You’re beyond frustrated, right? But please raise your hand if you’re still trying to figure out how to make money online.
Sometimes you just need to make a little extra cash. You’ve got more month than money plus extra bills to pay. Perhaps your child is going to college and you need tuition money. Maybe you’re planning your family’s annual vacation. Whatever the reason, you want to make a few extra dollars.
But it’s not quite that simple, right?
It’s no surprise that when thinking about how to turn their passion into profit, many persons think about starting a blog. This absolutely can be a lucrative opportunity, with high-profile bloggers raking in millions each year.
Now, if this blog post represents your first foray into the world of making money online you may be asking yourself the question “is it really possible to earn money on the Internet?” The answer to this question is an unmitigated ‘yes’.
But, exactly how do bloggers make money?
Well, there’s good news: The key to making a profit from your blog is simply learning how to master its monetization. Thankfully, this doesn’t have to be difficult.
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.
Quick Navigation
How Do Beginner Bloggers Make Money?
Many people ask what types of blogs make money? The answer is anything that generates regular traffic. Once you’ve got a lot of people visiting the site, you’ll be able to start to turn that traffic into cash.
How much money do you think that you can make blogging? Bloggers are making money in all sorts of ways. There are many 7-figure entrepreneurs, while other bloggers might be generating no income at all.
Yet, a common goal that many newbie bloggers shoot for is $2,000/month in recurring income within one year. One of the most common ways to do this is by selling advertising space on your website.
As the number of people visiting your blog increases, so will the amount that you’ll be getting paid. Just make sure not to alienate the viewer by placing the ads in areas that will annoy your audience.
With the right tools and techniques at your fingertips, making money online is certainly possible.
So, if you’re intrigued by the idea of manifesting money into your life and online business and you want a quick start guide to accomplishing this, then you’ll love our Product Creators Toolbox report.
Avoid Online Get-Rich-Quick Schemes
Ryan Robinson puts it this way when he talks about making money online:
- There’s no such thing as an online get-rich-quick scheme.
- Most of the quick ways people talk about when it comes to making money online are not true businesses.
- Sure, some of them may be good for creating a few hundred or even thousand dollars in one-time revenue. But they’re not going to help you unlock financial freedom and achieve complete control of your lifestyle.
That’s really excellent advice. Don’t fall for get-rich-quick online schemes. They almost never pan out.
Instead, go for the proven, sustainable ways of making an online income. That’s what this blog post is all about. We’ll look at some of the best ways that a beginner blog will be able to generate a profit for the owner.
So, are you ready? Let’s dive!
Method #1: Offer Outstanding Freelance Services
Are you ready to transition from fulltime employee to freelancer?
There’s a good chance that you have certain skills that you can sell online on a freelance basis. Getting started with freelancing can be as easy as checking out a job search board and applying for open projects.
Find Your Side Hustle
A freelancer is essentially self-employed and not necessarily committed to a particular employer long-term. Jobs may come from all over the employment sector, inclusive of client work for conglomerates, religious organizations, non-profits, and even government agencies.
Due to the wide scope of freelancing opportunities, there’s work in essentially every career field and can vary between one-off jobs to long term projects. Although freelancing usually commences as a side hustle, I truly believe that every budding entrepreneur should start as a freelancer.
Below are some of the most commonly freelanced gigs:
- Accountant or Bookkeeper
- Audio Engineer
- Content Writer
- Data Entry Processor
- Event or Party Planner
- Graphic Designer
- Landscape Architect
- Private Chef
- SEO Expert
- Translator
- Virtual Assistant
- Voiceover Artist
- Web Designer
- Wedding Photographer
If so, then you can sell your services online. There are literally hundreds of thousands of businesses that need these services and you can make good money working for them.
Depending on your skill set and your ability to pitch new clients, you can make a full-time living as a freelancer. Some freelancers even make six-figures every year.
Get Started Freelancing Today
In order to get started freelancing, you’ll need to do a few things:
- Create a portfolio that shows off your work. The reality is that most businesses will want to see an example of your work if they’re going to hire you. They want to be confident that they’re hiring the right person. A portfolio shows that you’ve already done solid work.
- Set your prices. There are numerous ways to set prices, including by the hour, by the project, or as a retainer fee. Set your prices at what you consider to be a fair amount and be confident in that amount as you talk to potential clients.
- Reach out to potential clients. There are numerous ways to connect with potential clients. You can:
Getting a freelance career started isn’t necessarily the easiest way to make money, but if you’re diligent about finding and applying for jobs, you can turn it into a profitable gig relatively quickly.
The key to succeeding in the freelance world is persistence. You may have to overcome a number of “No’s” in order to get to a “Yes.” But if you’re persistent and able to overcome objections, you should be able to start making consistent money as a freelancer.
Benefits of Freelancing
Freelancing unearths the fundamentals of being an entrepreneur. Many successful entrepreneurs leveraged it to sidestep some of the early challenges, eventually positioning themselves to ditch their traditional employment jobs.
Focused freelancers soon learn how to find their target market, create a valuable offering, effectively price their services, and master the customer’s journey.
Before you even realize it, you could be earning your first $1,000 as a freelancer. And you can do it without quitting your job, without risking your hard-earned savings, and without burning any bridges.
In fact, you should start small. Start today and start with services.
Freelancing might just turn into a profitable business selling eBooks, which might turn into one of the fastest growing bootstrapped software businesses around. A least that’s how it worked for Nathan Barry, the founder of ConvertKit.
So, if you’re really tired of being on the employee treadmill, now may be the best time to consider freelancing your hard-earned skills.
Method #2: Leverage Affiliate Marketing
According to Smart Passive Income, affiliate marketing is “the process of earning a commission by promoting another company’s product (or service). You find a product, promote it to others, and earn a piece of the profit for each sale that you make.”
Affiliate marketing is an outstanding way to get started making money online and can be one of the biggest money-makers for a blogger. The bar to entry is relatively low and you can tap into this virtual goldmine right away.
Understanding Affiliate Marketing
When someone purchases a product or service through your promotion, you get a commission, or portion of the sale.
Typically, to implement this method, you’ll create unique affiliate links to advertise products, which you place on your blog. That way the company (Product Creator) knows that the sale came through your promotion.
Amazon Affiliates is a simple example of affiliate marketing. Once you sign up for their affiliate program, you can promote ANY product on Amazon. If someone clicks on your affiliate link and then purchases the product, you get a small portion of that sale.
There are numerous other affiliate networks, such as:
These affiliate programs have thousands of products to choose from, including ones from top retailers GoPro, Barnes & Noble, Lowes, and many more.
When done properly, it’s not uncommon for people to earn thousands of dollars each month, though affiliate programs alone.
Promoting Affiliate Programs
I’m sure you might be saying, “This sounds great, but how exactly do I promote these products?”
There are numerous ways to promote the products. Really, you’re only limited by your imagination. Perhaps the most common way bloggers share and promote their affiliate links is via blog posts.
You may also feature banner ads on your website promoting the products or post affiliate links on social media.
However, my favorite methods of highlighting affiliate programs include:
- Affiliate Pins: Simply create a Pinterest pin for the product, add your affiliate link to it and when the reader clicks, they’ll be redirected to the partner site with your tracking link attached.
- A Resources Page: Check out this example of Ricardo Newbold’s Resources Page
- A Review Post: Share an in-depth review of the product, service, or course on your site and include affiliate links but make certain to feature the pros and cons.
- Email Marketing: Share a hot offer or discount via your highly effective digital marketing strategy of sending emails to prospects and customers. Don’t sell every time but continue nurturing, helping and serving your readers.
- Facebook Groups: Share affiliate links (with proper disclosure) to address your member questions or open new threads with an offer or discount for a partner you trust.
- Joint Venture Webinars: Savvy entrepreneurs work with their partners often securing an exclusive offer for their participants, which is promoted at the end of the webinar.
- Tripwire Offers: Leverage the relationship of an affiliate partner by creating a special offer (limited time coupon code or a discounted price for a product), which you can feature on a tripwire page.
Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing
One of the reasons affiliate marketing is such a great way to make money online is that you don’t have to actually create any products. You’re simply selling what someone else already created.
You’re a promoter, and if someone purchases through your promotion, you make money. Creating your own products can be tremendously difficult, and affiliate marketing removes that difficulty from the equation.
I recommend checking out a popular online course for bloggers, Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing.
The course was created by Michelle Schroeder-Gardner of Making Sense of Cents, who earns over $100,000 a month through affiliate marketing. Reading her blog income reports each month truly helped me to realize the enormous potential there is to make money online.
So, if you seriously want to learn how to make money online, then you NEED this course. It’s incredibly amazing!
Method #3: Create & Sell Digital Products
Who doesn’t want to turn their knowledge into cash and make money while they sleep?
Another great choice for you to make money online is by creating and selling your own digital products to your readers. Such products exist solely in a digital format and include the likes of software, e-courses and computer games.
Everyone (including you) has valuable knowledge that others will pay for – and you don’t have to spend months on course development to make that happen. Since content is an inseparable part of any digital product, the most popular option is to create eBooks.
5 Benefits of a Digital Product Business
- Zero Overhead: You might have nominal overhead initially while you’re developing your product but from that point on, you’ll then be able to sell as many copies as you like minus the need to pay for materials or anything else. Every sale will be 100% profit which can’t really be said about any other business model.
- True Passive Income Potential: Once you have set up an online store and you have people visiting your site, you can make money while you sleep or while you’re on a tropical island escape. When compared to a service business, you’re not trading your time for money, don’t need to constantly be available at specific times of day neither need to travel.
- No Inventory Stocking: With a digital product you require zero digital space for stock and that means you don’t need to rent a warehouse or fill your living room with books.
- Little Upfront Investment: There is very little investment necessary. This means it will take barely any time for you to break even and to start generating real profit. In turn this also means that there’s no risk so you’ll be able to start your business without taking out a huge loan and putting your family in danger.
- No Shipping: As though all that wasn’t enough, digital products don’t even require delivery. That means you won’t have stock going missing or customers claiming they never received their goods. Digital products are cheaper and faster in every way.
Launching A Digital Product Business
Have I persuaded you to build your own 6-figure low-end product suite? It could serve as the foundation of your digital business empire!
If you want to sell products on your own site, you’ll need to create an ecommerce website on which you can list your products and accept payments. But if you don’t want to set up your own ecommerce store, you can easily sell products via SendOwl or Gumroad.
If you’ve decided to create an online course instead, then you’ll have to decide between a third-party platform or a learning management system (LMS).
LMS is a software application for the administration, documentation, tracking, reporting, automation and delivery of educational courses, training programs, or learning and development programs. (Source: Wikipedia)
The majority of entrepreneurs dream of earning a six-figure income – which is absolutely doable but unfortunately doesn’t happen overnight. Everyone starts from $0.00 at the beginning, even those who are now running multi-million-dollar companies.
While it’s the same starting place for everyone, the difference is what you do with your starting place and the lessons you learn along the way. Here’s how to successfully launch a digital product business.
After your launch, perhaps you’d like to copy one of my favorite marketing formulas below:
CONTENT CREATION + CONTENT PROMOTION = BIG WINS!
Do I Need A Learning Management System?
Teachable is an all-in-one platform that helps you create and sell courses online. Teachable handles everything from web hosting to payment processing. They want to give you more time so you can focus on what matters – creating awesome online courses.
Thankfully, companies like Shopify make it incredibly easy to set up an eCommerce store. In a relatively short time, you can have an online store up and running, ready to sell products and get paid for them.
Plus, when you sell products online, generally startup costs are much lower than that of a traditional “brick-and-mortar” store. In many cases, your monthly costs would be less than going for a night out. So, turning a profit is much, much easier to accomplish.
Yet, there must always be the well-thought content marketing strategy standing behind your powerful content.
Method #4: Become an Online Coach
Coaching is somewhat similar to freelancing but with a bit of a different flavor. It’s an excellent vehicle to make money online by working one on one with people and sharing your expertise with them.
If you have significant knowledge in a particular industry or area of expertise, you can package your knowledge and offer coaching services. In other words, you’re selling your expertise as opposed to a product or service.
What sort of coach could you become? The options are endless. You could be a:
- Health Coach
- Life Coach
- Music/Vocal Coach
- Financial Coach
- Executive Coach
- Sales Coach
- And So Much More…
If you can confidently speak to someone about the topic, you can definitely coach someone on it.
Coaching 101 for Newbies
Okay, I’ve convinced you to establish an online coaching business. Yet, you might still be thinking, But I’m not an expert in anything. How could I be a coach?
For example, let’s say that you want to be a financial coach. You don’t need to get financial licenses or any certifications to become a financial coach. Do they help? Sure. But it’s not a requirement.
Maybe you simply have a lot of experience in the investment field and have developed your own particular system for getting wealthy. Or maybe you’re a current or former banker and have accumulated a large amount of industry knowledge (getting out of debt, credit card tips, mortgage financing).
You may not be an expert in the sense that you don’t have a degree, but you’ve still acquired expertise through your many years of experience.
There are a number of platforms that make it easy to do coaching:
All these platforms make it easy to connect with clients and to receive payment for your coaching services.
Yes, simple life experience can be enough. Still, many experts recommend at least looking into getting your licenses or a more formal education.
Creating Your Coaching Mind-map
There’s no real obstacle preventing budding entrepreneurs from starting a coaching business online. It is on the rise for a reason, offering you the ability to scale your business to a global level without forfeiting your personal freedom.
In order to be a coach, you simply need to be able to add a significant amount of value to your clients. You need to be able to help them become consistently better at what they do. You need to be able to help them improve their craft in ways that they couldn’t if you weren’t there to help them.
There are also a number of ways to package coaching services. You can offer:
- 1-on-1 coaching
- Group coaching
- A course with accompanying coaching support
- Or other formats that would work for your field
Here’s how to succeed with this life-changing opportunity. Carefully flesh out your idea, build the “know, love and trust” factor, create your front-end product and upsells, then move them along to your flagship product.
What I Already Own (Resources)
- 6 Blog Posts On Using Pinterest For List-Building
- 10 Beautiful (Personally Designed) Canva Pinterest Templates
- 7 YouTube Videos On Pinterest Marketing
- Facebook Groups I Already Belong To
What My Audience Has Shared They Need
- A Simple System for Getting Started with Pinterest
- Help Creating A Pinterest Account
What I Could Quickly Create
- A “Get It Done” 30 Day Challenge
- The “Get It Done” Webinar
- “Get It Done” Popup Facebook Group (accountability/mini-challenges)
- “Get It Done” Worksheets & Roadmaps (Free & Paid)
What’s the main takeaway here? Figuring out what will the subscribers and fans that you’ve acquired be looking for next, after your eBooks or eCourses. You can count on the answer being “more contact” with you.
That’s where coaching—with personal access to you—comes in.
Method #5: Build a Membership Site
As your online business continues to evolve, you might want to consider building a membership site to convert your blog into a real business platform.
A membership site is where visitors have to register or pay to access exclusive content via a password protected area and remains an excellent method to develop a community. Plus, it provides a lot of product flexibility.
In fact, David Risley of Blog Marketing Academy firmly believes that a membership site is the best structure for a blog-based business.
This can be a great opportunity for bloggers who possess a kick butt content marketing strategy.
- WordPress users produce about 70 million new posts and 77 million new comments each month. (WordPress, 2020)
- 86% of companies produce blog content compared to other formats. (SEMrush, 2019)
- Nearly 40% of marketers say content marketing is a very important part of their overall marketing strategy. (HubSpot, 2020)
(Source: https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics)
How to Create A Membership Site
As you become more experienced, you can even add multiple tiers to the membership program, getting you even more money for your efforts.
Here are the four steps you’ll need to take if you want to create your own profitable membership site:
- Start a WordPress Blog. Utilize opt-in forms or landing pages in your list-building strategy, which facilitates people’s entry into your sales funnel.
- Build Your Membership Site. This is the gated part of your online business where only members who subscribe can access the content you’ve placed behind the gates. Some persons choose to host it on the same site while others employ a subdomain or independent website.
- Utilize A Shopping Cart. The piece of software that facilitates the purchase of your product or service. It’s an easy method to process your customer’s payment plus manage orders and subscriptions.
- Grow Your Email List ASAP. Perhaps this is the first step to harnessing the power of email marketing. It enhances your ability to connect and market to your audience, communicate to paying members, generate a cost-effective ROI, and accelerate customer relationships.
So no surprise that I’m telling you that this is a plugin you may want to check out if you’re interested in creating your very own membership site. For me, my underlying business model is online training and coachingon top of a membership site model.
Method #6: Produce Your Podcast
As your blog starts to grow, you might want to explore multiple revenue streams. For some people, this can mean creating videos for YouTube. However, this usually requires a lot of equipment and editing time. Rather, like me, you might want to start a podcast.
I remember when I finally decided to jump. I delighted in creating my podcast logo, unboxed my Blue Yeti Mic, and went through John Lee Dumas’s free podcast e-course.
There are several reasons why podcasting is experiencing incredible growth.
Firstly, it’s a way of giving your website a voice and growing an invested audience. Plus, it’s accessible from smartphones, free and offers on demand, passionate, and targeted content.
Thirdly, it provides the opportunity for an intimate connection, and engenders instant authority and credibility. Last but by no means least, it affords you a broad reach plus the ability to monetize.
Podcasting is very easy to get started, requiring just a microphone and audio editing software, like Audacity. Once you’re getting podcast listeners, you’ll be able to start selling ad space, bringing more revenue into the blog.
Start, Launch & Market Your Podcast
Another master podcaster, Krystal Proffitt offers a 5-Day Podcast Bootcamp, which covers 12 simple steps to start, launch, and market your podcast. Particularly:
1) Identify Your Audience: Know exactly who you’re talking to.
2) Develop Amazing Content: Know what your audience wants to hear.
3) Produce A Show Format That Works for You: Learn from others to create a podcast you love
4) Learn the Basic Techy Stuff: Don’t let it overwhelm you.
5) Create Guidelines & Processes: Set yourself up for success from the very beginning
6) Practice Recording Your Podcast: The more you do it, the faster you’ll feel comfortable.
7) Learn to Be A Great Interviewer: Know what to ask, how to ask, and when to ask.
8) Setup Your Hosting Site: Get connected to all the major platforms such as iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, etc.
9) Build Your Launch Plan: Plan for success from the start. Launch with 3-5 episodes.
10) Master Epic Writing & Graphics: Sound and look professional on day one.
11) Promote Your Podcast: Create an exciting environment for the launch of your podcast.
12) Continue to Grow & Monetize: Expand your reach. Create deeper connections. Explore making money.
With attention spans at an all-time low, audiences are looking for ways to consume quality information in a fraction of the time. So, step up to the mic and get started podcasting!
Method #7: Launch A Virtual Summit
Would you like to make a huge positive impact on your audience, and way beyond? And what if you could bring in5-6 figures on the back end of your event?
If you are in an educational space, you might want to consider partnering with other popular bloggers to launch a virtual summit.
This is a chance for people to write in their questions, and for you and your speakers to give informed answers.
However, to make money online, you’ll need to sell tickets. But, as long as you get other influential bloggers to sign-on, this shouldn’t be difficult. If you cap ticket sales, you’ll be able to hold multiple events during the year, giving you a steady stream of income.
But running an online event with multiple speakers can be daunting.
There are so many moving parts – deciding on themes and topics, finding and securing speakers, running and recording interviews, setting up a sales funnel, sending email campaigns, and more.
Sure, the logistics are overwhelming! But hosting a virtual summit will:
- Build your credibility as an expert
- Grow your email list exponentially (even if you’re starting from scratch).
- Increase your visibility in your market by leaps and bounds
- Position yourself as a go-to resource in your industry
- Form lasting relationships and grow your professional network
- Boost your sales and income
Create Your “Big Revenue” Virtual Summit
To make money online via virtual summits, you must set specific goals to meet your business objectives. Therefore, in Module 2 of Virtual Summit Mastery, we start with a detailed plan to host the highest-standard virtual event by following a specific framework and strategy.
- Choose Your Market and Your Theme – In Step 1, you’ll learn how to pick a summit topic and define your target market so that your summit provides what people are looking for.
- Map Out Your Summit – In Step 2, you’ll discover how to plan the outline of your summit and make crucial decisions about how you’ll present it, so that it has the greatest impact on your audience.
- Find Suitable Speakers – In Step 3, you’ll help choose potential speakers who are the best fit for the needs of your summit attendees and who complement your area of expertise.
- Set Up Systems – In Step 4, you’ll explore the basic systems and technology you may require, so that can put your sales funnel in place and conduct your interviews.
- Contact Potential Speakers – In Step 5, you’ll ascertain the best ways to contact and offer potential speakers the opportunity to participate in the summit
- Metrics – In Step 6, you’ll highlight the most important metrics you need to track, so that you can measure the success of the summit.
Virtual Summit Mastery is one of my flagship programs. I know firsthand how virtual summits can change someone’s business and life in a matter of weeks.
So, if you’re ready to make MASSIVE progress in your business this year (and beyond), Virtual Summit Mastery may be just what you’re looking for!
Conclusion
In this article I’ve shared 7 proven strategies to make money online. I am not shy to state that creating digital products is my jam!
- Keep ALL the Profits You Make. 100% profit after just ONE sale.
- Instantly Be Seen as an AUTHORITY. A short-cut to brand yourself as an expert in your niche.
- Keep ALL the Leads You Generate. Fast and Zero cost. You’ll have your affiliates building your list for you.
- Have Your Own Army of Affiliates. Instead of just being an affiliate, you now have a huge army of affiliates promoting your product.
- Build BUYERS List. No more cold, non-responsive subscribers list.
- Launch Your Own Business Empire. Yes! You can finally focus on building your OWN business that you’re proud of, not somebody else’s.
So, begin making money online by starting a blog. Blogging is more than just a fun pastime. It can also be a serious business opportunity. As we’ve seen, there are numerous ways to make money blogging.
As your blog grows, so will the income you’ll be receiving. So, pick which techniques will work best for your blog and start making money from your blog.
You just read another of Ricardo’s exciting blog posts: the hub for aspiring entrepreneurs and small business owners seeking freedom and success.
If you’d like to read more articles just like this one tap here to join the tribe.
Share this post with your friends!
Related: Check out this article on how to start freelancing for more advice on the topic or this article which highlights 8 popular blogs driving traffic and making money.
