Want to Start Earning Money Online? Here Are 13 Ways You Can Get Started

Everybody knows at this point that a standard salary isn’t enough to thrive anymore. 

You, like most employees, are getting paid less and less — yet expenses keep on rising at an alarming rate.

You can call it unfair, or blame it on inflation.  However you put it, you better damn well acknowledge it — or you’ll fall farther behind every year.

If you’re a 9-5’er, and you’re sick of scraping by, you might want to launch a digital side-hustle to boost your income.

If you’re working full-time as it is, or want an ultra-convenient way to make some cash, you only need to look as far as your nearest screen.

Yes, you can make a living on your phone or computer.

It’s not as easy, nor as glamorous as social media influencers make it seem, but it’s possible.  Thousands upon thousands of people of all ages, races, and genders are doing it.

You don’t need to be a computer savvy genius.  You don’t need to be a traditional genius either. 

You just need some focus, a plan, tons of dedication, and more patience than most people realize.

There are more ways to make money online that I can mention in one article, but here are the 13 most promising way you can make money online — full or part time.

1. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a great choice because you’re focused on nothing more than relationship building and selling.  If those are two things you’re good at, this may be a fine choice for you.

All affiliate marketing really is is building an audience that likes you and trusts you.  Then, you take another company’s product, digital or physical, and offer it to your trusting audience.  If they like it, they buy it and you get a commission.

2.  Virtual Assistant

If all of this building and selling isn’t something you’re looking to do, fear not:  There are other options.

If your zone of genius sits comfortably in execution, and you’re a self-starter, you can become a virtual assistant.

Your tasks would be remarkably similar to a personal assistant, but geared towards the online stuff.  For example, if an Internet Exec needs someone to post all the social media content they’re creating, and they don’t want to hire a full-time employee, a virtual assistant would be the first place they look for help.

As long as you can execute the tasks you’re given, there is plenty of income ready for you.

3.  Consulting

If you’re more comfortable sitting in the realm of business strategy, you could consider becoming a consultant.

You’ll be getting paid to sit above the problems of the day-to-day world of business and help companies see the forest through the trees.

Bonus points if you can train their staff to do something new or better than they’re doing it now.

4.  Coaching

If you’re more comfortable sitting in the realm of personal strategy, you could consider becoming a coach.

From athletes to students to executives, people need coaches.  Someone that can give them actionable, honest advice to help propel them forward faster than they can do on their own.

You don’t have to be an expert to be a coach either — you just have to know how to fine tune someone into their best version.

(For example, Tiger Woods has multiple coaches for his golf game.  Even when he was on the winning streak of the century… Do you think the coaches were better players than Tiger?)

5.  Digital Products

If physical products seem like too much of a hassle for you, have no fear:  Digital products are here to keep you earning with a fraction of the overhead.

A digital product is, at its core, proprietary information in a nice package.  If you know how to do something that other people find difficult, and you can easily explain how to do it, you may have the makings of a digital product on your hands.

“If you already have a problem in mind that you can help your ideal customers and clients solve, in 48 hours or less, you could have your course recorded and ready to sell.” – Kimra Luna, Founder of Freedom Hackers (Over 5000 digital courses sold!)

6. Drop Shipping

Drop shipping is when you sell something online that you never physically touch.  You have a storefront, you sell things, and those orders get sent out into the ether.  Then, magically, the product gets into the hands of the paying customer.

That’s because drop shippers take the orders and forward them to a larger store with a not so good online presence, or even through the manufacturer.

“I’ve been fortunate enough to experience a steady income from drop shipping while completely removing myself from the day to day tasks. If you want to make money while also freeing your time up to create other income streams, or simply to enjoy having the ability to work from wherever and whenever, a drop shipping business couldn’t be a greater option.” Alex Tenorio, Founder of Dropship Masterminds.

7. Fulfilled By Amazon (FBA)

Another proven way to make money online is through the Amazon monster known as FBA, or Fulfilled By Amazon.

With FBA, you can have an entire storefront live and searchable on Amazon.  They’ll warehouse everything, and ship it with Amazon Prime, making it a no-brainer purchasing decision for the customer.

This allows your physical products to be sold in the everything store and opens up the potential for some serious profits.

“Amazon FBA is such an amazing way to make money online because it’s not only a powerful and proven business model, but you’re utilizing an online marketplace that has over 310 million active customers” – Derrick Struggle, Founder of FBA Heroes.

8. eCommerce

We covered a large segment of eCommerce with FBA and drop shipping, but there’s more to it. 

You can sell anything online, even stuff you create yourself.  Platforms like Etsy and Shopify make it remarkably easy to do so by removing all of the technical wizardry from the process.

All you have to do is create, sell, and ship.  If you’re good at running operations like this, and have something that people want to buy, traditional eCommerce may be for you.

9.  Copywriting

Many business owners know how to write, so they naturally think that the skills they picked up in grade school can help persuade customers to buy their products without speaking to anyone.

Also, many business owners are wrong.

Copywriting is a skill that not many know how to do, and out of those that know how to do it, not many know how to do it well.

If you can write copy that sells, you have a skill that can earn you a solid income from anywhere in the world.

“Do you have the chops to be a writer?  I type 45 words per minute with my thumbs.  And I publish something somewhere every single day.  Not for fun.  For money.”  – Colin Theriot, Founder of The Cult Of Copy

10.  Funnel Building

Every single business that operates online needs a marketing or sales funnel.  There are absolutely no exceptions to this rule.  If you know how to build one, you can help the masses that are struggling online because they don’t have a funnel.

11.  Marketing Agency

Businesses need traffic to survive online.  That traffic can come from organic means, like Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and social media, or it can come from paid sources like Public Relations (PR), Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Social Media Marketing (SMM.)

Whatever means a business utilizes to generate traffic is irrelevant.  What matters is that they do, in fact, need traffic to survive — and most businesses don’t have access to an expert.

12.  Startups / Remote Employee

Startups, by their nature, are a risky venture.  One of the ways that founders are protecting their bottom line is by cutting out the expenses of a traditional office.  That means that there are startups out there that are looking for remote employees to work a regular job on their own terms.

“With today’s ease of communication, we got rid of our base office and became a fully virtual company. Possibly the first location-free consumer electronics company in existence —and it’s made all the difference” – Maneesh Sethi, Founder at Pavlok.

13.  Apps

When you think about apps, you probably think of massively funded Silicon Valley startups. 

That’s not always the case.  In fact, the majority of apps in circulation today are from smaller companies — like individual side-hustlers.

They’re not all making millions and millions of dollars, but many of them are making five and six figures a year.  The best part about apps is once you know how to build one app, you can build more — leading to more online revenue.

This list above may seem exhaustive, but it’s not even close.  It’s meant to give you a taste as to what’s available out there.

Yes, you can start a side hustle online.  With a little sacrifice and dedication now, you can build an income stream that can put money in your bank.  It can be some “bonus” money that you use to travel the world, or the savings you need to quit your day job and become a full-time member of the laptop lifestyle.

It doesn’t matter how crazy your job is now; you can still do it.