Making money from the comfort of your own home is something of a dream for many of us. Especially when there’s enough money to live off comfortably. However, when you look into the available options to make money online, you end up with dozens of different scams. Some of them pay you peanuts, others don’t pay at all, but at the end of the day, you are being ripped off anyway.
However, there are ways to make a livable wage (and even more) online. They involve actual hard work, sacrifices and risks, but they do exist. And in this article, you are going to learn three ways to do so.
Freelancing
Freelancing means working with different clients on-demand. It’s not particularly fancy, comes with awful hours and rather mediocre pay, but it’s honest work. And should you make a name for yourself, you’ll be able to make pretty good money.
Some professions are more popular on freelancers’ market than the others. So if you want to make some money online, consider taking one of these professions up.
Programmer
Every company needs a website, and thus the web- and frontend programmers are among the most demanded professions. The payment levels aren’t too bad either — on average, a beginner web-programmer can make around 400 USD/month, and this number grows exponentially as they grow in skills and value.
If you want to become a front-end programmer, consider taking up a FreeCodeCamp. It’s a free coding school that has some of the best lessons for the aspiring code writers. FreeCodeCamp certificates take a year or two to acquire, but they are very well-respected in the IT world.
Transcriptionist
It doesn’t pay very well, but there is always work for a good transcriptionist. Of course, you will still have to learn the proper formatting and get your typing skills up to speed, but once you do — the 1 USD/min of transcripted audio is yours. Some outlets offer rates up to 4 USD/min, but they are more of an exception than the rule.
There isn’t really a universal guide to becoming a transcriptionist since most companies have unique internal rules. So consider just practising transcribing generic media, like news reports, and you should be good to go.
(Copy)writer
Commercial writing is a staple of freelance, and as long as you can actually string words together — you can do it. The payment for beginners is not particularly great, but considering the incredibly slack requirements — it’s good enough. Creative writing is a lot less in demand, but there is still a niche for decent writers that are willing to put in work.
Leafing through Chicago Style Guide will do you a lot of good as a writer — both commercial and creative. Other than that, consider researching copywriting and marketing in general. Neal Patel’s blog is probably the best starting point.
The best website to find freelance jobs is Upwork but the competition on it is rather brutal. Instead, consider looking up your local resources — almost every country has at least one freelance community.
Just remember that freelancing is not all fun-and-games. There is no guarantee that you will succeed, so make sure that you can stomach a failure. Think of it as a change of careers and make sure that you have financial support (either in savings or other sources of income) that can help you survive while you establish your clientele.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketers are subcontractors for different companies, tasked with attracting traffic to their website. They often supplement or even outright replace the internal marketing departments and are considered a good investment for many small businesses.
Affiliate marketing is pretty similar to freelancing — you will still work on-contract with different customers. However, marketer’s job is not measured in lines written or hours worked — instead, you get paid for the customers you attract (it’s also called Pay-Per-Click or PPC). And that’s where the risk comes in.
In order to attract the customers, you need to create the ad campaigns, using Google Adwords, Facebook and other networks. This costs money — money you’d have to pay out of your own pocket. And since you can’t force people to click on your links, even good, experienced affiliate marketers sometimes have campaigns that end up in the red.
How to Learn Affiliate Marketing
PPCHero’s Ultimate Guide to PPC is probably the best guide to affiliate marketing and PPC in general. It’s not quite universal and doesn’t touch upon some of the edge cases but it is the most comprehensive manual available for free. Other good resources are:
- Neil Patel’s Google Adwords Guide.
- Advanced Guide to PPC Audit
- Udemy’s Ultimate Google Ads / AdWords Course
- Google Academy Ads Course.
Where to Find Customers
The best way to find customers as an affiliate marketer is to look up the online services you are currently using. A lot of small businesses have a special page for “Partners” or “Affiliates” on their websites, where they list the terms and conditions of their affiliate programs. Alternatively, you can write them an e-mail and ask directly.
Forex Trading
Trading is very different from other ways to make money online. It is by far the riskiest but also promises the highest results. And the best way to start trading without large investments is Forex trading.
Since the 1970s, Forex became the most lucrative and popular asset market. It has been challenged by cryptocurrencies, but there is a massive difference between them — Forex is largely predictable. And this makes it perfect for small-time trading.
Forex is not random. It has rules, patterns and principles that can be exploited and assembled into trading strategies. For example, the Price Action strategies are all about pattern recognition, while scalping utilizes market’s micromovements. Both of them are reliable and offer high returns, easily exceeding 20% monthly profits.
To begin learning about Forex trading, consider Trading Without Indicators on Babypips. It is not a particulary comprehensive guide but it will teach you an interesting strategy and leave with a good foundation.
One of the best Forex brokers for beginners is JustForex. While they use pretty standard MetaTrader 4 trading platform, they are quite welcoming with an extensive educational database, daily market analyses and overviews, and a high level of customer support. You can even open a free demo account where you will trade with virtual currency.
Featured image credit: Unsplash
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