11 Ways to Make Money Online as a Beginner

Millennials are growing interested in jobs that can be done online. The truth is, this is hardly surprising to anyone. The internet has shaped most of our lives, and it’s only natural that it should shape our careers as well.

Plus, making money online is an undeniable advantage that traditional office jobs don’t offer – mobility. Therefore, the idea that you can earn money regardless of where you are — provided that you have an internet connection – is appealing to many of us.

1. Blogging

You can tackle creating a blog with WordPress even if you’re not a techie. When I had to build my first website, I didn’t know where to start, but I read a lot of website-building tutorials and took it one step at a time. I’ll be honest, my first website was quite a mess, but my second and third websites were quite good.

Besides a blogging platform for your blog, you’ll also need: Web hosting (choose a simple shared hosting plan to start with, then expand if your site grows); The domain name (which you can get for free with your hosting plan from BlueHost); Lots of engaging content; Lots of traffic (which you can get with online marketing and search engine optimization).

Earning money from blogging doesn’t happen overnight; your site needs a lot of traffic before you can start making money. Still, if you manage to build a high-traffic blog, you can monetize it by running Google Ads on it, selling advertising banners, doing affiliate marketing, etc.

2. Join Fiverr

Fiverr is one of the world’s most popular marketplaces for freelancers who want to make money online. You can join Fiverr regardless of the skills you have, as Fiverr has plenty of job categories you can choose from. From writing and translation to video and animation, you’ll find pretty much everything.

After you join this platform and create a profile, you can start accepting jobs and get paid for your work. Clients will review your work, and the better the reviews, the higher your chances of getting hired by prospective clients.

Therefore, make sure only to accept jobs you’re confident you can complete until the deadline. If you don’t do a good job and you disappoint your customers, you will get bad reviews, which will lower your chances of getting hired by future clients.

3. Write Articles for Other Websites

Why not become a copywriter for other websites if you’re a talented writer? Find blogs and online magazines in your fields of interest that seek collaborators and writers. You can even join Fiverr and offer copywriting services to interested clients. If you’ve never written articles that were featured somewhere, get ready to write a sample article that will help your prospective clients decide if you’re suitable for the job.

4. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing works well for blogs and websites, but even for specific social media channels like Instagram or YouTube. The idea behind affiliate marketing is to drive sales for a company and get paid a commission after the sales are generated through your blog or website.

Amazon’s affiliate program is the most popular, but there are many other affiliate programs you can join depending on your niche. You could drive sales for cosmetics, gaming, web hosting, clothing, or any other company or brand relevant to your niche.

The key to successfully making money from affiliate marketing is having a high-traffic website or a large follower base. Most marketing-related online projects are only successful if you reach enough people. And how can you get people? Provide value to your readers and work on search engine optimization.

5. Teach Online

If you have skills you can pass on to others, you can teach classes online by joining networks like Skillshare, where you can create a series of videos, upload them and earn money when people enroll in your courses. If you don’t want to join a teaching network, you can advertise your tutoring services on your blog or create a YouTube channel where you upload tutorials or classes for various skill levels.

I learned French by subscribing to a YouTube channel, Learn French with Vincent, which has over 650,000 subscribers and over 230,000 videos. If you’re wondering how you can make money from publishing videos on YouTube, read our next idea on how to make money online:

6. Create YouTube Videos

Besides affiliate marketing, you can make money on YouTube by creating a channel, amassing subscribers, and serving ads on your videos. Just like blogging, getting subscribers and views on YouTube takes a while, but if your videos are interesting or go viral, chances are you will do well earning money with YouTube. Topics popular on YouTube include funny videos of pets, tutorials, reviews, and channels about technology, IT, and video games.

Tech videos are so popular that the channel Linus Tech Tips has 6,660,657 subscribers with “only” 4,257 videos (compared to the French teaching channel, it’s not a lot at all).  Therefore, if you create videos in a popular niche, you may get more subscribers and views, even with fewer videos.

7. Sell Your Designs

Do you have a real knack for coming up with great designs? Why not try to make money with them? Sites like Cafepress, Lulu Press, or Zazzle are print-to-order services that sell people your designs printed on cups, t-shirts, bags, etc., and pay you a royalty after each sale. If this sounds like something you’d like to try, create a profile on one of these sites. Alternatively, you could do design work on Fiverr or other platforms like Freelancer.

8. Make Money on Freelancer

Freelancer is a marketplace that’s very similar to Fiverr, but instead of clients approaching you, there’s a bidding system where you have to make your bid for a specific job. Only when your bid gets accepted can you start making money. There are various other job boards that you can join, like Upwork, or you can find online gigs even on Craigslist.

9. Become a Social Media Manager

Businesses worldwide hire social media managers that keep the company’s social media channels updated. As a social media manager, you must regularly make posts, reply to people’s requests on social media channels, and run marketing campaigns on these platforms. Suppose you’re passionate about social media, on every channel, and know every nook and cranny of each. In that case, you can apply for a social media manager position that you can do remotely.

10. Do Reviews

I read reviews about everything – before I go to see a movie or book a hotel or restaurant before buying any digital or physical product. And I know that I’m not alone in doing so. People research the products they buy, and they rely heavily on the opinions of others. Reviews are an essential factor in any purchase decision.

It doesn’t matter which medium of expression you use to do reviews; video and blog reviews can be monetized through affiliate marketing or sponsorship deals.

11. Become a Virtual Assistant

A virtual assistant is much like a regular assistant and carries out the same tasks: schedules appointments, plans trips, answers phones, sends gifts and does other administrative tasks (creates reports, presentations, etc.).

A virtual assistant does the same task as a regular assistant, only that they work remotely. The average salary of a virtual assistant in the US is $16.38 per hour. You can apply for these jobs on boards like Fiverr, Craigslist, etc. All you need is a phone, access to the internet and some administrative skills.

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