Making money online in Sri Lanka has suddenly become an extraordinary topic that comes into many of our conversations throughout our daily lives.
The trend before this was perhaps the whole network marketing phase where all you heard from your friends was How Would You Like To Make LKR 10000 A Month?.
When it comes to making money online, some of us are interested in only making a small amount extra on top of our day jobs just to supplement our income and perhaps pay for that holiday we’ve been wanting for years.
Others, however, are looking to one of, if not the world’s most powerful tool, the Internet, in order quit their day jobs forever and live a lifestyle where passive, residual income pours into their account each month without the long 9-5 hours.
Regardless of what your personal needs are, I’ve compiled comprehensive research on the methods you can use to make money online today.
Supplementing your daily income
Like I mentioned early, many people find themselves online simply to generate additional income on top of their jobs.
This section will detail the most reliable and tested methods that are being used and that you can also use to supplement your income.
Note: These methods are not designed for replacing your day job for that you need a sustainable business model, look further below for information on this.
Merchant Store Sites
Many of us, in some point of our lives have done this method already. Merchant sites like Ebay and Amazon allow users to list their items and for other people all around the world to purchase them.
The problem with this method is although you’re technically making money online, it’s the product you’re selling that is actually making the income.
The Internet and merchant sites are merely a means to advertise to wide range of people. This method is limited as you’ll eventually run out of products and isn’t a true method of generating income online long term.
Fiverr
Fiverr is an online business that allows people to purchase gigs (a service that someone is offering) or to sell gigs.
For example, a few common gigs on Fiverr are: Writing a review, article writing, drawing a picture, designing a logo, graphic design, proofreading and many more.
As the name suggest, each gig will cost $5 and upsells are available. For example, an article writer can charge $5 for 800 words and charge an additional $10 for 2000 words in total.
Fiverr does take an amount of your earnings per sale though.
How You Can Make Money in Fiverr in Sri Lanka? Advertise your talent. Putting up a gig is free of charge, and you’ll likely be able to make some additional income.
I’ve seen people score huge amount of work for simply taking a picture of themselves and holding up a sign with a company name on it.
I can’t tell you what service to sell, since I don’t know what talents you have, but fiverr offers a unique way to generate small income to supplement your basic income.
Check out this link and see what you can do to make some extra money!
Freelance Work
For people who think blogging is very hard here comes freelance work to rescue. Freelance jobs have now become very trendy. People are now able to do the same work they do in their office under a client in free time to earn extra money.
The freelance sites have minimum income set to $3 per hour which mean a freelancer will be paid minimum $3 per hour for working under a client. The pay can increase to even hundred dollars per hour based on the experience and ability of the freelancer to complete the work himself.
Unlike blogging, freelancing work will not generate any passive income instead the freelancer will be paid only for the work done. The advantage of freelancing is; the worker doesn’t have to wait for months in order to see the results. Clients will pay immediately for work completed on the contract basis or escrow method.
To start the freelance career, you must join the best freelance marketplace like upwork. After joining the freelance site, the first work is to complete the profile which equals the resume. Members must upload a good photo of them to show their professionality and attach a portfolio if applicable. After getting hired by a client, the freelance can take his own time to complete the project and get paid.
Clickbank
The way Clickbank works is relatively simple. A vendor with a product can place their product on Clickbank where other people can see it.
The vendor then offers a percentage for each sale that is made by someone else. For example, Jim owns an ebook on weight loss.
Jim places his product details and website page on Clickbank. Jenny then see’s this and uses clickbank to generate a unique link which she then sends to her friends.
Her friends are interested in the product and purchase it via Jenny’s link. Jenny then gets a paid a percentage of the price of the product.
Youtube With ClickBank
The worlds most used search engine is Google. The worlds second most used search engine is Youtube. Google owns Youtube.
Just thought I’d let you know in case you didn’t already. Now in the previous paragraph I discussed how you could make money with Clickbank.
Many of you were probably thinking ‘But I don’t have a lot of people to send my links to and they might not be interested, this is a terrible way for me to make money!’ This is where Youtube comes in to play.
What you can do is find decent products on Clickbank and then make a review video on Youtube whilst placing your affiliate link from Clickbank into the description section of your video.
That way, the problem of not having anyone to sale to is solved! I forgot to mention, you don’t need to put your face on the video if you don’t want to , you could simply record your voice whilst showing your viewers a PowerPoint presentation you’ve put together.
If you’re interested in this method, I suggested you take a look at Learn Camtasia as they teach you how to use powerpoint and other tools to create effective videos.
Blogging
Blogging is undoubtedly the best source to generate passive income. People who understood the power of blogging are making thousands of dollars every month. These are the words that are really important to become a successful blogger – patience, knowledge, presentation, honest. While blogging career can generate non-stop income only less than a percentage of beginners become bloggers after few months.
The main obstacle that filters almost half the crowd who starts a blog is the lack of patience. Blogger should have a lot of patience to become successful. After starting the blog, the bloggers should work hard as they move towards their goal. Since ever the Internet has become more crowded, giants like Google took action to prevent newcomers from spamming the Internet. So it might take several months to see the results for the work done.
The first step of blogging is to choose a right hosting and platform. Hosting a blog on WordPress will be the wise option. WordPress is the best blogging platform for both beginners and experts as it is free and reliable. Plenty of free plugins is available to install any feature without editing codes. After creating a self-hosted website, the blogger must continuously write informative articles to build the blog. At the same time, the blogger must concentrate on SEO to make the blog authoritative and rank them on search engines. Only after receiving a certain amount of traffic, the blogger must think about making money through it.
Most of the bloggers prefer AdSense as the best monetizing technique. Also, I recommend AdSense for beginners which can generate decent revenue with proper optimization and less effort. A blogger can earn more than he earns in the regular job with few thousands of daily blog traffic. Try to build a brand by creating the relationship with visitors. Then after go with affiliate marketing and Adsense to increase the earnings exponentially. Once the blog becomes a brand, it will generate passive income without you putting any efforts as before. Then after you can spend few hours per week to update the blog for the readers.
Various programs will let you start your own blog very easily. The one I’m using at the moment is WordPress.
It’s free, so don’t worry.
There are 2 main ways I know of to make money from blogging. Both involve having a high number of people who visit your site daily, known as traffic.
Now before you ask how you get people to visit your site, the simplest way for me to answer that is to give valuable content! To explain this fully would require a whole new post in itself, maybe later!
Method 1) The same with Youtube, find products on Clickbank or other sources and promote them on your blog. Your visitors will see this and if interested, they will purchase through your link and you get paid.
Method 2) If you’re blog gets popular enough, you can start to sell screen space on your blog and advertise products for other people. This is different to method 1 as you do not get paid for actually selling the product, you get paid for letting people use your site to advertise.
Note: This method varies as it can take a huge amount of time and effort to create a blog that has high traffic. Also, this method itself can also allow you to replace your full time income. It simply depends on how far you want to take it.
Advantages of making money online:
- Very reliable income mode. If used properly, can generate income several times higher than the regular job.
- Open to everyone. There are no interviews, no restrictions to start an online business.
- Great opportunity for students to make money from home. Many students from the poor family have changed their family’s financial situation. The same applies to work from home moms, unemployed graduates, homemakers etc.
- No investment to very less investment required to start making money online. Wherein to start other business, the person should be financially fit and experienced. One can make more money with less investment which is only possible in online business.
Disadvantages of making money online:
- Tough competition. As I’ve said before the internet is very big and open to anyone who wanted to start their business. So, there will be more competition. People who can stand out of the crowd can only succeed.
- The Internet has the same number of bad guides as the good one. People who get in hands of bad company have high chances to lose their money.
- The success rate of online business is very less compared to offline business. People who work without losing hope and interest at least for six months have a chance to succeed.
Make enough money online to quit your day job
Forget what all the guru’s out there say. It isn’t easy. You have to follow a system. Say this out loud. I have to follow a system.
The methods I discussed above are all for small amounts of income apart from blogging. However, not many people are able to make a full time living of blogging and for every person that does, many more don’t.
I’m not saying you can’t, but it isn’t the best option, in my humble opinion. The most important things you need to succeed in using the internet to make enough to quit your day job is Desire, Determination and Persistence.
Time is often a factor that decides whether or not you’ll make money online. It takes time to build a decent business model that will rid you of your day job.
Note: If you have a passion and a product in mind you want to turn into reality then, kickstarter may be the place for you to start!
Like I said, if you’re serious about making money online, enough to quit your day job, then you need to follow a system. The methods above will make you small income, but not enough to do what you really want to do.
Following a decent system is also necessary and the one I would suggest is Coffee Shop Millionaire.
Do be aware, it isn’t an easy trip and hard work will be required, but with every temporary defeat that you meet, you’re one step closer to success!