The internet is the new normal and everyone should take advantage of it to make money. If you’re a newbie wondering how to make money online, this post is for you.
It would interest you to know that even as a beginner, you can earn about $100 a day from offering services online. The good thing about making money online is that the work is very flexible, and you can do it in your free time.
Here’s the kicker; most people earn more working online than most regular 9 to 5 jobs. Little wonder they quit their jobs to go full time online after mastering online businesses.
As a beginner trying to make money online, it is good to know the best opportunities available out there. And that is why we have compiled a simple list of best gigs for beginners and where you can find them. Read on!
*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. This post may contain affiliate links from Amazon or other publishers I trust (at no extra cost to you). See disclosure for details.
How to make money online for beginners without investment
As a beginner, you may not have the in-demand professional skills or the money to invest in acquiring these skills. That is why I have gathered the best ways to make money online as a beginner without investment.
So, even as a as a total newbie with little or no money to invest, you can make money online by doing the following:
- Become a freelancer
Freelancing is one of the best ways to earn big on the internet. It is SO LUCRATIVE that people give up their 9 to 5 jobs for it.
You can freelance in many areas, even in your profession. For instance, if you are a professional accountant, you can become a freelance accountant as a side hustle. But even without a degree or experience, you can earn high with the following freelance jobs:
- Freelance writing
Think about it, about two million articles are uploaded every day on the internet. That’s a lot of content, and because many blog owners do not have the time to create their content, they turn to freelance writers to help them out.
As a beginner, you can take up entry-level work from home jobs writing to earn money. But generally, a freelance writer can earn between $5 and $1000 per article. Again, this depends on your skill level and the clients you write for.
Find writing gigs on Upwork, Fiverr, Indeed, and other writing platforms.
- Proofreading
As a proofreader, you can take online jobs to edit blog contents, books, email newsletters, magazines, etc. The aim is to ensure that every piece is error-free and grammatically correct.
To succeed at the job, you need to have a keen eye for details and be grammatically sharp.
According to PayScale, a proofreader earns between $12 and $30 per hour.
- Video editing
If you have some experience editing videos; you can take up video editing gigs to make money online.
Video content is becoming increasingly popular as many people bring their businesses to YouTube, TikTok, and the rest. Still, the truth remains that most of these business owners do not know how to edit their videos. So, they just film themselves and find people to help them edit the video and make them appealing to the public.
As a video editor online, you will mostly be editing video footage, and organizing them to the client’s taste. Your work will be to clear up unwanted sounds, normalize the volume level, and add some effects to make it look professional.
You will earn more if you have the creativity and experience. However, you can still start up when you’re not so good at it and brush up your skills to increase your earning.
According to PayScale, a video editor earns between $18 and $25 an hour, depending on the quality of their work.
- Blogging
Blogging may be overcrowded, but who says you don’t stand a chance to make it big there? Though the internet seems flooded with ideas, there is always someone looking for something fashioned differently, which could be your uniqueness.
You can make money blogging about your interest, though you will earn more if you blog about a niche like finance and money, craft and DIY, health and fitness, parenting, travel, and other popular niches.
Even with a small audience, you can monetize your blog by placing ads or selling your products. One of the quickest ways to monetize your blog is with Google Adsense and premium ad networks like Ezoic. However, your earning will increase more as your traffic increases.
If you give enough time to creating quality content and marketing your blog, you could make a living out of it.
- YouTube
This is 2021. You can make money from YouTube by creating videos and uploading them for free. These videos don’t have to be about anything serious; they can be teaching others how to cook your favorite meal, giving life tips, sharing your experiences, or even providing daily motivations.
Just like blogging, there are different monetization strategies for YouTube. They include sponsorships, affiliate marketing, Adsense, etc.
Though youtube is very profitable, standing out can be tricky. If you get too general about your content creation and audience, you will get lost in the crowd. That is why you need to create unique content directing them to a target audience.
- Join market research
You do not require any special experience to join market research, something we call online surveys. You only need to share your opinion about the products you use and get paid for them. Though many survey sites pay in the form of gift cards, Branded Surveys, and a few others allow you to earn real cash from surveys. You can transfer these earnings to your accounts as direct deposit or through PayPal.
Generally, the reward system for surveys is called “points”, and when these points accumulate to a certain amount, you can convert them to either gift cards or cash. You can also increase your earnings by inviting your friends and sharing the site on social media.
Create accounts with scam free and legitimate service sites like SurveySavvy, Survey Junkie, Branded Surveys, Inboxdollars, etc.
- Do microtasks
There are many sites for you to complete microtasks in exchange for money. If you were looking for the easiest way to make money online, you’ve found it now. However, you should not expect significant pay from microtask as micro jobs pay little, but hey! Little drops make the ocean.
Swagbucks is a great site for doing microtasks. On the side, you earn by playing games, watching videos, and using their search engines. You can also join other sites for microtask to verify data, review content, test websites & apps to get paid.
Find microtasks on Amazon MTurk, ClickWorker, Microworkers, etc.
- Become a virtual assistant
As a virtual assistant, you will be offering online services to small businesses and companies. These services vary and range from email marketing to graphic design to blog management. It also includes minor tasks like scheduling appointments, customer service, and others.
To make it as a virtual assistant, you need to have excellent communication skills, be computer literate, and be able to multitask.
As a virtual assistant, you earn between $15 and $25 per hour. But depending on the company you work for, you can make higher. There are many openings for virtual assistants on Upwork, but you can also join Facebook groups for virtual assistants to find slots.
- Affiliate marketing
Whether or not you have a blog, you can make money through affiliate marketing. With social media platforms like Instagram, WhatsApp, and even Facebook, you can make your money right from your home with no product of your own.
Affiliate marketing is when you promote other people’s products and earn commissions from every successful conversion. Depending on what you’re promoting, this conversion can either be a lead or a sale.
You can get products to promote by joining affiliate networks like share or sell, impact, ClickBank, Rakuten Advertising, Amazon Associate, Commission Junction, etc.
- Create a digital course
It is hard to talk about how to make money online for beginners without including digital courses. Even with no prior experience in online work, you can use a digital course to monetize your knowledge.
For instance, if you are good at yoga, you can create a digital course on yoga and sell it online. You can also create a course on blogging, learning Pokémon characters, architecture, or just anything. Online learning is in high demand now, and your course will definitely sell if it is valuable.
An average online teacher earns about $40 per hour.
Sell your online courses on your website, Udemy, Skillshare, Teachable, Thinkific, etc.
- Sell your old stuff online
If all the tips and tricks to declutter your home don’t work, it is a sign that you need to sell out your old stuff. Why let them frustrate your housekeeping abilities when you can sell them out for good money?
Websites like Craigslist, and Amazon make it easy to sell off your old but good looking items. The best things to sell out are your clothes, electronics, old study materials, textbooks, old ceramic bowls, etc.
That thing you consider too old and useless in your house could be a vintage item for another person.
- Earn cashbacks for your purchases
There are many sites and apps that allow you to earn cashbacks from shopping. Though some of these apps reward via gift cards, others like Drop and Ibotta will enable you to make real money. You just need to get these apps, and follow their instructions, which may be buying from their online store, or uploading receipts of the items you purchased to earn cashback.
Websites like Ibotta offer a $20 signup bonus. So you can sign up to get started.
- Become an influencer
If you have a large following on social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram, you can become an influencer for brands.
As an influencer, brands and product owners will pay you to mention their product to your audience. But before you start this business, you need to create a good fan base before seeking out sponsorships and opportunities.
Depending on your number of followers, you can earn up to $1000 or more per post.
Consistency is vital when you want to become an influencer. You need to continuously post quality photos and videos of your niche to keep your audience interested.
- Buy and resell domain names
Buying and reselling domains is a great way to profit on the Internet.
Since domain names are significant, look for the domain names that will be popular in future for all those with expired registrations, buy and keep them to sell in the future.
The exciting thing about trading domains is that you can buy them at a low price and sell them when they become pretty expensive.
Namecheap allows you to buy domains and hold on to them for a while before reselling to get money. You will earn higher with Namecheap since they sell their domain at very cheap rates.
Depending on the startup amount you have, you can buy and register as many domains as possible and keep them until they become more lucrative to sell.
- Become an online teacher
As a nerd, you can make money online by teaching your favorite subject to students. Some of these subjects include English, math, science, and others. If you register with Chegg, an academic website, you can earn $20 per hour from this job.
Even without being affiliated with any website, you can become a free online tutor and get your own clients.
To succeed as a tutor, you need to be knowledgeable in your area of specialization and build a reputation. You also need strong teaching skills to communicate knowledge to your students.
Here is a tip. If you are good and your students appreciate your work, never forget to ask for reviews. It will get a lot of people streaming in.
- Be a life coach
As a life coach, you can help individuals make significant changes in their lives and careers.
However, you need to go through training as a life coach with the Institute for Life Coach Training and then create your website or social media account to reach out to clients.
This training could cost between $1500 and $15,000, or even more. But since the business pays well, you will likely recover your training fee in less than a year.
Make money online as a life coach by offering group coaching sessions, video calls, and monthly membership subscriptions.
To meet clients, advertise your service on websites like Care.com or Thumbtack.
- Become an English teacher
You can make legit money online by teaching English as a second language. One of the best sites to try is VIPKid.
VIPKid is a website that hires native English teachers to teach children, especially those from China, English. If you are an English speaker with good experience teaching English, you can make between $1,500 and $2,000 per month from just teaching part-time.
Learn more about becoming an English teacher on their site here.
- Sell your gift cards
If you have gift cards that you are yet to use, or that you don’t want, you can sell them on Raise to make money. On this site, you will get a suggested selling rate, but you can set your price to what you think is fair.
On Raise you can list your gift cards, and after selling them, they will take 15% of your selling price, and you go home with 85%.
For instance, if you listed a gift card of $50 and it sold for $45, Raise will take $6.75 and give you the remaining 85%, which is $38.25.
Conclusion
We have discussed how to make money online as a beginner. Even if you do not have adequate experience, you can still make money with the jobs listed above for newbies.
And as you gain more experience and social proof, your earnings would increase significantly.
