It’s interesting seeing what kind of monetary goals people set for themselves when they go all-in trying to earn a living online.
Many first-timers set a very realistic and understandable benchmark: to replace the amount of money that they earn from their day job with their online earnings. Once they do this, they can finally walk up to their boss and tell them to kick rocks – then walk out the door to a life of setting their own hours and taking vacations whenever they want to.
This is a good place to start, but goal setting is important every step of the way, even if you have convinced yourself that it is time to put your feet up and relax.
So what should your pie-in-the-sky online earnings goal be? $5,000 per month? $8,000?
How does $10,000 sound? Hopefully, learning how to make 10000 a month is the kind of thing that gets you excited!
$10,000 is a pretty serious goal. Most affiliate marketers and Amazon FBA sellers won’t even sniff this kind of money, but we want to show you how it can be done so that you can put yourself in the best position to make this kind of money later down the road.
Don’t consider this a complete blueprint to success – the ball is in your court, and this will only be possible through a lot of hard work and growing your personal brand.
We have talked about all of these in past articles on the BrandBuilders blog, but the reason that we are listing them again here today is to show how they can work together effectively.
Online Income Strategies You Can Use to Make 10,000/month
All Streams Lead to the Ocean
Before we get too deep into our individual strategies, let’s talk a little about why they need to be used in a collaborative way.
We are promoting a strategy that goes beyond diversification. Diversification is usually spoken about in our circles as a way to make sure that you still have enough money to keep the lights on if one of your revenue streams fails.
We still want this to be the case, but we also want to ensure that these strategies work together as a part of your online income ecosystem. So, what does this mean exactly?
It means that if your earnings from one method increase, the others should be increasing as well. You should not be earning more from one at the expense of another.
As an example, if I start a blog that turns into a successful authority site in the minimal living niche, I might have income streams in affiliate marketing, display ads, and an e-book that I authored. If I see increased traffic to my website, I should be leveraging this into more display ad earnings, and promoting my e-book to new users by establishing an email list.
An example of how this isn’t done would be having a virtual consulting business for Amazon FBA sellers and an ecommerce store for vintage lamps (in addition to the minimal living website). None of these income streams can be leveraged to benefit the others, and I run the risk of being buried beneath my competing “side hustles.”
People who make money online do it by being picky about what they use their energy on. People who make $10 000 per month do this and more, because they sell themselves.
Keep this in mind as we explore our favorite methods!
Affiliate Marketing – Promoting Products and Building Authority
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that we are promoting affiliate marketing as our number one method to make money online, should it?
After all, BrandBuilders is only a business because affiliate marketing exists, and nothing gets us more excited than helping affiliate marketers get their start and smash their earnings goals.
But bear with me here, as I explain why you should still consider this method.
We consider affiliate marketing to be a cornerstone online income stream. It is important because it can bring in substantial monthly income on its own, but it also supports other methods too! Several content-based methods like becoming a featured author on Medium or building a YouTube channel can act in similar ways, but an affiliate site offers the unique advantage of ownership.
See, you can fully own an affiliate site, which can allow you to grow other methods like podcasting, online course selling, and more from it. And unless you torpedo your website into the ground, you have full ownership over all the content that you have created.
Hitting the $10 000 Target with Affiliate Marketing
Now, let’s talk about the feasibility of earning $10 000 per month with an affiliate site.
The fact is, this is a very tough number to hit, and most sites in specialized niches will only have a few big players making this much from their affiliate commissions.
Let’s take our friend Spencer Haws from Niche Pursuits as an example. In his Niche Site Project 4, he grew a site to make over $2,300 in monthly earnings in 15 months. He did this in a rigorously researched niche with access to the best tools and expertise out there.
Trust us, Spencer knows what he is doing. And yet, he still has over $7000 to go before he makes $10 000 per month from this one site.
This example shows that a good affiliate site won’t get you all the way, but it will be a very important source of income. It is the gateway to many other ways to make money online, and can serve as a way to bankroll the startup costs when setting up other kinds of income.
Online Courses & eBooks – Sharing Your Knowledge
Now on to the next piece of the 10 000 a month pie, online courses and ebooks (which are often referred to as “info products”).
Before we go any further, let’s set the record straight. There are a lot of bogus offers out there to buy online courses at “highly discounted” prices where online income gurus will promise that they can show you how to get rich if you just sign up for their introductory offer.
In fact, many of these offers are simply meant to hook you for a much larger purchase down the line, which you likely won’t benefit much from. Want to know why? This video by James Jani goes in-depth about the world of “Fake Gurus.”
For now, let’s focus on how you can create an info product that isn’t anything like this.
We still endorse trying out this money-making method for these reasons:
- They are among the most profitable online money-making methods to produce
- They can be applied to almost every niche
- You don’t need to have a degree or decades of experience – you just need to help people solve their problems
If you have chosen an affiliate website as the centerpiece of your online money-making machine, then chances are you have become at least somewhat knowledgeable in the niche you chose. Through the trials and tribulations of building online income, your experience is valuable to others.
But what if you don’t want to teach other people about your sustainable organic pet food niche? No problem, you can still be an expert in building a successful blog in the space, which others might find useful!
The point is, there is so much opportunity out there in the online learning space. Even if your product is sold at a bargain price point, it can still be a great source of additional income.
The other great thing about this is method is that it is often front-loaded, meaning most of the work that you need to do happens at the onset. An eBook only needs to be written once, and after that you only need to worry about promoting it through your existing channels like social media and email.
This is a far cry from producing half a dozen blog posts every single month for an authority site – so take advantage of the beautiful concept of residual income, where your “earnings per hour” for a project can continue to grow over time, long after you have typed the last sentence of your eBook.
Even if it isn’t 100% passive income, it can still seem like it when you are earning money every month for a product that you finished last year.
Display Ads & Medium – Residual, Not Passive
Now that we have covered some key strategies for earning online, it’s about time that we treat ourselves to some “free money.”
Okay, we’ll admit that these next methods aren’t exactly free, nor are they passive income. But they are about as close as you can get without inheriting an ocean view condo that you can rent out to the quietest, cleanest tenants in history.
Once you have put in a lot of work into an authority site, you can apply for display advertising networks and get paid for running ads on your site. We go into this in great detail in our recent article about ad networks, but all you really need to know now is that it takes at least 10 000 monthly page views before your website is considered large enough to apply.
However, once you hit this threshold and choose the right network, you can punch your ticket to a monthly paycheck that rises and falls with the success of your site. Your ability to make more ad revenue depends on how much more traffic you can drive to your site, which will rely on strong SEO and social media strategies.
Another way to accomplish this through a similar model is by building a presence on Medium. You can repurpose your highest-performing content from your affiliate site, or blog about the experience of earning money online (this is an extremely popular niche with a lot of readers).
By joining the Medium Partner Program, you can receive payment if enough people read your content. It doesn’t end up being too much money (the average consistent Medium writer report making around $100 to $500 per month), but it is still a strong income source considering the limited work that goes into it.
Medium’s content management system is ridiculously easy to use, and they have plenty of import tools that help with this too. Sure, it still requires work to come up with good article ideas and write about them. But for online marketers with an affinity for words, this can be an additional residual income source.
Don’t expect these strategies to make you the big bucks. This is how you round out the 10 000 per month, where the more of these you have going, the better.
Coaching & Consulting – Selling Your Expertise
This strategy fits in a similar category to online courses and eBooks. It is a way to make money from your experience and expertise, which can be done even more profitably with coaching and consulting.
However, a lot of people run into problems with this. “How can I call myself an expert, and charge people to listen to my advice?” many will ask. Unless you have a wildly successful website or social media presence, it might seem strange to be doling out advice and charging a premium for it.
But here’s the thing. Helping people achieve their goals (whatever they may be) is actually not too time-consuming, expensive, or difficult.
Let’s use an example: Laura has a successful affiliate marketing site in the dating and relationships niche. Her site has solid monthly traffic, and she has started earning money from display ads and a short eBook about dating in the millennial generation.
A friend brings up the idea of doing some “relationship coaching” on the site, but she is initially opposed to the idea. Who would want to pay to listen to her one-on-one, she thinks. She doesn’t have a degree in the field (this started off as a side hustle for her), and she is afraid that participants wouldn’t learn much from her and would ask for their money back.
However, Laura should be looking at this in a different way. She is more of an expert than she lets on, and she should be taking advantage of this to grow her brand and make some additional money through her online business.
Here’s how she can get started with online consulting & coaching:
- Promote an introductory offer at a reasonable price (under $100 an hour)
- Build a plan to share insider info that she hasn’t shared on her blog and eBook. Set goals with her first few clients that they can reach together.
- Meet with clients on a video call or over the phone. Treat them like a friend, and listen to their problems. Share your ideas and propose a future check-in to see how things are progressing.
A successful coaching or consulting business is one that sees rates increase over time as you get more specialized at offering advice. You will only be able to help so many people, otherwise it will cause a significant drain on your energy.
The nice thing about this method is that you can increase your price with each successive client by a small amount. None of them will have transparency about your rate, so you can push it to find an accurate number that is worth your time.
For most online coaches or consultants, this business represents a relatively small portion of their online business. However, it is still a vital income stream to grow if you are serious about hitting that $10 000 per month goal.
Freelancing / A Job – Oh the Horror
Uh oh. We have gotten this far and are still talking about the concept of a “job.” This was supposed to be the reason that we all got into the business of making money online – so that we could leave the wretched 9-to-5 grind behind and bloom as full-time online millionaires, right?
Yes, this is a huge reason why so many people find ways to make money online. However, we can’t forget the fact that many still lean on earnings from a job or freelancing to reach the 10k a month goal.
Freelancing is a common way for people to do this, because many online marketers have skills in areas where there are plenty of gigs posted on marketplaces like Upwork daily. Copywriting, Amazon FBA product research, and WordPress management are all skills that can be utilized to earn some extra money.
However, the issue here is that with all the other methods on this list, your status as an affiliate marketer with a successful website and brand allows you to charge more for your services. When you hire yourself out as a freelancer, you often don’t have this advantage. This will cut into earnings greatly, as competition from around the world has led to a “race to the bottom” in how much freelancers get paid (this is especially prevalent with freelance writers).
Freelance income can help you reach the 10k a month threshold, but it still faces the limitation of being an hourly income stream, where your earnings are limited to however much you charge.
Working for a Living
Listing a “real job” on this list may seem like a cop-out, but omitting it entirely would be unfair to all the folks out there who manage to make money online while holding down a career or part-time gig.
Let’s face it, not everyone wants to spend all of their time online. Many people have interests that don’t require them to start a blog or sell products on Amazon. It is important to make connections in your community too, and one of the most effective way to do this is through working.
Plenty of others enjoy working their corporate jobs, and making money online on the side is a great way to pay off debt, save up to take an extra long vacation, or sharpen their skills. Some support a small business that they want to grow in their community as an income source or passion project.
So, why would we turn a cold shoulder to one of the most stable and safe ways to make money?
Earning $1500 a month from a part-time job while running multiple online income streams is a great strategy. It means you don’t have to be burning your evenings working on your affiliate site, and it allows you guaranteed income that you can use for personal expenses, or to cover the monthly costs of your website.
There is absolutely no shame in working a regular job in addition to online ways to make money. If it gets you to that 10,000 a month goal, then what can we do to stop you?
Conclusion
Phew… Even just writing about how to make 10,000 a month is tough, never mind actually doing it!
We hope that you understand the importance of diversified income streams as you set goals for online moneymaking for yourself.
We also hope that you can see how important it is that these strategies work together to grow each other. Essentially, when you grow your personal brand and authority in a niche online, it will result in opportunities to earn more every month.
We highly recommend checking out the Niche Pursuits and Authority Website Income blogs for detailed explanations of how to grow monthly earnings with multiple income streams, as well as other BrandBuilders posts right here.
Still have questions about how to grow your affiliate or e-commerce site to the next step? Consider checking out our complimentary Coaching Calls, where you can chat with someone who has probably faced the same challenges before and get some valuable insights to move in the right direction!
