How to Make Money Online For Free Doing What You Love
How to make money online, for free, is one of the most frequent questions we get, both online and offline.
Making money on the internet provides a low barrier to entry environment to start an online business. You can get started making money online for little or zero cost at all.
Seemingly everyone wants to earn more money and online seems to be the best place to do that as it allows you to work part time, from anywhere in the world, on your terms and conditions – for free, or practically free.
Great, but how?
Well, there are plenty of websites out there that will give you plenty of get rich schemes, ideas and thoughts on ways to do that.
We have already talked about several different types of ways to earn online money, but here, we’ll talk about teaching – a skill that makes us all think back to the good (or bad) of primary school or high school, about lectures and lesson plans.
How to Earn Money by Sharing Your Knowledge
Each of us possesses a unique set of information that can be passed to others and while some of the skills will be identical between teachers, the way in which each person goes about conveying that message and connecting with the student is what makes the difference between a teach that makes you fall asleep and the one the connects with you – inspires you.
You don’t need to be an expert teacher right away as the low cost base of online businesses allows you to learn your way through it.
No skill is inherent and if you want to make money online, you are going to have to work on this skill just like a jumpshot in basketball or your ability to play Mozart on the piano. Your unique approach to conveying whatever message you are trying to deliver can reach an audience that couldn’t understand the approach someone else took – even if you did.
So, what are my options for making money by sharing my knowledge?
1. Youtube.com
We all know that Youtube has the cat videos, clips from TV and everything else that we looked at when we were bored at work or were sent to from a friend. Did you know that Youtube is the 2nd biggest search engine? That means that there are a ton of people looking for videos and that includes how-to, educational and informational.
Here is how Youtube Pay works – even if it is not the most direct answer. In general, it pays you to get views on your videos so that advertisers are able to make impressions on whomever is viewing your video. As a great case study, look at how Michelle Phan taught her way to a $1,000,000+ brand and earnings (and 50,000,000 views).
You can also make this an extension of what you do offline to help you make money in both sectors. Say you have a physical therapy business with no extra money to market your business. By creating videos (No objections – we all have cell phones that record) that people can learn from, you’ll create brand awareness (for yourself), make money (through views through YouTube Pay), and, by demonstrating that you know what you are doing, build confidence in people so those in your area will be more willing to see you versus someone that they don’t know. Not too bad for a zero cost endeavor.
While a little more…shall we say, exotic…the Blendtec “Will It Blend” campaign was an amazing use of video to demonstrate the ability of their blender to teach everyone that this blender wasn’t just another option on the store line. What can you teach, or show, people that will help them see something new, in a new light, or in a way they never thought possible? If you can make it fun, you could go viral.
2. Tutoring
Know a topic really well but don’t want the world to get to know you on YouTube? There are portals that will act as your digital match maker to connect a student in need with the skills you possess – remember, just because you know the information doesn’t mean others do…and this transfer of information will help you earn more cash online in the process.
One of the beautiful things about this avenue is that you do not always have to come up with a new program, new marketing angle or anything else to stay relevant (assuming you are not teaching something cutting edge like Photoshop – think calculus or physics). You can take the program that connects with students and continue to refine and refine until you have the perfect way to teach your subject.
Some avenues include:
- Tutor.com: They do not reveal their tutor pay structure online until you have completed an application. If you have concerns over whether you are qualified, or not, and what subjects they look for teacher in, you can see their list of topics here.
- Smarthinking.com: Tutors are paid hourly but the exact rate was not posted online.
- Craigslist.com: The world’s classified page is called that for a reason. As a tip, you can go outside of your geographic area, which may have a higher need for your services (eg. How to get Angel Investors may be a well-known fact in San Francisco, but not so much in Iowa) if you are creative in the way you teach – Skype is a great way to be able to have face-to-face teaching if you cannot physically be in the same area; as is screen sharing software.
The limiting factor to tutoring, for the most part, is that you are still trading your time for money. Ideally, you would like your work to have the ability to influence unlimited lives but nobody has unlimited time. You need to create a repeatable system in order to do that, which leads to our next avenue.
3. Course creator
If you have refined or developed a system that is repeatable for others, then you can create a course to teach them the subject matter. While much more effective if you have a following before launching, a course is a great way to take your ability to teach a topic and scale that up.
- Lynda.com: One of the leading marketplaces for online education, they have over 100,000 videos in their library and are always working to keep up with new technology, new programs and ever changing user demands. While they don’t publicly reveal their formula for paying their content creators, they do utilize a royalty model which pays you a fee when someone uses your course.
- Udemy.com: Newer to the scene than Lynda, this platform’s goal is to allow anyone with the ability to teach, to teach and make some money. They utilize a revenue model that allows you to keep 100% of the money you make online for students you bring to the course and 50% of the revenue earned online if Udemy is the one that brings the student.
- Skillshare.com: This platform is geared toward the creative arts. They do have other, less creative based options as well and I’m sure they’ll add more as the site grows. They have a revenue model as that is a royalty program – basically, if people take your course, you get a cut of the fee.
Since the web is ever evolving, always Google for yourself too. I wouldn’t want to you to miss an opportunity that started after this was written. Heck, you may have a knowledge, in a particular area, you could be well served by finding where that audience is and get into that community.
Remember, thinking you need money to make money online is a limiting psychological factor but you managed to get online and find out how to make money without money – you are ahead of the majority of people.
As you go through this process, realize that you will have other limiting factors that make your ultimate goal tougher to reach than it needs. Keep after it, keep coming back here for additional resources … and when all else fails, Google it.
