How to earn money on the Internet? Making money on the Internet is pretty easy; you just need to have patience and a clear understanding of which way you would like to pursue to get income, passive, please.
What do you mean by passive income?
It does mean that you work on another project, and the previous deed makes you money.
For example, affiliate marketing is the best at this point. One con for lazy people is that at the beginning, you need to provide on your site plenty of helpful for visitors content.
Otherwise, nobody will return for the new information or buy a product or services from you using an affiliate link.
Okay, let’s go at first and explore ways how to earn money on the Internet.
Sponsored posts
What does it mean? You write to companies about their services and products, and they pay money for that. Depending on the traffic, some blogs can earn from 3000 to 20000 dollars per month. Impressive? It must be if you have a big audience that trusts you.
How to do that?
You draw an audience writing for social media. Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram are popular places. There through your posts, visitors get an understanding and attraction to some specific products or services.
For example, Instagram is a great place to attract an audience by posting your cat pictures or homemade creations for holidays. People like joyful things and want to be a part of them.
If you reach an audience that follows you regularly and grows, you can get sponsors after showing why you can help them in their business.
Learn about audience
For example, cats, dogs, and other creatures reach more attention than your lifestyle unless you are a famous influencer. The collar on your cat neck, food, or exercise mat will attract visitors’ engagement, especially if they are interested in your Instagram stories and images.
Coaching
You can teach people in everything at that are you right, especially on the monetary side. Do you know how to save for student loans without sacrificing yourself, or do you know how to take care of your nails without stepping out of your home?
Maybe you successful in painting portraits, and you can teach that type of pints to work best. Gardening requires classes, too, especially if you do not have a green thumb, but you like how your neighbors created a nice backyard using just a few tools and plants.
Depending on your level, you can earn from 160 to 300 dollars per hour. It is your experience, knowledge, and time. Why not share with others getting for yourself monetary rewards back.
Using referral programs
Referral programs let companies attract new customers using a loyal customer base to those already happy with products or services.
Rewards can be various from cash to discounts or other incentives.
Have you seen TransferWise incentives such as invite friends you will get $20 back?
Chase bank offers new cards with extra bonuses such as miles for flights and cashes back when spent a particular amount of money during a specific time.
Referral programs
There are many referral programs according to your taste, writing, and research capabilities. Why? If you want to participate in the referral program, you need to know your topic.
You will attract visitors and potential buyers by providing them information about services or products they search for, like, or want to know more about them.
If you can help them decide what is best and most beneficial for them, you win the lottery of customers’ trust as the expert and the person who knows what he is talking about.
Here is a list of referral programs that you can use and apply according to your needs and capabilities.
List of referral programs
- Julep, a beauty product program
- Zulily, a popular clothing website with great findings for everybody who values quality and does like find fashionable items.
- Hanna Anderson, a clothing virtual store
- Love with Food, a food delivery program. You get 10 dollars for everybody who signs through your link.
- Craft Coffee pays for referrals and gives a 15% discount to somebody who subscribes to delivery services.
- Honest is a baby and natural products company founded by actress Jessica Alba.
- PillPack is a company that helps to keep track of customers’ medicine, transferring prescriptions to their pharmacy. After referring a friend, the company donates one hundred dollars to RxArt.
- Soylent is a healthy product company that provides a 50 percent discount to your friends or everybody who subscribes through the link for their first 12 bottles of Soylent.
- Mouth is the best indie food, spirits, and tasty gift collection company that pays a 5% commission for every sale.
- Amazon is a giant company that pays you for people who subscribe to Amazon’s Prime program.
- Hulu Plus is an online TV on demand that pays a $10 Visa Gift Card if somebody becomes a subscriber to the services.
- Lyft is a company for people who want to earn additional income using their own cars. Lyft pays for referring people, 10$ per new account.
- Uber is a company that pays for referring new drivers and riders to their program.
- Tesla offers one thousand dollars to those who get actual customers to purchase Tesla cars. This money goes toward as the credit to buy a new Tesla car.
- Virgin Atlantic provides the ability to fly to get 2% commissions for every booking frequently. Virgin Atlantic provides for affiliates text links, banners, and content links.
- Backcountry is a goodies company dedicated to tourism, sport, and recreation. You can, after referring a friend, give them $10 towards the first order.
- Seamlessdocs company lets you earn a percentage from referring business to their program.
- Amtrack pays for referring a friend.
- Fiverr pays $5 for everybody who makes the first order through your link.
- Google Apps pays you 15 dollars per person who joins to use their services through your link.
List of the ways how to earn money on the Internet
YouTube
YouTube is a decent platform to earn money on the Internet despite the growing number of creators, who can be small and big. It depends on the subscribers’ amount.
Why do I tell that it is not the best source of income?
First, YouTube has rules about placing paid ads from sponsors. You can apply for commercials after reaching one thousand subscribers. Is it a lot? Depending on your content and timeline, how often do you create videos is a relative number.
People can subscribe right away if you follow guidelines that ease up the path to your viewers’ hearts and minds.
There plenty of videos for beginners who advise on how to start from scratch.
The easiest way is to use your phone and after filming your story, post it right away on social media. You will see how does it attract people and how it is an important topic to them. Besides, you see what kind of audience is interested in your creations.
Together you can do videos on your computer using a microphone for under $100 and a webcam.
Great videos on how to start on YouTube come from Sunny Lenarduzzi, Jessica Stansberry, Michael Kinney, Evan Carmichael, or ThinkMedia.
After paying taxes, you will have only 20-30% of earnings from all earned through ads to sponsors and YouTube.
Adding affiliate links to your channel and directing people to your website could help generate more money.
More ways to earn money on YouTube
- Creating sponsored content
- License own content to the media
- Being a YouTube Partner
- Getting money straight to you from fans
- Selling own products
- Affiliate marketing
How does it work?
Creating sponsored content
It is not complicated. One thing is, that you need to find a brand that would pay you directly for promoting their items or services. If you are knowledgeable in a particular area, you can attract manufacturers or designers who would be glad about your help to spread the word about their products.
To start is best from establishing yourself as YouTuber who knows his niche. If you like shoes, show visitors why and how your advice will help them pick the best product. People, who follow trends, win. Why? They stay ahead of others. Visitors will stay with you knowing that you will give them rare information at other creators’ channels.
Licensing own content to the media
After successful videos that attract visitors, you can consider licensing your content.
You would ask why? Other news outlets would like to share your information in this way, increasing the flow of subscribers or just watching visitors.
Having unique content that generates subscribers lets you license your work.
How to start the licensing process?
- Provide easy to find contact information on your About page
- Use an email account for business inquiries
- To find a video rights marketplace like as TVBEurope, Sanjh, RightsTrade, or Jukin Media
Becoming YouTube Partner
YouTube Partner sounds good to you, isn’t?
How does it go? You need to meet the requirements of YouTube. What is it? You need to have 1000 subscribers. Complying with YouTube rules helps too.
Second, the content on your channel must be watched more as 4 thousands public watch hours during past twelve months.
Besides, it would be best to live in an area where the YouTube Partner program is available. A linked AdSense account is preferable.
If you have interesting content, you can spring into heights for one year or less.
One thing that bothers me that YouTube differentiates countries paying per one thousand views.
One successful travel YouTuber from Ukraine explains that:
This example is from YouTuber Anton Ptushkin. You see that the difference between Australia and Belarus is twenty times bigger. Of course, the spending in Canada or Australia, or the USA is bigger compared with countries that do not do economically well.
The sad story is that Youtube, the part of Google, takes 50-70% of pay. YouTuber gets a tiny amount of income. If you have millions of subscribers, you can survive and earn a living. Adding affiliate marketing helps too.
Getting money straight from fans to you
What does it mean? An exciting audience that waits for your content, helps you in many ways. It can be to crowdfunding your work, making donations as much as they can.
Another way is to point your subscribers to the Patreon there; they pay some fee and can reach exclusive content available only to Patreon subscribers.
Selling own products
YouTube is a great place where you can introduce your products. Depending on the nature of products, you can achieve success, especially if you know your audience.
It is enough to have a webcam, a microphone, and persistence with enthusiasm to show how your products will help customers.
The help can be various from entertainment to wellness. Most importantly, you believe in the product and can point out its benefits to the people who want to solve problems or look for the answers.
You can use Keynote or Camtasia software or any simple program that lets you record video.
Having a website where you post blogs about your products helps immensely. On your website, you can provide more information about your products or services.
YouTube lets you post a website link where customers can buy your products or information. Yes, the information can be sold too.
For example, you can offer courses that help your clients succeed in a particular area or learn a new skill. YouTube videos can introduce or show plenty of information that would trigger visitors to dig deeper and go to your website.
Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is the most appealing and successful way to earn money after doing some hard work and moving to the different topics as you wish.
What do I have in mind?
Affiliate marketing is a way to selling other people’s products on your YouTube channel and getting commissions from it.
You create content once, post an affiliate link, and after the visit and buying product or service through this link; you get money.
Imagine that you have hundreds of visitors that check these affiliate links and later on buy through them. The process is repeating itself because of the good content that you provided once.
If you provide value for visitors, they will return to you and will buy. It means that you created content once, and clients come every minute, hour, or day depending on their information.
Of course, it does look simple, but it takes time to research and create appealing videos that give the best of information to your subscribers or new visitors.
Reddit is a social platform where members share, advise, help each other and create mini communities connected by topics. It is a giant hive where people coexist, and sometimes do they find a way to earn money.
Who is afraid of Wall Street?
You would think that Wall Street is for sharks and big-caliber guys mostly. Wrong. The story shows that nobody can ignore a casual guy from social media and play financial games as it was before.
The New York Times provided a fascinating story of how a man named Roaring Kitty helped GameStop, himself, and others to earn money honestly and smartly.
This particular man invested into GameStop 53 thousand dollars that turned into $48 million value.
The story in short
Video-game retailer GameStop was not in bad shape but did not have a big success until Keith Gill, a Roaring Kitty, invested into its stock $53 thousands of dollars.
He influenced other online young traders who bought plenty of GameStop stock and left Wall Street guys in astonishment. Why? Nobody expected that people from social media could earn big money in such a smart way.
Keith Hill and his comrades used RobinHood and WeBull that are trading platforms.
Where is their success? Free online trading tools and plenty of time at home thanks to restrictions during so-called dangerous times nowadays helped these guys to take advantage and kick sophisticated hedge funds into a soft spot.
You can read this inspiring store about conquering new peaks of financial freedom here.
Patreon
Patreon is best known as a platform for creators who attract fans. They pay a fee and can influence content when offering ideas, communicating with artists, and expressing their opinion without being spammed or offended, as it happens in more crowded places such as YouTube.
Creators have the freedom to post their videos or another type of media such as audio on Patreon. There are no commercials, and everybody can choose how to support a desired blogger, vlogger, artist, or performer.
How much can you earn as a creator on Patreon?
The sky is a limit for earnings on Patreon. However, despite it being tempting to start a Patreon page, you need to consider a few things.
First, you need to have an audience that would follow you consistently. The fan base is important.
To see if you can attract people to your platform, you start from YouTube, and later on, you will see how it goes. Why? Youtube is for free.
Okay, when you have a considerable amount of fans, you can point them to the Patreon platform, where they would get more content compared with YouTube.
If you constantly provide engaging content, people will stay with you and pay a membership fee.
The membership fee on Patreon varies from $2 to 100 dollars, and it can be more. It is most important that you could keep many as possible loyal fans that would pay a membership, giving you peace of mind.
For example, you have 10.000 subscribers on your YouTube. Not all of them will transfer to Patreon because of the need to see that you will create or present to them.
It could be 10-15% of your all YouTube audience who like your videos and want to know more from you. From this amount, it does mean rough 1000 Patreon members. If everybody would pay at least $2 per month, you will get $2000. It is not bad at all.
Example from reality overseas
These numbers I got from a real person who has on Youtube over 90.6 thousand subscribers, and on Patreon, he has 7 thousand who pay him in medium 3, 5 euros. You can see this example from YouTube here.
His Patreon stats are here:
This guy produces videos in Lithuanian, but it does not matter. It means that everybody can change statistics that are different from the official Patreon blog thanks to loyal audiences and high-quality videos.
Official Patreon blog states that you can get from potential YouTube followers only 1-5% of people who would convert to potential members of Patreon. However, above listed example shows a different perspective on money earnings.
How much does take Patreon from creators?
Nowadays, Patreon has three options:
- Lite: 5% of the income that you earn on Patreon
- Pro: 8% of the income that you make on Patreon
- Premium: 12% of the income that you make on Patreon
Besides, all creators responsible for payment processing fees.
Summary:
- 1-10 % of YouTube subscribers will become patrons.
- They can pay in medium $3 membership fee.
- Creator’s fee to Patreon will be from 5 to 12 % depending on the chosen option plus payment processing fee.
Pinterest is an image sharing service that expanded to business type media where you can earn substantial money. The Pinterest stock soared from $10 to $80 during the last eleven months.
I guess that you are not into stocks but want to earn money using Pinterest.
Okay, let’s start from that.
First, Pinterest is a search engine. Yes, it looks strange, but it is. It means that when people look for answers and type keywords or telling in simple way questions about what is attractive to them, Google always provides solutions.
Google always takes visitors’ side and tries to provide the best experience to them. It means that if you have solutions to people’s problems, people come to your website.
It is why you need to have a website that will help you earn money on Pinterest.
How to start earning money on Pinterest?
- Create website and blog on it
- Create a business account on Pinterest
- Claim your website on Pinterest following instructions
- Create Pinterest pins and boards
- Create personal boards every month
- Join group boards regularly.
Okay, you did everything like that. What is next?
- Write beneficial posts to your readers.
- Include affiliate links into your posts
- Pin images from your blog to Pinterest boards
The money will come when people start visiting your website. They will find it through boards, pins that would point to your website.
At your website, people can acquire products or services using affiliate links. Affiliate marketing is another option, and a lucrative one to earn money using your website and Pinterest.
Later on, when your traffic increases, you can join Google Adsense or Mediavine. This particular advertiser requires that you would have 50.000 sessions during the last 30 days. You can see these stats using Google Analytics.
Freelance programs
The Internet gives the ability to work as freelancers in the whole world. Only in the USA, more than 53 million freelancers work jobs that are in demand. In the UK, the number of freelancers reaches over 1.4 million.
What do they do as freelancers?
The scale of freelance jobs is wide, increasing every year thanks to technologies and changing job environment.
Most popular and in-demand freelance jobs are:
- Programmers and web developers
- Accountants
- Videographers
- Designers
- Marketers
- Translators
- HR managers
- Copywriters
- SEO professionals
- Medical coders
It sounds tempting to be your own boss. However, you need at first to polish your skills before diving into a freelance ocean. At first, do not leave your job, but try what you like to do best, start from little steps and prepare yourself for ups and downs.
Why? Freelance jobs do not come to you. You need to search for the best options and always look at how to improve your skills.
For example, if you want to be a writer, you need to provide a portfolio to show what you can do. Writers are in demand, but payments depend on your skills and ability to deliver messages to readers and visitors of the website or any other project.
To find any freelance job, you simple google it. As for writers, best sites are
- Upwork
- Contena
- Textbroker
- ProBlogger
- Constant Content
- FlexJobs
- Freelance Writing Jobs
- Writer Access
- BloggingPro
- Guru.com
- MediaBistro
- Craigslist
Affiliate programs
Affiliate programs let you earn as much as you want. Overall, the sky is the limit if you work hard and constantly look for the best affiliate programs.
People who participate in affiliate programs are affiliate marketers.
They promote products or services from companies on their own websites; if a customer buys the product through an affiliate link, the marketer gets commission depending on its rules.
Previously, Amazon was a great place to earn commissions. Nowadays, the percentage shrank a few times. Depending on the niche losses for affiliate marketers were great.
Hopefully, Amazon is a drop in the online world where companies look for marketers who would help spread messages about services and products.
Everybody wins. The company increases sales by introducing products without enormous expenses for ads on TV or social media. Affiliate marketers can earn a substantial living by writing about things that do they like and know.
Do you need to be an expert?
Not really because of possibility to learn new things. Nobody is born with ready to market knowledge about hundreds of products. You can be good at one topic but it is not enough if you want to blog about different topics. However, if you will search about particular items that you promote on your website you can become an expert.
It takes time and dedication. So what? Finally, when you become good at your topic, new knowledge becomes second skin for you, and everything goes smoothly when you gain more and more experience.
An influencer on social media
What do influencers do?
Influencers use social media platforms to share their knowledge, creations, and services to attract bigger audiences and, in this way to get emotional and financial rewards.
How do they do that?
First, you need to be somebody like a person who achieved in particular area results that appeal to followers. If you are not, you can become one.
It can be an area that attracts an audience. Think about cats or dogs videos? What kind of benefits does it provide? However, funny or educational videos about these animals attract thousands of viewers on YouTube.
The more people you have on your YouTube channel, the more you can earn from YouTube ads.
It is the same with all social media accounts. You provide excellent and exceptional service or products to your visitors. People follow you. Depending on the amount of traffic, you can post ads or join big marketing companies such as Mediavine.
Above mentioned Mediavine requires that you would have:
- Traffic no less 50.000 during a 30-y period
- Profitable usage of Google’s AdSense
- Rich and original content that keeps people engaged in your website
Mediavine works with small and big bloggers. However, you can point your followers from social media such as Pinterest to your website. For what you need to have a business account, but it is an easy step.
Do other ways work to earn money as an influencer on social media?
Yes, you can earn money on any media as long you can attract audience and keep it returning back to you.
For example, if you are crazy about fashion, you post on Instagram photos with clothing, cosmetics, advice about style, and earn from sponsors.
For example, Ariana Grande has 221 m followers, and Christiano Ronaldo has 262 m followers. These two influencers differ from each other because of the type of topics. Ariana Grande is a fashion and lifestyle influencer despite that she is a singer and an actor, and Christian Ronaldo is great at playing football.
You would think that for you it is too far-reaching a success as those two did. Fortunately, nothing is lost, especially if you have a passion for something. It does not matter what it is; what is most important that it gives you joy, a sense of fulfillment, and a wish to share it with others.
Wrapping Up
As you see that earn money on the Internet is not such a big deal. However, as anywhere, you need to learn first and later to make. There is seldom success, but it can be temporary, or just a short mingle of luck.
It is a lot better to have a foundation on that you create your financial freedom.
Website is one of the fundamental things that will never disappoint you except if you abandon it without working on it.
Website will stay forever when YouTube or Facebook bans you for the slightest mistake that does not go along with their rules.
For example, you can learn how to create a website without breaking a leg:
You can try courses at Wealthy Affiliate for free during one week period. No payments, no obligations during this time.
Leave a Reply