Month: April 2009

How Do You Make Money Blogging?

There are a lot of people who blog today to supplement their income. Some make money and some do not. Some even replace their day jobs! Here’s a look at several ways you can make money by blogging:

  • Google Adsense ads. Contextual advertisements can help you get paid
  • Banner advertising. You may get paid a fee for placing banners on your site
  • Contextual links. Some sites pay bloggers for inserting anchored text links that point to their client’s site
  • Affiliate marketing. You can add ads to your site that point to online shops, information products, and more. The advertiser will pay you a commission rate for every piece you sell.
  • Add an online store to your sidebar
  • Do ghostblogging for companies on their corporate blogs

There are blog networks like Today.com that will pay you a fee per # of page impressions because they run their own revenue earning programs, and blog networks that pay you a percentage of earnings as well.

If you want to get started, a great way to go is to open a Today, WordPress, or Blogger blog and get acquainted with how easy it is to blog. Then read up on various monetization strategies (a popular guide is Atomic Blogging 3.0 ) and then consider buying your own domain and then registering your own blog.

Get Paid To Write At Daily Article

If you’re in search of places you can get paid to write, so you can become a 6 Figure Freelancer (or five figures, or heck, even 4 figures to start!), Daily Article is another source to remember. Some writers write articles specifically for this site and others use it when they’re unable to sell an article to a magazine, to a client, or when a sample article is not purchased by a potential client.

Membership fee? No, but Daily Article takes 20% of your fee.
Payout minimum? None. Daily Article pays as soon as they get paid.
Payment Method? PayPal
How much can you get paid? You set your own price.

Sell Your Freelance Articles

You can set your own price in the system and list the word count and topic. It’s a good idea to browse the site to see what prices others are charging so you can determine what the median price is for articles selling on the site.

The DailyArticle.com marketplace allows freelance writers to list their unique articles for sale and you get paid your 80% when the buyer purchases the article. They see a sample or an article scramble from the inquiry page and choose to place an order. The website staff verifies originality and quality before approving it to their customer base which includes existing customers and random site visitors.

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Tip: Getting an up front fee for your writing can be great! But, If you want to make more from an article than a few dollars by selling it just once, consider learning about some passive writing income programs.

Update:

The day I wrote this blog post on April 20, I posted my first article. I chose an article I’d been hanging onto for about 6 months that a client couldn’t use on the Daily Article site. I posted it in the marketplace for $16 and on April 24 I had a PayPal payment of $12.80 for the article. While a lot of factors will dictate how quickly you sell an article, I did want to post this update to show that I have been able to successfully use this site.

Work at Home Typing Job Info

If you’re interested in finding a work at home job doing typing or data entry, you’ll see a lot of advertisements for this.

Here at the work at home blog, we aim to provide helpful info. We display potential money making opportunities as well but believe people need to be aware of exactly what they’re getting into before they buy into a program to help them work from their home.

Be very careful about many of the typing jobs listed as a real work at home opportunity. Many of them are in fact opportunities but can be a bit misleading as they are not what they seem. This doesn’t mean that they’re not legitimate work at home opportunities but in order to decide if they’re worth pursuing you should learn more about what they entail.

What you ‘think’ a work at home typing job may be:

You might expect a company to be willing to pay you to do typing for them. Data entry jobs and other work at home admin jobs are out there. What you might notice in the ads is that some of these advertisements say that you can make a small fortune typing short ads. What this is, is called pay-per-click advertising.

Sure, you type ads but generally, no one is paying you to do it. In fact, you’re paying to post those ads. This type of job is a commission based affiliate marketing job that requires you to pay for sponsored Google advertisements advertising a product or service. If people click the ad and buy something, you make a commission. Sounds pretty good, right? Well it definitely can be and there are a lot of people making a great income at this but there’s a definite risk here. You’re going to have to pay for the advertisements and there is no guarantee of income because you only make money if people buy from you. Pay-per-click advertising is competitive and expensive.

Are there real typing jobs?

Of course there are companies looking for virtual assistants and administrative help. More companies than ever are utilising remote workforces. Some call center jobs and data entry jobs do pay an hourly wage for people to work from home doing mostly typing but you have to be very careful to read the fine print and know precisely what you are signing up for.

Affiliate marketing definitely offers a great opportunity to make money online and develop passive income streams but it is something that is pure commission-based instead of being salary- based and by doing it, you’re working for yourself instead of working for a company.

Sure, there are books and programs you can buy that can teach you how to turn typing ads into a potential income but for those looking for data entry jobs from home, they need to realise that affiliate marketing and pay per click advertising is not the same thing as a typical online data entry job.

If you’re interested in learning more about work at home job opportunities such as data entry and call center jobs, dig through our archives as we list many real wah leads. If you’re interested in your own home- based business through something like affiliate marketing, my friend Matt Bredel has recently launched his new Tru-Guru program which is a money-back guarantee membership-based program that can teach you everything you want to know about earning money at home with your computer step by step through video tutorials, cheat sheets, and more so that you can become a true guru at making money on the net.

Whether you want to work for someone else or work for yourself, the work at home lifestyle definitely has some perks!

Internet Marketing Without Money

The book No Money Marketing was written by me and Matthew Bredel. If you’d like to read it, you can get a free copy (value $97) through joining Tru-Guru, Matt’s subscription-based program that teaches people to become true online marketing gurus. (He’s offering a special now for $4.95 for a 30 day membership)
Those who buy a membership to Tru-Guru get several free bonuses and one of them is this book that’s filled with ideas of how to make money on the internet without an initial investment. Of course you’ll have paid the small subscription fee to get the free book but I do assure you, there are a lot of great ideas in there and the Tru-Guru subscription can be cancelled at any time (plus offers a money back guarantee).

Learning to make money online

Some people look for work at home jobs to make extra money. But many of them soon realize that there is a huge potential for a home-based business that you’re the boss of instead. Instead of working for someone else, you could start several different types of online businesses such as: affiliate marketing biz, creating an online dropshipping store, to create and market your own products, and more.

The most important aspect of searching for income opportunities on the web is research and Matthew Bredel has bundled several years of trial, error, research, and great results into his informative products.

Check out his free SEO Exciter Series to get a free sampling of his helpful teaching style when he shows you more than the basics of how he uses organic search engine optimization techniques to dominate the search engines in his niche (bringing him traffic and profit!).

I’d love your feedback on what you think of the book and the Tru-Guru program.

Cheers to your online success!

Dana

Make Passive Income With Flixya

Flixya is a site that allows you to

  • upload videos,
  • write blog posts,
  • and share photos

These actions can enable you to earn Google Adsense revenue from the site. It’s free to join and you need to use your own Google Adsense account in order to get paid.

Signing Up For Adsense

Apply to sign up for Adsense by visiting http://www.google.com/adsense and filling out the application. If you want to increase your chances of being approved, start a blog somewhere and write several quality posts over a few week period first. Google won’t accept all applications, particularly if they don’t know why you want an account.

If You’ve Got An Adsense Account Already

If you already have a Google Adsense account, your Flixya profile will enable you to link it. Many sites offer revenue sharing services for those who submit content but Flixya offers 100% of your revenue on your articles. My guess is that there are enough public areas of the site earning decent Google revenue to make this profitable enough that Flixya doens’t have to claw back any of your earnings.

How Often Can You Get Paid for Flixya Participation?

The great thing about this revenue model is that Google pays you directly so you can add several Google Adsense blogs and sites and revenue sharing sites together to meet your minimum payout level of $100.00. When your Google account reaches $100 you’ll receive payment the following month via bank transfer to your account or via paper cheque sent through the mail. So you don’t have to wait until Flixya earns you $100 on its own because it combines with the Adsense revenue you earn from other sites like Blogger, your self-hosted WordPress blogs, and HubPages.

How Much Will You Earn?

Those who put together their content with optimised SEO writing way as well as those who work hard to ensure their content gets plenty of social marketing can find that this could be a great passive income opportunity. You could earn pennies to start with but that money could keep coming long after you’ve published something on the site.

<3>How Much Can You Make With Google Adsense?

There are no set rates for making money with Google Adsense. It literally has unlimited earning potential. Varying factors determine how much ads are worth and your earnings can vary and build momentum over time depending on various things such as search engine optimization of your articles, the quantity of articles, and the subjects you’ve written about. Videos are particularly popular today too so you could earn a very decent income if your Flixya video goes viral.

Learning all you can about what ranks well and pays well is going to help you make a decent amount of passive income with Flixya.

Caution!

Do be careful that your content and actions don’t go against Google Adsense TOS (terms of service) otherwise your account could be terminated and your earnings forfeited. Google has very smart security checks in place that enable them to discover click fraud in a heartbeat so it’s very wise to familiarise yourself with how to manage your account properly so that you don’t risk being banned.

Work At Home Jobs Forum Posting

Forums can be a powerful tool for websites and so webmasters want people to populate them with interesting conversations. Why? Forums provide traffic in search engines to bring new people to websites and get people talking which can do several things including bring revenue to the company that’s posting through inserted advertising, etc.

There are many forums that hire paid forum posters to keep conversations moving. There are also jobs for forum moderators and forum administrators who not only post conversations and reply to conversations but who take care of managing the operations of the forum.

Where can you find forum posting jobs? If you look online, Google will provide you listings of paid to post companies. You can also advertise your own services as a paid forum poster. Many webmaster forums that provide helpful information to owners of other websites will list forum posting jobs as well in their community classifieds section. You can often find forum posting positions listed in Digital Point Forums or Site Point Forums.

How Much Does Forum Posting Pay?

Forum posting ranges from about a nickel to a dollar a post with an average of .10 to .15 in mid 2008. Many posting jobs will require that you start a specific number of new threads as well as reply to existing threads. You may be expected to do a bit of research about the discussed subject matter so you can contribute to the conversation and the person hiring you for the gig may request that your posts are a specified length.

Forum posting is often paid for via services like PayPal on a regular basis. Be cautious about overdoing it without getting paid. Most of these gigs are not large dollar values and you might not be able to get paid in advance. Agree to a specified post number that is reasonable for you for when you can expect payment and don’t go over that amount until you see the funds come in. This applies more when dealing with individual webmasters versus larger forum posting companies although you should be careful whenever dealing with a new company.

How To Be A Great Forum Poster

If you’re great at this, you can get lots of regular and enjoyable work doing it. Here are a few tips:

  • Figure out what everyone is talking about by researching the subject matter.
  • Ask open ended questions to get people posting and talking rather than answering yes or no only.
  • Don’t reveal you are a paid poster. The webmaster will want you to blend in nicely.
  • Introduce yourself to get conversations started so you’ll blend in as well.
  • Avoid flamewars. Flamewars are online debates that can get heated. It’s best to stay out of these types of conflicts when you’re being paid to post as it can cause problems and prevent you from getting further gigs.
  • Use full words instead of online slang and use keywords that relate to your subject matter in the posts to help your client with their search engine optimization. (SEO refers to their placements in the search engines which can help them get new members.)

Work at Home Payments: Setting Up PayPal

When you earn money online, PayPal is one of the easiest ways to get paid. It is the defacto standard for those who make money online in terms of getting paid quickly and easily.

Setting it up is easy and getting paid is as easy as someone using your designated PayPal e-mail address. When someone pays you, the system walks them through a process and there isn’t a PayPal account number to be concerned with. They simply allocate the payment to the address you provided PayPal with when you set up your account. When someone pays you, you’ll get an e-mail notification at the same address.

There are things you should know about a PayPal account and here are some basic tips and PayPal FAQ’s for beginners:
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Personal PayPal Accounts

Basic / personal accounts are free. You don’t have to pay any fees from amounts you are paid. As soon as you exceed a dollar value received per month and / or someone attempts to pay you with a credit card, your account needs to be upgraded to a Premier account. When that happens, you’ll pay a % of every payment.

Everyone is allowed (per PayPal Terms of Service) to have two accounts so it is advantageous to keep a basic account and sign up for a premium account as well. A lot of people start off with a Personal account and upgrade (or start a second account) later on.

Premier PayPal Accounts

The premier account will require you to pay a fee. This ranges depending on several factors including:

  • What type of payment is made to you (cash payment or credit card)
  • The amount of the transaction
  • Where the payment is coming from (Some countries have surcharges on payments)

When you receive your payment, you’ll get a notice via email either that:

  1. You have new funds
  2. Funds are on the way

When you have new funds, the money is in your account (minus any fees) and you can use it to spend online, transfer to your bank account, or you can request that a cheque be sent to you.

How long does it take for PayPal payments to transfer to your bank?

When you transfer it to your bank account, the transaction typically takes 2-3 days (although PayPal stipulates up to 10 business days). You’ll probably notice a pattern after a few transfers that tell you how long your bank takes to receive the money and what time the funds usually arrive.

If you receive a notice that tells you funds are on the way, someone has sent you an e-check. E-checks can take up to a few weeks to clear and all you can do is wait for a notification from PayPal that says the funds cleared.

Setting up your bank account on PayPal
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You can set up a bank account easily. You provide PayPal with your bank information and then wait a few days. You’ll see two amounts (below $1.00 each) deposited into your bank account. When those amounts arrive, you simply log in to PayPal and confirm the amounts received. PayPal does this so they can determine they have your correct banking information for future deposits.

PayPal Bank Withdrawals
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If you attempt to pay an invoice that you don’t have the funds for, it will initiate an e-check from your primary bank account in the PayPal system so it’s important to be careful when making payments. If you live in Canada or the UK and you have an available balance in your US funds account, you’ll need to move money between currencies to purchase something online or make a payment in another currency otherwise, it will initiate an e-check.

If you live in the U.S, PayPal will give you a debit card that allows you to make purchases or withdrawals from an ATM bank machine. You can also make withdrawals to your own bank account.

Beyond the fees you pay when you receive your money, if you transfer a small amount of money to your bank account (under $150.00) you’ll also be charged a transaction fee of $0.50. This is removed from your transfer fee.

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PayPal Payments

If you try to make a payment in a currency for which you have a zero balance, an e-check can be initiated and this can take weeks to clear and your bank may have service charges if the e-check cannot be processed due to insufficient funds.

While PayPal does have fees, this service is definitely a must-have for anyone who wants to work at home and make money with their computer. It’s a fast and safe way to make and receive payments.

You can run plenty of reports from PayPal to help you with your records and they have other tools such as invoicing tools as well. Once you do get a lot of money happening in your account, they also offer PayPal merchant services and you can benefit from a lot of tools to help your online business run smoothly.

How Do You Find A Work at Home Job?

Querying the internet for real and legitimate work at home job leads can produce results that can confuse anyone. How do you find a real job opportunity for something that can pay you to do work from home? How to do you dodge the scams that are rampant on the net? Should you ever pay for information or pay to work for a company? There is a lot of information out there. Here are some basic tips for finding a work at home job:

Researching Work at Home Job Opportunities

Research a lot! Don’t jump into something quickly, rather check out various opportunities from more than a single source so you can be sure that no one is out there warning people against a scam. If someone is touting themselves as a guru to try to get you to buy their book or join their website, do some research on that individual as well.

Reviews

A lot of review sites exist that talk about what’s hot and what’s not in terms of learning programs you have to buy into. If you’re looking to start your own home based business that’s a bit different than simply working from your house for someone else so be sure you understand what you’re about to invest in.

Paying For Jobs

A company that wants to hire you should never charge you but a company that can show you how to create your own online income may charge you for that knowledge, coaching, and mentoring. Some teaching institutions can teach you how to launch a home based income opportunity as well but it’s important to choose an online school wisely and be sure they’re accredited as well as find out what % of graduates actually achieve the results that school promised.

Telecommuting, Job Lead, and Industry Specific Community Forums

There are a lot of places where people gather online to share knowledge about various topics and WAH is one of them. There are work at home Mom forums, work at home Dad forums, telecommuting forums that exist regardless of whether you’re a parent or not, and plenty of professional organisations online as well. Joining these is often free and can help you get information and ask questions.

WAH Job Lead Sites
There are a lot of work at home job lead sites out there that share job leads and tips. Subscribe to a few so you can have news about this industry sent to your e-mail box. Subscribe to this blog here for instance: The WAH Blog – Work at Home Tips. There are also plenty of classified sites that offer telecommuting job postings as well.

Informed Decisions

The most important thing you can do is to make sure you embark on any new opportunity with your eyes wide open and because there is such a vast amount of information available online, it’s easy to get dazed and confused and overwhelmed. If you take your time researching opportunities and take advantage of the many online resources that exist for those who want to develop internet businesses or find a work at home job, you’ll be able to make an informed decision.