Can anyone earn money online?

Anyone? No.

I wish I could say yes. I have been self-employed and making money online for more than six years. It’s not particularly difficult, and there are numerous ways to do it. In the last few months, I have seen a flood of similar questions. That’s understandable, as the economy around the world is draining, people are losing their jobs or are underpaid, and working from home is becoming not just a weird new thing that some people do, but a common career path.

Due to these changes, the typical nine-to-five work culture has almost come to an end, and people are taking the dream of earning money online a lot more seriously. I have seen many people who, despite having good jobs in such hard times, deliberately quit and switched to working online because for their experience and industry, it made more sense.

But can ANYONE do it? No. Not just anyone. Some people can, in fact, a lot more people can do it than they might think. But most just don’t, because it’s too scary, unpredictable, and unfamiliar. Let’s dive deeper into why that is.

There’s an art to earning money online, which takes experience to improve. That art can be developed at any age, irrespective of your academic qualifications. All you need is a bit of computer literacy to use the internet, and you must have skills that people will actually pay serious money for. Always remember, “Skills pay the bills.” Having skills is a plus, but, if you don’t, you can still make it, no problem, as long as you at least have a willingness to learn.

In my opinion, all of this stuff is easier than most regular wage-based jobs. But it feels harder because you don’t have a boss you’re afraid of disappointing. There’s no one behind your back expecting you to put in the work and perform. If you’re the type of person who can’t act on their own, who can’t stand up and generate momentum and do the work, even when you don’t feel like it, then you’re probably not going to make it through the initial grind to profitability in an online venture. That’s the honest truth. It’s not difficult, but it’s not completely effortless either, and people have to respect that if they want it to work.

Since a lot of us are kept inside due to our current circumstances, earning money online is an intelligent way to meet your needs. But not everybody understands the internet as well as they think, and not everyone has the mindset necessary to stick with it and keep their head in the game. Entrepreneurship is scary, and often lonely. There are arguably no right answers to the problems you face because there’s no authority above you who can say “Just do it like this.” and you have to listen to them. Having no boss might sound awesome, but most people just don’t want another bad boss. Working for a boss can be great, especially if you’re the kind of person who does not like to worry and figure things out on their own, at risk of taking responsibility for a bad choice.

To ensure there is no problem in the future, and your income continues to multiply, it is necessary to know and adopt only legitimate ways of making money online, modeled off the success of other people. The more you educate yourself, the more you become the kind of person who will make this work. Nobody is born without the personality and potential needed to make money online, it’s just about getting there.

As an aside, I’m not saying this out of theory. In my initial days, when earning money online was less common, I used to constantly try and convince my family and friends to get into it. The ones who were moved by my ideas at that time are earning a good amount, many have quit their jobs, and some friends joined me just a few months back, but it makes me happy to see them growing faster than the people I helped earlier like I’ve become a better teacher in the process. Especially when I think back to their objections and declarations about how they could never do this, or never do that. Turns out in order to be free, yes, they could do it. So just know that you can, too if you believe that you can.

Anyway, here are three ways in which you can make money online now (October 2020):

#1 Blogging: If you have an interest in writing, and are passionate about a topic with money behind it, you can start a buyer-interest blog or buyer-lifestyle blog. You can have the blog be about anything you like, preferably a topic in a profitable niche like health, education, lifestyle, etc. You can also write product reviews for added traffic or make an online course, which the blog links people to and sells them on trying. Most non-native sites have built-in monetization for the writers who do well. With your own site, you could do AdWords and direct product sales, and on sites like Medium, there are partnership programs where people earn money when their posts get shared, liked, etc.

#2 Affiliate Marketing: My favorite way to make money, or at least it was for a long time. Now something else beat it, but it’s still at number 2. I made a good amount of money from it in the past and continue to do so now. You really don’t have to just make money from selling your own products or services. Some of the most profitable business models don’t involve selling anything of your own. For instance, who do you think makes more money, a company that sells camping equipment at Walmart, or Walmart itself? Obviously in that business model, whoever offers the biggest and most convenient place to buy things beats whoever sells those things in that business’s stores, in terms of profitability and power.

#3 Build your website:  In the long run, this is your best option. There is so much money to be made in just making a site based on a good idea, filling it with valuable content, and monetizing the visitors. You can do whatever you want on a website that you own, be that direct selling, consulting/expert services, lead generation, perform surveys, provide digital products, dropshipping, etc. You have no limits on your pricing, no shared ad space with your competition, and no censorship of your brand or marketing ideas. You can even earn money just from getting visitors, by running ads on your pages. The best part is, you do not need to have programming or coding knowledge. You can make a website with many available online utilities such as Wix, WordPress, and Weebly.

People also make a good amount of money by uploading YouTube videos and becoming social media influencers. In that case, the model is more the reverse. Instead of making a site where you sell something, you create a platform of many website profiles, especially on social media, and you build your name and audience to as big a reach as possible. Then, you can make money on sponsorship deals and similar marketing agreements. I could give more suggestions if I knew a little more about your background. I will assume that you are starting from scratch. My website has a lot of helpful stuff on making money online, especially the Knowledge Base section on it. If you have any questions on things I said here, feel free to reply in a comment and I’ll get back to you.

Well, that’s about enough. There’s such a thing as too much information when learning this kind of stuff. I will end on one point: I have a policy on becoming an entrepreneur and making more money. It’s called 3S. Skilled, Smart, Strong. Those are basically the three pillars of financial independence, and you need to embody all three for maximum income. My post: I’m Ready to Quit My Job YESTERDAY, How Do I Do It? discusses them in detail. Again, check my site if you want something like that, as it’s less technical and more about groundwork and the right mindset before you begin a journey like this.

In conclusion, there are many ways to earn money online, and the three tips above will help a lot. But you need to be willing to learn new things and do it right. And since I know that most people won’t do that, I have to say that no, not just anyone can earn money online.

Good Luck!

Thanks,

Cleo