Spell Your Views: Make Money Online

Make Money Online with Surveys

Gettingpaid for taking online surveys is one of the first ways most people, including myself, start making money on the web.

Why?

A few reasons:

You get paid relatively fast.
You don’t need any experience.
You don’t have to pay anything.
It’s easy to do.
You can fill out surveys anytime and from anywhere (even while sitting in your dentist’s or doctor’s waiting room!)
And taking surveys for money is a fun way to make a few bucks.

If you want to earn money online free fast and easy, taking surveys is a great option.

So what exactly are online surveys and why would companies pay you for your feedback?
Surveys are different than polls (like polls about politics or politicians conducted by companies like Gallup). Surveys have more of a commercial intent behind them while polls are usually related to politics and social issues.

Without going into too much detail and writing a 100 page essay on the topic of market research and its importance in product development and improvement, companies use Market Research companies to conduct surveys to find out what consumers like or dislike about their products and services.

They then use this information to improve existing products and/or develop new products. At the end of the day, Market Research helps companies make more money by creating products and features that consumers actually want and will pay for.

So what’s in it for the survey takers?

It’s reasonable to think that most of us aren’t just gonna take time out of busy day to tell companies what we think of their stuff. That’s why companies offer rewards (cash, gift cards, free products, etc) in exchange for you giving your opinion.

Legit Survey Sites that Pay You:

Here are my top 6 favorite paying survey sites:

Ipsos Panel: One of my favorite survey panels with lots of surveys and cool prizes. Not only you earn cash for taking surveys, but you also get entries to sweepstakes with massive cash prizes.
My Survey: Previously know as SurveyDirect or MyView, this is one of the top online survey panels. You get paid via PayPal once you reach $25.
Opinion Outpost: One of the best survey panels out there.
GlobalTestMarket: Backed by GMI (Global Market Insite, Inc.), this site sends lots of survey invites, although you only qualify for 20-30% of them. You can cash out once you have accumulated $50.
PineCone Research: Hard to get into this panel since they only open their doors for a limited time throughout the year, but once you get in, every survey you take earns you $3. Most surveys are 15-20 minutes long.
SurveySavvy: SurveySavvy is definitely one of the highest paying survey sites. And they pay $1-$2 for every survey your referrals take. Refer 10-20 people and you’re looking at an easy $100-$200 a month.

Other Panels

There are a lot of survey sites out there and everyday new ones come on the scene. Here are some of the best and most trusted ones that have been around for a while:

Paid Survey Scams

Unfortunately, there are a lot of scams out there when it comes to paid online surveys that will waste your time and if you’re not careful they may even take money from you.

While there are a lot of signs you can look for, the single best thing you can do to protect yourself against paid survey scams is knowing that no legit online survey panel will ever ask you to pay anything.

All legit survey sites are 100% free to join. They’re supposed to pay you – not the other way around.

Make Money with Google

Wondering how to make money online with Google?
This section is for you.
There are actually a few legitimate ways to make money with Google.

Make Money with Google AdSense

You know those “ads by Google” ads you see online (on this very site and almost every other site you visit)?

That’s one of the best ways people make money with their blogs.

For every click on those ads, the webmaster gets a small commission.

Obviously, for this to work you need a blog or website of your own that gets some traffic.

Basically, all you do is add a small code to your site, then Google’s smart technology displays relevant ads based on the content of the page. For example, if your site is about gardening, Google will show ads related to gardening. And every time someone clicks on one of those ads, you get paid.
If you wanna learn more about it, check out this guide by Google.

Google Opinion Rewards

This is an online survey panel by Google. The company uses this panel to get feedback about all the many products and services they have so they can make them even better.

It is, of course, free to join and as a Google Opinion Rewards panelist, you earn free Google Play credits for just giving your opinion. You can use your Google Play credits to buy apps, games, movies, TV shows, music, and books from the Google Play Store.

Google Work at Home Jobs

Like most other companies these days, Google also hires remote workers to work from home.
They have remote job openings in development, design, engineering, operations and administration. You may even be able to find freelancing opportunities with Google.

While you can find open positions on job search engine sites like Indeed, the best and safest place to find remote jobs that allow you to work from Google from home Google’s official careers website at Careers.Google.com.

While the are other ways to make money with Google directly and indirectly – think creating and selling apps on Google Play store, making YouTube videos (look for a guide on that below!) and making money with ads, writing and selling eBooks on Google Play, etc – the above mentioned are the most popular ones.

Make Money Online with PayPal

Don’t like sites that pay you with gift cards and prizes? Would you rather get paid in PayPal?
Use these sites to make PayPal money online.

Rewardable TV

If you like making easy money while having fun, you’ll love this one. Download this free app, watch videos and get paid in PayPal.

What kind of videos?

Movie trailers
Trending videos
Funny GIFs

That’s all there is to it! I mean, it just can’t get any easier than this.

Unbabel

Do you know 2 or more languages?

This site will pay you, yes in PayPal, to review and improve translations on your own schedule.
They usually have work for a lot of different languages, but you can find most work for German, English, Simplified Chine and French.

The best part is that your earning is sent to your PayPal account weekly.

CastingWords

This company pays you to transcribe, edit, and complete other short jobs online, at your own pace. The great thing about this site is that you can work as much or as little as you like. Perfect for those of us who won’t have the exact same window of free time every day.

Pay varies based on various factors. But generally, you can expect to earn between 8.5¢ to a little over a $1 per audio minute.

You get paid via PayPal every Friday.

How to Make Money Online for Beginners

While you can use any of the sites and apps mentioned in this list to earn free cash from home, if you’re a beginner and would like the easiest and fastest way to make money, online rewards sites are your best option.

Rewards sites, also known as “Get Paid To” sites, basically pay you for completing different tasks online. We’re not talking about tasks that require specific degrees or years of experience. No, we’re talking about simple stuff that most of us already do online, like:

Watching videos
Playing games
Shopping
Answering questions
Visiting websites
Etc

Now, unfortunately, there are a lot of scams when it comes to GPT sites. So it’s best to stick with well known, trusted sites that have been around for a while. You don’t want to complete offers for a month then when it’s time to cash out your earning find out that the site no longer exist. Trust me, I have seen a lot of “here today, gone tomorrow” rewards sites.

Thankfully, there are tons of legitimate reward sites that have been around for a while that actually pay their members.

Here are some of the best ones:

Swagbucks

As far as reward sites go, nobody can claim to be as big as this site. Swagbucks rewards you for doing almost anything you already do on your computer – shopping, playing games, watching videos, etc. The points you earn can be redeemed for cash and prizes including PayPal and Amazon gift cards. They even give you $5 for free just for signing up.

Cashcrate

This one has been around for a long time. Again, you get paid to shop, take surveys, do offers and more.

Gifthulk

This is a much newer site, but it has proven to be a trustworthy site.

QuickRewards

I love this site. They truly are quick when it comes to paying. The fastest ever I have gotten money in my PayPal was in 22 minutes! That’s how fast they pay!

CreationsRewards

Another fun cashback site where not only you can earn points for shopping, but you can also take surveys, answer trivia, play games, etc.

TreasureTrooper

One of the original GPT sites that has paid its members over $7 million so far!

MyPoints

This is one of the oldest rewards sites. It’s actually one of the first sites I used to make money online as a beginner years ago.

Get Paid to Read Emails

Ok, I know it sounds very fishy.

I mean, who would pay you to read emails, right?

Well, it’s real and companies do pay you for reading your emails. But as always there is a “catch”.

Here is how it works:

Advertisers pay sites like InboxDollars to send traffic to their site.
In order to get you to visit the advertiser’s website, InboxDollars shares some of the money they get from the advertiser with you.
Now, they send traffic to the advertiser’s website in a variety of ways, but one way they do it is through “Paid emails”.
They send you an email that is basically an ad promoting a particular product or service (sometimes even with a coupon or discount code for you), you click on the link in the email, your account gets credited a few cents regardless of whether or not you actually bought something from the advertiser’s website.
You are paid just for clicking the link in the email.
I know you’ve probably read or seen ads online promising $3000 paychecks from reading emails, but that’s all BS.
The truth is you won’t be making much.
Most paid emails pay just a few cents.
I use InboxDollars myself and their paid emails are worth $0.5 each.
You usually get 2-3 paid emails a day.
But that’s not it with these kinds of sites.
They also have many other ways for you to earn money, like shopping, playing games, taking surveys, etc.
So, they are a kind of online reward site, but they also pay you to read emails.

InboxDollars

One of the most well-known paid to read emails site that I have been a member of for over 6 years. You can cash out once you have $30 in your account.

SendEarnings

It’s the sister site to InboxDollars and basically lets you earn money with the same kinds of offers.

Cash4Offers

This is very popular with stay at home moms. Lots of ways to earn points that can be converted into cash or exchanged for gift cards from hundreds of stores.

InboxPays

A newer site, but that has already proven to be legit and paying.

Make Money Online without Investment (with Affiliate Marketing)

Wanna make money online without investment but still want to promote and sell products?
With affiliate marketing, you can promote thousands of products without having to ever spend a dime on creating any product.

You’ll work as a middle man, promoting other people’s products and getting a commission every time someone who you send to the seller’s site buys something.

Having a website or blog of your own is a plus here, but even if you don’t have a website, you can still publish articles on sites like HubPages and earn affiliate income by displaying ads.

If you do have your own website or blog, all you need to do is sign up with a few affiliate networks, choose a few quality related products and start promoting them on your site. You could either place banner ads or use contextual links for this.

Amazon Associates

For anyone who clicks on your Amazon affiliate link and makes a purchase inside the next 24 hours, you’ll receive a cut of that purchase.

eBay Partner Network

Again, get a cut on eBay transactions when people are led there through your affiliate links.

Commission Junction

An all-encompassing marketplace for affiliate offers.

MaxBounty

This one has lots of free offers that don’t require the person to buy anything, so it’s easier for you to promote and get conversions out of them.

Clickbank

This is probably the largest marketplace where you can find thousands of digital products to promote as an affiliate marketer, including eBooks.

Make Money Blogging

Setting up a free blog may be easy and quick, but let’s be clear, there is nothing easy and quick about making money with a blog, whether a free blog or one you pay for.

It takes a lot of hard work and dedication to drive enough traffic to your blog to make decent money. But, if you can manage to build a popular blog, you can hit 5, 6 figures. And if you create a blog that becomes really popular, you can become one of many bloggers who earn 7 figures with their blog.
At the very least, you can make a few hundred to a few thousand dollars a month with your blog, just like hundreds of mommy bloggers do.

The good news is that there are ways to start a blog 100% free.

My first blog, BlogStash.com, started on Blogger (Google’s free blogging platform) as satrapmakesmoney.blogspot.com.

I worked day and night on that blog while keeping two full-time offline jobs. Until finally my hard work paid off.

After almost a year of satrapmakesmoney.blogspot.com being live, the traffic I was receiving was making me enough money that it persuaded me to get my own domain and hosting, so I could be in full control.

So, I bought a domain – BlogStash.com – and in 2009 moved the blog there.

The traffic kept growing. At the highest point, I was making over $7,000 a month from BlogStash.
It’s been a few years now, the traffic has gone down a bit, plus I am busy with this and a few other sites, so it doesn’t earn as much as it used to, but BlogStash still continues to make me money month after month.

I haven’t counted the exact number, but from my PayPal and bank account statements, I can say, till date I’ve made over $100,000 with BlogStash.

Yes, $100K in about 3 years, all while keeping my two daytime jobs!

And that was my first ever blog. I had to learn a lot of stuff. And that’s the best part about the whole experience. It helped me learn a lot of things that lead me to build more popular and better-earning blogs like MoneyPantry.

You know the best part?…

It’s almost entirely passive income now since I really don’t have to do much anymore, except for publishing a post every week or so.

I am not telling you this to brag, I am just trying to show you that it is possible. But it wasn’t always easy, though.

In the first two years, especially, I really did work hard. I mean I spent every spare minute I had after getting off work, working on this site, writing content, promoting it, driving traffic and so on.

But it paid off and it still is paying off!

I guess what I am trying to say is that despite what you may hear online, making money with a blog is not as easy as setting up a blog and posting to it every day. It takes hard work, dedication, and most importantly, patience.

Also, if you use free blog sites to build a blog, as soon as you can afford it, get your own domain and hosting and move it there. You don’t want your blog being deleted and not be able to do anything about it.

I have heard countless stories from people who worked for years on a Blogspot (also known as Blogger) blog, only to have it deleted by Google (who owns Blogspot ) in an instant.

So, if you can afford it, I recommend you get your own domain name and a hosting account, so you can have full control over your business.

Build your site, get it online in minutes with Drag & Drop Builder site
If you don’t know how to build a site, what hosting is and all the other technical stuff, you can use a site builder company like WebsiteBuilder.com.

They have an easy drag and drop builder that lets you build a professional looking sites in less than 5 minutes for free.

You can also upgrade and pay $5.99 a month which is already cheap compared to other services. But the best part is that they also give you a free domain name and host your website for you.

It really can’t get any easier and cheaper than this.

Free Blogging Platforms
Now, if you can’t afford that, or want to use one of the popular free blogging platforms, here are some of the best free blogging sites that you can use to get started:

Blogger.com (Also known as BlogSpot)

Owned by Google, offers an easy and quick way to set up a blog in just a few minutes.

WordPress.com

It’s different from WordPress.org (that one is installed on your server to run your own blog), but it offers the same ease of use.

Livejournal

This is not just a free blogging site, it also is a social networking site in its own right.

Blog.com

As the name suggests, it gives you a free blog and will host it for you for free.

Tumblr

One of the most successful blogging sites ever. Although mostly used by personal bloggers, it is becoming more popular among serious bloggers.

Use Money Making Apps

App popularity has exploded in the last few years.
And while there are thousands of apps out there that will make it easy for you to shop and spend your money, there are also a lot of apps you can make money with.

Gigwalk

Gigwalk is a huge mobile work marketplace. You can use your Apple or Android powered smartphones to perform simple tasks, these could include mystery shopping, delivering items, testing mobile apps, taking photos, and more.

Field Agent

This is another site that operates similarly to Gigwalk. Here users of iPhone can become their source of mobile workers who scan barcodes, mystery shop, check prices, take polls, explore neighborhoods, and more. Work done can be exchanged for between $3 and $12 as wage for each task.

Shopkick

This app pays for your shopping trip regardless you buy or not. You will be paid in “kicks” that could be redeemable for gift cards or store discounts. The app works on both iPhone and Android.

CheckPoints

The company rewards you with points and rewards for scanning items, checking in at different stores, playing games, or completing offers. Points can be redeemed for discounts, gift cards, or products.

EasyShift

This app works similarly to Gigwalk. The jobs here are taking a picture, recording a price, etc. You get paid $2 to $20 for every shift. It is currently available on iPhone only.

Apptrailers

Earn points as you watch videos and download apps. It works for both iPhone and Android. You can change it to gift cards or convert into cash and deposit into PayPal.

Get Paid to Answer Questions & Give Advice

“Knowledge is power”!
We’ve all heard that. But knowledge can also earn you money.
If you are an expert on just about anything, you can put it to good use by earning money.
All you need to do is sign up with a site like JustAnswer and answer questions posted by users.

JustAnswer

Questions are priced anywhere from $5 to $25 or more. If your answer is accepted, the money is credited to your account, where you can cash out via PayPal once you reach $20.

Make Money Freelancing Online

The best part about becoming a paid freelancer is that you don’t need to invest any money to get started and freelancing platforms make it easy to find clients.
All you need is a specific skill or a specific set of skills, your computer, and your willingness to work.
If that interests you, here are some of the best-trusted freelancing sites you can sign up with in order to get started:

UpWork (previously eLance and oDesk)

You can find all kinds of freelance work on Upwork – writing, web design, coding, graphic design, marketing, virtual assistant, translation and so on.

Fiverr

One of the most underrated freelancing sites ever. The site started as a place where you could get paid to do short tasks for just five bucks. Over the years, it has slowly morphed into one of the biggest gig/freelancing sites where you can now charge any amount to do all kinds of stuff for other peoples. Anything from serious stuff like copywriting, translation, voice over social media management to silly stuff like prank calls and everything in between.

Freelancer

I use this site myself to both earn extra money when I have some spare time, and to find freelancers to do things for me, like creating a logo for a site, designing a new theme, etc.

PeoplePerHour

Very similar to Freelancer and Elance. Register for free, set up your profile, browse and apply for available jobs, deliver, and get paid.

99Designs

You can find all kinds of design related freelance work here from logos and websites to book covers and more.

Guru

Another freelancing site where you can make money doing freelance work in many verticals from the usual writing and design to administration, engineering, business & finance, sales and marketing and much more.

Earn Money Freelance Writing Online

Freelance writing is generally one of the best ways for beginners to earn money for free. If you’re a good writer, it really isn’t that hard to make money as a writer.

For a lot of people, it actually is one of the first things they try when they decide they want to make money on the internet.

You can start making money without spending a dime which for most of us is the number one priority when we first start.

The best part is that unlike many home based jobs, you’ll never run out of work if you are good at it. The Internet is made of websites and websites are made of content, which means there will always be a demand for writers who can produce good quality content.

As far as how much you can make, it depends on various factors including the platform you use, your clients, the type of content they need, length of the content and so on. Generally, the better you are as a writer, the more you can make.

Now, besides using the general freelancing sites that we talked about above, you can also use sites that focus mostly on writing gigs.

Constant Content

A lot of big brands use this site to find good writers to create quality content from them, including Uber, Zulily, The Home Depot, Walgreens, Hayneedle, CVS, eBay and others.

Textbroker

Textbroker has been around since 2005 and is one of the best places to get paid as a writer.

Online Transcription Services

Looking for passionate writers for their blog. You can contribute few blogs on transcription services, translation services, dissertation writing etc and earn decent income in your part time.

Cracked

If you have a funny bone or tend to have interesting perspectives on things, Cracked.com could be for you. They will pay you $100 for every article you write for them that gets approved and published.

BloggingPro Job Board

If you like writing blog posts, this is an awesome job board that you can use to search for available gigs.

ProBlogger Job Board

Darren Rowse of ProBlogger is one of the original “make money blogging” people. His blog was one of the first blogs that popularized the concept of making money with a blog. He created this job board so bloggers in need of content and writers in need of work could find each other.

Get Paid to Click

I am not personally a big fan of this because I have been scammed and robbed of my earnings many times years ago, and because there are way more scam sites here than there are legit ones.
Basically, you are paid to click on their advertiser’s ads and view them for a few seconds.
Some ads may get you a few cents, but usually, it’s less than a cent.
They say the only way to really make anything decent with paid to click (or PTC) sites is to refer hundreds of people since you earn a percentage of your referrals’ earnings.
Either way, I personally think its a waste of time, but it’s an easy, free and quick way to make money (albeit not much money) especially for beginners.

Neobux

This is one of the biggest legit PTC (Paid To Click) sites. Unfortunately, they don’t pay via PayPal. The only pay via Skrill, Neteller or AirTM. So before you sign up, make sure you have or can create an account with one of those platforms.

Clixsense

Besides paid ads, you can also earn money by taking surveys, downloading apps, completing offers and much more.

Sell Your Stuff

If you are in a pinch and need money fast, the time tested method of selling some of your unused stuff is still one of the best ways to get fast cash.
And with so many selling apps these days, it is easier than ever to sell your stuff online for cash.
Some of the best apps and sites for selling stuff locally include:

Get Paid to Tweet

OK, let me be brutally honest here, if you think somebody is going to pay you $5000 to tweet an ad to your few hundred followers, you’re going to be disappointed.
Sure, people do get paid big bucks for tweeting, but they are usually famous folks who have a great deal of influence on their massive number of followers.
Having said that, businesses are starting to realize that the average consumer is more likely to buy something if they hear it from their own friends and family. Which is why the sites mentioned below are now making it possible for the average tweet user to make a few bucks from tweet ads.

SponsoredTweets

One of the biggest sites of its kind where big names like Diddy get paid to tweet.

PaidPerTweet

This is where even average Twitter users can earn up to $5 per tweet.

TwitPub

The company claims it has 80% more payout compared to other companies in this space.

Sell Your Pictures

Another legit and scam free way to make money is through stock photography. Hundreds and thousands of new blogs and websites are born every day. All these sites need pictures. And most of them use stock photography sites to find quality and inexpensive images.
You don’t have to be a professional to do this. As long as you can take decent pictures, you can upload them to any of the sites mentioned below, then every time someone buys one of them, you earn money.

The best part is that 1 picture can be sold over and over again. So, imagine if you have 100-200 popular pictures on one of these sites!

ShutterStock

You are paid 25 cents for every image of yours downloaded. The cool thing about this site is that when you refer another photographer, you earn 3 cents per photo sold by them.

Getty (iStockPhoto)

Yes, the same Getty that seemingly owns every single pictures you see news networks use! You get 20% of the total price for images between $1 to $20 and 40% if you sell your images only on their site.

DreamsTime

You can get 50 to 80% from each image sold.

BigStockPhoto

You can pocket anywhere from $0.30 to $3 for every image of yours sold.

PhotoStockPlus

One of the highest paying stock sites where you get to keep 85% of the profit.

123RoyaltyFree

Not only you get 50% of each image sold, you also earn 15% of your referral’s subscription or purchase, plus 10% of every image sold by a photographer you refer.

Fotolia (Adobe Stock)

50% for each picture downloaded.

Make & Sell Customized T-shirts & More

Thanks to the internet and the sites mentioned below, you don’t have to be a famous designer to put your stamp on products. Anyone, and I mean anyone, can earn money with this.
All you need to do is sign up with a site like CafePress, upload a design you have created, decide which items you want the design to go on (i.e. T-shirts, hats, mugs, etc), and make money selling them.

The best part about this is that you don’t even have to ever touch the actual product, nor do you have to spend a dime on manufacturing these products. They do all the work for you. You just upload the design, choose the items you want your design to be on, and they’ll handle the rest (i.e. manufacturing, payment, shipping, and handling, returns…).

Cafepress

You can make and sell customized T-shirts, mugs, hats, bags and many other personalized items.

Etsy

Etsy is one of the biggest sites to sell handmade products. You can design and sell all kinds of stuff and for some reason or another, people do pay a lot for stuff on Etsy.

SpreadShirt

Not only you can earn money selling your own designs, but you can also sell other designer’s stuff and earn money.

PrintFection

It gives you a free online store so you can sell products with your design on them.

Zazzle

On Zazzle, you can either sell your designs to other product makers or you can design and sell your own products.

Participate in Online Focus Groups

Focus groups are a close variation of surveys. But instead of filling out a questionnaire online, you’ll sit around a table with a bunch of other people discussing a certain topic or product.
Just like with data gathered from online surveys, companies use the information gathered from focus groups to improve or develop new products and services.

Focus groups are usually conducted locally in a physical location, thus, you have to live in close proximity to be able to participate. Thankfully, there are a bunch of legit online focus groups that pay you to participate in virtual focus groups.

Here are some of the best legit paid online focus groups:

2020Panel

Backed by one of the giants of the market research industry 2020 Research, this is the best chance you have of getting invited to an online focus group. They also conduct normal online surveys.

FocusPointeGlobal (FocusGroup.com)

With over 1.6 million panelists, this one is one of the biggest market research companies out there.

Respondent

This is a great market research company that conducts consumer research studies online and in-person. The average pay is about $140 per hour!

FieldWork

They have locations in most major cities around the country, but they also do online studies. Pay starts at around $75 per hour.

User Interviews

They conduct studies on behalf of some of the top companies in the world including Pinterest, AT&T, Pandora and Wayfair.

Get Paid to Do Small Tasks (Micro Jobs)

Lately, micro job sites have been popping up everywhere, especially after the huge success of the first big site of its kind, Fiverr.

This is pretty similar to freelancing, but often jobs or “gigs” are smaller than what you would find on major freelancing sites.

But what makes micro freelancing sites like Fiverr very appealing is that it’s not limited to graphic designers, writers, and computer gigs. You can offer almost any kind of service and make money with it. For example, on Fiverr, there is a guy who has made over $100,000 by making tough decisions for people, charging each $5.

Check out these micro freelancing sites if you are interested.

mTurk

I personally like this one for some spare cash. It does not take much to earn an extra $20 – $50 a week. Some claim that they are able to make a living by dedicating their time to different jobs at mTurk. You will have to go through a learning curve, but once you get comfortable, you will find plenty of good and interesting HITs (Human Intelligence Tasks) to work on.

Microworkers

This is like mTurk where you choose from a wide array of micro jobs. Tasks include stuff like taking surveys and testing websites to finding contact information, tagging images, comparing videos, finding a company’s website and description, etc.

Make Money with YouTube

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years, you know about YouTube and its massive popularity. You probably even watch YouTube videos. You may even know a person or two who makes YouTube videos.

There are people who are making a lot – we’re talking about 6-7 figures – with their YouTube channels.

Here are some examples of YouTubers and what they earned in 2018 alone according to CBS News:

PewDiePie – $15.5 million
VanossGaming – $17 million
Ryan ToysReview – $22 million

The beauty of using YouTube as a way to make money is that you can make videos about anything you like. The last one on that list is a 7 year old kid who basically tests out toys.
Yes, toys!

Now, anybody can make a video. What matters is making videos that people want to watch. Because as we’re about to find out, to make money with YouTube videos, you need views!

So how do you make money with your videos on YouTube?

You have to become a YouTube Partner!

When you become a Partner, Google (who owns YouTube) will start displaying ads with your videos.
Each time someone views one of your videos, Google will display either an Overlay InVideo ad (basically a banner ad) or a short commercial ad (for products, movie trailers, etc). Banner ads are also automatically displayed on your YouTube channel page.

Every time somebody views, clicks on or watches a video-based ad on your YouTube Channel, you earn a little revenue.

Now, the exact amount you earn depends on the ad and how people respond to it. Of course, a single view or click on the ad isn’t going to earn you much, but over time it all adds up. And that brings us to the next point which is the more views you get on your videos, the more vies and clicks you get on those ads, earning you more money.

The best part about being a YouTube Partner is that it’s free to join (although there are a few requirements but more on that later) and once you become a Partner and enable ads, you don’t have to do a single thing. Google Adsense will take care of everything for you. All you need to do is create quality videos and promote them so you can get more views.

Requirements for becoming a YouTube Partner

According to Google, the followings are minimum illegibility requirements:

Follow all the YouTube Partner Program policies.
Live in a country or region where the YouTube Partner Program is available.
Have more than 4,000 public watch hours in the last 12 months.
Have more than 1,000 subscribers.
Have a linked AdSense account.

Once you have met these requirements, go here to apply to become a YouTube Partner.
Why you should do it?

Because it doesn’t cost a thing. All you need is your phone and its camera, a topic you want to cover and dedication to creating videos.

It just can’t get any easier than this. Really, if you’ve always been wondering “how can I make money easy and for free on the internet” this is one of your best options.

Of course, you have to be realistic. Just because some people make millions, doesn’t mean everybody will. But you’re not reading this post to become a millionaire, you are here because you want a free way to make some extra money and making YouTube videos is a great way to do it. Who knows, maybe your YouTube channel will one day become a huge and earn you hundreds of thousands of dollars.

How do I make money with YouTube until becoming a YouTube Partner?

Can’t wait that long to earn your first dollar with your videos?
No worries, there is another way you can monetize your videos…
Affiliate marketing!

Remember, earlier we talked about making money with affiliate marketing?
Well, you can apply the same concept to YouTube videos. Basically, in the description of your videos, include your affiliate link to a product or service that you talked about in your video.

For example, let’s say you signed up to become an Amazon Associate so you can make money as an affiliate of Amazon. You then create a gardening video showing people how to plant a small tree. Find the exact shovel you are using in the video, on Amazon, get your affiliate link and put it in the description of your video so people who are interested can buy the same shovel on Amazon. For every person that buys the shovel, you earn a commission.

Now, what’s great about it is that you also earn commission for other stuff people buy on Amazon after clicking on your affiliation link. Imagine the possibilities!

Get Paid to Tutor

Back in the day (even today some do it) Tutoring someone would meant you had to go to somebody’s house (or they would come to yours) in order to tutor them in whatever subject they needed help with.
Nowadays, you can make money tutoring without ever living your house thanks to online tutoring sites.
And one of the best tutoring platforms where you can make the most money is Chegg Tutor.
No matter what subject you want to tutor, they have you covered. Anything from Math and Science to Biology, Zoology and even Voice Lessons.
The best part is that you get paid each week.
Interested?
Visit chegg.com/tutors to sign up.

Other Quick & Easy Ways to Earning Cash Online (Without Paying Anything)

If you’re looking for real, legit and honest ways of making extra money online without any investment, try some of these free online money making opportunities.

Teach English Online

Think you have what it takes to teach English to foreign students?
Then sign up to be a teacher with VIPKID.

What makes making money as an online English teacher particularly interesting and easy with sites like VIPKID is the fact that you don’t have to spend any time or money trying to find paying clients. VIPKID is a huge platform with hundreds of thousands of paying students. The site takes care of everything for you. Bringing you students, scheduling classes, pay, etc. All you have to do is set up your own schedule (yes, you get to decide when you want to work!) and teach during those hours.
That means you can do this on the side in the evening after your regular 9 to 5 job.

Of course, there are some requirements. You have to have a degree to qualify as a teacher. There is also the application process which involves a video interview. Read my VIPKID review for more details and tips for success.

If you think you qualify, give it a try. It’s a great way to make some extra cash right from your living room (or anywhere else for that matter!).

If you are interested, fill out the application right away. Apply to become a teacher on VIPKID here.
Tip

If you want to get your approval faster so you can start making money quickly, make sure to schedule your video interview immediately after completing the online application.

Get Paid to Review Products

Sign up with Vindale Research for free and get paid up to $75 per review.
These can be anything from financial products to websites, online services, and almost anything you can think of.

There are a few sites like this one, but Vindale is by far the best one out there.
Sadly, they only accept members from the U.S.

Sell Old Books

If you are a bookworm like me, you probably have a few hundred (if not thousand) books gathering dust in your basement.

There is an easy way to turn those old books into cash.

Simply visit BookScouter and enter the ISBN number of any book you want to sell.

It will instantly search over 40 book-buying websites to find you the site that pays the most for your book.

Wanna turn it into a nice side hustle?

Here’s what you can do:

Step one: Install their free app.
Step two: Go to your local thrift stores.
Step three: Start scanning books with the free app to see how much you can get for ’em.
Step four: Buy the books for pennies and sell ’em on BookScouter.
Step five: Get paid!

There are also a lot of other sites where you can sell your books, but BookScouter is the best site because it saves you money and makes it easy to quickly find the sites taht will pay the most for your old books including college textbooks.

Get Paid to Search

Microsoft Rewards
If you’re reading this, you probably found your way here by searching on Google for something like “how to make money fast online for free” or some variation of it. Wouldn’t it be great if you could get paid for doing it?

Well, you can!

All you have to do is switch from Google to Bing search.
Microsoft (who owns Bing) has a reward program known as Microsoft Rewards (used to be called Bing Rewards) where you earn points every time you search on Bing. It doesn’t matter what you search for. As long as you use Bing search, you earn points. These points can be turned into prizes and gift cards including Amazon gift cards.

How do you get started?
Easy, just visit Microsoft Rewards and sign up for free. Then every time you want to search for something online, use Bing and see those points rack up quickly.
Don’t want to miss on points accidentally by searching on Google or other search engines?
Set your browser’s default search engine to Big so all of your searches automatically go through Bing search.

If you’ve been searching for scam free ways to make money on your computer without paying anything, this is a great option. It’s almost like a passive income. Set your default search engine to Bing and forget about it. Once in a while check your account and redeem your earnings for prizes you like.

It just can’t get any easier than this.

Get Paid to Listen & Review Music

Who doesn’t like music, right?
You’re gonna like it even more now that you can actually get paid for listening to music.
SliceThePie is basically like a survey site that pays you to write reviews on new songs, fashion items, accessories and commercials before they are released. So not only you get paid, but you also get to be the first one to hear new songs.
As for how much you get paid for each review it depends on a few factors including your Star Rating and the quality of your review. Needless to say you earn more for quality detailed reviews.
You get paid via PayPal.
Yes, it is 100% free to join which you can do so by visiting SliceThePie.

Revenue Sharing

Revenue sharing is a very clever concept that many companies have adopted. Basically, you sign up with a site, publish content (article, video, eBook, etc), the site displays ads alongside your content, then the earning from the ad is shared with you.

Some sites split the profit half and half, others give you 70%, and there are a few that let you keep 95% of the earnings.

This is a great way to supplement your income without having to worry about building and maintaining a website, promoting it, driving traffic, etc. All you need to do is create and submit your content. And since most of these sites are usually huge and popular, you don’t have to do much to get traffic to your content.

The flip side here is that you are building a business on someone else’s land. If one day they decide to close the shop, all your hard work (i.e. content) is gone.

There are some who say it’s best to put content on your own site, so you can have a website of your own with lots of content in the long run. But again, if you don’t want to deal with building and maintaining a website, working with revenue sharing sites is a great option.

Squidoo (Update: Squidoo is now a part of HubPages)

First pages called “lenses” have to be created and you then embed affiliate links or Google AdSense to monetize your pages.

Hubpages

It’s one of the original renew sharing sites where you can write just about anything you like.

InfoBarrel

You can create all kinds of content here including articles, videos, reviews and how to guides.

WebAnswers (Update: No longer in business.)

It’s a question and answer site where ads are displayed on your answer pages. The revenue generated from those ads is then shared with you.

Online Money Making Scams

I just want to take the time to quickly talk about money making scams. Unfortunately, there are a lot of them out there. So please be careful. Scammers come up with new

Now, there are warning signs if you know where to look and what to look for, but unfortunately, scammers come up with new ways of scamming you of your hard earned money every day.
Which is why hundreds of thousands of people still fall for all kinds of scams. I almost fell for a few myself.

The best tip I can give you to avoid work at home scams is to never ever pay for any site that claims you can make money with them but first you have to pay them. When you get a new job, do the employers ask you to pay them in order to start working for them? No, of course not!

Now, sometimes, there may be a legitimate reason for a company to ask for something like processing or application fee, but generally, you want to avoid any money making site/company that asks you for money.

I would also suggest you keep up with money making scams and scams in general so you know what to look for.

Here are a few great resources to help you learn about and avoid scams:

List of Money Making Scams: Fraud.org
10 Ways to Avoid Scams: The Federal Trade Commission
Common Scams and Frauds: USAGov

I hope you never ever get scammed, but if you ever get scammed, make sure to report it to the authorities.
In the U.S. you can report scams to:

Saturday, April 4, 2020