Have you been looking for ways on how to make money online free with no scams and all you seem to come across is products that are clearly scams or lack any real value or quality that you start to feel like there is nothing genuine out there for you to make any money…?
I hear you. There are plenty of crappy products like this out there and it can definitely make the water very murky to the point that you start to question everything. Is it really possible to make money online…?
First off, it is nice to see that you are doing some research. It is the best way to avoid any of those scams, and we are always looking out for programs (both good and bad) that we can review and help others avoid the pain we went through when we fell for a scam a few years ago…
In this post I am going to list 3 top ideas that could help you earn money online, list a few tips to help you avoid scams going forward and share with you how I actually ended up doing what I love after encountering a scam.
The Scam That Led Me to Where We Are Now
You have to understand why these scams get people to buy them. Think about why you are looking for ways to make money online. You might be:
- In debt and wanting to find a way to pay them off
- You hate your job
- You want to get-rich-quick
- You want to make money easily
I can attest to the fact that I was thinking all of these things when I first started looking for ways to make money online. But these elements are what those scams promise you.
They make huge claims like – “You can earn $1000’s by tomorrow with little or no work involved…”
If you don’t really know anything about the internet, you start to believe these claims and that was how I first got hooked into a binary options scam. I was lucky, I didn’t lose a lot of money as I was careful. But I cannot complain too much as it had led me to how I earn money now. But I wanted to also work hard to ensure others didn’t have to fall for a scam to find a genuine route to making money online.
That is why we are going to cover some hints and tips on how to avoid these online scams…
Tips to Avoiding Online Scams
When you start learning how to make money online, you get to spot the signs of a scam very easily. Here are a few tips on how to avoid online scams
It Looks Too Good to Be True
These scammers are looking to play on your emotions. They know that you are after quick money and that is what they are offering. But these scammers have no care for whether you succeed or not. Honestly think about a program that you might have seen online; they tell you that you will not need to put any effort in and that it can be done on auto-pilot. Who wouldn’t want something like that, but there is no scheme online that will earn you serious money online quickly?
Don’t get me wrong you could earn a few dollars by completing surveys, etc. But they are promising you serious earnings overnight. It is a ruse. They offer an incomplete product for a small fee, then expect you to pay over the odds for the upsells that are supposed to complete the product and make you money.
If it looks too good to be true, with incomplete information then you need to walk away from it. Otherwise you will only be rewarding the scammers.
Promise After Promise
No one can promise you that you will earn money online. We have learned from some of the best internet marketers in the world, but they still will not make promises because they know how many factors there are to make it work.
But these scammers will make promises like: Earnings, Minimal Effort Required, etc.
That is not how you will make money online. As soon as they start making promises to you, then it starts to get me suspicious.
What Will You Be Doing?
These sales pages are designed to do just one thing, pull on your emotions to get you to buy it. But if you review the sales page properly, you will notice one thing. You will not learn what you will be doing. Is it Affiliate Marketing, Flipping Websites, Being a Freelancer?
They tell you what you want to hear and not what you need to hear.
That is why checking out reviews is a good way of spotting these scams. But then you also need to be mindful with those too because of:
Fake Reviews – 100% Positive
Look, there are a couple of things to consider when a review is overly positive. I don’t mean a review where someone is recommending a product and it is a good review. I am talking about a review where they have given it a full ten of ten and have listed no negative aspects of a product.
The first point is check when the review came out. The is a method called Launch Jacking where scammers write a review about a product before it has even launched. How can they write a review without knowing what the review is about…?
The second point is the review will lack any detail about what the product will actually get you to do…
These are the typical aspects that we have seen when finding and reviewing these scam products. But I would add that many of these aspects are associated with low quality products that might not be considered scams but lead to the same thing – False promises and no way of earning money.
Let’s get into 3 genuine ways of making money online.
Our Top 3 Ways to Make Money Online (Depending on Your Goals)
Whilst there are plenty of products that are low quality or are scams, there are still genuine routes for you to earn money online. But the first thing you need to decide when you check out your options are how much money and how much time are you willing to invest.
You will not earn any money if you cannot get over the fact that you are going to put in time and hard work to get going.
But if you are just looking for some pocket money, our first option might be of interest to you…
Completing Surveys & Watching Videos
Websites like Swagbucks and Prolific Surveys allow you to earn money online by completing surveys or watching videos.
This option is never going to earn you a fortune and there is the debate over whether the time taken to complete these surveys is rewarded adequately with money. But not everyone is in the business to build an online business, so this might be a good option for you.
Done properly, you could put some money away towards Christmas.
Ways to Make Money with Swagbucks
- Completing Surveys
- Watching Videos
- Shopping
- Playing Games
There are a number of options for ways to make money online with Swagbucks, it might be worthwhile depending on your circumstances. You could also consider this as a side-line if you consider one of our other options for you.
Offering Your Services as a Freelancer
If you want to earn money online but do not feel that your own online business could work, you could consider becoming a Freelancer. Know that you still need to treat this like a business as you will end up with clients and the better, they think of your work, the more likely they are to come back and use you again. You could even become a regular contributor to other business owners. For example, writing regular posts for a website owner.
To become a freelancer, you need to think about what you are going to be able to offer for business owners to pay you for your services. If you are not sure, you could always check out a platform like Fiverr to see what options there are.
Some ideas are:
- Graphics & Design
- Writing & Translations
- Video & Animation
- Music & Audio
There are a number of freelancing sites you could use. My advice would be is to get started with a website like Fiverr, before you consider websites like Upwork.
Fiverr is a great place to practise your art. As the name suggest, you offer your “gigs” out for $5. But there are ways to improve your earnings as your rankings increase. Once you have established yourself on Fiverr, you can then start offering your services on Upwork.
Upwork will increase your earning potential, but the clientele is more demanding on what they want for what they are paying.
This option depends on what you currently have to offer but is a genuine opportunity to make money online. If you are wanting to look into freelancing. My advice would be is to check out Fiverr and see what services others are offering, and where you can fit your skills in.
Our Favourite – Affiliate Marketing
This is the option we chose after falling for that binary options scam. I read a post about affiliate marketing; I had never heard of the option, but I am so glad I did.
Affiliate Marketing is a great way to start your own online business in any subject that you want to start in. Genuine affiliate marketers are honest about the time and effort required to be successful, as it will not happen overnight. In fact, I didn’t earn anything for 6 months. But done correctly it can lead to a fantastic earner online.
Affiliate Marketing is where you sign up for an affiliate program and promote products or services on a blog. If one of your readers decides to follow your recommendation and buy a product, you are rewarded with a commission.
There is no need to have your own product, you do not need to get involved with handling the transaction. All you need to do is write high quality content and product reviews that include a special link which the affiliate program will provide.
Whilst Affiliate Marketing is a fantastic way for you to start making money online, I must start with the fact that it is not for everyone…
Affiliate Marketing is Not for Everyone!
The main reason why so many of use end up falling for these scams is because we are chasing a quick way to make money online. If you are still in that mindset, then affiliate marketing is not for you.
You will need to work damn hard to get results within affiliate marketing, you will also need to invest time in learning everything you need to know and then invest that time into doing the work.
I have yet to find a genuine way of making money quickly other than a few dollars completing surveys or freelancing. But both require time and effort. So does affiliate marketing.
If you are willing to put the effort in, in a year’s time you will have a fantastic online business that will probably be already making you money.
If you want to do this properly, then you need to have that mindset.
Affiliate Marketing – How to Get Started in Any Topic You Want
Affiliate Marketing allows you to choose anything as long as there are products and services with affiliate programs in. But as Amazon has an affiliate program and literally sells everything, it is possible to start an affiliate marketing business in any subject.
If you have a passion in keeping fit, creating meals, childcare, sports, DIY, technology, making money online, etc.
I think that is one of my favourite parts of affiliate marketing, you can start with any topic you like. The first step you would need to take is narrow down your chosen topic down to a niche.
Choose Your Niche
When you first start out you need to give yourself the best start you can by narrowing down your topic to what we call a niche. This reduces the amount of competition you are going to be up against. If we wanted to start with the photography topic. That is a massive audience, but it is also very competitive as you would be targeting every single niche within the photography market.
But what are you going to blog about? If I take my experience, I do wedding photography for our wedding business. Now that is a much better choice, as you need to consider how you are going to help your audience.
Let’s carry on with the wedding photography niche. We could still narrow that down again. Are we going to offer help with people who are:
- Looking to get started with wedding photography
- Designing a wedding photography website
- Looking for the best wedding photography camera
- Etc
But imagine if I wrote all of these things on just a general photography blog. It isn’t relevant to everyone and that is the problem. Anyone who isn’t looking to get into wedding photography would be put off.
So, when you are choosing your niche – consider who your audience will be. Identifying your target audience is a major step, and then you can write content that will help them.
Relevancy is an important step to affiliate marketing, so keep it tight and target your niche and your audience and you will be on to a great start.
Start a Blog
Once you have chosen your niche, you are set to start your own blog. You then need to consider which platform you are going to choose. There are many options out there, WordPress, Joomla, Wix, etc. Our personal preference is WordPress. It is much easier to handle as a blogger and offers a better long-term for your business.
If you are happy with WordPress, the next stage would be to consider the hosting for your website. Again, there are a number of options, but we like the fact that you can get your WordPress website and Hosting all together from the guys at Wealthy Affiliate. You can get a free website up and running in just a few minutes. If you are ready to choose your domain name, then you can use the free tool below to check if your domain name is free”
Wealthy Affiliate also offers a ton of tutorials on how to get the most out of WordPress and hosts your website for you.
Write Content
Once you have yourself a blog website up and running, the next stage to affiliate marketing is to go and write high-quality content. You need to offer content that is going to prove that you are the authority within this niche, so that people come back to your website.
You need to know that the key to making money online is to help people and not to sell to people. If people are too salesy, people are instantly put off. But if you provide helpful guides within your niche that naturally lead to products and services that could help them, it will lead to more sales.
You will also notice that I have not mentioned anything about applying for affiliate programs yet, and that is because until you start to get traffic, there is no point applying to an affiliate program that will require you to make some sales.
No traffic, no sales.
What will get you traffic, your high-quality content and keyword research.
Get Traffic
Do not fall for any of those programs that will get you quick traffic because they will give you a traffic spike, but not the right type of audience for what you are trying to achieve.
All it seems to be is that your website is hit by loads of bots, which makes it look like you have had loads of people on your website. but they do not interact with your website, not really. Without real people, there is no point.
You need traffic that will interact with your content and be interested in what you have to say. So, the key to getting this traffic is to write high-quality content that helps solve a problem or answer a question relating to your niche and then you will get the right audience for your affiliate offers.
Once you are starting to get traffic, that is the point to start monetising your blog website.
Make Money
There are two ways that you can start monetising your website once you are starting to get traffic.
- One way is by applying for affiliate programs
- Another way is through advertising on your website.
Applying for affiliate programs within your niche requires you to search for relevant affiliate programs. I have already mentioned Amazon; they have an affiliate program that is called Amazon Associates. That will give you access to all the products that Amazon sells.
Whilst their commission rate is a little low, they have the trust of so many buyers and this can help you when you are just starting out.
But as you grow your business, you will need to check out more specialised affiliate programs within your niche. Wealthy Affiliate has a fantastic tool for this called Affiliate Programs, where you can search for relevant affiliate programs all from one place.
Otherwise you can just search via Google for “product + affiliate program” and that will lead you to plenty of affiliate programs.
Google AdSense is the route to putting ads on your blog and earning money as your traffic grows.
Your earnings will start out small, but as long as you post regular content that helps and targets the right keywords, you will start to see your sales increase.
Want More Help & Guidance from Experts
Often people will say getting started in affiliate marketing is simple. I would slightly disagree. Whilst the premise of affiliate marketing is simple, learning everything that goes with it takes a lot of time and effort. There is SEO, Keyword Research, WordPress, etc to learn and without the right help and guidance I am not sure I would be where I am now.
I love helping people who want to get started with affiliate marketing, and there is no better place for people to get started with affiliate marketing than Wealthy Affiliate.
Their training takes anyone who wants to learn affiliate marketing through every step needed to start on the journey of building an online business.
Wealthy Affiliate offers training and support from experts within everything to do with affiliate marketing, SEO, Keyword Research and WordPress. If you want to learn more about what Wealthy Affiliate has to offer, check out my WA review.
Wealthy Affiliate are industry leaders in Affiliate Marketing training and their success stories talk for themselves, you can read a few in my WA review. But know that whilst I think their training is awesome, your blog will only be as good the time and effort you put into learning all the aspects and putting it into practise.
Thanks for checking out our post, hopefully now you know how to make money online free with no scams. If you have any questions or want to share your experiences, please write them in the comments below and we will respond to you as soon as we can.
I have been trying out surveys and get paid to” websites for a while now, I admit they pay some few dollars/pounds, but not enough to meet with basic financial needs, which is why I decided to do more research.
I am very much interested in this affiliate marketing you talked about, it doesn’t sound easy but it does look promising.
I will check out your recommended platform and hopefully, this will be the best step forward for me.
Thanks for sharing this.
Hey Queen,
thanks for checking out our blog and for writing some comments. It is hard work, but you will soon realise that it is so rewarding. Helping people always makes me feel good and that is what affiliate marketing should be based on.
You start helping people, and then you suddenly realise that you are then making money from helping people. a very rewarding cycle.
Wish you all the best with your journey
John
It is hard to find a legitimate program to make money online. All the scams always come up first, I know I fell into a couple of them. You are absolutely right, when it is too good to be true, it is most of the time a scam. I also do not trust any of the testimonials from their site, they can pay actors on fiverr to get that done.
Freelancing and surveys or even focus groups are great if you are not looking to make a lot of money. I used to do surveys in the past but the incentives are just not worth my time. I prefer blogging and affiliate marketing. Even my links doesn’t convert yet I can always make money with some Ads on my site.
Hey Nuttanee,
thanks for checking out our blog and for writing some comments. It is easy to fall into these scams if we do not start questioning the motives behind the sellers. That is why research is such a key component. You are right, testimonials are not always honest as you can pay people to say whatever you want.
The decision you make will be based on what you are trying to achieve and the timescales you set yourself. Being realistic is a must as it will not happen overnight.
All the best with it
John
I’ve been scammed a couple of times in the distant past by those programs which claim that they can make you rich fast. I guess I was desperate back then…
I have tried surveys and Swagbucks… Never made more than $50 per month with them.
I’ve created a Fiverr profile last week and I am still waiting to see how it’ll go. I am offering website design services…
That affiliate marketing, I’ve never tried it. But I’ll definitely will!
Thank you very much!
Hey Harry,
thanks for checking out our blog and for writing some comments. It does seem that desperation is what draws us to these scams.
Earning money from surveys will never lead to much, but is ideal for some people. Freelancing is goo if you have the skills. Affiliate Marketing is where you are working for yourself and can learn a lot of skills you can then offer via freelancing and supplement your earnings.
We wish you all the best
John
Lots of possibilities here!
I like your list and I must say that all of the listed options have great potentiality. But for me, I prefer affiliate marketing, because the pay is good and I love writing and advertising. It is a good combination that works well for me.
I think it is also the best way to get a passive income. It needs a lot of work but I like it, and doing what you like just makes it easy to succeed.
Thanks
Hey Adyns,
thanks for checking out our blog and for writing some comments. Affiliate Marketing is the one for those who are serious about making money. Working for yourself is a great feeling and writing about a topic you love makes it all the better.
thanks
John
Hi John Crossley
By reading the introduction of the article, I see that I have just started and I have the safari on the Internet looking for a solution to make money through the internet site the result was to lose some money and so –
I have been thinking many times about the expression It seems very good to be true I have tried it all at some site
One major mistake I made is that I did not look at the comments on the page (Fake Reviews), something very important that you mentioned in the article
The Websites you mention are a good start for the first money, but they want a lot of time
Freelancer has one eye, but I was unable to do anything.
We have been dealing with affiliate marketing for two months now, I’m in the beginning, I’ve made a very strong point, and day by day you develop
I follow step by step weekly schedule and I notice day after day building a job on the Internet
HI,
thanks for checking out our blog and for writing some comments. It will take a lot of time and effort to realise the potential behind earning money online but it is totally worth it.
You do bring up a good point about reading comments on these reviews, they can give you a true insight into a product.
Whilst you are only two months into your affiliate marketing journey, I bet you will have learned quite a lot already…
All the best
John