3 ways to make money online when you have nothing to sell

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Some people are great at selling, but they have a hard time coming up with business ideas. The thing is that, when you haven’t got anything to sell of your own, you can dedicate yourself to selling third-party products and services. This is commonly known as affiliate marketing.

Some companies pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars for each lead or customer you bring them. 

Shopify is the latest company to join this space, but this time allowing people to sell products from any of their merchants. This means a huge catalog of brands and products that you could sell has just opened. Some of them are incredibly popular and aren’t available anywhere else.

There are different ways to do this, but it all comes down to one thing: you need to be able to capture an audience. Generate interest. Get clicks and views. You need to master that.

Let’s see how some founders are making money with this business model:

#1. SEO

The oldest trick in the book. A method that has been used by people since the early days of the internet to make some money.

Basically, you need to create a website and fill it with content that is relevant to the product so Google likes it and can reach high-ranking positions. So simple and yet so complex at the same time. For some keywords and topics, competition can be fierce.

This guy went from making some extra money with affiliate websites to building a $360K/year business. It’s a great case study because it provides so much detail about the process of launching an affiliate website.

More examples:

• This business reached $120/year getting leads for law firms

• This blogger makes $84K/year thanks to affiliates

• These friends have a website portfolio that generates $840K/year in profit

#2. YouTube

Same exact strategy, but in this case you depend on a different algorithm, and the type of content you need to create is video.

The best thing about YouTube is that it’ll suggest your content to users, and it’ll push it even harder if thinks they like it.

If you want to learn how to make money with a YouTube channel, you need to read this guy’s story. Started vlogging for fun and now makes $25K/month. How? If focused on a super niche topic.

More case studies to learn from:

• This couple capitalized on their audience and started a $12M/year skincare brand

• This guys profits $500K/year (no employees)

• This guy makes $72K/year sharing shopping advice and product reviews 

#3. Instagram

This one is slightly different because it doesn’t rely on people proactively searching for something. To make money with this, you first need to build an audience and keep them engaged regularly so that when you post about a product you know they’ll see your post.

Because of that, and the highly unpredictable algorithm and feed changes, very few people solely rely on Instagram.

The story of this content creator who was able to quit her 9 to 5 job and now makes $48K/year is very illustrative, and a very realistic path you could follow.

Another example is this pregnancy and postpartum fitness trainer that makes $18K/year. I love how niche this idea is, by the way.

(1) This designer cat furniture brand generates over $300K per month. Anyone who puts time, money, and effort into having a nicely decorated home doesn’t want to buy an ugly bed for its pet to ruin it all. That’s the niche this founder aims to conquer. And they’re doing so well that they raised $2M from one of Reddit's founders (among others).

The pet industry is great because it offers the possibility of starting lots of different money-making businesses:

• Onesies for dogs -> $840K/year

• Pets paintings -> $42K/year

• Dog treats baking course -> $396K/year

(2) This self-care business reached $10K/month in less than a year. People want to look good, that’s a fact. And they also want to feel good. After two years of a global pandemic, we’re now unapologetic about it.

Personal care is definitely on the rise and the number of founders capitalizing on this trend is growing:

• This couple started a $360K/year massage therapy clinic

• This founder has just launched a ‘Spotify for clothes’ to help guys shop online

• This professional cuddler makes $108K/year