Discover how to make a little extra money on your free time using the Internet.
Today’s post aims to guide you on how to generate extra income on the Internet. Of course, it also aims to debunk some myths about making money online quickly and without much effort.
Surely at some point you have seen ads for you to sign up to this or that page to earn hundreds of dollars in a few minutes. Of course, this advertising is accompanied by testimonials of success, of people who went from being bankrupt to earn thousands of dollars monthly and the best thing is that it promises you that you only work a few hours a day.
Today we will see that this type of advertising is misleading, but do not get discouraged because there are ways to earn extra income using the Internet.
The myth of quick and fast money
If you want to make money on the Internet the first thing you should know is that you need time and effort. Believing in miracle websites or applications that promise you hundreds of dollars from one day to the next will only waste your time. A lot of this advertising directs you to survey sites, where you can literally earn just a couple of dollars a year, as they pay a few tenths of a cent per survey, which can take 20 to 30 minutes of your time to fill out.
Of course, there are better ways to spend your time with better results. Here are a few good options:
1. Micro task
The development of artificial intelligence needs a previous work of data processing by humans. Thanks to this, today there are several companies that are dedicated to hire people remotely to complete this data processing, through different micro tasks. The tasks you have to do on these sites are very simple, you don’t need any previous or very specialized knowledge, because regularly you only have to transcribe short audios, identify objects in an image or in a 3D sequence, fill in or transcribe data.
Can you make a living from this alone? The truth is that no, because they pay a few cents per completed task, but you can earn a few dollars a month on these sites if you dedicate a few hours a week. If you are interested you can register in some of these sites: Remote Task, Atexto, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Appen.
2. Create a blog
Blogs are still very popular among Internet users, so having one with a fluid and constant traffic can give you earnings per month and the investment of money is almost minimal, however, to generate income you have to spend time to create quality content. You can write about whatever you are passionate about, but if you want to monetize fast, health and fitness blogs always work.
You have to be patient and consistent because a blog can take months or even years to generate income.
3. Online Courses
An excellent way to generate extra income on the Internet is by offering online courses. Every day it is easier and easier for people to decide to take a course, of a few sessions, to learn something.
Today, due to confinement, many people around the world are determined to invest their time and money in learning new things, from gardening to digital marketing. In fact, there are some studies that claim that in the last two decades online learning has grown by 900%. Offering an online course guarantees you an extra influx of money, which can be very important. Just choose a topic that you like and that you know moderately well to create your course.
You must consider that the work involved is not easy and the investment of time and money is very high, because in addition to making the layout of the contents and teaching materials for the course, you also have to advertise it, so the benefits of this option may take time to arrive.
It can help you to upload your course on platforms specialized in online education and webinars such as Hotmar, Udemy or Domestika, because it is easier to reach customers through it, but you should know that the platform takes a part of your profits and decides on the price of the course to the end user, so do not be surprised if your course is promoted as free.
The best thing you can do is that if you already have a website, you can create an e-learning platform on it, this way you have full control of the prices of your course.
4. Work as a freelancer
If you have some time to spare you can work as a freelancer. Identify your skills and strengths and offer yourself as a worker in things you know how to do. You can sign up on sites like Workana, Fiverr or Freelancer to access hundreds of employers around the world.
This can be a pretty reasonable income; some people even make a living at it. However, getting to this level of income takes quite a bit of time, patience and dedication. This is an excellent way to earn extra money if you already have your own business or a stable job.
5. Create an e-commerce
If you plan to dedicate yourself completely to Internet sales, an e-commerce can be an excellent way to earn extra money. If you don’t have a physical product that you can sell, you can negotiate with a digital product such as e-books, audio books, music, manuals or guides, among other things.
If you are concerned about copyright you should know that books and public domain works can be used without paying royalties to anyone, it is a good idea to make the audiobook of classic works and then sell it on your website.
6. Dropshipping
If you are skilled and you like sales but you don’t have the time or money to start your own business you can engage in dropshipping. Dropshipping consists of becoming an intermediary between a wholesaler and the final consumer. That is, customers request and pay you for the products and you make the purchase with the wholesaler who is in charge of delivering them directly.
This business model has strong advantages over others, because you do not need a very large initial investment, because you do not need to buy any merchandise, you do not have to invest in storage infrastructure such as warehouses or spend on delivery, you only have to invest to create the sales channel, such as an online store or a marketplace.
Although few, there are also disadvantages in this type of business, the first one is that building the sales channels is not done overnight, so you have to invest a lot of time before you start making money. In addition, you have little profit margin and little interference in the quality control of the products. Because of the ease of doing business, you will face more and more competition every day.
7. Affiliate Marketing
This type of marketing is about promoting the products of others. Thus, you will receive a commission for each product sold thanks to your recommendation. There are countless products that seek this type of advertising, from technological gadgets to mattresses, makeup, household items and health care.
If you are interested in earning money this way you have to sign up for an affiliate marketing program, where you will be provided with a link that you have to use in your social networks or website, and every time someone buys a product through that link you will be paid a commission.
8. Sell or rent domains
This method to earn extra money online does not require a lot of knowledge, you just have to know how to register a domain and pay for it. It is not necessary that you use it, because the idea is that you create a domain about a trend or fashion and then the brand that needs to use it will pay you a rent or buy it from you.
There are many other ways to make money online, but you must have specialized technical knowledge, for example cryptocurrency mining, where you have to participate in the process of solving an encryption puzzle to “mine” some cryptocurrencies, this in addition to technical knowledge requires a powerful and specialized computer.
You can also invest in the stock market, but if you want to make money with this you have to know how they are working day by day; it also requires a lot of time to research and special skills. In general, both methods are very profitable but it is not something you can start doing overnight.
In conclusion, on the Internet you can find incredible opportunities to earn extra money, but they usually require time, work and perseverance, sometimes you will even need to invest some money.
I hope this guide is useful to you, and you can generate some extra income. Tell us, do you know any other way to make money online? Let us know!