I used to make a lot of money online. Blogging, freelance writing, email marketing, writing eBooks; you name it and I did did it. This was very profitable for many years. Write an article that ranks well in search engines, let organic traffic roll in, watch the money flow. Having articles that make $16/month, $230/month, and $400/month might not seem like much on their own. But pen 20 – 40 of these and your profits start adding up. Unfortunately, this model is on the way out. Google has changed their policies over the past two years, and many affiliate programs are cutting their commissions. And that doesn’t even factor in YouTube or social media sending long-form content the way of the dodo. In 2020 blogging is dead. Or at least it’s not very lucrative to get into.
There’s no sense in blogging if you’re new to the Internet money game.
Instead, this article lays out several newer, and better, systems for making money online.
1. Social Media Marketing
One of the biggest issues with blogging and building a web presence is the sheer amount of time and technical capacity required. You need to build your site, host web pages, learn SEO, format images, and a whole bunch of other stuff that adds up over time. While none of these skills are particularly challenging, they do take a lot of effort.
What’s more, your sites are often at the mercy of bigger web entities like Google or your hosting service. If Google decides to change how they index things, you’re in trouble. In fact, I’ve lost thousands of dollars through SEO tweaks which dropped once popular articles and sales pages from their top position. Blogging and building niche sites are, without exaggeration, a dying field. Long-form content is going away, and social media is taking its place.
Most people spend their time watching YouTube or scrolling social media. They like quick, punchy content, not long, text-heavy articles.
As such, you want to go where the money is.
With blogging, it takes a lot of work before you ever reach a milestone like 100 readers per day. This takes minutes on social media. One good post and you’re earning 10,000 views in a single afternoon.
This is great for both building a following and making money. You can write a popular Tweet or make or well-ranked YouTube video, and then plug an affiliate link or sell your own product to the viewers. Best of all, you don’t need any technical skills like coding or knowing web design. Twitter or Facebook does the heavy lifting for you, letting you focus on getting traffic instead.
No start-up costs, no technical barriers, and a huge untapped market. What’s not to love?
Blogging is dead, making money online is not.
If you want to jump into the Twitter game, but know nothing about affiliate programs or sales, check out Affilorama. This is a fully immersive guide to selling online, and it walks you through all the steps to becoming a successful marketer.
2. Buying Assets (Warren Buffett Style)
We can sit here and talk about stocks and Bitcoin all-day. There are plenty of charts and graphs I can show you showing why these are good investments. But I’m not going to waste your time. Instead, here’s direct advice from a verified multimillionaire.
Cash loses value, assets build wealth. And while there are certainly a lot of ways to invest, I personally recommend dividend stocks and interest generating crypto currencies.
Between BlockFi (check it out here) and dividend stocks, I’ll make five-figures in passive income this year alone. And that’s all from investments that I purchased once, and never touched again. Heck, I’ll pick up $200+ over the next three days alone. That’s not baller money, but it is a week’s worth of rent or groceries.
If you want to jump aboard the passive dividend train, I highly recommend Top Dividend Stocks. This is a great resource for finding stable investments with high-yielding cash payouts. If you’re interest in making thousands of dollars per year off big, without blogging, email marketing, or having to learn a technical skill, give Top Dividend Stocks a look.
3. Playing Poker / Gambling
When he was a boy, H.L. Hunt grabbed a sleeping bag and a deck of cards before running away from home. He traveled around the country playing poker, turning $100 into $100,000. Hunt then used this money to buy property and drill for oil, eventually becoming the 8th richest man in America.
Why is this story important?
Because there is a lot of money to be made gambling, if you know what you’re doing.
While poker and sports betting are no longer the goldmines they were a few years ago, anyone with decent math skills can skill support themselves anywhere in the world. And, you can often find “can’t lose” situations if you pay attention. Case in point, this year several casinos offered a 20% return for anyone who bet that Donald Trump would be nominated for a second term as president.
In other words, you could bet $1,000 and pick up an easy $200.
Likewise, poker can offer good returns if you’re disciplined. Top online poker players can make $1 million or more in a year (though that’s at an elite level). While more casual players can make anywhere from $15,000 – $50,000.
That’s enough to fund most your travels.
As a competitive poker player (but not someone who does it professionally), I can safely say that this is one of the more fun and engaging ways to make money. Plus, you’ll sometimes hit a massive windfall which can cover all your bills or expenses for months to come.
If you’re interested in betting on sports or playing poker, I recommend checking out Nitrogen Sports. Make sure you’re legally allowed to use this site, but if you are it is a fantastic place for making bets or winning card games.
Final Thoughts
Blogging is dead, but there are plenty of other ways you can make a living online. Whether you’re affiliate marketing through social media, buying investment grade assets, or playing poker, there are plenty of ways to earn money from anywhere in the world.
If you have no skills at all right now, I suggest starting with the following. Join Affilorama and start by selling other people’s products. Then, roll some of your profits into dividend stocks to collect extra cash flow each month. These two actions alone are enough to get you started on your quest to location independent financial freedom.