The 25 Best Ways To Start Earning Money Online

#1 Sell Physical Products

Selling physical products is one of the most traditional ways to make money online. To choose the products you will sell, think about what you know about. Study the products you plan on selling. Be able to answer any question customers may have on the product line. They will expect you to understand how the product works, even if you did not create it yourself.

Just like in the “real world,” you can set up a physical products store online and create an attractive virtual storefront just like you would create a beautiful sign and entrance for your physical products business. You can either dropship by selling other people’s merchandise through a dropship situation or create your physical products to sell online. You have to learn how to manipulate the virtual environment so that you can create the best customer experience possible. You can start with Shopify.com, a popular online sales site where you can sell anything you want in a professional online eCommerce store. Sell on other platforms too if you choose such as Amazon.com and Etsy.com to get started. But you can only sell on Etsy if you make your products.

#2 Sell Digital Products

Digital products have a distinct advantage when selling them online-you will never run out of inventory! You can sell virtually anything that can be uploaded and downloaded in various file formats. If you are a musician or digital sound file creator, for example, you can sell your files online. Some examples of the kinds of files you can sell are listed below:

The files will be uploaded in the standard formats such as .mp3, .mp4, .mov, and .jpeg, to name a few. Some platforms offer both HD and standard formats, and customers may want more than one version of a digital file. So upload many versions of a file if you want to to appeal to many people.

This is only a partial example. You can upload any file that people will be interested in purchasing and set up a payment platform through Paypal or another platform so that you can make money while you sleep. Selling digital files is one of the best ways to make money online by creating a passive income stream of your digital creations. Even if you have no experience creating digital files, it is worth giving it a try due to the potential income you can make by uploading and selling digital files.

#3 Do Affiliate Marketing Through a Niche Blog

Affiliate marketing is a lucrative business. On the high end, some people have figured out how to generate a whopping $250,000 a month on affiliate marketing alone. These kind of figures are mind-blowing, but if you find a niche that has low competition and high interest, it can happen.

The average amount that you can expect to see from affiliate income is around $10,000 per month if you know what you’re doing. The way it works is that you find an affiliate portal site such as Clickbank.com or Shareasale.com and find merchants you want to promote. Then you copy the affiliate link to your website or blog where you want to promote it. You get credit each time the company makes a sale on the item you are promoting. It takes a while to get it right, and you may need to focus on keywords that help bring in traffic to your niche.

But if you provide valuable content on your blog and keep it focused on your niche, you will eventually attract the right people. Check out the list of Top 10 affiliate networksto get started. You can also look at the bottom of websites to see if individual companies offer an affiliate program and apply to promote them individually. All you need is one good affiliate relationship to make a killing if you have figured out the logistics correctly.

Do understand that, just as with any business or money-making opportunity, you can’t just walk away and leave it alone. Once you purchase a domain and set up an affiliate marketing system, you need to create blog posts and ads that will increase your targeted traffic just as you would if it were your product.

Additionally, you should consider creating a video to advertise the product. It should be of high quality and should emphasize the reasons the customer will like the product more than your competitors’ product. Finally, you have to develop trust between the visitor and yourself. Many people ask, “Why wouldn’t someone go directly to the website to order if they wanted this product?” The reason is that they might not be thinking about the product when they happen onto your site. Seeing an ad for the product you are representing might jar their memory as to why they liked the product initially. But they must be willing to trust you to click on the links to purchase.

Work on building this trust by keeping a regular blog where you address the problems of the intended audience and focus on their needs. If you can answer questions that matter to the viewer, you can build trust and increase your sales.

#4 Sell from Your Website

Selling from your website is a simple as setting up an eCommerce website where you feature either physical or digital products, then provide a payment system such as Paypal.com, Stripe, or other payment processing system to take and process payments.

You’ll need a way to communicate with your customers and deal with returns and refunds, but if you do this through Paypal, the process is inherently simple. Think about what kinds of products you could sell. You can do drop shipping by offering other’s merchandise then reselling for a higher price or create and sell your products.

#5 Be a Service Entrepreneur

Service entrepreneurs are business owners who offer services such as car repair, babysitting, or wedding planning, rather than physical products. You can do many of the same things online by setting up a service entrepreneur website where you offer your services. It is advisable to create a blog and website where people can make appointments if you are offering services.

#6 Start a Facebook Group

Facebook groups can help you generate high traffic and engagement for your idea, hobby, or business. If you have a business and want to increase your following, having a Facebook group is a must. Start by creating a Facebook group and give it a memorable title to attract the right people. You can do “live” video feeds, post pictures and videos, and encourage people to answer quizzes or take polls. There are plenty of Facebook applications that will work to insert whatever you want into this platform. You can also advertise or ask opinions of your followers. This can give you valuable information as to what your primary fan base wants to see.

Once you get a Facebook group started, you will want to make weekly or even daily posts to keep things going. The only thing worse than not having a Facebook group is having a “dead” Facebook group, one you create but don’t tend to. You’ll lose followers that way, and they may never come back. Remember the words of Robert Frost when you think of what happens in an internet search:
“…but knowing how way leads onto way, I doubted if I should ever come back.”

Don’t lose an opportunity to keep your customers’ interest just because you failed to show your Facebook group some love.

#7 Freelance Everything!

Fre​elancing is a great way to make anywhere from $500 to $5000 per month, depending on how much you put into it. Whether you are a writer, painter, graphic designer, or virtual assistant, you can get a lot of freelance work through freelance sites such as guru.com or Upwork.com. Alternatively, you can create an account on Fiverr.com and offer your services there or provide a link to sign up for your services through Paypal on your main website. Freelancing is a great opportunity in the US and abroad. Did you know that Russia is currently offering no tax for freelancers who want to come to Russia to work now? There is a lot of wrong information about Russia. They are a free country and operate under a Constitutional Republic like in the US.

Freelancing has gained attention in recent years on a global scale due to a large number of large corporations who had to lay off employees due to the failing economy during the O’Bama years. But these same workers can be employed by freelancers now that the economy is back in business and booming! Also, corporate executives would rather spend their money on independent contractors who only get paid for the work they do rather than having to pay for a full day when they are not always working. This trend is expected to continue into the near future and the environment with mobile technologies and the need for remote expert collaboration opens more doors for freelance opportunities than ever before.

#8 Launch a New Business

The key to making a significant and recurring income online is to start your own business. Whether you decide to do this by creating a physical or digital product or inventing some new technology, you should do a lot of research to find out what the demand is for your type of product.

Launching a business is not easy but anyone with the know-how and time and money to invest in a new startup can be successful if they are determined to make it work. You’ll need some capital (at least $1000) to get started, depending on the venture. Perseverance is the key. There will be problems that you encounter along the way, but there is nothing more rewarding than reaping the rewards of your hard work through constant and concerted effort.

Daymond John refers to this as “the daily grind.” Mark Cuban, another “shark” on the popular ABC “Shark Tank” reality show says nothing will replace hard work. He said recently in an interview about how he became so successful, “Most people are not working that hard. So if you outwork everyone, you’ll make it big!”

#9 Build an App That Everyone Will Love

This means that, not only do business owners need to make sure their sites are mobile-friendly, but they also need a mobile app where people will find their site and be able to order or contact them through their smartphones. If you can create a useful app that does something people need or design apps for businesses, you can command a nice regular income from the sales or charge as a service to businesses in need of an app.

#10 Become a Software Developer

Software development may look very different over the next few years. With the advent of AI and the escalation of automation technologies, someday most software may be designed by preprogrammed robots. In the meantime, there is still a great need for software engineers and developers.

You can get the education you need to become a software engineer through traditional college routes or teach yourself by taking online courses and learning a programming language. For mobile app coding, you will need to know HTML5 so that you can create apps that work on mobile devices.

#11 Become a Life Coach or Influencer

Names like Neil Patel and Gary Vanuyerchuck ring a bell with just about anyone who works online. Why? Because they are influencers. Influencers help smaller businesses to get noticed by using their influence and power to command the attention of an audience.

You can try hitting these people up on social media or through email to see if you can get them to promote you. I have had some success speaking to quite influential people simply by emailing them or sending messages through their social media accounts.

But, as you can imagine, many of these people are busy, and they probably get thousands of emails per day from people with similar requests. One way you can create hype without actually getting them to help you directly is to link out to their sites or blogs while stating that you follow many of the business practices of _______ with the name of the influencer in the blank.

Make sure and choose one that is closely related to your brand and products or services. That way, people will know that you are following principles that are required or needed in your niche area. You don’t want to confuse them by suggesting that you follow the practicing of a milk truck delivery company if you are in the business of selling books to entrepreneurs. Keep it in your niche area to make it real. Also, never copy someone else exactly. Instead, play on the strong points they exhibit while creating your own unique brand identity.

#12 Create Online Courses

The world of online education is a multibillion-dollar business. You might have heard about this for a while now but have you realized yet the potential for online entrepreneurs to make money with this opportunity? You don’t have to have a Ph.D. or a degree from an elite Ivy League University to be an expert at something. You can take a hobby that you know a lot about and create a course surrounding this then place it on platforms where people come to learn. Remember if you do this that your experience is your guru. Remember both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates started at Ivy League schools, but they only finished one semester. They took what they learned and set out on their own to create their own empires.

Today you can learn a lot from online learning platforms that focus more on specific skills than academic prowess.

Examples of such platforms include Udemy.com, Lynda.com, and teachable.com sites like this provide courses for people looking to learn a particular skill or to learn more about how to do something.

You’re not teaching it from an intellectual or academic perspective but a practical one. Teaching the skills through one of these platforms can bring you money regularly, and it helps you create a passive income that may last a lifetime.

Most of these sites pay out once per month through Paypal. Every time someone downloads your course, you make money then you will get statements each month showing what you’ve made. It is certainly something to look into, and it can also help your following within your blog or websites. Link out to your courses and also put a link to your website and blog from your course if it is allowed on your teaching platform. To create your lessons and classes, you can use PowerPoint presentations, podcasts, photos, and videos to teach your courses. Don’t forget to promote them and consider hosting a webinar previous to the course signup date to generate hype for your course.

#13 Create Videos

If you have ever been interested in creating videos, know that you can now make money doing this regularly if you know where to market them. One idea is to create stock footage or video clips in high definition that you will allow others to download. Sites such as shutterstock.com along with offering image sales, also sells videos.

You could be a video creator for Shutterstock by uploading your content and putting it up for sale on their platform. You have to register and follow their specifications then people who are looking for particular kinds of video footage. Upload your content and wait for people to come along and download your content. Your target audience with this will be fellow content creators and others who want to use stock videos and photos for their projects.

Every time you sell a download, you make money. This is usually referred to as royalty. Royalties are a payout for the sale and use of your materials. In this case, it is only tied to the sale since you are allowing people to download your files and pay a slightly higher rate one time for the privilege of avoiding the standard royalty fee that is recurring each time they use it.

It might be worth looking into if you have good footage you can sell. Another way to make money with videos is as mentioned before to create an online course with video included. Most online course sites require videos as the primary teaching method. You can also go to YouTube, and once you reach over 10,000 subscribers, you might be able to charge money as a premium channel or make money off of the Google ads. All of these are opportunities to generate income from your videos. Of course, don’t forget the most obvious, which is to create videos to promote your brand and products which will bring people to your site.

#14 Do Podcasting

AI and HDI technologies also increase your audience range. Smartphones can now communicate with car smart technology. So you can reach people as they’re driving to work and other instances where they might not ordinarily find your information. A podcast can be short or long from 5 minutes to an hour or more but shorter is usually better. Use your podcast to generate interest and engagement and leave a place for comments if you place it in your blog to encourage engagement.

#15 Do Voice Work

One of the reasons the domain voices.com is worth millions of dollars now is because someone realized the power of the human voice. If you have an ability to work with your voice such as radio announcers or public speakers, you may have a future as a voice actor.

Work is needed for commercials, music introductions, movie parts, cartoons and much more. You can go to voices.com or voicebunny.com to sign up and connect with the audio community where people are looking for talented voices of a certain kind. You can also record audio books professionally for people and charge for it through acx.com which is the production end of audible.com. imagine a career as a voice artist.

It’s not as hard as you think so think about the kind of voice you have and a kind of client you might attract. Of course, you will need a strong voice portfolio so start to work on this now by downloading some good audio software and make sure you have a professional microphone. You don’t have to have the most expensive microphone but you need something that will do the job with good quality.

#16 Write eBooks

If you have never written or attempted to write an eBook, now is a good time to start. Whether you have always wanted to write a book and never gotten around to it or if you are a business owner who wants to share some valuable information with your customers, this is an excellent way to promote your business or brand.

It will generate more traffic than you can imagine when you link out to your Amazon Kindle ebook site and you can generate sales for your book from your blog. Amazon also offers an “author’s page” where you can put all of the books you have written (both eBooks and audiobooks) and tell a little about yourself. Choose a topic that your customers care about to increase your readership.

If you make money from the first book you may want to write a second one or even have a series where you are offering valuable advice or information to your client base. If you become known as a valuable tool of information in what you do, customers may come back not just for your products and services but for the valuable insight you can give them. Before you write your first eBook, consider what your goal is. Do you want to use it to increase traffic, get more followers, make sales? Perhaps it’s more about offering customers something for free so that they will come back and do business with your brand. Whatever the case, focus on the important things that customers want to know.

If you are just writing the book to say you’ve written a book, think again. It will likely not be worth reading. You don’t have to be a Shakespeare or Voltaire to write an eBook, but you do need to have a focus. Readers will resent shallow writing. If you don’t have the talent or the time to write it yourself, consider outsourcing this task to a professional ghostwriter. You can find these writers on sites like Constant-Content.com, Textbroker.com, and freelance sites like Upwork.com.

The format of an ebook is fairly simple and all the technical details are laid out within the Amazon Kindle website. Basically, just type your book into Microsoft Word and then save it as a .mobi, HTML, or Word file. Then you’ll be able to upload it to Amazon for official formatting. You will need some artwork or a nice photo for the cover and then create an excellent title that will catch people’s eye. You’ll be surprised how putting a link to your ebook within your email marketing will increase sales and engagement. So get to work on that book today. Your customers are waiting for your wisdom.

#17 Do Graphic Design

Years ago, if someone said they wanted to major in art in school it was sometimes discouraged. Teachers and parents often told kids they would have too much trouble finding a job if they majored in Art. Then commercial art came along and many young people decided to go that route and get jobs as cartoonists or artists that created brochures or magazine ads for business owners.

Now with the online craze, it is easy to find work as a graphic designer because everyone needs one. So if you have some challenging art you should look toward becoming a graphic designer. Some of your clients might be web designers or their clients, people who needed for graphics that describe pictures and data to their customers, and even magazine publishers. All of these people need effective dynamic graphics to catch the eye of their target readers.

You could also create logos for businesses and much more. Check out information on how to become a graphic artist or look at some examples on sites like fiverr.com and others to see how awesome graphic artists are making a living with this unique skill.

Remember that the tradeoff you are going to find yourself making often in the business world is “time vs. money.” Either you are going to spend your time creating content yourself or you will hire someone to do it and pay money instead. To quote from a successful online entrepreneur and eBook writer, Peter Voogd, “You can always get more money but you can never get more time.” Using money wisely, therefore, to hire the right people to do the more manual labor tasks may pay off in other ways when you free up your time to focus on your business.

#18 Sell Homemade Crafts

Are you a homemaker or do you have skills regarding something that you can do at home? Everything from painting to sewing, cooking, or crafts is featured on sites such as etsy.com and Amazon Handmade. Some are making quite a good living creating things from home to sell online. Think about a hobby such as jewelry-making or sewing that you have where you are producing some form of artwork or craft and consider who your target market might be.

People go to the Etsy site specifically to find unique and interesting homemade items. Etsy has an internal search engine that helps generate traffic specific with keywords that you put in yourself. They also show you internal metrics as well as metrics that you get from Google when people search for your items. This allows you to track and analyze all of the activity you receive and tweak it to increase your results. There is even a PPC (pay-per-click) advertising engine built right in. So if you have a talent regarding something you can do at home such as candle-making quilting or other, you may want to check out this marketplace.

#19 Purchase a Franchise Business

If you don’t think you’re creative enough to be an entrepreneur, you could always open a franchise business. Being a franchiser is relatively easy. But you’ll need a fair amount of start-up money (around $50,000) to purchase a franchise.

Corporations offer a certain number of franchises in areas all over the country. For example, McDonald’s is owned by a huge corporation and co-owners, Richard and Maurice McDonald, but they have thousands of franchisees restaurants all over the world. You just have to follow all of the rules and specifications set forth by the corporation and you cannot do things your own way like you could if you own the business yourself.

So if you are the creative type, you’ll want to open your own business instead. The positive thing about opening a franchise is that people already know the name brand and they already trust it for the most part. So you don’t have to worry about too much marketing as the brand will speak for itself.

Marketing also is usually handled by the corporate office. You have to deal with things such as employees who don’t carry their load and make the brand look bad, you have to hire and fire employees and there’s a high turnover.

Remember you’re representing the brand not just your local store so there is more pressure to fulfill and live up to the Brand’s image with the public. If you do well you might be able to command a salary of around $100,000 a year or more by running a successful franchise and there are a few other parts as well.

In order to make money online with this business, you will need to find a corporation that allows you to do some direct sales from your website or handle inquiries from an online platform. This can help you increase sales in your brick-and-mortar business if you have one. There are many businesses that are a virtual business only and you can franchise these as well.

Start by contacting the corporate office and asking about how to become a franchise owner for the brand. Give them a little about your background and ability to manage a large business. While your local operations may be small, you will have to always coordinate with the changes made by the corporate office and make sure everything runs smoothly from your individual store.

#20 Become a Virtual Assistant

Thousands of businesses today are in need of virtual assistants. They’re often busy trying to build their brand and they just don’t have time to do calls to or contact people that they need to keep in touch with.

Business owners want to focus on their business so many times their office manager might be looking for virtual assistants to help them save time to spend on more important tasks.

If you can offer services as a virtual assistant and do a meticulous job you might be able to find a lot of work doing this. Keep in mind the downside is that virtual assistants generally charge a low rate of five to seven dollars an hour to begin.

Once you prove yourself to the business you can raise your rates but make sure they know your policy on this at the beginning. Good communication is the key to being a successful virtual assistant and you can list your services on fiverr.com and many other freelance sites. You can choose to work for just one company or many. This is up to you to make sure all companies understand you might be working with companies that might be in competition with them.

A good business practice is to never take on a business that would conflict with other clients because they are in the same industry as one of your other clients. At the same time, you don’t want to take on so much work that you don’t have to do an efficient job.

#21 Buy and Sell Stocks

The internet has also made it possible for you to make money buying and selling stocks. From day trading to penny stocks or fractional shares, there are plenty of opportunities at various platforms and sites to make money with stocks.

Now is a good time to start investing since President Trump has boosted the economy by 90% or more since he became President. The economy is booming like never before and the stock market is a reflection of this. You can go to sites like stockpile.com, acorns.com, or pennystocks.com to check out the opportunities regarding buying and selling stock. This is not a job but is an investment opportunity that if you play your cards right, can pay off big. Remember with stocks there is more of a risk but you want to buy when it is low and sell high. So it helps to read the research that is available on these sites about the stocks you are investing in.

#22 Invest in Virtual Real Estate

Have you ever thought about investing in real estate online only? It used to be that you had to work with Realtors and go to the houses yourself and check them out, drop contracts and put down a huge down payment. But this is not true anymore. Just as the stock market has allowed people to invest fractional shares rather than buying entire shares, the real estate market now allows people to buy fractions of ownership in real estate properties. Fundrise.com is one site that allows you to do just that. I have a large portfolio of properties that come up for sale once in a while and you can put in how much you would like to invest and watch your money grow. Of course like stocks, it is not guaranteed how well the property will do but the average gain on fundrise.com states that it is currently around 11 to 13% per year.

This is a healthy return if you invest wisely and do your research about the value of the properties. They feature photos and information about each property that is listed and you have plenty of opportunities to ask questions or to call their investment professionals who can guide you through the process. Owning real estate online is possible by sharing the ownership with other investors then when the property sells you minimize loss while increasing the possibility of profits. This is an interesting concept indeed for those who’ve always wanted to invest in real estate but didn’t have the large bucks to put down in the real world.

#23 Flip Domains

We talked about buying and selling real estate properties. Now let’s talk about virtual properties. When it comes to a name it is indeed important, as William Shakespeare alluded to subtly in “Romeo and Juliet.” When you purchase a domain name, you have a choice of either building a website around that domain and letting it generate some kind of income for you or you can what is called “flip the property” (resell) like you would real estate and sell it to someone else.

With this in mind as you look for opportunities, think about the kinds of people you might want to do business with and consider purchasing domains at a lower price then letting them increase in value and selling them when they are worth a lot of money.

If you have your finger on the pulse of the trends, you could end up with a whale of a valuable domain such as insurance.com which is now 37 million dollars. The average is much lower but you can generate some cash by flipping domains. A good place to start is by going to godaddy.com and searching for the names that are interesting based on particular keywords.

Don’t forget that the dot-coms are hard to secure but there are many other top-level domain types (TLDs) that you can get that are worth almost as much. Do your research and invest in good keywords and domain names and look to the future by following the news and trends to determine what their value might be later. If you learn to purchase great domain names, you can own your own virtual real estate properties by purchasing domains and reselling them on Godaddy.com or other sales sites and you might be surprised at the results.

#24 Become an Online Tax Expert

Death and taxes are two things people do not want to talk about but they are inevitable. Taxes come every year around April and people pull their hair out trying to figure out their taxes. They generally have two goals: they want to do it right so they don’t have to worry about getting an audit and they need to get the best refund they can get based on their income and expenditures.

If you are an accountant or a tax expert attorney or someone else with experience regarding tax forms, you can offer your services as an online tax expert. You can command up to $100 per hour because this is meticulous work that requires a lot of analysis along with auditing of expenses and income when filling out someone’s tax forms.

It is important that you are extremely careful not to make mistakes as clients may blame you if they end up with penalties from the IRS once they file. If you’re a meticulous type of person, you might be able to handle this well. You can get training online or research how to become a tax expert and check out an online course to get started. If you want to earn more money consider getting your CPA or tax license.

#25 Become an Online Therapist

Many of the online opportunities we talked about can be done with just a little effort and research that you do yourself. If you want to become an online therapist though you would need more education such as a masters in Clinical Psychology or counseling.

If you have a license to be a therapist in your state of residence, you could join one of the therapy sties such as Amwell.com or others that offer therapy services.

Similar to teaching online you would be focused on helping people who come in for a therapy session who do not want to go into counseling in the real world. This type of client may not want to go to traditional counseling but they want to talk to a counselor without being known. Licensed therapists can help them with important life problems and set them on the path of knowledge or teach important life coping skills. It can be a rewarding career but you do have to make sure you have the credentials first. You also don’t have to worry about office space or getting out and going to other locations to see your clients. Everything is done online. But, since counseling clients are often in crisis, you may need to be available on your cell phone or messaging in the case of emergencies.