In this post, I’ll discuss some of the proven ways you can make money online.
Making money online is not a quick rich scheme. Most people who have made big amounts of money online have been tactical.
Of course, some of them were in for a big surprise when their efforts far exceeded their expectations.
Let’s dive into the top five ways by which you can make money online.
5 Proven Ways to Make Money Online
1. Blogging
There are various successful bloggers who make a six-figure income annually from blogging.
They all blog in unique ways but they all use their skills to market and create traffic which essentially generates income.
Indeed, we have successful bloggers in the world who have blogs bringing in over $100,000 per month.
For example, Michelle Schroeder-Gardner, who runs the blog Making Sense of Cents earns about $100,000 per month. She makes money from different avenues on her blog including affiliate marketing, sponsorships, ads, and her courses.
Alex and Lauren are also a couple who have succeeded in blogging. They built their empire from scratch. They have a site called Create and Go which has an annual income of up to $800,000.
Their earnings are from affiliate marketing, courses, ads, and ebooks.
If you have a blog but you haven’t been able to monetize it or you are new to blogging, you definitely want to make the best out of blogging.
There are three main things involved in blogging. First it is designing and creating the site. Second, writing stuff to post on your blog and lastly monetizing the site.
If you want to make good money out of your blog, you need to think about what you will be blogging about. You should deal with a profitable niche right from the start.
The top blog niches in the world that make money are personal finance, travel, health, fitness, business, E-learning, fashion/beauty, finance (how to make money), food, just to mention some.
After creating a site, you can now start writing stuff as you find ways to make money by creating courses, writing ebooks, affiliate marketing, ads, and sponsorships.
2. Course Creation
Although most people are online and on social media for entertainment and socializing, there’s a group which want to grow and make more money by using their skill sets.
You will be surprised to know how many people are eager to learn new stuff.
For some it is about improving their technical skills or improving the quality of their lives.
For some it is acquiring new cooking skills
The list is endless.
There is a myriad of needs in the market that online entrepreneurs can monetise by creating courses and books.
According to Global Industry Analysts, E-learning may hit over $240 billion by 2021.
Successful bloggers have capitalized on this niche.
One good example is Ramit Sethi who has been selling the book “I Will Teach You To Be Rich”, for the last ten years or so. His online courses include Accelerator, Zero to Launch, Find Your Dream Job, Earn 1k, among others.
Ramit Sethi makes over $1 million per year from his online business, and the majority of his income is from online courses.
It’s high time for you to choose a great idea to create a course, validate it, and start working on it.
It’s high time for you to get started.
Because, as the formal college education is failing to prepare the millenials with skills for the future, they are turning towards digital mediums for skill development.
3. SaaS Products
SaaS is another venture you can use to make money online. SaaS (Software as a service) is a system of distributing software models via cloud computing. You can have different types of apps that cut across many sectors in the economy.
It is sold as a subscription service where customers pay regular fees..
There are two ways you can make money through SaaS.
First, you can sell already developed SaaS software programs by other entrepreneurs and get commission from the sales of the software.
Alternatively, you can develop your own SaaS applications.
This involves finding gaps in your industry – be it law, restaurants, marketing, among others. Then developing software to address the need.
After that, you need to develop a marketing and sales strategy for your software.
To be a SaaS guru, whether you are a salesperson or a software developer, you need to build a client base, with the aim of having up to 1000 customers.
Many SaaS owners have really good products, but they bite the dust because of lack of good marketing strategies and constant innovation.
4. Dropshipping and e-commerce
Dropshipping will give you an opportunity to market and sell products without stocking the items in your store.
It is a unique inventory management system that has been used by huge companies like Sears and Amazon in the past.
The main advantage of this online business model is that you will not require capital to invest in inventory and stocks which takes quite a chunk of money.
Your business and financial service efforts will go towards looking for a market for the products (leaving the hassle of fulfillment and inventory handling to the manufacturer).
Once you close a sale, the manufacturer supplies the product and you get your commission.
Another advantage of this online venture is that there are millions of products available that you can sell online.
To get started, you can consider building great network with top manufacturers using platforms like Alibaba or Aliexpress.
5. Freelancing
Freelancing is a viable online business activity.
You can do niche freelancing, where you offer specialized services in your service industry.
The business world has gone digital, which means that some organizations prefer to outsource some of their HR functions instead of hiring full-time employees.
They prefer to hire specialized services in some sectors on a task or project basis instead.
As a niche freelancer, you will work for various clients and as you get established, your workload may require you to hire additional support staff.
Common niche freelancers include PR and Graphic Design Services, marketing, writing services among others.
Additionally, there are online social media PR managers who can manage social media marketing services for an organization. The amount of money you earn depends on the industry.
Most organizations prefer outsourcing some services because it translates to requiring less office space, no healthcare covers, fewer taxes, lower employee-related expenses among other cost-cutting measures.
Consequently, niche freelancing will continue to grow.
To be a successful freelancer, you need to define your market, evaluate the needs of your market and develop solutions to meet those needs.
If you are an expert freelancer in a niche, the chances of you earning good money is high.
Wrap up
There are dozens of other various ways to earn money online. But in this article, I’ve discussed only a few of them that are proven.
I would suggest you to avoid going down the multiple paths I discussed.
Just pick one and master the essential skill sets. Don’t fall for the shiny object syndrome.
Hope you guys found this blog post helpful.
