If you already decided that you want to make money online, but do not know where to start, you might get overwhelmed by the vast amount of choices out there. To keep things into perspective, it helps to narrow things down and group them by area. Once you do this, you will realize that there are only three major areas that you have to choose from, or you could even combine them. Let’s take a closer look at these areas. I will present them in the order of my preference, number one being my favorite.

Number 1: Creating your own Products

Creating your own products can mean a variety of things:

a – ) You can manually create a physical product that you can sell online. For example, paintings, knitted items, dolls, crafts, toys, etc. This is the traditional approach to creating and selling. If you are already really good at something that people would pay a lot of money for, like painting, then this might work for you. Otherwise, I wouldn’t recommend this method.

b-) You can create a digital product that would be printed on demand on a physical product. For example,  POP (print-on-demand) t-shirts, bags, mugs, face mask, etc. For this model, you would create a drawing or a quote and upload it to a POD website like Teespring, Red Bubble, Merch by Amazon, etc. You will then choose which products you want your design printed on, and that is it; they handle the rest. These companies will print the design, sell it, and ship it to the customer. You might have to do some advertising to get the customer to find your product.

c -) You can create a digital product that you sell online. The most common one is eBooks, but this can be a variety of graphic designs or even spreadsheets. This is my favorite method, because you can create a product and sell it over and over. You are not exchanging your time for money; you put in a big time investment up front, and you might have to do a lot of advertising, but you don’t have to create the same product over and over.

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Number 2: Selling Through Affiliate Marketing Programs

Affiliate marketing means that you sell someone else’s product, and you gain a commission every time you sell that product. If you don’t have your own product to sell, this is a good way to get started. There are many types of affiliate programs to choose from, the most popular one being Amazon. The way that affiliate programs work is that you sign up, you get a link, then you share that link on your website. When your customers click on the link, the affiliate programs track them and you get a commission when they buy the product (or in some cases, when they buy anything from the website withing 24 hours).

Number 3: Providing Services

If you have any skills creating anything that can be sent over the internet, you can work providing services. For example, you can have an account in a website like Fiverr, and you can advertise a service. You can do a variety of jobs, like managing someone’s social media account, creating social media post, etc. You can also work as a virtual assistant. There are many different jobs you can do based on your skill. Even if you do not have a lot of skills, you can look at what other people have offered, and try to learn the skill quickly so you can do it too. A lot of the jobs are not so much about the skill, but about the time you will be saving people.

In many cases, the best thing to do is a combination of these models. For example, you can create your own Print-on-demand products, and you can have your own website where you sell your own product and other affiliate products. And every once in a while, you can pick up a high paying gig on Fiverr. The key is to set up multiple sources to guarantee a steady stream of income.

Disclaimer: External links in this page are affiliate links and I might get a commission if you make a purchase through those links.