There are a lot of reasons to consider making money online. It can be a continuous form of passive income. It can also be a cool side hustle to bring in some extra dollars on top of your 9-5. Maybe you have a specific goal in mind like saving for a vacation or trying to get out of debt. Regardless of your intentions, using the internet as a means to make money is worth the effort. Creative ways to make money online
Using online platforms as a way to make money might seem a bit daunting, but it’s not always as complicated as it seems. There are even ways for kids to make money online. You have so many different options to creatively make money online. It’s likely that at least one or more of these options will be appealing.
Here’s a list of how you can capitalize off the internet to either make a living or earn some extra dollars: 1. Start a niche blog and leverage affiliate marketing
Starting a blog is one of the easiest points of entry for making money online. There’s a reason that it’s worth mentioning the word niche. Your blog needs to be laser-focused on a specific topic. It’s not enough to be a food blogger anymore. You need to be blogging about cafes in rural areas of Canada. While that example may not be attractive, the point is that your content needs to be narrow enough that your audience knows exactly what they’re getting every single time. And once that audience is identified, it makes affiliate marketing that much more effective.
Affiliate marketing is when you earn a commission for generating traffic or sales to a retailer you’ve partnered with. It’s usually accomplished through posting links on your blog page that directs your audience to some product outside of your site. Your blog must be niche so you can identify partners that fit your content. Using the rural cafes example, you likely wouldn’t post affiliate links of vacations to South America. You’d want to keep the affiliation to something closer to rural cafes. List of affiliate networks in Canada
Some of the better affiliate programs in Canada include: Ownr Affiliate ProgramRakuten LinkConnector ClickBank Share Results MaxBounty ShareASale 2. Start an e-commerce website and sell products online
Do you think you have or can produce a product that people want? If so, then starting an e-commerce site might be your best option. You’ll have the chance to sell products directly to consumers with no middle person. Of course, this means you’ll have to take on a heavy share of the responsibilities. That includes the following: A website to host your products A merchant account to accept payments (Something like Stripe or Paypal)Logistics strategy, meaning a way to accept orders and deliver products to consumersSomewhere to house all your productsA marketing strategy so people are aware of what you’re selling
If you don’t have your own products, you can also consider selling products that aren’t your own through Dropshipping. Dropshipping doesn’t involve you owning or keeping any products. How it works is that you offer products for sale on your website. You fulfill those orders by purchasing the product from a third party then shipping it directly to the customer. You’ll have to decide whether you want to sell commodities (essential products in high demand), niche products or a combination of both. You’ll then need to decide which platform to sell on, regardless of if you’re selling your own products or curating products to sell online.
Some popular platform options include: Shopify Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA)
The major benefit of dropshipping is that you don’t need to purchase products upfront. You don’t need to purchase any product until you get paid by the customer. This is lower risk than selling your own products, but also takes more work in curating the right mix of products that will be enticing enough for consumers. 3. Find Freelance Jobs
Freelancing is a great option if you enjoy working on multiple projects. You can pretty much freelance any skill — writing, photography, graphic design, handyperson, developer — and never need to commit to any single project for too long of a period. Freelancing is a proven way to make some extra cash. If your goal is to make a living as a freelancer, however, you’ll need to secure several gigs at the same time. One contract rarely pays enough to cover the cost of living. This means you’ll need to develop some kind of system for finding leads, learn how to craft cold pitches, and understanding where there are opportunities for work outside of regular channels.
There are some solid platforms to find jobs for freelancers: Upwork99 Designs Fiver Task rabbit SkywordFreelancer.com
Each specific industry will have its own set of freelance platforms, but these sites are a great place to start. Promoting yourself as a freelancer
Being a freelancer means you are your own boss. There’s no one handing you work and telling you to get it done. You’ll have to take the initiative. Part of that initiative involves marketing yourself through various channels. Depending strictly on freelance platforms to find you high paying jobs won’t cut it. People need to know what you do.
Social media is one of the first places you should start. You’d be surprised what kind of response you’ll get if you just let your friends know what kind of services you’re offering. Posting about what you do is one tactic. What’s more effective is compiling a list of your friends that you think may be interested in your services or know someone who might be interested. Send these friends a personal message. They’ll become your first advocates.
Another means of promotion that freelancers ignore is partnering with agencies. Signing on to a recruitment agency reduces the amount of effort it takes to find leads. Agencies are typically connected to several large companies that are looking to engage freelancers. The contracts with agencies tend to be larger because they also need a cut.
Some of the more well-known agencies include: Tundra Technical Creative Circle Randstad Flex on Demand
Freelancing is fun and does give you a degree of control over your own time. But you’ll still be working with deadlines that need to be met so don’t think all your days will be wide open. Time management will be key, along with staying resilient enough to keep pushing through the months where cheques aren’t piling up. 4. Start a YouTube channel
Of all the ways to make money online, this is probably the boldest. You can’t be camera-shy, you’ll need to have some technical know-how, and you absolutely must be consistent. That said, some YouTubers make serious income. And you don’t need to be the most charismatic personality to get there.
Before you go out and buy a fancy camera and lighting, take a step back. The most important step in starting a YouTube channel is figuring out why. Not why you want to try YouTube, but why should anyone watch what you’re producing. This is one of the top reasons for the success of any YouTuber, along with what your videos will be about and who will they be made for.
The reason it becomes important to determine why anyone would watch you is simple: YouTube is a highly saturated platform. Even if you think your videos are niche, there are likely thousands of videos already available on that topic. For that reason, you must start with a differentiator. What makes you different? Popular content on YouTube
Some content on YouTube tends to perform better than others. Educational videos, unboxing videos, gaming, comedy, and vlogs are all popular. Product reviews and how-to videos are the two most popular.
This is no way means you should stick to any of these. However, this gives you a good gauge of what people are viewing. If your idea can somehow fit under one of these umbrellas, you’ll be in for some tough competition but you’ll also be in a content stream with plenty of potential eyeballs. How to make money on YouTube
This is the question many people want to know the answer to. Unfortunately, it’s not exactly straight forward. Youtube pays YouTubers based on ad views and ad clicks, so the simple answer is to get as many views as possible. Most YouTubers earn between $1.50-$3.00 per 1,000 views. That can work out to $300-$2000 (roughly) for every million views.
Your first step is to create a YouTube account (if you have Gmail, you already have a YouTube account). Once you create an account, you need to turn on Ad Sense. That’s how you’ll get paid.