work at home – The Work At Home Blog

Finding Freelance Writing Jobs

How do you find freelance writing jobs? This post will give you several tips to help you become a successful freelancer.

What is Freelance Writing?

Freelance writers do all sorts of writing. Online writing is a pretty lucrative business if you’re good at it. You can write web site content, blog posts, e-books, white papers, newsletters and more and you can get paid per word, paid per project or get paid per hour.

How Much Do Freelance Writers Make?

Freelance writers can make a penny to a dollar a word. Some less, some more depending on the type of work and expertise you’ve got. Many freelance writers start off dabbling and can quickly earn a full time income writing for the web. Some companies pay via PayPal and others do direct debit or send a check to you for your efforts on demand, weekly or monthly.

How Do You Get Started With Freelance Writing?

Visit freelance writer mentoring blogs, job sites and online writer communities for some more help and information. Once you’ve got some samples and built a bit of an online portfolio through a blog, through free article sites and by writing, you can find general or niche writing work.

Helpful Resources:

Home Job Group. Placement Assistance

Learn To Write Ebooks

Legit Online Work At Home Jobs

100 Useful and Free Open Courseware Classes for Webworkers

If you work from home, you’re often in charge of your own training and development. You need to develop and polish your skills as well as help them evolve with technology and whatever industry you’re in.

Check out this useful post on helpful courses for web workers. This is a great resource for anyone who wants to work at home!

How Many Eggs are in Your Work at Home Egg Basket?

Getting to work from home can be great. One of the things many people do is find more than one source of income, to protect their lifestyle. By having several sources of income, or income eggs in your basket, you protect your ability to earn, should something go awry.

Some, who are telecommuters, don’t worry as much because their job is considered as safe as any other full-time job but if you are a freelancer or have your own business, this isn’t always the case because you’re regularly searching for ways to earn. Several sources of income could mean safety and it could also mean that you’re making decent money.
Tips for Having Multiple Income Eggs

Find some quick paying go-to options. That way, if you’re in a pinch, you can get grocery money fast or money to take care of an unforeseen expense quickly. Wherever possible online entrepreneurs should have a few make money fast options.
Network. Talk to other entrepreneurs and freelancers. That way you can share leads and potentially share overflow work.
Work on developing some passive income streams. If you build websites with affiliate marketing, network marketing, or contextual advertising, for instance, the initial work could be time consuming but those sites could become passive for you, creating income that generates itself and presents you with monthly payments. Learn more about affiliate marketing and passive online income opportunities.

Strive for a delicate balance when adding income eggs. Too many could feel overwhelming and result in lack of balance but some regular ones, some passive income-building options, and some strategic fast-earners could be the ticket to reaching your financial and career goals.

3 Types of Freelance Writing Gigs and How to Find Them

Most freelance writers have several sources of writing work where they can get paid to write articles. Some are ongoing, some are one-off, and some are gap-fillers. All can be good. Read on for a bit about each of the above categories and how to go about getting those types of writing jobs.

Ongoing
Finding regular writing clients can be a good thing. Do a good job and you might get ongoing writing work.

One-Off Jobs
By marketing yourself, you can find writing jobs that are one-off scenarios. Someone might need a press release written, might decide that they want to write a new sales letter, want help re-vamping their website content, or want another freelance writing service. Marketing can help these clients find you.

Gap fillers.
There are content companies and busy clients that may offer you an all-you-can-write buffet. Having a few of these eggs can be a good thing because you can make fast money writing when you need to up your earnings or when you have a gap in your schedule. You an also spend some of your gaps working at upping your passive income streams through writing for revenue sharing sites, such as InfoBarrel and HubPages, or through developing content for your own sites and blogs.

How to find Writing Gigs:

Find ongoing and one-off clients by marketing on an ongoing basis. Freelance writers who market can get found by clients and some of those clients could provide you with regular work.

In terms of gap fillers, sign up with a writing agency, start a profile on a freelance bidding site such as Elance, sign up with content companies such as Textbroker, Internet Brands, and Demand Studios so you can dive into one of these options as and when you need to.

Getting paid to write articles can be a business of feasts and famines. By diversifying your incoming writing work sources and by continually marketing yourself you can have a wide array of options available.

Get Paid to Answer Questions

Quite a few sites want to offer people the ability to purchase knowledge and if you want to work at home, you could be answering questions for pay. People can buy answers online, they can view some of them for free, and they can get answers on their mobile phone, too.

If you’re looking to work at home and like doing online research, this could be something lucrative and enjoyable for you. Some sites offer revenue share and some offer paid services. Do beware that some places only offer pay if a customer is satisfied with your question.

Should you do a per question answering job or a revenue share option?

Up front pay might be what you’re looking for but be aware that revenue share options could result in passive income and might amount to more money over time.

Several Paid Question Answering Options:

Weegy

If you’re looking for a part-time work at home gig, consider joining http://www.Weegy.com.

Weegy pays about $0.20 USD per answer. You get paid via PayPal when your account hits $20.

WebAnswers

Webanswers.com pays with revenue-sharing. You can ask and answer questions. You get paid directly via Google Adsense so need your own account. There’s no guarantee with revenue sharing but it can have more long term earning potential if your answer is popular.

ChaCha

ChaCha.com is a popular choice and is said to pay ChaCha Guides between $3-9/hr for answering questions.

JustAnswer

JustAnswer offers a variety of paid questions for various rates and pays via PayPal.

AnswerGem

Answergem pays $9-$45 per answer. There are several levels of expert and clients can also pay to see archived answers so you can receive passive income here as well.

Askables

Askables.com is one to watch. They currently offer revenue sharing for those posting articles and points system for those answering questions. High points = more revenue share on your account. The site is also planning to roll out paid expert services as well in the near future.

Many won’t work full time answering questions from home but find it to be a nice sideline for a part time work at home job.

(photo credit: http://www.sxc.hu/profile/cobrasoft)

How Can You Make Money With Google Adsense?

Google Adsense shares ad revenue with publishers. This is a great opportunity for those that want to work at home part-time or even full time. The more publishing you do with Google ads on the page, the more money you can make online.You can sign up to be a Google publisher and make money from Google by utilising Adsense in many ways.

Here are some Google Adsense tips:

Start a blog
Join passive income sites
Post on forums

Blogs

Bloggers can add Google Adsense code to their websites. By doing this, you can earn revenue when people visit your blog. Join a blog network and you’ll share revenue. Start your own blog and you’ll earn 100% of revenue made on that blog. Even a blogspot.com blog (which is free to start) can make you money.

Passive Income

Many sites exist that allow you to share in their income. By contributing, through writing articles, you can earn revenue on an ongoing basis. Sites like Bukisa, InfoBarrel, HubPages, and Askables all have such programs.

Forum Posting

Some forums even share Google revenue as well. For every thread you start, you’ll earn a % of the revenue on that page. In this situation your Google publisher ID is put into your Control Panel.

One of the greatest things about publishing for Google Adsense revenue is that you can publish something once and earn from it indefinitely. There are techniques you can use to drive traffic to your pages as well and this can enhance the earning opportunities. Do some keyword research and you’ll make even more money because you can research the high paying keywords out there and that can increase your income.

How much can you make on Google Adsense?

The sky is the limit with Google earnings. You do need to be very careful that you follow their publisher guidelines otherwise you can get tossed out of the programme and have to forfeit your earnings. Google doesn’t divulge their earning formula so that they can keep the programme honest.

How do you get paid?

Google Adsense pays publishers monthly. For every month that you reach $100+ USD, you’ll get paid in the following month. You can be paid via a cheque in the mail or through direct bank deposit.)

Success Tips:

Post regularly, check your stats so you can analyze where your money is coming from, be sure to create valuable pages, and do keyword research.

(photo credit: http://www.sxc.hu/profile/owaisk_4u)

How to Choose Which Clickbank Products to Promote

Clickbank presents a great opportunity to work at home. In building your own online business, you won’t have to rely on someone else and your income can be limitless. Having several streams of income works well and after a bit of effort, they’ll be passive income sources that won’t require much (if any) action on your part. Affiliate marketing is something that I do, in addition to other ways I make money online.

How does Clickbank work?

It’s quite simple, really. You can make money online by directing people to Clickbank landing pages. When the Clickbank info product (usually downloadable, or, a membership) is sold, the person whose link was clicked to make that sale gets the commission. You use a hoplink that identifies you and triggers payment into your account.

The great thing about affiliate sales is that you’re not spending money to buy and resell items and you don’t have to touch the sale. You simply facilitate the sale of information products and get paid for driving traffic that converts.

If you sign up for a Clickbank affiliate account, you can browse the market place to see what products are out there. You can also see what the commission rates are, check out the landing pages, create your hoplinks, and sometimes there are pages set up for affiliates that have creatives such as logos, banners, and private label rights articles for you to use.

Hint: When you choose a product that offers support to affiliates, you can often be more successful at selling that product.

Browsing the Clickbank Marketplace

When looking at the marketplace, you can search for a particular subject, search by category, search by popularity, etc.

The Pitch Page

It’s really important to read the pitch page of a product you’re planning to promote. Does it appeal to you? Would you buy it?

Reviewing Products

It’s not a bad idea to buy the product you’re planning on selling. In fact, the affiliates who do that are going to have a greater chance of success.

By knowing what you’re selling you can have a greater chance of selling than the vast majority of people who are out there blindly promoting affiliate links for products when all they’ve done is read the pitch page.

It’s highly competitive and there are hundreds of products to choose from in the Clickbank market place.

Here are some tips for choosing products:

Look for products that are popular but not too popular. Clickbank gravity can be a difficult number to understand. The more popular, the more competition for them. You want to find a good mix of popularity and ability to compete. Though, if you’re a subject matter expert (or willing to become one) on a really popular product, you have a good chance of selling it.
Again, read the pitch page. If you’re not dazzled by it, others probably won’t be.
Look for a product that supports customers. If there’s no support, there may be a high chance of refund request, which will impact your bottom line profits.
If possible, look at subscription-based products. These offer recurring income.
Choose a product you’re interested in. That’ll make it easy to write articles and regularly promote that product
Look at trends. Google Trends is a great tool for helping you figure out what products are likely to sell.
Learn about Clickbank gravity. My friend Matt Bredel explains this well in his Tru Guru membership program.

Before you get started on your affiliate marketing journey, do some research about effective ways to promote your affiliate link. You’ll find a lot of resources out there that can help you learn how to maximize your potential through things such as: article marketing, pay per click, organic SEO, social marketing, and more. There are some resources on Clickbank itself, too. And the great thing about that is that there are 60 day money back guarantees if you choose to buy into a program that teaches you how to make more money on Clickbank.

Helpful Clickbank Resources:

Maverick Money Makers – Coaching Club for making money online.

Clickbank Code – The blueprint to Clickbank sales from a successful affiliate marketer

Secret Affiliate Weapon 2.0 – Passive Income Secrets

Profitable and Popular Passive Article Writing – Ideas

If you want to make money writing articles, it’s a great idea to do it on passive income sites. By posting your articles on revenue share sites you not only make money once but you could make money indefinitely . A lot of people that work at home write a few articles a week and watch their passive income streams grow. Dig through The Work at Home Blog for plenty of sources and resources related to getting paid to write. Today, let’s talk about how to find ideas for those articles.

The #1 way to ensure your passive income writing efforts pay off is to figure out what’s profitable. How do you know? Research.

Tips for researching profitable article ideas:

Popular page 1 results on eHow. (Want to make money on eHow too? Check out this ehow wcp post.. Outside of the US? Here are alternatives to the ehow wcp.)
Twitter hash tags (look at trending topics on Twitter)
Technorati. See what’s popular on Technorati
Google Trends. Look at the trends to see what people are searching for.
Clickbank market place. Look at the top ten Clickbank products and decide to write articles based on those subjects. Not only are they popular but because advertisers are paying top dollar for ads, you’ll make more income. (—>>> info on how I make money on Clickbank<<<—)

There are some hot topics, hot keywords, and solid techniques for maximising your passive income earning potential. By figuring out what people want to read about and figuring out how to optimise your articles for high search engine placement, you’ll increase your chances of making more money by writing. I’ll continue to write tips about these methods in the future so please feel free to subscribe and get work at home tips and leads sent directly to your mailbox.

Cheers,

Dana Prince

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.