Make Real Money Online
Yes, you can make money online.
That sounds really dumb to say and I hate saying it because that phrase alone sounds scammy as hell.
Anyone can make money online and I’m not trying to blow smoke up your ass.
Affiliate Marketing is by far the best way for anyone to make money online. It doesn’t require you to create any products or dealing with delivery or customer service. The product owner does all the hard work (before and after sales), and all you do is drive traffic to it and earn commissions from sales.
There isn’t a crazy system that you need to learn or a mystery that you need to solve.
- Upwork is among the real money earning sites that gives you the quintessential tools to earn money from home in the quickest and easiest way possible. Be it website development, creative writing, sales, marketing, or accounting etc., the platform gives you the space and network to grow your technical skills like a true pro.
- One of the easiest ways to make money online is by selling things you no longer use. If your clothes are designer and in high demand, you may earn more by listing them individually on Poshmark or eBay.
Go on Pinterest and check out any big blog. Everything they do to make money is sitting right there in front of you.
It might seem so obvious to you that you don’t actually believe it. You might think that there is a secret that you are missing but there really isn’t. If you study enough success stories you can see the methods that they use.
In this post, I’m going to explain to you the 5 different ways I make money online and how I was able to achieve each one.
Who the Hell am I?
My name is Paul Scrivens and I run 7+ different online brands (I lose count so I just add the ‘+’ there to make my life easier) in different niches, not including this one.
Before you get the wrong idea, you don’t need to run this many brands to make this kind of money. I just do it because I like to understand how to be successful in a number of niches.
Currently, across my sites, I make over 5 figures every single month. It varies from month to month depending on the niche and what I’m promoting but every month I’m guaranteed (okay, nothing in life is guaranteed but it’s consistent) to make at least $50,000.
(If you’re interested in going behind the scenes of my brands then check out Odd Noodle Kitchen where you get complete access to income reports and the different things that my team and I are doing to grow things.)
Here is a screenshot of one of my sites bringing in money almost daily:
Note: I can’t receive bank deposits over the weekend so some days in the above image are skipped.
If you want to get an idea of some of my sites (besides this one) then here is a list of some of them:
As you can see, I’m pretty varied in what I do and it’s important to keep in mind that all of these sites contribute towards the money I make each month.
What about the other sites that I haven’t mentioned? They are still in the grow-out phase so they won’t be added to the list until they start bringing in money as well.
First Things First
Before I dive into the 5 ways I make money online I want to talk to you about the most important aspect of making money online no matter what route you decide to take: building an audience.
If you can build an audience online then you have an easy road to making money.
This is a basic concept to understand. If you have an audience that pays attention to you, you can make money.
Remember that.
It’s the core concept of any audience whether it’s online or offline. Without an audience (clients, customers, members), you have no business.
The problem is that many people just don’t know how to build an audience or don’t put any focus on building an audience. Instead, they concern themselves with blog themes, Twitter posts, and other small things that don’t move the needle.
This is a big reason why one of the first courses in the Blog Simple Framework is a Pinterest Course. You need to learn how to build an audience and that means getting traffic.
If you can get traffic to your site then the whole world begins to open up for you.
It’s great that some bloggers will tell you that you don’t need much traffic to make money and they aren’t wrong, but if you can get a lot of traffic everything becomes much easier for you.
If I have a blog that is getting 100,000 page views a month that means that I’m probably getting at least 50,000 people to the site (most blogs will do between 1.2 to 1.4 pages per session). That means I have to try and get some small percentage of those people to buy something from me if I really want to do well. If I can’t get them to buy something then (in some cases) I have ads running on the site that will make me money anyways.
With a decent ad network, like AdThrive or Mediavine, 100,000 pageviews should net you between $800-$2000 a month.
As the number of people visiting my site increases, the chances of me making more money increase. That should be easy enough to understand with one caveat. The traffic just can’t be random traffic. It has to be traffic that is interested in what I’m writing about.
You aren’t going to bring 100 vegans into your hot dog shop (no you don’t serve tofu dogs).
It’s a pretty simple formula but for some reason, many bloggers (and other website owners) don’t put a lot of time in figuring out how to get traffic to the sites.
Make It Easy With a Good Niche
Now, let’s address something else which is going to be bad news for some of you.
If you want to make money online then I’m not going to tell you to follow your passion. Instead, I advise you to do stuff that has been proven to work.
If you like the idea of starting a blog then know that there are only 7 blog niches that get good traffic and make good money.
There really is no reason to try a different niche for your first blog.
I’ve spoken with people that want to know how to make money blogging about the topics they are most passionate about and they assume that they will do well simply because they believe other people love the topics as much as them.
Wrong.
What people love are things that make their lives easier and better. Why do you think how to make money blogs, personal finance blogs, and health blogs do so well?
Don’t hesitate to start a blog in a big and popular niche. The audience is already established in those areas so it’s pretty silly to avoid them.
With that being said let’s dive into the ways that I make money online.
The 5 Ways That I Make Money Online
I’m going to surprise you here and say that one of the ways isn’t by blogging.
Nobody pays me to blog.
However, the whole reason why I can make money online is because of blogging so if you want to make money online I suggest you get into blogging.
Blogging is your marketing platform. Fancy marketing people like to call it content marketing.
Blogging gives you the opportunity to build an audience which in turn gives you the chance to open up new revenue streams.
Get this straight, blogging opens the doors for a ton of opportunities for you. So when you see other people talk about the virtues of blogging, they aren’t talking about how awesome it is to write a piece of content.
In fact, one of the last things I want to do is sit down at a computer and write.
They are talking about how blogging levels the playing field for individuals to be able to reach thousands or millions of people similar to a bigger company.
My site, Keto Bootstrap, reaches over ONE MILLION PEOPLE A MONTH. That’s completely insane to me.
Every single way that I make money online is directly connected to my blogging but I don’t want to say I make money by blogging.
That might be a small technicality but I wanted to get that out of the way.
1. Ads
This is the second easiest way from a technical standpoint to make money online because you don’t have to do much to get them set up. If you use one of the ad networks that I mentioned above then they actually do all of the work for you!
What you do need though is a shit ton of traffic for this to be effective. By this, I mean at least 30,000 page views before you even want to consider putting ads up on your site.
I don’t use ads on all of my blogs but the few that I do, I use AdThrive or Mediavine and both have been wonderful.
Now I know the question you are asking is how much money do I make for the amount of traffic that I get. I get paid every time an ad is shown on my site but you get fractions of a penny for each view. For this reason, ad dollars are measured in CPM.
This means that for every 1,000 page views I make $X amount of money.
So with AdThrive/Mediavine, depending on the niche and the quality of ads, the CPM fluctuates between $5 – $30 per 1,000 page views.
If I do 100,000 page views in a month (the minimum you need to apply to AdThrive) then I will make anywhere between $500 and $2,000 for that month. Again, it’s dependent on the topics that you write about.
Not bad, but not great considering the other ways that you can make money.
However, ads are the most passive way to make money online. Your only focus is to get people to continue to come to your site which can be challenging in its own right.
As of May 2019, I do about $15,000 a month in ad revenue.
2. Affiliate Marketing
This is the easiest way to make money online from a technical standpoint because you don’t have to do anything but post a link on your site.
That link points to a manufacturer of some product that will pay you every time someone purchases from them.
For example, if I run a car blog and I sign up for an affiliate program with a car parts shop, I can link the different car parts that I like on my blog and when people click on the link and purchase from the car parts shop I get a cut.
The commission that you get is totally dependent on the affiliate program. There is no status quo. I’ve seen percentages range from 4% to 90%.
However, making money with affiliate marketing is a lot harder than people present it. You might think that all you need to do is put a link on your site and then watch the money flow but that isn’t the case.
You have to do a lot of upfront work to convince your audience that they want/need a particular product. If you can’t do that then your links will just sit there unclicked.
I also have an awesome course dedicated to affiliate marketing that will show you all of the steps that I take to make money with affiliate marketing. It’s inside of the Blog Simple Framework.
3. eBooks
I love writing eBooks because you can make them as simple or as complicated as you want. The easiest way to make an ebook is to simply write it in some type of word processing application (Word, Pages, or Google Docs) and export it as a PDF.
There you go. You now have an eBook that the world will enjoy.
eBooks are a great starter product for many bloggers because everyone has the tools to create them.
Some people believe that your ebook has to be super long for it to be successful and I’ve seen 4-page ebooks do well and 200-page ebooks bomb.
It’s completely dependent on the subject matter and what problem you are trying to solve.
If you don’t even want to set up your own website you can go directly through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing to reach millions of people instantly. Of course, you are dealing with a lot of competition but I know authors that make over $40,000 a month with their Kindle books.
Curious about creating your own product? Then you’ll want to check out the Offer Map which gives you the blueprint for finding that perfect product idea for your audience.
4. Online Courses
This is one of the most lucrative ways to make money online when you have an audience.
To make $1,000 with ads (on a good ad network) you need to do between 70,000 – 250,000 page views a month (remember it depends on the niche). That’s a lot of people!
To make $1,000 with affiliate marketing you might need to sell a couple dozen/hundred items.
With online courses, you can make $1,000 by selling just a couple (dependent on price).
For example, the current price (as of this writing) for the Blog Simple Framework is $799. To make $1,000 this month from the site I will need to sell 1.3 seats.
That doesn’t require me getting 100,000 people to the site. Hopefully, it only requires less than 100.
Out of these 5 methods, online courses are both the most technically involved and the most time-consuming.
I love teaching people but I hate the process of making courses just because I like instant results.
Online courses take planning and time to get right. At least the good ones.
If you throw videos into the mix it takes even more time.
This takes hours and my throat always hurts when I’m done.
But again, I make most of my money from online courses so the effort is worth it.
5. Membership Sites
Odd Noodle Kitchen is my membership site.
It provides me with a steady income that I can rely on to come in every single month as more and more people sign up.
Membership sites can work in a number of different ways. You can simply offer a forum. You might offer monthly video lessons. You can think of a number of different things but you must make sure that you are providing continuous value to your audience.
Membership sites usually work best once you have an established audience to work with. Starting them from scratch without an audience is difficult because people join membership sites with the intention of interacting with other like-minded individuals.
If they are the first one to the dance and nobody shows up for days or weeks then they will quickly lose interest.
More Ways to Make Money Online
These aren’t the only ways to make money online. There are a ton of other options:
- Podcasting
- Dropshipping
- Ecommerce
- Offering services
The list goes on. In fact, I’ve written 15 more ways to make money with your blog that you should check out.
So where do you go from here? If you’re interested in getting a blog started I suggest you begin with my free guide to blogging to get a feel for everything I do to grow a successful blog.
If you’re ready to jump into digital product creation then you can read the story about my first product failure.
Remember, you don’t need to have as many brands as I do to make good money. Most people do it with just one and I could as well but if I’m going to teach others how to build successful businesses, then I need to show I can create successful brands in other niches.
Nobody likes the person that fakes the funk.
The prospects for finding reliable ways to make money from home are expanding all the time.
Job seekers who do their research can find legitimate opportunities to work remotely that are neither suspect nor sketchy, and can provide part-time supplemental income or a full-time career.
While there are great flexible jobs across many industries, it may be helpful to home in on specific job sectors if your goal is to work virtually.
Having access to an up-to-date computer and a good Internet connection is essential, virtually without exception, to make money from home. You’ll also need a dedicated workspace and a good degree of discipline to stick to a schedule the works for you.
If you have the skills you need to work from home, scope out the best scam-free resources to help you find jobs that are a good fit. Of course, FlexJobs is the premier source for avoiding job scams in your search for hand-screened, work-from-home jobs that are fully vetted and verified.
The career fields below offer real jobs that can be done from home.
Note:
FlexJobs is a subscription service for job seekers that features flexible and remote jobs. With an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau, the monthly subscription costs allow us to fully vet and verify all of the jobs on our site—ensuring that customers have a safe and positive job searching experience.
15 Real Ways to Make Money from Home
(Click on a title to see open jobs in that category.)
1. Account Management
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Account management jobs can be done from home as the main task involves managing client relationships. Account managers may use phone, email, and in-person visits to ensure company clients are happy and to upsell or cross-sell products.
2. Accounting and Finance
Accounting and finance jobs can provide a variety of options to make money from home. Bookkeepers, tax advisors, accountants, finance assistants, and more are some remote job options. These roles most often require experience in finance, and many can be completed 100% from home.
3. Administrative
Many teams and individuals seeking administrative assistance allow for the work to be done from home. Executive assistants, paralegals, administrative specialists, and program coordinators are some common remote job titles. Many of these roles only require a high school diploma.
4. Computer and IT
Computer and IT jobs are a shoo-in for remote work. These jobs can be done entirely remotely with their heavy reliance on computer work. Tech support and even technical writing are two great options to make money at home.
5. Consulting
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Consulting provides great flexibility in how much you work and your work schedule. This role allows people to share their experience and knowledge with others to better their lives and business practices. They often utilize tools like job shadowing, surveys, and interpersonal studies to determine issues and suggest solutions and provide training or coaching.
6. Customer Service
To make money from home in customer service, you’ll need a high school degree or the equivalent for many jobs. For some customer service jobs, a post-secondary degree or some college may be required. Customer service jobs from home involve using phone, messaging, email, and social media to answer customer questions and provide information and assistance.
7. Data Entry
Often working as part of a team, data entry professionals may be asked to log into a company’s database system to make entries or access data for other purposes. Depending on the employer and industry, a high school degree and additional certification may be the minimum education requirements.
8. English Teacher or English Tutor
You’ll almost certainly need at least an undergraduate degree to qualify for many online teaching jobs for K-12 online schools, universities, and other virtual education organizations. Remote teaching and tutoring jobs can be great to do part-time or as a side job, as many roles require just a few hours per week.
9. Marketing
The marketing field is ripe with remote jobs and ones that can be done on a project basis or part-time basis, making it an ideal way to make money from home. Marketing professionals promote and educate others on products and services. Working with online content, social media, and print materials are common for marketing jobs.
10. Medical Billing and Medical Coding
In an era of aging baby boomers and changing healthcare laws, medical coding and billing jobs offer relatively stable ways to make money from home. Inputting patient medical data with an extremely high degree of accuracy is the main task of a medical coding job. Medical billing professionals primarily input and submit payment and insurance data relating to medical care and procedures.
11. Project Management
Project managers develop requirements, budgets, and schedules for an organization’s projects. They will make sure projects are completed on time and may work with internal and external clients and vendors. Project managers can work from home full-time or on a project-by-project basis.
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12. Sales
Sales professionals can make money from home by working closely with customers to help them identify needs and introduce products or services that will meet those needs. There may be sales quotas to meet as well. Sales rep, sales manager, business development manager, account executive are some common job titles.
13. Transcription
Transcription jobs offer many options to work remotely, as a freelancer, and with flexible hours. This role most commonly converts audio files into text. Certification as a transcriptionist and familiarity with transcription programs like Express Scribe will put you ahead of the competition.
14. Virtual Assistant
Working as a virtual assistant may be a good way to put those skills to use to help you make money from home. You may be asked to use administrative skills to assist an executive or a team with managing schedules, travel, phone calls, email, and record.
15. Writing and Editing
Writing is one of the greatest time-honored home-based jobs, and editing isn’t far behind. Many employers look to hire content writers who are experienced and can provide examples of their published work, online or on other platforms. As for editing positions that let you make money from home, hiring managers frequently look for demonstrated editing skills or an area of specialty.
Finding More Real Ways to Make Money from Home
No matter your schedule or area of expertise, making money from home can be done. Using FlexJobs to find a job keeps you safe from job scams that abound in the work-from-home world. We verify every job and company before posting it on our site, so you can rest assured you’ll only find real, legitimate jobs.
Whether you want to work full-time from home, or just want to find a side job or a part-time remote job, FlexJobs has jobs in over 50 different careers to help you find just what you need.
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