Since the last year, the pandemic has forced us to change the way we work and live. There was a time when a typical 9 to 5 job was all we needed. Getting up in the morning, going to work, coming back in the evening, commuting in the traffic meant a day well spent. But not anymore.
Many people have lost their jobs and, those still with jobs are working more than ever before. In short, most are looking for a change. Everyone is looking for financial freedom. Some people say that things will improve and we will go back to the way things were. But the question is, do you want to go back to your old way of living?
Instead of going back to help companies fulfil their goals, why not take this opportunity to create something for yourselves. Financial freedom, the ability to do what you want, when you want and how you want. Spend more time with family and friends, be your boss and take a vacation whenever you want, without having to issue any justification to anyone.
Truth Be Told
If you are reading this article and expect me to share a magic formula to make money online, this article will disappoint you. Yes, this article is about making money online, but this article is also about making money through hard work, passion and dedication. So, if anyone else tells you otherwise, it is a lie.
The reality is far from the truth. To create passive online income and gain financial freedom, you have to work harder than you did during your day job. Every day will be a Monday when you begin working towards your financial freedom. You might have to burn the midnight oil, get dark circles, face a lot of rejection and failure.
I promise that if you are willing to work hard with dedication, you will succeed in making money online. Let us look at the various ways in which you can gain financial freedom.
Work as a Freelancer
One of the easiest ways to make money online is to become a freelancer. I’m sure you must be great at something. Find that out and use your skills to make money online. There are many platforms like Fiverr, Freelancer, Upwork, Guru. Register yourself, create a great profile and start engaging with potential clients. On some platforms like Fiverr, you cannot contact the client directly the first time, but they can. There are tons of freelance jobs. For example, you could work as a graphic designer, a video editor or a photographer, among many other things. It is easier to register and create a profile, but sometimes getting a project can be difficult. You need to be patient and keep trying.
Pros and Cons of Working as a Freelancer
Pros
One of the benefits of working as a freelancer is, you get a taste of flexible work hours. All you need is a laptop and an internet connection to get started. You don’t have to commute, so you save a lot of money. Plus, you can work from home wearing your favourite pyjamas.
Cons
You will not have a regular and steady income. You have to find your clients, do your marketing and reach out to your network for work. They’ll be no differentiation between personal space and your work life because you might end up working long hours into the night if you have a deadline.
You can charge anywhere between $5 to $5000 depending on the task and the skills required. Top freelancers make anywhere between $40,000 to $100,000 per year.
Blogging
Blogging has taken a fancy of a lot of people worldwide. If you are passionate about writing and have a specific topic on which you have the expertise, experience and interest, you can make money from blogging. There are two ways in which you can do it.
The first one is creating your blog with a dedicated domain name and a hosting platform, in short, a website. The other one is through joining popular blogging platforms like Medium, Blogger.com. You can also use LinkedIn to post your articles there. Each one has its advantage. For example, Medium is best for building an audience, whereas LinkedIn is much more suited to attract B2B leads or prospects.
Blogging platforms like Medium have a partnership program where you can tie up with them, write articles and get paid for the same. However, Medium does not offer partnerships in some countries, including India.
Self-Hosted Blogs
As for self-hosted blogs, there are different ways you can monetise your blog. For a sample, you can register with Google Ads to make ad revenue, share affiliate links for products and services in your blog post. Remember that you must qualify to get empanelled with Google. You need quality content and, your website should be technically sound.
Another way to make money through blogging is email marketing. But for this, you need a dedicated audience that already engages with your blog site. You can send a subscription-based email with high-quality content to these audiences. You can also create an e-book and place it within the relevant blog topic to generate sales.
The same goes for other digital products, for example, videos, guides, resources, among other things. You can charge companies for writing about their products and services and review their offer in your blog post.
It is easy to set up a blogging profile on external platforms. Generating revenue can take time as you need to build trust and authority with your content. Setting up a website is easier but maintaining the website costs money and a lot of effort.
You can make anywhere between $5 to $100 per month after a couple of months of hard work. Top bloggers make anywhere between $20,000 to $80,000 per month! You heard that right, I said, per month!
E-Learning
With the digitalisation of how we interact with each other, make transactions and engage with content, e-learning is the obvious choice to make money online. Again, there are two ways to make money by selling courses. The first one is to create your courses on platforms like Udemy, Coursera.
Pros
The benefit of working with these platforms is, they already have a built-in audience. They have a huge marketing budget and, they can promote your courses and give you the visibility you need at the beginning of your e-learning career.
Cons
The disadvantage of working with them is that they charge you a hefty commission for their efforts. You might end up sharing 50 to 60% of your revenue with them. Also, you might not have complete control over the pricing of your course.
The other way of making money via e-learning is conducting live workshops and sessions via platforms like Google Meet and Zoom. It helps you to cut out the intermediaries and, all the revenue belongs to you. However, the disadvantage is that you’re on your own. You build your audience from scratch. It could also mean that you might have to create ads on platforms like Google or Social media like Facebook and Instagram.
It is easy to set up your profile on these platforms, but the hard part is to create engaging valuable courses. You have to deal with the content, production and post-production. It may take 2–3 months before you release one quality course.
Earning Potential
As for earnings, you can expect to make anywhere between $15 -$50 per month for the first few months. As for workshops, the sky is the limit. You may charge $100 per participant for a 1-day or 2-day workshop.
YouTube
YouTube is growing exponentially every minute of the day. There are tons of videos out there, uploaded from all parts of the world on various topics. There are people already making a lot of money by creating engaging content on this platform.
You can start a YouTube channel, decide on your expertise and experience and create engaging content for your audience. YouTube is available to you for free.
Pros
All you require is the equipment to begin. You can use your phone to record a video and use a mic to record sound. You can upload your videos directly from your phone.
Another advantage of this platform is that once you upload your video and, if it does well, it can pay you dividends in the long run. In short, you might have created a video today in July 2021 and, you might still be making money in June 2022 when people are still watching your videos.
Cons
The disadvantage is that you need at least a thousand subscribers and 4000 hours of views within a year. Only then you can monetise your channel. Once you cross this hurdle, you can place google ads in your videos and generate revenue.
YouTube is a long-term game. Some YouTubers have seen overnight success. However, on average, it takes 150+ videos to start making a few cents. It requires a lot of hard work and dedication and, you need to be consistent with your content.
You can make anywhere between $1-$500 per month after working hard for a year or two. Do not get discouraged. The highest-paid YouTuber in 2020 was a 9-year old called Ryan Kaji. He made $29.5 million from his channel.
Social Media
There are so many influencers out there who are making a ton of money on Instagram and Facebook. Not to mention, LinkedIn is also another platform where you can generate leads and make money.
Once you decide on your niche, you can start posting content regularly and create a fan following on these platforms. Once you reach substantial followers on these platforms, companies will approach you and pay you for placing their products and services on your feed.
Pros
The advantage of social media is that there is flexibility in what you can charge from different companies. You can also enter into a sponsorship where you promote products and services. In return, you might get complimentary products to use if you are a smaller account.
Cons
The disadvantage of making money via social media is that it requires a lot of dedication and time. Plus, a marketing strategy for your social media to take off.
You can make anywhere between $100–1000 per post, depending on the number of your followers and your industry.
Surveys
Another monetisation option is Surveys. There are companies out there who will pay you to get your opinion or feedback about their products and services. These market surveys offer you remuneration in return.
There are some platforms where you can fill up surveys regularly and start generating income. Examples of such platforms are Swagbucks, Opinion Outpost, among others. It is easy to register on these platforms and get started.
Pros and Cons
Advantages are that you have to fill the surveys that do not take a lot of time. The disadvantage is that many platforms scam people in the name of surveys. They may get your sensitive information like bank account details, or they might not pay you at all.
You can make anywhere between $100–200 per month to fill a reasonable number of survey forms. I do not recommend surveys as a revenue-generating option.
Bug Bounty Programs
Another lucrative way to make money online is something known as Bug Bounty programs. Last month, we saw in the news that a self-taught cybersecurity analyst from India made around $30,000 by identifying a Microsoft security bug called RCE.
It may not be a very lucrative and practical option for many people. But, if you are interested and passionate about cybersecurity, you can teach yourself and look for bugs on these big platforms and win handsome amounts as rewards.
Pros and Cons
It is not easy to get into this line of work, especially if you are not from the relevant background. The advantage is that you can make a large sum of money in one shot. The disadvantage is that it is not a steady source of income.
Buying and selling products and services
Well, this is a practical and feasible option for a lot of people. You can sell products on platforms like Amazon or Shopify. Once you click with the right audience, you can make a lot of money from e-commerce. Shopify gives you a 14-day free trial and, after that, you need to choose from three options that cost anywhere between $29 and $299 per month. Alternatively, you can register for the Amazon seller program.
The advantage is that you can sell your products across the world. The disadvantage is that you may have to spend a lot of time, in the beginning, setting things up. Also, there is higher competition in this field.
Photography
If you are a passionate photographer, you can make money by submitting your best photos to stock photography sites like Shutterstock. With every sale they make, you get a commission ranging anywhere between 15 to 40% across different levels.
It is easy to start if you already have a good quality camera. The disadvantage is that the camera itself can cost a lot of money. Also, you might not have a higher steady income.
Build an App
Many quality freelancers can help you to build an app. You can provide value to your audience for free and make it available on the Google Play Store. I know this might sound like going backwards, but creating a valuable app and providing it for free gives you more exposure and brings more audience to your platform. In return, you may charge for placing ads on your app.
It may take some months to create a value proposition and the app. It may not give you a steady monthly income or, it may be your knight in armour.
Business Automation
Small and medium-sized businesses that primarily have a presence online can run all the operations through automation. It saves a lot of time and ensures that you focus on strategy and growing a business rather than day to day activities. Once you have a set audience who buy your products, automation helps you to free your time.
You do not have to hire a lot of people. Some automation platforms like HubSpot can help you achieve your goal.
Podcast
Many podcasts are cropping up in every subject. The kind of growth we saw in blogging years ago is something that we see in the podcast industry today. You can start a podcast in a specific niche and build an audience around it.
By constantly providing value and entertainment to your audience, you will get sponsors for your podcast. The trick is that you need an active base of listeners each month.
You can start with Spotify or Anchor, Google or Apple Podcasts. Creating a podcast channel is easy. Gaining an audience takes time as it is not like social media with the backing of an algorithm. You can earn between $10 to a few hundred dollars per month once you have a qualified base audience.
Conclusion
To conclude, even though there are many ways to make money online, there is no shortcut to success. First, focus on creating value consistently. Let the revenue take care of itself.
Pritesh is now on a mission to educate and guide young sales & marketing professionals to become leaders of tomorrow. Apart from corporate training and e-learning, he also runs a digital marketing company.
