marketing business, I recommend beginning with GetResponse.
I would also recommend that you sign up for my newsletter.
Make Money By Browsing
I recently discovered that you could make money by browsing the web, using sites like Swagbucks or InboxDollars.
It is an enormous opportunity to make legit money by browsing the Internet.
You will not be a millionaire just by doing this, but you will be able to earn some money on the side that you would not have gotten otherwise.
It is for those of you who only want to make some extra money, not a full-time income.
If that is something you would like to do, use the links above to sign up.
Auction Things on eBay
If you have anything just collecting dust in your garage or basement, you can sell it on eBay.
Yes, it is an old and legit way to make money online, but it still works!
Another way to earn money on eBay is to:
- Go to garage sales or flea markets and purchase items you know that you can sell
- Maybe do some DIY to clean them and freshen them up
- Sell your stuff with a profit
Click here to get started on eBay now.
Rent Out Your Home on Airbnb
A legit way to make money online is by renting out your home on Airbnb. However, I am aware that this is no longer allowed in some areas and cities.
Before you rent out your home on Airbnb, you need to:
- Make sure that it is legit in your area or city. Do your diligence, and do your research before you consider this!
- Get permission from the condominium, landlord, or company that owns your apartment.
- Join Airbnb and make sure only to accept and rent out to people who have good reviews.
Always do your research and check everything before you begin. It is the only recommendation that I will give you if you consider renting out your home on Airbnb.
Sell Products Online
There are two ways to sell products online, and they are:
- Sell physical products through online marketplaces
- Sell digital products through online marketplaces
Many opportunities are like Etsy, Teespring, eBay, Amazon, Amazon FBA, or even Shopify in the first category.
In the second category, you find things like:
- Blogging
- Affiliate marketing
- Email marketing
- Developing apps
- Playing video games
- Testing apps
- Promoting software as a service.
Selling photos is a mix between the two.
You take the pictures in the real world but then sell your work online.
Whether the opportunity belongs to the first or second category, each method works, and all of them are legit ways to make money online.
Sell Products on Etsy
Selling your products on Etsy can be an excellent way for a creative person like yourself.
If you are into the Arts- and crafts industry, making your custom-made jewelry, clothes, vases, etc., you need to look at Etsy.com, the #1 website that sells handmade custom-made things for weddings or everyday use.
The pros are that you set your work hours and sell through Etsy.
They will deal with customers and take a small administrative fee for it.
However, this means that you can focus on the fun part.
I am, of course, referring to creating those handcrafted items and getting paid for doing what you love.
It is a great way to make money from a hobby you already love.
Getting paid for it isn’t bad either, right?
Check out Etsy.com for more details on how everything works.
Sell T-Shirts on Teespring
One of the most common and profitable ways to make money online is selling T-shirts on Teespring.
You will sell your custom-designed T-shirts.
If you love the idea of designing your T-shirt or if you have a great sense of humor, at least according to your friends, you can make some extra money by sharing it with the world.
You can design much more than just T-shirts on Teespring.
Why don’t you create an entire package of a T-shirt, a mug, and a matching phone case? You can sell all three products individually on Teespring.
Just as with Etsy, Teespring takes care of all the tedious handling, sales, and chargebacks so that you can focus on the important stuff.
Click here to read how you can become a designer on Teespring right now.
Drive For Uber or Lyft
Do you own a car and love driving it?
Do you know your way around your city?
Would you like to make some extra cash fast but legit?
Then, driving for Uber or Lyft might be an excellent option for you.
I need to put in a disclaimer here:
You need to do your research thoroughly with this kind of opportunity.
Primarily, you have to make sure that it is available and legit in your city, local area, or country.
If not, you can look at the other opportunities that I am sharing with you in this article.
You can find more information by looking at Uber’s and Lyft’s websites.
Create Videos on YouTube
Google owns YouTube, and it is also the second-largest search engine in the entire world. The largest one is Google itself, by the way. It is a great resource where you can upload videos and make money.
You can use it in many ways, including:
- Affiliate marketing. Selling other people’s products and getting a commission from recommending them.
- Google Adsense. Precisely what I am doing this article.
- YouTube Ads. It is a part of Google Ads is another way to monetize your videos. However, you need to fulfil the requirement first.
I am referring to the requirement that you have at least 1,000 watch hours and 4,000 subscribers.
Trust me. You will not get rich unless you have a lot of subscribers.
However, it helps pay for the hosting at least every month if you know what you are doing.
If you want to make some serious money online with YouTube, I recommend following this program.
Become a Virtual Assistant
It is, unarguably, one of the best ways to get started to make money online. As a virtual assistant, you will get paid to do small company tasks.
Don’t worry if you don’t have any particular skills right now.
Just be upfront with it from the start. Tell the company that wants to hire you that you are just starting and eager to learn.
A good company will teach you the skills you need to get the job and train you consistently.
After the first job, you will have obtained a particular skill set to use on your next appointment.
The small jobs can be things like:
- Writing and sending out emails to customers
- Handling customer support for a company
- Handling the company’s marketing
- Managing a company’s social media channels
- Other miscellaneous work
Some companies even want you to do recurring work for them.
You may get a recurring income if you are good at doing it. You can also do the same tasks for a bunch of different companies.
The sky is the limit!
One of the most straightforward tasks you can do is manage social media for other companies.
Click here to learn how to do it right now.
Teach Other People on Udemy or Teachable
If you know something and can teach it, you might consider joining one of these platforms.
Even if it is just English, some people will pay you for your skills.
Remember that English is not taught in schools in some countries even if some people who want to improve their English skills are willing to pay you for it.
Creating courses on platforms such as Udemy or Teachable can help you earn extra money.
However, there is a downside that not many people will discuss. These platforms can set whatever price they like on your course, even give it away for free, and they own the content, not you.
Click here to visit Udemy or Teachable now.
Write for Other Websites
If you want to take the route of writing for other websites, there are two ways.
You can either do it as a freelancer or as a staff member with the sole purpose of writing content for a company.
Let’s face it: the Internet would not be as big as without all the content.
After all, search engines are used to find content. That is what everyone has been looking for since the dawn of the Internet.
It is known as guest blogging or freelance writing.
A freelance writer writes a lot of content in different niches, while a guest blogger is someone who owns a blog, preferably with a lot of content on a specific topic.
It can be anything you like.
If you want extra money, I recommend starting writing articles and joining a freelance network. By doing so, you will get more job opportunities. I also recommend creating a profile on LinkedIn, where you offer your services to businesses.
Here are the five steps to becoming an online freelance content writer.
Sell Your Photos Online
If you are a photographer and have pictures, you can sell them to websites and make money that way.
Many different companies offer you a small fee for your work.
To make a full-time living, however, you need to sell many photos.
If you only want to earn some extra money by doing what you already love, this might be a great way to start.
One of the best companies I know of pays you as much as $250 each month!
If this sounds interesting to you, I recommend that you start to sell your photos via this website, where you may earn as much as $250/month.
Develop a Professional Skillset and Sell Your Knowledge
You can use Udemy or Teachable to learn a specific skill set.
Then you can sell your content online on freelancer sites like Guru, Upwork, Fiverr, or Freelancer.
Another way is to sell your knowledge as a virtual assistant, which I discussed above.
It is most similar to having a “normal” 9-5 of all the options I share with you in this article.
You will get paid to share your knowledge and trade time for money, just as you do in a regular job.
Click here to join Guru, Upwork, Fiverr, or Freelancer now.
Make Money Playing Video Games
Does it sound too good to be true to earn money while you are doing something you already love?
It is probably the funniest and most natural way to earn money.
One of the best methods is to get paid to play video games.
You can make anything between $500-$3,500 as a beta tester for video games.
It means that you will be the first one to test out brand new video games before they are released.
Does this sound interesting to you?
Then click here to discover how you can get paid to play video games.
The link above will take you to one of the best-paying programs that will help you get started.
Make Money By Promoting SaaS
Did you know that you can make money by promoting software as a service, or SaaS for short?
It is one of the most profitable ways to make money from the comfort of your own home.
What you will sell is software.
It might be a white label solution or service, such as web hosting, to individuals or businesses already looking for them.
It is one of the best ways to make legit money online.
White label solutions are created by one company but allow you to put your logo, branding, and marketing on their product. At the same time, they take care of all the technical issues, and quite often, the customer service.
It is a bit like dropshipping but without selling physical goods.
All major companies like Microsoft, Apple, and Google have SaaS solutions. They are known as cloud-based software and are slightly different than the ones I mentioned above.
While they do not allow you to put your branding on their products, they still offer their software as a service to you.
I do this myself on many different articles, including this one.
Summary
I have now covered 27 different ways to make legit money online.
As you now know, there are many different ways to make legit money online for you, and I have only covered 27 different ways in this article.
I have focused on methods that don’t require a lot of money in this article.
Most of them are different training courses that you can begin with immediately.
As you probably also have realized, you need some education if you do not have any skill sets that are applicable online.
Making money online is not different from working or life offline in this aspect.
I could have covered even more money-making methods, but I just wanted to give you an overview without being overwhelmed.
The Reason Most People Never Make Money Online
Being overwhelmed with information is one of the reasons people fail in making money online.
They get stunned by the endless possibilities and never take action on anything.
So, my advice is to take action on one method and try that one out first.
If that one doesn’t suit you, you are more than welcome to try another one of the methods I have been listing above.
Not every method will suit everyone because we have different skills, interests, and talents.
It is for this particular reason that I have written this article to help you:
- Realize the potential of how you can make money online
- Take action on one method and try it out
- To earn the freedom that you deserve while you will still be able to feed yourself and your family
If this is what you would like to do, I strongly recommend starting with one method immediately.
However, I will leave it up to you to decide which method you will start with first.
I don’t know you as well as you know yourself.
What Should I Do Next?
Now, I am curious and would ask you to leave a comment below to answer my question:
Which method will you try out first?
If you didn’t find something suitable for you, I would like to know that.
If you like this article, please share it with like-minded individuals. I will extend this article in the future since there will be more opportunities to open up online soon.
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