10 ways to make money online as a Broke Beginner

There are many guides to making money online. Affiliate marketing, dropshipping, blogging, doing Ads. The thing is, many of these require you to invest not only the work, but some amount of money. But what if you have no money to invest? Then I suggest you follow along.

Before we start…

I’d like you to adjust your mindset a little bit. 

I will not be showing you any type of ‘$277.56 IN A DAY FREE!!!’ guides. Those just don’t work. People making such guides are basing on their results that came after years of work.

I want you to acknowledge, that this article will provide you with ways to earn some money, that can help you get started in the moneymaking world, not earn you thousands of dollars. Of course you can scale these strategies to such amount, but it requires time and effort. Most of well paid money making strategies involve some sort of investment.

Now, keep in mind that nothing is free in life, and these are ways to MAKE money, not GET money. Those probably won’t make you rich, but might just provide you with some cash to start your online business. 

HERE ARE 10 WAYS OF MAKING MONEY ONLINE WITH ZERO MONEY TO START

Photo of freelancer working on a project at his desk

1. Freelancing

Freelancing is great for both beginners as well as advanced money makers, as it is scalable.

Think of a skill that you’re good at. Got it? Good, now sell it. That’s freelancing. 

You offer your services in a certain area in exchange for money. 

Maybe you can design nice logos? Maybe your writing is amazing? Maybe you can code like a pro? Or maybe you just want to become an ‘I will do anything for $5’ kind of guy. There are countless opportunities. You just need to have some skills. It’s harder if you don’t but still manageable. 

So where’s the catch?

It’s not for everyone. Some people just struggle to freelance and end up frustrated and upset. You have to be aware of the competition, and that there might be lots of people who do the same job but better. Don’t claim to be the best out there. It’s not fast cash. It takes time and not always works, especially when you’re a beginner.

In order to start earning as a freelancer you need to create a freelancer profile. Go ahead and sign up to some freelancing platforms like Fiverr or Upwork. Once you do that, create a gig and post in on Fiverr, or apply for jobs listings on Upwork.

You don’t have to sign any contracts. That’s the beauty of freelance work. You work on your own schedule. Freelance platforms usually charge a small commission of your earnings but that’s what makes it free. No upfront investment. 

There is much more to say about freelancing, so if you just kind of think this might be your thing, check out this article: How to make money as a Freelancer?

Photo of a man taking a survey about internet marketing

2. Survey jobs

Taking surveys is a job everyone in the world can do. It doesn’t require any skills whatsoever. You just need to sign up to some survey sites and start taking surveys.

The thing is, it’s boring, time consuming and the pay is pretty bad. Survey sites tend to award you with points for completing a survey. Once you get a said amount of points, you’re able to exchange them for rewards. Cash, amazon gift cards or vouchers just to name a few.

I don’t have particularly great experience when it comes to surveys, though I haven’t done many.

Survey sites tend to require you to take ‘screeners’ which are like qualification tests to check if you’re suitable for the survey. The problem with such tests is that after a 5 minute test you suddenly aren’t the one they were looking for. You see, I get it, everybody wants a quality opinion for their study but it can be frustrating after 30 minutes of straight rejection. Especially when you have the feeling that you just gave them their answers. 

Look, it’s my personal opinion. I might have not tried enough to give such a harsh judgement, however I’d rather not do more. 

Since it has not worked for me, it doesn’t mean that it won’t work for you. You can find many testimonials online that claim to have earned $200 in just a day of work. I’m not saying it’s impossible, I’m saying although everyone can technically do it, not everyone’s made for doing it. 

I think the best kind of opinion is your own. You got to know mine, so I suggest you go and see how it works out for you.

Some of the most popular survey sites are:

3. Microtasks

Microtasks are simple task-like jobs that pay very little. However, they are quick and easy. This means you can make a lot of them in a short amount of time and such you can earn a couple extra bucks. 

There is no straight up average of the money you can earn. Micro tasks grant you micro pay, which means you will get paid from $0.01 to $1 on average, although you can find jobs that pay more. The amount of money you receive is proportional to the amount of work you put in. 

Microtasks are small, computer-like tasks that AI can’t handle. Therefore they require human input.

The tasks involve activities such as: data entry, picture recognition, crowdsourcing, categorization, captcha filling, quality check etc.

There are plenty of platforms that allow such tasks, some of them being:

Microtasks tend to be extremely boring and unfulfilling. But hey, if everything fails, you gotta do something, don’t you?

If you wish to learn more about Microtasks click here: (soon)

a picture of film slides showing veiws of  sunset

4. Selling stock photos

This one is great for amateurs as well as professional photographers. There is a vast marketplace of stock photos that just asks you to dive into if you have a soft spot for photography. With huge need of stock photos for websites, blogs and videos it is a great place to earn some extra income.

This blog itself uses a lot of stock photos!

People with some experience might argue, saying that you can find royalty free stock photos for free online. Yes, there are such photos, but they tend to be generally worse than paid ones. Less diverse, accurate or appropriate. 

How to make money selling photos? 

Well, you can go and build your own site, set up a portfolio, handle payment processing and all the technical stuff. It allows you to be your own boss and you get paid 100% of a photo’s value.

Of course it’s time consuming, as you need to get your site ranking in google.

I suppose that having your photos hosted on a big stock website will be much easier. This also requires no money to start, while it’s usually a good idea to use paid hosting for your own websites. 

Stock sites like Shutterstock, Fotolia, Adobe stock and Dreamstime allow you to post your photos for sale. When the sale is made, the site pays you your cut and keeps the rest. Earnings range from 20-40ish cents up to a couple of bucks per download (although I can secretly tell you there are photos worth $50+ which is just crazy for me). It depends whether somebody buys a subscription, package or just one time download.

Should you get into stock photography? Only if you like taking pictures. I mean, since for a beginner it might be pretty hard to get a good percentage of the sale (sites like these tend to pay you more if you’ve already made some amount), you’ll have to post a lot of pictures. And I’m talking like hundreds of them. 

Still, if you enjoy shooting photos it’s definitely worth diving into. It costs you nothing but a bit of time.

illustration of a business woman and dollara behind her

5. Affiliate marketing

Yes, you can do affiliate marketing with zero money to start. It might not be as profitable as having a huge blog with email list and all that stuff, but it certainly does work. It just requires a bit more effort.

You see, the whole concept of affiliate marketing is driving traffic to someone else’s product. Not driving traffic to your reviews on a 2 year old blog. 

Of course, in order to promote a product you need to find one. Decide whether it’s going to be a physical or a digital product.

To be honest, it’s hard to say which one is better because both got their pros and cons. 

You just need to decide for yourself what works best with your scheme.

If you chose a physical product, that’s okay. It would be best to sign up for Amazon Affiliates. Then, you just find the product you want to promote on Amazon and promote it. 

There are a lot of products to choose from on Amazon, but the commission is lower when compared to digital or info products, ranging from 1% to 10%, but usually staying around 4-5%.

If you choose a digital product, or a so-called info product (course, guide etc.) it tends to pay a better commision (50-75% in some cases), but you have less option when it comes to variety of products.

If you want to promote such products go sign up for Clickbank or JvZoo or other affiliate marketing platform for digital products.

For more in-depth guide of choosing a product check this article out: How to choose a good Affiliate Product?

Once you’ve selected a product…

Now we just need to find a way to get traffic. I think you already know what it is. Social media. There is so much to be gained from it, it’s amazing.

However, you can’t just go and spam your clickbank links all over the place. You need to play smart. Come as a friend with a helping hand, not as a spammer trying to get his first sale. It just won’t work. Provide a lot of value upfront, and you might profit in the long run.

You need to know your niche. You can’t just pretend like you know what you’re talking about. You have to give value to people, help them out, maybe even guide them step by step. The more effort you put into, the more it will convert.

What social media can I use?

You can use basically any there is. Some tend to convert better than others, but all of them work. 

Facebook

You can join facebook groups regarding your topic. Make money online niche? No problem, just type make money online in the search bar. Many of them will have you submit an application, so go ahead and do that. 

Now, keep in mind, you can’t spam those groups. This will get you banned quickly. You need to come as a friend, help people, and sneak your affiliate offer. It’s not a good idea to paste the affiliate link into the post, since such groups usually allow no links or might just simply consider it self promotion. Be sure to read the group’s terms and conditions.

The good way to do it is kind of a sneaky approach. Post a mini article covering some issue. Make it readable and fill it with value. At the end add something along the lines: ‘if you wish to know more about the topic type “I’m interested” in comments and I’ll message you’. Then you message them with even more value and at the end you can write something like: ‘Hey, if you want to take this seriously, I recommend you check this out: (link). It helped me a lot’. And you’re done.You can do a variety of different techniques, but just be sure to get people involved.

Small side note: It’s good to write an amount posts before you start your affiliate ones. This will help you build up the authority you need for people to start taking you seriously. Once they start to recognize you, they are more likely to trust you.

Quora

Quora is a great place for targeted traffic. It’s a place where people seek answers to their questions. This is awesome, since you are here to give them answers they need. Just set up your profile so that it matches you with recently posted questions, or search through Quora to find some. 

Once you find a post you want to answer to, do it. But do it how it is supposed to be done. 

Don’t just answer briefly and post your link ‘for more info’. It might sometimes work but you can do better. 

Don’t rush those questions. With such a method you don’t get paid for spamming links but for helping people. Take your time, do some research about the topic before you answer. If you can produce a ‘killer’ answer to a question there is a good chance it will get upvoted and many more people see it. Finish it off with affiliate link or encourage them to read some article filled with those. 

Now, please mind that a link straight to sales page makes your post immediately lose its value. It would be best to create a free blog and write a review of a product with affiliate links. Then just say: ‘I got this info from here:’ and paste link TO THE REVIEW. 

You can easily set up a free WordPress blog to suit your needs of a ‘landing page’.

This might sound like a lot of work, but no one said it’s going to be a piece of cake. At least I didn’t. But hey, this mini-blog won’t be just for Quora. This review blog can be useful in many other ways. It adds professionalism to your response.

For those of you who are discouraged by this, keep in mind that you don’t have to do it this way. It just increases your chances of succeeding.

Actually, should you be interested, feel free to check out this article about Affiliate Marketing on Quora

Reddit

Reddit is very similar to Quora when it comes to such an approach. You go there to give value to people, not to spam you link in subreddits.

Speaking of subreddits, that’s why you’re there. You need to find subreddits regarding your niche. Then, simply answer to people. People might happen to post questions or some topic you may reply to. 

From there it’s basically the same as Quora. Help those people and encourage them to read your article with affiliate links. 

Same thing goes with other forum sites. Google ‘your niche + forum’ and you’re good to go.

Small annotation

With all 3 of these strategies there is a bonus one. 

Apart from replying to people’s questions you can ‘seek’ help. This approach is based on ‘what do you guys think?’ Principle. You write a post that you’ve found some review or a product (reviews tend to work better) and say you’ve read some and you think this one’s the best so far. 

Then you ask people for their opinion, as if they were to help you with the issue. Of course they have to check the link out to help you if they wish to sacrifice time, or maybe they just want to see what’s it all about. Now you just got them to click your affiliate link. 

The point is to trigger curiosity so that people click the link.

Instagram

Instagram is a great source of targeted traffic. Instagram’s user base tends to be younger than for instance facebook or twitter and we can get the advantage out of it.

First things first, you have to get the idea on what it is you’re going to promote. Pick a niche and establish a pool of affiliate products. You’re going to be building an Instagram profile focused around a certain topic that people are interested in and following on instagram.

Set up an Instagram page regarding your niche. Try to choose a niche that allows you some room for maneuver and lets you promote many products. 

Let’s say you chose fitness niche and you want to promote some weight loss guides or training programs. Fill your page with viral content. What I mean by that, is share and upload stuff that’s shareable. Use hashtags, tagging, all the Instagram stuff you’re pretty familiar with (I assume).

You need to find a following of people interested in your content. 

Obviously, you can’t do just the affiliate offers. I’d say most of your content should just be informative or pleasing to see. Once you’ve built a significant audience, you can start posting content linking to affiliate offers. 

For instance, let’s assume you got yourself a nice fitness niche Instagram page. Maybe post a photo with a comment that you found this great tool that helped you get those ABS, just get creative. Picture yourself as the one viewing your page and ask yourself what would you think while seeing this. ‘Is this guy struggling for sales?’ or “Is this guy trying to provide valuable content for his community and maybe get some sales in the process?’. 

I think it’s obvious which one you should be.

Pinterest

Pinterest is a great place to do affiliate marketing. Over 200 million active users just standing there for you to take advantage of.

In order to start making sales from pinterest traffic you need a product, just like all the other platforms.

Once you’ve got one, it is time to promote it.

Create a Pinterest profile. Upload a nice profile picture (a photo of yourself helps you build trust with people – makes them realize there is a human behind it). Get a brandable and easy to remember, eye-catching name. Provide a brief description of your profile. Make it You.

You’re going to build a somewhat of a brand, so take this seriously. Always picture yourself as the one stumbling across your profile. Would I like to see more of this guy’s content? Would I trust the product he recommends? The key here is to establish a bond by being friendly, yet professional. 

Set pin boards on your profile. Make your profile look full and attended. Create at least 10 of them, with 10+ pins each. Let’s say you create a Pinterest profile about motorcycles. That’s your niche. Boards are supposed to be subtopics of your niche, ie. dirt bikes, choppers, bikes for kids etc. 

These don’t have to be your pins. Go and search for those on Pinterest. Once you find some you like, go ahead and save them to your boards.

Now it’s time to create your affiliate pin. Go to Canva.com, go to Pixabay.com. Create a nice looking pin. You don’t have to be an artist to do that. Canva and free stock photos work wonders. Just make it eye-catching. Think to yourself whether you’d click on it or not. 

Every pin contains a URL that sends you to the destination. In your case, the destination is an affiliate offer. 

YOU CAN SEND TRAFFIC DIRECTLY TO AFFILIATE OFFERS ON PINTEREST. It used to be banned, but it no longer is, for the time being. 

However, not every affiliate network allows you to do that. For instance, Amazon technically is said to allow it, but there are many objections and I don’t think it’s a good idea to risk your Amazon account. Just make sure to read affiliate network’s terms before you start promoting anything.

If you find that your affiliate network doesn’t allow marketing on Pinterest, not to worry. Just set up a basic, free wordpress blog with some article. In that article you place your affiliate links. Along the valuable content you just created of course.

If you want to take it a step further, create a legit blog about your niche and leverage Pinterest traffic. But that’s the story for the other day.

Remember not to spam your Profile with affiliate pins. This will make you lose your following quickly. Just post things you like about the niche. Provide some content and every once in a while pin an affiliate offer.

Don’t try to be scammy. You have to make it clear that it is an affiliate link, either by saying it in the pin description, or adding the #affiliate on the bottom.

photo of desktop with headphones, keyobard, mouse and notepad

 6. Transcription

Transcription itself is a microtask, however I thought I’d give it a seperate paragraph.

Basic principle is this. You listen to an audio and you type out what you hear. You get paid per audio minute. 

‘WOW THAT’S GREAT, EASY, I CAN DO IT EVERYWHERE!’

Hold your horses right there. Although you can do this everywhere (as long as you got a pair of headphones), it’s not easy. Before you get hyped up, let’s talk about the real side of transcription work.

It’s pretty badly paid. Average pay rates are somewhere around $0.50 – $0.80 per AUDIO MINUTE. Not PER MINUTE. Per minute of transcribed audio. 

A minute of audio takes around 5 minutes to transcribe. It can vary depending on how good you are, but for beginners it may take around 4-6 minutes of work per minute of audio. It depends on the audio quality and your hearing comprehension. As you get better and better the time it takes you to transcribe becomes less. 

You need to be able to type pretty fast. Some companies require you to have a certain typing speed. Usually, The higher the requirements the better the pay rate. 

It’s not obligatory however. You can have a typing speed of 15 words per minute (wpm) and still work as a transcriber. They’ll have you accepted, but it would take you a serious amount of time to transcribe a few minutes of audio. The more you work, the faster will your typing get. Practise makes perfect, it really does. 

If you are curious what is your typing speed, you can take a quick test HERE

It’s hard. It’s incredibly hard. Don’t trust people who say it’s easy. They either haven’t tried it or have been doing it for years. There sometimes happens less difficult work though. There are some easy pieces but here’s the thing. 

Most companies work like this. They get a transcription order, they send the files to their pool, and transcriptionists take their pieces. First come, first serve. 

People are working like that for years. They have their ways of knowing when to log in to the platform. As a beginner, you’ll probably have to deal with what’s left. And I think we can all agree that everybody grabs the easiest one available.

In fact, most of the sites require you to take a test before you start working. Some of them allow you to choose a test from certain pool of available ones. Just sign up to one transcription site, and take the test. Although I’m not trying to discourage you, you’ll see for yourself how hard it actually is. 

Small note 

A small percentage of companies require you to have a foot pedal for stopping and starting the playback. Most of them however don’t have such hardware requirements and you are free to work as you want to. Stopping the audio with some key like TAB is fine. (I used to do it that way).

How to start transcribing?

Basically, you have to find a place where there is work for you, and get signed up for it. Some of the most popular sites are:

If you’re uncertain as to which one to choose, feel free to check out this article: (soon)

I suggest you read reviews of the site on trustpilot or simply Google. Then it’s best to read the site’s recruiting terms. You want to be looking for tips for the entrance tests, and how to format the transcription. Whether they want timestamps before each statement, whether they want you to include speaker’s mistakes, whether you are supposed to keep all the ‘ummm’-s and ‘errr..’-s, keep ‘yeah’ instead of writing ‘yes’. All that technical stuff you need to know to start working. 

Why would you want to do that? – Because you want your screener test to be as flawless as possible. These companies require around 98-99% accuracy. So you pretty much have to get everything right. Not only are you obliged to follow the guidelines (technical stuff I mentioned) but also hear and type out every single word you hear. 

After you get accepted and are fully set up, you can start working. Now, keep in mind that the amount of work varies. Depending on the platform it can be maybe 2 – 3 audio files a day, none for a few days, or a massive drop of 150 audio files each week. Many of such websites work on a first come first serve basis.

I recommend you sign up for multiple platforms and check for work regularly.

If however, you feel discouraged by the wage transcription job pays, there is a solution. You don’t need to work for transcription platforms, you can pitch your clients. Check out this article to learn how to land a transcription job by pitching (soon)

 7. Freelance writing

Writing is a freelance niche I’d like to assign a separate paragraph. Although you can do it on Fiverr or Upwork, I’d rather focus on specific websites that are devoted to freelance writing. 

As a freelance writer you basically write stuff for people. You sign up to platforms that offer work like that. Most people need articles for their websites but some might also need product reviews, ghostwriting (for instance: writing a speech for someone) or copywriting (copy is a sales text used for marketing, very persuasive).

In other words, you need to know how to do research. You pick a topic that someone wanted done, you do research, follow the provided guidelines and simply write what they wanted you to write. 

It seems simple, however you have to know how to write. You can’t just write some words and expect to get paid. Most companies have a grading system that assigns you certain points (stars, ranks etc.) The higher your ranking – the more you will be paid.

Usually such companies have you sent a sample of your writing as a part of your application process. You do the task which most of the times involves a short article or story about some given topic. Then after you’ve filled out your details and submitted the sample you are being reviewed by a team of experts. They assign you specific rating. 

As you progress with your freelance writing and gain experience your writing becomes better and better. Since you’re being reviewed periodically, you can increase your rating overtime just by writing good texts. 

Now, How hard it is? 

Well, it’s not easy to determine how hard is getting a decent rating. It all depends on your writing and a site you apply to. 

Not to leave you empty handed, let’s briefly review my example. My writing isn’t great (as you can probably tell by the way this article goes). I usually kept getting B’s and C’s on my school papers so I’d say I’m kind of average. I got rated 3 out of 5 stars on Textbroker.com (I submitted my A graded school article) and didn’t pass the first application on iWriter.com, and the second went flawless (Although I have written 6 or 7 blog articles between them so that could make the difference).

Keep in mind, those were two different texts so I’m not claiming iWriter is harder to apply. It might have been a bad text on my part or they just weren’t in need of new writers at the moment. 

I encourage you all to go apply to all of the sites. It usually takes a while (for me it was about 4 weeks on Textbroker and a bit over a week on iWriter). So go ahead and send your application to all that you find suitable. Some of them might just be kind enough to accept you and help you progress with your career. 

But guys, PLEASE take your time to write a killer entrance text. It’s the easiest to give judgement by the first look so if you submit a weak article chances are you’re not going to get accepted. And even if you are, you’re going to get a bad rating, and it is much harder to improve your rating than it is to get it quite decent in the first place. 

If you have to spend 3 hours researching ‘How to write a good article’ and next 2 writing a 250-word masterpiece then do it. It is going to be worth it. Because getting a level-up in your ranking might take you more than just 5 hours.

photo of a microphone in a voice over studio

8. Voice over 

Voice over work is a huge marketplace but needs to be done correctly. 

The thing is, theoretically anyone can do it, not everyone is going to succeed. I’m not trying to discourage you but to encourage you to take the case seriously or don’t take it at all.

Look, This article is about making money without having any money on your own. However, in order for this to work better you’d have to invest some upfront. IT IS NOT NECESSARY – that’s why voice over is in this article – but it certainly helps a lot.

I’m talking about the hardware. Voice over is basically recording your voice in a way desired by the client. You will need to have a microphone. Although it can be any, even the one in your phone, think about it. When you order voice over services you don’t want to pay for bad audio quality and neither do your clients. 

You need to have a good mic. Good doesn’t mean expensive. You can find a decent one even for around $30 on Amazon. If you have a mic already but you don’t know whether it’s good or bad – just record some of your voice and play it back. It is for you to decide whether it’s suitable.

Once you got your mic, it’s time to set up your home studio. I know it sounds scary but trust me, it’s not. Just go and lock yourself in the closet. Yeah. In the closet. Genius, right? 

Well, in fact it’s pretty clever since the clothes that are hanging there get rid of the noise and echo pretty well when you surround yourself with them. Just as you would play hide and seek. 

If you keep having trouble with ‘P’s and ‘S’s that’s because the air you exhale while talking hits your microphone to hard. An easy way to deal with that is to find some piece of framing (for instance cut out the middle of jar lid so it’s only the frame left) and stretch some tights around it. It should work as a barrier for the air punch and shouldn’t disstort your voice. Go ahead and see what works best for you.

Now, once you’ve finally got over the technical stuff. 

It’s time to get the work. 

Okay, but where?

Fiverr, Upwork, Freelancer, PeoplePerHour are the easiest choices. Just go there and look for voice acting jobs or post a gig yourself. Just like you would when freelancing any other service. 

The second options are voice over specific websites. 

Go ahead and sign up for a few and start building a portfolio. You will need one if you want to get hired. These sites have their own guides to setting up a voice actor’s profile but I’ll give you some of my tips.

  • Think of all voices you can act out. Write them all down. You can talk like gandalf? That’s great. Maybe you want to create a character? Tony the goblin? Good, just be thorough while performing. 
  • Get a good understanding of your native accent and accents you can speak. Don’t claim to speak american english if you don’t even know if you are.
  • Look for text you can read online or write your own. 
  • Read this out loud couple of times. You don’t want to make a mistake and start over while recording. 
  • Go in the closet (or your other echoless studio) and record each text at least 4-5 times. You really want to make it perfect. The portfolio is your only chance to actually get people interested in your work and hire you. Imagine if you checked out a voice actor and his portfolio recordings are trash. You’re not going to trust someone like that.

My last piece of advice is this. Swallow your pride. For real, just don’t think you are the best out there, even if you are. Voice acting is a career you have to build up. There will always be competition and every job requires work. If you’re starting out you’ll most likely need to sell yourself cheap. 

But hey, once you get things going, you’ll become a pro in no-time. 

a graphic of a translation  window on a computer screen

9. Translation

If only you know a second language, freelance translation is a great source of income. I think we all know what translation is, so let me get to the ways of landing such gigs.

As any freelance work, you can do it on Fiverr or Upwork (or the other 2 I mentioned). Create a gig, post your offers to public jobs and be patient. You’re not going to get hired quickly when you’re starting out. I landed my first gig sale on Fiverr after a month or so. 

The thing is, be humble. 

When I just lost all hope – I got accepted for an almost $70 translation job with no previous experience or recommendation. It might not sound like much, but oh man, it was huge for me back then. It is possible, you just have to try it.

However, if those sites still don’t work for you – Try translation specific ones.

Are just a few of them

Go ahead and apply for multiple and try to get it going. 

Trust me, once you land a couple of successful translations people start to trust you. 

a photo of a computer screen with googel traffic analytics on it for SEO

10. Google my business/ads

This strategy is like running your own small digital marketing agency. 

This is serious. You need to collect data and contact potential clients via email or phone. You have to take the case extremely seriously or it is not going to work out for you.

How do you do it?

Unless you pay for some software or virtual assistant to do this for you, you’ll have to start with gathering data. Here is when you make use of google maps.

There are a few ways you can go about it, but I’m mainly going to cover running ads for small businesses.

Go into there and type something like DENTIST LA CA. It will list you dentists in Los Angeles. It can even be some niche business in your town. Go and google ‘business niches’ and you’ll have plenty of ideas.

Now, you’re not interested in the top positions. They are receiving the most of google search organic traffic so they probably don’t need your help. You want to reach out to the businesses that are lower on the list, down of the first page, 2nd or 3rd. Somewhere you wouldn’t look if you were to choose.

Those are the dentists that might be doing somewhat well but could you some help from a professional marketer – you.

You want to be running ads for them. Google ads, Facebook ads, youtube ads – you name it. I’m going to focus on facebook ads for the sake of my convenience, but the principle is similar to any other platform.

The thing is, you need to be good at running ads. 

You probably think, Cool, I don’t know a thing about running ads. That’s okay. You just need to learn.

The old principle goes like this:

Find a high value skill and become the master of it.

Digital marketing is exactly this. A high value skill. This means that once you’re the master, you’ll see the money rolling in in no time. 

Great, where do I start?

Actually, in your head. Prepare yourself that you’re going to have to sacrifice a lot of time learning. I’m talking months. 

Then it’s time to start learning. Find a mentor. Pick a course. Join communities, facebook groups, research reddit and quora.

Use the power of the internet to learn.

I think it is the easiest to buy a big facebook ads course on udemy or skillshare. There are free ones available on sites like Alison, but I generally think paid ones are just more in depth. 

However, I promised no money investing. You’re right. 

Youtube. Go to youtube a type facebook ads. Like, right now. Literally, stop reading and go and check that. You’ll see how much people have done great videos dedicated to facebook advertising. There are whole channels dedicated to it. Just watch as much as you can. Maybe find yourself a mentor. One guy (or girl) you like the most or you just have a slight feeling that they’re making a good point. 

The most important thing is consistency. You have to pay a lot of attention to it. Dedicate yourself. Lock yourself in a closet with a laptop for a month if you have to (actually, don’t, but you get the idea).

This will take time. But once it’s done it will feel like it had been just a few weeks and you’ll be a whole lot smarter and ready to take up the work. It is worth it, trust me.

Now, once you’re a master of your trade and have found your targets, let’s get into the business. 

Reach out to those business owners. You can do it either via email, phone or facebook messenger (if they have a business profile). Phone tends to work best since you’re not perceived as an email scammer and are more likely to be trusted, but I understand not everybody wants to call strangers on the phone. I personally hate talking on the phone with strangers.

Let’s say you email them. You have to make this email flawless. If you even get them to click on it, you must keep them interested more and more as the words go on, otherwise you’ll lose their attention.

Make it personal. Do your research. Find out what’s the owner’s name and address them directly. Introduce yourself as an internet marketing expert. Tell them you’ve been looking at their website and say what you found was done well. Congratlate them on some achievement they shared on their website. This let’s them know you’re serious about the case and actually read their website. They feel like they aren’t just one of your copy & paste email targets. 

Next, tell them that you have noticed a small flaw, which is easily fixed. By flaw I mean the lack of facebook pixel. 

Facebook pixel is a small piece of code that lets the site owner track its traffic and mark them. When you’re running facebook ads you can use that to target people that have visited the website and therefore might be interested.

Go ahead and install a free chrome extension – Facebook Pixel Helper. It lets you tell whether the site has a pixel or not. 

Obviously you don’t want to email people who have a pixel installed, since this means they’re are already running ads.

By letting them know about the amount of customers they might be missing out on by not having the pixel, you get their interest. Once you got it, offer them to install the pixel (or show them how to) for free. 

If you don’t know how, Google it. It’s easy.

You could charge for it, but it is best and strongly advised to do this for free. That’s because people won’t trust you with your first email. It gets a foot in the door. 

Once you’ve successfully installed a pixel for them, they will start to see that you’re legitimate. Then, you offer your services of running ads for them, which of course will earn you money. 

The outline is: 

Become the master of marketing, find potential clients, get you foot in the door by offering a small service for free and start charging big money for your main services. 

This is just a small overview of the broad niche, so I strongly advise you to read more about it. You can do this by clicking HERE. (it’s not ready yet, check in after a few days)

Conclusion

After reading this article you’re probably overwhelmed with thoughts and ideas. 

You know what? Why don’t you sleep on it? 

Making money online is possible, with the right attitude. Don’t be one of those people who just look for ideas and end up sticking to none. TAKE ACTION. If something in this list got you interested in the topic, feel free to read more about it. Research it. And don’t procrastinate. Don’t start tomorrow, because you won’t start at all. Start now. 

I want you to click for more in depth guide, or just google the topic. Watch youtube videos. 

Once you take action and stick with it consistently, it will pay off. You might not be seeing a payday in a month or more. I got my first paycheck after almost 2 months. Just don’t get discouraged. Believe in what you do.

I think my job here is done. I wish you good luck in your journey through the online business world.


Image sources: Pixabay.com Canva.com