The booming of the internet into virtually all walks of our life has revolutionised how we spend our time and how we work.
One of the biggest impacts has been on the huge range of businesses that now base themselves either partly or entirely on the internet.
Whilst this has made our lives easier in so many ways, it has also opened up the opportunity to make a handy second income if you have a little bit of spare time.
Or a third income, or a fourth – and so on!
It really just depends on how much time you have and your dedication to the specific task at hand.
There is now everything from matched betting to “clickworking,” to survey filling – that all offer the opportunity to make some extra cash from the comfort of your living room.
We have tried dozens of these money-making opportunities ourselves and below we list the best ones in our opinion.
Here goes – our Top 30 Ways to Make Money Online!
1. Matched Betting – The Ultimate Money Maker
At number one has to be matched betting – the ultimate way of generating a risk-free income from home.
In case you aren’t familiar with matched betting, it is the art of using the bookies’ free bets and bonuses to make money risk-free. There are literally hundreds of these offers and if you use a matched betting package like Profit Maximiser, you will be given all the tools you need to take advantage of them time after time.
Thousands of people have become matched bettors and do very well from it. You see, the bookies need to offer people free bets to try and lure them in to becoming customers as competition is fierce. But if you use the free bets in the right way you can set things up so you cannot lose.
Some people make a full-time income from matched betting of up to £30,000 per year. That takes a great deal of dedication, but even with just an hour or two per day you can make an extra few hundred quid per month. Pretty awesome stuff!
2. Enter Competitions
The next major “professionalised” second income opportunity is to enter competitions – as in lots and lots of competitions.
People who do this are called “compers” and apparently the most dedicated amongst them make upwards of £20,000 per year from it.
Of course, there is no guarantee with competitions, but the law of averages says that if you enter enough of them, you should win some.
The Competition Time forum at Money Saving Expert is a good place to start as they list hundreds of competitions you can enter.
Who knows – if you get lucky, you might end up winning a holiday to the Seychelles, a luxury cruise or who knows, maybe even a car. That would be nice eh…
3. Complete Online Activities for Cash
Companies these days use the power of the internet to gather vital research and data on potential products. It’s much easier and cheaper for them than the old-fashioned way of face-to-face testing.
That’s good news for us too, because we can make money online without needing to leave our own homes.
Sites like Swagbucks and Toluna will pay you for things like testing products, completing surveys, watching videos and various other online activities.
The amount you make per activity tends to be pretty small, but as with a lot of these online tasks, the cash can build up over time!
4. Write an Ebook
Back in the day if you wanted to get a book published you had to go through the laborious process of finding an agent willing to take up your work or go through the even harder route of pitching directly to publishers.
Your chances of getting published were pretty slim (notwithstanding you being a budding JK Rowling!), with the publisher or agent sifting through hundreds of potential works for the one or two it would actually publish.
Plus if they did show an interest in your work, they would probably want you to do redraft after redraft.
Now thankfully it is beautifully easy – you can just write an ebook and publish it on Amazon. Then you can get paid up to 70% for each sale made.
With more and more reading being done online and through Kindles these days, your potential audience is massive. Indeed, with close to half a billion customers and growing, the Amazon platform is collossal.
It is probably best to focus on non-fiction work – perhaps a “how to” guide or something where you have particular expertise. A snazzy cover design plus some positive reviews should also help you get some traction.
5. Take Online Surveys for Cash
Market Research is a vital part of a company’s success and they need to know our opinions on a wide range of topics and potential products.
So if you take the time to complete a survey on a site like Valued Opinions or Toluna, you can make some extra money on the side. Plus filling out some surveys can be quite fun!
You may only make a small amount from each one – a couple of quid – but again, these amounts can add up. Plus you can do them while watching TV or listening to some music.
6. Invest in Stocks and Shares
The US stock market is, quite simply, the greatest wealth-generating machine in history.
One dollar invested in 1915 would be worth over $15,000 by 2015. That’s like turning a loaf of bread into a Mercedes.
And that’s taking into account two world wars, a Great Depression, a Great Recession, numerous catastrophes and disasters, an oil crisis or two – and so on.
Here’s a look at it in graph format:
Pretty impressive eh?
The point is that long-term, no investment can match the US stock market for delivering returns consistently, even though in the short-term there are wild fluctuations in the market.
If you can invest in stocks with a long time-frame in mind – say 5, 10, or even 20 years – then your chances of making money are high.
Now you shouldn’t just go off buying shares willy-nilly with no plan in mind. You should consult an Independent Financial Advisor (IFA) who can advise on a portfolio that suits your attitude to risk.
Or you could join an online advisory service like the Motley Fool. Their advice to buy shares in Amazon in 1998 turned out rather well…a $5,000 investment back then would now be worth over $1.5 million.
And the average stock pick of their chief advisor David Gardner is up over 300% since the service started – yes that’s the average.
Now you may be thinking that you need a fortune to invest in the stock market, but that isn’t the case. Even if you only have a hundred quid or so spare each month, it can pay to invest in stocks and shares with the right advice.
Over the long term, that proverbial loaf of bread you invested a few years ago could be on its way to turning into a Mercedes…
7. Freelance Out Your Talents
Are you a creative type with useful skills in things like writing, graphic design or video production? Have some knowledge of internet marketing?
Then a great way to earn some extra cash is though sites like Fiverr and Peopleperhour, which are platforms where people can advertise such skills or particular jobs for a fixed rate that others can utilise.
For website owners and people who run their own business, it can be very useful to have such skills available at a much lower cost than if they went through an agency or had to hire someone.
8. Buy Some Bitcoin
This one is a little more speculative but could pay off handsomely in the long run.
Bitcoin – in case you are not familiar with it – is a form of digital currency that has a number of advantages to traditional currency. It allows you to transfer money directly between two parties, therefore cutting out the middle man such as banks, Paypal or Western Union. So for things like international money transfers, it can save a lot in fees and hassle.
Plus it’s not controlled by any bank, government or corporation and allows privacy in transactions.
Many people think it is the currency of the future and have been buying it up by the shedload. Hence its value has skyrocketed in recent years. If you had bought just $100 worth a few years ago it would now be worth over $100,000.
Some predict that this is just a bubble like the Tulip craze of the 17th Century, the Tech bubble of the early 2000’s or the property collapse of just a few years ago.
Others however point to the fixed quantity of Bitcoin, the increasing demand for it and its ever increasing adoption as a method of payment and say it could go to anything from $100,000 per Bitcoin to a million over the next 10 to 15 years.
Who knows which way it will go? Certainly it is a risk, but owning just a small amount of Bitcoin could pay off in the long term.
Plus there are plenty of other cryptocurrencies that are quite a bit cheaper now, such as Ethereum, Litecoin, Dash and others. So pocketing a small quantity of these could also reap dividends in the long term if cryptocurrencies do take off as some experts expect.
As we say, investing in cryptos is highly speculative and really your willingness to invest is probably defined by how likely it is you think for them to catch on and become mainstream currencies.
9. Sell Event Tickets from Home
The idea of selling tickets for concerts and sporting events tends to be associated with shady touts standing shiftily outside stadiums shouting “tickets” in your ear as you walk by.
Those days are seemingly coming to an end though with the popularity of sites like Seatwave, Stubhub and Viagogo, which allow you to legally buy and sell tickets online.
So if you can anticipate in advance what are likely to be the popular events and get in early before tickets have sold out, you could make some decent cash from buying and selling later.
10. Review Products Online
As we can atest, reviews are an important part of everyday life for businesses and people these days.
Before we book a holiday, buy a new gadget or visit a restaurant, we like to see reviews of what we are going for first to see whether other people liked it.
So for businesses too, having genuine reviews from real people can make a big difference to their sales. Sites like Usertesting and Slicethepie will therefore offer small rewards for people who do reviews.
11. Make a Profit Flipping Websites
One way of making some extra money is to buy websites, improve them in some way and then sell them on for profit.
You can view hundreds of websites for sale on sites like Flippa in just about every market niche. If you have skills in online marketing or can add some fresh content or products to a site, then you could increase its value.
Beware of some dodgy sites for sale though with fake traffic and sales stats. Make sure you do your due diligence and can genuinely verify the site is making how much they claim it is.
12. Set Up Your Own Website
As an alternative to buying other people’s websites and selling them on, you could build your own website instead.
These days there are lots of build-your-own-website tools like Wix, which means the barriers to entry are quite low.
Evidently you will need some way of making money through your site, whether it is selling products directly or through advertising via a platform such as Google’s Adsense.
But if you have an interest or hobby that you would enjoy writing about or promoting online, then setting up your own website could be a way of making some extra cash.
13. Rent Out Your Room or Home
There has been so much disruption in recent years of traditional industries – Uber and Lyft of the taxi industry, Amazon of firstly bookselling and then online retail, Tesla of the automotive industry and now we have Airbnb disrupting the hotel industry.
That’s been good news for us though, with the chance to rent out our rooms or homes to tourists and travelers on our own terms and for substantial profit.
Some people even derive their main income from it in popular tourist destinations and also get to meet lots of interesting new people – although there are a few horror stories as well!
But if you want to rent out just a room there are also sites like Easyroommate you can utilise.
And there is an article here on how to find the perfect airbnb accommodation.
14. Sell Your Stock Images
Fancy yourself a budding photographer? Well one way to make some extra money would be to sell your best pics on a site like Shutterstock.
It has over 150 million pictures on its site for people to purchase individually or as part of packages and has apparently paid out more than £500 million to its contributors.
If you can choose a popular sector like sports, cooking or health and fitness then you could find high demand for your pics. Bear in mind that these will need to be high quality though and not just quick snaps taken on your iPhone.
Shutterstock will pay you around 25 cents per download of your picture, so if your picture is downloaded regularly the earnings could add up nicely.
15. Earn Money From Your Shopping
You might not think that going shopping is an ideal way to make money, but in fact if you are going to buy something anyway, then using a cashback scheme can be a great way of getting something back for doing very little.
There are sites like Quidco.com or Top Cashback that will pay you up to 10% cashback on purchases.
Make sure you have adlock turned off though as otherwise these sites might not work.
16. Get Paid for Searching the Internet
Probably one of the easiest ways to make money online is to get paid for doing (virtually) nothing – i.e. just by searching the internet.
Sites like Qmee.com will reward you for installing their add-on to your browser and then the search results are likely to display some additional paid results alongside the normal ones.
Each result you click on has a potential reward. Most of these will just be pennies but as we keep saying – these can really add up!
17. Collect Regular Dividends
We have already described above the immense potential of the stock market as the ultimate wealth-generating machine, but did you know there is a way to improve upon the already substantial returns of long-term stock investing?
Yes, by investing in stocks that pay dividends you can not only see your wealth grow over time, but receive regular payments too for doing absolutely nothing. Pretty good, right?
Investment firm Eaton Vance showed that more than 50% of the annualized returns of the S&P 500 since 1960 has come from dividends. Investing in stocks not paying a dividend returned 4.1% annualized, where as those paying a dividend returned 10.1% per annum. Translation – dividends rock.
Some of the top dividend payers pay around 5% or 6%, which blows the socks off interest rates from the bank at the moment. Plus if you hold on and see some stock growth, plus reinvest some of the dividends, a few years later those dividends can rocket and soon you can start seeing some hefty payments coming in.
You could write a whole book about dividend investing (indeed, many have), but a good place to start is Simply Safe Dividends, which has a wealth of savvy advice on the best dividend stocks.
18. Buy and Sell Goods Online
An old favourite that has been around for a long time, buying and selling goods online is known generally through sites like eBay.
Some of the best opportunities may be in buying limited editions of various things, whether it be Lego sets, Disney films or other well-known collectibles. These can increase significantly in value over time and yield a healthy profit.
Make sure you do your research first though and know the buying and selling prices of various items so you don’t lose out.
19. Do Some “Clickwork”
Another method that focuses on doing certain tasks for businesses, Clickworker.com is a site that pays you to complete large-scale jobs such as the creation of texts, data categorisation, copy editing, proof reading and web research.
Whilst some of these tasks can be a little monotonous such as data entry, there is generally not a shortage of work to be done. Payment is normally via Paypal.
20. Become Your Own Bank
With the internet has come the opportunity to participate in a whole new variety of industries, one of which is banking through what is called “peer to peer lending.”
Through sites such as Funding Circle and Zopa you can join thousands of other people who operate as lenders, providing as much funding as they choose to businesses or individuals searching for credit.
There is some risk in this as returns are not guaranteed, but this can be mitigated by spreading risk across a wide range of applicants, who are credit checked.
Returns typically average between 5% and 6%.
21. Make Youtube Videos
Online videos are now becoming almost as popular as regular internet searches and that means there is money to be made from them.
On Youtube you can set up your own channel and then advertisers can pay to feature on your channel. You receive a certain amount per 1,000 hits on one of your videos, so you do need a fair amount of interest to make money from this.
The idea is to target popular sectors like films, music, cars, TV and so on. If you can make videos that are funny, interesting, thoughtful or different then you may be able to catch people’s attention.
And of course if you happen to have a great voice then you might be the next Ellie Goulding waiting to be discovered…
22. Sell Your Old CDs, Games and DVDs
We all probably have some old CDs, games, DVDs and the like lurking around in some boxes, right?
Well rather than let them gather (even more) dust, why not give them a wipe down and put them on Amazon Marketplace or Preloved and make some extra cash from them.
There’s probably plenty of other “clutter” lying around in the garage that could be worth something. Who knows, you may even have an old antique or two that could fetch a hefty fee at auction…
23. Earn Income from Refer-a-Friend Schemes
There are so many refer-a-friend schemes in operation now that you probably have them available for a range of things you are a customer of. Gyms are a popular one with refer-a-friend schemes.
Other sites offering them include Virgin Media, Giffgaff, Sky, Next, Nationwide, Hays and American Express.
You don’t have much to lose by referring a friend to these services and if they decide to take up the offer, then you are quids in!
24. Buy and Sell Footballers
Now of course we don’t mean this literally – unless your name happens to be Kia Joorabchian of course.
No, what we mean is that you can join a site like Footstock which allows you to trade digital cards on footballers and enter them in fantasy football contests to win prizes. So if you think a player is going to do well in the fantasy contests then his value is likely to go up and you can trade the cards based on your view of which ones represent the best value.
25. Sell Your Old Phone
Most of us have at least one old phone lying around in a draw somewhere at home. There are plenty of companies that will pay for old mobile phones, and not just the newer smartphones but some of the older models as well.
Check out sites like Mazumamobile and Musicmagpie to see how much you could get for your old phone.
Now some of the old models are becoming collectors items again like the Nokia 3310, so you could do even better if you have one of those by going to sites like eBay.
26. Trade Website Domains
A domain is the address of a website and good ones can be worth quite a lot.
Gone are the days however of buying up the domain of a well-known brand like coca-cola and then demanding they pay you big bucks to purchase the domain from you, as some people did in the early days of the internet.
Firstly, all the brands and well-known names are taken now and secondly it’s not actually allowed anymore.
That doesn’t mean you can’t still find some good, interesting domain names that others could want. Most single-word domains are now gone, but two-word ones still hold promise.
You can purchase domain names cheaply at Godaddy.com, 1and1.co.uk and you can even buy and sell domains on Flippa.com, which will also give you a good idea of what various domains are worth.
27. Earn Income by Reviewing Music
We all enjoy listening to some tunes now and then, but how cool would it be to earn some income by ranking the sounds of new and up-and-coming bands?
Well you can do just that through a site called Slicethepie. The earnings may not be very significant – up to around £30 or £40 per month – but if you enjoy it then you’re getting paid for something you like doing anyway!
28. Become a Network Marketer
This one is a little more complicated and requires a bit more work, but can be quite rewarding if you get it right.
Network marketing works by you both selling products yourself and also recruiting other people to sell those products as well.
You earn commissions from the products you sell but also receive a share of commissions from those you recruit too. Some schemes will even pay you a small commission of those recruited by the people you recruit and so on.
It should be noted these are different from pyramid or Ponzi schemes, which are illegal.
Network Marketing is legitimate because you are selling a real product and so are those you are recruiting – it is just a method of creating a network of sellers.
29. Report Derelict Properties
A bit of an outsider this one but could be very profitable if you get lucky.
A website called Youspotproperty will pay you if you spot an empty or derelict property in your neighbourhood that meet their criteria.
They will give you £20 up front in Amazon Vouchers if the property fits their bill, plus 1% of the purchase price if they go on to develop it.
That could be thousands depending on the location and type of property. Indeed, apparently the highest payment so far has been over £8,000. Not bad for taking a quick snap of an old building is it!
30. Earn Cash for doing Market Research
Finally we have a website called Streetspotr that will pay you for completing simple market research tasks.
These tasks are called “location based jobs” and could be anything from checking product information at supermarkets to taking a photo of your high street.
The amount paid per job ranges between £5 and £15 generally and you will need a smart phone to carry out the tasks. If you are out and about near a high street then it will be easier to complete more of the tasks.
