How to make money online: 10 Ways that work in 2019

So you want to make money online.

You have probably already found a lot of bloggers that explain how to do it. And probably most of them are not earning a dollar (flee from whoever tells you to fill out surveys or click on ads to generate income).

Not to mention those who only earn money selling courses where they teach how to earn money. Paradoxical, right?

It is not my style. I’ve been living on the Internet for years, generating thousands of dollars and learning the ins and outs of online business.

First of all, you should know that making money online is not easy or fast. It never has been, regardless of what you read or want to sell.

I had to put in a lot of effort and sacrifice a lot of my free time. I have spent sleepless nights, I have invested hundreds of hours in learning and I have given up my vacations while trying to earn my first dollars.

But it was worth it.

The great advantage is that it is no longer necessary to have technical knowledge. Before you should know how to program to create a website, but today there are so intuitive systems that even a child would know how to do it.

So the opportunity is now.

In this article, I am going to reveal the 10 best ways to earn money on the Internet because of its economic potential, simplicity, and ability to generate income in a stable manner. And since I want to be totally transparent with you, I will also show you my own results.

I remind you that here you will not find high-risk systems or ridiculous income like filling in online surveys or playing poker. If you want to make real money, you’re going to have to work it out.

Let’s see how the best ways to make money online because of its economic potential, simplicity, and reliability.

1. Earn money with affiliate marketing

This is the system with which I earned my first dollars, and in my opinion, it is one of the most affordable ways for any beginner who wants to generate passive income.

Barely requires knowledge, the investment is almost zero and its income potential is very high. Also, once assembled you can practically forget about it: only minimum maintenance will be necessary.

Affiliate marketing is about creating a website where you will post analysis and product recommendations. In those analyzes, you will link to other websites where they sell the product. If you end up buying, the seller will give you a commission for having referred a customer.

Logically, you must first have reached an agreement with those web pages. Luckily, today there are affiliate platforms (the best known is Amazon Affiliates ) where you only have to register to be part of that agreement.

Let’s say you love photography. You could create a web page where you would publish analyzes of different cameras or lenses with a link to the product page on Amazon for readers interested in buying.

Your website would appear in search engines like Google when people searched for analysis or comparisons of those cameras. They would enter your article, they would click on the affiliate link and, in case they ended up buying, Amazon would give you a percentage.

Do you see where the grace is? You create a web page, publish articles and, once you have visitors, it becomes an automatic system that you should not be attending constantly.

The income potential of this system depends on the market you have chosen (the more that category of products is sold online and the more expensive they are, the better), but also the time you spend.

Basically, these are the tasks you should do:

1. Create a website. You can do it in 15 minutes with this tutorial.
2. Write analyzes, comparisons, and recommendations. You will invest most of your time here. You can pay someone to do it, but I recommend that at the beginning you write to acquire knowledge and practice.
3. Position your website in the search engines. Although in the markets with less competition your website can be positioned practically alone, sometimes you will need to present your website in other places on the Internet to be more visible.

Okay, but how much money are we talking about?

I like that you ask me this question. So you can see what this system is capable of, this is what two of my affiliate websites generated during the month of July 2018.

This is the most veteran website (I’m very fond of it), in a technology niche:

 

And this is barely 11 months old, but already around 3,000 dollars per month:

 

If I add the rest of the websites, the figure exceeds 7,000 dollars per month on automatic pilot.

As if that were not enough when Christmas arrives the income multiplies by two or even three. This is what I gained with a single website during the month of December:

Earning some money with affiliation is relatively simple, but if you want to invoice figures like these you will have to dedicate many hours and effort.

So forget about anyone selling you that you can set up such a system on a Caribbean beach overnight. To earn more than ten dollars a month you will have to sacrifice much of your free time.

The good news is that, after the initial effort, you can dedicate yourself to reap the rewards. Not to mention that you can keep the system at a distance, working from anywhere in the world (something important for a travel lover like me).

2. Create a website and monetize it with Adsense

Another of the best ways to make money online passively is monetizing web pages with advertising.

The concept is similar to that of affiliate marketing: you create a web page about a topic, you attract readers and once they are there, they earn money when they perform a certain action.

The great advantage of advertising is that you do not need the reader to buy for you to take a commission. The most common is that you earn money when the reader clicks on an ad (what is known as PPC -Pago Per Click).

In fact, this is the way the most important ad network in the world works: Google Adsense.

Adsense is so popular thanks to its ease of use and the number of advertisers. You simply sign up and, once your application has been approved, you can put ads on your website by inserting a small code.

With Adsense, you do not choose what type of ads appear: Google is responsible for doing it automatically according to the theme of your website and the profile of the reader. In this way you can display personalized ads for each reader, which has three benefits:

• Maximize the money you can earn with advertising. The more relevant and specific an ad is, the more likely the reader will click on it.

• It avoids having to contact directly with any advertiser. There are hundreds of thousands of companies advertising through Adsense.

• That the ads do not seem forced. By being customized for the reader and the theme of the web, they are integrated quite naturally in the pages.

Unlike affiliate marketing, here the idea is to create a web page that provides general information on a given topic instead of publishing comparisons and analysis.

For example, you could create a web page where you publish cooking recipes or information about dogs or even dinosaurs (like this website ).

The potential of this system depends fundamentally on three things: the theme you have chosen, the number of visits the website has and the percentage of those visits that click on the ads.

The first point, the subject, is fundamental because according to that you will earn more or less money per click.

For example, on a website about cats, Adsense may advertise cat food. However, on a website about university courses surely appear postgraduate and master ads that cost a fortune.

In which one would you earn more money when a reader clicked?

Indeed, in the second. As the advertised product is more expensive, the advertiser is willing to pay more money.

To know what potential a theme has with Adsense, use the  Keyword Planner. Enter the subject there and see if it is something that is searched a lot in Google, and how much you will pay advertisers per click (what is called bid ).

One part of the bid (over 40%) is left by you and the other Google, so the higher the bid, the more money you can earn with a web on this subject.

The percentage of readers who click on an ad is usually around 1.5%. Therefore, if you had two thousand page views per day, the calculation of monthly income with Adsense would be as follows:

In this case, the click is paid little, so to gain a good number you would need to have a huge volume of visits.

If you created a website with information on forex and currency trading, with the same number of visits you would earn much more money:

Each click would generate about 4.6 dollars (40% of the average of the bids) so 60,000 page views per month would result in:

In addition to what you pay per click, the income potential is determined by the number of visits that the website has. And that depends on the number of people looking for information on this topic on Google.

Fortunately, the Google Keyword Planner also offers an approximate range of how many times a month a specific word or phrase is searched 🙂

I know first-hand people who bill thousands of dollars a month with Adsense. In my case, I have only used it as a complement to badly paid and unimproved topics and still provides me with about one hundred dollars per month.

Monetizing web pages with Adsense is simple, but to generate thousands of dollars you must choose a profitable theme and work hard creating content and positioning them in Google.

3. Sell courses and services with your blog

If the previous two were two of the best ways to earn money online, this is the BEST way to make money online.

But like everything, the more money can generate something, the more effort it requires.

It’s about creating a blog about a specific topic, positioning yourself as an expert in it, and selling your own online courses for payment.

 

Sounds difficult? It takes effort, but it’s not that complicated. The key is to choose a topic that you master, where there are people interested, and build a reputation by publishing content.

The advantage of online payment courses is that they can become totally passive systems because once created it costs you the same to sell one then two hundred. You only have to publish it in video or PDF format and sell it through an automated system to your subscribers.

This is what I do in my blog ociosocial.com. As I am passionate about social psychology, a few years ago I decided to start a blog offering scientific and practical information to shy people who seek to improve their social relationships.

At first, he hardly had any readers, but little by little he became popular. Today I monetize him with online courses where I teach to overcome social fears and achieve a more charismatic personality.

Every time someone subscribes to the blog, a sequence of emails that send you valuable information is activated. After a week, receive an email presenting the premium video course in case you want to register.

In this way, I invoice on automatic pilot an average of 1,000 dollars per week with something that makes me feel proud.

There are blogs and online courses of almost any subject that you can think of. From courses to learn to read faster, management of family finances or Excel for students of letters.

The only requirement is that you solve a problem that your audience would be willing to pay for.

Generating money with this system is not fast since you must work hard to earn the trust of the readers, but you will be building a long-term, solid and differential online business.

The biggest obstacle is not technical (nowadays it is tremendously easy to create a blog), but mental: many people believe that they have nothing to teach, are afraid to expose themselves to criticism or spend months doubting on which topic to choose.

You should know that the vast majority of bloggers have started with those doubts. But they took the step, and as they were creating content for their blog they were gaining more experience and knowledge.

So if you think you have something to contribute, however small it may be (there will always be someone who knows less than you), and do not fear to expose yourself publicly, this is your best option.

4. Offer your services on specialized pages

If you do not have or do not want to create a blog or a website (although anyone without technical knowledge can do it today), another way to get a handful of dollars online is by doing small online services.

The operation is very simple:

1. You register in any of the online platforms that put you in contact with potential clients
2. Publish your service and put a price
3. You wait to be hired

The jobs that are usually offered on these platforms are simple things, such as translating a text, editing a video, designing a logo, writing a resume or preparing a PowerPoint presentation.

There is even someone who offers to write irresistible Tinder profiles, your imagination is the limit!

 

Your income will depend on the number of hours and effort you can spend on a regular basis. Some people take out a whole salary or even several thousand dollars a month, but it will generally be useful if you need extra income.

Currently, the most popular platforms and therefore with the greatest capacity to bring you clients are Upwork, Fiverr and Freelancer:

• Upwork: it’s only in English, but if you master it, it has enormous potential because of the number of clients it has.

• Fiverr: is in English and has many clients demanding services, but prices are low.

• Freelancer: is in English, but has less client volume and is not as easy to use.

All tend to stay around 10% of your billing and are based on the reviews of your customers to increase or reduce your popularity. The better your reputation, the more attractive you will be to users interested in services like yours.

 

That is why the usual thing is to get few jobs at the beginning or have to offer them at a lower price, but little by little you will have more clients and you will be able to raise your prices.

5. Work as a virtual assistant

If you find it interesting to make money offering online services and want to ensure greater regularity and a more stable income, you can consider working as a virtual assistant.

The virtual assistant is one of the new professions that has brought with it the technological revolution of the Internet, and whose demand is expected to continue growing in the coming years.

 

It basically consists of giving distance support to bloggers, digital entrepreneurs or even companies in relatively simple or mechanical tasks, so it does not require too specialized skills.

It is not a passive system, but in return, it offers you the freedom to work from wherever you want, a pretty attractive salary and also avoids having to create a web. You could literally start working as a virtual assistant tomorrow.

A virtual assistant usually deals with the following tasks:

• Email management
• Diffusion of content in social networks
• Management and organization of the agenda
• Management of billing and income and expense reports
• Design of images and banners
• Management of communities in Facebook groups
• Writing newsletters, pages, and articles
• Video and/or podcast editing
• Support in online courses and webinars
• Survey analysis and readers’ feedback
• Organization of face-to-face events

The key here is in the confidence that you can earn from your client since then he will be delegating tasks of greater responsibility in you.

The fees of a virtual assistant are usually established according to a price per hour that usually ranges from 10 to 40 dollars per hour worked, although some specialized or highly reputable assistants can get to charge a lot more.

If you want to take the step as a virtual assistant, there are three ways to get your first clients:

• Contact directly with entrepreneurs, bloggers or small businesses and present your services. Try to provide a sample of your work so that they can check the quality of your services.
• Be attentive to the requests of virtual assistants that make their subscribers the bloggers that start to stand out.
• Enroll in Freelancer, People Per Hour, Workana or Upwork, because many entrepreneurs are looking for virtual assistants there. If you are satisfied, then you can propose a long-term collaboration.

6. Works as a copywriter

Generating content that attracts and trusts readers is a fundamental pillar of any digital strategy, and that is well known by both large companies and small entrepreneurs.

That’s why every day more than 3 million articles are published in blogs. There are posts on economics, animals, photography, food, health, marketing, videogames, philosophy, politics … Anything you can imagine.

This need to create content has led to the emergence of another professional profile that is in great demand in the online world: the editor.

 

Working as an editor is a very quick way to start making money online since there is a constant demand. Neither do you need great skills to do it: you just have to like to write and be good at doing it.

How much money can an editor earn?

It depends on your experience, the quality of the texts and your specialty, but in general, the rates usually move between  3 and 10 dollars per 100 words, so that a 2,000-word article can be paid perfectly to more than 100 dollars.

I have been working with editors for my affiliate projects for years and several of them, dedicating themselves full-time, generate monthly income above 2,000 dollars. But some can earn much more!

Editors specialized in creating sales pages tend to be the best paid, since they are in charge of creating those messages that must convince people to buy. They have come to pay thousands of dollars for a page of this type.

If you are interested in starting to work on a path (and income) as an editor, I recommend that you sign up for platforms specialized in contacting editors with clients who need content, such as:

• iWriter: one of the most popular. It does not pay too well, but it makes up for it with the number of customers who need content.

• LowPost: pay something better and have a decent client volume.

• Textbroker: allows you to negotiate the price directly with customers, but you will not find much demand.

7. Translate contents

If you consider that you lack creativity or you prefer something more mechanical than working as an editor, and you have a good level with some language, you can make your knowledge profitable by performing online translation services.

There are many companies that need to translate texts from their blogs, websites or posts on social networks and that are looking for natives to do that work. In addition, it is usually quite well paid.

In fact, at the time Netflix opened some applications to find people to translate their series online through its Hermesprogram.

In the case of the translation from English into English, they came to pay $ 12 per minute translated, it’s not bad!

 

Now they no longer require this service, but there are also online platforms that put translators in contact with companies that need translation services, such as Gengo.

Gengo is an online platform that has provided translation services to YouTube or Sony, among others. You only have to register on your website and pass your level test. From there, you will go up in rank and accessing better-paid jobs as you translate.

The great advantage of Gengo is that you can choose what jobs you do and organize the schedules to your liking, which gives you enormous flexibility to earn money from anywhere.

Other interesting options are One Hour Translation (they also ask for a level test) or Textmaster.

And now the key question: how much money per month can be earned by translating?

Well, according to the calculations of Gengo itself, if you regularly translate from other languages ​​into English, you will achieve an average monthly income of $ 435.

 

It’s a good extra, but it’s not going to give you a full salary either. The great advantage is that you can do it from anywhere in the world, it does not force you to anything and you can go at the pace you need.

8. Create a YouTube channel

With the purchase of YouTube by Google and the exponential growth of content consumption in video format, there were people who, overnight, started earning a lot of money with their video channel.

Yes, there are more and more competitors, but YouTube is the second Internet search engine, just behind Google, and it is expected that in a very short time it will become the first. That means that its economic potential is booming.

It is difficult to replace a whole salary, but if you can bring knowledge or fun to users and you have grace in front of the camera, in the medium term it is possible to generate some extra money with a YouTube channel.

 

How much money are we talking about?

Surely you’ve heard that some YouTubers bill millions of dollars a year. But you can count on the fingers of the hands. For you to do your calculations, you should know that, on average, Youtube advertising pays between  0.20 and 3 dollars for every 1,000 views of a video.

This figure depends on the thematic of the channel since the contents on Forex or health are usually paid better than the channels on videogames or curiosities.

Suppose that after 18 months you manage to build a channel with 100,000 subscribers, which is not bad.

If you upload a video to the week that got 75,000 views and Youtube paid you 1 dollar for every 1,000 views, your income would be approximately 300 dollars per month.

As you see, you should publish videos consistently if you want to make money with YouTube, so it is not really a passive system unless they become viral or have thousands of searches a day.

Fortunately, there are also alternative ways to increase income:

• Contact companies and offer to put your advertising on your videos

• Sell  custom merchandise, such as shirts and caps with your channel’s logo (when it’s popular)

• Accept donations with  Patreon

If you already have stable income by some other way, betting on a Youtube channel is not going to mean too much investment and over time can give you more of a pleasant surprise.

9. Online media and dropshipping

Another good way to make money online is by selling products online.

I know people who are making more than 4,000 dollars per month of profit with very simple but specialized products, so if you do it well it is possible to generate a good income.

You should know that, mainly, there are two ways to sell online:

• Create your own website (again, it’s easier than it seems) and sell your products there

• Sell ​​your products on third-party platforms (such as Amazon)

If you do not manufacture products, do not worry. It is as simple as finding a manufacturer with little popularity, buying the product and selling it to the final public through your website or platform, adding your margin to the price.

For this reason, the majority usually look for Chinese suppliers. In spite of the fact that you will have to carry out the import procedures, you will have more margin.

The main drawback is that you must perform the tasks of billing and product shipments, which can quite work. To avoid this nuisance, it is better to look for suppliers that work by dropshipping.

 

The dropshipping system will allow you to convert your online store into a passive business. With it, you do not keep stock or take care of shipments, you just send the order data to the manufacturer (there are very simple automated systems) and he takes care of getting the product to the customer.

The profit margin is usually between 20 and 50%. The inconvenient? If the shipment does not arrive or you have to take care of a return, the clients will complain to you and you will have to resolve the issue with the manufacturer.

The keys to the success of this system are:

1. Find a product with more demand than offer
2. Achieve a serious and reliable supplier
3. Have a good profit margin
4. Bring traffic to the web with organic positioning, Adwords or Facebook Ads

10. Sell courses in online platforms

If you do not like the idea of ​​selling products online, having to search for distributors and create a website, an excellent alternative is to sell your knowledge in online platforms.

The concept is simple: you create a course in video or text on a specific topic, you upload it to platforms like Udemy, and you put a price on it.

To create the course you can record in the video, record a presentation on your screen, or do it in text format (in pdf files), just as you would for your blog.

This type of platform receives thousands of daily visits from users looking for courses on some topics, so if yours covers some demand and meets the expectations of users, you can get to earn a lot of money.

Okay, but how much money can you win?

In general, these types of courses are not usually very expensive (according to Udemy 90% of the courses that are sold have a price lower than 50 dollars).

Udemy also has a calculator, the  Udemy Marketplace Insights, which allows you to calculate the potential of your online course according to your topic.

For example, if you created a course on photography for beginners, this would be the potential:

 

As you can see, most photography courses generate just over 30 dollars per month, while the most successful courses exceed 400 dollars per month.

Of course, there are also instructors who generate thousands of dollars per month, such as this web design course that currently sells for 10 dollars and has almost 20,000 registered. These cases are a very small minority, but make the calculation of what the author has won!

 

If you want to build a successful course in Udemy, I recommend this strategy:

1. First list those topics in which you consider that you know more than the average of the population
2. Create an instructor account at Udemy and enter your topics in the Udemy Marketplace Insights to calculate the potential of your course
3. Stay with the theme where the monthly income of popular courses are higher
4. If also the demand is HIGH and the number of courses MEDIUM or LOW, you are facing a good opportunity

Creating a course is laborious and not many instructors reach large numbers, but if it is of quality and the evaluations are positive, little by little you will increase your billing.