Ways to make money online! Search for them and you’ll find hundreds of them. Since the dot-com boom (also known as the
Dot-com Bubble) in early 1997, an ever-increasing number of people became interested in learning how to make money online, and with it, the number of online money-making ideas grew as well.
But
perhaps, at no time the interest in trying to create a web-based income
stream has been greater than today, thanks to a near collapsing world
economy, and millions of lost jobs around the world.
Fortunately,
the Internet has created lots of great opportunities, and moreover, it
has made it possible for almost anyone with any kind of background,
skill set, and experience to earn a living with their computer.
Of
course, the sad reality is that just like any other opportunity where
there is possible financial gains, scammers have found a way to cash in.
So,
although there are tons of great ways to get money online, sifting
through them all and separating the real and legitimate opportunities
from online money-making scams and get rich quick schemes, takes some
experience and know how.
Unfortunately,
that is where most people who are hoping to use the world-wide web as a
tool to earn extra cash fail, and in most cases they fail really hard!
There
are thousands and thousands of people who combined have lost millions
of dollars to scammers and Internet con artists. And that’s not the
worst part, the worst part is all the wasted precious time and having to
face the disappointment and failure.
On the other hand, there are still tons of great, legitimate and proven
ways to earn a living online working from the comfort of your own home,
which is why I gathered this list.
In this post, you will find
more than 50 easy and somewhat quick ways of making money online, from
affiliate marketing, blogging and freelancing to selling on eBay, taking
paid surveys, file sharing, getting paid to search, surf, watch videos,
shop and more.
Although, there are so many great earning options
and opportunities available, making money online isn’t always quick and
easy. It truly takes hard work and dedication to be able to achieve the
dot-com lifestyle.
Yes, there are some online jobs that are easier
than others, there are some methods that produce much faster results,
there are ways you can make money without spending a dime and so on, but
if you want to really succeed and build a long-term revenue generation
home based business, you have to invest a lot of time and hard work.
Sacrifices have to be made and the work has to be treated the same way
you would treat your 9-5 job.
Working at home and online, whether
it’s your full-time job or just an option to make extra money in your
spare time, is no different from doing it offline and in the real world.
If
you want to succeed and be your own boss, you need to have the right
mind-set. Forget about push button solution, forget about the free money
coming out of your screen or the new shiny “make money online” software
or formula that costs $149.99, but is going to get you rich over night.
It ain’t gonna happen! There is no such a thing. The only people who
actually fill up their pockets are the ones that sell you those
so-called money-making tools and formulas.
OK, enough of my ramblings, let’s get to it!
Wherever
possible, I provided additional resources and information about some of
these methods by linking to other more in dept posts on the same
subject. I hope that will help you get a better and more detailed
picture of each option.
53 Easy Ways To Make Money Online
1- Take Paid Surveys
Doing online surveys for money could indeed be the easiest method to
make money online for many people. Market research companies get paid
from manufacturers and companies to gather feedback from their
consumers, which they do by conducting online surveys. They then share
some of that revenue with their members who take part in online surveys
they conduct.
Although, paid survey scams have made it harder for people to find legit surveys sites to work with, there are still lots of legitimate paid surveys that pay for your opinion.
2- Get Paid To Read Emails
As the title suggest, you get paid for reading emails. Everyday you
receive paid emails in your inbox with links to different websites,
which you have to click and view for a few seconds. Not a lot of cash,
but it’s something extra.
3- Get Rewarded To Complete Offers
Another option that is both easy and quick is getting paid to do free
offers. Reward programs or GPT (stands for Get Paid To) as they are
known, are sites that pay their members for doing variety of things.
Basically,
you are compensated for doing things that you already do online in some
way or another, such as signing up for freebies, registering with
interesting sites, shopping, visiting different websites, etc. GPT sites
are like the middle man, they get paid from advertisers to drive leads
(you) to their site. They then give a percentage of what they earn from
their advertisers to you (members).
4- Become A Mystery Shopper
Mystery shopping
is becoming a popular method for companies for evaluating the
performance and customer service skills of their employees. Although
there are a lot of different opinions about this, mystery shopping is
actually growing as an industry. You will be assigned to shop and dine
in different places and report your experience back.
Depending on
specific assignments, you can expect to be paid anywhere from $40 to
$300 or more per assignment. Of course, the amount that you spend buying
goods and services will be reimbursed. Sometimes you get to keep the
item you bought at no charge to you.
5- Play Games (Game Money)
Yes you can actually get paid to play online games. On game sites like Farm Gold and Second Life, you can make virtual money which can be exchanged for real money.
I
am sure you have heard of Ansche Chung, the first person who become a
millionaire exchanging her virtual money earned from Second Life for
real money (worth over a million dollar).
6- Do Freelance Writing
One of the most popular options when it comes to Internet money-making
is freelance writing. You don’t need any money to invest, there is no
need to own a website, (although having one helps) and best of all you
can make quick money.
In most cases you get paid the same day you
finish the project. There are tons of places online where you can offer
your writing service to others. There are even some websites that pay you for writing exclusive content for them.
7- Affiliate Marketing
This is by far one of the top choices for a web-based business. You are
basically selling other people’s stuff for a commission. You can find
digital products like e-books and short reports to promote on sites like
ClickBank and PayDotcom.
8- Surf The Web
This is one of the earliest GPT style sites that created an opportunity
for anyone to earn few cents at a time by visiting advertiser’s websites
for a set amount of time (usually less than 10 sec). You can’t really
call it earning money, but at the same time, there is not much work
required either.
9- Stock Photography Sites
If you like photography and enjoy taking interesting pictures, there are
a bunch of websites known as Stock photography Sites where you can
upload your images and receive a commission each time someone downloads
an image of yours.
The good thing about using stock photography as
a way to pocket a few bucks is that its passive income. You upload the
picture once, but you keep getting rewarded each time somebody downloads
it. Imagine the potential of having 100s of images on 5 or 6 stock
photography sites.
10- Sharing Files Online
Very similar to stock photography option, but it’s files and documents
instead of pictures. There are a couple of document sharing sites that
you can upload any kind of file you own to, every time someone downloads
one of your files, you make a few cents. Files can be in almost any
format, from TXT to PDF and everything in between.
11- Review Products And Websites
Set up a website or a blog and start a review site. Website owners and
bloggers will pay you to post a review of their site on your site. It
helps them get the word out and helps you get the dough.
You can
also review products you are an affiliate of, on your site, linking to
the merchant’s site using your especial affiliate link, so that whenever
someone buys the products using your link, you get your commission.
12- Get Paid To Search
Search engines are big money makers. No wonder every day new search
engines pup up everywhere. But since they are not as big as Google and
yahoo and some other engines, they use rewards as a way to entice users
to search on their site. You won’t make a lot of money fast, but it’s a
good chunk of change for what you already do anyway.
13- Sell On eBay
Almost everyone knows the potential of becoming an eBay seller
and you are probably tired of hearing about it. But the truth of the
matter is that eBay is a really good online business opportunity.
The
best part about launching an eBay store is that you don’t really need
to invest financially to get started. Start by gathering your unused
stuff around the house, clean them up, take a few nice photos and list
them on eBay. No mater how much money you end up making selling your
unwanted stuff on eBay, it’s still better than letting them dust in your
garage!
Once you get the hang of it, you can do the same for your
neighbors, friends and family members for a small fee. And if you
really want to scale it up, find out what are the hot selling items on
eBay, find a wholesaler, buy them in bulk which comes out way cheaper,
then sell them individually for a profit.
14- Craigslist Is Not Just For Lost Connections!
Craigslist is one of the most visited websites on the planet and that
creates an opportunity like no other for anyone who is creative and not
afraid of taking action. The easiest way to make a buck with Craigslist is to simply pick free times in the “free” section and sell them right back on CL for a profit.
For
example, there are always tables, chairs, beds and all kinds of wood
works that people are giving way free, you just have to go pick them up,
freshen them up a bit, perhaps put a fresh new coat of paint on them
and you have yourself a piece that’s worth some cold hard cash.
15- Design Logos
Hundreds of new websites and blogs are born everyday. Most of them will
need a logo, but not every site owner knows how to make a logo. If you
have some design talent, you can create a small business out of it,
offering custom logo creations on webmaster related forums and
classified ads sites. Don’t have a professional software? Use free
imaging tools such as PhotoFilter to make stunning logos.
16- Flipp Website and Domain
It’s Just like flipping houses! Buy good domains and resell for a
profit. Build a website or a blog, work on it for a while and once you
got it to a stable point, let it go for a nice chunk of change. People
like websites that are ready to go, and they do shell out handsomely.
Hundreds of websites are bought and sold every day on sites like
Flippa.com.
17- Design And Build Websites
If you are good at designing sites, why not use it to help yourself financially?… There are even free software such as Kompozer
that you can use to design and build nice looking websites without any
knowledge of HTML. Use webmaster related forums like WarriorForum and
DigitalPoints to find buyers.
18- Design T-Shirts And Other Customizable Items
If you are good at coming up with catchy phrases and cool designs, you
can make a decent living by designing and selling T-shirts on sites like
CaféPress.
You don’t have to spend a dime on stocking products,
printing designs, shipping, payment processing and returns. It’s all
done for you by CafePress. All you have to do is sign up for free,
create and upload coll designs, drive potential buyers to your page and
earn yourself some moolah.
19- Make Digital Scrap Booking Templates
I personally don’t get this, but many people love to scrapbook, and
they do pay handsomely for templates. Make different kinds of templates
and make it easy for people to use them.
20- Take Advantage Of YouTube
One way to use YouTube is to use it as a tool to make yourself known.
In this age of YouTube and instant super stardom, it’s not very
far-fetched to think you can become a star if you can sing. YouTube and
other video sharing sites make it possible and easy for anyone to have a
chance to be discovered by record label companies.
Of course,
there are other ways to use YouTube as a money-making platform as well.
For example, you can create product review videos, place your affiliate
link in the video and earn commission for every sale that is generated
by your link.
21- Making MySpace Backgrounds
They are all over the Internet, those ads for MySpace background! And
that means only one thing, there is still a market for MySpace
backgrounds! Creating MySpace backgrounds isn’t that hard. But most
users don’t have the time to do it or are simply lazy.
You can
provide them with this service and customize their MySpace pages and
charge a fee for doing so. What better place to advertise your service
than MySpace itself?…
22- Make Videos
With
the huge interest in videos online, there is always room for more.
Create interesting videos of yourself or whatever and upload them to
sites like Revver and Break. They will share a percentage of their ad
revenue with you. Plus, you get something for each download as well.
23- Do Directory Submission
In order for a website or blog to be successful and generate revenue,
it needs traffic. There are many ways to work on traffic. One way is to
submit your site to website directories which is very tedious and
time-consuming. That is why many webmaster and blogger who are busy with
other aspects of running their online business, hire people to do it
for them.
That’s where you can come in and offer to submit their
sites to directories for a fee. Use forums like SitePoints and
DigitalPoint to offer your service to webmasters.
24- Build A Niche Directory
You have seen those directory sites that have a list of specific sites
in different categories. Set up one for yourself. Gather a list of sites
and sources related to a specific niche and list them on your site.
Sell
ad space to other webmasters to generate revenue. You can charge a
monthly fee to have their ads shown on your site. BuySellAds.com is a
good place to look for potential customers.
25- Making Photo Mosaics
If you can make photo mosaics, set up a website and offer your Photo
Mosaics service. You will be surprised how many people pay for these
things.
26- Work As A Virtual Assistant
As more online based businesses are born every day, the demand for
virtual assistants is growing as well. People use virtual assistant for
research, finding things, doing time-consuming tasks, making phone calls
and etc.
Again, you can use webmaster related forums and/or
forums that online business owners hang out at and out an ad in
classified section. I have seen so many people make a living (and they
still do) by using this simple strategy.
27- Hosting Online Forums
Use software like SebFlipper to host hundreds of separate forums from a
single web server. Then charge people who are looking for a good host
for their forum, to host their forum for them, or you could offer free
hosting, but under one condition, you get to show your own ads (be it Ad
sense, affiliate products or what have you) on their forums.
28- Install Applications
Most People have problems with installing different kinds of
applications. If you are good at installing a particular app or a
software, why not earn some extra money while helping others!…
29- Start A Blog
Blogging is becoming increasingly popular. You can set up a blog in
less than an hour. There are many free blogging platforms you can use at
first. When you get comfortable, then pay for your own hosting and
domain name.
You can blog about anything you like, from your weird
uncle bob to politics, your weight loss plan and your lovely girlfriend
to finding a job, how much you hate paying taxes and everything else in
between. No matter how bizarre and unusual your blog is, there is
always an audience for it.
You can monetize your blog to generate
revenue by displaying Ad sense ads, selling affiliate products, selling
your own stuff, selling advertising space and etc.
However,
contrary to popular belief, becoming a pro blogger and making a living
as such, takes lots of work and time. You have to be patient and willing
to put a lot of time and effort into it.
30- Start A Pod Cast
Think of it as voice or video blogging. Use free services like
Odiogo.com to turn your blog into a podcast! Talk about interesting topics that will draw in lots of audience.
Once
you have established yourself and have a decent size audience, monetize
your podcast with ads. It’s a joyful and really fun way of turning a
passion into a profitable web-based business.
31- Participate In Paid Focus Groups
Focus groups
are basically the same as paid surveys, but unlike paid surveys most
focus groups are conducted in a physical location. Focus group studies
are held in most major cities.
You will be in with a group of
other selected people, discussing and answering questions about whatever
product or service the study is about. You can expect to make between
$60 to $250 for an hour to a full day of study.
32- Domain Drop Shipping
It’s basically selling domain registration for big domain registration
sites like TuCows, which makes it easy for you to start your own private
label domain registration. You get compensated not only for the initial
sale, but for renewals thereafter as well.
33- Create And Sell E-Books
You can make e-books about anything. It’s not as hard as you think.
Look at some e-books that are selling for $50 -$100 or even more, and
you see what I mean (most of them are crap, but people do pay for
them!).
Got tasty recipes that you have learned from your grand
ma!? Turn all that knowledge into a mouth-watering e-book with step by
step guide on how to make those recipes. The best part is that it won’t
cost you a penny. That’s right, you can write and create an e-book for free!
34- Amazon Mechanical Turk
It’s one of the biggest micro freelancing sites on the planet and it
allows millions of people around the world to earn additional cash doing
simple and sometimes rather strange tasks that can not be done by
machines and computers. Tasks such as differentiating pictures from
text, rewriting a sentence, pointing out difference in 2 seemingly
identical images, transcribing audio files, liking someone on Facebook
or following them on twitter and so on.
However, the reality is
that most tasks don’t pay much, so don’t expect to quit your day job.
Nonetheless, MTurk is a good option for those looking to grow their bank
account (or PayPal in this case!) whenever there is a few hours to
kill.
35- Review Software
Websites like
SoftwareJudge will pay you for using and reviewing any of the software
available in their collection. Write honest and detailed reviews and you
increase your earning potential.
36- Answer Questions
Each one of us is an expert on something, and that means you too are an
expert on something! Find that “something” and use your knowledge about
it to offer answers and advice to people who are not familiar with the
subject, on paid to answer sites.
37- Build Your Own Forum
Forums are some of the most visited kind of sites. As human we are
social animals and that applies even in the cyber space. For a smart
entrepreneur, that means opportunity!
You always liked talking
about politics and making your 2 cents heard about whats happening in
the political world, why not translate that passion into an online
business! Create a forum around politics or whatever topic excites you.
Get
people to join your forum by promoting it on other forums you
participate in and also by posting controversial and attention grabbing
posts. Once you start to receive some decent amount of traffic, monetize
the space with related ads.
You can also do what many successful
forums do, create an especial section on the forum where in order to get
in, regular members have to pay a small fee. An example of that would
be the WarRoom section of the famous WarriorForum, which only paid
members have access to.
38- Do Data Entry
Not the scam one, we are talking about legitimate data entry
for Google. Google pays people to take photos of businesses, and enter
basic data such as hours of operation. You know how many business are
located just next to your favorite grocery store?…
39- Develop Software
Know how to make a software? Then start developing software and
plug-ins. One of the hottest plug-in markets is the blogging platforms
like WordPress and Blogger. Use forums to find out what bloggers need
that you can make a plug-in for. Create your plug-in or software and set
up a free blog to advertise it.
40- Do Paid Forum Posting
As I mentioned above, building online forums can be a great source of
income, but new forums have hard time attracting members. People are
more likely to join your forum if your forum looks busy and there are
already other people participating in it. That’s where paid forum
posters cam in.
As a paid forum poster, you get paid for every new thread and post you participate in. On average you can earn $0.25 per post.
41- Become A Member Of Revenue Sharing Forums
If you like participating in forums or are already a member of any
forum, look for “Ad Share” sign in your user CP. Some forums offer what
is called “Ad Share” program where they share the revenue earned from
ads displayed on the forum, with their members. And if you already spend
time on a forum that does offer Ad Share, you might as well take
advantage of the opportunity to make a few dollars.
42- Translate Documents
Bilinguals are always on demand. If you speak a second language, you
can use it to make money. Use classified ads sites and even freelancing
sites to find clients who may need to translate documents and files from
one language to another.
43- Sell On Fiverr
Fiverr.com is one of the fastest growing micro freelancing sites that
has attracted lots of attention recently, due to the fact that thousands
of average Joes are using it to really make a living charging a mere $5
for a variety of services and products.
Simply register for free
and create a gig offering people your service. Whether its singing a
song for them, calling their kids, pretending to be Santa, teaching them
a Spanish phrase, making a Facebook fan page or whatever else, people
pay you to do these thins for them on Fiverr.
You will be amazed
how easy it is to turn the most weird and creepy things into a gig that
makes you 5 bucks over and over again.
44- Be A Game Tester
Becoming a paid game tester is truly a fun way to earn some extra cash,
but sadly finding legitimate companies to work for is no fun at all.
Lots of scams in this industry and so you have to do your homework if
you don’t want to be gamed yourself.
I have been hearing about it
for a log time, but to be honest, I have never came across any legit
paid game testing site. Although, I haven’t been looking hard either.
But if I do find one, I will update this page with the new information.
So, be sure to bookmark this page and check back.
45- Your Own Search Engine
Use Google to build your own custom search engine. Build a search
engine for a specific topic like a search engine just for finding
information related to music, games, movies or whatever else you like.
To
get it going, set up contests for searchers, give prizes to the biggest
searchers in order to entice people to use your search engine. You make
your money when people search from your search engine and click on ads.
46- Blog Commenting Service
In order to rank higher and attract more traffic, more than anything
else, bloggers need quality links pointing back to their blog from other
related blogs. But for bloggers time is short and they barely have
enough time to write content for their blogs, so they often hire other
people to do blog commenting for them.
Go to a blog or webmaster
related forum, become a member and post an ad in the classified section
offering your blog commenting services. Then use your forum signature to
link to that ad.
Once that’s done, start posting on the forum and
participating wherever you can, especially on threads that have to do
with link building and blog commenting in particular in order to put
your signature in front of as many eyeballs as you can.
Soon enough you will have more orders that you can handle. That would be a good time to hire a few helpers!
47- Become A Job Referrer
With unemployment at a staggering %11 (at the time of this writing),
finding job has never been harder for Americans (with the great
depression of 1920′s being the exception here).
Again, all it takes is an entrepreneurial spirit to see opportunity even in this staled economy. That’s why sites like
WiseStepp and
Referearns were born. These sites basically pay you for referring new employees.
You
can expect to make up to $1000 for referring the right person for the
right job! Now that’s a job most of us would like to keep to ourselves!
48- Software Plus
You remember how you wished that software you bought last year could do
more than just what it was built to do?… Do you know how many people
around the world are thinking the same thing!?
If you have the
skills and expertise, you can work on already developed software and
tools to improve their functionality and performance.
49- Convert Online Money
Everybody knows that money exchangers take their bigger than “fair
share” cut when converting currencies. But to do that you have to have a
store front, you got to do lots of paper work, invest some money and so
on.
Fortunately, you can make do the same thing online without
having to deal with all the hassles and extras that comes with offline
currency exchange. All you need is a simple website and you are ready to
get up to 5% and even more for converting Egold to PayPal and vice
versa.
50- Become A Drop Shipper
Use sites
like CaféPress to create a free storefront online and be a drop shipper.
You don’t have to deal with anything but getting customer to visit your
online store front.
51- Sell Craft and Art Work Online
Retired and have lots of free time on your hand? Enjoy creating
stunning works of art?… If so, turn your free time and skills into a
profit-making machine by creating artworks and selling them online,
either on your own site or on eBay, Craigslist or other classified and
online auction sites.
52- Do CPA Marketing
CPA or Cost Per Action
is a much easier version of affiliate marketing. As long as the person
you send to the merchant’s site takes a specific action required by the
merchant, such as signing up for their newsletter, opting for email
updates, taking a poll or whatever else, you earn your commission.
In
most cases, you don’t even have to generate a sale to get a commission.
And that what makes CPA marketing attractive and very lucrative, the
fact that people don’t have to spend money for you to make money. Its a
lot easier to get people to opt for free things than reaching out for
their credit cards!
53- Socialize
Now that Social networking sites are becoming more popular, a lot of
people want to get in the game and cash in by running their own social
networking site. But since they need some members to get the word out
and make the site look active, they are willing to pay people to become
members and post messages.
There you have it, 53 work from
home opportunities that can help you during this tough economic times. I
do realize that not many of these methods can be relied on as real
businesses that can yield profit year after year. These are just a few
simple ways to make extra cash. If you are looking for real long-term
business ideas, you should check out my 101 Small business ideas.
I
created this list to show you that there are opportunities out there if
you are willing to take action. Although, a few of them, like selling
on eBay or affiliate marketing, do provide fantastic work at home opportunities and are revered by many Internet marketers as some of the best ways of earning money online.
Remember,
although the Internet itself is a virtual world, there is nothing
virtual about the need to work hard to make money online.
