The number of freelance professionals in the United States reached 57 million in 2019. A good number of these freelance professionals work online. It has contributed around $1 trillion to the US economy or around 5 percent of the US gross domestic product.
This shows that making money isn’t only limited to working in the office from 9 to 5 or setting up a physical store somewhere in your neighborhood. If you’re wondering how you can have a piece of the freelancing pie, then you’re in the right place.
Here are some ways for you to make money online.
Online Selling
If you’re business-minded, then you can try your hand in online selling. This money-making venture is suitable for people who make their own products. Rather than limiting yourself to selling in a particular neighborhood or community, you can expand your market and sell just about anywhere in the world using the Internet.
If you’re planning to limit your market to the United States, you can also use popular online marketplaces, such as Amazon and eBay. All you need are good pictures, a suitable description, and an account in these marketplaces. You can promote your products through social media by creating your own social media page. And if you have the funds, you can create a website to sell these products.
One variation of this money-making venture is reselling items you find online. For instance, if you know people who love movie personalities, you can buy an autographed photo of a celebrity and sell it to them. One caveat for this, though, is that you should make sure your buyers don’t know where you purchased the items you’re selling, or else they will end up buying from your source directly.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is another way for business-minded individuals to make money online. It basically allows you to offer products that you do not carry yourself. Or in other words, you’re getting a commission from a product you’re able to sell for the manufacturer.
In affiliate marketing, you don’t have to sell the product directly. You can write a review of the product and put a link to it in your article. People who are interested in the product may click the link and purchase it from the manufacturer. Since the link is unique to your account, you’ll get a commission from the sale.
Drop-shipping
Another online selling method is drop-shipping. While it’s similar to affiliate marketing, where you don’t have the product in stock, you earn directly from the profit you make for the sale of the product. In this online selling model, you sell the product directly to the market through your website.
When you use the drop-shipping model, the product’s price is usually low, and it’s not normally readily available in the United States. You are basically reselling a product from a supplier located outside the United States.
Your overhead costs are low since you don’t need to have a warehouse to store the products. All you need to do is accept an order, send the order to your supplier, and ship the product directly to the buyer.
English Teaching
If you’re a native English speaker, you can also try teaching English to non-English speakers abroad. There are several websites where you can apply for this type of job. Most of the websites require a Bachelor’s degree, but few only require you to be a native English speaker.
This is a type of job you can do anywhere as long as you have a good internet connection, a good laptop, a microphone, and a high-definition camera. You can expect most of your students to be kids, but some websites also have adult students who want to improve their English-speaking skills.
Content Writing
If writing is one of your strengths, you can write for a living. This profession is location independent, or you can basically work from anywhere. It doesn’t even need a stable internet connection since you can write while not connected to the internet. You can upload your work or send it to your client through email.
Moreover, you can use this talent to start a blog and make money through affiliate marketing. You can also use the blog as your portfolio to show potential clients your writing skills and style. The blog itself can be a money-making venture if you allow ads on your website. Some of the best-earning blogs earn millions of dollars each month.
Making money online is not a new concept. It has been the main income source for many people even before remote work became popular due to the pandemic.
