The number one thing that most people have reservations about when making money online, is whether the opportunity they are given is legitimate.

I think many people have their guard up and are mostly concerned about being scammed. Which I completely understand. When you have worked hard for your money, the last thing you want to do is give it away to a deceitful lie that only wants to take advantage of your vulnerability. 

Most companies make claims that are too good to be true. That is one way you can decipher whether any online opportunity is legitimate or not.

If you are still not sure and looking for a comprehensive guide to figuring out real opportunities from the fake, you can read my blog post How To Find A Legitimate Business Online. This post will help you understand what to look out for and pinpoint those warning signs that tell you something isn’t right.

With internet fraud so common today, pay attention to key indicators that help you realise a fake offer from a genuine offer. 

Despite the negative aspect of internet businesses and jobs I want to assure you that all really is not lost.

There truly are ways that you can make money online and whilst I have covered hundreds of them in previous posts, I would like to share with you the top three ways that you can make money online.

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These ways have helped me to generate multiple streams of income. They do require skills that you will learn along the way (earn as you learn). I will do my best to break it down for you, so you can follow the exact same steps that I took, to join, get started and start earning.

The Top 3 Ways To Make Money Online

1. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is the easiest way to start earning an income online.

If you are new to affiliate marketing then you can read my blog post How To Start Affiliate Marketing For Beginners, which is a step by step guide to affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing is essentially promoting other people’s products for a commission. The reason why it is so easy is because you do not have to create your own product to sell.

So if you are stuck for creative ideas on the type of product that will sell well, you can simply become an affiliate for another company and agree with them, that you will receive a percentage of the sale, once you sell their product.

Most companies pay affiliates 20% upwards on each sale, which is a great starting point.

You can find products to promote from affiliate networks like FlexOffers, Clickbank or any brand who has an affiliate program.

If you would like a bigger list of companies to join, some free and paid, then be sure to read my article 6 Most Profitable Niche Markets For Bloggers And Marketers.

Why Most Affiliate Marketers Fail

In order to make  affiliate marketing work for you, I would strongly advise that you join one program and master that one program before you join the next.

The reason why most affiliate marketers fail, is because they join too many programs without figuring out the best features of each and how they all work. This only causes overwhelm making it impossible to learn exactly what the program can offer. 

They also do not give themselves time to learn affiliate marketing skills and apply it to the program. If you want to be successful with affiliate marketing, the key takeaway is to invest in educational products that can teach you.  

Also whilst affiliate marketing is an excellent avenue for you to make an income and eventually a full time income, your expectations must be set.

Affiliate marketing is not a push button make money scheme. No program can guarantee that you will make money just from joining. In fact with affiliate marketing, it is like a job and you have to be prepared to work hard to make your first commission.

As long as you are prepared to put all effort into being successful with affiliate marketing, then I would recommend it as your starting point when trying to earn your first dollar online.

You can join whatever affiliate program that you like and in this article I explain how to find affiliate programs. However, I would like to recommend to you one of the best affiliate marketing programs that I have joined to date.

I would not recommend any program which I have not tried myself and which I have not seen results. I only recommend reliable programs for my readers where I feel they will get value for their money, time and effort.

Affilorama

When I started affiliate marketing in August 2016, Affiloramas’ AffiloBlueprint taught me everything about it.

It taught me about:

• Website building 
• How to make sales using email marketing
• Where to find people to visit my website
• And most importantly how to make money from the internet

It taught me absolutely everything and is one of the best educational programs that I have seen to date which helps beginners learn the skill of affiliate marketing and make money from it in a short space of time.

Affilorama has three different products which is included as part of its premium membership.

AffiloBlueprint

AffiloBlueprint provides a step-by-step walk-through of how to build niche affiliate marketing websites (like this one). It is pretty much an over-the-shoulder guide that shows you how the creator of the program built his own website from scratch.

This will definitely help shorten your learning curve as you will be learning from someone who has already done it and can help you implement strategies that work and avoid costly mistakes.

AffiloTools

If you’re doing affiliate marketing then there are tools that you will need to improve performance.

Affiliate marketing is like a business, so it is necessary that you use certain tools to help your business function well. AffiloTools gives you everything that you need to see what’s going on, on your website.

AffiloJetpack

If you’re not interested in learning how to do affiliate marketing or maybe you do not have time, then perhaps you’d like someone to put together a package that you can simply plug and play.

Well this is what AffiloJetpack is for.

Everything is already created for you. All you have to do is promote the product and where someone takes an action that converts into a commission, you get a cut of the stake.

You can sign up for free to Affilorama but to start learning and earning with the advanced material that AffiloBlueprint and AffiloJetpack provides it will cost you $197 and $997 respectively.

Affilorama does have a generous 60-day money back guarantee, so if after using the product you do not get any benefit from it, you can request a refund.

Affiliate Program

Besides its educational platform, Affilorama also has an affiliate program attached to it. So if you found great value from it and it is something you’d like to share with your friends, then you can do so.

If your friends go on to purchase the course or tools you will receive a 50% commission.

In the name of full transparency, you should know that this post contains affiliate links so any purchase you make will result in me receiving a small commission which is at no extra cost to you.

Plus if you do make a purchase using my referral link, you will be able to connect with me and I will give you your very own checklist with daily actionable steps that you can take to earn your first affiliate commission and more. This is an additional bonus so make sure you contact me here once you are on board.

2. Ecommerce

Ecommerce is another sustainable business model that can help you earn six figures and more in passive income in a year. Whilst it is another skill set that you will have to learn, the potential to create a full time income from this model is achievable because of how simple systems have made it for average persons to create their own eCommerce stores.

You can read my article How I Made $7.5k In One Month Sales With My First Online Store, which gives you a break down of my very own success with eCommerce. This goes to show that if I, as an average girl can do it, then so can you.

To get started with this model it is important that you educate yourself by taking an appropriate course that will teach you everything you need to know.

To learn more about eight of the best courses that I believe will help you get started with eCommerce check out my latest blog post here.

Why Ecommerce?

With online retail stores like Amazon and Target, eCommerce really is the future of online shopping.

Just take a look at the fate of Toys R Us, who is now bankrupt because of its lack of relevance in the online shopping market.

Amazon’s continued growth to a $1 trillion worth proves that more and more people are going online to do their shopping and finally there is a way that you can capitalise on this trend.

Shopify With Ecommerce

If you wish to start your own online store, you may be interested in my blog post How To Start An Online Store where I provided a step by step guide on how to use Shopify.

The reason why I like Shopify is because of how easy it is to set up. It actually takes no more than an hour to open and create your online store. 

Shopify is an eCommerce website builder that has great functionality and all the tools you need to run a profitable online store.

Whilst Shopify is a recommended eCommerce platform, you can also use other platforms like Woocommerce for WordPress or Big Cartel.

Before you start your eCommerce store, it is important that you do research to find out what products sell well.

In the below video I share with you how I do my research to find products already tested by other store owners.

This method takes away all the guess work as you will be piggybacking off the efforts of another eCommerce seller who has already done the research for you and proven that the product sells.

Therefore do not try to reinvent the wheel.

Once you have decided on the niche you are going to sell in you can start to build your store by using the Shopify eCommerce platform.

To get started with Shopify you can sign up with this link where you will be offered a 14 day free trial.

After setting up your store, you now need to add your products and then promote your store using a form of advertising such as Facebook Ads or Pinterest.

Ecommerce Training

Taking part in eCommerce can be rewarding if you understand how to do it properly. Therefore like anything else it is strongly recommended that you acquire the skills to run an eCommerce store by undergoing the necessary training.

For the training follow my list of 8 of the best eCommerce courses for beginners.

Most of the courses I reviewed provide step-by-step instructions on how to start an eCommerce business. You will learn how to do drop shipping from China using the main suppliers like Alibaba or Aliexpress.

Drop shipping is the process of having suppliers prepare, package and ship your products to your customers so you do not have to hold inventory or do any of the shipping yourself.

In other cases you will learn how to connect with suppliers from local markets. This method works with the customer in mind and helps to keep delivery times and refund processes to a minimum.

3. Freelance Jobs

To earn money immediately I would recommend freelance jobs.

To freelance means that you are providing a service to persons or companies on a self employed basis without any ongoing commitment. You do not work for one employer and you are not salaried or on their payroll.

There are many online websites that help people find freelancing jobs. However the difficult part is that freelancing is competitive as there are many people who compete for the same freelance jobs.

Nevertheless it is still a good way to earn an income fast but like a job, you will receive an income in exchange for your time.

Unlike affiliate marketing and eCommerce, unless you have high paying clients or learn how to outsource work to other freelancers it is difficult to make six figures passively.

If freelancing is something you would like to try and have the potential to earn a full time income, then I would recommend that you start a niche website dedicated to providing a freelance service.

This will help highlight your work, testimonials and rates all in one place.

Websites are quite easy to set up. You can actually start one with Bluehost and WordPress for only $3.95 per month. Check out my blog post The Complete Beginner’s Guide To Starting A Successful Website where I walk you through step by step how to set up web hosting, how to choose your domain and your WordPress theme.

Freelancer And Upwork

How do you actually start in freelancing?

Well let’s help you secure your first job and for this I would recommend that you start at Freelancer or Upwork.

These two sites help persons find freelance work and they are free to join.

Freelancer does have a professional membership where you can bid on multiple jobs each month. With their free service you are only allowed to bid on a maximum of two jobs each month.

To start at Freelancer click here.

On the next page you can sign up using Facebook or you can sign up with your email address, username and password.

Make sure that you select Work so that your dashboard can populate with jobs.

Next click the blue button Create Account.

Once you have created your account you will be required to select your skills. Make sure and select skills that you can do as your dashboard will highlight only relevant jobs that you may be qualified to do.

If you do not yet have a skill and you wish to update that in the future, it is possible to update your profile later on.

You will be required to verify your payment method. This step helps to verify your identity and build trust with the platform.

If you do not wish to verify your payment method, then do not worry. You can skip this step and move on to the next.

Freelancer will try to upsell you to their Professional membership. You do get one month free but the monthly cost for the professional membership is $29.95.

As a professional member you get many more benefits including the ability to apply to 300 jobs per month. As a free member you only get to apply to two jobs.

If you do not wish to take part in their free membership you can also skip this for now.

Next all you have to do is search for relevant jobs, place bids on the jobs you would like to do, then wait to be hired.

Freelancer has hundreds of thousands of members so to be successful with your bids you should place as many bids on different jobs as possible.

This increases your chances of getting selected to perform the work.

To start looking for jobs, navigate to your project feed where all the jobs will show up as they are listed.

Simply select the job that interests you, read the requirements and if you are interested apply for the job by bidding on it.

If you are successful, the employer will contact you via the chat where you are able to set your rates and terms for the job to be fulfilled.

With freelancing you have the potential to earn money today. There is no requirement to have experience, although if you are providing a service and the employer compensates you based on the value of that service, then it is useful to provide a service where you have acquired some skills.

Even if you have a blog or have gained skills from a job, feel free to apply those skills to your freelancing service.

Anyone can get hired on Freelancer or Upwork. It does not matter which country you are in.

To get started with Freelancer click here.

Wrapping Up…

So there you have it. My very best ways of making money online. Remember that to be successful in any of these ways requires commitment, time and a lot of effort. 

I would recommend that you give it a good try for at least six months and remain consistent throughout your journey.

Over to you now. Tell me in the comments if you have tried any of these ways. If not, what are you doing?

Cheers,