21 Legitimate Ways to Make Your First Dollar Online

Making money online isn’t a myth; it’s a reality for millions. With the internet at our fingertips, countless opportunities await those ready to take the plunge.

In this article, you’ll learn about how to make your first dollar online.

We’ll exploring a lot of legitimate ways to make money online. If you’ve never made a single dollar online, this article will help you find your way.

But, before you start, understand that it’s certainly possible to build a solid business online.

In fact, people have made millions online and are still making money. While it might seem a bit challenging at first, it’s a fun and enjoyable journey that really pays off.

All the following ideas are legit, easy, and safe ways of making money.

So let’s dive into the virtual world of earning, where flexibility meets opportunity, and discover how you can turn your online efforts into real-world profits.

TABLE OF CONTENTS (Click to expand)

1. Learn Affiliate Marketing Skills

Affiliate marketing is the process of making a commission by promoting other people’s products or services online. In other words, you have to sell someone else’s product or services in order to generate a commission from it.

The best thing about affiliate marketing is that you don’t need to own a product. All you need is the right set of skills and knowledge.

Affiliate marketing is the most popular way to make money online.

You simply find a product that may be useful for your audience, recommend it, and get a percentage of profit whenever you make a sale.

The best part?

It doesn’t cost anything extra for the buyer. Still, you get credit for the sale.

And, that’s how affiliate marketing works.

The idea is simple but extremely powerful. It has the potential to make you a millionaire. Because there’s no limit to how much you can sell.

So how to find affiliate products that you can promote?

There are many ways.

The most popular ones are:

Look for affiliate programs for the software or apps you use
Search Google for affiliate programs in your preferred niche
Join some popular affiliate networks

Almost every online businesses have their own affiliate program or referral program. They obviously want more customers.

Your job is to find the one you believe you can promote. Make a plan to promote it and work on your plan. It’s as simple as that.

Finding an affiliate program is pretty simple.

Just do a Google search with the name of what you want to promote with the keyphrase “affiliate”. Hit enter and you’ll find them.

To make it more convenient, you can find some of the best affiliate networks and join. An affiliate network is a network of thousands of merchants that offer affiliate programs. You can join such networks and promote all the affiliate products listed on their platform. Signing up for an account is usually free.

An account will allow you to promote any product in that network.

Here are some popular affiliate networks:

ClickBank
ShareASale
Amazon Associates
CJ Affiliate
FlexOffers
Rakuten Marketing

While some networks may not allow you to promote every product of your choice, you’ll usually find lots of products available to you to promote.

My favorite affiliate network is ClickBank.

It’s one of the best affiliate marketplaces for promoting digital products online. There are hardly any restrictions or approval processes before you decide to promote their products. They mostly pay 50% to 75% commission which is huge.

You’ll usually make $30 to $50 for every sale.

If you just make a plan to get a few sales per day, it’s not difficult to make your first thousand dollars online. That’s how people are making $$$.

It may seem difficult for a beginner.

But, trust me it’s not.

The best way I have found to promote ClickBank products is to create a blog and start writing about these products. Let people know how a particular product can help them. You can create a review blog reviewing affiliate products.

In fact, you can start a blog in any niche of your choice. There are lots of categories. You should be able to find a suitable product to promote.

Don’t know how to start a blog?

Click Here for Step-by-Step Blog Building Guide for Beginners.

There is absolutely no limit to how much money you can earn and there are thousands of affiliate programs available online.

Pretty amazing, right?

See below how much the Hostgator affiliate program is offering …

Hostgator is one of the most popular web hosting companies and they are ready to pay you $2,625 for 21 qualified signups within a month.

Obviously, the more you can refer, the more you earn.

This website, I mean Digital Millions, is also powered by HostGator hosting.

Do you know how much it costs to sign up?

$2.75 per month using this link.

You can sometimes make the price even more attractive with special promo codes that you can generate in their affiliate backend.

Joining is free.

So it obviously makes getting sign-ups much easier and faster. So how many signups do you need to make $10,000 in a month? Just 80.

Don’t say it is difficult.

We are not talking about making a few dollars here. It’s about making thousands of dollars. It’s a big game and trusts me you can play it. There are thousands of affiliate programs on the internet waiting for you.

Don’t just wait and watch.

All you need is confidence and the right techniques.

It was just an example to show you what’s possible with affiliate marketing. There are people making millions online only from affiliate marketing.

As a beginner, you can opt for affiliate marketing training.

Top 3 Best Affiliate Marketing Training:

Usually, it will take a few months to see your first dollar. But when it starts, it usually continues for years to come if you follow the right techniques.

A bold promise, right?

But, it’s definitely possible if you have a proper plan and follow the right strategies. Just be patient and work hard. You’ll see results soon.

It’s just the beginning of your success story.

If you are not convinced yet, check out this guy who is making more than $100,000 per month just from affiliate marketing.

So, the basic concept is simple. Join an affiliate network. Choose a useful product you feel you can promote, and start earning dollars.

The next method on my list is Blogging.

Read: 10 Best Affiliate Marketing Courses

2. Start Blogging

You can start blogging for dollars. The idea of building websites or blogs to make money is very common online. In fact, blogging is very profitable and can generate millions.

Many people start this and give up in the beginning because it takes time to earn money from blogging.

But, it doesn’t take months.

You get your first money in just a few days if you follow the right methods. Of course, there are lots of ways to make money with blogging.

Using affiliate products, selling your own product, or doing paid reviews are some of the many ways to make money from blogs.

You can either create a website or a blog to make money.

That’s your choice how you want to start.

There are a few differences between a website and a blog. A blog is surely a website. But a website may not always be a blog.

But, here’s the thing:

I would suggest you start a blog as it is much easier and gives you almost the same benefits in terms of making money online.

There are tons of benefits of blogging:

Make money online
Use as an affiliate marketing foundation
Become a better writer
Learn to express yourself
Build an audience online

The good news?

I can even help you get your blog set up absolutely free. Yes, that’s right. And, it can be a highly profitable choice if you can make it popular.

And let’s be clear…

How much money you would make depends mostly on the amount of traffic or visitors your blog receives on a monthly basis.

More traffic usually means more money. So you must make it a goal to get more quality traffic to your blog or website.

Want to know how to make money blogging?

There are plenty of ways.

Usually, the money comes from paid advertisements, affiliate commissions, or selling your own products directly through your blog.

There are 5 simple steps involved in starting a blog:

Choose a topic/niche
Buy web hosting
Buy a domain name
Set up your blog/configure it
Write your first blog post and all the next ones

With a little brain and some basic computer knowledge, you are well on your way to starting a blogging business.

Maybe you’ve heard about the “Internet Wealth Expert”, Pat Flynn.

He started from scratch and now he makes $80,000 per month from his online business. So what’s he doing that makes it so profitable? He is making money with affiliate marketing and blogging.

There are thousands of great examples of people who made millions of dollars from blogging and achieved financial success.

So why not you?

Get your blog online today. You can start at only $2.49/month with one of affordable web hosting providers, such as Hostinger or Milesweb.

Need help in starting your blog?

Check out our most comprehensive beginner’s guide to blogging.

There are bloggers making millions of dollars online. Right now is the right time to get your blog online. The more you wait, the more you are left behind.

3. Make Money with YouTube Videos

Similar to blogging, you can also make money from YouTube videos.

It’s called vlogging. Vlog stands for a video blog or video log and refers to a type of blog where most or all of the content is in a video format.

It’s easy to do and not as difficult as it may sound.

You just need a decent camera or webcam, some video editing software and you’re all set to make your first video. One of my favorites, I recommend is Flexclip.

YouTube is one of the biggest and most popular video-sharing sites on the planet. You’ll find videos related to almost every topic…

Even if you are not making money online, you can make videos and upload them on YouTube as a part-time home business.

Of course, the goal is to make money from your YouTube channel. Luckily for you, there are a lot of ways to monetize your videos.

Some popular ways include:

In-video ads.
Sponsorship.
Advertisements on the videos or channel.

You can also make money by selling your own products on your video blog which is a great way to start an online business.

So, if you can create good quality interesting videos that people would like to watch again and again, you can upload your videos on YouTube.

There are many other online video-sharing sites available. But YouTube is the most popular. So I would recommend targeting the YouTube audience.

Just create a YouTube channel and upload useful videos that you create. Build your audience gradually. Promote your videos online. As long as you create interesting videos, people would subscribe to your channel.

Slowly you would build an audience on YouTube. You would also start getting organic traffic from Google or other search engines.

Now you are ready to apply for the YouTube partnership program.

It pays well and is definitely a residual source of income.

Apart from getting paid from ads on your YouTube videos, you can also use these videos to market your blog, if you have one.

4. Sell eBooks Online

Assuming that you are a good writer, you can easily make money by writing an eBook and selling it online. If you have good knowledge of a particular subject and you can write, start writing an eBook right now.

It’s highly profitable and it doesn’t take a very long time to create it.

You can sell your eBook on Amazon Kindle.

Just write an interesting, informative, and unique Kindle book on a profitable topic. Publish it on Amazon Kindle. Let it stay there for a couple of days so that people can start buying it. That’s a good way to start making your first dollars online.

Well, Amazon is not the only site to sell ebooks.

Once you have completed an ebook, you can sell it using Payhip, Lulu, Amazon Kindle, eBay, Smashwords, Booktango, E-Junkie, and a lot more.

You can join any of these sites and sell your eBooks.

These sites usually charge 10% to 40% royalty and the rest is yours.

With some sites, you can even start an affiliate program for your eBooks. As a result, affiliates do all the work and you get the money.

But you have to market your eBook effectively at the beginning.

If you work hard on this method, it’s not very difficult to build a continuous source of residual income of over $10,000 dollars a month.

It may take some time, but if you can write good quality eBooks and market them in the right way, there is no reason why you can’t make a lot of money from eBooks. Multi-vendor marketplaces like Gumroad allow you to set up your own profile with your books for free and earn money when your books are sold.

E-marketplaces allow you to upload complete eBooks and sell them for a set price or a percentage of the sale price.

You can even sell ebooks on your blog and keep all the profit.

Selling eBooks is an easy way to make money online with blogs. But you should also market your product in a smart way.

Books are the best-selling products on all e-marketplaces. So this is definitely one of the best ways to make your first dollar online.

So, what are you waiting for?

Set up your blog now and write an ebook. It will take some hard work at the beginning of your blogging journey. But once you get that initial set of traffic, it’s not difficult to get more targeted traffic for your blog.

Once your blog starts getting some authority and receives lots of organic search engine traffic, start using ebooks to generate some profit.

To summarize: Blog about a profitable topic. Write an eBook and add it to your blog. Upload the eBook on e-markets like Payhip or Gumroad and start selling it.

Read: The 7 Best Online Platforms to Sell Digital Products

5. Email Marketing for Money

Email marketing is a great way to get highly targeted traffic to your blog.

Once you have a list of subscribers, you can have a more personal conversation with your readers and build a relationship with them.

Your email list can be the best source of making more money from blogging or ecommerce businesses. Of course, you need to nurture this list by providing valuable content and offers at first. To get started, do whatever it takes to get a subscriber’s email address, even if you have to pay for it.

To manage your email list, you can use an email marketing tool.

Also, you have to build an email list. You can sign up with Aweber, GetResponse, Mailchimp, or any other email marketing services.

I recommend Moosend.

Moosend is absolutely free for up to 1000 contacts. To learn more about Moosend, you should read my Moosend review here.

Now, how to get people to subscribe to your email list?

Write a small eBook on a topic related to the products you will be promoting.

Make the title interesting and let people download the eBook as long as they subscribe to your email list. You can make a squeeze page or an attractive landing page to promote this eBook.

All the popular email services providers have this landing page feature to give away an eBook for subscribing to an email list.

More than 99% of people don’t usually unsubscribe after downloading an eBook. Once you have a big list of email addresses, you can directly contact them and promote any product. If they purchase, you’ll get your dollars.

This is the best way to make your first dollar online in a new niche or when you don’t have any website. As long as you can write good-quality eBooks and promote them, this can prove to be a wonderful source of income for you.

6. Dropshipping/Ecommerce

You may have never heard of the term Dropshipping. So let me start with the exact definition of what drop shipping really is.

Dropshipping is a retail fulfillment method where a store doesn’t keep the products it sells in stock. Instead, when a store sells a product, it purchases the item from a third party and has it shipped directly to the customer.

In this business model, the customer will never know that you never had the product in the first place. Basically, you sell a product you don’t have.

That’s why I call it a high-profit business.

Without any investment, you can start dropshipping today and begin making money online. The benefit of this business model is that you don’t need a huge investment to keep stocks of the items you want to sell. As a result, you have a very low upfront cost to start a dropshipping business.

Just build a WordPress website. Install an ecommerce plugin (I recommend woo-commerce) and launch your site. Next, you have to find a reliable provider or wholesaler who can supply the products you want to sell.

To start your dropshipping business, I recommend you, two suppliers:

Alibaba and SaleHoo.

You can also go with other suppliers, but in my experience, Alibaba and SaleHoo have been very reliable. Both offer dropshipping and wholesale services for a wide range of products from different niches.

A very important thing to note is that you will have to put some effort into getting customers. You need to market the products you are selling.

You have to proactively promote your site using paid ads or any other methods. Whenever you make a sale, purchase the item from a third-party seller and get it shipped directly to your customer’s address.

If done right, this business model can earn you a 6-figure income every single year. In fact, thousands of people are currently doing this business at scale.

This is E-commerce.

Ecommerce refers to any kind of business which is operated online. Ecommerce usually refers to businesses selling physical products, not digital products. But, it can also work with digital products with no issues.

You can do it too! Just take action now!

7. Create Digital Products

Selling digital products online is one of the best ways to make your first dollar and start making money online. You can create any type of digital product like eBooks, videos courses, webinars, and so on.

A digital product is anything that doesn’t have a physical presence and can be sold through the internet medium.

Most commonly known digital products include:

E-books
Online Courses
Digital Graphics
Videos (usually tutorial videos)
Stock Photography
Webinars

There can be many other things that are digital.

The point is that none of these items have any physical presence. But still, they can be valuable to the buyer.

If you can create any of these products, you can sell them online.

Digital products last forever and will never go out of stock. Digital products can be delivered to the buyer instantly. And it has low overhead costs. So obviously, there cannot be a better type of product to sell online.

Anybody with good ideas can develop digital products and sell them online. Unlike dropshipping, you have to create your own digital products.

The best part of selling digital products is the huge profit margin. Once you have developed a product you can sell it for any price. There are no manufacturing costs and other overheads involved in selling digital products.

You can sell your digital products on Amazon, eBay, Clickbank, or your own website or blog. I recommend that you start with a blog.

Create a blog and get it ready. You can create your own website or blog and get hosting from HostGator. Next, get a domain name from GoDaddy.

Later you have to install WordPress on your site and get the desired theme.

Now, it’s time to create a product. I recommend you start with either an e-book, which is easy to create and market online.

If you know about any digital graphics, create a graphics pack and sell it through eBay. Or create videos and upload them to YouTube.

When you have a digital product, the possibilities are endless.

You can earn a fortune from your digital products if you know how to do it right. So, if you can create your own digital product, just do it.

And, of course, start making some money online.

8. Copywriting / Writing Contents

Google ranks websites based on the content quality of a webpage. And it will continue to be like this for years to come. The best way to get traffic is through search engines. And the single most important thing for any website or blog is quality content. Without it, the site has no value.

When you create high-quality content, your site gets indexed by Google and other search engines faster than low-quality sites.

This means that a higher ranking in Google results in more traffic to your site, which means more money.

In simple words, Google and other search engines reward pages with higher-quality content than those pages with low-quality content.

When it comes to website ranking, the number of content matters less than the quality of content. This means that you can make more money by publishing high-quality articles on your blog or website. And, you will make even more money by producing high-quality articles in large quantities.

But, there is a problem.

You can write articles yourself, but it takes time.

It’s better if you can hire writers from Fiverr or Upwork or any other place. With outsourcing for content, you don’t have to spend time doing it yourself. Outsourcing content can earn you a lot of money faster and save you time.

And, that’s why writers are always in high demand. If you are an excellent writer who can write high-quality articles, there’s a huge demand.

As I said, the internet is hungry for new content always.

So your job, as a good writer, is to fulfill this need in exchange for money. You can earn thousands of dollars by only writing online.

You have 2 options. You can either create a content site (blog) and get paid for advertisements or write for others who need your writing skills.

If you are a really good writer, you should go with the first choice. But if you are not an excellent writer or want quick cash, it’s better to go with option number 2. You can easily make money from writing online as a beginner. To get started with either method, you only need a well-optimized blog and good writing skills.

Click here for a list of websites that will pay you to write articles.

9. Shortlinks Promotions

There are a few link shortener services that pay their members to shorten links and then share them online. A URL shortening service is basically a service using which you can shorten a long link into a short one.

These services basically insert an advertisement in the shortened link. So whenever someone visits these shortened links, they are shown an advertisement before the actual content. And this is how these services pay their members.

The more people click on your shortened links, the more you earn as a member.

Some of the most popular link shortener services are Linkbucks, Adfly, etc. But there are many more other services that pay you for sharing your links. Just Google “link shortener” and you will find many such services.

If you use these services to shorten a link whenever you share anything online, you will slowly build a solid residual income source.

Because whenever someone visits your link, you get paid.

The more visits you get, the more money you make. It’s a continuous process and builds up your income slowly.

If you have a blog or a website with decent traffic, these link shorteners can earn you a lot of money. All you have to do is share your links.

When someone visits your shortened link, you get paid.

Though there are many alternatives available, I suggest you Sign Up for the Za.gl shortener. It is a legitimate website and quite popular in this market. I have written a comprehensive article about how you can make money from Za.gl shortener. You can read it.

10. Freelance on Fiverr

Fiverr is one of the most popular online marketplaces where you can make money by doing simple tasks. This is one of the best ways to make your first dollar online. You can offer your services for 5 bucks at Fiverr. Well, it can be more than 5 bucks if you choose to charge more. So, if you want to sell your skills, Fiverr is the best place to start.

People with a wide range of skills work on Fiverr – from copywriting to designing, from singing to coding – you name it and Fiverr has people for that.

All you have to do is go to Fiverr, register yourself, and create your account. While registering, you need to make sure you give the right information about yourself so that people buy your gigs (services) with full trust.

After creating an account, you can start offering your services by posting a gig on Fiverr. You need to choose the desired category for your gig and write what you can do. The more detailed your gig is, the better response you will get.

The best part of selling on Fiverr is that you get paid promptly. You don’t need to wait for weeks or months after selling something. They directly deposit your money in your PayPal account. However, there are certain rules and policies that you need to follow to be able to withdraw your money.

Most importantly, there’s a waiting period of 14 days before your money is released for you to withdraw.

But, that shouldn’t be a problem.

So, if you have a special skill or talent that would benefit others, Fiverr is the best place to sell your skills for money.

This is absolutely free to start with Fiverr.

Just set up a free account, create a gig and wait for new orders to come. It’s that simple.

Join Fiverr FREE & Start Earning

Read: 22 Beginner-Friendly Easy Fiverr Gigs to Cash In On

11. Resell SEO Online

SEO or search engine optimization services is one of the most required services every website needs to improve its visibility online. Companies or entrepreneurs who have an online presence always need to hire someone who can help them get higher rankings in the search engines.

If you are good at SEO, it’s one of the best ways to make your first dollar online. All you have to do is find websites that are looking for SEO services and offer your help. But wait! You can do it even if you are not good at SEO.

You can resell SEO services provided by others.

There are many white hat SEO services that will let you resell their services to your own clients and keep your profits.

I recommend the following services:

SEO Reseller
The Hoth
Over The Top SEO
Submit Core

All of these sites provide various different types of SEO-related services like guest posting, backlink building, citation building, content writing, and so on. So, you can go ahead and contact them if you want to resell their services.

These websites provide white label SEO reports with each order. It means that there will be absolutely no branding, no logos, and no phone numbers.

So you can get your own clients and use these services to fulfill the orders. Your clients will never know that you did not do the job (You are just a middleman). You can really make a fortune with high-demand SEO services.

Charge your clients higher than what you pay to these services for getting the orders fulfilled. Keep the balance as your profit.

It’s a powerful way to make your first dollar online.

Wondering how to start?

Just build a website about SEO services and promote the site online. As you get an order, just forward the order to them. It’s that simple.

Need help building such a site. Contact me! I’ll help you.

12. Make Money Flipping Domains

Flipping is basically buying something and then selling it for a profit. For example, if you buy an iPhone for $500 and sell it for $600, you made a profit of $100. This idea can be applied in many ways. Flipping is one of them.

Domain flipping is the same thing but with domains (website addresses).

You can buy any domain (~1 year old) that has good backlinks to it and then sell it for more than what you paid to buy it. The key here is to find a perfect domain name that can attract high traffic from search engines over time.

There are many places online where you can buy and sell domains such as:

Namecheap
Namejet
Godaddy
Sedo

As you may already know, there are many domain name providers where you can find the perfect domain names. You will only choose the right domains that have good backlinks and high potential to generate traffic in the future and then list them on the auction sites (e.g. Godaddy, Namejet).

Every day thousands of domains are being expired. The owners of these domains don’t renew as they don’t need them anymore.

You can buy these domains from domain providers. After purchasing a domain, you can resell it for a higher price.

You get the profit after it is sold.

This simple system is so powerful that it can easily turn $100 into $1000 or even more depending on how you promote your domain.

There are tons of ways to improve the value of a domain and get a 5X or 10X times return on the initial investment.

If you need help, contact me and I’ll guide you through this journey.

I strongly recommend that you check out my “Domain Flipping Blueprint”, which shows how to find domains with high potential, how to increase their value, and which tools you will need for the job.

And, finally, sell your domain at a higher price.

That’s it!

You can do this over and over again to make your first money online.

This is one of the best ways to make an extra income on the side as a beginner. It requires only a little bit of work on your part.

But, the profits are mind-blowing!

13. Make Money Flipping Websites

This is the same as flipping domains except you are selling websites instead of domain names, which I talked about earlier.

Well, there are many ways to make money with websites. You can sell them on any sites that buy and sell websites.

There are tons of services where people buy, sell and advertise websites, such as Flippa, GoDaddy, Sitepoint, Warrior Forum, etc.

You can also sell your website directly to a buyer.

However, I don’t recommend this option if you are just starting out with zero knowledge about building websites and making money online. That’s because it can be hard to get the first sale if you don’t have any experience.

Instead, you should choose the option where you buy a website from a safe marketplace (e.g Flippa) and resell it for a much higher price to the final buyer. This way is considered relatively safe. Most importantly, you need to know how to transfer the ownership of a website to someone else.

As you can see, the same flipping method works for websites too, not only with domains. You can just purchase a website that’s not ranking in search engines well in search engines, but has a good chance with a little development work.

The whole process is not very difficult as it may sound. This method works really well and you can even make thousands of dollars quickly.

14. Ghost Writing

If you are a good writer, you can provide writing services to people who are looking for writers. Ghostwriting is basically writing articles for which you don’t take the credit. But you get paid every time you write an article.

Ghostwriters make good money and they can also get royalties.

There are many freelance websites online (e.g Upwork, Freelancer) where you can find writing jobs and start making money fast.

However, you can also check out Fiverr, where you can sign up today and sell your services to more than 1.7M buyers on this platform.

I have been writing since I was a kid and ghostwriting is my favorite method of making money online. This is a very simple way to make money online fast as many people are always looking for good writers.

For good writers, the internet is full of writing opportunities. Remember, content writers are always in high demand online.

As a beginner, you can start with Fiverr. It’s a place where you can advertise yourself as a good writer. Just create a writing gig and once it gets approved by Fiverr, you are ready to get orders from all over the internet.

Thousands of people are making good money doing this every day. So, the future is bright for you if you are a good writer.

Well, if you are a good writer I strongly recommend that you start a blog and write about anything that people want to read. You can start making money by monetizing your blog and then publishing ads on it.

If you need money quickly, you can sell your writing skills, but if you want to make a lot of money and have some patience, you can start your own blog and write about something people really care about.

Blogging is the best job for writers because it requires creativity and you can write about anything that interests people and you.

To learn how to start a blog and make money online, click here.

15. Take Paid Online Surveys

There are a lot of paid survey sites online. These sites basically conduct surveys for market research and to improve a particular product or service.

The surveys are simple and easy and they pay pretty well. The best part about taking paid surveys is that you can make quick money online even if you have a full-time job. You don’t need to quit your day job in order to take paid surveys.

All you need to do is sign up with some survey sites and get paid for sharing your valuable opinion and some of your time.

Survey Junkie: Survey Junkie is one of the best online survey sites today. It has more than 3M members and a good number of top-paying surveys available every day. This website basically sends thousands of market research surveys to its registered members daily, and all you need to do is qualify for these surveys.

Survey Junkie sends you survey invitations via your email and it takes just 5-10 minutes to complete a survey. And when I say good money, Survey Junkie pays $1 per 2-3 minute survey. It means $4 or more every half an hour!

As a member, you get paid for the surveys you complete.

There are many more survey sites.

Click here if you wish to get a list of the best survey sites online.

But you have to be a qualified member before you start receiving many survey offers. I suggest you join Survey Junkie first, then other websites.

Basically, you will get survey offers depending on your profile. For example, you will get a lot of survey offers if you are an American male in your 50s.

It’s a very simple method to start making money online with no money. You can earn $200-300 extra every month by just taking paid surveys on the internet.

If you are interested, you can sign up for a few survey sites now. You must complete your profile just after you join each of the sites. It is very important. If your profile is not completed, you may lose survey offers.

As already mentioned, most survey offers come to you depending on your profile only. There are also many scam sites that ask for money before you join. Sign up for SurveyPolice as it can help you join only the legitimate ones.

So, in case you are after making your first dollars online, taking paid surveys is definitely a smart choice. It’s simple and easy to start.

16. Write Sponsored Tweets

Sponsored tweets are basically written to promote a particular service or product. If you are an active Twitter user and have good quality loyal followers, you can become a sponsored tweeter and start making good money online.

All you need to do is send paid tweets on Twitter for your clients and get paid according to the number of followers you have on Twitter.

Here, you make money just by tweeting a small marketing message.

Depending on the quality of your followers and how much they engage with your tweets, you can charge for each tweet.

To be honest, it’s not for everyone.

You have to make sure that you have a good number of loyal followers who engage with all your paid tweets in order to get the best results.

17. Make Money Uploading Files

Yes, you can make money by uploading your favorite files online. There are many file-sharing services online where you can upload your favorite files. You get paid when another user likes your file and downloads it.

These websites are called PPD (pay-per-download) sites.

The best part about making money with PPD websites is that you can make quick money online even when you are sleeping.

You don’t need to do hours of work for getting paid. All you have to do is upload files, get traffic, and let users download them. It means if your uploaded file is downloaded more, then you get paid more.

These sites pay for every download.

So, you can make good money if your uploaded files are popular among users and get more downloads on such file-sharing websites.

You get paid on a Pay-Per-Download basis.

The more files you upload, the more money you can earn.

Usually, we keep a lot of files on our computer or PC. Think about the files that can be helpful for others. Upload these files to these sites.

Whenever someone downloads your file, you earn.

Here’s a list of the best PPD sites you can check out now:

dlupload.com
userscloud.com
up-load.io
www.upload-4ever.com

So, if you want to make your first dollar by sharing your files, these sites are some of the best ones I strongly recommend that you check out. Getting an account doesn’t cost you anything and you can get started right now.

18. Become a Ghost Blogger

This is a little different from providing writing services.

Here you will have to write blog posts. There are hundreds of blogs that are looking for writers to help them update their blogs after a regular interval.

They are ready to pay you if you can help them do it.

You get paid according to the number of blog posts you write for them. You can get up to $20 for writing just one blog post. It can be more depending on how well you can write and what blog you are writing for.

All you need to do is find such blogs and send proposals. You will be getting paid every week or month depending on how often you’re writing.

If you want, you can also start your own blog.

Beginners are usually paid $20 for every 1000 words article.

It may not sound like a big amount, but if you do it regularly and on a long-term basis then it is good money.

Popular blogs look for good quality writers to update their blogs regularly. So if you consider yourself a good writer, you can apply for writing jobs at these blogs. A good place to find blogging jobs is the ProBlogger job board.

You can even search Google for blogging jobs. You can also visit Blogging Pro, Freelancer, Upwork, or Elance.

I have written an article about 10 legitimate websites that will pay you to write articles and you can get paid up to $100 for every article.

Don’t forget to check it out.

Read: 10 Legitimate Websites That Will Pay You to Write Articles

19. Make Money by Solving CAPTCHAS

Most people around the world are familiar with CAPTCHA.

Basically, it is an acronym that stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart.

What most of us don’t know is that you can actually make money solving these tests. Yes, there are several companies that provide such services and they pay you to solve CAPTCHAS. You will be paid between 0.02 dollars to 0.2 dollars per captcha. At present, the most popular captcha is reCaptcha 2 which pays about $1 for 500 captchas solved.

The best part about this is that it doesn’t require any special skills.

Anyone with typing skills can do it.

You get paid for every captcha you solve.

You need to pass a test before getting started, but after that, all you have to do is solve these tests and get paid.

Here are some of the best captcha entry job sites:

2Captcha
ProTypers
VirtualBee
MegaTypers
Kolotibablo

You can also test your skills with captcha-testing websites.

There are many of them which you can find on the Internet. These sites will pay you a small amount for every captcha solved by you, but it won’t be much compared to what the above-mentioned websites would offer you.

In short, this is one of the best ways to make your first dollar online.

So, go ahead and give it a try and thank me later.

20. Become a Virtual Assistant

If you don’t want to start an online business, but still make some good money, you can become a virtual assistant.

A virtual assistant is someone who can handle small to medium tasks for their clients remotely. Anyone can become a virtual assistant. It offers a great opportunity to stay at home and work for someone else’s dream business.

All you need is the Internet and some computer skills.

So, if you think you can handle tasks like social media marketing, online research, data entry, etc., then this is an ideal job for you.

What I like the most about this job is that you can do it from home.

There is no special education or certification necessary to become a virtual assistant. You just have to prove that you can do the work.

You can find some part-time virtual assistant jobs for you on Fiverr, VirtualVocations, Upwork, and Freelancer. You will be paid according to the number of tasks you accomplish and how much your clients like your work.

This is another best way of making money online that won’t require any initial investment. So, you can try it and see if it suits your skills.

21. Make Money with PTC Sites

PTC sites are also called Paid-to-Click sites and these sites should help you make your first dollars online quite easily.

You get paid to view advertisements. It all starts with advertisers who want customers for their products and services. Every new website is not so popular that it can get enough visitors to attract new customers.

A PTC site helps these advertisers to get customers by showing their advertisements to its members.

As a result, advertisers pay them and they pay you as long as you click on these ads. Obviously, you can’t expect to earn a lot here.

But it can be possible with a lot of referrals.

Each PTC site has a referral program where you can earn every time one of your referrals clicks ads. You can expect to earn hundreds of dollars from PTC sites as long as you have a large number of referrals.

Read this article to see how you can make $100+ from the Neobux PTC site.

To be frank, there are many more ideas you can create through your imagination. It’s usually considered difficult to make money online.

But It’s really NOT.

Most online businesses are easy to start and highly profitable as long as you build your reputation in the right way using the right methods.

So…

How to Make Your First Dollar Online?

Please understand that these methods are not for people who are looking for some fast money-making ideas or are in need of money right now. All of these businesses take time to build. So, don’t expect to earn much in the beginning.

Though some of these methods can generate money fast, I would suggest you understand the method first and how it works.

Don’t confuse yourself with hundreds of non-working ideas.

The methods described here are not going to make you rich quickly. But you can definitely find a suitable method that works for you.

All that’s left now is to put what you’ve here learned into action. That, and make some money of course.

And well, it’s been quite a ride…

But all good things must come to an end.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed it, I certainly enjoyed writing it.

I wish you the absolute best of luck in your future financial ventures and remember that it always seems impossible until it is done.

Hopefully, this article has provided you with a solid foundation to build upon. So now it’s time for you to shine and take control of your financial destiny.

Good luck!

I do understand that not everyone will be interested in any particular method, but if just one person reads this and makes their first dollar online because of it… then I’ll be really happy. I hope that this article has taught you something new and helped you make your first dollar online.

And, don’t forget to share this article if you find it helpful and useful. It really helps me to know that my work is appreciated by you.