Top 17 Skills To Make Money Every Student Must Know

How to Make Money Online for Students?

As a college student or recent graduate, you might be wondering how to earn money online. Many students seek out the most profitable skills to make money online.

If you’re one of them, your search ends here. In this blog, I’ve compiled a list of top money-making skills. We’ll outline the most profitable skills to learn from home and explain how you can develop these skills to boost your online earning potential.

Equipping yourself with these high-income skills can pave the way to a job with one of the top companies in India. So, stay with me until the end of this blog to discover the best skills for earning money online.

Before diving into the detailed list of online money-making skills, let’s first quickly understand what high-income skills are and why it’s essential to develop them.

Many people want to equip themselves with profitable skills to learn to make money online. Needless to say, they enrol for a free digital marketing certification to explore what the industry has in store for them.

What Is a High-Income Skill?

As the name suggests, high-income skills are skills and abilities that are in demand, and they make good money compared to other skills. These skills differ from the usual abilities like time management, good communication, etc. These money-making skills for students are highly specialised and require in-depth knowledge and training that are focused on just one thing rather than being a general thing.

High-income skills make you more appealing to recruiting managers and expand your career horizons. With top money-making skills, you can switch career paths easily, depending on market demand, and earn a handsome paycheck in return.

Many aspirants have shown an interest in learning the skills that pay well; hence it’s no surprise that they enrol in a digital marketing course.

Now, let’s quickly go through why it’s important.

Why Do You Need to Develop High-Income Skills

• Offers flexible work opportunities: Learning high-income skills opens doors to flexible work opportunities, allowing individuals to balance other work and earn money easily.
• Career advancement: Mastering high-income skills can lead to career advancement opportunities in the future, enhancing job prospects and earning potential.

• Adaptability in the digital age: In today’s digital age, possessing high-income skills equips professionals and individuals with the ability to adapt to changing market trends and demands.
• Empowerment and Confidence: Mastering high-income skills instils a sense of empowerment and confidence in individuals, knowing that they possess the in-demand skills for making money and succeeding on their terms.

Many aspirants want to learn the technical skills for earning money, encouraging them to look for online marketing courses in India.

Now that we know why high-income skills are important…let’s get to the list of top 18 highly profitable skills to make money online in 2024.

Top 17 Highly Profitable Skills to Make Money

With an array of top money-making skills, making a choice can be confusing. To solve this confusion, we have researched and compiled a list of the top money-making skills. Here are the top 17 skills to learn to make money in 2024:

1. Digital Marketing 

Hands down, digital marketing is one of the most profitable skills to learn at home, so it was going to make the list. In today’s digital age, understanding the fundamentals of digital marketing has become essential for every student looking to make money.

Any marketing through the internet is digital marketing. Once you master the art of reaching and engaging with a target audience, driving traffic to websites, and converting leads into customers, you are set in the right direction for equipping yourself with the learnable skills to make money.

By acquiring digital marketing skills, students can tap into the vast opportunities offered by the Internet to earn money. From social media marketing to search engine optimisation, content creation, and data analytics, these money-making skills for students empower them to navigate the online landscape and stand out in a competitive market. Developing proficiency in digital marketing opens doors to freelance work, part-time gigs, or even starting online businesses.

With IIDE’s Online Digital Marketing Course, students can get a headstart in the industry in just 4 – 5 months. But if you are considering starting a career in digital marketing after graduation, then a PG in digital marketing may be the right choice. With hands-on learning, networking opportunities and guaranteed placements, it is not something to miss.

Bonus Tip: Watch this video to learn about the top digital marketing skills that will continue to be in demand in the marketing industry.

2. Social Media Marketing

With billions of people using Meta and Instagram, among other platforms, social media marketing is one of the most profitable skills to learn at home and makes good money. No brand wants to leave social media to tap into its potential customers; thus, it’s evident that a company ignoring social media marketing will miss out on valuable opportunities for brand building. This underscores the immense importance of having strong social media marketing skills, making it one of the most profitable skills to learn.

A social media marketing executive deals with scheduling software and plans and executes a calendar of social media posts across Meta, X, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.

Their task also includes executing the best social media marketing strategies to elevate engagement for a brand and increase brand awareness, which in turn will increase sales.

Where to learn: Online social media marketing course

3. Website Development

Website development needs special mention as it is unquestionably one of the most important money-making skills. 

Every other business is going online, and they need a website to sell their products and services. Though many tools are available online that require no code to build a functional website, the most reliable and convenient website development platform is WordPress.

IIDE offers a website development course, one of the best skills for earning money, that offers mastering industry-approved tools like Glomaps, GoDaddy, Word fence, Yoast SEO, etc.

Now, there are many ways to build websites, but we suggest WordPress. Why? Well, not only do developers find it user-friendly for developers, but editors who want to modify content on their website also find it accessible. Understanding the basics, such as changing themes or installing new plugins to enhance your website’s functionality, is simple and doesn’t take much time.

Understanding the basics, like changing a theme or installing new plugins to improve your website’s functionality, is simple and will not require much time. However, if you want to dive into the core of website development and want to be able to make as many changes as you wish, then you need to learn coding languages like HTML, CSS, PHP, and Javascript.

Many businesses across India, particularly the ones operating in Delhi and Faridabad, want to teach their employees the basics of WordPress and other digital marketing components, due to which they look for the best digital marketing courses in Delhi.

Again, learning to code can be overwhelming initially. Still, tons of amazing web development courses are available online to teach you coding and one of these top money-making skills.

4. Affiliate Marketing 

Affiliate Marketing is one of the most profitable skills to learn at home to earn money online. Affiliate marketing requires the bare minimum investment, and one can make money by promoting products.

Sounds too good to be true, right? Well, affiliate marketing is a win-win situation for you and the company. By sharing the affiliate link, you can earn as much as ₹1 lakh per month in commission!

You must clearly understand what is being sold and have the right marketing skills for promotion. One of the primary benefits of affiliate marketing is that the company will take care of everything else, like customer service and delivery; all you need to do is promote making affiliate marketing one of the top money-making skills.

Many eCommerce giants such as Flipkart, Amazon, and eBay are known for their affiliate marketing programs. Recently, India’s best digital marketing institute – IIDE, has launched its own ‘Refer & Earn’ programme, similar to an affiliate marketing program, where both the referrer and referee earn benefits up to ₹ 15,000. IIDE’s Refer & Earn Programme is curated with your efforts kept in mind while promoting their courses. Hence, it is one of the easiest ways to earn big money, even if you are in college or a working professional.

So how does this work?

By promoting IIDE’s digital marketing courses to your friends and family, you can earn benefits up to ₹15,000 benefits every time you enrol for the course. To know more, watch this video. 

5. Content Writing 

Now, let us spill some digital secrets with you!

Search engines and the internet need content to show it to its users. The more any business publishes relatable and optimised content, the more it increases the chances of ranking high on the search result page.

That’s where businesses need content writers, making this profession one of the top money-making skills for students or working professionals.

The great thing about content writing is that you don’t have to do a dedicated course if you are already good at English. Writing your own blog can help you understand how content needs to be written and what kind of content is appreciated on the internet.

The demand for content writers is huge because every website, every Meta page, every post, every product description, and every sales pitch needs content, making it one of the most profitable skills to learn to make money. The essence of writing good content is in doing good research so your ‘research’ skills should be on point.

Skills that can go well with content writing are SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and creative design. SEO training is amazing because it will help your article rank well on search engines like Google and Bing. Your earning opportunities will increase exponentially if you can write Search Engine Optimised articles, establishing SEO as one of the most profitable skills to learn to make money.

We recommend you read these SEO tips and tricks to learn the best ways to create SEO-optimised content.

6. Copywriting

Many people confuse content and copywriting, but they’re two separate skills. What we saw above was content writing. Let’s know what copywriting is.

A copywriter’s job is to form compelling ad copies to sell products, educate and engage consumers, write product descriptions, email blasts, banner advertising, etc. Their job also includes brainstorming concepts and developing storyboards. They work with marketing and other creative teams/departments to refine communication strategies and ensure continuous brand messaging making copywriting one of the top skills that pay well.

Do you find this article insightful? 

If yes, check out our digital marketing blogs now!

If you intend to become a good copywriter, then besides writing grammatically correct texts, you should also focus on mastering techniques of ‘brand recall’ and learn to evoke responses from people. A good copywriter is expected to better understand the human psychology behind every buying decision, write/form compelling ad copies and come up with catchy jingles for brands. If you have a talent in this area, then you can develop one of the best skills for passive income.

Correct copywriting skills will enable you to make good landing pages, sales pages, and email sequences to grab people’s attention. Top brands hunt for copywriters, making it one of the most important money-making skills you can pursue as a career.

You will find a plethora of instructions on how to become a professional copywriter on the internet. To start with, you can read a few detailed articles and try joining a course that will help you understand copywriting progressively.

Where to learn: Online Copywriting Course with Certification

7. Email Marketing

Email marketing is an important aspect of every marketing plan and is one of the most profitable skills to learn at home. It is a direct marketing approach that involves sending personalised, mass emails to customers to persuade them to take a specific action – such as buying or subscribing to a service.

Most people assume that email marketing is just about writing an email and then forwarding it to your customers. But that’s not just it!

As an email marketer, you need to understand your audience, write copy that will resonate with them, visualise and design email formats, segment the email lists according to their intent, analyse email KPI metrics, and be more technical.

If you are good at copywriting or interested in automation and technical stuff, then email marketing can be one of the top money-making skills for you. Email marketing is one of the top skills to learn to make money.

We recommend you read this blog, ‘Omnichannel Marketing Strategy’ to understand other marketing strategies that can be used to expand your reach.

If you are a beginner in the field of email marketing, then watch this video to understand the basics of email marketing.

Where to learn: Online Email Marketing Course

8. SEO

SEO is an underrated money-making skill that requires attention to detail and patience to understand its concepts. Search Engine Optimisation is the process of increasing website traffic through organic search results. An SEO specialist improves the ranking of their website by working on both aspects- quality and quantity. Their job is to optimise the website content and attract an ample number of genuine visitors to the website.

SEO strategies keep evolving speedily, the reason being that the SEO specialist needs to keep a close track of the search engine algorithms, making it one of the most important and top money-making skills to pursue. Hence, website optimisation is a continuous/ never-ending process.

While SEO improves your organic search, Google Analytics enables you to understand user behaviour, measure marketing efforts, and make well-informed decisions.

Many businesses across India, especially the ones operating in Surat, understand the importance of SEO and other digital marketing elements, encouraging them to enrol their employees in one of the best digital marketing courses in surat.

One of the key advantages of these behavioural metrics is that they provide SEO specialists with valuable information on which pages get the most engagement.

Where to learn: Online SEO Course, Online Google Analytics Course

9. SEM

Search Engine Marketing, or SEM has become necessary to grow a business and is one of the best skills to earn money. As SEM is all about data, it has become a crucial digital marketing strategy for increasing a company’s reach. SEM has become a crucial digital marketing strategy for increasing a company’s reach.

Simply explained, if a user searches for a product online, the sites run ads to tell the users that the product is available on their site. Supposedly, these ads were not there at the top of the search engine results, the user would have gone to some other website.

This aspect of digital marketing deals with Google ads, which mainly aim to drive paid traffic to a website and ultimately increase sales.

SEM enables you to optimise these ads and target the correct audience for your business so that you get relevant clicks and eventually make good sales.

Hence, search engine marketing is one of the best skills for earning money.

Where to learn: Online Google Ads Course

10. Graphic Design

If you have a flair for colour schemes and good design, if you love art and computers, you can consider becoming a graphic designer. Just like other computer-related professions, graphic designing is one of the most profitable skills to learn at home to make money, and it will remain a desirable course for years to come.

Graphic design offers lucrative opportunities for individuals seeking to earn money online, making it one of the top skills for students who go on Google and search for the term ‘How to earn money online for students’. It is a must for individuals who have a knack for colour schemes and design, coupled with a passion for art and computers.

From crafting captivating visuals using tools like Photoshop, Illustrator, and Canva to enhancing user experience (UX) on websites, the scope for creativity is unknown. Every business requires design, whether it’s creating logos, website elements, or posters, making graphic design an indispensable and one of the most profitable skills to earn money online. While mastering software packages like Photoshop is essential, creativity and artistic vision are equally crucial.

However, only learning Photoshop is not enough. If you are creative and someone who has an eye for art, there is amazing stuff that you can do by knowing these tools. Learning these tools will equip you with the in-demand skills for making money.

The internet is filled with a lot of tutorials and guides on how to use these software packages, especially Photoshop, since it is so popular, making it easy to learn one of the in-demand skills for making money. Online platforms like Skillshare, Udemy, and Lynda.com offer structured courses to hone graphic design skills, ensuring a solid foundation for success in the ever-evolving digital landscape.

Another way of learning is to start with a design or edit basic stuff like a simple logo, remove the background from a picture, and look for guides online to help you do these specific tasks. The problem with this approach, however, is that your learning will not be structured, and it will be limited to what you come across, which might only sometimes be the best thing. 

You can consider being a freelance designer; all you need to start working on is a portfolio showcasing your good design skills. To enhance your design skills, you can engage with ample courses available on the internet. 

A few online courses for graphic design are Photoshop, Skillshare, Canva, and Udemy.

11. Web Designing

Web Design is no doubt a great online skill to learn to make money. The design, development, and maintenance of user-friendly websites have become a difficult endeavour in an era marked by the rapid rise of digital technology. 

With that, the demand for full-stack designers capable of creating dynamic, imaginative, and sophisticated websites is steadily increasing. If you have an eye for designs or visuals and are familiar with programming languages, then web design can be one of the most profitable skills to learn to make money for you. 

A web designer must be highly proficient in graphic designing, UX/UI, coding, programming, and more. User Experience and User Interface play a big role because 75% of consumers form an opinion about a website solely based on how it looks and feels. A web designer must grasp the art of improving UX (user experience) and UI (user interface) 

Understanding the basics of programming language and designing is a must for creating a functional website that ensures a great user experience. Learning to code can be intimidating at first, but there are a plethora of excellent web designing courses accessible online to help you get started to learn this important money-making skill.

12. Blogging

Only a few years back, blogging was just considered a hobby that people did besides being engaged in a full-time job, keeping successful blogging tips in mind. Currently, blogging functions the same; the only difference is that a lot has evolved over the years! In 2024, blogging is considered one of the best skills for earning money online.

Speaking of the average salary in blogging, it majorly depends on the following factors:

• The niche you picked for blogging
• The time you dedicate to blogging, learning, and executing
• Traffic on your blog
• Digital marketing techniques you implement 

Constancy, goals, and motivation are other factors that matter a lot. 

Now, there are various methods to monetise your blog; your income stream depends upon your level of blogging, what kind of blogs you write, and which method you select for the same. 

Jotted down below are a few of the modern ways how to make money from blogging:

• Direct Advertisement
• Ad networks- Ad Sense
• Affiliate marketing
• Paid Reviews
• Sponsored post

These are a few skills that you can master to make money, and most of them come under the umbrella of digital marketing. If you want to understand how digital marketing can help you develop the top money-making skills, this video may help you.

13. Video Editing

Video is the most effective marketing and promotional tool for music, products, services, news, education purposes, etc. We can already see video editing becoming the next big thing! Also, it is one of the easiest and most profitable skills to learn online to make money.

At present, video production doesn’t require huge expenses; the availability of a computer is all that is required to make professional videos if you possess the correct editing skills. Video editing skills are finally gaining huge importance, which is resulting in them being one of the most important skills for making money online. 

Apart from YouTube itself, which offers you a lot of detailed tutorials on video editing, you can find courses on Lynda.com that can help you out. Adobe has video tutorials on its website that are great for learning the software, so that’s another tool that you can explore.

Speaking of video, we encourage you to read this blog, ‘Video Marketing Trends’ to understand what kind of visual content your audience prefers.

14. Mobile App Development

Just like website development, app development has become one of the most profitable skills to learn to make money. A few skills required to be an app developer are programming, UI designing, backend computing, etc. 

It is undeniable that the world is moving towards mobile applications. We have started spending more time on our phones than on our computers. Every business is looking to expand into mobile app development, and the demand for individuals who can code Android and iOS apps is increasing every day. 

This field is promising, and if you are interested, you should start learning how to do it right now. Mobile app development will require you to be good at some coding languages (Java and the basics of XML for Android before you get started; you need to know that code is not difficult if you commit to it. 

Suppose you’re interested in learning mobile app development. In that case, you can get started with this Online App Store Optimization course, wherein you will learn about how to attract more users to the app store, increase conversion rates, and learn ASO tools, tips, tricks, and strategies.

Tutorials on teamtreehouse.com might be very helpful if you want to learn mobile app development. Since these are some of the top money-making skills, you will be able to recover your money quite easily within several months of focused study.

Now that you have a list of some high-paying online skills to make money let’s run through how you can develop them.

15. Tech Skills

In this ever-evolving digital world, equipping yourself with such high-income skills can help you explore a world of untapped potential. With many companies shifting their operations online, it becomes important to adopt cloud-based operating systems with professionals with expertise in AI and Machine learning, IT Automation, Cloud Computing, Software Development Methodologies, Fintech, Parallel communities, etc.

Witnessing a huge demand for this profession, one can earn a handsome salary by learning these most profitable skills to learn at home. 

Would you like to learn how marketers use these skills to create a company’s marketing strategy? Have a look at our digital marketing case studies now!

16. Project Management

Increasing complexity in the navigation of work has increased the need for individuals who can manage an array of tasks involving initiation of tasks, laying out the plan to perform a task, executing the plan, monitoring the performance of the task executed and measuring the goals met and identifying key performance indicators that led to success or failure. 

By mastering various project management software, one can manage their tasks and meet their goals effectively within the given time frame. With a surge in demand for individuals in the management field, pursuing these skills to make money online is a must.

17. Data Analysis

With the increasing need for individuals who can analyse, interpret, and derive insights from data, this has become one of the demanded online skills to learn to make money. The role of a data analyst data involves studying vast amounts of data by using tools such as Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, SQL, R, Python, etc., to analyse data and derive conclusions. 

Such analysis helps businesses make informed decisions that help them achieve their future goals. Therefore, investing in skills to learn to make money is a must.

How to Develop Online Skills to Make Money?

1. Enrol In a Course

While you might find free resources, nothing compares to a structured course that thoroughly teaches high-income skills from scratch. 

These courses follow a structure and have specific objectives for their students. A structured system aims to improve its learners’ abilities, making them industry-ready for professional challenges.

So, if you’re seriously considering learning the top money-making skills, you should go for a formal course.

2. Research With Free Resources

Take advantage of the internet’s vast resources to gauge in-demand skills for making money. This exploration helps you decide whether to continue learning the best skill for earning money or switch topics. 

3. Find a Mentor

A mentor offers valuable guidance and insights on mastering top money-making skills. Their advice can enhance your entrepreneurial skills for profit, helping you develop marketable skills for 2024 and navigate professional challenges.