If you’re looking for legitimate ways to make money online without having to first purchase an in-depth training course (which always seems to cost $97) about how to make money online, then welcome to the best free tutorial on the Internet when it comes to making money online.
This is my ultimate guide on how to make money online, and I’ve worked hard to keep this completely free.
There’s no catch, no tricks, and no up-sells here.
I’m sharing everything I’ve learned over the past decade, pulling from my own experience in learning how to start a Online Shop blog that now earns a consistent $30,000/mo or more (on the side of my day job)—from online sources like affiliates, courses, freelancing, sponsorships, drop-shipping and other ways to make money online that we’re exploring in this guide.72 Genius Ways How to Make Money Online in 2021
I’m here to tell you that you can (relatively quickly) learn how to make money online. However… it won’t always be easy, and you’ll of course have to work hard, push through making some mistakes and learning from your failures along the way.Is it easy to make money online?
It can be, but that depends on what your goals are. If you’re hoping to earn $50 or $100 relatively quickly online, then there are plenty of ways to make that happen (like selling your skills as a service). However, it’s not easy to quickly start making thousands of dollars online, because that requires a healthy measure of hard work (and time).
Here’s the reality; the Internet has opened up so many possibilities to people regardless of age, location, or background to build a sustainable, online business or side project that can make extra money online every single month. And as I said, I’ve experienced this first-hand.
For the past several years, I’ve been on a mission to experiment with the best ways to create sustainable online income and chase my dreams of self-employment. And while I’ve seen my fair share of success, things haven’t always been easy either. Along my journey, I’ve launched four separate online businesses. The first one lost me $6,537 in a matter of months, while I completely overestimated the target audience size for the second. Both shut down very quickly.
But after my first two failures trying to make money online, I started to figure out some important lessons. My next self-funded business hit $160,000 in revenue in its first year alone. After that first taste of self-made success, I’ve gone on to sign consulting contracts worth tens of thousands of dollars with startups like LinkedIn and Google, launch profitable online courses, and grow my blog to over 400,000 monthly readers and $50,000/mo in side income.
All these highs and lows have given me a clear understanding of what works (and what doesn’t) when it comes to making money online.Is it the right time to start an online business?
With over 3.2 billion people now actively using the internet, we’re well into a massive transformation in how the world does business. We’re living in an age where there’s no longer limitations on what you can achieve based on geographic location or lack of financial resources.
If you have an internet connection and a few dollars in your bank account, there is little that can actually get in the way of you making some extra money online.
There are quite literally hundreds of clever ways to make money online. From taking online surveys, to renting or selling your old clothes, flipping your iPhone to someone in a different country, and even buying low-cost products locally, just to resell them for a higher price on Amazon. There’s truly no shortage of unique ways to make money online.How do you avoid scams like easy ways to make money online?
Before we dive into this guide, I need to address the elephant in the room…
There’s no such thing as an online get-rich quick scheme.
Most of the “quick” and “easy” ways people talk about when it comes to making money online—are not true businesses.
Sure, some of them may be good for creating a few hundred or even thousand dollars in one-time revenue. But they’re not going to help you unlock financial freedom and achieve complete control of your lifestyle.
At best, they’re shortcuts that don’t last forever—and many of the “opportunities” like network marketing giants Herbalife and others offer, often pan out to either be a scam or at the very least, damaging to your personal relationships. And I would never advocate for that.
The Internet has opened up so many opportunities to entrepreneurs and forward-thinking workers to make money online. But it’s also opened up considerable competition.Here’s the hard truth: The only ways to make money online in any lasting manner, involve putting in real time, effort, blood, sweat and tears.
This isn’t to scare you off. I simply want you to know that this guide is going to focus primarily on ways to make real, sustainable extra income online. Not just a few quick bucks. I want to share all the mistakes I’ve made that got me to where I am now so that you don’t have to go through them, and can build a successful online source of income for yourself.
Don’t get me wrong, there are still a lot of great opportunities to make money online today. It’s that the most common ideas have been picked through a lot more than they were a few years ago. To stand out you need to be smart, look for the best opportunities, and be unique in the ways you approach making money online. And I’m here to help.
Please note that some of the links below are affiliate links and at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission. Know that I only recommend products, tools and learning resources I’ve personally used and believe are genuinely helpful, not because of the small commissions I make if you decide to purchase them. Most of all, I would never advocate for buying something that you can’t afford or that you’re not yet ready to implement.
Have questions about how I make money online? Check out my monthly blog income reports where I break down exactly how I’m making money from my blog.
Disclosure: Please note that some of the links below are affiliate links and at no additional cost to you, I may earn a commission. When you purchase a product using my one of my affiliate links, the company compensates me, which helps me keep this blog free of charge to you. Know that I also only recommend products I personally stand behind.
👋 By now you probably already know… one of the best ways you can start making money online right now is launching a blog of your own. For that reason, I recently put together a free master guide that breaks down how to start a blog and I share the exact blog strategy I’ve used to turn my blog into a more than $40,000/mo business.Want my Free Guide: How to Start a Profitable Blog in 7 Days?
Come read my ultimate guide to blogging that’s been featured on Forbes, Business Insider and Entrepreneur.
So, if you’re as excited as I am now, let’s dive right into the 72 best ways to make real, sustainable money online.
Looking instead for inspiration to make smaller amounts of quicker income online? Click here and jump down to #11 for a list of less “long-term business ideas” and you’ll get my advice for the safest (real) ways to make money online that involve less up-front work.
We’re going to start first with the top ten ways to make money online (with a long-term focus) and sustainable future.
If you’re looking to build a true online business, or start a side business idea that has the potential to truly change your life (and you’re not afraid of investing months & years of work into the business), this where you should start.
Through my years of experience and research, I’ve consistently found the following ideas have the best potential to create a steady stream of recurring revenue. They’ll take a lot of effort. But if you’re willing to put in the work, they could change your life, like they have for me.
One last quick thing to note before we dive in: I’m going to be talking a lot about your niche for every way of making money online that we cover here. If you’re unfamiliar with this term, all it means is your unique topic, angle, market, audience, or voice that will make people stand up and notice your business.
It’s a competitive space online, and the more you can differentiate what you do from what’s out there already, the better chance you’ll have for success.
Alright, now with that out of the way, let’s get into my ultimate guide of how to make money online.1. Build a Niche Blog (or Website) and Use Affiliate Marketing
If there’s a niche you’re interested in and you can build a decent audience around it, starting a blog and using affiliate marketing to generate income is an incredible way to make money online.