Three Strategies for Making Money Online

Posted by Sean Williamson on September 13th, 2019

Let’s face it. You’re reading this because you want to make money online. This is the digital era, where rapid technological change is inevitable, which means there are great opportunities for entrepreneurship, becoming rich, remote work and above all freedom. So if you’re looking for ways to make some extra cash online read on.

High-Paid Remote Freelancer

If you’re one of those who have digital skills, you can become a high-paid freelancer in the niche of your own choosing. There are plenty of remote freelancing jobs available online - all you have to do is search for them and you’re sure to find something that suits you.

You can even turn your endeavor into a business. For instance, you can start a company that delivers everything, anywhere, and to anyone.

Maybe you think you don’t have enough knowledge, experience or the finances to start a business on your own. But, there’s a solution to that too. Just go to CoFoundersLab and you will find employees as well as a co-founder to partner with. That will kick start your new venture without you having to go through all the rigors of launching an independent business.

There are sites like Upwork and Flexjobs which offer freelance work where people can make a full-time income online. The beauty is you don’t even have to find clients, they’re already there. They’ve got jobs which cover a broad range of skills – you could be a writer, proofreader, graphic or web designer, web developer, HTML, PHP or Java coder, an APP developer or simply proficient at infographics, voiceovers, etc. – you will find something that fits your skillset and your liking.  

Then there is Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk), where you can complete manual microtasks for businesses anywhere in the world. The monetary compensation isn’t that much but you make a lot of money since MTurk works on volume.

So, in a nutshell, if you aim to make money online, remote freelancing with Flexjobs is the best place you can start at. To minimize the risk factor, it screens employers for you. However, you do have to pay a monthly fee, as the portal does not work on a percentage basis – but then, in return, they vet all the jobs for you to make sure you are dealing with only quality clients.

Niche Blog or Website with Affiliate Marketing

If you’re an expert in something you can start a blog or website and build a decent audience around it using affiliate marketing to generate income. However, it’s easier said than done as it takes a lot of work to draw traffic to your site.

Once you've developed your blog or niche website, begin generating content and get backlinks with guest blogging to build Domain Authority (DA) and traffic. The next step is to find out which products and companies you can partner with as an affiliate to help facilitate sales of a related product that is also helpful for your target audience and readership.

By generating content on your blog you can become a valuable resource for people who’re looking for the product you’re affiliated with, in turn, sending them to the original website where they can actually buy it - this will earn you a percentage on each sale. If you want maximum performance from your blog or website AT&T U-verse offers connectivity without any lag and minimum downtime.

Amazon Associate is a great place to start. Use Google’s Keyword Planner to check how many people are searching for a specific term. The more relevant traffic you attract, the more money you’ll make.

Apart from Amazon, there are other reputable affiliate networks such as Share-A-Sale, Clickbank, and Skimlinks.

It’s always better to become an affiliate directly with a company, which is the preferred route for most prominent affiliate marketers, as no one else will be competing for your commission. Some affiliates pay per lead so do your research before committing to them.  

You can offer any digital product you can think of. For instance, you can offer your followers podcasts, videos, magazine subscriptions, eBooks, templates, guidelines, online calculators, software programs or a membership site. Anything that provides your audience with real value.

Launch a Startup

Launching a high-growth startup by creating an online service or product that fulfills a rapidly growing demand, arguably has the most potential. However, it’ll take tremendous dedication, time, effort and financial resources for a start.

Unlike a lot of other businesses, startups do face a plethora of hindrances before they take off.

A high level of domain experience within the industry is necessary before you can even think of launching your venture. You’ll need to understand your customers, the problems they face and solutions they’ll be willing to pay for.

You’ll need to find out who the other major players in the market are and if they constitute potential partners or acquisition opportunities. Moreover, intimate knowledge of how to raise funding, market your product, hire and manage the best talent and keep your venture running financially will be a necessity.

So where do you start?

The basis for launching any startup is to provide a solution to people’s problems. Once you have that down, the next step is to make sure your customers will pay for what you’re going to offer them. You will have to test the market for your product and its demand and consolidate feedback acquired from potential customers to gain coherent insights. Also, you’ll need to fix your price at a level where it’s not too high for your customers while it covers your operational cost.

It takes a lot of money to launch a startup. With your idea validated and market demand in your pocket you can get the initial “seed” cash in the following ways:

Bootstrap: Bootstrapping means you retain 100% control over your company because it was funded by you. If you bootstrap your company to an exit or IPO, you can come into a lot of money, which means you probably will never have to work for the rest of your life.

VCs/Angels/other investors: You can pitch to investors who might want to give you money in return for a stake in your company.

A startup accelerator: This is where a group of investors coaches you, connect you with potential partners and provide seed cash in return for a small stake in your company.

After launching your new venture, what you’ll need is to acquire customers, endorsement of your product or service by your clients, more funding and more growth.

As opposed to before, now there’s more support, education, and access to funding for startups than ever before. That means, with so many ideas anyone can start a new venture as long as they can provide a better product, service or solution than their competitors.

You can start earning money online becoming a high-paid freelancer, building a niche blog or website with affiliate marketing selling physical or digital products or launching and expanding a startup. However, to succeed you need to provide value to your customers. Making your unique selling point work for you and learning to market your skills will determine the difference between your monthly paycheck and millions of dollars.