How to Make Money as a Student Online

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Emmanuel Nwosu
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How to Make Money as a Student Online
How to Make Money as a Student Online

A lot of students search for legitimate ways to make money for themselves online. However, many of them get frustrated instead of finding answers at the end of it all. This article aims to show you how to make money as a student online.

It is understandable why students feel this frustration; some of these resources find online provide unrealistic solutions that do not favor these students at all.

While many of these resources exaggerate how much you can really make online. In this article, we provide you with very realistic ways to make money strictly as a student.

So, if you’re looking for a way to make money while at university, then look no further. We’ve compiled the best tips and tricks for making money online as a student. From buying and selling domain names to becoming a delivery rider, we have covered it all. 

Scroll down to read about each unique way of making some extra cash whilst studying

Disclaimer: Even while this is a thoroughly researched article with proven methods or paying gigs that make you money as a student, nothing, however, guarantees that they may be suitable for you. You will need a lot of hard work, patience, and building proficiency.

15 Realistic Ways to Make Money as a Student Online

The following are 15 realistic ways you can make money as a student online:

How to Make Money as a Student Online

#1. Start Freelancing

How much can you earn: Up to $1,000 per month. Top freelancers make more.

If you have some serious skills that companies can hire you for and pay you to do, why haven’t you thought about freelancing?

Freelancing is a great way to earn some extra cash while you study. It can also be a way to build up experience and skills, which will help you get your dream job after graduation.

The digital world has made it really super easy for anyone who wants to make an extra buck to work anywhere from home, as far as you get the job done. As a freelancer, you can get to work with companies either part-time, contractually, or long-term.

Freelance jobs are often advertised on sites like Upwork and Fiverr, but there are lots of other places to find work too. You can try searching for opportunities in the classifieds section of your local newspaper.

Once you’ve found some freelance jobs (or clients), make sure that they pay well so that the time spent working isn’t wasted – remember that any money earned from freelance work is additional income.

As a freelancer, you can offer any service that you are good at. These may include:

  • Article Writing
  • Voice-over acting
  • Transcribing
  • Copywriting
  • TikTok marketing
  • Email marketing
  • Keyword Research
  • Virtual Assistance
  • Graphic Designing
  • Website Design, etc

People pay good money to get talents to work for them. Aside from Upwork and Fiverr, there are so many other platforms you can find freelance work. For example, remote. co, problogger.com, etc. You can carry out more research on your own.

#2. Sell a Course

How much can you earn: Dependent on your course quality, marketing efforts, and unit price. Top course creators make up to $500 per month in selling courses on multiple platforms.

Likewise, if you have considerable expert knowledge in a particular field that you can teach about and people could benefit from, consider creating a course and selling online.

Here is a simple guide to help you get started:

  • First, create a course or product. This could be an online course, a physical product like a book or an ebook that you sell on Amazon, or even just a blog post or video series you can monetize on various platforms. For instance, if you are a Facebook Ads guru, you can make good money showing people how to create profitable ads. Many business owners will find this useful.
  • Create your landing page for the course and link it to your email list. You’ll want to make it clear what people are signing up for when they subscribe to your email list – don’t try to sneak in any hidden offers if they haven’t seen them before. We recommend MailChimp as the most affordable option for building an email list from scratch. Their free plan is great for beginners.
  • Market your product using social media channels like Twitter and Facebook; we also recommend using Google Ads (if you can afford it) since this will help attract more traffic once everything starts getting noticed online. 

You can even hire someone else who has experience doing marketing campaigns online – just know that this will cost money upfront so make sure there’s enough room left over after covering expenses related specifically to running these campaigns.

#3. Data Entry

How much can you earn: Up to $800 per month.

Data Entry is a common job for students. You can earn money by doing simple tasks online, from home. As a Data Entry Clerk, you will be responsible for entering information from paper formats and updating records on a company’s computer database.

You can get paid per task or per hour, so it’s up to you how much time you put in. You can also find jobs as a data entry freelancer on various remote platforms and work from home. The best part about this is that you can do this as a side hustle while you’re in school.

This job requires no experience and little training, so it’s an ideal way for students with limited experience to make some extra cash on the side. You can carry out more research to find out how you can get started as a Data Entry Clerk.

#4. Start Your Own Website/Blog

How much can you earn: $200 – $2,500 per month, depending on the niche you blog about.

This is an excellent way for you to make money as a student. Building a blog, however, requires a lot of commitment to grow its traffic flow for it to become profitable.

You’ll need to create a website or blog, which can be done through WordPress, Squarespace, and Wix. You can host your platform on various websites – Bluehost is one of the most popular hosting domains you can explore. 

Then you need to create a content calendar for yourself based on the niche that interest you (e.g., pop culture, politics, travel, lifestyle, education, etc). 

Once this is done, set up an email list so that subscribers can get notified when new articles are posted by signing up on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. 

Finally, promote your content using social media platforms so that more people will see it while browsing these networks – ideally, this will lead them back onto the landing page of your website/blog where they can read more articles without having spent any money.

Once you have built a substantial audience visiting your blog, you can make money as a blogger from the following sources:

  • Earning commissions from reviewed products/affiliate links.
  • Google AdSense.
  • Upselling a course or your services on your blog.

#5. Become a Delivery Rider

How much can you earn: Up to $60 – $100 per month. 

If you own a bicycle, pick-up truck, or motorcycle that you ride for fun, you can also consider putting that item into profitable use by delivering purchased items from business owners to customers.

Delivery or dispatch riders are people who help deliver food or other items to customers.

As a delivery rider, you can deliver items like pizza or tacos. You can look out for fast food chains like McDonald’s or Wendy’s.

As a delivery man, you can:

  • Get paid per delivery.
  • Earn up to $20 an hour.
  • It’s a flexible job that allows you to work from home and on your own schedule.

If you are a Nigerian, you can work for small business owners to deliver to their customers, or apply to food-chain businesses like Domino’s Pizza or RunAm.

#6. Publish a Kindle eBook

How much can you earn: Up to $1,500 per month.

If you are used to searching for new ways to make more money online, then there is a high chance that you have come across Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing before. Sadly, a lot of people doubt how much you can really make from Amazon KDP.

Can you make good money from Amazon KDP? Yes, you can.

Is it easy? No, it isn’t.

Will you require huge capital to start? Fairly. Amazon KDP requires a decent amount of money to learn with and start.

Amazon KDP requires you to publish books on Amazon and make money from the purchases you get for those books. There are many resources on the internet that shows you how you can get started with Amazon KDP. Do your due diligence.

Once you’ve written your book, it’s time to publish it. To do this, you’ll need to make sure the file is formatted correctly. Once that’s done, simply upload your Kindle eBook and hit “publish.”

After publishing your book on Amazon, you can let it sit there forever and make no money from it—or sell as many copies as possible. It all depends on how much effort you’re willing to put into marketing your book.

There are a few ways that authors make money from their Kindle eBooks:

  • Selling physical copies of their books (through Amazon)
  • Selling digital copies of their books (through Amazon)

#7. Affiliate Marketing

How much can you earn: Up to $800 per month.

Affiliate marketing is a type of performance-based advertising in which you earn commissions for promoting and selling products or services through a specialized link created for you when you register as an affiliate on a platform. 

When someone (a buyer) makes a purchase for the product you are selling through your affiliate link, the seller pays you a commission fee based on the agreed percentage.

Affiliate marketing has become one of the most popular ways to make money online as a student because it’s so low-risk and requires nearly no time commitment on your part. 

There are tons of companies that offer affiliate programs, so take some time to search around and see what fits your needs. For example, ConvertKit, Selar, Stakecut, etc.

Pro tip: Always make sure to read the terms and conditions before signing up for any affiliate marketing program so that you know exactly how much commission you’ll be earning off each sale, download, or whatever.

#8. Become a Copywriter

How much can you earn: Up to $1,000 per month.

Copywriting has rapidly become one of the fastest ways to earn a high-income skill. You can become a skilled copywriter in less than six months.

Becoming a writer is an excellent way to make money while you’re in school. There are plenty of companies that need writers, and it’s not difficult to find those jobs online.

  • What do copywriters do?

Copywriters write content that goes on websites, magazines, and other types of media. They research their subjects and write persuasive ads or articles with specific goals in mind—whether it’s selling a product, creating brand awareness, or getting someone to click through to your site.

  • How can you get a job as a copywriter?

The easiest way is through freelance sites like Upwork and Freelancer, which connect companies with people who have the skills they need for projects. 

You could also post your portfolio on all your social media profiles and help people understand what you do, so prospective employers can see all the work experience that you have under your belt before deciding if they want to work with you.

#9. Buy and Sell Domain Names

How much can you earn: Up to $500 per month flipping domain names.

Domain names are a valuable asset. Domain names can be bought and sold, and they can also be suitable investments. If you’re looking to start making money online as a student, buying and selling domains might just be the way to go.

A domain name marketplace is an online platform where sellers list their domains for sale, buyers bid on them using an automated bidding system (the highest bidder wins), and then eventually transfer ownership of that domain over to the new buyer once payment has been made. 

These marketplaces often charge fees for selling or transferring domain name ownership – usually between 5 – 15 percent. They don’t take commissions from sales though – only from transfers of ownership if the seller decides to use their service in order to complete the transaction.

#10. Become a Knowledge Marketer

How much can you earn: Varies widely.

There are a lot of ways to make money off books as a student online, but the one that stands out as the most valuable is selling eBooks. It’s not difficult and anyone can do it.

Here’s how:

  • Find out what people want to buy and write about that topic
  • Write an eBook on this subject using writing tools like Grammarly, Hemingway App, or some other writing app that checks your grammar for you.
  • Format your eBook using Microsoft Word or any other word processor that allows you to select specific formatting elements like bold text or italics, etc.
  • You can then upload these eBooks to e-commerce platforms and people will pay you to get that knowledge.

#11. Become a Social Media Manager for Brands

How much can you earn: Up to $5,000 per month for highly-skilled social media marketers.

When you become a social media manager, you’ll be in charge of creating content and posting it to your company’s various platforms. This includes finding relevant hashtags and getting the word out about new products or events. 

It may sound simple, but there’s more to it than just writing up something on Instagram or Facebook and hoping that people see it. If you want to make real money as a social media manager, then there are some things that you need in order to do so successfully.

You will need to be a highly-skilled writer, have an eye for digital trends, and know how to keep an audience hooked on your content.

#12. Sell Your Old Stuff on eBay and Other eComm Platforms

How much can you earn: Depends on what amount you attach to what you’re selling.

Want to sell old clothes, old cars, or old television (that still works perfectly on eBay? Here’s how:

  • Take pictures of your items, and write a descriptive listing that includes the item’s condition, its features (including any missing parts), and its size. 

You can also include how long you’ve had the item and how much you paid for it originally. If you want, you can also include any other information about your item that will help potential buyers understand what they are buying from you.

  • Include a price for each item with shipping costs included in case someone wants to purchase more than one thing at a time; otherwise, they may end up paying more than they bargained for.
  • Most importantly: add tax. This will help protect against getting penalized by eBay after the fact because users don’t know that taxes apply when purchasing goods online.

#13. Write on Medium

How much can you earn: $5,000 – $30,000 per month.

Medium is a great location to build your personal brand. It allows you to share your ideas with the world and get feedback from people who care about what you have to say. You can also use Medium as a way to get paid for your writing.

To learn more, you can do your research about the Medium Partner Program.

#14. Become a Real Estate Middleman

How much can you earn: Varies. Up to $500 per month.

While you might not be ready to sell your own property just yet, you could make some money by becoming a real estate middleman.

As a middle-man, you would match buyers with sellers and take a small cut of the commission for each transaction. You’ll need to find clients who want to buy or sell their homes and then convince them that you can help them make the biggest profit possible.

You’ll also need to find real estate agents who are willing to work with you as well as potential sellers or buyers themselves. Once these pieces fall into place, there are usually plenty of opportunities for making some good cash.

#15. Work as a Freelancer on Social Media Engagement Buying Platforms

How much can you earn: $50 – $100 per month.

Freelancing on social media engagement buying platforms is another great way to make decent money as a student. These are websites where companies can buy likes, followers, and retweets for their products. 

It’s simple: you sign up for the platform, create an account and become a freelancer. Then you wait for companies to post jobs or “bids” that need to be done. When you find one that interests you, simply accept it and start working.

You can do anything from liking photos on Instagram or writing comments on Facebook posts – nothing too complicated.

In fact, most platforms are very easy to use so even if this is your first time doing freelancing work online they will teach you everything step by step.

Here are a couple of platforms you can get started with: ViralTrend and Sidegig.

Final Thought

As you can see, there are a variety of ways to make money as a student online. It’s important to find something that works for you and your schedule.

These side hustles will help ensure that your finances are in order while also giving you some freedom so you can focus on your studies instead of worrying about paying bills or taking out another loan.

FAQs

How can a student make money online?

The options we have listed in this article can be adopted by anyone. There are a lot of legitimate ways to make money online these days, thanks to the internet. Just pick something that interests you and start!

Can I make quick cash online?

Maybe you can, or not. But from experience, earning decent money online comes down to your experience, skill level, dedication, and consistency.

Where can I learn skills that will make me good money online?

If you aspire to become a solution provider, then it is important that you get skills that solve problems. People will only pay you money when you solve a problem for them; the amount you’re paid directly ties in with the difficulty of the problem you are solving. There are so many resources that can help you learn high-income skills; some are free, and others are paid for. Here are some: YouTube (free) - Learn virtually everything. This is especially suited for beginners. Alison - Free courses in writing, tech, and entrepreneurship. Coursera (paid) - Learn professional courses in digital marketing, data entry, marketing, and many more. HubSpot (free) - This teaches mainly about content marketing and distribution. There are many more platforms like these. A simple search will show you more websites like the ones listed.

Wrapping It Up

Overall, making money from the internet has never been this accessible. And it is going to get even better in the coming years with new markets like Web3, Blockchain Technology, and the Metaverse coming into play. All you have to do is make up your mind about something you want, start learning and get dirty knowing about the ins and outs of that thing.

We hope that you’ve found this article useful and informative. If so, please share it with your friends.