Top 5 Ways to Make Money Online in 2018

1. Internet Marketing Agency

Traditional marketing is dead. Television is now YouTube. Radio has become Podcasting. Newspapers have turned into Blogs.

Why spend thousands or even millions of dollars on expensive traditional ads, when companies can simply spend a couple dollars or cents per click from their targeted audience to directly obtain new customers.

To survive, companies, professional services, and start ups all have to adapt to the new market or get left behind in the dust.

Yes, there are many internet agencies out there, but there is no quality control and wide variance in their abilities to come up with a well-rounded, custom marketing strategy for each type of client.

Clients need a tailored Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media and Online Paid Advertising strategy that will maximize their return-on-investment.

2. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing is the future of online marketing. This is $3 billion dollar industry that regularly produces 6 and 7-figure income earners.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

It is a performance-based marketing system where marketers (known as affiliates) can use their internet marketing skills to sell/advertise a company’s (merchant/brand/retailer) products/services for a commission.

For example, John is an internet marketer and Best Widgets is the leading retailer of widgets. John owns a blog about the different types of widgets and becomes an affiliate of Best Widgets. He posts a banner ad on his blog with this personalized affiliate link. His audience sees the ad, clicks on it and some of them buy widgets from Best Widgets. Every time someone clicks on his ad and buys a widget, John is making a 40% commission. Every time John earns $100, the affiliate manager for Best Widgets mails John a paycheck.

What types of people go into Affiliate Marketing? Anyone and everyone. There is a common cliché of “follow your passion and you will never work a day in your life.” Well, it is finally true with affiliate marketing. This is a way to monetize your passion or at least things you might have some interest in.

The 3 biggest evergreen (timeless) niches in affiliate marketing include health & fitness, dating & relationships and making money/business. Do you know or have ever been thinking about one of those topics over your lifetime? Exactly. The largest markets in affiliate marketing exactly match what humans want the most.

Even if you have a niche interest and passion, there is market for that and way to monetize your hobby. Ever buy anything or bought something that is sold on Amazon.com? Did you know Amazon has an affiliate program paying out commissions for every single product sold on Amazon? If you love a product and recommend it to other people to buy from Amazon, you will get paid a % commission every time they buy it.

It gets better, there are actually Affiliate Networks which pool together a bunch of different companies that offer an affiliate program and combine them into one site. This way, you only have to join one site as a member and can have access to be a part of all the affiliate programs in their network which could include products, services, online products and E-books/E-learning.

So what do you do and how do you get started? First, you will need a website. WordPress is an industry standard because of its SEO friendly setup, blogging capabilities and vast plug-in library for customization and marketing tools.

3. Influencer Marketing

Digital Marketing has changed drastically recently. Old ways of internet marketing have become saturated and very, very expensive. How do companies cut through the marketing clutter? …Influencer Marketing.

An influencer in a genuine leader within a niche market that has built up a loyal audience of followers. Companies seek out influencers in their niche industry by doing searches for industry specific keyword phrases and search terms on Google and social media platforms to find blogs and channels with a lot of traffic, engagement, likes and follows.

Once they find an influencer that matches their brand, they will contact them directly, go through an agency or through a 3rd party website that connects influencers with potential clients (i.e. Shoutcart).

Influencers can get paid a flat fee, free products, commission, recurring payments or a combination of those.

How do you become an influencer? Figure out what niche audience you want to attract that has a market for advertisers. This could include health, wealth, fitness, relationships, lifestyle, fashion, tech, photography travel, or any other niche interest or hobby your might have.

4. Freelance Services

Services are the direct way to make money right now.Learn necessary skills that are in demand right now and monetize it.

List your services on sites like Fiverr, Upwork, LinkedIn, etc.

So, what skills are in demand? Internet marketing for companies to compete is now a requirement. Like we said before, there is still a major shortage of internet marketers that have a well-rounded game of SEO, social media AND ppc advertising.

Companies are actively hiring talent that can do dozens of specialized skills. Yes, even internet marketing agencies are hiring freelancers for specialized skills which their team lacks. This can include copywriting, SEO article writing, graphic design, video production, video editing, Search Engine Optimization, social media marketing, pay-per-click management, web design and more.

5. E-Product Creator

Ever buy an informational product? Well, why not create a passive income making one yourself.

You can create your own eBook to sell on places on like Amazon Kindle self publishing or clickbank. You can make a video course and sell it streaming or on DVD. You can create a membership website and sell a recurring membership.

What should your write about? Evergreen topics could include health, wealth or relationships. You can turn your hobby into an instructional course. For example, if you have been a wedding photographer for years, why not turn your job into a passive income with an instructional website, eBook and streaming video course sold on places like Vimeo on demand, Udemy or Clickbank.

Yes you can become an influencer. Or, why not make an entire media company? Instead of focusing on yourself as the brand, you can create the next viral news blog, viral video channel, industry niche podcast and more. Feature the latest news stories, interview the gurus of your niche, cover events in your industry.

You can monetize with ads, sponsored articles, products placements and more. Or, you could always sell your company when you are done.