How to earn money online

Earning money has typically been associated with and restricted to traditional 'offline' route. With the Internet taking over a large part of our lives, more people are looking to ways to earn money online to increase their financial inflows, with secondary income streams.

You should be mindful of the platform that you choose. While there are numerous ways to earn money online, some of these might be fake. Also, do not expect to earn a huge amount quickly when using online avenues to earn money. Now with a situation involving more time at home and/or more free time in general, maybe fewer working hours for some, some of you might have some free time on hands. Here are a few online platforms, websites and tools that can help you earn money online.    

  1. Freelancing

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Freelancing has always been a popular way to earn money online and the Internet has several options. There are several websites offering freelance tasks for people with varying skills. All you need to do is to create an account, browse through the listings, and apply for the task that suits you. Some websites may even require you to create a personal listing with the details of your skillset, so that interested clients can contact you directly. Outfiverr.com, upwork.com, freelancer.com, and worknhire.com are some websites that provide freelance jobs. You can earn anywhere between $5 and $100 through these websites.

But remember, you will only get paid once you successfully complete the given task and it has been approved by your client. This may even mean revising the work several times unless the requirements of your clients are met. Some sites may ask you to set up a PayPal account, as most clients prefer to make payments digitally via it

2. Starting your own websitThere is enough material available online to help you put together a website. This includes choosing the domain, templates, layout and the overall design for your website. Once ready to service the visitors with the relevant content, sign up for Google Adsense, which when appear on your website and clicked on by visitors, help you make money. The more traffic you get on your website, the more will be the potential for higher earnings.

3. Affiliate marketing
Once your website is up and running, you could opt for affiliate marketing by allowing companies to insert web links on to your site. This is like a symbiotic partnership. When visitors to your site buy products or services by clicking on such links, you earn out from it.

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4. Surveys, searches and reviews
There are several websites offering money to undergo online surveys, carry out online searches, and write reviews on products. To get the credit, one needs to disclose certain information to them including one's banking details. This is why you should use this route with utmost care. Some of them may even ask you to register with them before working on projects. The most important watch out in such projects is to stay away from websites offering money that appears too good to be true. Be careful while evaluating the reputation of the website as many of them could be a scam. Most sites promote businesses showing copies of cheque payments which may have been given to the middlemen only.

5. Virtual assistantship
Doing all the corporate stuff from one's home is what a virtual assistant (VA) does. VAs basically work remotely with their clients and manage the aspects of their business that they are too busy to handle themselves. When you work as a virtual assistant, you can choose to work as an employee or you can set up your own business.

VAs are skilled, home-based professionals that offer companies, businesses, and entrepreneurs administrative support. Some of the major areas of work includes making phone calls, email correspondence, Internet research, data entry, scheduling appointments, editing, writing, book keeping, marketing, blog management, proofreading, project management, graphic design, tech support, customer service, event planning, and social media management.

Becoming a VA may require some degree of training or briefing, depending on your qualifications. However, if you possess good communication skills and are capable of using applications like MS Office, you can just sign up on sites such as Elance.com, 24/7 Virtual Assistant, Assistant Match, eaHelp, Freelancer, FlexJobs, People Per Hour, Uassist.Me, Upwork, VaVa Virtual Assistants, Virtual Staff Finder, Worldwide 101, Ziptask, Zirtual and so on.

6. Language translating
Knowing a language other than English may even help you earn some extra money. There are several websites that offer translation projects that require translating a document from one language into another. This may include Spanish, French, Arab, German, or any other language to or from English.

For many, this can make the task rather time-consuming and therefore they hire translators available online from anywhere across the globe. Several websites such as Freelancer.in, Fiverr.com, worknhire.com or Upwork.com offers you a platform to be a professional translator.

Those who do not have the knowledge or the time to complete their projects on their own, put up their work on these platforms where you can register and start bidding on translation jobs and get paid in the range of Rs 1-Rs 5 per word. This can go up to Rs 10 for some languages.

7. Online tutoring
If you are an expert in a particular subject, you can earn by tutoring people online. Online tutoring provides a means to connect online with students of all ages, across the country to provide homework help and tutoring in the subjects for which you have demonstrated expertise.

One may sign up on websites like Vedantu.com, MyPrivateTutor.com, BharatTutors.com, tutorindia.net as an online tutor by creating a profile, and listing the subjects or classes you want to teach, how much experience you have, what your qualifications are, etc. Some of the platforms may offer flexible and convenient time to work as an online tutor.

Most platforms follow this process- they ask you to apply by filling a simple form, after which a teaching demo will have to given their experts. Once selected, documentation and profile creation will be done, followed by training and induction webinar. Once you attend the webinar, you will be listed as a teacher and will get your online sessions to conduct. Beginners can make around Rs 200 per hour, which can go up to Rs 500 as you gain experience and expertise.

8. Social media management, strategy
In addition to interacting with friends and strangers, social networking platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat can be used to make money. Companies and brands pay social media strategists to further boost the popularity of their products. With lots of competition around and the constantly shortening of attention time of online viewers, creativity is essential to create posts, videos etc that can go viral quickly and enhance the brand value. Remember, social media needs dedicated time and energy to stay relevant. Hence, you need to share posts regularly and interact with your followers on a regular basis.

9. Web designing
Not all business owners are tech savvy but the need of the hour is to have a website of their own. Those who have a knack for all- things- tech, especially related to websites, can help small businesses set up their own websites and earn from it. Coding and web designing are the essential ingredients in setting up websites. Further, websites need maintenance and may require frequent updates, which may add to one's revenue.

10. Content writing
Online platforms can be a good starting point. Depending on the quality of the articles, one gets paid. One may be asked to work upon articles with specific guidelines as well. Develop a niche in your area of expertise and build strength in that domain to increase the revenue stream.

11. Blogging
It starts with a hobby, interest, and passion and soon blogging becomes a career option for many bloggers. There are a number of full-time bloggers. There are two ways to start a blog: you can either create a blog through Wordpress or Tumblr, which requires no investment, or go for a self-hosted blog.

In case of the latter, you will have to invest in and spend money on domain name and server hosting space that can cost you between Rs 3,000-Rs 5,000 a year. Self-hosted blogs have an added advantage that it allows you to customise elements and functionality of your website. In case of the former, you need to make peace with the tools and plug-ins made available by the service provider.

You may monetise the blogs through ads, product reviews, and so on. But remember, earning through blogging may also take a lot of time and effort. For some, it may take as long as year to actually earn through blogging.

12. YouTube
If you are not comfortable in penning down your thoughts through blogs and content writing, make use of your camera to create a video presentation. Create your YouTube channel, upload videos and start monetising them. Choose a category or subject that you want to make videos on and get started, but make sure it's a topic that will interest a lot of people. Everything from cooking shows to political debates can find many takers on YouTube. You have to create a YouTube channel, which works on a similar model as a blog. As you make your channel popular and the number of subscribers grows, so will your earning potential. The payment one gets is based on every thousand views.

13. Kindle eBook
If writing books interests you, one option you can exercise is self-publish eBooks and paperbacks with Kindle Direct Publishing, and reach millions of readers on Amazon. Publishing takes less than 5 minutes and your book appears on Kindle stores worldwide within 24-48 hours. One can earn up to 70 percent royalty on sales to customers in the US, Canada, UK, Germany, India, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, Brazil, Mexico, Australia, and so on. One can keep control of one's rights and set their own list prices and also make changes to one's books at any time. BooksFundr and Pblishing.com are two other places to get your book published and earn money.

14. Selling your products online
If you want to sell products online, you may can it by creating your own website. As there's lot of competition and several existing websites in place already catering to this market, an attempt to create a niche in terms of products may be considered. Or, you can use the platform such as Amazon, Flipkart to sell. One can increase reach and visibility through affiliate marketing.

15. PTC sites
Several websites offer money (after a minimum level of earning) by clicking on advertisements. Hence, they are called paid-to-click (PTC) sites. One has to get registered before the project begins. Not all of these sites could be genuine, so be careful. One may also refer friends and earn money in the process. Some such sites are ClixSense.com , BuxP and NeoBux are some of such PTC sites.

16. Peer to peer
Similar to e-commerce websites such as Amazon and OLX, a peer-to-peer (P2P) platform is a marketplace for money lending activities. You can lend money to others in a more organised and structured manner using the P2P lending platform. The P2P platforms have the recovery process in place and one should understand it before using the services of the platform. Since this is an unsecured loan where there is no face-to-face interaction, a P2P lender needs to be aware of the risks involved.

17. Data entry
Although this line of work is seriously threatened by automation, there are still plenty of data entry jobs available in India. It is one the simplest jobs you can do online, and requires no special skills. You just have to have a computer, Internet connection, fast typing skills, and the ability to pay attention to details. Most freelancing websites list these jobs, and you can sign up on any of them to start earning in the range of Rs 300 to Rs 1,500 per hour.

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