The Best Ways to Make Money Online in 2020
The other day, I was talking to a friend of mine who is a blogger and web developer on the side. We were talking about how online revenue from personal sites (both in the finance arena) has been on a slow (but steady) decline for the last 2 years, and how we could shore up our online earnings. We thought of a few ideas ourselves, but after the conversation I wanted to get some opinions of a few heavy hitters in the online marketing space and see what they thought the easiest ways to make money online in 2020 would be.
One thing that I want to point out is that since my friend and I have been earning money online since around 2009 (though not much), there has been a lot that has changed for us (and I’m sure for you too). I’ve started to get into niche sites, but I’m also branching out elsewhere.
If you think you know why I’m branching out and not just focusing on niche sites, you’re probably right.
I’m branching out because I don’t want to subject my entire business to what I call google risk. I don’t want to wake up one morning then all of the sudden have my traffic and revenue disappear. I want to build a sustainable online business.
So, here’s what some of the top guys in the online money making market had to say.
Justin Cooke – Empire Flippers
Justin runs the Empire Flippers website with his partner Joe. Justin was the inspiration for this post, as I got the idea from him in the Niche Pursuits Podcast Episode 24. Justin and his partner have built an incredible online business, building sites for themselves and others, as well as buying and selling adsense based sites. Lately, they have gotten into brokering sites as well. They made almost $8M in revenue in Q3 2018 alone (I’d be happy with that!), so they know what they are doing. Here’s what Justin Had to Say:
Let me share a few ideas I’ve been playing around with:
1. Buying websites as part of a (mini) fund. Get investors together and buy up several 3-10 websites with diversified traffic/monetization strategies and have expansion in mind. Run those websites as a portfolio for your investors and split the profits.
2. Dropshipping & eCommerce. These sites are hot right now, but they take a while to build out and develop. Get good at picking eCommerce niches and creating profitable sites with a plan to flip them in 9-15 months. If you can create 12 sites/year (1 per month) that average $500/month in net profit each you’ll bring in $120K or an average of $10K/month. Let’s say you spent $2K on each and had two VA’s helping you at a total of $10K/year, you still cleared $90K for the year.
Reading this, it makes me think that I’m in a good position to start out with given the fact that I’ve got a few niche sites and a few eCommerce sites already, but unfortunately most are not ranking well (some are ranking OK) and not bringing in the amount of money they could be. The portfolio option is also intriguing, but takes a lot of start up capital.
Doug Cunnington – Niche Site Project
Doug runs the website NicheSiteProject.com, and details his moneymaking journey there. He’s fairly new to the niche site game, but has had an incredible run of success since starting out, banking over 14,000 in just 8 months. He’s been featured on the niche pursuits podcast as well (twice!). Doug focuses on looking at niche sites from a project management perspective. Doug is all about removing the guesswork in creating and running niche sites by applying project management techniques. Doug has had a tremendous amount of post penguin, panda and hummingbird success, and here are his thoughts on how to make money in 2020.
Creating Niche Sites
There continues to be countless opportunities in the niche site space with several monetization methods, including Google Adsense or Amazon Associates. The big advantage here is that you can start with a very small initial investment. In addition, with a proven system you can ramp up and scale the process of creating these websites. The disadvantage is nearly the same as the advantage – there is a low barrier to entry. So competition can be higher than it was a year or two ago for some niches.
Flipping Niche Sites
On a related theme, I am looking at the possibility of creating sites, proving their profitability, then selling them to investors. Empire Flippersprovide a great marketplace and a safe environment for buyers and sellers. The advantage here is that you can quickly make 17x the monthly earnings with 90 days of proven income. The disadvantage is that you might miss out if the website takes off with a blockbuster month.
Private Blog Networks (PBN)
There is a huge opportunity here. A PBN can help you rank your own website as well as other people’s sites. They are time consuming and expensive to set up. There are many, many failure points with PBNs. There are a few options here:
- A PBN that a person uses for their own websites.
- A PBN that a person uses to sell links to help other people rank websites.
- A structure that helps people create a PBN by reducing the failure points.
The advantage with PBNs is that you own your own links and can make modifications if needed… like if a Google algorithm change impacts your website. The disadvantage is the considerable time and financial investment that is required. In most cases, creating a PBN is not worth the effort unless you have more than one money site.
There is some great advice from Doug. I agree with Doug that niche sites are still a good candidate to earn some cash. Niche sites have very low expenses (mainly hosting and domain registration), and high profit potential. Unfortunately, they do expose you to google risk, as Doug found out in January of this year.
Flipping sites is also a solid option, but that could require a lot of start up capital or a niche site you built to flip. PBNs are interesting, but as Doug notes they are expensive to build. However, you can build a PBN of web2.0 properties to assist you in the rankings for a far lower cost. Having your own PBN is nice because you can control a portion of the links to your site and change them if google drops you in the rankings.
Tung Tran – Cloud Living Journey
I have been following Tung for quite a while now, and have really enjoyed his watching his progress. Most of you probably know Tung because of his impressive amazon niche site on adjustable dumbbells. Tung was able to rank for his term in 38 days, and earn $100 in the first six weeks (which is more than I’ve earned so far in 6 months). From that point on, the site exploded to revenue of over $1,000 per month, at which point he decided to take his chips off the table and sell the site on flippa for 10k. Since then, Tung has launched a private community on Cloud Living Journey to help others. Here are Tung’s thoughts on how to make money in 2020:
I think the best way to make money in 2020 is not building a niche website. It’s actually offering a product/service and build a niche website to drive traffic to that offer.
To clarify, Tung suggests making an actual product that solves people’s problem…that way you can have full control over your business
I think Tung’s idea really has some merit, as it completely reduces (or eliminates) exposure to google risk. If you have a product or service that hits a pain point, they will happily pay you for it. This could be something like a plugin, an article writing service or something similar.
One of the key tools in the niche site market (long tail pro) was developed by a guy who builds niche sites full time and was annoyed by the fact that he couldn’t get all the information he wanted easily. He built a tool to help with that, and sold it to other people like in the niche website building business. Tung is not relying on google traffic for sales, he’s relying on a solid product and other advertisements (such as word of mouth and affiliates).
Jon Haver – Authority Website Income
Since then, I’ve been following Jon’s site and implementing a lot of tips and processes that he uses on his website to create my own and increase my income. Jon’s suggestions have helped me quite a bit, and his services have too (I’m currently a lightening rank customer, and I’ve used is Done For You PBN Service as well). Here’s where Jon thinks the opportunities are in 2020:
In 2020 I see a lot of opportunity in packaged up services being sold to non online business owners. Whether it is providing the service of building someones family tree or providing assistance in completing a college application there is a lot of opportunity in this area. We will see more people take the productized services business approach to a wide range of services. There is opportunity here for online entrepreneurs who have a skill or can hire a skill that is easily packaged up into a productized service in a unique niche.
Jon talks about something similar to what Tung did, though in a far broader scope.
Taking people outside the internet marketing/seo/niche site building niche and solving their problems with a service. I do know a few people doing this already, like my friend mike at iflywithmiles. Mike is a points and miles encyclopedia, and he uses it to help people get the most out of their miles. Services like this are great, and I think more and more people will have money to spend in this arena. I’ll have to see if there’s anything out there that interests me (after this first niche site is done, obviously).
Perrin Carrell – Niche Pursuits
I really owe Perrin a debt of gratitude, because without him I probably wouldnt be here. When he started Case Study 2 with Spencer, I figured what the hell, I’ll follow along and see if I can get something going.
My effort was nowhere near as dedicated as his, which is why I have yet to rank on the first page, and he’s earned something like $5,600 on his site so far (while I’ve earned 35). Seeing that he could do it and taking good notes during the conference calls, I was finally able to get some traction on this newest niche website I was working on.
So, I owe quite a bit to Perrin and Spencer for finally giving me the motivation to take action. Here’s where Perrin thinks the opportunities lie in 2020:
Niche Sites
Of course, I have a special place in my heart for niche sites. This is what I do, after all. However, there should be a small disclaimer here: niche sites are a LOT harder to research, build and bank from than they were even a year ago. There is a lot more competition, especially in the US search engines, and Google’s standards are much, much higher than they ever have been.
And that’s scared a lot of people off. I’ve heard the theatrics of countless old-school SEOs in the forums: niche sites are impossible! Well, they’re not. They’re just hard now. And I, for one, love it. As the barrier to entry gets steeper, the market filters out the hacks, and, at the end of the day, we’re left with SEO professionals who know what they’re doing and are creating quality sites.
In other words, this is a great opportunity (and I think it will continue to be), but it’s hard and it takes time.
Socially Driven Sites
This is something we’ve been experimenting with this year. We haven’t quite figured it out, but we’ve seen some major successes in this space. Basically, by “socially driven site,” I mean a site whose traffic comes almost totally from Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.
If you’d like an example, check out SurvivalLife.com. That site gets nearly 100% of its traffic from Facebook and makes nearly $400,000 per month. You didn’t read that wrong. That site makes $380,000 per month.
These sites require a bigger up-front investment. You need an authority site in a good market; you need to understand and spend money on social ads; and you need to be able to set up an efficient customer value optimization funnel. All of that is really, really hard. However, if you can learn it, and if you can create a site with those elements and get it off the ground, it’s incredibly scalable.
It’s hard to do if you’re just one person, though. Most of the people I know who have success with this type of property have small teams — or at least partnerships. Still, it’s something Spencer (from Niche Pursuits) and I have been experimenting with and deciding if we want to invest in a bigger social site.
Group PBNs
I think I might write a Niche Pursuits blog post on this soon, but this is another great opportunity. Well, it’s not really an opportunity in itself; rather, it’s a tool you can create to give a massive boost to your other projects.
Basically, we all know PBNs are powerful, but they are difficult and expensive to build. However, if you have a few people who each have a small PBNs, you can pool those resources and drastically increase their power. Using this method, you can go from having access to a 10-site PBN to having access to a PBN with 50 sites overnight.
I joined a PBN group with a few other guys you’ve probably heard of, and our PBN has around 100 sites in it. With that kind of resource, it doesn’t much matter what you’re doing; it’s going to have plenty of SEO power backing it up.
John Shea – Voices Of Marketing
I got in touch with John earlier this year through Lightening Rank, which he runs with Jon Haver, and was curious to see what he had to say here. He also does the Voices of Marketing interview series, and has been featured on entrepreneur on fire. John has a unique take on marketing (and I think that his Fiverr guest post gig is genius) and I’m glad that he was able to contribute something to this article. Here’s what John had to say about making money online in 2020:
That’s a hard one to answer, I say that because I’ve tried all kinds of different things but mostly never stuck with any of them long enough. So far the most powerful thing for me was starting a Podcast and then interviewing smart and successful people. I only had the opportunity of doing Lightning Rank because I had interviewed Jon last July and we kept in touch here and there.
My answer would be to build relationships and form joint venture partnerships with people who are going to help you succeed doing something that you really enjoy doing to bring in profit.
Lewis Ogden – Cloud Income
I have really been enjoying the posts over at cloud income, the home of our next contributor Lewis. Lewis is a UK based SEO and has built and ranked niche websites in a ton of markets. Lewis offers valuable SEO tips on the site and has some great case studies and guides available. Though I haven’t interacted with Lewis much, he’s a really down to earth guy with some great ideas, and I’ve gotten a lot out of his site from reading over the past 8 months or so.Read Lewis’ take on how to make money in 2020 below.
I feel 2020 is the year where niche sites will get a little more serious. We are already seeing the likes of Spencer or Niche Pursuits and Matthew Woodward discussing their feelings towards brandability and building bigger and better niche websites. With Google’s constant strong-arming of SEO’s, it’s either work with them, or against them…and I’m pretty sure I know who will win! if you choose the latter!
There is still a side of SEO that is really power and still working in 2020 and that is Public/Private blog networks. I own a few PBN’s myself and a larger one (RankSource.com – I have not tried this service) which I use to rank clients sites, so I can attest to their power and ability to shift a site from 200th position onto page 1 or 2 with just a handful of links.
If you were to ask me how long this will last…I wouldn’t be able to give you an answer. All I can say is that you should strike whilst the iron is hot and get you own or join a PBN. Owning you own you can obviously manage and ultimately own your own links, which moving forward into an ever more volatile period of SEO, is absolutely key.
To sum up, niche sites, will become authority sites and PBN’s will continue to flourish and be the on Google’s radar. Stay below that radar and build for the future.
There is some great stuff from Lewis in here. I think that he makes a good point, and to that end I’d like to say I’m planning on expanding my 5 site PBN soon. I’m not sure how many domains I will add, but I’m looking for good metrics more than anything else. This will help me get everything in order to expand my niche website portfolio as well as begin to rank my eCommerce sites for more terms.
Me
Since you’re here looking to see what I have to say, I’ll put it in below, but keep in mind that I’ve had varying degrees of success earning money online thus far. If you’re new, I think the best piece of advice I can give you is to find something and stick with it. That, and follow John Shea’s advice and build relationships. Everyone in the space is willing to help if you reach out (see the 7 others that contributed to this post for further evidence). You need to keep trying, not be too afraid of a big google update. If you make $750 and then lose rankings, you’re still $750 richer!
Here are my two cents about the best opportunities in 2020. One thing that I’m really worried about is risk of losing all traffic overnight from google, so aside from some niche sites, I’m going to look into stuff on amazon as well.
Here’s why I’m interested in Amazon:
- Traffic: Amazon has a lot of traffic. Given all the traffic, there has to be a way to earn money.
- Opportunity: People buy everything there. In my most recent order from Amazon, I had light bulbs, dried fruits, toilet paper and dog treats! I feel like there has to be a way to leverage this – either by arbitraging items on Amazon (Like Jessica Larrew), or by selling some other product on amazon.
In addition to Amazon, I’m also looking into selling services. Right now, there are a lot of things that I do myself that I think people would be interested in outsourcing during the creation of niche sites or PBNs. Since I did everything on this site myself I know the business in and out and will be able to provide value to people who are looking to build a niche site.
For me though, the success of my online endeavors will be a direct result of me focusing on building up the sites and stores I already own (or partially own) instead of doing a bunch of new projects.
There are a ton of ideas in here, but like always you have to take action on just one of them to see success. Stop reading about how and get started. If you’re having trouble – email me.
