Are you someone who is struggling with their finances? Considering where we are economy-wise, it is understandable that some people have big concerns about their future and want to make more money to feel safer.
Thankfully, there are ways to create a source of income without leaving your home. You can work remotely on either a side-gig or a full-time idea and see how it turns out.
Of course, before you start, you need a method. Right now, there are multiple ideas that one can try without having to invest as much. So long as you have an internet connection and a computer, you are pretty much set.
One final thing to note before moving to the actual methods and describing them is this—do not feel too frustrated if you do not succeed with your first idea. Treat it as a valuable experience and move on to the next method until you find a method that works.
Custom Merchandise
Let’s start with custom merchandise. Right now, the trend to design and sell t shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and other merchandise is quite big.
Sure, the idea of such products is not something new. It has been around for a while. Just think about politicians, for example, who need various pieces of memorabilia for their political campaigns.
Keep in mind that politicians are only one type of demographic that benefits from custom merchandise. Content creators who want to monetize their content also rely on this idea.
For someone who has no audience or political aspirations, starting a print on demand business from scratch might feel like a difficult task. However, you do not have to worry about spending too much money initially.
Because you have companies that specialize in product creation and fulfillment, you can focus on customer service and advertisement.
Of course, you will also need to come up with design ideas. Unless creativity is your strong suit, you will need to hire a professional designer and leave that side of the business to them.
As a newcomer, it is also important to thoroughly research your audience and find out whether your idea can succeed. Entering a competitive market is tough because other brands have had a lot of time to get ahead of you.
As such, it is recommended to narrow down your niche as much as possible. For instance, if you are thinking about creating merchandise related to video games, select a specific franchise or a character rather than an entire video game industry.
Online Surveys
If you have the goal to spend one hour or so every day to make money, there is hardly any better method than online surveys. A quick and uncomplicated idea sounds like something up your alley if the goal is to spend a little bit of time you have to improve your financial situation.
Filling out surveys varies on what services you have and what surveys are available. On average, you can expect to make about 20 dollars in an hour. Of course, it means committing that time to fill out surveys, which can get pretty dull after a while.
If one survey takes about 10 to 15 minutes to fill out, you can complete roughly 5 surveys in an hour.
Right now, top online survey platforms include:
- LifePoints
- InboxDollars
- Swagbucks
- Survey Junkie
- MyPoints
It is worth noting that some survey services do not pay out directly in cash. They offer coupons and gift cards.
Finally, if you run out of surveys after you complete them on a computer or smartphone, switch to another device because some surveys are exclusive to mobile devices while others are available only on laptops and desktop computers.
Virtual Assistants
Becoming a virtual assistant is a good first step toward making money on the internet. Quite a few people do not have enough time to complete their job, and they hire virtual assistants for help.
The tasks vary depending on your experience and how much your employer trusts you. Early on, you are unlikely to be given really important things to do, and the pay might feel underwhelming. However, with time, as you gain trust and more experience, you can expect better compensation.
You can also treat a virtual assistant gig as your ticket for better opportunities in the future. If you impress your employer, they will be more than happy to provide a good reference on your behalf.
Now, as for where you should look for VA jobs, platforms like Fiverr and Upwork are some of the best options. Social media groups work as well. You can find people looking for VAs who should be able to manage social media profiles, be good at data entry and internet research, know the basics of Photoshop, and so on.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing might not be as popular as it once was because of other methods of making money online, but it is still a worthwhile consideration.
The goal of affiliate marketing is to convert leads to customers. Call-to-action buttons that potential leads click on lead to a landing page where they need to purchase, download, or fill out a survey, to name a few CTA examples.
The challenging part of affiliate marketing is coming up with an idea and driving traffic to your site. And that traffic is not something random. You need relevant visitors. Otherwise, the conversion rates will be abysmal, and you will hardly make any money.
Amazon is the go-to platform as far as affiliate programs are. The site has a plethora of different products that you can choose from and advertise on your affiliate marketing site.
Streaming
Try your luck with streaming on Twitch TV or YouTube. If you have an entertaining personality, building an audience and monetizing it via donations, subscriptions, and sponsorship deals is not out of the question.
One of the key things about streaming is consistency. Even if your viewership numbers are low, you need to keep the stream going so that the audience builds expectations and knows when they can find you live the next time.
Right now, most streamers play video games as a way to entertain their audiences, but you can try other ideas if you are not into video games that much. Music, cooking, talk shows, podcasts, live streams where you travel and interact with viewers, or charity events are some of the ideas that one can monetize on Twitch or YouTube.
Conclusion
To sum it all up, these five ideas ought to push you in the right direction if you are set on creating a source of income online. See which of the mentioned methods suit you and try it. And be sure to prepare for some difficulties because there are many other people who are trying to achieve the same thing as you, which means competition.
