What is the best, ideal, good, fast, fastest, easy, easiest, hard, hardest or reliable way to earn or make money online?

There are many variations of this question that people have asked on Quora on the topic of making money online.

I am going to consolidate my answers to these variations for the sake of completeness and the big picture.

It’s amazing to know that people are trying to find that magic bullet that will bring them lots of money.

Let’ be clear about one thing.

The Internet has significantly lowered the barriers to entry for wannabe Internet entrepreneurs wanting to start earning money online. You can start an online presence or business without any money. There are so many free tools, applications, and platforms that you can use.

With every opportunity, there are risks.

The downside is that the Internet has also significantly increased the level of competition. Anyone wanting to earn money online must now find a business idea that is truly unique in solving a specific pain point and targeted to a specific niche customer group.

There are so much competition and noise out there on the Internet that it is really hard to build an online business if you do not find a very small niche to start off with offering unique products and services.

There is so much sameness on the Internet that you have to be unique in your approach, in your product or service offerings, and in your marketing messages.

Therefore, the “fastest” and “easiest” way to make or earn money online may not be the most “reliable” way if you want to create a long-term sustainable income stream from your online activities.

When it is the “fastest” and “easiest” way to earn money online, everyone else will be doing it.

Who wants hard work!

Not me.

The key to making money online now is to find a niche with little or no competition.

So, making money online “fast” is just a myth especially when you are truly starting out from ground zero, with zero knowledge and skills, with zero connections and networks, and with zero money, and not much time to spare especially if we have 9-to-5 jobs.

There will be people who will tell you that their method will be the “fastest”. Note that everyone’s different and what they are doing may not suit you.

Ultimately, you will need time to learn any system to earn money. You will need knowledge and skills to implement the system, etc. All these activities will require time and effort.

I have documented more than 500+ ways to make money on my blog. Choose one that suits you and dedicate time and effort to earn money online.

There are so many opportunities to make money on the side that we will be spoilt for choice.

Customers will only buy from someone they trust.

Trust-building takes time. It’s not instantaneous.

If you have lots of money, the “fastest” way to build trust is to buy trust in the form of an existing profitable online business. You will hire professionals to maintain the website for you,

There is no “easy” way to make money online because it takes “hard” work, time, perseverance and commitment. There will be “easier” pathways to make money online that will cost you either in time or money.

The “easiest” and “fastest” way to make money online is to have a just do it approach, a learning attitude, an entrepreneur mindset, be equipped with the right knowledge and skill to make money online, and to execute your chosen money-making strategy ruthlessly using lots of dedication, commitment, endurance, and perseverance.

The “hardest” part of building an online business is to find that one overlapping sweet spot where you can make a sustainable income for yourself from using your skills, experience, and beliefs to provide unique products or services to your niche customers who are willing and able to pay you money for solving their immediate problem or pain point.

The word “good” refers to the fulfilment of some standards, qualities, or requirements. We need to determine what requirements we are measuring against to determine whether our money-making idea is “good” or not.

For me, there are six criteria that I need to meet in order for the money-making idea to be considered as “good” or “ideal”.

1. You are so passionate about and committed to your money-making idea that you will spend all your free time working on it (even on weekends!).
2. You want to create or give value to people and desire to make a difference in people’s lives trying to solve their problems and pain points.
3. You have desperate niche customers who are willing and able to pay you for your unique product or service because you can solve their pain points or problems. That’s the ultimate outcome of your online business activities.
4. You can create a sustainable stream of income through a sales funnel out of the money-making idea when you do decide to quit your 9-to-5 job. Remember always that you have to pay your bills!
5. You have or are capable of acquiring the necessary skills and experience to build that online business without much re-skilling or learning.
6. You want to align your business and work with your personal and religious reasons and beliefs. Your WHYs of embarking on an online business must be crystal clear.

The “best” way to make money and future-proof your income, even if you are currently employed or don’t know where to start, is to vigorously and quickly validate your money-making ideas with a minimum viable product.

Always get your ideas and minimum viable products validated by your customers before spending any more time, effort, and money including building your own website (which should be the last thing to do).

To launch a profitable business quickly, safely and risk-free, there are four steps to keep in mind:

• Step 1: Identify your idea to make money.
• Step 2: Convert your money-making idea into a minimum viable product (includes services).
• Step 3: Validate your minimum viable product with your customers in established marketplaces.
• Step 4: Scale-up with your own website, find new ideas or ditch your idea altogether.

Here’s the thing.

When you are trying to make money online, you will either pay in time or money.

If you have the money but don’t have the time, then paying someone else to do all the hard work for you will be the “easiest” way to make money online from a time perspective.

There’s no shortage of gurus out there who will try to sell you their solutions.

However, do not to fall into the trap of the shining object syndrome, buying everything that looks good on sales pages and constantly getting stuck in tactical hell.

You must find the right people to help you and always keeping a close watch on their work and deliverables.

Unfortunately, you will not learn much if you totally outsource. You will rely on strangers for your future income.

Ask yourself this question: How do you verify the quality of the outsourced deliverable if you have no knowledge in the first place?

If you have the time but don’t have the money, then doing it yourself will be the “easiest” way to make money online from both financial and learning perspectives. You must be absolutely committed to spending time on executing your money making online strategy even when you don’t feel like it or busy with your 9-to-5 job.

You can’t really outsource knowledge accumulation to others. Knowledge acquired is knowledge gained. No one can take this away from you.

By taking the time to self-learn and accumulate knowledge, you will be a better person. You will be in a better position to make decisions about your personal making money strategy, your platforms, and how you will ultimately make money online.

Do not outsource the development of your personal strategy to anyone else because each one of us is unique in terms of circumstances, personality, attitude, and preferences.

I see it all the time.

People just follow the crowd and not showing off their personality in the things they do. They just want to earn that similar 6-figure income by following that guru who is boasting about their income.

Getting your personal strategy wrong will be absolutely detrimental to you.

It means wasted time and effort on your part. You really want to increase the likelihood of your success rather than failure.

Your personal money-making strategy needs to be aligned with the reasons why you really want to make money online.

Without a good reason, there’s no motivation to stay on when things get difficult or hard.

Without a strategy, you will aimless drifting from one idea to another, trying one platform to another, following one guru to another, and wasting lots of time and money on non-productive things without any income to show for down the road.

If you really have the time, it is highly recommended that you develop your own unique content to sell to your customers.

It shows your personality.

It shows your uniqueness.

It shows your brand.

What’s missing is the lack of uniqueness on the Internet.

Because it’s so “easy” to copy someone else, it will be “harder” to make money in the long-term.

Having a just do it learning mentality will make it “easier” for you to start, learn and improve on things as you go along.

The “hardest” thing is to make that start.

If Microsoft were to wait for the perfect software, we will not be using Office now.

Likewise, the “easiest” way for you to make money online is just to make a start and gather knowledge and skill as you go.

Sitting around and hoping to start on something will not make you any money.

Making that start will.