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When it comes to make money online, the first though that comes to most people are fancy cars and castle-like houses—and you know that those are just fake dreams which are often portrayed by ‘gurus’ who are trying to sell you some MLM or get-rich-quick schemes.
I started the whole make money online back in 2004. That’s around 15 years ago if you read this in 2019. Back then, there wasn’t any high speed Internet access, super high competition in the make money niche, SEO, freelancing and social media platforms like Facebook! As a matter of fact, back then, most people didn’t believe in the possibility of making money online. As a matter of fact, most Internet Marketing gurus sold DVD’s and cassettes instead of online courses like what we have right now.
What you are going to learn today is simple. I’m going to teach you exactly how I make money online and how you can replicate the same strategy for your own success.
You will not find a single “buy now courses” in this make money online guide. At the very most, you might just encounter a few affiliate links which if you ended up purchasing the tools I’d recommended, I will get a small commission which helps me to sustain this blog.
This ultimate make money online guide is created for one purpose and one purpose only; which is to help you get started with the right mindset and strategies to help you make some money online. If you are serious in building passive income through the Internet, this is the guide for you.
The Problem About Making Money Online
As of 31st October 2019, there are 6,440,000,000 results on Google related to “make money online.”
While the ample choices is kinda of a good thing, there lies a huge problem: There are too many naysayers who claim to be gurus in make money online niche. Probably 1-2% of the entire population is making tons of money from the Internet.
But it makes sense. Make money online is one of the most popular niches for bloggers.
I don’t call myself a make money online guru but more like an accidental hero who was able to use the Internet for greater use (and within the journey, able to make money online).
I can’t stress this enough.
There are too many scams in the online space and man, they can really sell.
- It is easy to make money online
- Buy this course and start making money today
- Learn how to make $10,000 in the next 30 days
When the offer is too good to be true, that could just be it.
Sure, there are also a small group of humans which often fall for these traps and if you are one, don’t worry—I am legit, baby!
Make money online is just like any other businesses in the real world. There are big and small problems every day. There is no quick fixes to solve these problems and instead, there are strategies that you can take to make these problems go away.
Stir Away From Fake Make Money Guides
One of the most obvious reasons to avoid becoming a victim is to understand that the entire process of earning money is not an easy task.
There are guides on YouTube and Google claiming that you can make money online and faster—just to realize that those are entirely scam.
There are also books and eBooks that claimed to have open the Pandora box in making money online.
I’ll let you judge them yourself.
The truth is this. If you don’t stir away from these fake make money guides, you are going to lose more money than you can make online.
The process of making money online is a process—one which has many ups and downs. More importantly, this is a business venture that you need to seriously consider it as a business model.
Why?
Because when you are dead serious in making money online, you will start making money online. Trust me.
A Story That (I Hope) Resonates With You
It was year 2004 and “make money online” isn’t the thing yet.
The thought of making money from the Internet is still very new (and strange for many).
There weren’t many social media platforms at that time. Twitter started in 2006, mind you. But we certainly had ICQ and MIRC (wut?!).
Okay, you got the point.
In Malaysia, I only had dial-up modem and the speed was just 128 kb/s.
Pathetic, I know.
I started my first blog on Blogspot because I love sharing my thoughts. Okay, I admit that I was a lonely young man then.
Spinning up and publishing posts were easy those days because SEO just doesn’t exist. Little did I know, I made my first dollar online.
Now, hear me out. As a kid who came from a broken family (like from filthy rich to super poor) and earning my first dollar, that’s a feeling I simply can’t describe.
I know this (making money from the Internet) was it. I just didn’t know when it will be a hype.
I didn’t care much and went ahead with more strategies—freelancing, virtual assistance and all those works I can find on the Internet. While I got scammed a couple of times (even took up writing projects on Barbie Dolls at $1 per piece), I made enough to survive. More importantly, I learn a lot from my mistakes while pursuing money on the Internet.
Fast forward to 2019, here are some of my lucky achievements (pardon me for my shameless pug):
- Youngest TEDx speaker in the country
- Invited to multiple local and international speaking events
- Awarded the Best Blogger by Triberr
- Helped small, medium and large sized businesses internationally with digital marketing
- Owner of several high traffic blog, generating close to 500,000 traffic monthly
- Build passive income streams and making over $5,000 each month
But here’s the thing. Apart from all my successes, I wouldn’t be successful without the trust in God and making silly mistakes over the years.
My mistakes in the process of making money online made me even more successful.
If you are reading this and had a sheer number of failures in life, don’t give up. One or several failures in life is not going to judge your future.
What you are going to do … is the one that will define your future success.
And with that being said, what are the methods to make money online?
Let’s dive deep into the topic.
What Are The Best Ways To Make Money Online?
The topic of making money online is huge and by far, this industry has the most strategies that one can use to generate income.
As this guide is being updated on a monthly basis, more proven methods and strategies will be included in this post. Therefore, I recommend you to either sign up for my newsletter to stay updated or bookmark this page for future references.
Here are the top 15 ways to make money online (with some level of effort):
- Blogging
- Freelancing
- Visual assistant
- Proofreader
- Professional writer
- Copywriter
- Researcher
- Marketer
- Coach
- YouTuber
- Micro influencer
- Captcha solver
- Affiliate marketing
- Ghost writer
- Pet sitting
The process of making money online involves a lot of passion and persistent. If you don’t have any of these, you will not be able to make a lot of money using the Internet.
It is undeniable that there are many ways you can make money online today. The below are the best ways to make money online … these are the strategies and frameworks I personally use to make a decent income from the Internet.
a) How to make money online with blogging?
How much can I make money with blogging?
Over $5,000 per month
100%
How much effort needed to start a successful blog?
Extremely easy
100%
How easy to make money online with blogging?
Super easy
85%
How much start up fee required to start a blog?
Under $10 per month
95%
For me, blogging is the one that allows me to make the most money (and fast).
You heard about blogging and you heard how easy it is to start a blog. But, how do you make money with a blog?
In order to make money online with blogging, there are very specific steps you need to take in order to make money online. It is also important to understand that 75% of the work in blogging doesn’t really relate to blogging at all.
Anyone can start a blog, but only a handful who start a blog will make money. Blogging is just like any other businesses. You need to take it seriously to ensure that blogging is done right … to start earning money online using a blog.
Most bloggers have the impression that starting a blog is easy—but it is not. On average, only 5% or less bloggers make over $1,000 a month from blogging.
I recommend you to take these 4 important steps before you start a blog.
- Purpose. At times, I call this “passion”. Knowing what your purpose is important to be important in blogging. You need to know who are your potential blog readers and how your blog content is going to change their life.
- Informative. Your blog has to be informative enough to attract readers to keep reading. Instead of creating just sub-par content, focus in creating quality content and this is often doable only when you are extremely passionate in the topic.
- Outreach. You won’t be making much (or any) money if you are just starting a blog. Using strategic partnership and outreach, you can tap on the other people’s fan base and network through contests and guest postings. This helps to put your brand in the eyes of others.
- Monetization. Once everything is setup and running, you need to focus on making money online. Take serious thoughts on banner placement, type of advertisers you want to engage and the product you want to promote to maximize the opportunity to make money online.
Here’s an infographic to help put everything in perspective.
Before launching a blog, you need to understand the basic mechanism in blogging which includes choosing:
- A blogging niche
- A domain name
- A web hosting company
- The right keywords
- The type of target audience
- The right WordPress theme
The more specific you are in each of these topics, the higher the chance you are in the ability to make money online.
Here are some resources to help you get started with blogging.
b) How to make money online with freelancing?
How much can I earn with freelancing?
Over $3,000 per month
90%
How easy to become a freelancer?
Extremely easy
100%
How easy to make money online?
Rather easy
65%
How much start up fee required?
Between $0 to $100 per month
100%
This make money online guide is not complete without mentioning freelancing. In my early days, freelancing is the only strategy I use to build passive income from the Internet. In recent years, freelancing isn’t the easiest job (when it comes to make money online)—but it is certainly one of the easiest to start.
If you have a day job, you don’t have to worry about leaving your boring day job and losing stable monthly financial income.
As the demand for freelancers are increasing by the day, there are many freelancing platforms that are available for you to participate. More importantly, many of these freelancing platforms offer guides and strategies to help new freelancers to make money online.
For example, Freelancers.com and UpWork.com offer comprehensive freelancing tutorial to help you get started on the right foot.
As a coach myself, many of my students come to me and say “does freelancing really works?”
I lost count how many times I answer this question and the answer is “yes!”
Take a look at this video (courtesy of UpWork) to understand why.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLzDZ9N9l7Q
Freelancers are more than just support crews. Here are some of the advantages using freelancers nowadays:
- Reduce head count and overhead costs
- Avoid hiring specialists for short term projects
- Avoid overpaying and increase in payroll
- Work with freelancers either hourly or per project basis
- A large pool of freelancers to choose from
There’s a little problem.
It is easy to become a freelancer but it is really hard to win projects. With the number of freelancers in the market today, it is really (like really, really, really, really) tough to win a bid.
Often times, you are often competing with freelancers who are offering dirt cheap price and this is certainly not healthy.
So, how do you earn money online with freelancing?
Be different from the rest and this is exactly how you do it.
Watch this video to discover the simple tricks I use to make money online with freelancing.
https://youtu.be/qTBwECnUlDw
Apart from the crazy competition and ever changing freelancing environment, freelancing is an excellent strategy to make money online.
I recommend you to follow these steps to start freelancing the right way.
- Skills. before the start of anything, I recommend you to focus on defining the skills you want to promote in freelancing. It can be article writing, database administrator or graphic designing. There are high demand for freelancers in almost all industries. Choosing what you love best is the best option.
- Platform. The next step is to choose a few freelancing platforms to work with. I recommend going with UpWork.com and Freelancer.com but you are free to choose whichever you are comfortable with. It is important to understand that you stand a higher chance of getting more jobs when you sign up for more platforms.
- Profile. This is a crucial step. Getting your profile setup right is important for success. I recommend you to take the approach as a employer who is looking for freelancers. When you think like an employer, you are able to guess what they are looking for—and have these exact points in your resume.
- Professionalism. Being professional is the most important thing in a freelancer journey to success. Employers love freelancers who are professional, polite and courteous. This is single-handedly the best strategy to constantly get works from clients repeatedly.
Want to learn more about starting a freelance business? Let’s get started with this infographic.
If you want to make some money with the Internet, freelancing is an excellent option. This job opportunity allows you to earn at least $10 a day from the Internet with little effort.
Are you serious in making money online with freelancing? Here are some guides to help you get started.
c) How to make money online with writing?
How much can I earn with writing
Over $2,000 per month
80%
How easy to become a writer?
Moderately easy
75%
How easy to make money online?
Rather easy
65%
How much start up fee required?
Between $0 to $100 per month
100%
Writing is one of the easiest, entry level job to make money online. It is also the lest complicated to start with.
Here’s what you need to know about making money online with writing.
Low paying writers are often those who lack experiences, and they can easily be seen offering writing works under $10 per hour.
On the other hand, high paying writers are those who have years of experience and could offer a wide range of specific writing such as SEO writing, eBook writing and press releases. They can easily range from $20 to $200 per hour.
Calling all freelance writers
Do you know how much freelance writers make per hour?
Read More
My first big break in the making money online is through writing. Back then, it was roughly a decade ago. I signed up on a freelancing platform and worked with a few employers who provided me with full time writing geeks.
Make no mistake.
As I was young and lack of experience, I was only offering writing articles at $1 per piece … and I was churning out hundreds of articles each week. While it wasn’t the glamour-est work ever, the pay was stable and satisfaction from the earnings were okay.
But I was not happy with it. I know a few writers who make 10x or 20x more than I do—and I desperately wanted to be like them.
I decided to step up in the writing game and start focusing heavily on becoming the best freelance writer in Asia.
Fast forward 10+ years, I was awarded by Freelancer.com as one of the most promising and talented freelancer in Asia. They even gave me a small column on their blog to showcase my works.
Want to make money using the Internet with writing? These are the exact steps I took and I recommend you to follow them for your success.
Do you know how I constantly get high paying writing projects?
After every project is completed, don’t be afraid to ask for more project. If you had delivered an awesome writing job, the employers would have no problem in hiring you for their next projects.
Here are some additional resources to help you become a highly paid writer.
d) How to make money online with email marketing?
How much can I earn with email marketing?
Over $5,000 per month
100%
How easy to become an email marketer?
Easy
50%
How easy to make money online with email marketing?
Easy
45%
How much start up fee required to start an email list?
Between $0 to $100 per month
100%
“The money is in the list.”
This sentence is often uttered by popular bloggers and online marketers around the world.
But, how do I (actually) make money online with email marketing?
For starters, I get it. You subscribed to an email marketing service and you started to get email subscribers. After 1 month, your list is growing nicely but you are still not making money.
The problem?
You don’t have a strategic goal and idea in email marketing.
In order to make money from email marketing, you need to have a strong vision in ways to monetize the email list. And when this is done correctly, you will start seeing an increased in your overall earnings.
There are several ways you can make money with email marketing and all of these involves email automation.
Email automation is a automated service that sends the right emails at the right time and to the right receiver. Since the emails are super targeted in nature, you will have a higher chance of conversion for every email delivered.
So, how do you make money online with email marketing?
Wait, the above infographic looks just like other email marketing guide.
Need something more comprehensive? Glad you ask.
Follow these steps to get started.
- Reliable email service provider. I can’t stress the importance of this enough. My email was shot down quite a few times by MailChimp and I decided to move over to AWeber. By far, this is the best email service provider that fits my need. There are others such as ConvertKit and Drip that you may try too. If you want to try AWeber, click here to try it for 30 days free (no credit card required).
- Create interest-specific email list. My first mistake in email marketing was creating a general list. You should create interest specific lists to help you do the email targeting much easier at a later time. If you use AWeber, you can also use the advanced targeting feature by implementing tags to each action taken by the email receiver. I use “interest-[keyword]” to further segment my email list.
- Build automation. Email automation is where you make money online using email marketing. Create automated email based on new sign ups, weekly and monthly. Each of these emails must be super specific and focused in solving your subscriber’s biggest challenges.
- Split test for the win. Lastly, some email hosting providers allow you to do split test on emails. At times, changing the email title, font type, delivery time and type of emails will increase the conversion rate dramatically. Again, some email hosting charges additional for this. If you are using AWeber, you can use split testing feature with no additional costs.
Here are some additional resources to help you get started with email marketing on the right foot.
e) How to make money online with domain flipping?
How much can I earn with domain flipping
Over $1,500 per month
70%
How easy to become a good domain flipper?
Hard
35%
How easy to make money online with domain flipping?
Hard
40%
How much start up fee required to start domain flipping?
Between $5 to $1,000
40%
If you have followed me on my blog, you know I seldom talk about domain flipping. Domain flipping is by far the most profitable make money online trick I had under my sleeves for years.
Carry on reading this one because I’m going to show you exactly how I make money with domain flipping.
Domain flipping is the process of purchasing a domain name with the intent of quickly selling it at a significantly higher cost. This is similar to house flipping, where a home is purchased and fixed up in order to sell for a quick profit.
How much money can you make with domain flipping?
The answer to this depends on the quality of the website or domain. I break them into three parts.
- Low end domain. Buying this domain is cheap and often expired domain with low interest/competition. Not much work needed to build this domain branding.
- Mid end domain. Domains like these are often moderately popular. There are some demand and competition level. Buying domain names within this category could also be more expensive than the previous level which increases the overall cost.
- High end domain. These domains are like gold mines. Everyone are searching for these and they can fetch a very high price in the domain market place. While you can make a lot of money online selling high end domains, the efforts required are also the highest of all.
If you want to make money online with domain flipping, here’s what you need to know.
Domain flipping is one of the best ways to make a lot of money online. But, the effort required is also on par with the income you earn.
Domain flipping requires strong analytical skills and some guts in between. Here’s how you can start a domain flipping business today.
Domain flipping is by far the most tedious method to earn money in this make money online guide.
However, domain flipping could easily fetch the highest earnings in passive income if you are patience. Most domains that are sold through domain flipping are often high in quality (the demand for powerful domain is always available).
The skill needed for successful domain flipping is not easy to master. It takes a lot of training and experiences to get them right. If you are serious in wanting to make money using the Internet, domain flipping is an excellent choice to start with.
Here are the tools you need to start a domain flipping business.
Web hosting company. BlueHost, hands down. With shared web hosting that starts at $2.99 per month, this is the best deal for domain flippers. All plans comes with free domain name registration (thus saving you some money). Get BlueHost promotion now.
Domain name registrar. NameCheap is my recommended domain registrar if you are not using BlueHost. By far, NameCheap offers the cheapest domain name registration. Register domain name here.
Free expired domain checker. Valuable domains are often expired domains and the best free way to find for expired domains is through ExpiredDomains.net. This platform allows you to find for expired domains and filter them based on your needs. Overall, the stats are generally inaccurate (just use the domain name checker which is okay). If you are looking for a super reliable domain checker, you should consider using GoDaddy instead.
Backlink checker. Finding an expired domain is the easy part. Finding for an expired domain with good stats is tough. I use SEMrush to search for relevant keywords and to perform basic backlink analysis on the domain before buying it. I also use SEMrush to find for competitors—lesser competition niche with powerful domains allows the domain to rank faster and sell at a higher rate.
WordPress theme. A beautiful website design is going to fetch a higher selling price compared to an ugly website. When it comes to making money online through domain flipping, I recommend you to use WordPress as the CMS and Divi as the theme. Divi allows you to import ready-made demos in just a few clicks without coding skills. Best of all, you can install Divi in unlimited number of websites and you can even include Divi into the sale to further boost the overall selling price. Get Divi today (or try the demo here).
Platforms to auction domains. There are many platforms and sites where you can sell domains to make money online. Through my personal experience, I use Flippa.com because it offers Escrow payment as well as other security features to avoid scammers.
Social media tool. I use Hootsuite to schedule posts on social media. Instead of manually doing the posting for each social media platform, Hootsuite allows me to schedule all posts in advanced. You can create a free account on Hootsuite and try the paid version for 30 days for free.
f) How to make money online with affiliate marketing?
How much can I earn with affiliate marketing?
Over $5,000 per month
100%
How easy to become a good affiliate marketer?
Moderately easy
60%
How easy to make money online with affiliate marketing?
Moderately easy
60%
How much start up fee required to start affiliate marketing?
Under $10 per month
85%
You heard about others making money with affiliate marketing. So, how does affiliate marketing works?
Before I share with you all the juicy tips on affiliate marketing, let me tell you this. You can only make money with affiliate marketing if you are passionate on a specific topic.
I started many affiliate marketing blogs with various niches. I realized that I’m able to get high level of conversion (and affiliate earnings) only with topics that I’m truly passionate about.
As an affiliate marketer, I am always trying to crack the code. Every time I make more money online than the previous month, I’ll analyze what I did right (and wrong).
My constant searching often ends up with similar conclusion. I make more money online with affiliate marketing on topics I have deep passion on.
Why?
For topics that I am super interested on, I tend to produce higher quality content which resonates with the audience. As a result, I am able to connect with the readers at a higher level than most of my competitors. Of course, this follows with a higher conversion rate.
I’m thankful to be able to build stable passive income stream from affiliate marketing. Here’s how much I have been making from one of the affiliate companies I’m currently working with.
At no point I would want to boost on this.
However, I took over 10 years to learn affiliate marketing and improving it every day in and day out.
If you want to learn about affiliate marketing, you are at the right spot. Carry on reading to learn more about how to make money online with affiliate marketing.
The process of making money online with affiliate marketing is not the easiest but certainly one of the most profitable one in the market.
Make money online with affiliate marketing requires a lot of passion to share the knowledge—and by doing so, you will be able to build a strong following, trust and of course, the opportunity to make money online.
Want to get started with affiliate marketing? Here are some additional resources you should read now:
Wrapping Up The Make Money Online Guide
Before I wrap this up, I want to express my thank you for reading this article!
I hope you find this free make money online guide extremely useful and I look forward to wish you the best success in making money from the Internet. If you need any help, you can reach out to me here.
If you are 100% serious in making money online, I recommend you to sign up for my 7-days affiliate marketing course. I’ll show you the exact steps I took that allow me to go from $0 to over $10,000 a month from home. [thrive_2step id=’22693′]You can get the entire course here (free for a limited time).[/thrive_2step]