17 Best Ways To Make Money Online From Home in 2023
2020 was a tough year for many of us.
The uncertainties of a pandemic have left us confused and unsure of what lies ahead of us. The year has, although, been a year of adaptation and new opportunities for those who seek them.
We live in a world of technology.
Technology has helped us in ways we may never have considered before. From shifting to an online mode of education to working from home, the challenges have been many. But technology has brought us far.
Technology has brought the world to your fingertips. It has opened the doors to make money online. You can find work opportunities while staying at home to care for your children.
You can work for companies halfway around the world. There’s no limit to what you can achieve with your unique talents and of course, some hard work.
So if you’re thinking,
“How do I make an extra $1000 a month?”
“Where can I make fast money online?”
“How do I build a stable income source online?”
You’re at the right place.
In this post, I am going to talk about some of the most lucrative ways you can earn money from home. All you need is your laptop and WiFi!
Disclaimer: If you buy something using the links in this article, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Know that I only promote stuff that I use and trust for the sake of my readers and the reputation of this website.
1. Start a Money-Making Blog
One of the best ways to earn a decent income online is to start a blog.
A blog is a website with educational or entertaining written content. It may contain ads and affiliate links that help the owner of the blog make money online.
For example, you could write a blog post on creating high-converting sales funnels with ClickFunnels, and use your ClickFunnels affiliate link to generate affiliate income.
As you may or may not know, starting a money-making blog is not the quickest way to make money online. It is not the easiest way either.
Then why have I placed it at the top of this list of ways to make money online? It’s a lucrative way for you to establish yourself as an expert and create a solid income stream for yourself.
Blogging helps you:
- Build your brand
- Gain clients
- Make money online
- Build a passive income stream through ads and affiliate marketing
If you’re thinking of how to get started making money from a blog, you can follow my step by step email course.
Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to earn money when you start a blog. You can review popular software or tools in your niche and recommend them to people.
When people buy products from your affiliate links, you make an income.
2. Make Money Online Through YouTube
YouTube has more than 2 billion monthly users – that’s about one-third of the internet!
So you’re not that interested in creating written content for the internet. Making videos is more up your alley. Great!
YouTube allows video creators to create educational content, reviews, or videos for entertainment!
Once you’ve decided what kind of videos you want to create, you can start a YouTube channel. Upload video content at regular intervals, build your subscriber base and start earning.
There are many ways you can earn through YouTube:
- Join the YouTube Partner Program
- Make Ad revenue through Google AdSense
- YouTube Premium revenue
- Channel Memberships
- Sell Your Merchandise or Products
- Create Sponsored Content
You don’t have to be an expert to get onto YouTube. All you need to do is post high-quality videos and build your subscriber base.
Once you’ve reached at least 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours, you can apply for the YouTube Partner Program. This makes it way easier for you to make money from Ads and YouTube Premium memberships.
You can also make a ton of money by creating sponsored content for brands and companies.
3. Make Money By Domain Flipping
Domain flipping means buying a domain name and selling it later at a high price due to its high value.
Domain flipping, or domain trading as it’s sometimes called, is a popular business. The key is to find a domain name that has the potential to be sought after in the future.
The domain should mostly be a .com since that is the most popular type of domain people want to own. It should hold a keyword or keyphrase that people are looking for. It should be short and catchy and hold a high SEO value.
Once you’ve found a valuable domain name, you must buy it. You can use a reputable domain registrar such as GoDaddy or Namecheap.
Start with a small budget and increase it as you gain experience in the business. Once you’ve bought domains, you need to figure out the right time to sell. Seek out prospective buyers to sell to.
Pick a niche and buy and sell domain names within that niche. This will help you make contacts in the industry and make a name for yourself.
4. Become a Freelance Web Designer
Becoming a freelancer is a huge career and lifestyle change. In this post, we will be discussing a few different freelance options.
Web designing is not an easy career, but it has huge earning potential. If you want to make money online and have a skill for graphic design, you should try it out.
Every business has an online presence. The internet is full of company websites competing with each other. Companies hire web designers to make their websites stand out from the rest.
Most clients do not know what they want and trust your expertise for it.
Keep in mind that your skill and portfolio are way more valuable than a college degree. You may have a master’s in web design or graphic design, but if you have no work to show, it can be hard to gain new clients.
Some of the technical skills you need are a working knowledge of HTML and CSS, and Adobe Photoshop.
You need to know about current trends, and popular themes and plugins.
Being a freelance web designer means having to upgrade your skills. There will always be new technology and trends emerging in the design business.
5. Become a Freelance Developer
A web developer has more technical skills than a web designer. A developer needs to know many coding languages to be in high demand.
You do not have to be a software engineer to get into web development.
A great way to get more clients is to create a freelance website of your own to showcase your skills.
Being a freelancer comes with its perks and challenges. You can work anywhere you want in the world and work whatever timings suit you best. You can take up as little or as much work as you wish, and charge according to your market value.
On the flip side, you will have to deal with many clients who may not always be very appreciative of your talents. Then there’s the uncertainty of getting enough work for the month so you can make money to pay your bills.
You will also have to upgrade your skills and invest in your education. You need to chase many clients for invoices at the end of each month.
Freelancing as a web developer may sound tedious. But it gets better over the years as you build your reputation and your client base.
6. Become a Freelance Writer
If you enjoy writing, becoming a freelance writer can be one of the best ways to make money online. You may not make a lot of money right at the start, but the key is to keep growing.
The first piece of advice I’d like to give you is to pick your niche. Unless you decide to write for a specific audience, you will not be able to improve your skills and charge more for your work.
Companies and brands are eager to build their online presence. They need copy for their website pages and content for their blogs and social media. Content marketing helps companies to establish their online presence and make money through ad and affiliate revenue.
As a writer, you need to pick an industry to specialize in, and then maybe narrow down the type of content you want to create. For example, you can write blog posts and whitepapers for SaaS companies. Or you could write for and manage the social media accounts of an online pet store.
As a freelance writer, you may come across many sites such as Upwork and Fiverr that seem to be popular. The truth is this: Although it may be a good idea to get on these sites when you’re just beginning your writing career, you should consider moving out of these platforms as you grow.
There are indeed a few high-paying gigs that come out of these sites, but they are quite rare. A better way to make money from writing is to build your brand by creating a writer’s website.
You can also establish yourself on social media platforms such as LinkedIn if that is where your target audience hangs out.
Another important skill to develop as a freelance writer is SEO. Companies are competing with each other to rank in the top pages of search engines like Google, and if you can help them do that with popular SEO tools, that instantly increases your value as a writer.
7. Become a Freelance Translator/ Interpreter
If you are multilingual you can try to make money through translation or interpretation of documents, videos, and other media.
There are many ways you can find clients and jobs that require translation services. One way is through job portals such as Upwork and Fiverr which I had mentioned earlier.
Another way is to join Facebook job boards that post translation or interpretation jobs according to the languages you are proficient in.
A third way is – you guessed it- by starting your freelance website and establishing your brand as a person.
Translation can also be a lucrative business if you treat it as such. You can build your expertise in one or two languages and look for clients in a certain niche.
For more technical translation work, clients are always on the lookout for those who have a certain level of experience in the field. It helps to narrow down your expertise to a specific industry.
If you do not have a degree in a specific language, you can take online courses offered by certified colleges or institutes.
8. Become an Online Tutor
With the current situation, online education has seemed to gain traction like never before. Parents and teachers who were resistant to the idea of imparting education online have now been forced to embrace it – and with good outcomes.
Technology today has allowed students to have a classroom-like experience right from their homes. Teachers and tutors have been equipped with the latest in video calling and screen sharing technology.
If you are looking to become an online tutor, there’s no better time. Many online tutoring websites allow you to sign up as a teacher and offer your tutoring services to students across the world.
You can tutor any subject and any age group – from school kids to adults looking to learn a new subject.
Generally, online tutoring websites track your performance and gather feedback from students and parents to see how capable you are. The better you are, the more money you will get paid as an online tutor.
9. Become a Virtual Assistant
Virtual assistants play an important role in supporting small businesses. As a virtual assistant, you can offer services such as administrative work and make money online.
Depending on your skills and interests, there are many services you can offer clients as a virtual assistant. You could choose to provide the following services:
- Social media management
- Lead generation
- Email management
- Processing orders
- Customer support
- Calendar management
- Travel arrangements and bookings
- Editing
- Bookkeeping
- Video editing
- Transcription
- Responding to billing inquiries
- Help promote sales and product launches
- Create real estate listings
- Reaching out to prospective clients/ buyers
- Data entry
Just like other freelance careers. You could choose job portals to get your career started. Once you’ve gained the necessary experience, you can choose to move on and grow your own virtual assistant business.
To get started, you need to pick 2 or 3 services you would like to offer clients. Decide on how much you’ll charge them and how you’ll get paid. Will you charge by the hour? Or will you charge by the task?
Pitch to clients and build your network so that you establish your name as a virtual assistant.
10. Become an Audiobook Narrator
If you have a crystal clear voice and maybe some experience in public speaking, you could make money online.
Audiobooks are still a popular form of entertainment among many.
If you are creative and love using your acting skills, narration or voice-overs could be an interesting way for you to make money.
You could start by renting out a recording studio to create your demo tapes or do your recording. But over time, renting a studio can prove to be expensive.
It is wise to invest in equipment such as:
- A laptop or PC
- A voice-over microphone
- Studio headphones
- A mic stand
- Recording software
Once you’ve got your home studio setup, you can start working by looking for freelance work on job portals. There are also industry-specific websites such as ACX.com and voicebunny.com that help you find voice-over and narration jobs.
11. Start Drop Shipping
Drop shipping is a great way to make money with less investment.
Here’s how a drop shipping business works: when you sell a product through your online store, you purchase an item directly from the supplier and ship it to your customer.
The benefits of a drop shipping business model are:
- Low investment
- You don’t have to handle the products directly
- You don’t have to keep stock or inventory of products
- It is easy to get started
- Since you don’t have to rent a warehouse or keep stock, you will have low overhead costs
- You can offer a wide variety of products to your customers
- It is easy to test out this business model to see if it works for you
- It is easy to grow your dropshipping business
To start a drop shipping business, you need an eCommerce platform or a website builder to host your online store. Shopify is a great platform for that.
You can also use an app like Oberlo (by Shopify) which is a marketplace that helps people find products to sell.
Unfortunately, there are some downfalls to this business as well. For starters, the margins are very low, which means you will have to sell many products to make sizable profits.
It can be tough to keep track of inventory when you are sourcing your products from different suppliers. This also poses a challenge for your shipping costs. Since you are shipping from different merchants, shipping costs will vary with every product.
It is up to you to weigh the pros and cons before you want to start a drop shipping business.
12. Create a Money-Making Podcast
Podcasts are another one of the most popular ways to make money these days. Podcasts allow you to position yourself as an expert in your industry, grow your audience, and build your brand.
Just like blogs, podcasts are a long term way to earn money. You can choose to do it full time or just as a side gig.
So, how do you start a podcast? And how do you make money from a podcast?
Before you begin to make money online by podcasting, you must first determine what you want to talk about on your podcast. This is a very crucial step and sets the tone for your podcast side gig.
When you’ve determined your niche, only then can you start creating high-value educational or entertaining content for your podcast.
Plan your podcast episodes so you have a strategic podcast calendar. Determine how often you want to release an episode and be consistent so your audience knows what to expect from you and when.
You will need to invest in good quality podcasting equipment for beginners. Podcasting equipment can include microphones, recording equipment, recording and editing software, and podcast hosting.
Podcast hosting websites like Podbean and Buzzsprout are cheap enough for you to get started.
Figure out how you want to make money online with your podcast. You can do this by affiliate marketing, sponsored episodes, advertising networks, creating online courses, offering services, asking for crowdfunding or donations from your audience, or creating premium paid content. There are tons of other ways you can make money online with a podcast.
13. Become a Social Media Influencer
Influencers are powerful. 17% of companies spend more than half their marketing budget on influencers.
When you are starting, it helps to pick a niche so that you can build a name for yourself. People should look to you as a source of information or advice when they have a problem in that niche.
Create a clear content marketing strategy. This will help you plan out the different ways you want to get paid for your expertise such as Google AdSense or affiliate marketing.
Select the channels you want to spend more effort on. This depends on your niche audience and where they spend more time.
A good piece of advice is not to spread yourself thin by engaging in all the possible social media channels. Pick 2- 3 channels at the beginning and build your following before you decide to move on to a new channel.
14. Create And Sell an Online Course
With the rising costs in mainstream education, it’s no wonder that the global online education market is projected to reach a total market size of US$319.167 billion in 2025.
We live in an era where online education is crucial for the continuation of studies due to the pandemic. There has never been a better time when we have had such advanced methods of imparting online education to anyone across the globe.
People are looking for topical online courses that provide them actionable information so that they can reach their career goals.
Creating an online course does take a considerable amount of time, effort, and money, but the returns can be staggering.
Once you’ve created a curriculum-based online course, you can sit back and earn passive income that may flow in for years after the course was created. Doesn’t that sound awesome?
There are many platforms you can use to sell your online course like Udemy, Kajabi, and Teachable.
These platforms allow you to upload curriculums, course videos, downloadable pdfs and worksheets, reading material, and also set up sales pages and payment methods for your students.
If you have a flair for teaching in an organized manner, consider creating and selling online courses in your field of experience to get paid online.
15. Write, Publish, And Sell an Ebook
The best way to make money through your expertise is to create and sell an eBook.
eBook revenue is set to hit US$15,231m by 2023.
When you sell a self-published eBook on your website, you have greater control over your earnings, and can build a faithful following in the form of an email list.
Decide on the topic you want to write about and create content that will help your target audience. The next step is to write the eBook and create a good title for the book.
Convert your eBook into a format such as MOBI, ePub, or pdf. Create a compelling landing page on your website that will help you sell your ebook to your audience.
Promote your eBook through the social media channels that you use the most and have a considerable following in.
16. Create an App
Coming up with an app idea need not be challenging. You can choose to include the best features of apps that you admire or build an app that solves a problem you are currently facing.
Remember that every idea stems out of other ideas that already exist, so your app idea need not be brand new. Carry out some market research and make your app much better than what exists in the market already.
Focus on a great user experience if you are looking to make an app from an idea that already exists.
Decide on an app name, the features you want your app to have, the price of the app if you are planning to make money from selling it, or other monetization methods.
Create design mockups of your app and make sure you can deliver a good user experience. Think about your app’s graphic design and whether you want to design it yourself or outsource it to another person.
Create an app marketing plan and a sales page on your website to sell your app.
You can choose to build the app yourself if you have the knowledge and want to save some money. Otherwise, hire a freelancer or an app development company. You can also use an app builder such as builder.ai or appypie.
17. Earn Money through Peer-to-Peer
Another way to make money online is through peer-to-peer lending. Peer-to-peer lending enables a person to make passive income by lending money directly to other people without any middlemen.
For those who don’t know, a P2P platform is a marketplace to conduct money lending activities. Here, you can lend people money in a more organized and structured manner.
P2P lending websites like Prosper, Lending Club, Peerform, Upstart, and StreetShares connect borrowers directly to investors. It is a fast way to make some extra cash in your spare time.
P2P allows you to make a higher income because its rates are higher than standard bank rates.
There are risks involved, though. It is best to use your discretion and take caution while lending money to strangers online.
There are some guidelines to study before you delve right into this gig. One thing is that you must always understand the recovery process before you start lending. Since this method of providing loans isn’t secured, the risks there is a problem.
BONUS: 3 Extra Ways To Earn a Part Time Income In Your Spare Time
1. Sell Your Photos Online
Selling photos online can seem like a crazy idea to make a part time passive income, but it is lucrative.
There are many photography sites like Getty Images, Shutterstock, and iStock that allow you to create income streams that you may never have considered before.
If you are good at photography, all you need is your camera and some good photo editing software to make an income.
Who knew being a Getty image entrepreneur could help you make more passive income!
2. Get Paid for Online Surveys
Some people make fast cash by taking online surveys. This is a good idea if you just want a little extra cash on the side.
A word of caution – you need to first be sure of the legitimacy of the survey sites you plan to use. Sites like Swagbucks, Toluna, Branded Surveys, and LifePoints can help you earn a decent part time income.
3. Sell Unused Gift Cards
Sometimes, you may receive gift cards that you don’t have any use for. The good news is that you can sell these unused gift cards at different sites like CardSell and Raise for up to 92% of their actual value.
Now, you must have a clear idea of which platform you can dive into to start your lucrative online money-making career. There are tons of other ways to make money such as making money with bots that are not mentioned in this article.
However, one thing is common in most of these ways: selecting the best possible niche for yourself. Only then, you’ll be able to make the most out of the Internet.
So, get creative and search out the best options for yourself!
What are the ways you want to earn money at home this year? Have you tried any of these yet? Let me know in the comments!
