Everyone has thought about different ways to make money online, but most people don’t really know how. I’m fortunate enough to have figured it out. For several years now, I haven’t only earned a full-time living using nothing but the internet, but I am making more from my online venture than I’ve ever made at any other job (into the 6 figure range now). The longer I do this, the more I make. I also have no employees, I don’t sell any of my own products, I provide no customer service, and I hardly have any overhead. Plus, I make money 24/7/365 whether I’m actually working or on vacation.
In this article, I will go over 7 legit ways to make money online.
First Things First: Don’t Expect Easy Ways To Make Money Online
Before we dive into the top 7 ways to make money online, I need to go over a few things first. Do NOT expect easy money from the internet. The internet seems to be flooded these days with “gurus” and teachers trying to teach you how to make a ton of money, by next week, using a certain system or software program. Well, get rich quick is always a scam. You cannot make money easily online. It’s a business, just like any other. These guys like to sell products that can tell you that you can make money quickly, so that they can make money selling those products. So, get rich quick is ALWAYS going to be a scam.
There’s always a learning curve to any of the different ways to make money online. So even with the legitimate training courses out there, don’t expect to be a master or pro right away. It’s going to take a little bit of experience and learning what works, or what doesn’t work, before you can expect to earn a high amount of income from your online marketing methods.
The only way to earn a sustainable income online is to plan out and grow a legitimate business. Not just a website or an ebay store or anything like that, you need to actually plan out and form a business plan, just like you would for an offline business.
You also must provide value to others if you want to be paid. In order for somebody to take out there wallet or in order for a company to dip into their funding and write you a check, you must provide value to them.
Ok, now that we got that out of the way, let’s get to the countdown.
#7 – Ebay
Coming in at #7 on my list of ways to make money online is Ebay. I still find that Ebay is one of hte best ways to make money online by selling physical products. There’s a few different ways you can do this. You can:
- Sell your own stuff – We all seem to accumulate junk over time that you can sell on Ebay.
- Garage sale hunting – You can go garage sale hunting and this can be a lot of fun. This can actually help you make money with a hobby. I find this to be a lot of fun. One of the best things I find at garage sales are antiques and antique clothing. A lot of times people don’t realize when something is valuable. So, garage sale hunting is a great way to earn some extra money on Ebay.
- Purchase items in bulk and resell them for profit – An example of this is purchasing a bulk order of car chargers for a newly released cell phone. You can usually find a bulk manufacturer in places like China or some other asian countries. You can buy them by the hundreds or thousands and basically pay under $1 for each one, then resell them on Ebay for several dollars. You can still keep it cheap, maybe $5 for an iPhone charger, and if you only paid a dollar for that you’re making a $4 profit.
With that said, I find Ebay is better for supplemental income instead of a full-time income. But you CAN grow a full-time business on Ebay if you choose to. I simply prefer other ways to make money online. I don’t like to rely on Ebay or any single company to grow my business, so I tend to use Ebay for things that I find to be fun like garage sales. It’s not something I like to earn a full-time income from, but others do choose to grow an entire business centered around Ebay. If it’s really something you enjoy, you could do the same.
#6 – Multi-Level Marketing (MLM)
UPDATE – I can no longer recommend ANY multi-level marketing program to make money online. I have yet to encounter one that didn’t take advantage of people. MLM is almost always a scam, even if the products are legitimate. Stay away from MLM. Below is a video I made about MLM networks. Below that is my original text, which I now denounce, but I’m leaving it up simply for transparency. MLM is a scam.
Coming in at #6 is Multi-Level Marketing, also called MLM. This is one of the better known ways to make money online because it is promoted to death. This is a great option for those who want to grow and develop a sales team. Basically, the way MLM works, is you promote one product, but then you also build a team of people under you. A lot of people don’t like MLM, myself included, because it sort of mimics a pyramid scheme. If you’re not at the top of that pyramid, you’re not going to make a lot of money. But if you do get to the top of the pyramid, you will earn an income based on sales that everyone below you is making. This can really give you a good passive income stream.
So, you need to focus on, when you first get started, is growing a team to be under you, and then having those people also build a team under them. Everybody who is under you, you’ll earn some profits on. If you’re a “team player” this can be one of the best ways to make money online.
There’s a high probability of passive income if you get to the top of the pyramid on these MLM networks. Multi-Level Marketing does take some time, so this is more of a marathon rather than a sprint. It takes some time to build a good sales team. So as long as you’re willing to start at the bottom and work your way up over time, Multi-Level Marketing can be a great way to earn an income online.
#5 Freelance Writing
Coming in at #5 is freelance writing. There are many different services that exist for you to promote yourself, including:
These are just a few services, but probably the most popular that are online. There are many services that exist where you can promote your own writing abilities. On something like Elance.com for example (one of my favorites), is somebody – a website owner or publication company – will post some content that they need. This isn’t one of the most profitable ways to make money online and it is also not a residual source of income, but it is a way to work from anywhere with an internet connection.
Just as a personal example, I own a website called DogFoodInsider.com. Most of the articles on that site have been written using freelancers I found on Elance.com. So, I would post a job on Elance saying that I need reviews of dog food. A bunch of freelance writers would come back with how much they charge, their experience, why they are an expert with dog food and writing dog food reviews, and then I can go ahead and choose from the list who I will hire. So, Elance.com is great, anybody can join, and in fact, any of the above services are open to any freelance writers.
The problem with freelance writing is the income can be sporadic, but it can also be relatively high paying when you do get a job. You might get hired one week to write 20 articles, but the next week, you don’t get any work at all.
Now, once you earn a reputation, you can start charging more and even earn a higher income. The goal here is to focus on a specific niche and become an expert in that niche. After that you can really thrive. When you first start and you have no experience, you’ll have to price yourself a bit lower. But once you become an expert in a specific niche, you can easily start charging more and increase your rates.
#4 – Leveraging The Kindle Store
A lot of people don’t realize this, but anyone can sell an ebook on the Amazon Kindle Store and elsewhere. It’s one of the single best ways to make money online and earn a residual income. There are many places you can sell an ebook online, but the Amazon Kindle Store is by far the most popular and it doesn’t look like that will change anytime soon.
With an ebook, there is no need for publishers, editors, printing companies, etc. So, you basically just write the book, you edit yourself and overhead is extremely low. You do have to share a small portion of your revenue with Amazon when you sell a copy of your book, But you’re not paying anybody up front. The only time you have to pay Amazon is if you make a sale.
Now, don’t just write one book and expect to earn a full-time income from that. What you want to do is write a series of books and start to gain a following. Whether you’re writing fiction or non-fiction, really try to keep everything within’ the same niche and within’ the same industry. Once you do that, you can start getting a following of people who are highly targeted and every time you come out with a new book, they’ll be ready to download it immediately. That can take some time, but gaining a following is the best way to grow a legitimate long-term and sustainable business.
The beauty about writing an ebook is, once it is written, your book can earn you revenue month after month and for YEARS. So, basically, you earn an income passively. While you’re sleeping, people can be purchasing your book. So if you’re looking for one of the best ways to make money online through passive means, this is a great option.
Also, you can start with whatever time you have available now. So, if you have a full-time job right now, you can spend maybe an hour per day or so writing a book, then publish that whenever you can. There are no time commitments here – you can do everything at your own pace.
#3 – Become An Infopreneur
Number 3 on my list of ways to make money online is to become an infopreneur. I love this one because it’s how I got started. The way to do this is to use the CTPM process to track thousands of visitors to your website per day. You can learn more about the CTPM process at MySiteSell.com. That is the service I used to start learning how to make money online. Within’ one year of going through their training program, I was able to quit my job as a full-time truck driver. Becoming an infopreneur is how I started.
What exactly is an infopreneur? You will basically create a website, and don’t worry, you don’t have to know any computer code to do this. You will write about a topic you already know and love on your website. You don’t actually sell anything on your website. You just create as much information as you can. As you create that information, you’ll naturally start getting website visitors from search engines, social media platforms, etc. People will naturally share your awesome content. Once you start gaining all these visitors on your website, you can start selling ad space on your website. This is a great way to earn passive income without any customer service, or products, or anything like that.
So basically just start creating information about a topic you already know and love. There is a very, very high income potential for this. A lot of people don’t really know what the infopreneur business model is. If you want to learn more about this business model, again, visit MySiteSell.com.
#2 – Sell Your Own Products Or Services
Coming in at number 2 for the best legit ways to make money online is by selling your own products or services. So many people have skills or they can make something that other people want. For example, my sister is phenomenal at making specialty cakes. Not just regular cakes, but they actually have almost a whole scene on them with different people and houses or whatever you want, she can make it. She could either sell training programs or she can sell cakes themselves. People can request cakes and go on her website and request certain things. Not only can she do this for people and make money at it, but she’s making a living doing something she really likes. It’s turning a hobby into a career.
You can promote your own business or skills on social media, on your own website, on forums, with YouTube videos, and even with super-targeted pay-per-action advertising. What I mean by pay-per-action advertising is, when you advertise on the internet, you can usually target it to a point where you only pay if somebody clicks into your website or even if they make a purchase. As an affiliate marketer, most of my clients only have to pay me if I drive a sale to them. You can leverage that.
With the internet, you can reach a global or a local audience. There has never been a better time to start your own offline business, by promoting it online. Every offline business should be online, either with their own website or through social media. Preferably through a bunch of different methods. Online can really lead to a huge spike in sales.
#1 – Affiliate Marketing
As you might guess, I think the #1 way to make money online is affiliate marketing. This is my all-time favorite method to make money online. You can make money selling ohter peoples products and services. In other words, you don’t have to deal with any customer service, you don’t ahve tod eal with storing any products, you don’t have to deal with any payment processing, and you don’t even ahve to hire any employees. Just create a website, get out htere on social media, start to advertise a little bit, and you will earn commissions on selling other peoples products.
There is extremely low overhead with affiliate marketing and you have none of the stress that comes with selling your own products and services. So, I love affiliate marketing.
If you’re not familiar with what affiliate marketing is, read the affiliate marketing section on my site and also consider signing up for this amazing affiliate marketer training program, where you’ll learn how to truly make money online.
So there you have it! The top 7 ways to make money online. What do you think? Let me know in the comment area below.
