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https://youtu.be/6529JDhh3r8In the age of high speed internet connections, access to having a laptop or a smartphone 24*7, a digitally connected world and thousands of booming tech start-ups waiting for you to participate in the shared economy, there is no shortage of ideas on how to make money online.
This article is not going to make you an overnight millionaire or make you quit your job to travel the world in one month.
Let’s be honest, that kind of wealth generation takes time. It takes years (months if you are extremely lucky and talented) and even if so, you may just want to have a few side hustles and not necessarily branch out full-time into your online money making business until you’ve figured out a way to make a living off it.
I’m here to give you my favourite ways on how to make money online without having to learn hard core technical skills or coding or any other fancy things you may normally have heard of. Of course, you will require some basic things which we can cover as we go along the way.
#1 Rent Out The Extra Space In Your House or Apartment
I discovered this method on a whim when I was trying to save money to move abroad for two years. I simply used the extra guest room I had in my then apartment and made about 60% of my monthly rental cost on average. This not only reduced my rent burden but even allowed me to save for my big move abroad.
I am currently still a student, but I manage to get about $350 a month for the extra room in my apartment hosting guests via Airbnb from all over the world for about 20 days each month. This covers less than half of my total rent, but it gives me the freedom to have a cosy two room apartment all to myself and host people as and when I want. It also allows me to contribute to my overall rent without having to live with a stranger full-time. (Read Also: How To Fund Your Travel (or Any Other Passion) By Being An Airbnb Host)
Sign Up Here To Start Hosting Your Space Now
Pro Tip: Host your usual personal room or flat when you plan to travel for more than a few days. I have often covered up my accommodation costs by renting out my room for a week or two, whenever I plan a long week abroad. It’s not that hard. Try it!
#2 Become an Online Teacher At Teachable
Once you start reading about online entrepreneurs, there’s no stopping you from finding out more and more ways on how you can use your existing resources to make some extra money online.
While researching on one such aspect of creating digital products and comparing a few platforms, I came across Udemy.
In layman terms, Teachable is an online course creating and delivery platform for students and teachers to get together to learn anything and everything under the sun.
If you know anything about anything, I bet you can create and launch a course online at Teachable.
For example, let’s say you are a freelance web designer who wants to teach others how to get into the freelance web designing business. You can create videos, cheat sheets, guidebooks, resources and make your course as intensive or as basic as you’d like it to be.
All you need is a half decent phone or laptop to record a video, presentation and slide making skills and good enough knowledge on a topic people are willing to pay you for!
Sign Up Here To Make Your Online Course Now
#3 Start A Blog In A Profitable Niche
I guess you are familiar that certain bloggers do make money, some make pennies, some a few hundred dollars a month, some make enough for a full time job and some are even millionaires.
You could fall anywhere in this spectrum depending on the time, talent, dedication and strategy you follow. Blogging will not make you rich overnight but given consistent efforts, you can have a regular side hustle via a profitable blog.
The blog you are currently reading has changed into a self hosted half decent looking website about 4 months ago. I started to monetize this blog about 3 months ago. And I’ve made over $400 already. Read my blogging income breakdown here.
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How do I do it? I use ads and affiliate marketing. So far, I haven’t had the time to invest in sponsored content as I have been busy building the new domain, content and getting my blog marketing strategy on track.
So no, you do not need 100K monthly views to start making money from a blog. It may take longer to get a check as most affiliate programs pay only when you reach a minimum threshold of $50 or $100, but you can get there provided you put in consistent effort month after month.
In my opinion, one of the best ways of how to make money online definitely is long-term blogging. Whether you focus on building a passive income blog or an active income blog is upto you. But once you have a good platform and a dedicated following, you can branch out into various sources of income.
Click here to get a list of the top affiliate programs I use to monetize my blog and tips on how to use them.
Read Also: Can You Make Money From A Travel Blog? How I Made $426 In Three Months
Pro Tip: Make sure to focus on 1 or maximum 2 streams of blog monetization for the first 6 months. It can be tempting to want to do everything, but you simply divert your energy and maximise time doing things which may or may not have an equivalent return.
For example, if you are building a blog around Amazon Affiliates, focus on have high quality consistent content month after month, so your readers trust your reviews and opinions. It takes time to win people’s trust. Use it to build a loyal readership and good quality traffic first. There is no point in generating 50000 monthly views, if you only generate 1 or 2 sales.
RELATED: 20 Blogging Tools To Enormously Improve Your Online Game
#4 Use Your Free Time To Fill Out Surveys & Reviews
Marketing is a lead driven business. It always has been and always will be.
You know who can be a potential lead? You. Cherry on the cake if you get paid to be the lead, right?
Yep. If you have an hour or two to spare in a day you REALLY can make money online by filling out forms, surveys, writing reviews or even just sharing content. There is no shortage of companies looking for this information online, and there is no shortage of platforms who can help you earn some extra cash doing it.
Here’s two of my favourite platforms that you should consider signing up for and see what you can make on the side:
- UniqPaid Online Rewards Program: The website does not look pretty, but it’s legit and has tons of offers for you to simply sign up for and get paid. The annoying bit maybe the amount of spam email you receive if you sign up for 100 offers, but as long as it’s free to create emails, I am sure you can simply make an extra one just for promotions. 😉 Payment is done via bitcoins and checks so depending on your home country’s regulations, you will have to figure that one out. But hey, money for filling out offers? Go Grab It Now.
- Go2Crowd -Rewarding Your Opinion: My favourite program which offers you money in exchange for authentic surveys. In this way, everyone gets what they want. Companies seeking information get information, you get paid for simply filling out the surveys. What’s not to like?
#5 Set Up As A Freelancer And Work Anytime Anywhere with Fiverr
If you happen to have a skill that can be delivered by the medium of internet, this is where you can really hit the jackpot.
Be it business consulting, graphic designing, content writing, virtual assistance, website designs, coding, etc, you have to go ahead and sign up on Fiverr as a freelancer.
When I changed my website domain, I struggled to fix some old re-directs to fix my SEO errors. I hired a freelancer on Fiverr for about $40 that fixed about 10 URL’s on my back end in less than two hours.
The platform has reviews, options to show your portfolio and concrete mechanisms that ensure you get paid well and on time.
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Some of the ways you can make money online on Fiverr are:
- Offer e-books or reports
- Offer social media consulting
- Write high quality content with a quick turnaround time
- Become a virtual assistant
- Photoshop or editing services
- Designing logos/websites/drawings
- Making videos
- SEO/SEM/Strategy Projects
And I haven’t even scratched the surface here.
If there is any skill that you can freelance for, you are best poised to make money online. The best part? You can work from home and make extra income by not having to go anywhere.
These are my top 5 ways on how to make money online, what are yours?
Planning to start a blog? Find a domain name and a server on HostGator today! If you would like detailed tips, check out my step by step guide to start a blog.
Have an existing blog in need of powerful growth? Check out these services I use and love:
- Tailwind: Pinterest and Instagram scheduling tool.
- Teachable: Create courses online and add to your blogging income.
- ThemeIsle: Premium WordPress themes.
- Grammarly: Automated in-browser Proofreading.
- OptinMonster: Convert and monetize your website traffic.
- LinkTrackr: Affiliate Link Tracking.
- PickMonkey: Photo-editing, Logos and Social Media Graphics.
Related:
- Can You Make Money From A Travel Blog? How I Made $426 In Three Months
- Transfer Money Abroad; 5 Reasons Why I Only Use Transferwise
- How I Saved $14000 to Travel and Move Abroad
- How To Save Money While Booking Hotels
- How To Save Money While Booking Flights
- 4 Stay At Home Jobs To Make Money Online

krish says
Very practical suggestions….there are many ways to earn money as long as one us willing to put in hard work and dedication..
Regatds
AP says
Sorry, but your title is misleading. These are common ways, and most are definitely not incredibly simple. As in the previous comment, hard work and dedication will pay off if you get things right and a bit of luck along the way in some cases, like finding an unmet blog niche.
Shruti Pangtey says
Hi AP! There is no such thing as a free lunch. So ofcourse to make money online you need to work hard! None of these ways require you to have a degree or invest thousands of dollars upfront in a business. All you need is to start and keep working at it to improve your skills over time. I make a regular profit from running this travel blog, which one can say is a VERY crowded niche. Everything is possible and doable, with the right mindset and strategies!