Earning money online is a dream for a lot of students in India. The allure of working from home, setting your own hours, and making money while you sleep is very attractive!
However, most people don’t know where to start or how to make money online as a student in India.
In this guide, I will present you some proven methods you can use to make some extra cash while studying!
Why am I writing this post?
I am getting emotional while writing this paragraph; I exactly remember, in 2016, I Googled the term, “How to Make Money Online?”
At that time, I had zero experience in making money online. I tried many things, from filling out surveys to downloading apps.
As a result, I failed 100s of times. But I didn’t give up.
When you’re new, you don’t know what are the proven ways to generate an income online.
In the online world, 90% of things are fake, and so many people try to fool you, making false promises that you’ll start making money like 50,000 – 1 lakh per month after doing this or that.
It’s 1000% possible to make lakhs of rupees online, but when you’re entirely new to this online world, it’s next to impossible to earn even 10,000 rupees online.
Making money online is not a job; it’s a business. Therefore, you must be willing to learn so many things.
Initially, I wasted so much time due to a lack of guidance, and I don’t want you to make the same mistakes I made.
In this guide, I’ll share proven ways to make money online as a student in your free time.
But, you have to put in the work and implement what you learn. Then only, you’ll make money.
I have earned from all the methods which I have mentioned in this guide. All the methods work but it will take time and continuous learning.
If you can follow the methods and learn all the necessary things, you can aslo make real income from the internet.
Let’s get started!
#1: Freelancing – Fastest way to make money as a student
You might think, what’s freelancing?
In simple words, freelancing is working for someone else, but you’re not an employee of that company. You’re self-employed. You work on a project basis.
For example, if you’re good at writing, you can start offering your services to companies and individuals who need content for their blogs. Once you’ve built a portfolio and get some clients, you can start charging more money for your services.
The great thing about freelancing is that you can start making money very quickly!
You don’t need to invest any money to get started, and there are many platforms where you can find work, such as Fiverr, Upwork, and Freelancer.com.
You even use relevant active Facebook groups to land your first client.
To be successful at freelancing, you must be good at something people are willing to pay for. To ensure you get paid, you need to generate an invoice. That’s where Zintego comes in. With Zintego, you can streamline invoice generation, ensuring that you get paid on time.
It can be writing, graphic designing, excel, data entry, social media marketing, or anything else.
If you’re not sure what to offer, start by looking at the skills that you already have and see if there’s a way that you can use them to help others and make money.
Once you’ve decided what to offer, the next step is to create a profile on one of the freelancing platforms such as Upwork.com, Freelancer.com, and start applying for jobs!
It takes some time to land your first few clients, but once you do, it’ll be much easier to get more work.
What if you don’t have any SKILLS?
When I began searching online about making money online, I didn’t have any skills that I could use to make money.
So I started learning skills from Google and YouTube videos. There are many valuable videos that you can watch and learn any skills in just a few weeks.
Pro tip: Focus your time and money in implementation. Spend 20% of your time learning and 80% of your time in implementation.
In my early days, I was doing the opposite. I was learning too much but not putting my learnings into practice. As a result, I wasn’t not getting the desired result. Implement what you learn.
#2 Affiliate Marketing
What is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is promoting other people’s products and services and earning a commission for every sale that you make.
It’s one of the most popular ways to earn money online because it’s very easy to get started, and there are many affiliate programs that you can join, such as Amazon Associates, ClickBank, JVZoo, CJ and more.
To be successful at affiliate marketing, you need to find a product or service that you’re passionate about and promote it to others.
The sure-fire way to promote other people’s products is by creating a blog or website where you can write helpful articles and reviews about the products that you want to promote.
Once you’ve built up some following, you can start promoting products through your blog or website and earn commissions for every sale.
You can also promote products through social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
However, if you want a sustainable income, I recommend creating a self-hosted WordPress blog.
You can do affiliate marketing without a website too. I have written a detailed article, read here.
The best thing about the affiliate marketing business is that it’s a very passive income stream, you don’t have to create products, give support or handle refunds.
All you have to do is promote the product and collection commissions. This means you can make money while you’re sleeping!
To earn decent income from affiliate program, you need to give time. You need to learn marketing skills, promotion skills and more. All of these take time. So if you want to earn from affiliate marketing, develop patience.
Warning: Don’t get tempted by passive income upfront. You have to put in the time, energy and some money.
#3 Blogging
Blogging is one of the most popular ways to make money online. But, it’s not easy to make money from blogging.
It takes a lot of hard work, dedication, and time to build up a following and start making an income from your blog.
However, if you’re willing to put in the work, you’ll reap great rewards. Not only can you make money from your blog through affiliate marketing, but you can also sell products, services, and digital products such as eBooks and courses.
And you can also use your blog to build a loyal audience who are interested in what you have to say.
Step 1
If you’re interested in making money from blogging, the first step is to start a blog.
You can do this by booking a domain and hosting, which will cost you around 5,000 rupees. In fact, I have written an article on how to start a profitable blog on a smaller budget. Click here to read!
You can easily set up your blog by watching YouTube tutorials, it’s easy, and anyone can do it.
Step 2
Once you’ve created your blog, the next step is to start writing helpful and informative articles to help your readers solve their problems.
Remember, your blog should be focused on helping your readers, not making money. If you help enough people, the money will come.
Step 3
Monetize your blog traffic using affiliate marketing, Google Adsense or selling products and services. These are some of the most popular ways to make money from a blog.
And there are many other ways to monetize your blog traffic. Just be creative and think outside the box.
The sky’s the limit when it comes to making money from a blog.
#4 Start a YouTube Channel
YouTube is a great platform to make money online and build followers.
You can start a YouTube channel for free, and if you can build up a following of people who are interested in what you have to say, you can start making an income from your videos.
The beauty of having a YouTube channel is you’ll make passive income. I get it upfront, you have to put in so much time, your each video will be working for you 24×7 for years.
There are a lot of ways to make money from a YouTube channel, such as affiliate marketing, Google Adsense, selling products and services, and more.
The key to making money from a YouTube channel is to create valuable and informative videos that will help your viewers solve their problems.
If you can do this, you’ll be well on your way to building a successful YouTube channel and making money online.
What if you’re camera-shy?
You can create presentation-style videos that don’t require your face. All you need is to do a voice-over.
There are so many YouTubers who have lakhs of subscribers creating presentation-style videos.
Requirements to start a YouTube Channel:
- Good communication skills
- PC/Desktop for editing videos
- Basic knowledge of editing
- A good mic
These are the bare minimum requirements to start creating YouTube videos.
I created a YouTube channel without these skills, and I monetized that channel and posted 149 videos in a year. That YouTube channel is still LIVE and gives me $100 every 3-4 months.
If you want the link of my YouTube channel, let me know in the comments below!
All the editing I did from my mobile and Kinemaster application. You can do anything if you’re passionate about it.
#5 Give Online Tuitions
This is another way to make money online in India. It doesn’t require any investment, like other things, you must be good at any subject, it can be English, Mathematics, Science, and GK.
If you’re an expert in a particular topic and have good communication skills, you can start giving online tuition to students worldwide.
Many websites connect tutors with students, such as Tutor.com and Chegg.com.
All you need is a computer/PC with a decent internet connection, and you can start giving tuition to students from all over the world.
This is a great way to make money online in India for students and it’s also a great way to help others to learn new things.
Conclusion
So, these are some of the best ways to make money online in India as a student.
If you’re looking to earn some extra money or even a full-time income, these are some great options. Just remember, you need to put in the work and be patient.
The money won’t come overnight, but you can make a lot of money online if you stick with it. Thanks for reading, and good luck!
Do you have any other ideas on how to make money online in India as a student? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below!
Great post. I also want to make money online and this post is useful for me.
Thank you.