6 Real Ways To Make Money Online

My skin crawls when I think of how I used to sit in rush hour traffic for 90+ minutes a day so that I could sit in a cubicle all day.

Thanks to the internet, gone are the days that we're required to live in a particular location and work confined to an office.

Since 2008, my wife and I have been making money online as we've traveled to over 100 countries around the world. We've stayed in everything from hostels to 5-star resorts, all while creating income streams from our laptops.

The internet gives us the unlimited ability to make money from anywhere in the world, just as long as we have a reliable internet connection.

I've launched products while sitting on a beach in Thailand. My wife has taken stock trades while sitting at the base of the Swiss Alps. I've closed real estate deals over the computer while drinking coffee in Colombia.

A simple search for “make money online” will bring up dozens of get-rich-quick gimmicks and scams.

In this post, I'm going to show you several legitimate ways to generate consistent income from working online.

We're not going to cover every possible way to make money online, only those that I believe are sustainable over the long-run.

Let's dive in…

Provide a Service Online

The fastest and easiest way to make money online quickly is to provide a service. This route typically doesn't require you to invest in any special tools, websites, skills, or marketing.

Providing a service online is probably the best way for someone starting out to get their feet wet while learning about other income streams. You probably won't strike it rich exchanging time and effort for money, but this can be a great starting point to launch you into passive or multiple streams of income.

Freelance Blog and Article Writing

One of the easiest ways to get a regular paycheck is to write blog posts and articles for bloggers and authority sites. All it takes is a computer, a word processor like Microsoft Word, and the ability to write on a particular topic.

You can earn anywhere in between $10 – $200 per article depending on the article length, topic, and level of difficulty.

There are two main ways to start making money freelance writing:

1. Submit articles to high-traffic websites
2. Find pay-per-article jobs on online staffing platforms

High-traffic websites, or authority sites, are always looking for top-quality articles to post on their sites. And they'll pay a pretty penny for them! It may take some time to get your first article approved by an authority site, but once you have a relationship with them, it can be a profitable relationship for you.

Here's a list of top-quality websites that are constantly looking for new articles:

• InternationalLiving.com – This expat travel site is looking for writers with personal travel experiences. They pay a flat fee of $75 per accepted article.
• ThePennyHoarder.com – This personal finance site pays for articles based on how many page views your article receives. They pay in between $100 to $800, but only if your article hits at least 50,000 page views.
• IncomeDiary.com – If you like to write about business, then you could earn money writing about internet marketing.
• Back2College.com – Academic geeks can earn $55 per article writing about financial aid.
• DailyTradingProfits.com – My trading education company is always looking for experienced traders and investors to write high-quality content around trading the financial markets. We pay $30-$70 per accepted article.

If you're brand new to writing articles online, then you might have a better chance of getting your articles accepted if you apply to work with individuals through online staffing platforms. You can submit examples of your work, bid for how much you want to make per article, and talk to dozens of people looking for writers.

Here's a list of the most popular online freelance staffing websites:

• Elance.com – One of the most popular staffing sites, Elance has thousands of writers and employers posting jobs.
• Upwork.com – I've personally hired dozens of people from Upwork (formerly Odesk.com), from programmers, designers, writers, and virtual assistants. This site has a healthy mix of an international crowd.

In addition to article writing, there's a broad range of services you can provide on a freelance basis to entrepreneurs, large companies, and solopreneurs. Here are some examples:

Virtual Assistant – Are you a secretary or work in a business administration role? If you hate going into a physical office every day, then becoming a virtual assistant might be for you. “VA's” do everything from data entry, project management, web research, and transcription services.

Web Developer – Do you like to build websites, create iPhone apps, or design marketing material? If you have specialized skills in any of those areas, then you have an excellent chance of earning a full-time income by working on an hourly or per-job basis.

Customer Service – Even if you don't have technical skills, you can still find a gig working in customer service. I've worked with wonderful ladies who love providing customer service from home. We pay salaries or hourly, plus bonuses.

Phone Sales – I've found some of my best salespeople through virtual staffing sites. Instead of working at a used car lot, why not work remotely for an online company?

Teaching and Coaching Online

According to Forbes, the e-learning industry has reached an estimated $107 Billion in 2015. If you have specialized knowledge and the desire to teach, then you could make money sharing your knowledge with others.

My education companies make six to seven figures a year each, no matter if I'm working full-time on a product launch or traveling the world for a year.

The beautiful thing about teaching and coaching online is that you can leverage your time to scale up to much bigger revenue than teaching one-on-one in person.

Here are some of the top ways to make money teaching online:

Online Courses and Membership Sites

From Photoshop classes to real estate training to day trading, online courses are hot! If you have a framework for knowledge, then you can create a passive income stream by putting that knowledge into an online course.

Here are some popular platforms you can use to launch your online course or membership site:

• Udemy.com – If you don't want to create a website or handle customer support, then you could host your class on a site like Udemy. All you have to do is create your course, and they handle everything else.
• ZippyCourses.com – Created by Derek Halpern of SocialTriggers.com, this site aims to give you total control over your course without the headaches of having to build a custom site and members area.
• Customerhub.com – This hosted membership site solution was bought by Infusionsoft several years ago. I've used them for some of my membership sites since 2010. It's an excellent solution if you want something simple that works well with the Infusionsoft CRM.

Group Mentoring

My team loves leveraging our time so we can have the biggest impact with minimal effort… And mentoring students in a group setting is the perfect way to achieve that goal.

I actively hold different group mentoring programs for traders, real estate investors, and entrepreneurs. The community aspect creates an exceptional learning environment for students and allows me to reach more people than I could fit in a physical classroom.

For example, I've trained over 4,000 Bitcoin trading students in the past year. I wouldn't be able to handle anywhere close to that many students if I tried to do one-on-one mentoring.

The best way to hold a group mentoring session is through a webinar platform. I've used most of the webinar services available today. Here's a list of my favorite platforms:

• Google Hangouts – (Free) I typically use Google Hangouts for interviews or small group conversations. It's free and user-friendly, so set up shouldn't take much time.
• Omnovia – ($199 – $999/month) This top-tier platform is perfect for large group coaching sessions with screen sharing, webcam, chat room, interactive polls, and many more features. You can also run pre-recorded webinars that feel live. Although it's expensive, it's one of the best platforms available today.
• GoToWebinar – ($89 – $299) This is one of the leading, reasonably priced webinar platforms on the market, and for a good reason. It's simple, has all the functionality most people would need.

Start A Blog

A blog is like a full-time sales person working around-the-clock to provide value and make offers to your readers. It's a way to provide value to a community of people interested in the same topic.

I set up my first blog in 2007 with no prior experience. Since then, I've published over 15 blogs. Some have been successes; others have been total flops. I've had well over 100,000 people subscribe to receive blog updates.

If you have the drive to produce regular content, then you could monetize your blog in a few different ways:

• Ad networks – If you have significant traffic, then you can earn regular income from posting ads on your website. These could be banners or text ads that link to companies promoting products in your niche. Some examples of ad networks are Google Adsense, DoubleClick Ad Exchange, or  Adsterra.
• Affiliate marketing – Don't want to create a product? No problem. There are thousands of products you can promote on your website and earn commissions. My sites make six-figures a year for me just through the affiliate links from blog posts. An easy way to get started with affiliate marketing is with Amazon.com Associates Program. You can also partner with other bloggers to promote their products.

Write Books & Ebooks

With the rise of self-publishing, we don't have to have the blessing of a major publisher to write a book. Writing a book today is as simple as deciding you want to write a book, writing your content, and uploading a file to Amazon Direct Publishing or any other self-publishing book company.

You can sell your book, give it away for free, or use it as a lead magnet for premium products. It always helps to build a tribe of blog readers or followers on social media before launching your book.

For example, my popular book, “Bitcoin: How To Trade It For Serious Profit” sold out of the first three shipments of books before we could even get the order to the printer. This was possible because I built a tribe of profitable Bitcoin traders over the prior two years that helped fuel the fire of book sales.

Create A YouTube Channel

YouTube was one of the fastest growing internet companies of the early 2000's. It was established in 2005 by three former PayPal employees, then promptly bought by Google for $1.65 Billion in 2006.

What started off as a site for people to upload cat videos has quickly turned into a massive content machine and the second largest search engine in the world with more than 3 billion searches a month.

On March 20th, 2009 I started my first YouTube channel. Since then, it's grown to over 28,000 active subscribers. My channel, ChrisDunnTV, has helped to create many income streams, business opportunities, and incredible human connections.

There are several direct and indirect ways to monetize your YouTube channel. Here are a few of the top options:

1. YouTube partner ads – Have you seen those 5-30 second ads on the front of some YouTube videos? Well, the owner of that YouTube channel can get paid anywhere from $1 – $5 per 1,000 videos of that video. The top YouTube earner, PewDiePie, earned $12 million last year.
2. Sponsorships & merchandizing – If you create videos for an audience hungry for specific products, then you could get sponsored to mention their products in your videos. For example, some girls on YouTube do videos about “how to do makeup”, and end up generating revenue recommending specific products.
3. Promote your own products & services – I've produced educational videos series' around hot topics like Bitcoin. These videos have gotten hundreds of thousands of videos, which has resulted in thousands of book sales by only linking to my book sales page in the videos.

I would strongly recommend starting a YouTube channel for anyone that feels like they have something to share with the world.

Final Thoughts About Making Money Online

It can be overwhelming when you first look at all the possible ways to make money online. There's a constant stream of information, pitches, commercials, and opinions at every click of your mouse.

So where do you start?

Well, it all boils down to taking one bite at a time.

You see, if you try to do too much at one time, you'll end up getting overwhelmed and frustrated. Pick a single revenue stream and run with it until you are ready to move on to the next.

Eventually, the goal could be to build multiple sources of income; both earned and passive. After all, the average millionaire has seven income streams.

For more ideas on new and time-tested pathways to making more money online, subscribe to the Pathways To Wealth Show on iTunes and YouTube. You'll learn from some of the world's most successful entrepreneurs, investors, and innovators.

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