How Can I Earn Extra Money in the UK?

There are a number of different options out there to earn extra money online, but what I don’t want to do is give you the usual answers that you already expect and, quite frankly don’t want to hear.  There are obviously the options of a part-time retail job or even completing surveys, but these do not really earn you a lot of money or even fit in with your current job and family life. What I have come up with is a couple of options where you can work from home or your laptop on and earn money and possibly lead to some decent earning potential for you too.

Watch Outs When Searching Online

Before I get into these suggestions, I want to call out something that you will always find when you start looking for ways to earn money online.  The sheer number of scams out there.  They promise that you will earn thousands overnight, without having to put in any work – you just need to hand over some credit card details.

Think about it, you are looking for ways to earn extra money because of your financial situation.  These fake programs are promoting on the sole premise that you need more money, and their program will (not) give you that.  Be very mindful making decisions when you have a need for something.  It can often lead to us making poor decisions.

I made such a decision a few years ago and got hooked by a program stating that I could be a binary options millionaire with this program working on auto-pilot.  Needless to say, I am still waiting…

The reasons I say this is, you will be hoping to find a way of earning extra money online which doesn’t require much time and effort – but these products that promise quick earnings are not real.  The only way you can earn money online is with some time and effort.  But the advantages are you can do that work and effort from anywhere.  I started putting aside an hour each evening after my son had gone to bed, Then I tried to incorporate more time as I got more accomplished at it.  The more I spent, the easier it was to a point where I was earning money online without having to get a part-time job or complete surveys where you didn’t really earn much from.

Related Post: How to Avoid Affiliate Marketing Scams

Back on point, I have 2 options that would earn you money online and either option is good depending on it being right for you.

Freelancing – Using Your Skills for Generating Money

There are websites out there, such as Fiverr where you can offer your services and earn money from those services.  You might think at this point, you have nothing to offer.  But in my opinion, that isn’t the case.  Website owners are constantly looking at ways of outsourcing work.  You could be great at graphic design, or simply like writing and can writing effective copy.  You might be quite happy, taking on the role of social media manager for their business.  If you are any good at accounting, this is another way of earning money online.

There are a multitude of opportunities out there for you to explore and quite frankly, earn money from.

It is also a quicker route to earning money online, as you can sign up with a site like Fiverr today and start offering your services and getting hired.  To fully see the opportunities, I recommend you read my Fiverr Review.  You will get a full insight into the benefits, but also the concerns with taking the freelancing route.

Freelancing gives you the freedom to work as and when you need, it also means you are not tied down to any one business.  But that can also be a drawback, as it is not always regular work.

But I know of many freelancers who are earning decent money from it.  It works for them, and those that do not want to venture down my other suggestion.

Build Your Own Online Business with Affiliate Marketing

I live in the UK, and around 3 years ago, I didn’t even have a clue of what Affiliate Marketing was and how I could earn money from home with it.  After looking back, I wish I could have started with it sooner.  This may not sound like everyone’s cup of tea… and it isn’t.  But for the right type of person, this can actually be more than just some extra money on the side – but could lead to a very lucrative business model that means it is your only income.

Let’s start with explaining what Affiliate Marketing is…

What Exactly is Affiliate Marketing?

To show you how genuine this business model is, let’s start with a brand you would know that has used Affiliate Marketing since its inception.  Amazon.  Many of us use Amazon, but when they first started out, they were just selling books.

They didn’t have a large marketing campaign budget, so they gave a reward to someone if they introduced a buyer to a book.  A percentage of the sale went to whomever referred them.  That is basically how affiliate marketing started and how it still works today. But now Amazon has a huge marketplace to utilise that same model they started with.

Let’s use an example.  An Affiliate Marketer has a blog on Coffee.  A lot of people are constantly looking for the best coffee machines, how to use these machines and want help with the best coffee beans around.  They build a website that shows them as an authority in coffee.  They also include reviews on these coffee machines, and accessories, beans etc.

We land on that website looking for the best coffee machine to use at home, I like the look of his review and decide to click on his link to the marketplace (in this example, Amazon). I know and trust amazon and decide to buy that coffee machine for £100.  That website owner has just earned 4% commission on that sale.  four quid.

Might not sound like much, but if that website gets thousands of visitors a day to their website and 100 people decide to buy that same coffee machine, like I did.  Then that becomes £400. a thousand buyers and that is £4,000.

That is how simple the premise of Affiliate Marketing is.  Any niche, anything that you have an interest in can become a lucrative affiliate marketing business model.

How Affiliate Marketing Can Earn You Extra Money

The reason I say it can earn you extra money is down to the timescales it has to become a full-time income.  It requires a lot of time and effort to build an online business that can fully support a family without a normal job.  Some niches are more competitive, and it can take longer, and there is also a lot to learn.

But for the right people, it can be the start of something absolutely awesome.  Many new affiliate marketers actually utilise the freelancing option whilst building up their business to the point where they are earning enough to give up the day job and be able to spend more time on their online business.  Scaling it to the point where it can truly be something great.

The Advantages of Starting an Affiliate Marketing Business

There are a number of benefits to starting this type of business, the main one being you can do it from anywhere (as long as you have Wifi).

But what you also soon realise is that you can choose a niche where you have an interest in it.  There is no point chasing a subject, just because it looks profitable as you have to invest a lot of time into that niche and if you know nothing about it or don’t really like it – it will tell in both your content and the fact you will find it hard to stay motivated working on it.

Gem, my wife is really crafty and has launched her own wedding stationary business.  But by utilising affiliate marketing and drop shipping into our business model, we have made a business that is sustainable and earns a decent profit margin each year and because she loves it, we will continue to grow it past year one.

We love helping other people, so we launched this website to help others find their own financial freedom.

There is a common theme when it comes to successful affiliate marketers – they want to help people, rather than sell to people.

Choosing a Niche that you love or have a passion around makes this a business you want to work on.  If you create an article that starts converting well, that article could remain profitable for years to come.  Affiliate Marketing is considered a passive income stream, you need to do all the hard work at the beginning, but when it starts turning a profit it can carry on for years to come.

What Do I Need to Know Before I Consider Affiliate Marketing?

There are obviously things you need to consider before getting started.  Affiliate Marketing has helped many people leave their day job behind and some are earning a lot of money from it.  But then there are others that walk away saying it doesn’t work.  Why?

Well, the main reason is they had unrealistic expectations.  These scammy products lead us to a false belief that we can earn money overnight using the internet.  To an extent you can.

If you complete a survey on Swagbucks or Prolific Surveys, after a couple of surveys you will have earned £5.

But they promise you thousands of pounds with little effort…

When I first started affiliate marketing, I had a full-time job with a six-year-old vying for my attention too. So, finding time to put effort into my online business was hard.  I was trying to learn everything I needed to learn and put it into practice.

But I kept in mind, that I was building this business to spend more time with my family, but I was realistic that this would not happen even within a couple of weeks.

I see many get started and work hard for a few weeks, then wonder why it isn’t working.  Well, let’s think about a normal business.  They would not expect to earn a profit in their first year and have a lot of costs that an online business would not need to deal with.

A brand-new online business needs to build trust with any reader coming to that site and build trust with the search engines so that your website appears high enough in the rankings to be found by someone.

That point is typically in the third month. Yet, people are giving up after a month.  I saw my first sale after six months.  Before that you need support to keep motivated and I found the best support to get, which I will share with you in a moment.  It is hard to know if it is working until you achieve your first sale.

There is a definite mindset you need to achieve success online with affiliate marketing and if you have it, you can earn a lot more money than any other source of income you can find.  I had considered getting a part-time job or even binary option trading.  But when I factor in the time needed and the skill required – Affiliate Marketing works best for me.  If you want to earn money online without taking risks this could be a good choice.

How Do I Get Started with Affiliate Marketing?

Like I said, Affiliate Marketing is not for everyone.  It takes a lot of time and effort and I mean a lot.  There is also factors that you need to learn like:

• Website Development
  
• Search Engine Optimisation
  
• Content Creation
  
• Online Marketing
  
• Social Media Marketing

To just name a few.  When I first came across the idea of Affiliate Marketing, it sounded like a great idea.  But I didn’t have a clue about any of that.  But I found a great training platform that offered the kind of support I had never seen before in my research.

That platform is called Wealthy Affiliate.  Offering training for any skill level, it can help the right person start an affiliate marketing business, learn the skills required to get it ranked well in Google and once it has started earning you money – scale it to the point where you can leave the day job behind.

If you want to learn more about everything that Wealthy Affiliate has to offer, I highly suggest you read my full Wealthy Affiliate Review.

I will always recommend to anyone they do their research, before signing up with anyone.  I have checked out a number of free training courses for affiliate marketing and even other platforms that are out there.

But you can tell the difference straightaway – most of the free ones have out of date information.  The others promise a free trial, but you have to enter your credit card details.

A free starter membership with Wealthy Affiliate is free, with no catch.  With access to 2 classrooms and 2 free websites.  You can get started with affiliate marketing in a stress-free environment.  There is no cost to that starter membership, and you can remain a free member for as long as you like.

But the most important factor of Wealthy Affiliate, aside from awesome training is the fact that you get access to affiliate marketing experts.  Anytime you get stuck or need help, you just reach out to either me or the community to get help.

Conclusion

When you first started your search, you were probably looking for a normal way of earning extra money and these options will never go away.  A part time retail job, distributing parcels for amazon, telemarketing, completing surveys.  They all have the same premise, some of them you can do from home.  But if I am honest, they all require a lot of your time for not a great return.

Freelancing, Affiliate Marketing or utilising both does give you a kind of freedom.  But it also gives you an awesome route to making them your only source of income.  It will require a lot of work in the beginning.  But as your business starts to grow and you start turning a healthy profit, you can start to use other freelancers to do some of the work in your business and that gives you back all the time you invested in the first place.  That can be time to enjoy your hobbies, interests.  Take time with the family.  Work from anywhere with no boss to answer to.

That was my first goal with my online business.  We are well into our plan with Gem’s wedding stationary business, affiliate marketing playing its part well there, and that is why I wanted to launch this.  Share what I had learned with others to help those who want to also share the same goals.

One of the points I covered earlier was the fact that not many people in the UK, have actually heard of affiliate marketing.  I know I certainly hadn’t.  But when you have immersed yourself for a couple of years in it, it shows what a simple premise it is.  But that it still requires the same mindset as building a career.  Start out small and work your way up.  I know we all have financial goals with anything we do but keeping the non-financial goals in mind have a bigger stance on whether you are going to make this work.

If you feel like these options are not for you, then I wish you luck in whichever direction you choose.  But if you feel like you have what it takes to make this work, then I will actually help you whenever you need help to achieve your goals.  If you want to explore Freelancing, then I suggest you read this awesome guide.  If you want to get started with your very own affiliate marketing business, I recommend a free starter membership with Wealthy Affiliate.

Thanks for checking out my guide, if you have any questions or want to know a little more please write them in the comments below and I will get back to your as soon as I can.