More and more people are looking for ways to make money online so they can either leave the 9-5 office job or just find something that fulfills them. Honestly, years ago we were in search of both. But now with technology moving at rapid speeds, more and more companies are either moving online or launching online. So there are plenty of opportunities to work online today, but where to start? In this post, we’ll go over some of the many ways you can make money online legitimately.
Realistic Ways to Make Money Online
In today’s world, you can make money online by something as easy as selling your items around the house, or maybe you want to design and make items to sell online. You may also discover that you have a talent or skill that you can provide as a service to other people or businesses online. Another way you can make money online is by working for another company, either remotely online or even for an online company.
But how do you go about finding these jobs or getting started on your own business? We are going to break that all down for you here in the following sections.
Leverage the App Economy
While this isn’t what most people think of when they think of working online, there are some great opportunities to work with established companies and still make money with a flexible schedule. There are new apps coming to the market daily, and many of them give people a chance to earn money with them, either in a non-formal way or even as a type of contractor or employee. So you may not even see your manager or boss! This way of making money is becoming more and more popular.
- Uber & Lyft – Driving for Uber and Lyft is a great way to make money. Yes, it is not necessarily online, but it is through the use of technology. You aren’t seeing your bosses or going to an office every day. You have flexibility with your schedule to work when and how you want, which is something that a lot of people are really looking for.
- Postmates – You can deliver goods from local merchants to customers. No schedules, no offices, just you and the open road. You can drive, bike, scoot, or walk all depending on your situation.
- iBotta – You can earn real cashback every time you shop online or in-store. Simply check Ibotta before you shop in-store or online, travel, dine out, or make a purchase in your favorite apps, and you can get rewarded with cashback.
- Task Rabbit – Do you consider yourself as handy? There are numerous people needing help with daily errands and tasks that they might find hard to complete. This might be a great app for you to make money online.
- Inbox Dollars – Earn cash at home by taking online surveys. Yes, you can get paid and earn money online by utilizing this app and take surveys. Many of these are sketchy, but there are a few legitimate ones. You won’t become a millionaire or anything, but a little extra cash on the side is nice.
Sell Stuff Online
Another great way to make money online is by selling your own stuff that you don’t need anymore or even making things that you can sell online! Another popular option (where some people have made great money) is finding in-demand items at thrift stores and then reselling them online for a profit. Yes, there is a big market of people reselling items on the internet! There are several different platforms to help sell your personal items or items you may pick up and resell.
- Etsy – Are you a crafty person by nature? Etsy is a great tool to help sell your homemade items from the comforts of your home.
- Poshmark – Similar to Etsy, but made for selling more higher-end items in a local market.
- letgo – This is an app where you can sell items more locally.
- OfferUp – Very similar app to Letgo. You can sell all types of items to your local market. You can also mail items to the customer too.
- eBay – This is the biggest personal selling platform on the web.
- Shutterstock/iStockPhoto – Are you a photographer trying to make a little extra money online? Upload some of your photos to these sites to offer them to others for a price.
- Threadless – Do you find yourself to be crafty? Create your own t-shirt designs and sell them online.
- Zazzle – Similar to Etsy, you can sell your items on this platform from the comforts of your home.
- Fulfillment Amazon – Do you have a lot of something that you want to sell? Think about sending them to an Amazon warehouse and have them send out to your customers. Typically, you would need to be turning through a good amount of inventory to make working with Amazon worth it. A good example is mass producing products, possibly overseas, then shipping it to the Amazon warehouse and then having them handle the distribution (while you handle the selling). You could then post the product on Amazon’s massive website for sale.
- Drop-Shipment Amazon – Dropshipping is a bit similar, only that you aren’t necessarily the one manufacturing the product and you don’t really even own it. In a way, you are the middle-person between the manufacturer and the customer; and then Amazon fulfills orders to customers on your behalf.
Great Online Jobs You Can Do
There are actually some great jobs that you can do from the comforts of your home (or wherever you want to be!). A lot of companies nowadays are moving to hire more remote staff. Many of these positions are full-time W-2 jobs, but a lot of them are contract 1099 positions. So you might even be able to find a job working remotely in your field of expertise, such as project management, accounting or even marketing. Other companies are looking for one-off freelance projects that they need help completing.
One benefit of obtaining an independent contractor job with a company is that you may be free to offer that same service to another company too. This is a great way to increase your income, depending on how much you want to work. Many of these types of freelancers will turn this into a business, and create a website to help them find new clients. Here are some popular jobs you can do in this way:
- Consulting or Coaching – Online coaching and consulting allow people to meet with experts virtually online. Instead of having a meeting in person with a coach/consultant in person. This allows consumers to be able to gain knowledge or help.
- Copywriter – A copywriter is a person who writes copy for a variety of materials, including advertisements, websites, sales pages, brochures, emails, etc. for small to big companies.
- Freelance Proofreader – A proofreader ensures content is free of typographical, grammatical, spelling, punctuation, syntax, formatting and other such errors.
- Email Marketing – Have you gotten an email because you opted into something? Someone needs to write, create, send, and manage all those series of emails. This is a big part of digital marketing strategies for many companies. Lots of online work opportunities can be found for good and experienced email marketers.
- Translator – Are you fluent in several languages? There is a big need for businesses doing business in several different countries that need to have documents translated.
- Tutor – Become a tutor for students online.
- Transcriber – Are you a fast typer? There are gigs that need audio transcribed. So typing out what you hear. These can be personal notes, business meetings, etc.
- Audiobook Narrator – Narrating audiobooks is a growing market. How about you be the voice of that book.
- Internet Researcher – The internet is big and researching it can be a great gig for someone looking to make money online.
Places to Sell Your Services Online
Once you have a skill that you feel is marketable and can possibly get some freelance work for, then you will need a platform to promote your skill. While many people will create their own website to market themselves, there are also a number of platforms and communities where you can get discovered by potential clients. On these sites, you can create a profile or an ad to help promote your freelance work, and then be connected with work opportunities. Here are some popular platforms to promote your services and find your next project or gig.
- Upwork – Is a great platform to find work or find someone for work that you need to be done. You can get a rating of your work and the higher the rating, the more chances of getting more gigs and/or projects.
- Fiverr – Looking to offer quick one-off projects to people? Fiverr is the perfect platform to get quick turnover projects.
- Craigslist – This is another platform to find quick work or projects. This is good for quick labor work projects.
Become an Online English Teacher
Teaching English online is a big industry that continues to grow, and especially during social distancing. You can earn money while in the comfort of your home. Recently stay-at-home moms or dads took to this fast. You can usually make your own hours and there are a lot of great companies like VIP Kid that will give you all the resources to help you get started. Teaching English online is a great resource to make money online.
Sell as an Affiliate
Did you know that you make money by helping sell or promote other people’s products? Affiliate marketing is just that. There are many companies who offer affiliate programs where just sharing a link online (or posting it on a website or social media) can earn you money if anyone clicks on it and buys it. A great example of this is our own PoP Digital Media Academy courses! By sharing an affiliate link and having one of your friends or someone you know purchase the course…then you make 20%. This is called affiliate sales.
Affiliate sales are basically when someone will pay you to help sell something they offer, usually courses or products, by giving you a certain percentage of that product. So if you have a big social network or an established presence online, then this is one way of making some pretty great money online. In fact, there are a number of people who are able to make full-time income off of affiliate sales.
Start a Blog
Another great way to drive your affiliate sales is by creating a blog. Are you passionate about something or do you feel you can share some of your knowledge with the world? Creating a blog can be a fun venture to go down.
We started out Peanuts or Pretzels Travel Blog over 10 years ago. We started it off a hobby, but then once we learned you can make money from a blog, we took it more seriously and started looking at our blog as a business. This business leads us around the world working with top travel brands like Sheraton and Garmin. We are able to make money by having a place to host and work with various affiliates, as well as advertising and so much more.
We can talk for ages about what goes into making a blog and how to make money from it, and we are currently making an entire course dedicated to teaching others how to make blogging into a business.
Turn Your Passion into $$$
Whatever type of online work you decide to do, it’s important that you enjoy it. Starting your own company or working online with other companies is a great way to combine your passions and personal interests, with a flexible schedule and ability to earn money on your own terms.