10 Top Ways to Earn a Passive Income Online

Passive Income



If you want to know how to earn passive income online, I have three words for you: diversified income portfolio. Just like in the real world, having money from multiple income streams is the smartest path to financial freedom. And when it comes to earning passive income online, it’s the best way to accomplish that mission. Now the question is: how can you generate multiple income streams online? Well, here are ten of the best ways to achieving financial freedom, with passive income online.

Sell your services

This is without a doubt the most popular and most common method of earning money online, and there is a good reason for this: it’s one of the quickest ways to get started online. Some people earn a full-time income this way; others earn supplemental income. Of course depending on what you have to offer and the work involved can depend on how passive it is, but none the less many people do earn a passive income this way.

Services offered online are nearly limitless. From providing graphic design, writing, editing, or even voice-over talent, if you have the skill you can collect cash for it.

You can choose to sell your own expertise on your own website. Or you can decide to let someone else provide the platform. Sites like O’Desk and Elance garner traffic on their own. They pay for the platform and advertising. You provide the service and collect your fee. Craigslist is another clearing house of ads for services. It is one of the highest converting traffic sources on the net. You can also try Fiverr, Guru.com, or Mechanical Turk, which are sites where people advertise their services. O’Desk has more categories for listings. But O’Desk and Elance are very well-known sites. Lots of people use them and go back when they need more work doing. Fiverr and Mechanical Turk are really sites for small jobs for small fees. Guru is a terrific spot for newbies. Demandstudios.com is a good site for those who make videos or write. However perhaps one of the very best Is Google’s brand new Helpouts. To learn more and to really understand how to cash in on this, I’d highly recommend The Paid Expert.

Online AdsOnline Advertising

This is a terrific passive income stream. But make no mistake: there is work involved. And it takes a while for the money to come in. You have to know how to drive traffic to your site to make money from online ads.

Adsense by Google is a great one because they do most of the work for you. You don’t need to bother finding advertisers, choosing ads, or even tracking the clicks. The money you earn goes straight into your bank account. Out of the top 200 websites that have ads, 65% of them use Adsense.

Media.Net by Yahoo is another biggie in this field. But be aware that their approval process is more involved. You must qualify by having a certain number of monthly page views to even have an account.

Chitika is another in this field, but less well known. Although they claim to be the top-performer, user testing actually shows that the pay per click is often lower.

You are also free to target your own advertisers as you see fit. Find companies whose products are relevant to your content and audience. Then approach them with an annual package. They will, of course, want to see site statistics and traffic reports.

Online CoursesOnline Courses

You can create an online course as an income stream. The beauty of this is that all of the work is on the front end. You make the course once, but every time it runs you get paid. But make it multimedia because that’s where the value is. You want video and audio, not just text. They can get that in a book. You can also advertise yourself in your bio as a coach in that field. That could lead to more income streams.

Once you get your course designed, where do you put it?

Udemy.com is the biggest online marketplace for courses. They see a ton of traffic, but they also allow you to sell your course to as many venues as you’d like. They do want the bulk of the course in video though. Udemy collects a percentage of your earnings, of course.

Your own website is always a good choice. You can offer lessons via email as well as videos. You can try Vimeo or Wistia as your hosting site for your videos. They let you remove their logo from the video, and they provide analytics. Their service does however garner a monthly fee.

Skillshare.com is a place where you can offer courses in real-world skills. You can teach people chess strategy, relationship guidance, or even how to travel more safely and cheaply. You can build your course for free. But Skillshare earns a percentage from each student’s enrollment. You also have to be approved to join as a course builder.

If you are better known online, then you may want to consider Creative Live. You create a proposal and email it to them, explaining your plan for the course. Include links to your work, especially videos of you teaching.

Revenue SharingRevenue Sharing

This is a terrific option if you have neither a product to sell nor a website. For example, let’s say you’re terrific at writing. Then you can submit articles on a revenue sharing basis. Where can do you this? Squidoo is a platform where you can build rich content pages and then use ads to make profit. Top articles make the money, so your articles should integrate the product you’d be advertising in order to earn. Hub Pages is another place to consider. Your money comes from the Adsense ads on your pages. High content, high quality articles will garner more traffic. They also use Amazon Affiliates and eBay advertising. Kontera is another vehicle they employ.

Infobarrel is a cult favorite because they take less money than Hubpages or Squidoo. You keep 75% of what you make from the ads displayed in your content. Rather than needing an Adsense account, like you do with Hub Pages and Squidoo, you are paid directly from Infobarrel. There is also an internal thread on “Earning Reports” where you can compare to other writers and see where your earnings fall and what’s possible.

Examiner.com is another spot to consider. You must be accepted into this platform. They want articles with a local lens. They like articles on local attraction, venues, and events. You also need to generate a couple articles each week to build a following. They do offer support, training, and guidance. The exact rate you earn is not clear upfront, however it’s still worth considering.

Affiliate MarketingAffiliate Marketing Myths Busted

This stream works easily: you promote the products of another company or individual for a commission. Every sale made via your promotion earns money for you.

The thing is though, you can’t just throw the links up on your site or post about them on Twitter or Facebook and call it a day. If you want to consistently bring in passive income, then you need to build an audience. An email list would be a great strategy. Services such as AWeber and Get Response are good for this purpose.

Clickbank products is still one of the biggest affiliate marketing programs out there. They have a measure you can use to see how sales are going for a product. (It’s called “gravity.”) But they don’t pay you until you’ve made five different sales with people paying using two different types of payment methods. If your account goes inactive—i.e. no earnings—for a period, you’re subject to a fee.

JV Zoo is another one that’s really come into its own over the last 12 months or so. Certainly from my experience I’m seeing a lot of Marketers move away from promoting on Clickbank and more towards JV zoo. The terms and conditions seem to be more pleasing and the platform is an absolute breeze to use.

Amazon’s affiliate program is popular. It’s also a trustworthy and well-known site. That’s a big bonus. But your commissions will be small, since amazon is a well-known site to begin with. But 4-10% commission is just about possible. That said the work is also less, all you have to do is get the person to amazon either via your list or a built for purpose product page. If they buy something within 24 hours—whether it is the product you were advertising or not—you earn.

Commission Junction, or CJ, is a massive affiliate network. You’d also be promoting for well established brands and merchants. They also offer the Pay-per-lead advantage as well as the Pay-Per-Sale.

DigiResults offers all sorts of products from health and fitness products to online business/internet marketing to travel. You are paid as soon as someone buys something. No waiting around a month for your cash.

Quick Online Income Perks

These are simple online tasks for which you can earn money.

Cashbacks are points or gift cards you earn for buying things you were going to buy to begin with. eBates.com has 2,000 stores you can peruse to find these bonuses. Once you sign up and make your first $25 purchase, you get a $10 gift card. And your account is free.

Surveys online is a popular cashback method. But beware sites that ask for a fee. Toluna.com is one to try. Cash Crate is another.

JustAnswer.com is a site where you can parlay your expertise into money. If you are an expert, you can answer online questions for a fee. Are you a globetrotter? FlightFox.com is for travel experts.

Review writing is another stream. You can get paid for your opinion on sites like Expo TV. This works even better if you already have an online presence.

Selling eBooksSelling eBooks

You can sell and re-sell these over the span of years. But you have to market them well. Amazon is one of the biggest eBook retailers out there. And getting your eBook on Amazon can increase sales. If your eBook is priced 2.99 to 9.99, expect 70% royalties. But if it’s less than that, you only earn 35%.

Or sell your eBooks on your own website. Here you earn 100% of the selling price. You also don’t have a bunch of other authors’ books being plugged on the same page as your book. You can also take this opportunity to build a mailing list, and perhaps a long-term relationship with your buyer.

Selling Actual Products Online

Although many people sell services and eBooks, you can sell physical products online as well.

eBay is the most popular auction house in the world. Nominal fees go to the site to list your item and 10% of the selling price is claimed by them as well. But if you are going to sell items routinely, then you can create a store. This reduces your fees.

Craiglist doesn’t require you to sign-up and be scrutinised like ebay, and it’s 100% free. But you don’t have all of the features eBay can offer. Plus, you have to interact with your buyer quite a bit more, and expect a great deal of haggling on your price.

Selling Digital Products

Domain names and websites are a source of passive income a lot of people overlook. You can buy a domain name for less than $10 for a business that is yet to be developed. Then if it hits big, you could make several thousand for that domain name. Even if it doesn’t a few hundred is more than possible. Flippa.com is a marketplace for buying and selling sites and domain names.

Are you a photobug? Selling your pictures on Alamy, Shutterstock, or iStockphoto. Lots of people putting together presentations and brochures need high quality images.

Membership Sites

You can create a membership site where people fork over a monthly fee for password-protected content. You can even start launching the memberships before the entire product is created. If you have a portion of your content together, then you can start selling memberships and effectively start earning before you’re done working. There is the risk that you’re developing a new product that ultimately may not have a market online. But by selling memberships ahead, you have a good gauge as to whether there is a clientele out there. Two great places to start where you can start setting up your own membership site quickly and easily are Optimizepress 2.0 (for WordPress) or Memberspeed.

The key to financial solvency is multiple income streams. You can accomplish this online with some elbow grease and patience. Educate yourself fully, provide quality services, products or content, and pay attention to what’s going on in your marketplace.

Paul Graham




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Paul Graham

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