If you’ve been on the internet for more than a day, you’ll probably have figured out that nowadays, it’s a pretty lucrative source of money-making. Not everyone can make money online, but more and more shops are turning their business online as shoppers no longer take to the high street as much as they used to, but there are also new and different ways of making money online that don’t even occur to many people, some will make you pennies, others pounds, and some even claim to earn tens of thousands from some of these methods.
Blogging
I’ve been blogging for 7 years now (and have published well over 1000 posts!) and I earn a little bit of side income from the blog. As a way to earn money on the internet, it really depends on how successful you are and how much time and effort you have to put into blogging. Some people have a range of blogs in different sectors, writing about travel on one, lifestyle on another, finance somewhere else and so on. I personally have 3 blogs, but that’s mostly because they’re on three quite separate topics and all my thoughts on each wouldn’t fit into this blog!
I could definitely write a whole post on ways you can earn money from blogging (and maybe one day I should do!) but for now I’ll break it down briefly – the main ways to earn money through blogging are:
- Affiliate – this is when a blogger links to a product using a special link. If you then purchase this (or something else) from the website, the blogger will earn a small amount of commission on it. This might be pennies, but if it’s something more expensive, they earn more. It all adds up eventually, especially if you’re a particularly influential blogger with readers that trust your recommendations – so you can see why it’s important to be true to your readers!
- Sponsored posts – a company will offer a blogger a specific amount of money to mention their product, service or site in a blog post.
- Sponsored social posts – similar to the above, but specifically on social media. You might be asked to photograph a product and share on Instagram, then be paid for it, for example.
- Ads – these could be ones arranged directly with a company or ones through a network such as Google Adsense. You’ll usually see these as banners within posts, between posts, in a sidebar, in a header or in a footer. The blogger may be paid a set amount to have the ad live for a certain amount of time, or they may earn per click through or impression on the banner.
Freelance Work
I was going to include this under blogging, but it’s kind of an offshoot of it for many people. If you’ve managed to work enough on your writing through blogging or you’re qualified already, freelance writing is popular. Many people find work through sites like People per Hour, for example, to write blog posts, web content, SEO content and more.
It doesn’t just have to be writing though. Blogging and working on the internet can give the opportunity to learn lots of new skills such as web and graphic design. You can then offer these skills out freelance too.
Online games & surveys
There are a huge number of these out there, but people often discount them for some reason! I quite frequently use Prolific Academic which is used by researchers on university projects – they can be fairly in depth or very quick, and you can earn anything from 10p to a few pounds depending on what the survey is and how long it is. I know a lot people also use places like Swagbucks, Toluna and YouGov, as well as many others, but honestly I don’t have time to do those at the moment! They can be quite lucrative though – Katy Kicker is a blogger who often talks about them if you want more info.
A few more options include checking out online slots like these here or even Matched Betting. I haven’t tried that one myself but another blogger, Aldi to Harrods, has talked a bit about it here if you want to know – it seems like a fairly risk free way to get into it.
Selling online
This could range from selling things that you no longer need in your home and wardrobe on eBay (or even buying things cheaply at places like charity shops, cleaning them up and selling them on for more – I know people who do this) to creating your own products to sell online. And these don’t even need to be physical things either – you could create online courses for people to learn a new skill (like blogging!). There are so many options out there!
Do you earn money online? What methods do you use?
