Are you good at programming or coding? If so, you might be able to make money from it – and a whole lot of it. Ready to make money programming or coding? Read on to find out 7 awesome ways to turn your coding skills into cold hard cash.
Coders are constantly in demand, and that means you’ll always have money in your pocket. The best part is that you don’t have to learn coding through a college degree and years of classes like traditional jobs. It’s great if you went to school for programming, but even if you’re self-taught, there are still plenty of opportunities out there.
Here are some ways that you can turn your coding skills into cash.
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7 ways to make money programming/coding
Become a freelancer and work whenever you want
As a freelancer, you can work with many companies at once, and you don’t have to work from a traditional office. You can set your hours, your prices and make as much money as you want.
The trick to freelancing is to get several high-paying repeat customers. The more repeat customers you have, the more money you’ll make.
How do you find customers as a freelance programmer? You can use Fiverr, Upwork, or any number of other freelancing sites. The great thing about these sites is, they protect you from getting ripped off because they collect the money.
You can also find clients on Facebook, Craigslist, and forums. Just remember that you can get stiffed, so you should ask for at least half the money upfront.
Another way to get clients is by having your own website. You can promote your website through social media, and it can get traffic from Google. This is by far the hardest way to get clients as a freelancer, but some find it very profitable.
Start a blog to teach other people how to program
If you have a great understanding of programming, you could earn money by teaching other people. There are plenty of ways to make money with your blog. You could teach them how to code or how to get jobs as computer programmers.
Alternatively, you could create guides and ebooks and sell them on your blog. You could also sell advertising space on your website to make some extra cash. If you have people coming to your blog, you’ll be able to make money from them.
Blogging takes a lot of time because Google is super slow to send traffic. Every blog post you create is treated as a mini-site by Google, and it can take them upward of nine months to begin to send each post the highest level of traffic you can expect.
Blogging is a long-term way to make money, and it’s going to require you to create plenty of content and have lots of patience. Blogging is a great way to earn a passive income if you have the passion and ability to wait for what seems like forever for Google to send you traffic.
Create a YouTube channel teaching people how to code
You could do this in conjunction with blogging or create a stand-alone YouTube channel that teaches people how to code. You can get paid using YouTube’s partner program, where they share some of their ad revenue with you.
Another way YouTubers make money is by promoting affiliate offers. You could also create your own course and sell it. It takes a little creativity, but you can make money on YouTube beyond only sharing the ad revenue.
The great thing about having a programming channel is, you don’t need to show your face. No one cares what a programmer looks like; they only care about the information you’re putting out there on your channel. So, if you’re a bit shy, don’t worry because people want to learn from your expertise and could care less what you look like.
Develop an app and charge people a monthly fee to use it
If you have a knack for designing apps, develop your own app and charge people to use it. You can make money from this app by charging a monthly subscription fee. Each month you require to charge people a fee, and if the app is useful, they’ll be more than glad to pay it.
The key to making money with apps is, you need to create something that people find useful. If you’re building an app with no value, no one will pay you because they don’t want to waste their time.
It’s just like buying a book. You’re not going to buy a book that teaches you how to do nothing and has no value. You want to buy a book that teaches you how to do something useful, so your time is well worth the money.
You could also charge people to use your app for a limited period. But you can’t do this if you have no value, like a book with no content. Don’t forget that upgrades are a huge cash cow, and you can get people to upgrade their accounts to give them access to more advanced features.
Create games for Android and iPhone
There’s big money in games, even ones that you allow people to play for free. You can turn your love of coding into a highly profitable business if your game becomes popular. It’s incredibly easy to create digital games for mobile platforms, and anyone can get started if they have an idea in mind.
The best games are usually the ones that start as small, simple ideas that are completed quickly and become popular due to their unique features or simplicity. A large portion of the gaming market is filled with games developed by indie studios as a way to test out and explore their own ideas.
They’re usually developed with minimal initial budgets and are intended to showcase the developer’s skills. As word spreads, there’s a good chance that more people will start playing, which increases the revenue generated from in-game items and ads.
You never know if your game will be a hit, so that’s why it’s best to make as many as you can. Keep the games simple to make it easy for you to code and easy for the player to understand.
Create a course and sell it
As we mentioned above, blogging and YouTube are excellent traffic sources for info products such as courses. You can create a course that teaches people how to code and sell it. If you’ve been taught how to program in college, you’ll be familiar with the structure of the educational process.
You can sell your course on a website, or you can sell it on Udemy. Udemy is a marketplace where creators sell courses and get paid when people purchase their courses. You can also sell your course on iTunes, so you’ll get a good chunk of money straight from Apple.
If you’re new and no one knows who you are, it’s best to sell cheap courses that cost less than 15 dollars. Get some traction in the area and become an authority in your niche before charging more money. What you’re trying to do more than anything is get people to see that you’re someone they can learn from.
Create WordPress plugins and themes
You can make a decent living creating WordPress themes and plugins. WordPress has a growing userbase, and there are plenty of people out there looking for new ways to customize and enhance their websites.
WordPress web admins can pay a hefty fee for premium themes and plugins. This is because WordPress is a very powerful platform and people want a way to customize their sites. People also don’t mind paying for themes and plugins because they can show them off to their clients.
You could sell your WordPress themes and plugins on a marketplace such as ThemeForest or sell through one of the many WordPress-specific shops that exist. Take a look at what’s currently on the market and see if you can create something completely different or develop a significant improvement over something that already exists.
Get a programming job
Yes, a job. It’s not luxurious, and you’re not going to be driving a Lamborgini, but programming jobs do pay very well. These days you can work from home without ever having to get out of your pajamas.
Working from home has other benefits, such as applying for programming jobs in other cities, states, or even different countries. These days, many companies allow programmers to work from home and are still willing to pay them very handsomely for their hard work.
Can you make money programming?
As long as you’re good at coding and show a passion for it, there are plenty of ways to make money with your programming skills. It’s not uncommon for programmers to make over six figures, so the potential is there.
Just remember, like anything else in life, success comes from doing the hard work of daily practice. Work on your craft regularly, and be sure to stay up-to-date on the latest news and trends in your industry. If you want to become a great programmer, you have to practice every day.
Choose an area of programming and work your hardest to excel at it. If you’re into mobile games, that’s the direction you should go in. Find your passion and take it as far as it can take you because that’s where you’ll find the most success.
I hope this has helped you discover all the ways to make money programming. Now, it’s all up to you to take the next step!
