What Is The Best Way To Make Money Online?

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Aren’t there more than one way to make money online?

You are right!

There are so many ways to make money online today. The Internet is full of opportunities. There is no such thing as too little opportunity online. The exact opposite is happening. There are so many things you can do online to earn money.

Some time ago i published a post titled “How Can I Make Money Online?“. In that post, i talked about some of the most popular ways to earn money online, from affiliate marketing to dropshipping and freelancing. It is a pretty long post but i believe it is worth reading especially if you are looking for ways to make money online and have no idea where or how to start.

The best way to make money online

But in this post, i want to discuss with you about something else. I don’t just want to write a list of all the legitimate ways to make money online. There are already plenty of similar posts online. And in my opinion, a great number of these posts are not going to help you. Their tips are just not practical. Unless you already have a specific set of skills their advice will be pretty much useless to you. Like working online as a graphic designer or designing an app are great ideas to earn money online but they are not for everybody. And certainly not the best way.

In my opinion, there is a way to make money online you must try. That way is no other from starting your own business. It doesn’t matter so much what kind of business you will build or what it will be about. As long as you do it and you are willing to work hard for it. And yes everyone can do it.

Most Profitable Online Business To Start In 2020 And Beyond

Nobody wants to invest time and money creating an online business only to find out later they can’t generate any money that way. I believe there is no such thing as “the best way” as it all depends on what you want to do and also one’s best way may not be the best for another. Every business model has its risks, advantages, and disadvantages. You just have to pick the one you like the most.

That’s why i created this list of the most profitable online businesses you can start building today. 

Affiliate marketing. In my opinion, this business model is the best way to get started especially if you have no prior experience. Not only because it requires very little money to get started but because if you succeed as an affiliate marketer you will know everything there is to know about making money online. And you can be sure that you will do well regardless of the business model you decide to choose in the future. 

Affiliate marketing is very easy to get started with and it can be done on an (almost) $0 budget. Its simplicity is what makes it great. All you have to do is refer your audience to purchase someone else’s product or service and you get a cut or percentage of the commissions. There are affiliate programs about almost everything online. So no matter what your interests are you will find something to promote.

The key to making a profit with affiliate marketing is to offer quality products that will really help and solve your audience’s problems. Your reputation is everything. Don’t sell products based solely on the commission you will earn. Also, there are several great affiliate marketing training courses out there that can help you get started. And don’t forget that some of the best training can be found online for free. Yes, that’s right. They cost $0. Just follow the top online marketers and spend some time reading their content. You will discover numerous great tips and marketing strategies. 

Dropshipping – Build an e-commerce site. Without a doubt, dropshipping is still profitable. Over the last couple of years, it’s indeed become more competitive but it’s not dead. One of the reasons it became so popular over the years it’s because starting a dropshipping business is very easy. All that is required is finding a supplier, setting up your website and start selling the goods. The cost of setting up a dropshipping business is also very low since you don’t have to purchase inventory, no shipping costs, etc. On the other hand, you must carefully choose your supplier if you want to avoid issues with shipping.

Here is a list of some of the best dropshipping suppliers

  • Oberlo
  • Inventory Source
  • AliExpress
  • Doba
  • SaleHoo
  • Wholesale2B
  • Megagoods
  • Spocket

Also in case dropshipping is not for you building an eCommerce website has never been easier. Below is a list of some of the top-rated eCommerce platforms

  • Shopify
  • BigCommerce
  • Volusion
  • Squarespace
  • Weebly
  • Wix
  • WooCommerce

Ways to make money online

Selling your own digital products or services. That’s what a lot of successful online marketers do. In many ways, this is the next step after affiliate marketing. And it makes perfect sense. If you have already succeeded as an affiliate marketer it means you have build up an audience that trusts you and buys the products you promote. Why not create your products? The cons are you have to handle the customer service issues yourself and developing a high-quality digital product takes time, planning and thorough testing.

Amazon FBA. People in the USA, UK and much of Europe love shopping on Amazon and you can create your own business using Amazon’s shipping and warehousing. FBA stands for ‘fulfillment by Amazon’ and it means they do pretty much everything for you. Amazon looks after all of your stock, they handle much of the customer service and deliver the products to the customer. There is no significant difference between purchasing from Amazon directly or through an Amazon FBA business. So all you have to do is focus on getting sales.

The reason this type of business model is so effective is that Amazon is already one of the biggest online retailers in the world. 2.5 billion people do their shopping on Amazon every month. And you can take advantage of all the resources and benefits Amazon FBA has to offer. Having Amazon’s name associated with your products is certainly a huge plus.

And although this is a great opportunity for entrepreneurs to create an online business from the comfort of their own home you should also be aware that there are some downsides. One of them is that you will need to invest money upfront. So you must already have a budget. Maybe not a huge budget but you will have to spend some money. Having also some experience as an online marketer is in my opinion critical. If you have never made a sale online before i believe it would be better to think again. Affiliate marketing might be a better option if you are a beginner.

Personal Branding. That business trend will continue to rise in 2020 and in the years to come. I don’t think it has been fully exploited yet and if it’s done right it can make you a lot of money. Personal branding is all about building a reputation on the things you want to be known for and creating a personal connection with your audience.

When building a personal brand the first thing you want to do is to carefully define what is that you want to communicate to your audience. What problem do you solve? And what is the solution you are offering. Choose your target audience and find ways by which you can monetize your brand.

Don’t Expect Easy Ways To Make Money Online

You can only build a successful business online if you take massive action. Don’t expect to make money overnight because it doesn’t work like that. The business models described above are all great opportunities but are not “get-rich-quick” schemes. Honestly, i don’t believe such a thing exists. Don’t waste your time chasing “shiny objects” all the time. Stay away from them. Hard work, dedication, and patience are what is really needed to make it online.

Most people fail because they simply give up too soon. When starting an online business from scratch don’t expect to earn thousands of $ in the first 2-3 months. And don’t quit if that doesn’t happen. That’s the worst thing you can do. That way you will always be stuck at the beginning. Play the long game and give yourself and your business a year. You don’t need to know everything before starting a business but you have to keep moving forward. Stay focused on the next step.

Don’t trust the various “gurus” claiming they have designed the new system that’s going to earn you thousands of dollars in a week. They are sales pitches to convince you to sign up for some training course, webinar or some other useless product. There are no automated systems that will generate sales leads while you sit back and do nothing. Don’t waste your money on “secret” sales funnel that promises to make you a millionaire because they won’t. There are great tools online that can make your life a lot easier but none of them are claiming that making money online is easy or that hard work is no needed.

Start an online business

MLM (not recommended it)

In my opinion multi-level marketing (MLM) also called network marketing and referral marketing should be avoided. If you are a beginner looking for ways to make money online joining an MLM company is the last thing you should do. Not because there are no legitimate MLM companies. There are. Although the truth is the majority of them are pyramid schemes, scams or borderline scams. 

And not because you can’t make money with MLM. You can. Or better i should say some people can. And that is the problem. The overwhelming majority of MLM participants earn nothing. They just lose their money. And that percentage is estimated to be over 99% of all people who join MLM companies. In other words, your loss is the company’s financial gain. The profits are distributed between the owners of the MLM company and the few individuals at the top of the pyramid. The rest of the participants earn almost nothing. But are constantly encouraged to keep trying to recruit others.

So instead of investing your money, time and energy on a business model that depends on your financial loss to turn a profit choose one that can make you money. The ones i mentioned above can help you do that. Remember the best way to make money online is by building your own business and not participating in someone else’s scheme “selling the dream”.

The Best Way Is Your Way! 

That is the most important thing for you to remember. Pick something you enjoy doing. Most businesses fail because people don’t have the correct mindset. They just see others doing it and want to go with the flow as well. After a while they realize this was not for them, they get disappointed and give up completely. Don’t do that.

What you should do instead is choose a type of business you are passionate about and enjoy doing it. Don’t start an online business based solely on how much money you will make. What works for others won’t always work for you. There is no way to succeed online if you don’t love whatever is that you are doing online.

Conclusion

Creating and growing an online business is the best way to make money online. There is no lack of business opportunities online and there are plenty of business models for you to choose from. You just need to figure out exactly what it is you want to do and just go for it. You can start a business in just a few hours.

Everything you’ll need to pave your future entrepreneurial path is in your hands. This is something you can do as long as you are willing to work hard, persevere and learn new skills. If you never try, all you’ll be is regretful. 

Take action now! Today is the day.


Get the professional training you need. Learn how to become a successful affiliate marketer and build your own business online. You can join one of the best training platforms for free!

Join Wealthy Affiliate for free 

#Tip:The free membership is not a trial membership. You can remain a free member for as long as you like.


Leave a comment below and share your ideas with us. And if you like this post share it with your social media followers. 


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25 Responses

  1. Henderson says:

    One thing that I admire about this post because you have pointed out that when it comes to online business, there is no easy way to make that money. I admire the fact that you can give all this information about this here. It is very good and I love it. Thank you very much for the information given. Cheers!

  2. David ben says:

    Hello there tanks for this awesome article I keen to get started and am exploring the online affiliate marketing area. The issue I have is there seems to be so much conflicting advice about what to do and how to do it, everyone I reach out to wants to sell me a course but after reading your article I think I would like to Start out immediately with affiliate marketing.thanks ones again your post was really helpful

  3. PeterMinea says:

    Hey Nikos!

    This is a very good question. A few months ago I started to ask myself seriously how to make extra money online. And for beginners the answer is hard to find, I tried paid-to-click, get-paid-to (abbreviated as PTC, GPT), and I think affiliate marketing may be a good possibility for me too, but I agree this needs personal work, time and patience.

    There are lots of fake promises about getting rich quickly (Scams), and we must be able to avoid them, especially after having encountered some. And like you said – the best way is your way!

    Kind regards, Peter

  4. Anita says:

    You are very right, online business is good and does work in the end. It only needs patience and hard work just like any other kind of employment. One needs to choose one of the mentioned ways to make money and then stick to it. You can not be a jack of all trades so don’t try all just choose one.
    I would like to try dropshipping one day but I have no experience or know where to start, would you have any recommendations on where I can get help to start out?

    • Nikos says:

      Hello Anita,

      To start a dropshipping business you first need to choose a profitable niche, find a supplier and a selling platform (like Amazon, Etsy, eBay, etc).

      Creating a Shopify account is one of the most popular ways to start your dropshipping business. I’ll list below some of the most well-known dropshipping companies, suppliers and tools.

      Oberlo

      Spocket

      Inventory Source

      SaleHoo

      Wholesale2B

      AliExpress

      Doba

      I believe that is a good way to start. Hope i helped.

      Nikos

      • Sylvester says:

        Can one start it with a free webstore or a hosted site? I really have not done this before and would love to experiment.

        • Nikos says:

          Hello Sylvester,
          Both can be done but i would choose a hosted site. You have full control of your business that way. Free services usually come with some kind of restrictions.

  5. Benson says:

    Considering the many means of making money online, you just have to settle for the easy ones that pays you without requiring too much stress and of all these suggestions, i am very cool with affiliate marketing. I am still in line with learning drop shipping which I find really interesting, but affiliate marketing is one of the few I can settle for any time. Thanks for sharing.

  6. MrBiizy says:

    Hi Nikos… Thanks for sharing this post. While searching the internet some years ago on how to make money online, I saw numerous ways to make money including drop shipping and blogging/affiliate marketing. I really had huge interest in drop shipping, however, I was not privileged enough to get involved. Right now, I am settling down with affiliate marketing. I know it will not be easy, of course nothing good comes easy and I am ready to put in the work and money needed to succeed.

    Take care.

  7. Dave says:

    One of the things you’ve pointed out in this post is that the best way to make money online is by choosing a sector, niche or product that you’re passionate about. By doing that, you’ll never run out of things to write about and that will provide motivation to succeed.

    Often time people start out writing about things they’re not interested in so the advice is wrong because its not researched properly and then they lose heart and give up.

  8. marcuscbb says:

    Hi I would like to thank you for providing the information on your article about the best ways to make money online. There is so much information out there on this topic but your article helped me a lot. You really got me thinking when you commented on dropshipping and personal branding. I already use Amazon on my website but haven’t really thought about dropshipping or personal branding. Again thanks for your help.

  9. Parameter says:

    Hello Nikos,
    I fell in love with one of your headlines, “Don’t expect easy ways to make money online”. This is actually where I have personally failed and I know many people do.
    We start an online business expecting it yields profit overnight; the gurus make it worse, in a bid to sell products they tell us to buy this and make money, they don’t emphasize the need to work and give time.
    Whichever niche you choose, building sustainable income takes time and dedication. You must patiently grow your business.

  10. Jennie says:

    I definitely agree that there are a lot of possibilities out there.  I greatly appreciate this overview.  I have dealt with MLM scams before and lost money that I really did not have in the first place.  I am definitely interested in affiliated marketing and dropshipping.  These are two angles that I am looking into for this upcoming new year.  I will take a look at Wealthy Affiliate because it seems like a legit possibility.  Thank you for the information.  

    • Nikos says:

      Hello Jennie,

      Wealthy Affiliate is a great platform to start your online business and learn affiliate marketing. They offer a number of tools and there are no up-sells.

      Thank you for your comment,

      Nikos

  11. Kell says:

    The very first question you asked at the beginning of this article is in a broad sense and that’s what people especially newbies tends to ask in the world of making money online. Of course, there are more than one way.

    But another question here is, can you know of any that can make you make real consistent income online? Now that’s a very difficult question and where many fall prey a lot to scam websites. And you will need to find a solid place to get the training.

    The list you gave are real ways to make real money online, and you don’t just do one of those because you saw someone succeeding in that field. Don’t follow some online gurus that said they made $2500 bucks in one week. It is possible but not to you yet as a beginner because you need lots of hard work and patience to start seeing such results.

    Follow your passion and what you feel comfortable online, with hard work, and you’ll see yourself succeeding. I first started out with freelancing but was not seeing much, not as if people aren’t. Left it and moved over to drop shipping. But later gave and turned to affiliate marketing, and ever since then I’ve found that this is what I want and I’ve been doing great since then.

    Thank you for this post.

    • Nikos says:

      Hello Kell,

      Affiliate marketing is a great way to make money online. I am happy you found your passion.

      Thank you for your comment,

      Nikos

  12. Hezron Wamta says:

    Thank you for this information. My only problem is how to find the kind of online business idea that fits me. I have a background in theology, computers, and I’m a self-taught musician – I play the keyboard, the guitar as well as singing. What business ideas do you suggest for a person like me, or how do I discover a business idea that aligns with my passion(s)?

    • Nikos says:

      Hello Hezron,
      Start with something you feel comfortable talking about and you would also like to know more yourself. That way you won’t get bored after a couple of months.

      Thank you for your comment,
      Nikos

  13. Jade says:

    You just made my cup of coffee but I’m interested in freelance writing, which sites do you think I can learn and work for free

    • Nikos says:

      Hello Jade,
      There are plenty of freelance websites you can use. I’ll mention a few:
      Upwork
      Fiverr
      Simply Hired
      Writer Access
      Guru
      Hireable
      PeoplePerHour
      Crowded

      Hope that helps.
      Nikos

  14. Lisa Alioto says:

    Great ideas – these would have never crossed my mind. I always think of more traditional options. Thanks for sharing

  15. Dawnfloy Alum says:

    Thanx Nikos.Your articles are really guiding me towards making money online.
    Remain blessed.

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