13 Legitimate Ways to Make Money Online
Living in a third world country
is difficult since people don’t make much money, like the people living in
developed countries like the United States. I lived in developed countries such
as Singapore and the United States during my childhood to my early adulthood
for my education. After graduating from San Francisco State University with a
finance degree, I left San Francisco without realizing the job opportunities I
have when I was still in America.
If
I’m able to turn back time, I would happily try to apply for a job in America
since the jobs over there pay more. To be born and working in a country such as
the United States is an advantage to accumulate wealth. Even Warren E. Buffett
mentioned that he is grateful and lucky to be born in the United States.
People can make more money working in countries like the United States since their currency is much stronger and have better living standards than most other countries. For example, a sanitation worker working in America makes way more money than a sanitation worker working in a third world country. They can afford to purchase a car, a house, and have a high-quality lifestyle. Unlike the sanitation workers in a third world country, they have trouble even find income for food in their daily life.
Since
I’m currently living in Jakarta, Indonesia, I don’t have many options to find
high paying jobs like in America. Most jobs in Indonesia pays very little and
challenging for anyone to accumulate wealth. This experience made me value the
hardship my parents went through for my brother and me to have our education
abroad. I feel fortunate to be able to learn many valuable skills,
such as speaking English and Mandarin because of the education I received in the
past. Knowing the hardship, my parents went through to have me and my brother
have a better education made me not give up.
Knowing the earning disadvantage
of living in my country doesn’t stop me from finding a solution to make money. I
want to find alternative
ways of getting income besides the monthly paycheck I’m receiving from my
dad’s company. With extra money earned, I’m able to invest and compound
my portfolio, giving me the
potential to reach my financial freedom earlier. The Internet has provided many opportunities for people like me to
make money online. In this article, I want to share my research on ways anyone
can make money online.
1. Be a Blogger
Becoming a blogger is one way
you can utilize the Internet to make money. If you read my previous article
about alternative income, a
blogger can utilize their website to earn passive income. If your blog provides
value for readers and has many excellent content and articles, you can monetize
it with Google Adsense. However, to be able to be accepted by Google
Adsense require you to follow their strict rules. You’ll need to have many
great content and articles that bring value to your readers.
I
recommend that if you want to become a blogger, you’ll need to find your niche
before starting one. I already found mine for my blog, which covers a variety
of Alternative Income, Investing, Stock Analysis, Personal Finance, Passive
Income, Wealth Management, and Early Retirement topics. Also, the blog will
cover my journey on attaining my financial freedom through Dividend
Growth and Value Investing.
I
believe that you can make money from blogging since I have seen many successful
bloggers on the Internet. Many of them make the blog as a side business while
still working; however, many bloggers who became successful eventually monetize
the blog as their primary business. By that, their side business becomes their
primary source of income since they can make more money from blogging than
their previous job.
There
are many ways you
can make money from blogging since
if the blog becomes viral and successful; you can do many things to profit from
your blogs, such as selling your products, courses, endorsement, and many more.
Hopefully that in the future, my finance blog can be successful and profitable.
However, even if I don’t make it in the blogging world, I still enjoy writing
content since the niche is what I’m passionate about.
I’m
happy to write contents that help others improve their financial life through
investing and other financial tips my blog provides. In addition, I believe
sharing my experience and thoughts helps others and me to become a better
investor and, at the same time, educate myself to be a better businessman.
Aside from trying to profit from this blog, I believe that this blog enables me
to meet people who have the same financial goal and dream as me. It’s not
always about making a profit, but being able to have a community of people who
share the same passion makes me happy.
2.
Start YouTube Channel
Becoming a YouTuber is similar
to becoming a blogger. A YouTuber requires you to have skills in making and
editing videos. As a You Tuber, you’ll need to create valuable video content
for viewers to watch. You can monetize your YouTube Channel by applying Google
Adsense service with the requirement of having 4,000 watch hours in the previous
12 months and 1000 subscribers on your channel.
There
are many
successful YouTuber who
make a living through posting video content. Their income from Google Adsense
can go up to a hundred
thousand to millions of dollars, depending on the number of subscribers on their
YouTube Channel. Hard work, dedication, and patience are, of course, required
to be a successful YouTuber.
My
recommendation to become a successful YouTuber is to have your niche of the
audience that will watch the videos you created and posted on YouTube. For
example, a niche of an audience if I was going to create a YouTube Channel will
content related to Finance, Wealth Management, Stock Investing Tips, Dividend
Growth Investing, and Saving Tips. You’ll need to decide what type of content
you will be offering to your audience. I suggest content that you have a high
interest in. That way, you will make video content because you enjoy making
them and not feeling as if it’s your job.
Last
but not least, you’ll need to be consistent. You can’t half-ass your way
through it. If you want to become a successful YouTuber, you need to put the
hours and dedication into it. Like in anything you want to succeed in, it could
be getting fit and losing weight, but without commitment, you won’t succeed.
I
haven’t created YouTube content yet since I’m not that experience in creating video
and video editing. However, I have a YouTube Channel FinzWatch, but no video contents have been published. I’m
planning to have a thousand articles posted on my blog before
entering the YouTube business.
There
is more traffic for a YouTube channel since people prefer to watch videos
compared to reading articles of a blog. It’s much easier to watch a video
compared to reading an article. I don’t want to get distracted in making videos
at the current moment, but to focus my time producing quality content for my
blog before I make quality content for my future YouTube Channel. Besides, I
still need to learn new skills on how to create YouTube videos and edit them.
3. Becoming
Freelancer Online
I believe freelancing
online can provide
alternative income that you are looking for. There are many ways you can utilize the Internet to make money for the skills you have. Websites such as UpWork, Guru, Freelancer, Amazon
Mechanical Turk,
and another similar website for tasks and projects can be accessed through your
computer at home.
The
great thing about using these sites is that you can work from anywhere in the
world. People such as me living in a third world country can utilize these
websites to make more income than the minimum wage in the country they stay in.
Since I have access to the Internet and a computer that I can use, I can earn
extra cash using these websites. Also, I like working on current projects using
these websites because I can work whenever I feel like it. I can schedule the
time I think of working. Unlike working in companies that usually require you
to work at a certain time like nine to five, this website gives you a better
option of when you want to work.
Moreover,
knowing my disadvantage of living in a country that pays meager wages for
services gives me the advantage of utilizing it. I’m able to hire people to do
the projects and jobs that have been given and hire a professional competent to
work on the project in my country.
4.
Be a Content Contributor for Seeking Alpha
If
you have knowledge of stock investment and stock analysis and can write
articles in English without grammatical mistakes, I would recommend
contributing your stock investment-related content with Seeking
Alpha. You can earn money
based on traffic, content topics, and high quality for exclusive articles.
Moreover,
if your article is selected as a PRO Top Idea (They publish one Top Idea per
day), you are guaranteed to be paid a minimum payment of $1,000. I have already
applied to become a content contributor for Seeking Alpha; you can click on this link to see my profile on Seeking Alpha and be sure
to follow my account. Due to lack of time, I haven’t contributed many articles
in Seeking Alpha yet. However, I have seen people who use this website for
their careers. They post many valuable articles to their readers and have many
followers following their account page in Seeking Alpha.
One of my favorite Seeking
Alpha contributors is Sure
Dividend. I read many of his
articles since the contents he provides are related to my dividend stock
strategy. In the future, I am planning to write content articles related to
dividend growth investing and analysis on Seeking Alpha. From this, I hope to
establish an alternative income aside from my main job working for my dad. I’m
also attracted to this method of making money since I enjoy analyzing
dividend-paying stocks and giving tips to readers of attractively priced
stocks.
5.
Start Online Store
If
you like selling things or have products of your own that you like to sell,
then starting an online store could be a great way to make money online. You
can use many e-commerce
platforms for your online business, such as Shopify, Wix, BigCommerce, and SiteBuilder.
Making
an online store with these e-commerce platforms is not that difficult, and
there are many beautiful templates you can choose for your online store. Having
an online store is a great side business for anyone seeking to make money on
the Internet. However, the problem is not about building the online store but
also about what products you want to sell and how you market them efficiently.
If
you have trouble searching for products you want to sell, I recommend you go to
B2B websites such as Alibaba.com, Aliexpress.com or DHGate.com to find products manufactured and sold from
China. Here you purchase goods in wholesale delivered to your home. You can
make decent money by selling them on your online store. These websites also
provide drop shipping services that enable you not to carry inventory and have
the product shipped from the main source.
The negative side of using this
service is that your customer would take a long time to receive the merchandise
since it’s going to be shipped from overseas. So it’s best if you have your
products and merchandise that you already have to be sold.
6.
Becoming Search Engine Evaluator
Becoming
a search engine evaluator is one method you can make money online. Companies
such as Appen and Lionbridge like to hire people to work from their homes.
Your job is to evaluate search engine results to determine whether they are
relevant or not to term typed in. In other words, you are responsible for sites
like Google or Bing to provide users with the relevant results for their search
terms.
These
websites hire home-based workers as independent contractors, not employees, and
require them to be self-motivated and Internet savvy. A website like Appen can
pay as much $13 per hour, but the rate is not fixed since the final payment
is determined by the amount of work you complete. So if you are fast at work,
you can have extra time to rest. Unlike 9 to 5 jobs, the hours Appen provide is
flexible, which means you can arrange the time you want to work, as long as you
completed the required 200 tasks per month. However, be aware that you are
still required to track your progress, which can be a little exhausting.
Many beneficial factors are
working as a search engine evaluator online since you can work in your own
hours, no dress code needed, and have excellent pay and incentives. These
companies do a great job of matching their freelancer up with the projects they
love doing.
7.
Becoming a Transcriptionist
This
job requires you to listen to video and audio files and turn them into text by
transcribing the content. Some projects require you to subscribe word-for-word
while others may just involve writing up a short summary. The work is quite
repetitive. So you will have to listen to the same audio over and over again in
order to be sure you have transcribed the content perfectly.
There
are facts on the Internet that mentioned becoming a general transcription can
pay at least $15 per hour, but some
often make about $25 per hour. Those
who specialize in legal or medical transcription can make an even higher wage
per hour. The exact amount you earn as a transcriptionist depends on the
company you are working for, how much work is available, and the speed you get
the task done. So it’s in your best interest to be quick and accurate as
possible to maximize your earnings. I have listed the websites below where you
can apply for these jobs.
- Rev
I
think these jobs can help you provide extra income on the side. You can work
from anywhere in the world, which means people like me who live in a third
world country can do the job. Also, you have the flexibility of hours you want
to commit to the task. And when the job is done, you’ll have the money
transferred to your bank account.
8. Virtual Assistant
This is a lucrative opportunity
for people who wants to work at home. As a virtual assistant, you are
responsible for taking a wide variety of secretary work and usually receive
training for specific tasks. Each client or company you work with have their
own process for things to be handled.
- Byron
- Boldly
I
believe working in these companies is excellent if you try to make some extra
cash as a part-timer. There are high demands for virtual assistants to help a
pool of clients willing to pay for your service.
9.
Customer Service
There are a lot of home-based
customer service jobs available on the Internet. Most only require you to have
a high school diploma and some related work preferences. This is a great
home-based job option for people who just begin working. In addition, most of
these companies provide stable hours for you to work, and the pay is a pretty
decent amount that ranges from $13-$15
per hour, while top performers can earn up to $22-30 per hour.
The
only challenge is that you’ll probably just need some essential equipment like
a headset, a home phone line, and a decent computer to get started. These jobs
are great for people like those who live in a third world country. Since I
understand the English language, this job can be an opportunity for me since
the pay is excellent if I compare it to the earning rate in Indonesia. I list
the website you can work below.
- Liveops
- Nexrep
10.
Data Entry
This is another job you can
work that you can work from your home or any part of the country. The jobs
usually require using equipment or software to input data into a company’s
system. The most important thing is that you are organized and dedicated.
I know this job may seem
tedious, but the tasks are simple and can help you earn some extra money while
you stay at home with your family. Be wary that there are some works from home
scams surrounding data entry work, so you’ll need to be careful. If you want to
know where to start, you can see the list below that provides this job.
11.
Online Tutor
Yes, you read it right. You can
be an online tutor working from your home. The need for online tutors is
growing tremendously. One example is becoming an English tutor. There are many
apps that are looking for native English speakers to help their students, often
through simple conversation.
Even
if you don’t have experience as a teacher, speaking English fluently can help
you get a job on the Internet. Beyond the English-teaching market, there are
also niches for those who can tutor middle school students with their homework
assignments and more general tutoring positions available online to assist
students at all levels with their learning. I have listed some websites you can
apply to become an online tutor.
- Cambly
- VIPKID
I
think these websites provide many who have a passion for teaching others. Not
only are you limited to becoming an English tutor, but you are also able to aid
middle school students with their daily homework assignments. With the aid of
the Internet, there are a lot of job opportunities such as this that open the
job market for many people with different skills.
12.
Answering Questions
Having excellent skills are
being used to many people trying to make money online; however, you can also
use the skills using your knowledge. There are various sites out there that
will pay you to do research, answer questions, or be an on-call expert. For
example, if you have a nursing degree. You can monetize your skill by answering
the medically-related question. I list the sites you can use to these
opportunities.
- 10EQS
- Maven
- Wonder
I
think the sites are great for people who are skilled in a certain thing and
have an education in that particular field. I graduated with a finance major
from San Francisco State University and have the skill of giving financial
advice. I can use these sites to help others with their financial decision
making or investment. These sites can be great for many who have extra spare
time at home who wants to make extra cash.
13.
Website or App Testing
One major part of a new design
process requires that a particular project work properly as intended. There are
tons of websites and apps out there that are needed to be checked, and you can
be making some extra cash by becoming the tester. The test usually pays testers,
and it can range to $10 per test.
I know it’s not a lot of money, but spending 10 minutes of your
time to make easy $10 is not that difficult. You’ll generally be given a
website or app to look at along with a series of instructions that you need to
follow. After that, you’ll have your voice and screen actions recorded, or you
can write a short report afterward on how the website or app worked. It’s
pretty simple, right! I listed these opportunities below.
- TryMyUI
- UserFeel
I
think doing these in your free time can be a fun activity to earn some extra
cash. I know it might not be much money, but an additional $10 just
for a few minutes of your time can be significant. You can use the money to buy
the Pizza you are craving for. As for me, living in a country like Indonesia, $10 can
equal a day’s worth of work. I know people in my country who work hard labor
work to earn $10 a day. So I think these sites I provided can be beneficial for
those who want to make some extra cash just by trying a website or apps out.
The Bottom Line
Even
though I don’t have the earning advantage, like many people who lived in
developed countries like America, the Internet has opened a career field. The
education that my dad has financially given me allowed me to be able to speak
and write English fluently. I’m fortunate that I learned English as my second
language at a young age. This gives me the ability to have the skills and
foundation to seek jobs based in developed countries through the Internet.
I
hope from this article help readers know that there will always be opportunity
online for anyone who is looking to make some income to pay the bills or
invest. It’s great to take these opportunities if you want to build an
additional alternative income. Most importantly is for you to have the
dedication and commitment to seek opportunities that you can monetize. Remember
earning more income can help you invest more aggressively towards your goal to
early retirement.
About Hansen Bun
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