Sea of Opportunities to Earn Money Online
There are plenty of opportunities to earn extra income online, such as freelance writing or proofreading, creating a tutorial or a course, offering services as a web designer, logo designer, online session musician, singer, poet, counselor, coach – the list is constantly growing.
General Freelance/Online Jobs
You can search for online/freelance jobs through websites such as:
Writing Jobs
Freelance jobs specifically for writers can be found here:
Voiceover Jobs
If you are a singer or can do voiceovers, you could offer your skills at the following websites:
If you are stuck for work, do check these sites out and you’ll see the horizon of your online work opportunities widen instantly.
Affiliate Marketing
You can also try affiliate marketing, which I would recommend because of my own positive experience.
How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?
If you have a hobby or a strong interest in your life, you can build a website around that topic. Then you’ll keep writing articles about the things you like, and with enough dedication and time, you can start reaping rewards by online income.
You can gradually start monetizing your site by, for example, becoming an Amazon affiliate. Then you write about products that you have tried or would recommend, insert your unique affiliate link, and if a visitor of your site clicks on it and buys something, you will get a percentage from the sale.
You may have noticed the disclosures on this page – this informs the visitors of my site that I am an affiliate marketer, so they can make an informed choice whether to purchase something from my links and thus help me earn a small commission at absolutely no cost to them. I love this principle, it’s like a fair exchange of energy; if people find what you’ve written useful, they may chose to reward you for your work. Whenever I earn a commission, I thank the person in my mind and with all my heart, even if I don’t know who he or she is.
You can join many other companies, not just Amazon. For example, if you like motorbikes, type the following in Google search bar: ‘motorbikes + affiliate program’, and you will find companies that might accept you as their affiliate partner, and you can then use your affiliate links in your blog about motorbikes and get paid if people like what you’ve written and make a purchase through your link.
Success is Gradual and Cumulative
Affiliate marketing is definitely not a get-rich scheme – it requires a lot of dedicated work. But if you have a passion for something, it will give you the driving force to keep working at it; you’ll develop a certain discipline, and because success is cumulative, in time you will get rewarded. (I can’t describe my joy when I saw my first affiliate commission in my Paypal account!) Earning money by doing what you really like is extremely motivating. Work of this kind, however hard it may seem in the beginning, becomes very meaningful and fulfilling.
Get Rewarded for Genuinely Helping Others
One thing is very important to know: The people who are most successful in affiliate marketing are the ones who genuinely want to help people through their blog content. It has to be useful or interesting for others. You should offer something that others may benefit from – something that will either entertain them or solve their problem (such as ‘how can I ease arthritic pain’ or ‘which camera is the best for high-quality videos’ etc.)
The latter one, solving a problem, tends to be more successful, at least according to marketing experts. So think of anything you are good at, or what really interests you, and then imagine you are writing an informative article about it. Someone will come across it and if your intention is genuine (and you’re not just ‘fishing’ for sales), you will start earning income by helping others.
The Difference Between Affiliate Marketing and Multi-Level Marketing or Pyramid Schemes
It is a matter of personal choice, but to me, affiliate marketing is a definitive winner over Multi-Level marketing. Let’s look at the main differences:
Multi-Level Marketing:
- You have to first buy the products that you’ll be selling
- There’s usually a joining fee, e.g. buying a starter kit
- You have to actually sell the products in order to make money (i.e. bother your friends and family)
- You’re limited to selling specific products by the company
- You may have to recruit other members to sell your products to
I once joined such a company without realising that they operated on a multi-level marketing principle. I naively thought that it was a training course for nutritionists (because they had been presenting themselves as such). They convinced me to purchase a mountain of protein powder (I could barely find my room under the heap of all those huge jars). Needless to say, it required a huge financial investment. I soon realised that I had to sell all of it in order to get my money back. That meant bothering all my friends and family to buy it off me. I wasn’t really cut out for this, so in the end, I ended up giving most of it away and eating the rest.
Affiliate marketing:
- You don’t have to sell any products, only promote them through your website
- There are no fees to join an affiliate program (like Amazon, for example)
- It’s entirely up to you what products, programs, etc. you want to promote, and the amount is limitless
- You don’t have to bother anyone personally in order to make a sale. A helpful and interesting article written by you will get noticed and people will purchase the products you promote of their own free will
Where Can You Learn About Affiliate Marketing Step by Step?
Learn from Successful Bloggers/Internet Marketers
There are plenty of experts around who offer quality guidance about setting your online business and teach you how to start your journey as an affiliate. One of such experts and wonderful people is an award-winning blogger Harsh Agrawal. I have subscribed to his newsletters because he’s one of the top bloggers who knows just about everything about online business and covers all the aspects of digital marketing – from blogging, WordPress, Search Engine Optimisation to web hosting and making money online. He has a cool blog ‘Shout Me Loud’ which I check regularly, and he has published a very clearly written beginners’ guide to affiliate marketing which I have, and which has helped me avoid many beginners’ mistakes.