$100 in 3 Hours? The 7+1 Easiest Ways to Quickly Make Money Online

The Solution: Can we help Walter earn $100 in just 3 hours working online? Can we help you make $100 in just a few hours? For each technique, we’re going to assume that you have access to a computer with internet access, basic writing ability, and a healthy dollop of enthusiasm, but no existing website/ blog/ or mailing list with 10,000 subscribers (which, by the way, would make this whole endeavor quite a bit easier!).

Our Suggestions for the Easiest Ways to Get Started Making Money Online:

1. Become an Expert

   

   Everyone's an expert in something. Might as well get paid for it!
   Just Answer is about as simple as it gets: someone posts a question they need help with, and if you can answer it you’ll earn anywhere from a few dollars to $25. Perhaps the only downside to Just Answer is that it is difficult to get accepted as an expert (hence the 2 stars out of 5 for “chance of success”). If you’re interested in trying it out but would like help getting accepted as an expert, use the form to contact me and I’ll send you instructions for how to get in.
   Ether.com is a similar service focused on helping you sell your expert advice over the phone.
   MiNeeds allows bidding on a variety of tasks that need done.
   Earning Potential: $$$$
   Chance of Success: **

2. Create the new Viral Sensation

   

   If you're going to embarass yourself in front of millions of people on the internets, you might as well get paid for it.
   The bad news is that online video advertising is still relatively young, and with most revenue sharing programs you’ll only earn a fraction of a cent every time your video gets viewed. The good news is that some videos can get a LOT of views. Viral hits like the JK Wedding Entrance Dance or “LonelyGirl15” rack up tens of MILLIONS of views, which means those pennies could add up pretty quickly! YouTube only offers revenue sharing once you get big, so instead you might want to try http://revver.com/ or http://www.break.com/.
   Earning Potential: $$$$$
   Chance of Success: *

3. Do 20 Tasks on Fiverr

   

   A measly five bucks and she can be your (fake) girlfriend (on Facebook)
   Aye, these are desperate times, my friends. The things that people will do for a mere five bucks simply blows the mind: PSD to HTML website conversion, Joomla setup, even be your Facebook girlfriend. At rates like that, my advice would be to skip trying to earn money doing tasks on Fiverr, and instead set up some sort of task arbitrage scheme whereby you accept jobs from Craigslist for $25, and then hire someone from Fiverr to do them for $5. Yeah, now we’re doing it making money online style! Earning Potential: $$
   Chance of Success: ****

4. Test 10 New Websites

   

   You can get paid to test websites, as long as you can make a pensive face.
   Usability testing is when companies hire random people to tell them what they think of their website. Think you could be that random person? If so, you can earn up to $10 a pop by completing a few simple tasks on the website, and filling out a report on your experience. Each test should take about 10 to 20 minutes, which means that this may be one method where you actually can meet our goal of $100 in 3 hours (while still having time to make a sandwich). Some sites to try include:
   http://www.usertesting.com/betester.aspx – Appears to be the most generous, and the most professional.
   http://www.usabilitysciences.com/contact-us/recruiting
   http://www.testarmy.com/app/view/more-tester/
   http://www.userfocus.co.uk/panel/index.html
   http://www.usabilityexchange.com/uehowitworks5.php – UK based, for disabled users
   Earning Potential: $$$$
   Chance of Success: ****

5. Pimp Out Peoples’ iPads/ iPhones

   This one is inspired by a story on the founder of HungryPod, who (at least at one point) was making over $100,000 a year uploading CDs to peoples’ iPods. In my mind there’s a similar opportunity to profit from the iPad and iPhone craze: who has the time to wade through the Appstore to find all the most useful bits? If you know iPhone backwards and forwards, why not offer a “Pimp my iPhone” service to get peoples’ iPhones set up with the very best apps (along with music, photos, videos, or anything else the customer wanted on there). This one might be easier to work if you live in New York, where people have a lot more money than time.
   Earning Potential: $$$
   Chance of Success: **

6. Come up with 4 Cool Domain Name Ideas at PickyDomains.com

   A good name is hard to find– and especially so when you need to find an available .com domain name to match. If you’re one of those people who just has a way with names (eg, you’re so clever your cats are named “José” and “Hose B”), then you may find your money-making niche at PickyDomains.com. All you have to do is come up with name ideas, and if your suggestion wins you’ll earn somewhere around $25.
   Earning Potential: $$$
   Chance of Success: **

7. Flip a Domain Name

   OK, this one might be difficult to pull off in just 3 hours, but you also have a good shot at earning a lot more than $100. Here’s the gig: every day thousands of domain names expire and are auctioned off at sites like NameJet.com, SnapNames.com, and TDNAM.com. Although some auctions go in to the tens of thousands of dollars, most start at $60 (or just $10 at TDNAM.com). Since we’re just interested in making a quick buck, rather than getting serious about domain investing, you just want to find an opportunity to flip a domain for an easy profit. The best way to do that is to look for domains that offer a better version of an existing website’s domain. For example, if my website is YogaDVDs.net and you grab the domain YogaDVDs.com in an expiring auction, there’s a good chance I’m going to be willing to pay you something for that domain. Ditto for singular/ plural combinations, and hyphenated/ non-hyphenated domains. Most small businesses and website publishers don’t even know that expired domain auctions exist, so you’re actually doing them a favor if you sell them the domain at a fair price and prevent it from ending up as a permanent parking page in a mega-domainer’s collection.
   PS: Make sure you only apply this strategy for generic descriptive domain names, not brand names like “Yahoo” or “Microsoft”.
   Earning Potential: $$$$$
   Chance of Success: ***

8. Help 10 Students at StudentOfFortune.com

   

   Textbook Rockstar? You can make money online helping out students.
   I saved one of my greatest finds for last. There are many variations on the “get paid to answer questions” theme, but StudentofFortune.com seems to be one of the more promising ones. After all, who is more desperate to answer questions than students? It might help to be a bit of an academic, but hey when questions pay up to $150 each, that’s a lot of inspiration to hit the books! Other sites where you can earn money online by tutoring students:
   http://www.ehomeworkhelp.com/tutors.cfm
   http://www.tutorandmentor.com/careers.html
   http://www.tutor.com/apply/why-tutor-with-us
   Earning Potential: $$$$
   Chance of Success: ***

Now Go Get Started Making Money Online!

Did you find any of these suggestions helpful? Any additional ideas that you would like to add? Please let me know if you found this tutorial useful or how you would like to have seen it done differently, and next time will be even more valuable for you!