Taking online surveys is just one of the many ways to make money online. There are lots of scams and misleadings. So what are the other ways of earning money online? This article discusses 4 ways of earning money online.

Earning Money Online Taking Surveys

For most people, earning money online taking Surveys is a short-term solution. It’s easy to sign up, you click a few buttons, and give your honest opinion on a variety of topics. The problem, however, is that not many people enjoy doing them. The most common reasons for this are:

You don’t learn anything new:  Unfortunately, whether you do 1 or 100 surveys, you’re not getting any valuable experiences out of it. It’s a very mechanical process and all you’re doing is sharing your thoughts.

There are lots of scams and misleadings: One of the hardest things about taking surveys online is finding the right ones. Before you find a single, legitimate website, you need to sift through multiple “scammy” ones. And if that’s not hard enough, after going through this entire process, you still need to be pre-qualified in order to participate. Companies will screen you before you can take them, and If you don’t match their criteria, you can’t take the survey. Talk about a time waster!

They don’t pay much: It’s a common misconception that after taking a couple of bad once you’ll start to get some good ones. But that’s not the case. The pay rates tend to stay the same and they definitely don’t increase over time. When you add up all the time you spent and the amount of work you did, you’ve probably made less than minimum wage (ouch!)

To sum things up, surveys are great to kill some time and dip your toes into the opportunities that are out there. Luckily, they aren’t the only things you can do.

Here are 4 ways you can earn money online without taking surveys:

1. Earning Money Online: Sell your stuff

Many people are beginning to realize that having too much “stuff” keeps them trapped. We are seeing a rise in movements such as van life, minimalist living, and TV shows such as Marie Kondo’s “tidying up” that all revolve around the idea of selling your stuff and living a more simple life.

Now, what does this possibly have to do with making money online? Most of these people get rid of their “junk” by using the internet.

Right now, you probably have hundreds of items at home that you don’t use. Your trash can literally be someone else’s treasure.

Here’s how you can make some extra money selling your stuff:

• The first step is to have a good look around your house and notice some of the things you don’t use anymore.
• There are thousands of people on websites such as Ebay and Amazon looking for products you don’t use in good condition.
• You can also post your stuff for sale on sites like Craigslist, LetGo, Poshmark, and more.

2. Sell your skills as a service

Not too long ago, becoming a freelancer meant that you needed to create a massive network of people that may need your services. Today, there are websites where thousands of people are looking for freelancers who can help them solve specific problems in their business.

If you are able to use your skills to solve a problem for someone, you can start selling this as a service to other people online.

Here’s how you can get started freelancing:

• Pick a skill
• See if people are paying others for this skill. For example graphic design
• Sign up on websites such as Fivver, Upwork, Freelancer and more.
• Send proposals to people who are hiring for that skill set.

3. Start a Blog

I’m sure there are many people who come to you for help on a specific topic. Everybody has a unique life and work experiences. And did you know this knowledge that you have within you right now can be shared and turned into a profitable source of income?

That’s because people look to the internet for answers to their problems. The most common medium is through a blog post. In order to be a successful blogger, you simply share your experiences and help people solve their problems.

The key to making money with blogging is to build up an audience of people who share common interests. As your blog grows you’ll begin to develop a  relationship with your readers. These people will become your biggest asset and servicing them is how you’ll monetize your work.

From my experience there are three ways to make money blogging:

Affiliate marketing: this is when you promote other people’s products to your audience. There’s an affiliate program for almost anything. By doing a quick Google search for “(niche) affiliate” you will find thousands of them related to the topics and industry you wish to pursue.

Here’s how you can become an affiliate:

• Choose a product or service you’d like to promote.
• Get an affiliate link from that company.
• Write blog posts on topics you enjoy or have experience in.
• Place your affiliate link at the end of your content.
• Every time someone clicks on that link and makes a purchase you’ll get a commission.

Make money from your email list: If people signed up to receive email updates from you, chances are they care about your work. They look forward to hearing from you. This opens up an opportunity for you to offer a variety of products and services to them. And since they like, know, and trust you, this makes selling to them a lot easier.

Here are some ways you can make money from your list:

• Include affiliate links to products or services that can benefit them
• Create your own product and tell them about it.
• Advertise your own services.

Guest posting: This is when you write a blog post and pitch it to be showcased on someone else’s blog. The goal is to widen your audience by showing your work on someone else’s platform. If your content is good, people will become curious enough to come to your blog afterwards and check it out.

Here’s how you can successfully guest post:

• Find bloggers in your niche
• See if they accept guest posts
• Pitch a topic they haven’t talked about yet and that you believe will be helpful to the readers

4. Stream Content

Showcasing your work online has been proven to be profitable for the last couple of years. You can now become an entertainer in the niche of your choice. We’ve seen people become successful streaming videos, music, games, tutorials, and much more.

Like blogging, the money comes from the audience you develop from your content and the relationship you have with them.

Here are some of the most common ways you can make money streaming:

Ads: Whether you’re using Google AdSense or partnering with a company who can benefit from your audience, advertising continues to be one of the most popular ways to monetize streaming.

Donations: People know that it takes time, effort, and resources to keep things running. Those who are loyal to your channel and love your work will likely want to help you to keep doing your thing. If you have a large enough audience and provide them with massive value, you can ask them for a small donation.

Subscriptions: Most streamers offer content for free. However, in order to gain a premium experience and have access to something that’s different from everything they’ve, one thing you can do is offer exclusive content for a small fee.

Final Thoughts

As you can see, although surveys are a great way to start making some extra money online, in the long term they’re not the best option. We recommend you choose one of the four examples we laid out this blog post and focus on executing them until successful.

By doing so, you will learn a valuable skill set that can help you build a long-term income stream. The knowledge you acquire throughout this process can help you grow your own business, land a better job, or start an online side hustle that can support your dream lifestyle.