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Ways to make more money

10 Ways to Make Extra Money

Making extra money online with a fun side-hustle or second job can be a challenge that changes the course of your career (and life) in profound ways.

It's not that hard to come up with a potentially viable idea to make money. People do it all the time.

The hard part is getting your content, products and services in front of the right audience at the right time. It helps to think about earning a second income (especially when it's online) like this.

It doesn't matter what business you're in; the business you're in is marketing.

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There are millions of people using the Internet to make money blogging, make a passive income, find an easy weekend job or start a side-hustle. Millions more spammers try their best to squeeze every last bit of revenue out of anyone and everyone online.

Competition is intense and cutting through all the clutter is no cakewalk.

Here are a few things that will increase your chances of success right from the start:

Most importantly. Pick something you actually like doing. Something fun. That is what will see you through the difficult startup phase until you're on your feet earning plenty of cash.

1. "Avoid Traffic Jams" Lifestyle Services

Offer a healthy way to avoid traffic jams
People who work in the city waste a lot of time sitting in their cars trying to get to and from work during peak traffic. This is not only a waste of their time, it also spews toxic exhaust fumes into our atmosphere, choking the air, wasting gas, wasting money, and generally making everyone miserable.

Wouldn't it be much better to offer people great lifestyle alternatives?

Instead of trying to rush home after work, they could join a walking club, learn how to do new things (think parkour, playing guitar, yoga, getting fit, learning how to make chocolate, etc), socialize and network.

By giving people a great lifestyle oriented activity for an hour or two before or after work, in the city, traffic at peak times could be significantly reduced. This could potentially lead to carbon credits and revenue for the city that implements this idea on a large scale.

Make Extra Money Secret #1

Quickly secure a reliable source of income that doesn't depend on Google or Facebook.

  • Start and grow an email list using AWeber
  • Get everything you need to grow an email list with AWeber (free for 30 days).

    Easily create a platform to build a sustainable income using cutting edge email marketing technology.

    Quickly and easily create attractive, responsive signup-forms and popups and dazzle subscribers with beautiful emails designed using drag-n-drop templates.

Take this to your local municipality and encourage them to get on board. With local government buy-in, your startup will get a huge boost in terms of visibility, exposure and potentially, grants, investment and loans.

The entire thing can be managed online. New customers sign up and pay online for the courses they want to attend. Paid employees or contractors with the relevant skills give class activities for a few hours either side of the normal work day as their own side job.

2. Entertaining Pics & Clips

Posting a funny image or video clip online can lead to huge volumes of traffic if that content goes viral. The trick here is to be able to come up with pictures and clips that are genuinely entertaining, so that people share them readily.

The hardest part about making money from this idea is being genuinely funny. It's not something that everyone can do well - otherwise, we'd all be highly paid comedians. Here's a great example of a funny YouTube clip that has garnered over 32 million views:

Pretty astounding numbers for a relatively easy clip to make, right?

With the right ads in place and good use of links back to your own blog or website (where you can generate additional revenue from ads, affiliate marketing, or selling other products), it's not hard to earn a decent amount from something like this.

Make Extra Money Secret #2

Research the market & competing websites to learn about their backlinks and how to win more traffic.

  • Analyze competitors' backlinks and SEO using SEMRush
  • Analyze any website using SEMRush and learn the secrets to their success.

    Understand your niche to make better marketing decisions, capture higher page rankings in Google, make valuable new connections and boost your earnings quickly.

    Don't waste time guessing what it takes to win valuable search keywords. Work out who is winning. Find out who links to them. Build your own backlinks.

    Try it out. Research a website right now.

You are able to use SEMRush for free by signing up. However, the free plan is limited to 10 requests per day - thereafter a paid plan is required.

The best way to set yourself up to make money out of entertaining media is to:

  1. Create a blog/website (check out our beginner's guide)
  2. Post media to your site and share it on the big social networks like YouTube and Pinterest
  3. Use Google Ads, or some other popular ad network, on your site to generate revenue from the content (remember that YouTube allows you to generate revenue from ads shown directly on posted clips)

3. Sell Homemade, Locally

Sell homemade goodies online
I recently attended a local craft market to help out a friend who was selling stuff there for the first time. The thing that struck me was how often customers were interested in "keeping in touch" so that they could think things over or talk to someone, before coming back to make a purchase.

It was so clear how perfectly suited a website (combined with email marketing) is for this type of small enterprise. If you love making food or goodies as a hobby and want to take it more seriously, then:

  1. start selling at a local market
  2. combine an eCommerce website with email marketing to make more sales, build your brand and start getting repeat business

Setting up a cutting edge eCommerce site is really easy these days and can be done for as little as $20. Learn how using our guide to creating a website.

Make Extra Money Secret #3

Learn how to attract a huge audience using inbound marketing strategies with HubSpot.

  • Inbound marketing with HubSpot
  • Inbound marketing doesn't push advertising onto customers. Instead, it draws in customers by providing engaging content.

    HubSpot offers a full suite of free & paid tools and services that integrate to make inbound marketing faster, cheaper and more effective. 64,500 customers in over 100 countries grow their businesses with HubSpot.

By integrating eCommerce into your hobby, or whatever fun activities you love doing, you create the potential to grow that hobby into a startup, and beyond.

And remember, having your own online store will also make it possible to integrate with other online retail platforms like Etsy and eBay, giving you even more revenue generation potential.

4. Adventure Blogging

Become an adventure blogger
If it feels like you are stuck in a bit of a rut, why not try something completely different?

A friend, after qualifying with a doctorate in Geology (or something like that), decided to take a break and go work with her husband on yachts in the Caribbean. She is going to cook for people on the boats and blog about the food she prepares and her experiences travelling around one of the most beautiful parts of the world.

The blog itself stands a really good chance of doing well because it has some really unique features that will make it stand out.

For example, her recipes all have to be made in a single pot (because there is no room in the cramped kitchen of the boat), but need to satisfy the tastes of the very affluent (so presentation and flavor are key). Plus, she needs to cater for the customers by buying from local markets wherever the yacht stops off.

So she's going to have awesome, colorful pictures, really unique and interesting recipes, combined with exotic tastes and flavors and top-class presentation to put in her blog each day. She can make money from advertising as more and more people start loving her recipes and she can also make commission by promoting the boats she works on.

It's hard work, no doubt, but what a fun experience!

5. Celebrity Endorsed Bling

Sell celebrity endorsed bling
If the CES (Consumer Electronics Show) has taught us anything, it's that we (the average consumer) no longer know enough about technology products to make any kind of informed buying decision.

Make Extra Money Secret #4

Use influencer marketing to quickly build valuable relationships that can help skyrocket your business.

  • Social media marketing with SocialPilot
  • Use SocialPilot to help you understand the audience and create better engagement with them.

    If you're looking to grow into the social media space then it's vital to have insights into how your engagements are performing, as well as planning and executing campaigns from start to finish.

Instead, celebrity endorsed products tend to capture the attention of the media and, by extension, the consumer. Why not capitalize on this trend by starting up an eCommerce store that focuses purely on celebrity endorsed products and bling?

6. Online Consultant

Become an online consultant
Big businesses has caught on to the fact that there is a great pool of talent out there on the Internet. Many job positions are now advertised as telecommute or virtual.

If you have skills and experience that can be utilized by companies without the need for you to commute to the office, then becoming an online consultant is a great option.

Approach companies that are offering telecommute or remote work and offer your services as a contract worker or consultant. Once you have sufficient work, you can hire additional people to help and become a proper consultancy based out of your home office.

7. Cool New... Something

Try something completely new
One of the most rewarding ventures to start, is one that involves something new. A new idea has to immediately appeal to people. It has to be smart.

Make Extra Money Secret #5

Use SocialPilot to manage social media, schedule social media posts, improve engagement & analyze results.

  • Social media outreach starts with SocialPilot
  • Whether you are blogging or selling, the traffic and customers driving your profits can be grown using one or more of the major social networks.

    Save time and effort by managing all your social media profiles from one convenient location. Plenty of tools and support help you get the most from social.

No matter how good your idea, if it is complex and difficult to understand it will be that much harder to market and sell (perhaps I should say... if you can't find a way to present it in a simple and compelling way, it will be hard to sell).

There are plenty of great ideas for you to explore. One of the best I have seen in recent times is mushrooms from coffee grinds - check out Back to the roots.

Why is this such a great idea? Because coffee is used and then thrown away. Used coffee is therefore readily available almost anywhere you are and is most probably free for you to pick up and take away from your local coffee shops.

If growing and selling mushrooms is not your idea of fun, what about selling Gold bullion by post? That's what an English entrepreneur did - check out Bullion By Post.

Look around you. Find a gap in the market. Come up with a great solution.

8. Hyper Niche Affiliate Blog

Find a rare niche to blog about
A hyper niche affiliate blog is a lot like the single product eCommerce store idea just mentioned. The major difference is that instead of managing transactions via an online store, you funnel Web traffic to an affiliate partner who converts the reader (and pays a commission).

Everything else applies exactly the same - create plenty of great content and become a trusted resource and authority in that niche.

The trick to making this idea profitable, however, is finding a niche topic that you can make your own.

Most people don't realize that they already have what it takes to do this. It doesn't matter who you are, your life experience, passion, interests and circumstances make you unique. Use this uniqueness to give your affiliate blog a perspective that speaks to your audience in a way that other blogs don't.

Find out what it is that makes you special and harness this to create content that is meaningful to your readers and related to the niche affiliate product or service you want to sell.

9. Ad Supported Online Community

Find a niche community
Did you know that it is possible to make lots of money online without selling anything? In fact, offering free, quality information and advice can often be more profitable than trying to sell products and services.

What do you know and understand well in life? Perhaps you are a single mom, or an out-of-work plumber? Maybe you're a rich investment banker, or a professional windsurfer? Whatever you are or do, there are thousands of people in the same, (or similar) position.

Capitalize on this by offering lots of great content and an online support community targeted at these people. Give them somewhere to come and hang out, exchange ideas, give each other support, and so on.

Once you have built a community of people it is not difficult to find marketers and advertisers who are willing to sponsor your site, or pay to advertise to your community. Direct advertising can bring in a lot of money, but you can also use Google AdSense to pay some bills while you build up community membership.

With a vibrant community website up and running you can start to think about products and services to sell, in addition to the advertising that brings in your base revenue. As with the affiliate blog, a community website can easily be started for free.

However, if you are going to implement a forum type site, it may be wise to use good forum software - even if you have to fork out a bit of cash for it.

10. Online Advertisement Manager

Find successful sites to help monetize on a commission basis
A lot of organizations have good quality Web content that drives a lot of valuable organic search traffic. In particular, academic institutes have fantastic content that often goes viral, driving hundreds of thousands of visitors - if not millions.

Many of these content resources are extremely valuable and highly profitable, but the people responsible for creating them don't necessarily know this, or have the skills to monetize them properly.

Start a company that offers to monetize valuable Internet real estate in return for a performance related commission. In other words, you work for free unless you earn money for your clients.

[Primary benefit of this idea] Large Web traffic volumes already exist. Simply apply sound marketing strategies to your methods of revenue generation and you should be able to deliver handsome profits for both yourself and the client.

Your success will depend on your ability to choose Internet real estate that is easy to monetize and has decent Web traffic volumes. A good place to look for clients is by browsing highly popular pages in social media to see if they are being monetized or if you can improve their monetization methods to increase profits.

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