Last updated on May 7th, 2019 at 10:27 am
There are several ways to make money online. If you’re ready to roll up your sleeves and work hard, then you might have what it takes to actually make money.
As you know, I started this blog to walk away from my WordPress freelancing business. I’ve been freelancing for way to long and it’s time to stop trading time for money.
If you have been thinking about starting a blog, head on over here and follow this step-by-step tutorial to learn how to start a blog on SiteGround.
Now if you start a blog, I do want you to realize that you won’t make money overnight. Blogging is a long-term strategy that will make you some money over time.
However, what can you do to supplement your blogging income? After all, blogging isn’t free and if it’s not generating money yet, then chances are you’re looking for a side hustle that will make you money while you work on your blog.
Or maybe you’re just looking for a side hustle that you can start so you can make some money from home.
Well, I am going to share some things that you can consider doing while working on your blog. One of the best tips I can give you if you’re serious about learning how to make money from a blog, is to pick one method and stick with it.
Don’t make the mistake of jumping from one method to another. Most people don’t give it enough time to see their hard work pay off.
13+ Ways to Make Money Online
The cool thing is that if you have access to a computer and the Internet, you can find some ways to bring in extra income or start a side hustle in hopes of leaving your full-time gig.
I wouldn’t suggest walking away from the full-time job until you’re actually making money online. You don’t want to work on these side gigs with the pressure of having to make money.
You’ll find over 13 ways to make money online with the things that I believe that will actually make you money. I haven’t personally tried all these methods, but if you try it, be sure to come back and let me know how it goes.
So let’s get started!
#1 Start A Money Making Blog
Yes, you can make money blogging. If you spend some time online it won’t take you long to find blog income reports from some bloggers who have managed to turn their blog into a full-time business.
Heck, I’ve even made some money from this blog. I’m still not at a full-time income, but I roll up my sleeves every day and treat it like a business because I know that it’s going to happen.
The cool thing about starting a self-hosted blog is that you get full control over how you want to make money with your blog. You can choose to monetize your blog with affiliates, products, ads, sponsored posts or anything else you can think of.
If you’re ready to start a blog, here are some of the costs you can expect to invest in as a new blogger.
The cool thing is that it doesn’t cost that much to start a blog. You can start with the bare minimum and invest more as your blog continues to grow.
Blogging does take time to work and it’s not going to happen overnight. But with some hard work and patience, I have no doubt you’ll start getting the results you want.
Here are some of my favorite tools to start a money making blog from home:
#2 Freelance Services
Believe it or not, people will pay you to help them do something that they can’t do or don’t want to do. I know what you’re thinking, I don’t have enough experience to charge for my services.
Well, I think we all have those thoughts when we first start offering our services as a freelancer. If you started a blog, you now have some skills. While you might not have a lot of skills, you have more than someone who hasn’t started yet.
Imagine being able to add some freelance services to your blog. While it does take time to start getting people to see your freelancing offers, the truth is that it doesn’t hurt to have a “Hire Me” or “Work With Me” page.
When someone lands on your blog, they may take the time to see what type of services you have to offer. Who knows they may even reach out to you to ask you for your help.
It doesn’t hurt and the best part is that you create the page once and promote it. If you need to brainstorm some ideas of how to create an amazing about me page, check out these examples.
#3 Virtual Assistant
A virtual assistant is nothing more than being an assistant and offering your services. You can offer services such as editing photos, creating Pinterest images, managing WordPress blogs, writing blog posts, blogging research, and other tasks not related to blogging.
The cool thing about being a VA is that you can choose to have multiple clients or you can offer your services to one person or one company. Either way, it’s a great way to get started in a field that has a huge potential if you don’t have a lot of experience.
#4 Sell Other People’s Products
Yes, people will pay you to help them sell their products, this is also known as affiliate marketing.
Every affiliate network is different, but all of them will pay you a percentage of the sale or a flat fee when you make a sale.
For example, a food blogger decides to promote a new health book to their readers. So they join an affiliate network that has a great recipe book they know their readers will love.
From this point on whenever they write a new blog post, they mention that recipe book over and over. Eventually, their readers will buy that cookbook and they’ll get a percentage of the sale, just for mentioning the book and people buying it.
The cool thing is that you don’t have to just mention the products on your blog. You can promote them on social media, YouTube, email list and etc.
Affiliate marketing sounds easy, but the truth is that there is a strategy to earning money with it. If you don’t yet have a strategy to earn with it, or don’t know how to get started, take Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing. It’s a course that teaches you everything you need to know to make money with affiliate marketing.
I took the course and it has helped me make money on a regular basis through affiliate marketing.
This can be a great way to make money because there is no limit to the amount you can make online.
#5 Create Your Own Products and Sell Them
There’s a ton of potential in creating your own products and removing the middleman. Instead of getting a percentage of the sale, you’ll get all the money you make from selling your own products. Of course, minus PayPal or Stripe fees 🙂
It does take time to learn how to create your own products. This is why so many people don’t start with this route.
If you’re not ready to start creating your own products, that’s okay. You can always come back to this method when you’re ready.
I recommend investing in a great course like Billionaire Blog Club that will take you step-by-step on how to create your own digital products.
If you’re just thinking about creating an eBook, here’s some great training that will help you create your very first eBook.
Yes, you can make money writing ebooks, many bloggers have done it and so can you.
#6 Publish Books On Kindle
If you love writing then you have what it takes to create a Kindle eBook. I’ve written a few of them and I can tell you that it’s definitely worth it.
You do the work once and the sales come in without you having to do a lot.
The great thing is that anyone can publish an eBook on the Kindle Marketplace. It does take some time to learn how to format your eBook so it looks good on the different devices, but the Kindlepreneur blog has some great information to help you learn everything you need to know.
He even shares 127 sites you can use to promote your blog. I’ve actually used the James H. Mayfield’s Promotional service when I published one of my eBooks. From my experience, it was worth the money to get my eBook in people’s hands when you’re NOT known.
#7 Sell Crafts on Etsy
If you love creating crafts, you can open up a shop on Etsy and start selling your products. Many people have been able to get started and make money from selling their crafts. Here’s a guide to help you get started on Etsy.
You’d be surprised at what people sell on Etsy. Heck the other day, my niece picked up this really nice piece of jewelry. I was totally surprised I had no clue that people actually sold jewelry on the site.
Related articles for selling on Etsy:
How One Crafty Mom Earns $70,000 Per Month On Etsy
Case Study: How a 22-Year Old Made $28,139 On Etsy
#8 Sell Goods on Craigslist
Do you have some old stuff lying around in your home that you just don’t just use anymore? If so then you could list take some nice pictures of it and sell it on Craigslist.
This definitely works and I’ve actually sold some luggage on Craigslist awhile back. It was brand new luggage that I had never used.
I was going to give it to Goodwill but, I figured why not try to make some money off of it. So I took some pictures of the luggage and put them on Craigslist.
A lady contacted me and I met her in a public place and made a quick $80. It was awesome and talk about easy.
If you do start selling on Craigslist, just make sure that you follow these safety measures to protect yourself as a seller.
#9 Sell Printables Online
Printables are extremely popular. Many bloggers use them to build up their email list. But learning how to create printables can be time-consuming, especially if you’ve never created them before.
When I created my printables, I had no clue what I was doing. I found this free video online that shows you how to create printables and worksheets. So I took the afternoon and sat down and created some, the video is awesome.
Once you get good enough, then you can consider selling them right on your website using WooCommerce or another WordPress Plugin
#10 Create A Digital Store
If you’re on a self-hosted WordPress blog, you can set up a digital store using Easy Digital Downloads, WooCommerce, Shopify or DAP to start selling goods on your blog.
Of course, this means that you’ll have to create something first. However, once you create your digital products, you can sell them over and over to different people.
The best part is that you don’t even have to be on your blog to make sales. Your site can make sales for you 24/7 while you’re doing other things.
Related: How One Couple Is Making $600,000 Per Year Selling Digital Products
#11 Become An Amazon FBA Seller
Amazon is huge and they seem to be breaking into all kinds of new markets. Heck, I recently saw a commercial where they will deliver Prime customer packages straight to their cars.
I guess they are trying to combat the whole stolen packages issue.
Everyone has used Amazon at least once, heck, I know that I use it on a regular basis. I love shopping on Amazon and it’s one of the first places that I check whenever I am looking to buy something online.
If you want to get started selling online as an Amazon FBA seller, there’s a ton of potential. Here’s a great guide to help you get started as an Amazon FBA Seller.
Here are the 6 Steps to Start A Profitable FBA Business, that will help you get started on the right foot.
#12 Start Online Coaching and Sell Your Advice
You’d be surprised at how many people are willing to invest money in a coach. You might have heard about life coaches or consultants. Either way, these people have decided to offer their services to help people improve their lives or achieve a particular goal.
The cool thing is that coaching doesn’t even have to be related to blogging. You can offer your services as a coach in the cooking field, dieting field, or even teaching people how to become more organized.
We all have our own skills. Sit down and think about what type of skills you have and what you can offer people. You’d be surprised that someone will be willing to pay you for your knowledge.
Related: 4 Steps for Growing Your Coaching Business to $1 Million a Year
#13 Get Paid to Guest Post
If you’re already writing every day, did you know that there are sites that will pay you to write for them? If you love writing and have some extra time, you can consider writing some articles for other sites that will pay you for your content.
This will not only help make you a better writer while making money on the side. But it will give you the opportunity to test out different niches to see which ones you actually enjoy writing for.
#14 Start an Online T-Shirt Business
Selling T-shirts can be a very lucrative business. Again, all you need to do is set it up on your own site using Shopify or you can even start selling on T-shirts on Amazon.
Wherever you decide to start selling, the important thing is to learn everything that you can about the business. Just like anything else, no one is ever going to buy your t-shirts if you don’t take the time to let people know about them.
#15 Complete Online Surveys
You might have heard about people saying that they make money filling out surveys. I’ve read those types of articles as well. I’ve personally never tried it but there are some sites like CashCrate and FusionCash that provide free and paid offers to help you make money online.
But is it really possible to make money and how much can you expect to make? Well, that’s what I wanted to know so I went out and found this case study on how to make money with paid surveys.
It’s actually a pretty interesting read and you’ll get an idea of what you can expect when you’re just getting started with surveys.
Final Take Away
As you can see there are so many different ways to make money online, and I just touched some of the possible ways to get started and that I am familiar with.
If you have access to the Internet and a computer, there’s absolutely no shortage of ways to make money online.
I recommend picking one method to get started with. Put everything that you have into learning that particular method. If after a while you don’t see any results, maybe it’s time to start looking for a different way.
Remember, any of the methods that you choose to make money online are going to take time. So don’t jump ship if you don’t make money after a month or two.
Be sure that you give it a real effort before throwing in the towel 🙂
Blogging is my absolute favorite way to make money online. It’s definitely not an overnight strategy, but if done correctly, you have the potential to make a lot of money.
It Won’t Happen Overnight
Whatever you do, just know that it doesn’t happen overnight. All these methods take time to learn and actually work at it. If it was easy, then everyone would do it.
Hand Picked Articles for You
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- 5 Blog Post Ideas That Are Sure to Make You Money
Have you tried using any of these methods as a way to make money online? If so which one do you prefer and why? I’d love to hear about your results and your experience with it.
My Recommended Blogging Resources!
Here are my affiliate links for my most recommended resources. I hope these resources can help you grow your blog too!
Free 12 Day Blogging Bootcamp: This is a course that will show you how to get your blog started.
ShareASale: ShareASale is one of my favorite affiliate networks. It’s free to sign up and they have tons of advertisers that make it easy for any blogger to make money through affiliate marketing.
SEMRush: This tool is amazing and has helped me increase my organic traffic. It is expensive, so don’t pay for it every month. When I’m NOT using it, I’m using KWFinder to help me with my keyword research.
Quiz: Which theme is best for your blog?: Take this quiz if you’re having a hard time trying to decide which WordPress theme you should use.
If you want to build an email list and send newsletters, I recommend ConvertKit: I’ve started using this to help me grow my blog and it is so user-friendly.
JumpStart Blog Traffic: Learn my secrets to growing my blog from zero pageviews to growing each and every month, using Google and Pinterest.
