17 Best Ways To Make A Living Online That Work

After months of research, I finally discovered the best ways to make a living online.

You see, I once worked a traditional 9-5 job and it didn’t just feel right.

I knew that I wanted more freedom, and the thought of making a living online became fascinating.

So I started studying and researching online business models and what successful online entrepreneurs do, and I discovered something shocking.

I mean, look at the top internet entrepreneurs and millionaires like Gary Vernachuch, Jeff Bezos, and Russell Brunson, to name a few.

You’ll find they are generating all their revenue online.

The truth is, it is best to model what successful people do, rather than trying to figure things out on your own.

Because that way, you have greater chances of success.

Besides, everything is moving online, and today, the internet is overflowing with opportunities.

All you have to do is take action.

That’s why in this post, I will ONLY be sharing the best ways to make a living online that are practically PROVEN and have the potential to replace your job income.

And unlike many other posts on this topic, don’t expect to see methods like “clicking ads on your lock screen” and “filling surveys“…

Because I’m all about building an online business that is high income and sustainable.

I’m so excited to give you the 17 best ways to make a full-time living online, even if you have tried in the past and failed.

But first, the fundamentals:

5 Secrets To Remember If You Want To Make Full-Time Living Online

Before we dive into the topic of the hour, here are some important lessons to remember:

1. You Don’t Need to Know Everything Before You Start

All you need to know about your topic is a little more than the average person knows.

If you’re just one step ahead of them, you already know more than them…and that’s enough to make you an expert.

Figure out what you have to do next then learn it and put it into action then learn the next stage after you’re done.

To illustrate this point, let’s take a look at a true story from the book “Catch me If you can”.

On his first day in BYU down in Utah, Frank Abagnale shows up to class and there was no teacher.

So Abagnale was like “Alright”, he walks up, grabs the textbook and starts teaching the class. He teaches the entire first day, and then he taught the next day.

After that, he teaches the entire semester before they catch him and realize that “You’re a student, what’ve you doing teaching the class?”

To sum it up, they went on asking him, “Why did you do that?” and secondly, “How did you know the material?“

Guess what he said, “I just read the chapter ahead“.

Here is the thing, nobody reads the chapter ahead. If you just know like one chapter ahead of everybody else, you are already the expert.

Remember, you cannot learn everything at once BEFORE you start because it’s impossible.

You’ll never know everything anyway because not even the experts know everything.

2. Treat Your Online Business Like A Real Business

This is very important if you want to make a full-time income online.

It’s the same in every business, you need to identify a problem in the market and offer a solution.

In other words, you have to focus on building an online business that provides real VALUE and solves real problems.

The good news? It’s not as hard as you may think.

I struggled a while with understanding how the internet works until I read Russell Brunson’s best-selling book called Dotcom Secrets and everything became easy.

If you haven’t read the book yet, it’s one of the top business books out there that can help you profitable start and grow your own online business…

…even if you are a total beginner with no tech skills at all.

Click this link to get it free (Just cover shipping).

3. It Requires A Level Of Investment And Hard Work

There are no easy roads to success.

Building a successful online business requires you to put in time, money and work.

Here is a quick story of two aspiring marketers who joined an Inner Circle Coaching Program at the same time.

To start, Mike was a college dropout with very little savings left in his bank account.

After attending a transformation Tony Robbins event, Mike met a friend (we’ll call him Joe) who was about to sign up for the Inner Circle Coaching Program.

After that, they hit it off and became friends, and Joe convinced Mike to join the program at the same time.

Joe knew a bunch about marketing. Mike knew nothing. Joe must have been a convincing salesperson because Mike agreed to join.

Not a day later, Mike called Joe to see if he had submitted his application. He was shocked to hear Joe say, “Yeah, I decided I couldn’t afford it. So I didn’t join.”

Mike was stuck. He’d just given us EVERYTHING he had for this program and his friend who knew all about marketing had bailed.

So here’s what Mike did.

Mike showed up. Then he went to the meetings.

In fact, Mike knew NOTHING about marketing.

Fortunately, he showed his coaches a supplement he’d previously sold through a direct sales company and they started mapping out a website for him.

Because he knew nothing, it took him four months to get his first website launched. Yet, he ended up making around $30,000 in a month.

In the end, Joe reapplied to school because he was frustrated that his business hadn’t gone anywhere. It didn’t go anywhere because he hadn’t done anything with it.

Successful people don’t make excuses. They go for it, even when the stakes are high.

4. What You Measure Grows

For your online business to grow, you need to track everything.

Let me explain.

Some time back, my mom was trying to lose some weight and the first thing she would do every morning was to check her weight to see how much weight she was able to lose the previous day.

I got to see that doing boosted her motivation and equally let her know the exercises and kinds of food that actually work.

Something funny happens when you focus 100% in one direction. You will try to beat your own best goals.

Athletes do this all the time. They are always working to beat their best times. It’s the same in business.

On top of that, that’ll let you know what’s working and what’s not. It will also help you optimize your business and let you scale more quickly.

Create a scorecard for your business so you can measure your growth. Pick the numbers you want to measure. You don’t have to be technical or fancy.

Literally, just things like revenue, leads, or new sales. Pick the metrics you want to see and make as many columns as you have categories.

Each Monday or Friday, write down the number. Then try to beat that number each week.

Maybe you only focus on one column at a time. At the end of the month, add it all up and keep that number in the last column. Then you’ll be able to track month to month as well.

Focus on your metrics so you can beat yourself each month.

Remember, whatever you focus on grows.

5. You Won’t Become a Millionaire Overnight

Most real online business models that actually work and make you money require time, work and an amount of investment from you.

Most people come to me saying, “But Valentine, I just heard from that guru that he makes $$$ in a day with virtually no work”

“Run a mile away”, I reply. Those methods at best are either short-term or involve spammy techniques or have a catch to them.

The truth is, you’ll find breathtaking stories in every business.

So don’t think that with just a few clicks and you’ll be making $1 million in five minutes because life doesn’t work that way.

Now, let’s dive into the 17 best ways to make money a living online.

#1. How To Get Started With Zero Capital or Investment

Are you low on funds and don’t know where to start?

If you have a skill that people need, you get started today as a freelancer with zero capital and investment.

It’s not a passive income stream. But it’s the lowest hanging fruit when it comes to making money online.

You see, this study estimates that 57.3 million Americans are freelancing (36 percent of the U.S. workforce) and they contribute approximately $1.4 trillion annually to the economy which is an increase of almost 30% since last year.

Amazing, isn’t it?

Likewise, the earning potential is really mind-blowing too. Ari Zelmanow quit his job and made $10,000 on Upwork in 1 month.

How impressive is that?

However, if you look closer, you’ll see that these results are a little skewed because there’s no income breakdown according to skillset.

I found out that your income solely depends on your skills and your brand image.

For example, the monthly income of a freelance software developer or a business strategist is usually a lot higher than a freelancer offering transcribing services.

Freelancing is the best and proven ways to start your career online with zero capital investment. However, it requires dedication and hard work.

If you’re willing to do that, there’s a lot of money waiting for you on the other side.

Make A Full-Time Income Online With Affiliate Marketing & Travel The World

If you are new to the online business world and you don’t know what affiliate marketing is…

Affiliate marketing is one of the most POPULAR ways to make passive income online. It’s easy to start because it doesn’t require you to own or create a product or a service.

It is so appealing to me because you don’t even have to charge anyone for anything and still get paid.

Here is one of the best definition of affiliate marketing found in Pat Flynn’s Smart Passive Income blog:

Affiliate marketing is the process of earning a commission by promoting other people’s (or company’s) products. You find a product you like, promote it to others and earn a piece of the profit for each sale that you make.

The fact is, affiliate marketing provides 15% of all the media industry’s revenue. And in the U.S. alone, affiliate marketing spend nears $5B.

This infographic describes one of the ways affiliate marketing works in the online world:

As an online affiliate, you could promote both physical and digital products and services.

As the biggest e-commerce site in the world, Amazon has the biggest affiliate program as well. Also, Amazon offers a seemingly unlimited range of products that affiliates from any niche can promote.

Amazon makes it easier for affiliates to sell more because Amazon already has established trust and reputation.

In 2015, Amazon surpassed $100 billion in revenue and it is reported that 40% of Amazon’s revenue comes from affiliate marketing.

Amazon is just one of the many affiliate networks or programs out there.

Though, like every online way to earn, you’ll succeed only if you treat it like a real online business idea and not a way to make a quick buck.

Below are some proven ways entrepreneurs commonly use to make 6 to 7 figures with affiliate marketing:

#2. Start A Niche Blog

A niche blogging is just a cool way of blogging in a laser-focused or narrow niche.

For example, instead of blogging about health & fitness in general, a niche blog would focus on narrow sub-niches like “weight-loss for diabetics” or “fitness for entrepreneurs.”

Jessica Sprague is a good example of a niche blog that targets a very specific audience.

A lot of entrepreneurs and online business owners use this business model to generate high passive income.

Michelle Schroeder-Gardner, a personal finance blogger and affiliate, earns over $100,000 per month blogging while she travels the world. That’s more than $1 million a year.

Isn’t that amazing?

Blogging is one of the most profitable online business models you can use to full-time income online because you could start a blog with very little investment.

In fact, you could start a blog today for as little as $2.95/month with BlueHost.

Here is a snapshot of Michelle’s income report from one month, just to show you how affiliate marketing could change your life:

Blogging helps you build an audience around your business and a platform that can be used in countless ways to make money online working from home.

Niche blogging is all about creating well-researched, actionable and in-depth content that solves the problems of your niche audience.

And when you do that consistently, people start considering you an expert and trust your advice and recommendations.

#3. Start An Affiliate Review Site

As the name suggests, affiliate review sites mainly publish reviews of different products and help readers choose the product that best solves their problem.

BestReviews is a good example of a review site:

Most review sites use the Amazon affiliate program.

Luqman Khan, a niche marketer and fellow tribe member managed to reach $40,000/month in just 8 months with his product review site, generating almost all of his income through Amazon’s affiliate program.

#4. Start A Price Comparison Site

Price comparison sites help users, looking for the best deals in the market, compare prices at a single glance.

They earn a commission every time a sale is made through them.

Price comparison sites are extremely profitable and easy to start up and manage because no much content or work is required.

A very good example would be Skyscanner, a successful travel comparison site that was started from home by 3 uni graduates and later sold for $1.4bn USD.

Creating comparison sites is a huge business, especially in the travel, insurance, banking, and real estate industry.

In fact, around 40% of all car insurance policies purchased online are through price comparison sites.

The fact is, nearly 43% of all online retailers get around 10% of their annual sales through comparison sites.

Moreover, the comparison industry has grown to an estimated worth of £1bn in the UK alone.

#5. Start A Coupon Site

In case you don’t know, coupon sites are those weird sites you go to scoop up a discount code when you are about purchasing any product or service online.

You could get discount codes for almost anything from clothing to household gadgets to flights to domain names and beyond.

They make their money when you use their affiliate discount code or click on their affiliate link in order to get a discount.

The Coupon industry is worth over $470 billion.

I have to admit I wasn’t really familiar with this business model until I was about to buy my domain name from GoDaddy.

I checked RetailMeNot.com and managed to get a huge discount using one of their codes.

RetailMeNot.com is one of the big players in the industry worth $1.8 billion.

Now, let’s take a look at the method newbie entrepreneurs use to make a fortune marketing physical products online.

How To Make Money A Living Online Marketing Physical Products

#6. Create Your Own Online Store

With the emergence of e-commerce giants like Amazon, nearly everyone is comfortable with of buying things online.

Most people, including me, prefer to sit at home and have things delivered to their doorstep with just a few clicks.

If you have a physical store then CREATE an online store today and take your business to the next level.

Marketing your products online makes it easy for your customers to get access to your services and make them fall in love with your company.

The fact is lots of entrepreneurs are seeing this trend and jumping in because global retail e-commerce sales are expected to reach $4.5 trillion by 2021.

With easy to use tools like Shopify and Woocommerce, it has never been easier to start your own online store for such a low investment.

#7. Start A Dropshipping Business

If you don’t have the resources to invest in inventory for an e-commerce business, there is a way you could still sell online and turn it into a profitable online business venture.

It’s called dropshipping.

It is an ideal online business model for anyone who’s low on budget or just wants to test new products without investing too much time and money.

The business model is simple. Here is how it works:

When a customer buys from your online store, you simply go to the original product owner’s store and get the product shipped directly to the buyer.

You make your money by selling the product at a higher price than the original supplier.

So Instead of manufacturing the products yourself, handling storage, warehousing, shipping, etc. you simply arbitrage a product inventory on another store and sell them on your store.

If you are wondering if customers won’t know its a markup price, ask yourself this, how do you know if your favorite online store doesn’t use this model?

Irwin, a first-timer, earned over $1 million in sales in just 8 months of starting his dropshipping business.

As one of the most successful e-commerce entrepreneurs who use Oberlo and Shopify, Irwin’s main piece of advice is, “If I started e-commerce all over again, I would do it sooner.”

How powerful is that?

#8. Start A Fulfilled-by-Amazon (FBA) Business

If you don’t want to manage your own e-commerce store, you could leverage Amazon’s hot traffic of loyal customers.

Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA) is a service by Amazon that helps entrepreneurs like you with shipping, sales, and customer service of your products in your target country.

Here is how it works:

You just need to ship your products to Amazon. They’ll take care of the rest.

Spencer law, the creator of LongTail Pro sold $40,000 worth of physical products in just 30 days by simply harnessing the free flow of Amazon’s hot buyer traffic.

#9. Sell on eBay or Third Party E-commerce Platforms

I know it’s a bit old school, but people are still making lots of money selling on third-party e-commerce platforms like eBay and Alibaba.

You’ll find literally thousands of such platforms in every niche. You just need to search them on Google.

To start selling, you could do something like head to craigslist and check items people don’t are putting on sale.

Then, you could list it for a higher price on the third-party e-commerce platform of your choice. And sit back for them to do the marketing for you.

How To Make A Living Online Selling Your Knowledge

Do you have knowledge or experience on a certain topic?

If you can identify a problem of a niche audience and offer a product that solves their problem, they would willingly buy from you.

Creating a product is a one-time investment that keeps earning you money for years.

You can keep updating your product with new modules to stay relevant to the current problems of your audience.

Aspiring online entrepreneurs often make the mistake of thinking you can’t build a real online business around digital products but you’re about to find out why that’s not true.

Here’s a quick look at the type of digital products you can sell.

#10. Create Passive Income With an E-Book

Ebooks are easy to create, provide quick value to the readers and sell like hotcakes.

Though they won’t immediately fill your bank account but can practically bring in sweet passive income over time.

Plus, it helps warm up your audience and turns them into buyers then you could upsell your high price products.

You could sell your eBooks in bulk to your audience like Problogger who offers 6 Ebooks for sale individually and gives you a special discount when if you get all 6 at once.

Moreover, you could increase your sales by tapping into hot buyer traffic of third-party sites like Amazon Kindle and E-junkie.

#11. Make A Full-Time Income Online Selling Your Own Online Course

A lot of online entrepreneurs and marketers now make a high income by just selling online courses.

For example, Ramit Sethi opens up registration for his premium course Zero to Launch only once a year and sells it for as much as $10,000 per course.

The fact is that the online education industry is poised to surpass $241 billion by 2022 according to Global Industry Analysts, Inc.

John Azzi and Eliot Arntz earned more than $1 million while visiting 17 countries with their course on iOS 8 app development and it’s Swift programming language.

Another astonishing story is that of Rob Percival, a former high school math teacher from Cambridge, England. He netted over $1 million in 9 months with his first course. He released a second course and made $200,000 in the first month. It’s been a steady flow of $150,000 per month since then.

Fascinating, isn’t it?

You could also sell your course on third-party platforms like Udemy. Or you can use tools like Teachable to host, manage students, and process payments for you.

#12. Create Recurring Revenue With A Membership Site

Instead of just offering an eBook or a course, you could create a membership site and offer all your exclusive premium content for a monthly fee.

Membership sites not only have greater perceived value among buyers, but they also give you the flexibility to keep adding new content to it whenever you have time.

This is personally one of my favorite online business models because the revenue just stacks up month after month.

A good example of a membership site is the $997 course created by Russell Brunson (author of best-selling book DotCom Secrets).

Currently, Russell now offers FREE membership to the course where he teaches his best evergreen strategies on how to become a successful internet marketer and retire in 100 days as a ClickFunnels super affiliate plus win your dream car.

Also, you could easily create a membership site and collect payments using ClickFunnels because it’s an all-in-one tool that doesn’t require you to know coding or any tech skills.

You can check out my full ClickFunnels review here.

Extra Ways To Make A Living Online

#13. Start A YouTube Channel

Let’s start by understanding what fuels any business.

PEOPLE…

No business can survive without customers because the more customers you have, the money you could make. Period.

In the internet world, we call people traffic.

If you can harness the flow of traffic online, you could make loads of money online.

Many ordinary people make a lot of easy money online simply attracting a huge load of traffic…

Some have been flukes…like when Howard Davies-Carr uploaded a video of his two children on to YouTube, he thought it would be seen only by his sons’ godfather and a few friends. More than 400m views later, it earned him well over £100,000.

According to reports, 400 hours of videos are watched on YouTube every day and the number increases every day. Google now even ranks YouTube videos higher up than blogs.

If you have a website or blog, you could create a YouTube channel and use it to drive traffic back to your site and increase your income.

#14. Create A Viral Blog

Viral blogs are blogs whose content has a viral potential but a short lifespan like news blogs and entertainment blogs.

This is one of the easiest online business ideas to start up because it doesn’t require much creative writing.

Blogs like lindaikejiblog and bellanaija create compelling content by finding interesting, entertaining and inspirational stories on Facebook and other news related sites, rewriting the content, adding their attractive character and publishing the content on their site.

In other words, these entrepreneurs are making money just gossiping about other people.

How weird is that?

Another example is ViralNova.com which was set up by one guy who hired a couple of writers to rewrite successful content that was published on other sites around the web. This site sold for $100 million!!! Before the sale, ViralNove was making $400k+ per month in ad revenue.

With a bit of promotion on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter or Reddit, you can grow your audience organically.

Within a couple of months, you could be pulling in 30K to 50K unique visitors a month and as the traffic grows so those the amount of money you could make.

Here is the thing, you could start a blog now with a small fee of $2.95/month with Bluehost.

#15. Monetize Your Social Media Account

If you have an engaged following, brands would be happy to pay you to promote their products and content.

Sponsored social media posts pay so well that many marketers have made it a full-time career.

The amount of money you can earn grows with the growth of your audience. Here’s a quick cheat sheet to give you an idea of the earning potential.

When your network grows, brands usually reach out and make an offer themselves. But don’t wait till they do, you could sign up on different networks that connect social media influencers with relevant brands.

But here is the thing, some people have the whole social media thing all wrong and end up living fake lives. Please don’t be like this woman.

Instead, emulate this 21-year old who makes $10,000 a month simply posting pictures on Instagram.

#16. Create An App

If you have an idea for a cool, useful, and/or fun app, this may be the way to go.

Be it a desktop app or mobile app, creating an app is one of the surest ways to build your passive income streams online.

It helps to have some coding knowledge, but it’s not absolutely necessary.

Russell Brunson (the CEO of ClickFunnels) says the software is like the 8th wonder of the wonder and he created his app without knowing an ounce of coding.

Consider getting this FREE book (just cover shipping) so you can see how Russell and his team reveal the secrets to create and launch software or app profitably in the next 90 days even if you have no idea what to create, how to code, or where to start.

#17. Earn Huge Money Online by Flipping Websites

If you’re great at building high traffic websites from scratch, you could find lots of buyers willing to pay huge sums of money to acquire your site.

Website flipping is big business in the online marketing world. The value of a site is determined by its monthly traffic volume, the quality of its content and its existing revenue.

Yaro is a great example who made six-figures with website flipping.

If you’re not willing to start a website from scratch, you could buy a website from someone else, work on it for a few months and sell it for a profit.

Here are a few platforms where you could flip websites.

• Flippa
• Exchange by Shopify
• Website Broker
• Empire Flippers
• Buy Website
• DealASite

Best Ways To Make A Living Online (Full List)

1. Start a freelancing business
2. Start a niche blog
3. Start an affiliate review site
4. Start a price comparison site
5. Start a coupon site
6. Create an online store
7. Start a dropshipping business
8. Start an Amazon FBA business
9. Sell on eBay or third party e-commerce platforms
10. Sell an ebook
11. Sell an online course
12. Create a paid membership site
13. Start a YouTube Channel
14. Create a viral blog
15. Monetize your social media account
16. Create an app
17. Start flipping websites

Are You Ready To Make A Living Online?

No matter where you are in the world, if you have a computer and an internet connection, you could create absolute financial and lifestyle freedom for yourself.

The internet is overflowing with opportunities and I could’ve included dozens of other earning methods to this list as well because they’re just so many of them.

But I wanted to focus on the methods that I consider long-term business models that’ll keep filling your pockets for years to come.

Whether you’re looking to supplement your income via a side hustle or start your own online business, just pick the one best for you and start taking action.

Please don’t you miss out on this new trend or you’ll get left behind.

If you are interested in starting your online business or making a living online, then get the Dotcom Secrets book.

It is going to transform your business and change your life as well.

Click Here To Get The Free Book

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