In this post I will be sharing a number of tested strategies with you that allows you start making a side income online.
Start Freelancing
Freelancing is a dream for most people in the world. Work in your PJs from the comfort of your home to get paid a neat sum every week. Amp up your hours based on how much you wish to work. Or not.
There’s no boss. And you’re not working a J.O.B.
So here’s what you can do. Go for Flexjobs. It lists a number of jobs you can start from within the comfort of your home.
On flexjobs you have access to freelancer jobs from all industries imaginable.
Here’s a preview.
You can view jobs starting from account management to advertising to call center jobs, legal teaching to the more common from software, web design and writing.
With enough experience you can leverage the skills you have gained to start out on your own and make it big elsewhere.
Build A Blog
Not any blog would do. The blog has to be around your passions and interests. Something that makes you deeply excited about.
There are tons of ways in which you can make money through a blog. You could post about relevant products and earn an affiliate commission.
Here’s an example. Let’s say I started a blog that guides moms on how to make a blog. A blog needs hosting and I write about Bluehost, its a relevant product to include. I get a few people signing up and I make a commission from them.
The key is promoting products you yourself use or not minding a friend using. You should be able to vouch for the product. The goal? Building long-term relationships that stand the test of time.
Sell Products
There are tons of sites that allow you to list your products and sell them online.
If you make arts or crafts list them on Etsy. Fiverr is another well-known site with a little known space where you can list homemade products like jewellery beads, trinkets and other such items.
You can market your products through visual social media platforms like Instagram and Pinterest. This helps you drive leads to your business in greater numbers.
That applies to digital marketing services too. If you build links for clients you can list your services on a number of platforms like Fiverr, seoclerks, your own website, relevant social media groups that talk about content marketing and link building and so on.
Sites that exclusively market themselves as a platform to list products aren’t your only channel to build traction for your site. There are loads of ways to drive free traffic.
For example, Pinterest is a veritable traffic pot. But you should know how to make the channel work for you. You should test visuals and promotion tactics. To arrive at ways that ultimately work.
Rent out stuff, your home or car
It’s a millennial trend. Of not being tied down to possessions like homes or cars.
Renting is in vogue. And it’s something you can do to make money as well.
Driving your car is essential for day to day commute. But what about the rest of the time when your car sits inside a garage gathering dust.
Rent it out with Turo.
In much the same manner you can rent out your bike too. That’s not all. With services like Airbnb you can rent out entire home or a single room. That is if you’re staying at the top floor you can still continue staying by renting out part of the property to someone. Plus, with airbnb the contracts aren’t long term, allowing you full use of the house when you so desire.
To make that money you should really be able to sell your house with quality pictures. A person seeing them should be able to imagine living in the house.
Look at all the quality photos listed on Airbnb for this property.
The buying experience starts with images. Not when he’s purchased the product. It’s the first brush someone has with your product. You should be able to narrate a good story starting with that point.
This one has 24 pictures, tons of reviews and a nice description. Most people don’t care for the description as long as the pictures give a good idea of what to expect.
Start teaching online
With most jobs moving online, there’s no surprise that teaching too is making a foray into the online world.
There are lots of online coaches who teach anything and everything from making money online to transcription to teaching how to make arts or crafts and any number of such things.
Thing is, if you have a skill, there will be people who are willing to learn that skill from you. How to offer these. You could very well teach others in the comfort of your home by creating a set of videos that you can use again and again. That’s passive income. Or you could teach stuff one on one through Facebook live. You could install softwares like Skype or Zoom and live stream yourself.
Become a personal trainer or coach. You’re not limited to what you can do within the confines of your home.
Join the Gig economy
The gig economy has thousands of workers with many more joining every day. For example, you could join Uber or Lyft as a driver and make income on the side or turn it into a full-time income.
You could help families move by joining services like TaskRabbit.
With Ubereats and other similar food delivery services you can get paid for delivering food door to door. Every business of this nature posts stories of gig workers who started small and were then able to turn the gig into a six figure business. The same’s true with almost every platform.
Pick something that interests you. Choose your time and deliver.
Start a Membership Site
A membership site isn’t all too different than making an income online selling courses or teaching. But there are significant differences. You could offer a service to members.
For example, Scott’s cheap flights is a membership site that sends cheap flight alerts to paying member.
Similarly there are sites that offer unlimited graphic design services to members too. For a fixed monthly payment, you get unlimited logos, graphic work posters or sites designed for you. There are sites offering unlimited WordPress tweaks as well.
The sky is the limit with what you can offer and package as part of your membership program.
Sell Ads
Selling ad space or sponsorships might be one of the oldest ways to make an income online.
I remember Adsense sniper sites being sold by the dozen. Adsense is still a good way. But, you could do so much more by allowing people to negotiate ad space rates directly and keep most of the income that comes this way.
To begin selling ads make your blog popular. It should have some sizeable traffic to make a dent Nobody wants to advertise on a site that doesn’t get any visitors.
So that’s the first criteria to successfully sell ads. Sometimes it’s a matter of the niche you’re in. Certain niches aren’t traffic magnets. They’re not ideal for selling ad space on.
If not there are tons of companies that can help. OIO publisher for one. There’s also Media.net that’s as lucrative as Adsense by some accounts.
Invest Small Amounts of Money
You don’t have any excuse to not investing your money especially when you have outlets where you can get started with low amounts.
Betterment is one such service. To determine your risk tolerance they give you a questionnaire.
The evaluation results in portfolio with several different ET exchange-traded funds listed on them.
They charge a super low annual fee of .25%
There’s no trade fee either.
The allocation is made automatically based on AI and your capacity for risk. Just fund the account. You never need to worry about investments or the nuances therein.
Betterment investments actually has no minimum initial account deposit requirement.
Monthly contributions can be as low as $100 per month. For accounts that maintain a balance less than 10k the fee is .35%.
It’s a great option for hassle free investment. You don’t need any technical knowledge to get started.
Join a Lending Club
Worthy Bonds
If the minimum is $100 for Betterment Worthy Bonds will get you going for as low as $10.
These are fixed interest bonds. Worthy bonds funds U.S. based businesses. The bonds expire in 36 months. Interest is however paid every week. You also have the option to withdraw money any time you so choose to.
Worthy takes your money and invests it in companies that give it bigger returns than 5%.
This way it’s a win-win for both you and them.
The platform is available to U.S. residents. With fixed interest, its low risk with maximum liquidity.
They invest in secured loans meaning that the company’s assets are greater than the loan amount. If the company goes belly up, liquidating assets will get WorthyFunds the investment back. So, its as safe as it gets.
Join Lending Club
Lending club is a p2p lending platform. Borrowers come and get loans. Lenders like you provide cash.
Lenders or investors get paid for their investment. Sometimes in double digits.
The amount you invest is solely your discretion. You can go as little as $25 or as high as $1000. However the minimum initial amount is $25.
According to the site the average returns fall in the range of 5.06% – 8.74%
Some states require that lenders show a minimum net worth value to participate. SO you have to show your assets.
Just like Lending Club this one is something you can get started with small initial amounts like $25.
This way you distribute a large sum into small loan amounts. Even this has a stipulated minimum loan requirement.
16Prosper provides a high average annual return rate of 16%. For a fixed rate investment the returns are pretty massive.
But do note that if your loans go into default there’s a risk of capital loss.
Real estate
Real estate investing is an itch everyone likes to scratch. But the requirements for entry stop many from pursuing the dream.
You don’t want to be a landlord, hunting for tenants or buying and selling houses.
But with this option the work is minimal and returns are good. The real rate of returns depends on the success of the project. Fundrise has its investors getting as much as 11% return on their investments.
Thanks to their technology that shows which projects will be profitable.
Fundrise keeps a low minimum so that investors don’t run away hearing the base investment amount. You can get started for as low as $500
Use Investment Apps
Acorns is one of the best known investment apps. It’s ideal for anyone who wants to invest without any of the hassles around investing.
With the app whatever money comes to your hands at the end of the month can be routed to investments. It will automatically deduct sums from your account to fuel the investment fire.
The difference won’t be large and these small sums add up to huge values over time. The app is user-friendly. It takes little to no time to set it up either.
Robinhood
The next app in my list is Robinhood. It sends free stock alerts. Free doesn’t mean no strings attached. There’s no trade fee. You have to connect your account with the app and fund it for investments.
It’s a low-fee online brokerage. Being run on app the whole thing is easy as pie to set up and get things moving.
Stash
Stash is another app that helps you grow a diverse portfolio. Auto slash plan is when you want the the app to deduct a set amount from your account every month to fuel your investment account.
Stash is a good place to start.
Stockpile
Stockpile has one of the most innovative approaches to buying stocks. How? You can buy fractional shares of any company through the platform.
Easy to get started. They don’t tie you down with a monthly fee. All you need to do is pay 99 cents per trade.
Wealthfront
Wealthfront is suited for collegegoing students. Connect your spending accounts with the app to get a bird’s eye view of all your expenses. This helps you find out where excess money goes from your account.
Invest In Startups
In the spirit of investments, I wouldn’t be transparent if I didn’t tell you about tools that allow you to invest in startups.
Over 220 million dollars were invested in startupsthorugh Microventures. You can startwith as low as $100.
Seedrs
Seedrs is a kickstarter themed site that lets you invest in startups.
You can see each startup listed on the platform along with the equity goals and funding they raised. You see the total investment amount along with number of interested parties You can’t invest small sums with the platform.