When you make money online, the world is your oyster. Just imagine being able to Drop your kids off at school in the morning go to the gym shortly after, have breakfast at a restaurant, go home press some buttons on the computer, and then pick your kids up from school later in the day all without having to adhere to someone’s rules or standards of how you need to work.
The online income community is one that has broken free from the chains of traditional corporate methods and has allowed people to become independent of what society says is normal.
People who make money online go against the grain and march to the beat of their own drum because they know that there’s a life to be explored and spending a majority of your waking hours on someone else’s time is not the life that we are destined to live. The few that recognize that life is best lived on your own terms are the ones who win sooner than others.
It is a tall task to take on to remove yourself from the standard way of thinking but once you do, amazing things start to happen.
Before we get into the article, I am going to Set some ground rules there are so many ways to make money online. Uncover both passive, active, as well as completely digital based incomes that you can earn from the comfort of your couch.
The idea is that you have an income stream that you can set up either completely digitally or set up in the physical sense first and then be able to make and manage the remaining amount of income digitally. This is a lengthy article so feel free to skip around to the parts that you need but I hope to bring some value to you and your Current situation.
There are millions of ways to create an income source online so I hope this gets the wheels turning for you.
The main north star you have to have is you have to be passionate about the route that you’re gonna go down because you’re likely not going to get paid from this venture for quite some time. Therefore, being able to build ventures overtime in areas that you like anyway is the best way to go.
**This post contains affiliate links where I earn a commission based on purchases made**
The Mindset required to make money online
This is a slow and tedious process.
The mindset required to make money online needs to be one built around patience. Of course if you can find a remote job that would be the first step in the right direction. Once you have a remote job you give yourself back minimum 2 to even 4 hours per day of extra time to do what you desire. By simply removing the commute to an office as well as any other time spent getting ready for an in person job, you immediately put back in your pocket so if you have other things you desire to work on, you’re able to.
On the other side of the token if you enjoy your job in person but you’re looking for additional ways to earn an income online, the best bet is to create something that you ultimately enjoy. You will not be able to earn a full time income online two days after starting this journey. Therefore, the best way to go is to pursue things that you genuinely enjoy. Otherwise if you chase the shiny object syndrome, you will burnout much faster than someone who is genuinely happy about what their building.
If you constantly think about a certain topic or an expert in a certain field, start creating content around that topic. This could be in written form, digital form, or audio. The way you should approach certain ventures Is by asking yourself the question what would you do for free?
If there’s something that you are happy to do no matter what that will help you keep pushing forward. Eventually, when that feeling of resistance kicks in, Your reason to keep going is much stronger than the person who is doing it solely for the money.
You Must have a purpose for earning money online
If you’re simply starting your journey to make money online because you heard there’s more money to be made, you’re starting with the wrong intention. Instead think of your dream life that you want to live and begin with the end in mind from Stephen Covey’s iconic book “7 habits of highly effective people”
Starting with the end in mind helps you have a clear vision of what you ultimately desire.
- Do you want more free time?
- Do you wish to spend more quality time with your kids?
- Set your own hours?
- Have an untapped income potential?
- Start a business?
- Educate or inspire others on something you have a lot of knowledge towards?
- Maybe you’re just really passionate about a topic but don’t know much about it.
Whatever your end goal is, have that as the central focus on your journey.
Essentially, excuses will show up and that resistance will start to get louder. As long as you have a vision of what you believe in your heart to be true, that will help you stay focused on the path ahead.
It’s better to be a Meaningful specific than a wandering generality. You’ve got to imagine that the person who knows where he or she wants to go will ultimately get there faster than the person who is just taking whatever life throws at them. That’s not to say you should be extremely attached to the end result because there’s a lot of uncertainties along the way. However, if you have a GPS, you know specifically Where you want to go with the understanding that there might be some traffic along the way.
Logically, the person who is unsure of where they want to go and how they’re going to get there might never reach their ultimate destination.
Having your ultimate destination in mind is a great starting point because you can then take it step by step working your way backwards to see what that goal looks like in order to be achieved.
It might be a rocky start at first because it might seem like a mountain to climb but the smaller steps you can create for yourself that are realistic and actionable the easier it becomes to get closer to where you want to go.
For example, if your goal is to earn $1 million online, break that down into monthly, weekly, daily goals.
$1,000,000 becomes $83,333.33 per month
$83,333.33 per month becomes $2,777.77 per day.
$2,777.77 per day becomes $115 per hour assuming you’re making money every hour.
That still might seem like a tall task.
What if you start looking at it in terms of transactions? Either with paid clients or products?
The most common way to think is in terms of subscriptions.
How can you get hundreds or thousands of people to pay you a monthly fee for something?
It’s great to have a hybrid of subscriptions and one time products but thinking long term, the more low cost subscriptions you have, the more feasible it will be to get to your ultimate goal of earning $1,000,000 online.
Clearly this is not an easy task so if you were to go down this path, having a loyal following will expedite this. Your organic reach without any paid advertisements will take longer than ads run on social media. However, organic audiences are going to provide a substantial ability to grow because they trust you and it’s a relationship that you can build versus a onetime transaction.
Should you quit everything and follow your passions?
It’s best to stick with a full time income while you pivot to something you’re passionate about when you’re consistently earning 2X your monthly income.
There’s no reason why you wouldn’t be able to earn money online while simultaneously sticking with your full time job. It’s preferred to have a hybrid of both where you both earn your income through your job and take a portion of those proceeds to fund your side hustle.
To see the all-in-approach work unless you have proof of concept that it will all be okay. If you are gonna take a leap of faith and quit your job to go full time on your passion, it’s best to ensure that you have minimum six months of expenses saved up. The more expenses you have saved up, the better off you’ll be so that it removes the pressure of needing to make it work.
For the sake of stating the obvious, the higher your expenses are, the harder this decision will be. Now if you really want to go all in and follow your passion, what sacrifices are you and your family willing to make? You have to consider all factors and how realistic is this pursuit and how likely are you gonna make it on the other side. At the same time, consider the downsides. If it doesn’t work as fast as you think it will? What if you don’t make anything during the time that you projected you would? Are you okay with the potential losses?
You can always censor the job but my argument is that it’s better to have something reliable that you can count on to remove the pressure while you build your passion.
That said, you don’t have to look for ways to monetize your hobby, you could simply do it for the sake of enjoyment because it makes you more excited about everything else that you do in your life.
Why should you make money online?
The ability to make money online is such a blessing. Even if it’s $.01 to start, that’s one more penny than you had yesterday. But the reality is, as things grow, this money snowball starts compounding.
Many people who earn a living online can think back to years of little to no money coming in. The eventually, they started making small sums of money, then it becomes sizable sums of money, and then finally, all of their previous work has paid off and they now have a very comfortable living because they just did not stop.
Alex Hormozi has a great saying, “I cannot fail if I do not quit.” (LINKKKKKKKKKKKK TO PHOTO)
While the people who seem to “make it” are called overnight successes, they’re really a result of years worth of inputs until the outputs started to start paying dividends.
What people don’t see is the people who make their money online are simply more resilient and in tune with their ultimate purpose. The people who stop short of their goal of earning a living online or at least a modest income are the ones who never give themselves the chance of earning their digital income.
The ones who understand the value of the digital lifestyle, and take action on it are the ones who are able to start controlling their income versus letting it control them.
Time freedom
This is one of the primary reasons people look for ways to make money online. By removing the need of an in person job and creating 100% of your income digitally, your giving yourself the gift of time. It’s commonly stated that time is our most valuable asset so why would you sacrifice that time going two places in person that don’t provide any sort of income.
My argument is that commuting to work every day is more expensive than the potential increase in pay you might get by having an in person job. The people that work from home while fortunate, earn more per hour even with lower pay simply because there’s not factored in costs.
There is a bigger push for in office compensation to be higher but it will need to be a substantial bump for it to even be in the realm of possibility for people to choose in person work.
For now, the people who make money online will continue to have the upper hand.
One of the best parts of earning money online is your ability to detach from any one place. That goes without saying but it’s pretty nice to be able to wake up 2 minutes from a meeting at 9 AM and hop on the call either still in bed or with a shirt you threw on last minute.
I’m not an advocate of poor planning or discipline but being able to not have to get ready for 15 minutes or an hour every day is a pretty amazing benefit of working on your terms.
When You Make Money Online You Have Location freedom
While this is obvious, it still needs to be stated. When you make money online, you’re now able to work anywhere in the world with an internet connection and wifi. To me that’s an amazing benefit and the flexibility alone should be taken advantage of. If or when you start earning money online, please try to work abroad for a week or two to give yourself that experience.
For example, take two weeks, go to Columbia, and work with an amazing view of the city. The time zone to American working hours are similar and it’s a great experience.
This is known as geoarbitrage where you earn your native currency but live somewhere else with a more affordable economy to stretch your dollar farther with the same if not better quality of life.
Having location freedom is one of the best perks when you make money online. So why not give yourself the gift of travelling somewhere you’ve always wanted to? Chances are, it’s much more feasible than you think.
The ability to work on your own terms
When you work on your own terms, you can choose what hours you work, how your day is structured, and you’re the director of your day. If you have kids and need to run out of the house for specific hours, GREAT! Are there impromptu grocery items you need to get? AWESOME.
A random emergency that you’ll need to spend the rest of the day out for, NO PROBLEMO!
The beauty of digital income is you’re the complete operator of your day and you don’t need to conform with any outrageous demands. Now if you’re working under a company, things are definitely trickier with set meetings that are mandatory.
But for the vast majority of scenarios, there’s certain objectives to accomplish and as long as you’re fulfilling your end of the deal, all is well in the world.
What does making money online allow you to do?
A really fun part about making money online is that you’re able to step away from the rat race of in person corporate grind. When you make money online you earn money exponentially faster because there is no commute to account for or any in person roadblocks to consider. Making money online is a freeing part of what it means to be a high income earner.
Becoming a Digital Nomad
Making money online opens up the door to become a digital nomad.
A digital nomad is someone that has the ability to work where they want, when they want, how they want, in in whatever parameters they want to work in. By being able to become a digital nomad, you allow yourself one of the biggest gifts which is time freedom because you choose your hours, you have control over the most important pieces of your life long term and it allows you to grow with better peace of mind because you’re doing the things that you actually like to do.
If you don’t feel comfortable making the full transition to becoming a digital nomad, you can always start with baby steps and slowly progress as time goes on. Whatever your plan, with the end goal of becoming an online earner, you will inevitably succeed!
When you make money online, you can officially become a digital nomad
How does one become a digital nomad? I’m glad you asked? 🙂
How to become a digital nomad
First, you need an income, (shocker) The most ideal way for this is through a remote job.
As your income increases, so does your ability to expand into other things that excite you. Ideally other passions that inspire you.
Becoming a digital nomad is just a glorified way of saying remote income.
When you earn money online, you become a digital nomad and your location becomes independent.
A digital nomad can make money online wether that’s from home or on the beach and fully control their schedule.
One of the most common reasons to become a digital nomad is because you can travel to parts of the world and experience life a little bit.
There are many countries around the world that operate on the same or similar work hours. This is a huge benefit when you make money online because you can work from the beach in Columbia if you wanted. (as long as there’s an internet connection)
Finding a remote job is fairly straightforward. You can find jobs on sites like Flexjobs, but the important thing when you LAND a remote job (I personally like sales because the compensation is quite high compared to not needing extensive education or training)
You will definitely need a VPN to allow you to work in other countries without a restriction on certain websites. I personally recommend NordVPN simply because it’s cost effective and allows you access the internet in almost any country in the world without restrictions.
Whatever job you end up pursuing, just make sure it’s an area you at least sort of enjoy because only going after the money is a losing strategy.
Now that we’ve covered the philosophy behind making money online, let’s get into practical ways to start earning a digital income!
Pivoting to Lifestyle Design
Lifestyle design is an approach to life that emphasizes creating a life that you want to live, one that aligns with your passions, values, and aspirations. It’s about taking control and making deliberate choices about how you spend your time and resources. A significant component of lifestyle design is financial independence and flexibility, and this is where the concept of making money online comes into play.
In the digital age, when you make money online, you can design a lifestyle away from the traditional 9-5 grind. It offers the freedom to work from anywhere, choose your work hours, and pursue work that is meaningful and enjoyable. Whether it’s through freelance writing, e-commerce, affiliate marketing, or digital content creation, the internet has opened up a myriad of opportunities for earning income.
One of the strategies often embraced in lifestyle design is geoarbitrage, which involves relocating to take advantage of lower living costs while maintaining or even increasing your income. When you make money online, individuals can live in a location that offers a lower cost of living but still enjoy a high standard of living. This approach not only maximizes financial resources but also allows for a more flexible and enjoyable lifestyle, with the freedom to travel, explore new cultures, and focus on personal growth and happiness.
Ways to make money online
The ways you can make money online can be done either through a job, some kind of online business, investments, and anything else relevant to those topics.
Many people think in order to make money online you need to have some dropshipping course, the next money printing business, or any other trend that comes and goes. The truth is, there’s so many ways to make money online and it doesn’t have to be tied to one area. You could be an online coach, teacher, mentor, consultant, host online events, offer marketing services, work for a company remotely, start a YouTube channel, buy stocks, etc.
Making money online is flexible and heavily reliable. It allows you to earn an income with less variables since you don’t need a car to commute to work.
All you need is an internet connection and a computer.
We will start with active income sources from home.
Quick Overview of active online earning methods;
You can always set up an online store that you run where you either sell things you make/create, or start providing coaching services.
This section is tailored for everyone from freelancers seeking remote work opportunities, aspiring digital entrepreneurs, to individuals aiming to capitalize on their existing skills through various online platforms. Discover a plethora of avenues for online financial success, whether you’re looking to engage in freelance projects, launch an entrepreneurial venture, or utilize your current abilities in a digital landscape.
This segment focuses on straightforward and accessible methods for generating income online, ideal for those eager to embark on their online money-making journey without facing complex challenges or investing significant time. Here, you’ll find practical and speedy solutions for online earnings, perfect for beginners or those seeking efficient ways to supplement their income through the internet. Explore a range of user-friendly options to quickly start making money online and easily tap into the potential of digital revenue streams.
Active Ways to Make Money Online
Freelancing:
- Graphic Design: Offering design services for logos, branding, or digital content.
- Programming: Developing software, websites, or mobile apps.
- Digital Marketing: Specializing in SEO, social media, or email marketing.
- Translation Services: Providing language translation for documents or websites.
- Content Creation/Copywriting: Monetizing a blog, YouTube channel, or podcast.
- Creating Online Courses and Webinars: Sharing expertise in a specific field through teaching. Creating courses is a great option if you already have expertise in a particular subject matter.
- Affiliate Marketing: Earning commissions by promoting products or services. You can either sign up as an affiliate for large brand name companies through Impact or shareasale, or sell a wide variety of products through amazon’s affiliate program.
E-commerce:
- Selling on Amazon or Etsy: Offering unique products or reselling items.
- Dropshipping: Selling products without holding inventory.
- Print on Demand: Selling custom-designed merchandise.
- Private Labeling: Selling products under your own brand.
- Subscription Boxes: Curating and selling niche subscription boxes.
IT and Tech:
- Mobile App Development: Creating and monetizing mobile applications.
- Cybersecurity Consulting: Providing security advice and services.
- Web Development: Building and maintaining websites.
- Tech Support: Offering troubleshooting and support services.
- Data Analysis: Providing insights from data for businesses.
- Tech Sales and B2B (Business to Business) Sales: Selling software or high priced products or services to other businesses.
- High Ticket Sales: Selling courses, products or services to either consumers or other businesses.
Finance and Investing:
- Cryptocurrency Trading: Buying and selling digital currencies.
- Stock Market Investing: Trading stocks, ETFs, or mutual funds.
- Peer-to-Peer Lending: Investing in personal loans for returns.
- Robo-Advising: Using platforms for automated investment management.
- Financial Planning: Offering advice on budgeting, saving, and investing.
- Renting Out a Property: Using Airbnb to rent out a spare room or property.
Fitness:
- Online Personal Training: Providing fitness coaching virtually.
- Fitness Content Creation: Making workout videos or writing fitness blogs.
- Selling Fitness Products: Offering fitness equipment or supplements.
- Virtual Fitness Classes: Conducting group classes online.
- Nutrition Coaching: Providing diet and meal planning advice.
The list goes on but hopefully this gets the wheels turning for you.
While these might be fast ways to make money online, there might even be a smarter way to earn a living online. That would revolve around passive income. I have included an article on 15 ways to make passive income online if you want to view that here.
Income Streams I Love
Of all the income streams mentioned, there are a select few I have a preference for. Most of these mentioned income streams are more passive. Passive income is more of a personal preference simply because once it is set up, you let it run and it continues to pay for you for the long term.
These options for creating income are my personal favorite simply because I have hands on experience with all of them. They are in no particular order but they all have reliable income streams with little or no ongoing maintenance. Meaning once it is set up, you never have to touch it again! What a dream 🙂
Become a Blogger
Being a blogger is such an interesting way to make money online. I say interesting simply because you can earn a living by writing what interests you. Your income is scalable. Meaning as you write more blog posts, the Google Gods start to push your content higher and higher in the search rankings assuming the content is high quality.
To me blogging makes perfect sense from a passive income standpoint because once you write the article, you barely have to keep up with it. Like with anything, a bit of work will be required to maintain the blog posts you’ve already published. Another pro tip is to start cross promoting your already published posts to publications like medium.com.
You will have a better chance of getting exposure to your writing if you start endorsing your content on other platforms. From there, post them on Pinterest, X, and Facebook. The other platforms like instagram, tiktok and youtube work well when they’re video focused.
You can also create a blog post then make a video from that blog post like I did here.
Being a blogger definitely has its rewards. One thing I’ve noticed is it takes a while to really get some traction with a blog. If you do what some of my friends do and target very specific keywords like a destination or version of a tractor, your chance of growth goes up exponentially. Simply because that is an exact term that people are looking for so if you can create a site around John Deere tractors, you’re much more likely to rank quickly.
Being a youtuber is great simply because you can grow very quickly through a couple videos.
It’s weird that most of the videos you don’t plan on doing well often do the best. For example, a short video I did on taking ice baths has the highest amount of views on my channel. I put the least amount of effort into it. Check that out here.
What is important is your thumbnail and premise of the video with potential payoff.
People need to click on your video in order for you to grow. Better thumbnails often yield better results.
From there, the video concept needs to be deep enough where the emotion people get when watching is one of fear, nervousness, curiosity, excitement, education, humor, or any other relevant emotion. Bonus points if you can hit 2 or more emotions in the same video.
Become a youtuber
People who start a Youtube channel are able to capitalize on a scalable content business.
Making videos on youtube allows you to make money online on content that excites you.
While there are plenty of youtubers out there creating content for the wrong reasons (they are just trying to make money without providing value to the community)
There are a lot of really helpful content creators that provide really valuable content to their viewers. Some of my personal favorite youtubers are Graham Stephen, Caleb Hammer, Ramit Sethi, Tim Ferriss, The Diary of a CEO, Gary Vaynerchuk, and Alex Hormozi
The content they put out is highly valuable and it gets your brain thinking in ways that you likely wouldn’t have thought otherwise.
My philosophy when it comes to creating content on Youtube is to be authentic in your videos. My youtube channel was built to be a raw documentation on our path to financial freedom.
While there are plenty of people who make money online on Youtube, the grind to get there is often a long and stressful one.
One thing I’ve found helpful is to be more focused on the process. If you’re creating videos about things you enjoy and would make for free, that takes the pressure off of you needing to make money online with Youtube.
That way, when the money does start coming in on Youtube, you’re generating revenue on content that you genuinely enjoy.
Making money on Youtube is a slow and tedious process but once you have built a big enough following, you can begin to funnel your audience to other funnels that excite you. If you have a product you’re launching or an email list you’re building. If you’re serious about building out a Youtube channel and want to stay on top of your analytics, I recommend checking out Tubebuddy. For my accounts that I’ve installed Tubebuddy, I’ve been very impressed with my growth.
If being on camera is not your thing, you can also be a faceless youtuber as well.
Becoming a faceless youtuber consists of providing narrations, animations, gaming montages, sports highlights, or any videos that do not require you to be on screen. There are plenty of ways to set up a faceless Youtube channel from scratch but a great way to get started with minimal time investment is to outsource the process to a freelancer.
I went on Fiverr to hire my team of faceless Youtube content creators and those videos are some of the highest performing videos on my channel.
There’s plenty of ways to make money online with Youtube, I hope this gives you that little nudge to get started. Youtube is a great platform to start making money from but what’s most important is that you love the content and the work that goes into each video. It’s great to make money online from Youtube but it’s better to be proud of the content that you make.
Earn credit card rewards/travel points
This is more of a backdoor approach as you’re not increasing your income using credit cards but you are able to earn bonuses based on purchases you’ve already made.
I’m a big fan of credit card purchases assuming you pay off the balances IN FULL every month. If you have a handle on your spending, they’re a great way to get additional bonuses on your expenses.
For example, through my vending machine business, I used the Chase Business Unlimited card to get 1.5% points on all purchases made from my business. Since I buy thousands of dollars of product every month, I’m able to get free flights in a short period of time. Since starting to use credit card reward points specifically through the chase ecosystem and converting them into Chase Sapphire Preferred points, you get 1.25X what you spent.
Therefore, if you spend $1,000 in a month using either the Chase Freedom Unlimited or Chase Freedom Flex for personal expenses and the Chase Business Unlimited for business expenses and transfer them to the Chase Sapphire Preferred card, you now get 1.875X the value of your points. Essentially it’s free money.
Before you start spending Thousands of dollars on things you don’t need, it’s extremely important to note that credit cards are deadly if used in the wrong way. Please don’t buy things you don’t need just to get points.
If you start buying things to get points, that’s a losing game. Please only buy things you WOULD HAVE purchased anyway and the points are just a bonus.
Also, when purchasing items on credit, it’s very easy to get sucked in to the trap of overspending simply because you can “pay for it later.”
On average, people spend much more than they should when they use credit cards than when they use debit cards. That’s why credit card companies offer these “benefits” because they make billions off of people paying interest so they can afford giving some money back to people who spend without proper money management.
Only spend money on items if you already have the money in your account. The LAST thing you need is to go into credit card debt at 20% interest. Going into debt goes against one of my 13 Money Rules.
If you play the credit card game right and are responsible with your money, it’s a no brainer.
build and sell websites
A good option for making money online is focused around building and selling websites. This is definitely a more active income source but the margins can be quite lucrative. My preference for a hosting site is WPX Hosting. They’ve been the fastest web hosting platform as well as the best customer service.
They’re available 24/7 and respond within seconds of submitting a question. They’re my favorite platform to host a website. If you’re considering flipping websites, they would be my first recommendation.
Most people I’ve worked with who flip websites will make $5,000-$10,000 per site and sometimes up to $50,000+ depending on the complexity of it.
In many cases, building and selling a website is all about making is mobile friendly. Given that 80% or more of most audiences read articles on their phones, it’s worthwhile to make sure it’s easy to read on a mobile device.
There’s a few people I know who make a living off of building and selling websites. Just an idea, but you could outsource the design to a Fiverr Freelancer and work on the business not in the business.
Create an infoproduct
Personally, I really like Gumroad because it allows me to distribute to an audience without having built one. You can create digital products or services and list it online for recurring purchases. It’s a great option for those that want a recurring revenue stream without needing to do much maintenance once your products are live.
One of the nice things about Gumroad is you can embed your products on your website and sell things without readers needing to leave the site.
Infoproducts are great because once you set it up and publish it, there’s no need for any more active involvement on your end. The better your product and the bigger problem that it solves for, the more sales you can make. It’s a beautiful recurring revenue stream that can provide a nice passive stream of income.
Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is a great option for many reasons. While when you’re first getting started the income will be small. However, there are plenty of people out there who earn $500,000 and beyond PER YEAR. The crazy part is, for the most part, once you have a really good referral (preferably one with recurring payouts) you will get paid consistently every single month without fail.
Think of affiliate marketing as a way to get paid based on your referrals. If there’s a product or service that you recommend to someone and they buy through your link or special code, you will be compensated for that referral.
Affiliate marketing is cheaper marketing than most companies paid advertisements they’re setting up through google ads or facebook ads. Therefore, if you can help them provide a cheaper alternative to spread the word and make a sale, they will be happy to pay you well for it.
There’s a few ways to approach affiliate marketing. If you build a social media following around one specific product or service, that’s a great option. Or if you end up starting a broad social media account, podcast, blog, or youtube channel, a part of your description could include the link.
Affiliate marketing gets really fun because the bigger your following gets, the more income you will end up making.
A standard conversion rate for purchases is 1% of people who view your channel. Meaning, (in theory) if 100 people view your youtube video, you should expect 1% of them to convert. That said, I definitely haven’t seen that happen on my channel. It’s more like .01%.
The nice thing is with writing a blog, a large percentage of people convert higher through the written word as opposed to video or audio.
Meaning people are often more likely to purchase your affiliate products that are recommended through text.
It’s more of content quality problem as the higher quality content you put out, the more frequent you will see conversions come through.
Some of my best blog posts are based on comparisons between products or posts with the headline “best (XYZ keyword you want people to search for) of whatever year it is” that way when people go on google to search that specific product or service, you’ve likely ranked near the top.
Affiliate marketing has proven to be a great source of income if you can find a good product or service that can pay generous commissions.
When it comes to making money online, you need to view your income as a piece of pie with multiple slices. You shouldn’t put all of your focus on one income producing area simply because these passive income ideas can all intertwine together. You can mix affiliate marketing with your blog, with your Youtube channel making ad income, creating an ebook and posting it on Gumroad, creating a course through teachable, etc.
Some of my preferred affiliate platforms are Impact and Shareasale. Apart from those you can apply directly on the brands website (assuming they have an affiliate program). For example, you can type in “Coca-Cola Affiliate” into Google to see if they offer an affiliate program. Sometimes, the most lucrative affiliate programs are set up directly with the brands and not through a third party.
I need to point out that it’s in your best interest to choose affiliate offers that you have personally used so to messaging is more transparent. Readers can sense when you’re being genuine and when you’re just trying to make a quick buck.
Authenticity goes a long way and you’ll build deeper connections that way.
It’s also great to sell products that you like simply because if you would use the product anyway, why not recommend it to others and get a small kickback for the free marketing?
The ability to make money online has become exponentially higher simply because you can mix and match all of these passive income strategies to create a well rounded income pie.
Own rental properties
While this isn’t necessarily an online money making solution, you can technically purchase properties abroad from the comfort of your bed with just a computer. While it’s a tougher process to buy properties abroad since you’re unable to view them in person, there’s thousands of people all over the world who buy properties by using a quality real estate agent and property manager. There’s even a book covering the ability to purchase real estate properties abroad.
Rent out a room on Airbnb or Padsplit
This ties into buying properties abroad. Renting out a home or room on Airbnb can be done virtually as well. That said, you will need a very competent property manager who knows what does well with properties and has systems to deal with turnover. Furnishing the property is often a main obstacle when setting up an Airbnb so working with a property manager who has worked on multiple Airbnbs would be key here.
Alternatively, you can also opt for a startup called Padsplit where they specifically focus in on the rent by the room strategy in real estate. If you’re looking for an alternative to Airbnb, I’d give them a try.
Rent out space in or around your home
Rent out garage/shed space or generally unused space around your house. I like to use Neighbor for renting out unused space around my house. I’ve been renting out my garage shed to someone for 12 months and I’ve made $1,160.28 or just shy of $100/month.
I really like Neighbor because it’s space that I don’t even use anyway and I can make recurring, passive income from. All you need is space in or around your house!
I’ve seen people rent out closet space, parts of their garage, the whole garage, or rooms in their house that they don’t use. It’s likely the most hands off income stream you have because you’re not managing anything but providing the space.
Ways to make money online faster
While I wouldn’t advise to try to find ways to make money online as fast as possible, there are a few ways to help you make quick money. Ideally there are some options that you can control more of and can capitalize on but here’s a few ways to make some money online quicker than normal.
Become a Coach or Consultant
You can focus on your immediate skills and talents. You already possess a specific set of knowledge that will benefit the people around you. A lot of people will immediately create an income stream around areas that they know very well. For example, being a coach or consultant is a great way to make money online.
In my part time I’m a coach for football players looking to improve their technique and it’s quick and easy money since I already have those skills and it’s straightforward for me to teach it.
When you have a niche knowledge of a subject matter that gives you a unique advantage to succeed much faster than others.
Plus you very likely don’t need a massive following to get your first few customers because you could simply reach out to friends or family members who already know that you are an expert in that field. Alex Hormozi does a great job of helping me grasp the concept of getting new customers in his book $100M Leads.
If you want to expedite the path to making money online, you’ll need an audience. Having an audience is easiest with a following because you have a lot of leverage. The more leverage you have, the more power you have with less or equal effort you’ll need to make money online than someone with no followers.
crypto/Stock investing
While this might seem a little too far out of left field, I truly believe stock or crypto investing has great potential to grow money quickly if you can stomach a huge loss as well. If you’re comfortable losing your whole investment, put your money into stocks or crypto because then your expectations are in the right place.
None of this is financial advice but try investing into more stable and reliable cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, etc. They’ve been in the crypto world for some time so there’s a little more of a track record to fall back on. That being said, If you REALLY wanted to YOLO it (we’re bringing YOLO back), invest into altcoins.
Altcoins or alternative coins are the equivalent of penny stocks in the stock market. They’re essentially garbage with the potential to 10X or 1,000X your portfolio just as easily as they can go to $0 in no time.
Again, ONLY invest what you’re comfortable losing. Cryptocurrency can be an investment method you make with maybe 5% of your excess spending money that you can “experiment with” But I wouldn’t make it a core investing strategy as it’s so incredibly volatile and risky.
Please do not view crypto as a “lottery ticket.”
When you get desperate, you start making stupid decisions, trust me, I know.
I once almost spent $12,000 on a men’s only training camp for those who want to be better versions of themselves.
I almost throw up thinking about how close I was to just “burning money up especially when my family needed it.”
When you start to look at tangible ways to make money online, I really like something that anyone can do. While this isn’t 100% an online venture, it’s one of the best ways I’ve found to multiply your money with limited capital.
Flipping items online
Again, while not completely online focused, flipping is truly one of the most tangible ways to make money online.
It way the first thing I started to do when I was still in college. I came across a Gary Vaynerchuk video in 2017 called the 2017 flip challenge and it really got me interested in the concept of selling things both around your house, in retail stores, and online for a profit.
It really got the wheels turning for me and I started to dive deep into this concept. I started with junk around my house, eventually started flipping clothes at the thrift store, then moved to books, then electronics and continued scaling from there.
At one point, I was earning $10,000/month by selling wholesale on Amazon FBA and that was a game changer for me. I parlayed that money into a course about building a marketing agency (one of the stupidest decisions as I didn’t like building an agency but more of the thought of owning my time)
Flipping items online can be something simple like finding items around the house, when they sell, just ship them out to the buyers and keep growing that pile of cash.
OR, you can go completely virtual and start dropshipping. (I never had any success with it and the margins are too low for me personally) You can always try it out for yourself but unless you have thousands of dollar worth of ads, I wouldn’t recommend dropshipping.
My preferred option is to simply find a good deal online through discounted sites like slickdeals, buy those products in bulk and either sell them on Ebay or Amazon.
It’s a great method to turn a quick profit. For me personally, I loved finding vintage cameras and camera lenses and flipping those on Amazon FBA as they had reliable sales performance and the margins were around 30%.
Another way to make money online quickly (definitely unethical) is find an item that’s selling well on ebay or amazon. If possible, find a product that currently has a sale going on, price the product at or above that standard sale price on Amazon or Ebay and when sales come in, buy the product from who is offering the sale.
This was my least favorite method as the margins are razor thin often and the logistics are out of your control in terms of shipping. However, we’re laying out all the ways you can make money online so there you go!
As you grow your online flipping business you can explore wholesaling where you buy large quantities for products (usually 100+) for a 10-30% discount and sell them on Ebay or Amazon FBA. You would typically do this through a distributor. I preferred Amazon FBA since they packed and shipped the products for you. Your main job is to simply send everything into the warehouse and they’ll fulfill it for you.
Amazon FBA used to be my favorite method because you often had items with the highest prices on there. I would often get a book for $.75 and sell it for $400 on Amazon or get a $5 electronic keyboard and sell it for $100 online. The deals you find feel so good it’s like a drug.
As you get into the business longer, it’s tougher to scale especially if you’re trying to earn a living. Your best bet is to start buying items online exclusively as you can source deals faster.
One of the reasons I stopped selling items on Amazon is because they have no grace for errors. If you list a product directly from a brand you’re approved to sell and then in the process of selling it, that brand restricts third parties from selling their items, you’re SOL.
Even with 1-2 strikes to your account you can get suspended. To me it just seemed too risky as if you’re going to be buying $100,000+ worth of product and for your account to get restricted out of nowhere, it just didn’t make sense to me anymore the higher the stakes got.
When you start looking for the fastest ways to make money online, just be smart about what you ultimately decide because the last thing I want my Pistachio community doing is making all of their decisions based on emotion.
Whatever you ultimately venture into with your money, it’s important to keep a focus on the core root of what’s important, owning your time.
What you can do when you make money online
Finally, being able to increase your savings rate simply by being a work from home warrior is a supercharged way to wealth. The more of your money that you can KEEP, the faster your path to a financially abundant life will be.
Ever since i’ve been earning an income online, life has opened up so many doors. I genuinely believe the pros of making money online FAR outweigh the cons compared to being in the office. Therefore, if you’re still in an office or in person job and don’t like it, PLEASE do something about it, your future self will thank you.
Conclusion The world of online earning is as diverse as it is vast. Whether you’re looking to replace your full-time income, earn some extra cash on the side, or embark on a digital nomad adventure, the internet has something for everyone. By exploring these strategies and finding what works best for you, the dream of making money online can very well become your reality.
These topics are generally adaptable to a variety of blog niches and can be covered authentically as long as they align with your blog’s theme and your expertise. Remember, authenticity comes from genuine experience, knowledge, and interest in the topic.
What’s Stopping You?
One of the hardest things especially as you start to progress in your career and lifestyle is the comfort around you. It’s easy to get comfortable with your circumstances. Even if you’re not happy with where you are, you don’t have to accept your situation at face value. Why not start looking for ways around it? You’re not a tree, you’re capable of changing the environment you’re in. So start looking for the most important next step you need to take to progress.
One of my favorite quotes is if you want to win the game, change the rules. I love that so much because it implies the importance of trying to find ways to break past your status quo. It wasn’t until I started thinking bigger that I started to really make progress with my income.
I was working 2 full time jobs when I paid off my debt and It was by far the most rewarding feeling when that final payment was made.
You have to start asking questions like “How CAN I Do This” instead of “I Can’t.”
This might be cheesy but I truly believe the only people that are able to break out of their routine life is to shake things up and think bigger.
The moment I started changing the rules is when I started winning.
I wasn’t winning the game when I was following the rules so I did something about it.
I started working multiple jobs, renting out rooms in my house, driving Uber ETC.
Making money online is definitely the step in the right direction so if you’re not already able to earn an income online, I encourage you to start looking for opportunities today.
You never know how quickly your life will truly change until you take that next step.
Wrapping up, I’m going to end on my favorite saying, “If You Can’t Win The Game, Change The Rules.” If You Can’t Change The Rules, Ignore Them.”
Stay amazing, let me know your thoughts on this and what content you’s like to see next.
