Ways to make money online with Google:
- Rank in the Google map pack and offer local lead generation services
- Generate Google AdSense income through blogging
- Use your Google account to sign up for the YouTube Partner Program
- Become a Google Ads specialist
- Do Google SEO consulting
As the world’s most popular website with over 8.5 billion searches each day and one of the highest earning internet companies, it’s no surprise that there are quite a few ways to make money online with Google. You can make online income with Google by starting your own business around one of Google’s platforms like Google Search, working for Google directly in a remote role, or even by simply taking surveys. Some of the Google opportunities described in this article even allow you to make passive income online. One of the Google business opportunities we discuss has even enabled a company to get bought out for a whopping $4 billion, leaving its founders incredibly wealthy!
1. Rank in the Google map pack and offer local lead generation services
Local lead generation is an online business model that leverages Google to make money by finding customers for service businesses in specific locations. It works by using local search engine optimization to get a website to show up in the Google map pack when a potential customer searches for the specific service you're targeting in the specific location, such as roofing in Los Angeles. You can then sell these leads to local service businesses for upwards of $3,000/month, depending on how much value your website’s lead provides.
Once you set up a local lead generation website and partner with a local business to take the leads, you can automate most of the business operations and earn passive income online through Google. Passive income from Google is income that is earned by leveraging Google without actively working for it. That means you can still make money while focusing on other things you prefer doing.
How to make money online using Google maps and local lead generation?
- 1Choose a service niche to target
- 2Identify a local market with high demand and low competition for that niche on Google
- 3Create a website with a relevant domain name for your niche service
- 4Use local SEO to get your website to rank in the Google map pack for the location you’re targeting
- 5Partner with a service business in the location you are ranking for on Google to take the leads and pay you for your digital marketing services
2. Generate Google AdSense income through blogging
Google AdSense is an advertising program through Google that pays you for the traffic your online content generates. With Google AdSense, you place ad units alongside your content so that advertisers can pay to showcase their products. Along with affiliate marketing, Google AdSense is one of the most common monetization methods for bloggers looking to generate online income from their posts. Signing up for a Google AdSense account to show advertisements on your blog is free, and earnings are depending on many factors, including:
- Location of users
- What type of content you provide
- How much traffic you generate
- How your ads are set up
According to the advertising platform Snigel, which was started by two former Google executives over a decade ago, Google AdSense typically pays between $0.2 and $2.5/1,000 views. Therefore, if you want to start generating around $100/day just from Google AdSense, your content writing will need to attract 40,000 views each day on average. You can make $100 per day with Google AdSense by consistently publishing high-quality content that attracts a large enough audience. To get to 40,000 daily page views, you can publish around 500 blog posts that each get approximately 80 page views each day. Google Analytics is a useful tool to help you track page views on your blog so you can focus your energies on the type of posts that are bringing your site the most traffic.
For those looking to start a blog to generate AdSense income, Google Blogger and WordPress are two of the most popular platforms for creating high-quality websites without coding skills.
The Google Affiliate Network
Along with Google AdSense, bloggers could previously monetize their content through the Google Affiliate Network as well. However, the Google Affiliate Network closed down on April 16, 2013, ending that way of making money through Google.
3. Use your Google account to sign up for the YouTube Partner Program
The YouTube Partner Program allows creators on YouTube to monetize their videos through a variety of opportunities, including:
- Ad revenue
- YouTube Premium revenue
- YouTube channel memberships
- Shopping
- Super Chats and Super Stickers
- Super Thanks
YouTube is a social media platform owned by Google, so to access the YouTube Partner Program and monetize your YouTube video content, you need to sign up with your Google account. Even though it’s free to sign up for the YouTube Partner Program, not everyone qualifies. To be eligible for the YouTube Partner Program, you need at least 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 valid public watch hours or 10 million valid public Shorts views within the last year. According to Business Insider, YouTube creators typically earn between $1.61 to $29.30 per 1,000 views for their participation in the YouTube Partner Program.
4. Become a Google Ads specialist
Knowing how to profitably run Google Ads is a digital marketing skill that can enable you to generate income online. Google Ads works by paying for ad space to promote a product or service, and the goal is to generate more money in sales than you spend on advertising. Google Ads, which were previously known as Google AdWords until 2018, operates on a pay-per-click (PPC) system. PPC ads, like Google AdWord ads, only charge the advertiser for the ad when they are clicked on by an internet user.
You can post your Google Ad in a variety of places over the internet, including:
- Google Search results
- Google Play Store
- Google Maps
- The Google Display Network
Google Ads also allows you to fine-tune your audience targeting by narrowing in on specific geographic locations, times of day, devices used, and much more. You can run Google Ads to generate traffic for your own product or service, or offer your skills to other businesses looking to make their paid advertising efforts more efficient.
How to make money with Google Ads
- 1Start with a product or service to promote
- 2Create a high-quality landing page to convince people that click on your Google Ad to buy the product or service
- 3Target relevant and up-to-date keywords using tools like Google Keyword Planner
- 4Adjust targeting parameters based on campaign results to optimize profitability
- 5Continue optimizing campaigns over time to ensure profitability and improvements where possible
5. Do Google SEO consulting
As the world’s largest search engine, space in Google’s organic search results can be very valuable. Therefore, many businesses focus on developing an internet presence by putting resources into Google SEO. By learning SEO on Google, you can support other businesses as a Google SEO consultant and assist them in improving the organic ranking of their site to receive more visibility on Google so that more potential customers can find them. According to ZipRecruiter, Google SEO specialists make around $80K/year on average in the United States.
6. Publish books through the Google Play Books
The Google Play Books program allows publishers to sell their books through the Google Play store. Google Play Books is available to over 3 billion Android users dispersed across 75+ countries around the globe. Publishers from most countries can expect to earn a 70% revenue split with Google for each book they sell. Unlike Amazon KDP, which limits online book publishers to a price range of $2.99 to $9.99 if they want to enjoy that 70% royalty rate, Google Books does not restrict pricing. Signing up and publishing books onto Google Books is completely free. All you need is an associated Gmail account to get started.
7. Develop an app for the Google Play Store
Along with self-published books, developing and uploading a mobile app onto the Google Play Store is another great opportunity to make money online with Google. Although developing a mobile app typically requires specialized skills and isn’t cheap, the Play Store can be worth the resources because you can monetize your mobile app through a variety of methods, including:
- Subscriptions
- In-app purchases
- Selling a paid app
- Google AdMob
When just considering the advertising revenue a mobile app can earn through allowing display ads to appear, the profit potential of Google Play mobile apps is huge. For example, the mobile application game Flappy Bird was able to generate upwards of $50K/day in advertising revenue alone back in 2014. It's also worth noting that the average salary range of an Android app developer in the United States is around $120K/year according to ZipRecruiter, indicating just how lucrative creating mobile apps for Google can be.
8. Develop web extensions for Google Chrome
Android developers and project managers aren’t limited to developing just for the Google Play Store, they can also make money by developing extensions for Google Chrome. Google Chrome is a web browser by Google used by over 3 billion people worldwide, according to Statista. Google Chrome extensions are programs that can be installed into an individual's Google Chrome browser to customize the browsing experience. Chrome extensions can be created for many purposes. Some of the most popular include Grammarly to help with spelling and grammar, as well as LastPass to automatically store passwords you use on the web. Similar to Google Play Store apps, Google Chrome extensions can be monetized through a variety of methods, like:
- Charging money for the extension
- Allowing paid advertisements to run within the extension
- Accepting donations from customers
- Selling the extension to another company
In fact, PayPal acquired the browser extension Honey, which finds the best product deals on the internet, for a whopping $4 billion! If you’d rather hold onto your software and generate consistent income, that’s entirely possible as well. Just look at Gmass, the Chrome Browser extension that charges users to send email campaigns from within Gmail and generates its creator Ajay Goel a whopping $130K/month, according to an interview between Ajay and Indie Hackers.
How to make money with Google Chrome
- 1Identify an issue that many people are likely to face on the internet
- 2Develop an extension yourself or hire qualified developers to develop an extension that alleviates the target issue
- 3Upload your extension into the Chrome Web Store
- 4Choose a monetization method for your extension
- 5Advertise your extension to get user downloads and generate income
9. Earn Google Opinion Rewards
Google Opinion allows you to earn money on Google just by giving your opinion! Google Opinion Reward is a mobile app that is available on both the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. The Google money earning app pays users with either Google Play credit or PayPal Credit for completing short surveys. The types of surveys you can expect to complete with the Google earn money app include opinion polls, hotel reviews, merchant satisfaction surveys and more. According to Google, you can expect to make between $0.10 and $1.00 per survey completed, dependent on the number of questions and amount of time it takes to finish the survey. Therefore, you should expect to make big money from this, but you can make $10 to $20/month if you put some time into taking these Google Opinion surveys.
10. Become a Google Search Evaluator
One of the easiest ways to make money with Google Search is to become a Search Engine Evaluator. A Google Search Evaluator is a professional that evaluates the search results produced by Google and provides recommendations and insights for algorithm enhancements to improve search results for users. The average salary of a search engine evaluator in the United States is approximately $47,531/year, according to Glassdoor. Some of the top companies hiring for search engine evaluator roles include:
- Appen
- Lionsbridge
- iSoftStone
- TELUS International
11. Get a remote job through Google Careers
Google offers many remote jobs through Google Careers for those looking for more structured and stable online income opportunities. Although most, if not all, of the roles on Google Careers require comprehensive education and previous relevant working experience, Google is known to compensate employees well and offer great benefits. You can earn approximately $123,766/year from Google, according to PayScale. That's the average salary of a Google employee. Some examples of the Google online jobs that are available include:
- Cyber Threat Intelligence Analyst
- Staff Software Engineer
- Interaction Designer
- Technical Solutions Consultant
- Business Intelligence Manager
Can you work for Google at home?
You can work for Google at home. Google offers many jobs that are remote eligible. However, these jobs are limited and the majority of Google jobs require at least some time spent in a physical office. Google cracked down on working from home full-time around April 2022 and has since insisted that most employees use a hybrid working model, working in the office at least three days each week, according to CNBC. Fortunately, for those that aren’t able to land one of Google’s few fully remote roles, there are many Google side jobs that allow you to make money without working directly for Google, like Google SEO consulting or running a Google Ads agency.
5 Stats that show why Google reigns supreme for making money online
- 1Google owns approximately 91.86% of the search engine market share - The vast majority of searches are made through Google, meaning it's the best place to reach the most people online. (Source: 99 Firms)
- 2Google handles over 8.5 billion searches each day - Whether you choose to run Google Ads or focus on Google SEO, there are billions of opportunities each day to reach your intended audience. (Source: Fit Small Business)
- 3Google is the most-visited website - Google is the most visited website on the internet, and it also owns the 2nd most visited website, YouTube. These platforms are interconnected and offer great profit potential, such as earning Google AdSense revenue from YouTube videos.
- 4Google generates $279.8 billion in revenue per year - Google makes hundreds of billions of dollars each year, the majority of which is in ad revenue. This shows that many advertisers turn to Google for their online advertising needs, and that Google has plenty of money to compensate their remote employees.
- 5Google Workspace is the most popular productivity tool - With over 9 million paying organizations, it's clear that major companies and online businesses prefer Google Workspace for remote organization and communications. Google Workspace offers excellent support for making money online. (Source: Business Insider)
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Conclusion: Which Google opportunity is the best for making money online?
Google offers many great opportunities to make money online. From generating AdSense revenue through blogging to developing Google Chrome extensions, there is some serious profit potential surrounding the internet giant and its various platforms. For those just looking for support with making money online, Google even offers solutions to support payment and processing like Google Pay, Google Wallet, and Google Checkout. However, not all of Google’s online money-making opportunities are equal. Some, like developing mobile apps or Chrome extensions, require extensive skills or funding to make happen. Others, like offering Google Ad or SEO consulting services, require constant attention and regular client interaction and therefore aren’t as optimal for those looking for more time freedom while working online.
In my experience, the best opportunity to make money online with Google is by ranking websites in local map packs and offering lead generation to service businesses. The required skills for local lead generation are relatively easy to learn and can be learned much faster than something like software development. Furthermore, the overhead costs for the business model are quite low as you primarily need to pay for a website domain, web hosting, and some software to track phone call leads, so it’s affordable to fund and grow your business as a solopreneur in the beginning.
Best of all, a local lead generation business allows you to make passive income once you get a website established on Google and partner with a local business. This enables you more time freedom to either continue scaling your business or focus on something else because you’ll have money coming in with minimal maintenance required. If you want to learn more about how I scaled my own local lead generation business to approximately $52K/month in mostly passive income, check out this lead gen coaching program that is supporting over 7K students in pursuing financial independence.
