8 Ways You Can Absolutely Make Money Online | Earning Money Online | Ask Point
8 working ways to
make money online in 2020
Options for earning money online are numerous. There’s one giant problem, though. What works all over the world may or may not work in India.
For instance, several similar posts like mine mention survey sites, but when it comes to Indians, those same sites either pay a pittance or reject the applications outright.
What you need is a list of working ways that are tried and tested. Which is precisely what you’re going to get.
In this post I’ve compiled different methods that are proven to work to earn money in India and can net you a good income with the internet. I provide not just a cursory glance at the methods but share actual steps to get you going with actual results wherever possible.
- Doesn’t that sound great?
- But who am I to tell you this?
My name is John. In 2014 I got a well-coveted Engineering seat after months of preparation and eventual success in entrance exams.
Few months into the course I came to the painful realization that this isn’t what I wanted to do with my life. My first love was and always is writing. Not knowing what to do I started a free blog on the Blogspot platform.
It brought me lakhs of visitors but not much in terms of earnings. Writing kept me sane. I was happy that I could write. I took to Fiverr, then freelancing and did scores of things to make money online after that.
By the time I passed out in 2018, I was comfortably earning what my friends in IT companies were starting with. And that was enough for me to continue what I began. I knew I was on the right path.
This post is a summary of my lessons— 8 years of distilled wisdom packed in one post. With these tips and tricks, your odds at success are much higher. I’ve never made this claim before but if you study and apply the method(s) in this guide there’s no reason why you won’t be successful.
Most of these methods don’t require much investment from your end and I always supplement the sections with information on how you can do it for free. That said if you have somewhere around Rs. 3000 to 5000 to invest that would be golden.
Let’s get started.
#1 Earning Money with Fiverr
Fiverr is where I started making something online.
Here’s proof of my earnings on the platform.
With Fiverr you need a PayPal or a Payoneer account to get paid.
On Fiverr if you’re not doing any promotions for your gig, Fiverr would take its own sweet time to send you that first sale. When I started, I didn’t know this and it took about 3 months.
If you’re able to get some sales by asking friends and family to help you out then the gig gains momentum and the later sales follow without too much effort. That’s what I like about Fiverr.
Despite so many flaws, Fiverr gives you sales without you working for it. As a seller, you need to be concerned only with delivering quality work on time and the rest takes care of it itself.
The million-dollar question is what kind of gigs get most sales, are easy enough to do so that even a non-technical person can host a gig and start making some moolah.
Those doing voice-overs make hundreds of thousands of dollars every week but that requires specialized skills, sometimes a good face and immense confidence.
- But first a few things on getting started.
- Getting started on Fiverr is real simple.
You create an account on Fiverr. It’s free. At the start you’ve to specify whether you want to be a seller or buyer.
Next list the gig you want to sell with all details like the time period for delivery, the exact offerings, and other details.
The gig would go live immediately and be shortly ranked. It’s up to you whether you want to wait until the first sale or hustle to get that yourself.
I am not a highly technical person and the gigs I did back then didn’t require any technical skills. I’ve confirmed that those gigs are popular even now.
Few gigs that have worked for me are as follows that require little to no technical skills:
- Market Research
- Proofreading
- Explainer videos
- Earn money with Market Research
Market research is where the money is.
Why?
Because you can charge any amount based on what the buyer’s requirements are.
I chanced upon this purely by accident. Up until 2016 Fiverr had a newsletter where they featured top-rated sellers. One among these sellers who was featured did a market research gig and charged upwards $200 for her work.
Yes she provided a lot of extras and went the extra mile. You don’t need many buyers for this to work. Just land 10 of these gigs in a month and you’re set to make $2000 in pure profit (minus Fiverr fees).
And believe me, I regularly turned over 2k every month.
Most market research only requires that you put in some time searching on Google. It’s crazy but something that the buyer could have done themselves would net you a lot for little work.
When I worked there, I avoided work that asked a lot from me like data entry and researching contact info. It’s totally up to if you want to carry out that kind of work.
Sample gig title: 1. I will do professional market research for 1 hour
2. I will search and find market data you’re looking for
- b. Make money with Proofreading
Proofreading requires a little bit of grammar know-how. Nothing too complicated though. If you’re not sure of grammar get a book and read it cover to cover to understand and get privy of the basics.
This alone should be able to empower you enough to wade through the waters and get enough sales. If you have positive reviews you should be able to get anywhere between $40 to $50 a week with the gig. With this gig I found that its not the one-off buyers who make you money but repeat buyers.
The ones who have a regular blog or newsletter and want another set of eyes on their content. Sometimes these buyers get content for pennies on the dollar and hire proofreaders to get it up to speed.
Such articles teem with grammatical mistakes on every sentence but these are the ones who are the bread and honey and can last for months or even years. When you think of it, it’s mostly easy money.
Sample title: I will proofread your ebook
I will proofread and check for grammatical mistakes and sentence structure
- c. Making animation videos
The next kind of gig is making explainer videos. It holds a lot of potentials and is something that can easily snowball into a few hundred per week. You need not make these videos manually.
There are softwares available that do the heavy lifting for you.
When you’re trying a video making gig you can’t just strut about feeling confident that everything is going to be right as rain.
You need some practice despite the tool doing 90% of the work for you. There are scores of tools like VideoScribe, Animator, Video Maker FX you can use.
Once you have practiced enough create your gig.
Sample title: 1. I will create a Whiteboard Animation Video In 24 hours
- I will create an amazing whiteboard doodle video
- I will create enchanting whiteboard animation video
Tips to optimize the gig
Fiverr has hundreds of thousands of gigs listed in every category imaginable. And hundreds of new are added every day.
This many gis and sellers means a thinner slice of the pie for you that’s thinning each passing day. Fiverr has to decide which gigs to rank at the top. If you’re not at the top you’re not making any money.
I don’t know the exact algorithm but few things have worked in my favor which I will enlist.
The more visitors you have, the more you’re able to sell, the faster you deliver the quicker you land additional sales and improve your gig’s visibility.
To measure your worth as a seller Fiverr looks at reviews, delivery speeds, communication speeds and host of other factors.
It begins with your gig title. Choose it wisely because it can’t be changed later. I am talking about the bit that appears in the address bar rather than what you see on the gig page which can be edited later on. Let’s call it the permalink. The permalink cannot be changed.
Here’s a visual example to drive the point home.
This is what the pros do— The gig title they choose the first time for the permalink is stuffed with as many keywords as possible.
Once the permalink is selected they edit the gig title again to something short.
This is what appears on the gig page.
To get the best of both worlds stuff keywords into the first title and then change it later to create something short, sweet and memorable.
As soon as you publish your gig, you can go back and edit your gig title to something shorter.
It’s a small change but it causes a world of difference when attracting buyers. Your gigs begin to rank for more keywords and for more keyword combinations.
Most new sellers on the platform are clueless and only experienced sellers are aware of this. Fiverr keeps changing things around but the SEO aspects have remained more or less the same since its inception.
Make sure that the images you use, the presentation and overall appearance and description is at par with other similar gigs. If you’re not confident about the hero image on the gig hire someone on Fiverr itself to create a kickass image.
The last time I tried this, the Fiverr seller was kind enough to offer the service entirely free to be— me being a fellow seller and everything.
As important as appearance, images and other factors are so is the description. Don’t copy from other sellers. You want it to be written in your own words but try to get an idea about how they describe their service, the extras they offer.
And I am not advising this based on ethics or morals alone, though they have their place. Copying descriptions per se can get you banned from the platform.
Get your service tagged correctly in the correct category and subcategory.
Finally ensure you use accurate tags for your gigs and also add those keywords or long-tail variations of the same into the gig title and description.
For instance for the market research gig you could use tags like the one below:
- Market research
- Market size
- Valuation
- Searching on google
- Research
Tips to continue selling well on the platform
- Fiverr wants your gigs to be presented well. If not you don’t get sales or conversions.
- With the new Out of Office mode, you can temporarily unlist your gigs as long as you want to be away. Don’t use the suspend option because I found that it negatively impacts your gig ranking. Out of office mode is your best bet and even that shouldn’t get abused. Don’t take too long a leave. Your competitors will get reviews and start ranking above you.
- Compare and contrast similar gigs and offer a unique twist.
- By showing images and pdfs of past work you can attract more buyers.
- Upsell clients on other addon services and make more money.
- Focus on quality and on-time delivery. If your gig says two days delivery doesn’t take 48 hours for delivery. Always try to deliver as soon as you’re done.
- Fiverr values sellers who can communicate quickly and often that reels buyers in. There are hundreds of competing gigs. If you don’t respond in 30 minutes the buyer’s going to scout for other options.
- Respond to feedback. Negative feedback isn’t detrimental to sales. It won’t deter other buyers if you handle it positively. (Now they have introduced an additional change. As a seller you are notified of a review but won’t be able to see it until you add your own review of the experience)
- Upsell clients by creating more gigs related to the main one. For example, a nicely compiled business plan pdf for the client you just offered market research. You can make at least $50 more with this trick.
- Make all communications insider Fiverr. Any outside attempt is frowned upon, is against Fiverr TOS. This may incite a warning from the system. Attempt it more number of times and they will ban you.
- The order gets marked as complete if the buyer doesn’t leave a review in 3 days and gets marked as complete immediately if he/she leaves a review. 14 days after that you can withdraw the funds even if it’s as low as $5
Fiverr is a search engine and like all search engines if we give it what it feeds on, we can have our gigs ranked high.
As long as you don’t overdo the tips below you’re good to go.
Send some traffic to your Fiverr gig. You can do it through AddMeFast and get the view count up.
Another place to get fake visitors is from Fiverr itself. There are scores of gigs offering that.
And if you want real traffic then go to sites like Warrior Forum and participate in the discussions. They allow a signature link and I have generated as many as 20 to 30 unique visitors to my blog with few posts.
Post on related Facebook groups. For the proofreading gig you could scour creative writing groups and link to your gig. There are hundreds of writers in these groups with books waiting in the wings. Perhaps you will make a sale or two and even get a repeat buyer.
Want to save more of the money you make? Read my post on the best credit cards in India.
#2 Start your own website to earn money online
Websites aren’t the quickest way to make a dime online. They take a lot of patience and work before you start to see the first trickle of dollar.
If you’re lucky you might make an affiliate commission out of the blue but such instances are rare.
Most of the advice on starting websites is more of a gimmick oriented towards selling you web-hosting, domain and other products the creator of the post is affiliated with.
I will steer clear of the usual gimmicks and get straight to the point.
The truth about websites: Initially generating a small income that will gradually build to larger and better amounts is doable.
Most people are good at getting traffic and clueless on how to monetize it. As with most things in life with websites you require a ton of patience to be successful.
The big advantage is the website being a platform entirely owned by you there’s no one to kick you out. Your website will rank and continue bringing clients, commissions, and traffic for years after the initial work is done. Or else you can keep the momentum by posting once a week.
However, there’s no workaround the time involved to secure the first few rankings. Let’s get started.
Building a site from scratch isn’t as difficult as it used to be years ago. There are hundreds of user-friendly CMSes with WordPress being the most popular and hundreds of thousands of plugins to make it do whatever you want it to.
There are both free and paid themes available to use as you please. If WordPress isn’t your cup of tea then you can choose among the many free platforms available ranging from Blogspot, to Tumblr to Typepad and others.
Most blogs don’t make any money. A lot others shut shop after a few months, weeks or years of trying and failing. Profits are elusive even when the threshold is so low.
You just need to be able to pay of hosting expenses and yet the vast majority don’t succeed.
- With my process you will come closer to success.
- Let’s see the process in more detail.
- Choose a popular and profitable topic
Passion alone doesn’t lead to profits. The first call of the day is to choose something with significant traffic potential and profit potential. There are instances where the traffic potential is bleak but the profits are high. We will discuss that later.
Keyword research tools, both free and paid can come in handy. Most tools give you a lot of details like CPC, search volume and some even divide search volumes by geographic region.
You want to look at that but the litmus test is searching for those keywords and going through the top few results to find out how these sites are monetizing themselves.
- Are they selling products they made themselves?
- Are they affiliate of something?
- Is it just AdSense ads?
- Of these what are you comfortable doing?
Get insights into who they’re targeting. Most successful blogs define their market by the age, gender, and core interests of the audience.
Yes you’re not targeting the entire world but this also means that the small group will be highly interested in what you’re saying and selling. Relevance is your biggest benefactor.
Put time and effort into your content
Don’t write content just for the sake of putting something out there. The average length of blog posts that rank on Google’s first page is 1900 words. Spend time in research and create valuable original content that can be shared and linked to.
With a website content is your cornerstone. This helps attract, retain, and make people come back. Consistently post once or twice every week or more. If you want to succeed, you need to put in the effort.
Promote your content
Based on feedback from your site and analytics data on how content is doing you can create more content pieces that revolve around popular topics on your site.
Optimize your site for search engines. Once established start guest posting to increase the visibility of your blog and if possible spend a little on social media advertising. If it’s a high traffic site don’t worry if the links are going to be no-follow.
You can also republish articles from your own site after seeking permission for the same.
Facebook and Instagram tend to be the usual channels but you can find a very engaged targeted audience on Quora as well.
Monetize that traffic
Once the traffic builds up it’s time to start generating revenue and find ideal ways to do that.
Based on the homework you did before by searching for keywords and analyzing sites to understand how they monetize their traffic you will have dozens of ideas on how to do that on your site.
Sponsored posts from advertisers is a quick way. Consulting is another. Affiliate marketing is yet one more popular way to make an income. Let’s see how to monetize in better detail
How to monetize your blog?
Write reviews on products or services based on the products you used in the past and the experience you had with them it’s possible to write authentic reviews that stem from real experience.
People are people to recognize that and value that kind of feedback. Testimonials are as effective as word of mouth and promote sales. How much more effective are real product reviews going to be.
There are sites that aggregate third-party reviews to this end just to benefit from the potential that word of mouth offers.
Offer consultancy
Professional advice offerings through your blog require that you have subject matter experience. And that’s not too difficult to gain.
If you spend a few hundred hours learning a subject you have more experience under your belt than the average person.
And even though you don’t value what you know others do. Because a blog engenders trust and trust smoothens most objections. Your readers already see you as an authority.
The difference between a blog and a business website is that the later is often cut and dry. There’s little for the reader to relate to. Your blog on the other hand gives a window to the reader regarding your personality. Use that to the hilt.
Relate stories and examples from your own life every now and then. Such examples make you appear relevant, authentic and just like another human being.
In the next section, I will show real examples of blogs that are monetizing their sites with product reviews, affiliate marketing, and other tactics.
Examples of sites that are earning thousands of dollars every month
- Outdoor Gear Lab
Outdoor Gear Lab was established in 2010. When most marketers took the approach of propping up multi-niche Amazon product review sites that covered everything from nail cutters to rocket fuel, the founders took a varied approach by putting the entire focus of the site on outdoor gear.
Rather than simply listing features of a product like every other review website on the planet does, they buy the product, test it thoroughly with scores of tests they invented for a set of products to gauge product quality, document it and then add those findings under each product.
They don’t simply assume that the 5 products they chose are the best. They might test anywhere between 10 to 50 products to find the best 5 or 10. This gives insights to the reader, makes use of real user feedback, and provides tips and tricks that are simply absent from what most review sites can come up with.
They value user experience to a fault. So much so that it’s difficult to find buy links inside the writeups.
Each blogpost has reviews on five products followed by a dedicated rating section that features a full-length table with product names, price vs value comparison, value plot chart, buying advice and also a separate section on the tests they framed.
The link for products takes you to a comparison table with prices and the product links inside reviews only take you to more detailed posts rather than the retailer.
Why?
It seems that doing this has made the experience a positive one for buyers. Even from a search engine viewpoint sites that are not plastered with affiliate links all over the place have a better chance at success.
The site doesn’t exclusively link to Amazon. The link to retailers that offer the highest discounts or are the most relevant for a particular product.
There are a very low number of ads on sidebars. This prevents from taking away the attention from content where the money is.
OutdoorGearLab’s primary focus was on creating great content.
Everything else was relegated to the background including revenue generation. The bet paid off very well.
Instead of coming across as a niche site, their entire presentation and design hints at something larger than life—an authority site, an eCommerce store, and so on. This helps branding.
- This is why I’m Broke
This is Why I’m Broke started off as a Reddit experiment.
It began as a list of unusual products on the subreddit dedicated to the meme “Shut up and Take my Money”.
Seeing the popularity, they decided to purchase a domain name and make things official.
The foundational idea from which they haven’t departed much since their inception as a place to curate interesting products.
What started as a section on a subreddit became so popular that other Redditors were sharing links from This is Why I’m broke to other subreddits, groups, and forums. This resulted in massive amounts of traffic.
Plus the domain name spelled out exactly what they did which helped with branding.
Their site became synonymous for a collection of odd, weird and fun stuff that people may forget in a shelf somewhere after a few weeks of purchase but were nonetheless interesting.
The product list they built consisted of interesting products which Redditors are suckers for. Eventually that phenomenon took over the internet.
The site’s homepage featured a prominent search bar that allowed the visitor to search for products immediately.
There isn’t much in terms of textual content on the site. Most products are reviewed in less than a paragraph and a majority have two sentences or three dedicated to them.
For products available on Amazon the links go to Amazon. But they don’t rely entirely on Amazon. There are links to all kinds of retailers and products that sport a wide range of prices from pennies to millions.
Ads are at a minimum. Instead they rely completely on affiliate marketing with product suggestions driving the bulk of their revenue generation. The core philosophy remains alive to this day.
The fact that creators promote interesting products with no affiliate links bears testament to their commitment to stay true to what they believe in. There’s also deals page on the homepage that links to Amazon’s deals for the day.
The uniqueness of presenting products helped them gather lot of press sending powerful links their way. This helped them rank with ease.
- IrishAroundOz
IrishAroundOz’s tagline calls it— The Website For Irish People Moving To Australia
And the site has stayed true to the tagline.
Stephen Palmer the man behind IrishAroundOz got inspired by Pat Flynn’s success (Pat runs the ever-popular blog Smart Passive Income) to try his own luck with a blog.
His blog as said before is for people moving from Ireland to Australia or ones visiting Australia.
Stephen quit his job when his blog started making around $2500 a month and since then four exceed his income.
How?
Along with the site, Steve has grown several Facebook groups and communities that are very location-specific. For instance Irish in Gold Coast or Irish in Canberra.
These hyper-specific groups all bring in tiny amounts of traffic that build up to massive revenues.
The reason I included his success story as part of the larger picture being presented here is because of how niched down his site is in reality.
According to the 2016 Irish census, there are around 4,761,865 people currently living in Ireland. That’s around 4.7 million or .06% of the world population.
And how many of those would go a long way from home to Australia instead of traveling to Europe. Maybe just a fraction, probably 1% of the population if that.
Yet, with this teeny tiny audience his site nets him more than 10000 a month and that was two years ago.
It’s amazing to see how a site that started as a hobby grew to attract so much traffic and grow to such high revenue. In much the same way if you feel that there’s a potential to make an income in a niche you can start a site to test the waters.
All it costs is a domain name. Or else start for free on Blogger’s Blogspot. If you see some initial success you can build on that and grow your numbers.
Stephen’s experiment is a testament to the fact that you need millions of people interested in a niche or the presence of a proven market.
These aren’t necessary ingredients for success. Even if you’re able to reach and cater to a small targeted audience it’s more than enough.
The blog focuses on solving problems that Irish settlers and travelers have. For instance permanent settlers might want to send money home but don’t have the time or patience to find out the best option.
That’s where Steve’s expertise comes in who lost a significant amount as transaction fees when he sent money for the first time.
The keywords and topics his site ranks for are as follows:
- Sponsored visa to Australia
- Tax guide for holidays
- Guide to transfer money from Ireland to Australia
- How to transfer money from Australia to Ireland
- Shipping items to Australia for cheap
If Steve so wants he could build a thriving consultancy around these terms alone. Help visitors consult on taxes, help them with visas. He could tie-up with hotels or offer booking deals on his site too. The possibilities are endless.
You too can build a thriving community website for your own region. What do you think?
Car Seat Answers
car seat Answers was found back in 2013. It targets a very niche audience with its content efforts.
The site’s mission was clear from Day 1. Become an authority site answering simple questions on car seats and becoming the go-to guide on that topic.
The theme is easy and simple to navigate.
The about us page doesn’t show any detail about the person who runs except that he is father to two lovely daughters. It’s hard to connect to a cut and dry and weakly developed person.
The bounce rate is really low indicating that users are looking for more information on the site. Great engagement overall.
10beasts com
10beasts was part of a public niche site challenge and it went on to make more than $40000 per month with very little effort.
The site barely has around 10 to 15 posts.
While I agree that all posts are relatively higher in word count, the primary method that was used to turn the site around was scholarship link building.
It doesn’t work now. But still, let me explain the process. What he did was contact universities, colleges, schools, and other institutes with a dedicated scholarship page and told them about the scholarship he was offering students. These institutes added a link to his page following the email.
Google trusts edu links and that trust flowed to his page as well. He linked to posts he wanted to rank from the scholarship page and very soon, those articles graced the first few spots on the first page.
His site was penalized and later recovered from the penalty. It’s safe to assume that the link juice is still flowing.
When the site was initially established it didn’t take long to come out of the dreaded Sandbox and made it unscathed in about 8 months. By December it was doing $80000 per month.
It got featured on Gaps.com which only added to its popularity.
After one year the site was sold through Empire Flippers for 1 million dollars.
Luqman attributes his success to the length of the articles. The average word count is 5000. He believes in quality and includes table, suggestions, pros, and cons based comparison tables, and insider tips.
Other than scholarship links he also went and obtained web 2.0 links and did geography which is doing outreach for an infographic.
Scholarship links can’t be called a blackhat technique.
After all the biggest brands like Coca-Cola do the same thing and many community sites are engaged in providing scholarships.
#3 Earn money for searching the web
In line with what I said about Fiverr, here’s one more method to earn money that will get you paid for searching the web.
Sounds good? Let’s continue.
- Swagbucks
Swagbucks' mission is to reward users with points for everyday things they do online. This includes searching the web too.
Swagbucks search is powered by Yahoo:
- How to make money?
After creating an account, go to Swagbucks’ search page to find the dedicated search engine and start searching like you do every day. The other thing to do is make Swagbucks your default search engine.
Detailed instructions for popular browsers like Chrome and Firefox are given.
There are other options too in case you’re interested. Every activity you engage in results in you earning points. There are games, a shop to purchase products, you can watch TV and attend surveys if you qualify.
There are two options to cash one. First being PayPal and second gift cards.
The watch section is particularly good. All you need to do is play videos and earn points. But note that I said play and not watch. The site can’t tell the difference.
You can hit play and go about your day and make money for doing nothing.
A playlist may have 15 videos which earns you 15 reward points. 1 reward point equals 1 cent.
- Bing Rewards
Bing is a direct competitor to Google and has a small smaller share of the search engine market. That doesn’t make it any less effective of a search engine though.
Plus being a sister company of Microsoft, they have deep pockets. They’re not shy about spending some of that money in a bid to improve their search engine market share.
Bing Rewards is one such attempt.
Bing Rewards offers you rewards for using Bing for your daily search needs. You earn points that can be redeemed later on for physical gifts.
For directions on how to join Bing Rewards, visit their “Help” page. After signing in using Bing to search the web instead of Google. There’s also a Chrome browser extension you can use.
- Qmee
Qmee is an online shopping engine helping shoppers discover deals and discounts, do price comparisons, and do reviews for products to earn commissions.
Qmee isn’t a search engine per se but shows sponsored listings on the left side of the screen. Whenever you find something interesting click on it to get points that you can redeem later.
Qmee is compatible with most web browsers and search engines and works even inside sites like Amazon.
It works by installing an add-on that is available for all popular browsers like Chrome, Firefox, or Internet Explorer. The add-on alters search engine page results to include sponsored listings from their end.
Unlike other reward programs that sport ridiculously high cashouts Qmee doesn’t hold a barrier. There’s no minimum to cashout and you can send even something as low a few cents i.e. less than a dollar to your PayPal.
#4 Trade stocks online to make money
Today it’s no longer necessary to wear a suit and tie and go to some fancy office to make money investing in stocks. It can be done entirely in the comfort of your home.
What am I talking about?
The stock market.
This is thanks to multiple online trading platforms available, many of which are discount trading options that charge very little per executed trade.
This requires that you have some money in your pocket for investment, even as little as 5000 to 10000.
Despite the risk associated with trading I prefer trading more than I like value investing over a long period of time.
This is because my businesses are growing and present an increasing challenge to find money to fuel that growth.
For instance this is what I did with Vedanta. I bought it for 234 and sold for 250 pocketing a tidy profit 20k on a 2 lakh investment in one week.
The profits went straight into link building efforts for one of my blogs and will do so until it can stand on its own leg and begin producing an income consistently.
That kind of money isn’t simply possible when you’re looking at value investing. I plan to do that and engage more in that when the time comes but right my interests are vested elsewhere.
In any case knowing something about the business is going to be beneficial. For instance, when I got my first mobile with the internet when I started Class 11.
Airtel seemed to be the most popular service provider at the time and I naturally went with it. The thing is 2008-10 was the period when 2G burst into the scene and millions of Indians had first access to internet including me.
Things became more interesting for me in particular. I figured out ways in which I could get access to the internet for free at zero balance. It was a true Jhinga lala moment for me. This went on for months, no years. I eventually figured out that it was rather a ploy by Airtel to retain and maintain its market share.
Provide free internet and the world’s their oyster. That was an exceptional first brush of mine in how real-world businesses ran themselves. I was very interested in purchasing Airtel stocks later in life. Somehow I knew they figured out how to survive. When I grew up I wanted to own the stock.
While this isn’t how you typically evaluate stocks or businesses such extrapolation can give some insights. Want to invest in a listed company— look at how they run their businesses. If it’s a chain hotel business like Oyo try witnessing first-hand the footfall, talk to managers and guards. Most times bored out of their routine they reveal so much that you can’t help but marvel.
It requires more poring but that’s a start.
With telecom, I figured that networks like Idea, or Vodafone didn’t have much gumption in that respect.
And years later I’m proven right after Jio landed all telcos in hot water. We saw large exits, a few bankruptcies, and one titanic merger. Airtel though is all grit and work.
There are many parameters that you can take into account when determining stocks that you ought to purchase. Remember that this isn’t a get quick rich scheme.
Gauge market sentiment by heading over to MoneyControl forums and read through the discussions happening around a particular stock. You’d have to wade through a lot of nonsense and half-complete sentences to find some real gems.
Most often news, as it happens, is updated on the site as are filings to NSE and BSE.
Don’t invest into stocks that have a dubious history. Prime examples are Vakrangee and PCJ.
Here we will be focusing on trading- either day trading or short-term holding.
The above-mentioned parameters let you screen and present stocks that meet the basic criteria.
You now have a list of stocks with nice fundamentals. But it doesn’t end here. You need to follow up on those companies and find as much information as you can.
To do this you should set up Google alerts that inform you about the company’s details.
The characteristic feature of the market is that stocks come down to their real value sooner or later. We often hear a term called a correction.
Correction is when a stock that has gone too high in value due to investor interest and overbuying returns to its actual market value.
It’s important when purchasing stocks that you consider its real value.
With the warnings out of the way let’s look at what defines a good stock.
Step 1 Understand the business model
To understand more about a company see if you’re able to answer these questions;
- Are you able to wrap your head around the company’s business model?
- What are they selling?
- Who are they selling to?
- What are the growth prospects?
- What factors influence sales?
Invest in ones whose business model is clear to you. From my analysis I picked up a few stocks that have stayed with me for years.
The fact I like about the stocks below is that despite the Sensex falling over the cliff registering declines of over 3000 points the following ones stayed positive. And dropped only by a few points compared to others that fell 300 to 500 points.
I am talking about Vedanta and GAIL.
RCom, PC Jewellers, and IB Ventures could be money makers and I have them in my portfolio but they are risky.
Step 2 Compare the P/E Ratios
Using a stock screener tool like Screener.in you will be able to pick stocks with pretty good fundamentals and compare and contrast P/E ratios of peers for the stock you selected.
Considering the real valuation of a stock is good for both day-trading and long-term investing. The masters of this craft spend the majority of their time looking for stocks that are undervalued. A straightforward metric that helps you guide your decisions in this respect is the P/E ratio or Price to Earning Ratio.
Here’s a visual example.
You can easily find P/E ratios by going to MoneyControl or searching on Google for the particular stock. Also there are rough estimates on what can be considered a good P/E ratio. Anything below 15 is a cheap stock. Above 20 is pricy stock.
P/E ratio shouldn’t be your sole determiner when picking stocks.
- Just don’t blindly pick a stock based on P/E value. Compare the P/E to its peers to see how they are faring and if it’s much cheaper compared to others or expensive.
- Low PE or high PE by itself don’t tell the complete story. Find out news articles, reports and other relevant material to see the complete picture.
- Don’t go by ratios alone. Factors outside the business’s control may be at play here and the stock can be low or high based on those factors. Maybe the business is slowing down like what happened in the case of Ashok Leyland. Even after posting multiple profits throughout quarters the stock went down after the government announced new axle norms which meant more competition for Ashok Leyland.
Step 3 Dig financials
Don’t spare a cursory glance into financials. Instead dig through and find as much info as you’re able to. Quarterly and annual reports contain all details.
Check filings with the BSE and NSE and reports available on the company on BSE and NSE. Read through as many reports as you can because we want to understand the history of profitability of the company.
- Look for revenue growth.
- Revenue growth is essential. Look for companies who present an annual growth rate
- Know how much debt the company has.
- Debt is not necessarily a bad thing. It fuels growth and provides an impetus for investments. However the interest cost will be higher which means profit will be cut short. Amazon has historically never made much profit. But that doesn’t mean its stock is beating the gutter. In fact Jeff Bezos owing to Amazon’s valuation is the richest person today.
- Find a dividend.
- Annually a few companies announce dividends. The dividend you get is based on the number of stocks you hold and it can be 1 rs 2 rs to 10 rs per stock. It indicates that the financial health of the Corp. is good.
- Don’t rely too much on analyst recommendations.
- If you’re anything like me you might spend a lot of time watching CNBC and other channels that provide one stock tup after the other. It’s true that sometimes they provide the right calls. But it’s mostly hit and miss. There are multiple factors at play most of which miss analysts’ eyes. Don’t buy something on a buy rating or sell. Based on your research if it feels like a buy even under strong sell go ahead.
- Don’t be surprised by volatility.
- Prices can swing. Gold ups and downs can take jewelry stocks on a roller coaster ride
Finally, don’t buy into the hype.
Even in this case I can relate to a recent incident. A friend of mine came from Bangalore and he went on and on about OneCoin.
Hearing him you’d think that OneCoin was the 8th wonder of the world. I listened to everything he had to say without commenting for the 2 days he was with me.
However, before investing I took to the net and researched everything about it. It dawned on me that the hyped crypto coin was a big scam. Especially in Karnataka. Come October lakhs of people who blindly believed the hype have lost crores invested in the scheme not only in India but the world over.
Even during the dot com hype people invested in every company that was floated without giving two hoots about their business models. When they went bust so went the millions. Even the founders didn’t have a clue as to what they were doing.
#5 Make money with Instagram
The best thing about Instagram is that it still has its organic reach intact. There are scores of ways in which you could test things out on the platform and drive traffic and conversions. Instagram is the platform to be on to earn money today.
For instance you could create an account in the WoodWorking niche which is particularly popular on Instagram these days.
Even with low number of followers you can make money with Instagram as long as you’re engaging with them the right way.
The question How many followers do I need to make money is wrong.
The right question is What do I need to do to make money off of Instagram?
Follower count is not very important. It depends on a range of factors that can either slow you down or quicken the deal.
It depends on the niche you’re in and how easily you’re able to tie it to a product.
- The engagement levels of followers. Bulking up on fake traffic or followers even 100 or 100,000 isn’t going to do a world of good.
- The clarity in the revenue channel you will be exploring
How to earn money on Instagram
Instagram offers more than one way to make money off it. In fact tricks and tips that work for almost every other platform with its unique twist can be applied to Instagram as well. If you’re committed there’s no one stopping you.
- You can do sponsored posts for brands that are related to your niche. And most brands only see value in contacting related Instagram influencers. Doing otherwise doesn’t benefit them. I have had brands contacting me directly seeing the high levels of engagement on my account.
- You can go the traditional path and sell others’ products for a commission. This is called affiliate marketing.
- If you have the time, expertise, and technical inclination you could create a course all by yourself and sell it to your followers.
- Instagram is a highly visual platform you could host photos and sell them.
Just because you’re working with brands and doing sponsored posts doesn’t mean that that’s the only revenue stream you ought to go for.
You can work with multiple methods in tandem and keep the cash rolling in.
Influencer marketing is the fastest-growing client acquisition method today.
I didn’t make up that stat. Influencers are people who have built a large following and engagement doing what they’re good at.
Think Kylie Jenner with her makeup tutorials.
They set trends, elicit trust, and are respected as authorities. They wield the same influence as real-world celebs do.
Partnering with these influencers takes a lot of the hard work out of the equation in reaching an audience that’s ideal for a brand.
In exchange for money they can get the followers’ trust, like and viewership that down the line could mean buckets of revenue and loyal customers.
The problem only arises for you as an influencer if you engage in too much of brand worship and forget your role and commitment as a creator who puts out unbiased original content. A fine balance has to be struck that allows you to make an income but yet not get carried away.
When 5000 Instagram influencers were asked what they charged for a sponsored, they replied it was between $200 to $400. This is what brands are alright with paying and with a higher number of followers the money can go up.
Other metrics like engagement rates too can help in making your case. Find out who your audience consists of and what are they interested in most.
All these numbers should be true and backed up in your Instagram Analytics report. This is only available with an Instagram business account. That takes 5 minutes to set up and is free.
How do I make money on Instagram
A few months ago, I started an Instagram account in the Woodworking niche. If you don’t know what that means woodworking is the art of making things with wood. Like you make a nicely designed table or chair and so on.
Those are experts who post their own woodworking videos. I use my account to repost these amazing videos.
Over time with me following a few accounts and posting consistently I have acquired over 1000 followers. This has resulted in over 300 to 400 routine likes on my posts and clicks to the URL I share in my bio.
Once I have 10000 followers I should get 100 clicks daily to my link which promotes a ClickBank product in the woodworking niche. I figure 100 clicks will result in one conversion.
So I will be making a few sales per month resulting in $500 to $1000 per month in profit eventually.
How does that sound?
#6 Earn money with matched betting
Before you tell me that it’s gambling and shut me out, please read through the whole thing. There’s no gambling involved. The money is tax-free and there’s a lot of potential for profits.
With matched betting, you can get a guaranteed profit from the free bet promotions offered by sites called bookmarkers. The profit is a mathematical certainty.
You can always find free betting offers any given day and they increase in frequency during big sporting events.
Let’s get clear on the associated terminology first so that you don’t confuse yourselves later down the road.
The back bet is short for backing bet. In this case you’re betting in favor of a certain outcome. For instance in the game between Spain and France if you’re backing France’s win that’s a back bet. If France indeed wins you win the bet and pocket the winnings. In case of a draw or loss you lose the bet.
The lay bets lay bet is when you bet against an outcome. You can take the above example and bet that France will not win. If they lose or the match ends in a draw you win the bet and pocket the earnings.
Lay bets unlike back bets are placed only at betting exchanges like Betfair.
So what’s the big deal about it? There’s an equal chance of winning and losing. Not so soon.
That’s where matched betting enters.
Matched betting removes the risk on the back bet. You’re simultaneously laying a back bet and lay bet thus canceling each other out.
This is called matching your bet. Matching bets cancel out each bet and negate their effect. But that would result in a no-win no-loss state right? Yes, so how does that help you make money?
After you place the first bet at a bookmarker you will get a free bet from them. That’s where you make the money. Remember that you can place back bets only at bookmarker sites.
Repeat what you did earlier and place a bet using the free bet available to you.
If the outcome is positive, meaning you won the bet you win the money. If it’s negative and you lost the best you don’t lose any money (it’s a free bet).
Google “free bets” and sign up for hundreds of such sites offering free bets and you can make around 1000 pounds a month.
For each matched bet you will earn 95% of the bet amount as pure profit. 5% is charged as a commission on winnings on most betting exchanges.
95% is a sizeable profit.
Before you withdraw profits you might face a rollover requirement which simply put is the number of eligible stakes that should be necessarily put before taking a withdrawal.
Qualifying for a free bet. Just after you sign up you don’t get a free bet. You need to put some money down to qualify for a free bet. The amount is stipulated by the bookmarker.
The principle is simple. You’re minimizing losses and you’re working towards generating profit from free money given by Bookmarker.
There’s still a catch in that you need to spare £25 on the Bookmarker site. Here’s how you minimize that risk.
By studying popular sports you will be able to find out more about your odds and channels with the most liquidity on the exchange.
2. By all means, avoid using high odds
For qualifying bets, high odds would mean you need to have a higher balance in the exchange account. A 9 point odd on a £20 bet means you need to put down £180.
Keep bets at minimum odds to minimize the risk and lower the odds.
By taking care of these steps you’re on your path to lowest risk and greatest yield.
#7 Make money building and selling Web 2.0 accounts
Making web 2.0 accounts is free.
I highly suggest you buy some email accounts in bulk for this purpose.
Web 2.0s are preferred by almost anyone trying to rank a site. After the guest posts and comments, links are done people usually prefer building some great web 2.0s.
The simple reason behind the act is web 2.0s provide great buffer links. They present an excellent opportunity to diversify anchor texts and the link profile.
When done well, web 2.0s are high at boosting a site’s ranking.
But despite all the benefits, it’s a long and tedious process that people tend to generally outsource.
That’s where you come in. It doesn’t require a boatload of technical knowledge. In fact after reading the steps outlined below, anyone and their cat can start building web 2.0s.
Let’s get started.
I will show two methods.
The first one consists of building new web 2.0s
And the second method is when you revive expired web 2.0s
But first,
Why are web 2.0s in such demand?
Yes they make great backlinks but why?
Firstly, do you understand what web 2.0s are? Those free blogging platforms you see like Jimdo, Tumblr, Medium, Blogger, WordPress and scores of others are called web 2.0s.
Anybody with an email address and in some cases a social media login can create an account there and build a web 2.0.
Plus all these sites I talked about have millions of backlinks to them making them an authoritative source of getting a link from. Blogger has a domain authority of 90 I think.
So, when you create a web 2.0 and link out to your site from that you’re siphoning of that authority. And another great thing is building a few links is enough to get more power flowing to your site.
Only a few strong links are necessary and this can be achieved through guest blogging or advertising.
As said before, it requires work, and here are the steps.
You’re going to manually create these web 2.0s. And when you’re selling these to others these need to be of very good quality.
Email ids
For a web 2.0 you need an email id. Gmail, Yahoo and others work fine. You can create those yourself if you’re short on cash.
I generally tend to spend a little bit and buy 100 or 200 of them in bulk.
Since you’re planning on selling these to others you need many email accounts. Hence bulk buying is advised.
The number of web 2.0 properties you sign up for is entirely dependent on the service you’re offering. You can offer a service that creates 10 web 2.0 accounts or 20. Limiting to that is preferred, otherwise, the work will be too much.
In fact when starting to choose 10.
When creating accounts for many people you will need proxies. I have found an Epic Browser and HideMyAss to be super useful. Both change IPs at the click of a button. Completely hassle-free.
The pros in the field know that creating every web 2.0 with the keyword in the address is detrimental and would look suspicious to search engines. Inform buyers first-hand that you will be varying keywords and using different keywords.
Create a few that are generic. Others will long-tail variations and reserve the exact keywords for the ones with the highest Domain authority.
Few examples
- Basketballtraininghq.blogspot.com
- Sportsforhealth.tumblr.com
- Basketballs.wordpress.com
- Sportsaddict.jimdo.com
And so on. Next, create content
Create content
The things discussed up until now were quite easy. The next step is the most important and the toughest and this what makes web 2.0 creation so distasteful— content
You need a lot of filler content for the web 2.0s. Nothing fancy. You’re writing for Forbes. The content should be unique, easy to read and understand and that’s about it.
The ideal length would be 400 to 600 words. You can go longer but there wouldn’t be no real purpose to that.
Once content is written the next steps are easy. Just paste into the web 2.0 editor. Most use a WYSIWYG- What you see is what you get editor meaning the headings, subheading, bold and another formatting will get replicate as it is.
You can go further and add images and youtube videos links to make it more attractive.
Make sure to mix things up on every post. Don’t follow the same pattern everywhere. Also include other pages like contact us and about us to make it look real.
Also place links randomly together with links to other sites that are not yours. This will add credibility and follow a natural linking pattern which is what we’re aiming for.
Save as draft and go to the next step.
Finally you don’t web 2.0s to get deleted. Most platforms don’t delete your site if you log in once in 3 to 6 months. Others require that your site looks like a real site.
For some web 2.0s like Tumblr it’s better to post periodically to keep it active and prevent it from getting deleted.
You can save those posts as drafts and publish later on schedule. That keeps things fresh. Be sure to have a few things in the pipeline.
The second method is to revive old dead web 2.0s and give them a new lease of life.
Reviving expired web 2.0s
But it’s even better if you have aged web 2.0 accounts with links already going to them. Web 2.0 accounts for page and domain authority.
Since they have links already going to them it’s like selling candy to a baby.
There are powerful tools that help you automate the process of searching and finding expired web 2.0s but even if you don’t have any tool you can find expired web 2.0s by simply searching on Google.
Plus install the Chrome Addon called Check my Links. It’s free and what it does is check for dead links on a particular page.
In order to find those search the following string on Google
site:tumblr.com + “Keyword”
So a sample search would be as follows: site:tumblr.com + “fitness”
Now, this isn’t limited to Tumblr but there’s an existing market for Tumblr and there are thousands of expired Tumblr blogs up for grabs last time I checked.
In case you want a list of web 2.0 sites that you can do similar things on here you go:
- Blogger
- Wix
- Squarespace
- Yola
- Webs
- Pen.io
- Npage.de
This is by no means an exhaustive list but you get a general idea.
Once you search with the above string you will get a number of Tumblr pages extremely relevant to your keyword.
On the google search page, itself click “Check my links button”. You will find it at the top right-hand corner of your browser and it will automatically start checking all URLs.
Go through all search engine page results the same way.
What we are looking for is red links which show us that the link is dead. We hit the jackpot.
All you need to do is go to Tumblr and register the domain. You can use your own mail id or use temporary mail ids or buy mail ids in bulk to this end.
Confirm your email so that Tumblr stops bugging you each time you try to log in.
Tumblr tends to deactivate accounts that look fake or are inactive. You don’t want that happening. Add profile pictures. Change the name of the blog to something good and add a couple posts.
Follow a few accounts and you will get plenty to repost and comment on.
Where to sell these web 2.0s?
I’ve seen a lot of interest in such services on Facebook groups for SEO.
The Lion Zeal Marketplace is one such place. Before trying to sell this as a service establish some rapport on the main Lion Zeal Group by participating in discussions and throwing your weight around.
People trust an authority figure.
I estimate that if you spend a few hours at this every day you should be able to close $50 in sales every now and then. An easy $500 to $1000 at the beginning and who knows where it’d go from there.
#8 Earn money with Freelancing—writing tasks Freelance writing
Freelance writing was my regular bread and butter for many years. No matter what I knew I could always rely on freelance writing to make ends meet and then some more.
Since there was no one to guide me it took me a few years to figure out everything and take my business to a point where I didn’t need to go scout for clients. Instead clients came to me.
This might not be possible at the start but if you follow the guide you will get the stage described above.
Let’s see how.
I recently helped a friend find some freelance paying gigs.
The first step I asked him was to decide on a particular niche or two or three niches.
It can be difficult zeroing down on a niche but it’s essential to everything else with freelance writing.
What should you do to arrive at the right niche?
I suggest writing down your interests, experience, and passion. And then try to marry them together to arrive at the perfect opportunity.
Later on, you can also change niches like changing jobs. The heart wants what the heart wants.
The hardest step is over. The next steps are easy. All you need to do is come up with 10 ideas that you can write articles on.
Most clients demand 10 samples and read through 2 or 3 of them. So be ready with ten.
Freelance writing isn’t pigeonholed into just one form of writing—blog posts/articles. Think out of the box. You can be an email writer, penning newsletters, or white paper writer if you’re so inclined. Correspondingly the samples should change from blogposts to newsletters or white papers.
Take to Google docs and write those out.
Now you could host these articles on docs itself or start a simple WordPress blog on the free platform. But I find that those two locations lack professionalism.
Medium solves the problem. And I find many writers increasingly migrating to the platform.
Once that’s done it’s time to spread out the word.
Nobody knows that you’re a freelance writer expect perhaps your best friend. To get clients you need to alter that status quo.
There are several good strategies for client acquisition that I outline below. Try all, stick to one that you like best.
Go to job boards
Job boards weren’t the stepping stones to my freelance career. In fact I used a free backlink checking tool and emailed the owner regarding how good it was. Emails continued.
One thing led to another and soon I was working for him as a content marketer.
It was after this experience that I went to job boards.
I don’t know about it now but warrior forum used to have a job board way back in 2010-11 and I did most of my job hunting there. The gigs weren’t particularly lucrative.
However, I wasn’t interested in getting lucrative pay. I was still in college and wanted to do something for pocket money. Fortunately I landed a long-term (lasted more than a year) regular gig.
I didn’t go looking for another gig while it lasted.
Here are a few other good job boards that have comparatively better clientele:
- Problogger Job Board
This could easily be the oldest job board online.
Anyone who wants to post a job has to pay $70 (it was $50) earlier for his listing to be featured.
The top listings are charged even higher and stay there for about a month. So you know high-paying clients at the outset.
The $70 listing fee keeps most of the low ballers out of the field and it’s a level playing field for writers seeking quality work.
The listings are added and removed frequently. And you might get 5 to 6 new listings on any given weekday. No registration required.
- Contena
What I like about Contena is it takes the hard work out of searching for freelance writing jobs. It’s a platform that aggregates job listings from several job boards at a single place.
The listings are updated daily and every day you can find dozens of opportunities.
Unlike the Problogger job board there’s no filter. This means you’ve to be cautious when applying. Paid registration is required to view the listing details.
The benefit of registration is being able to make use of the free alerts feature that the site offers. You can set particular criteria like content type, category, or rates and they will send you daily alerts for jobs that match the criteria.
For the newbie freelance writer you can go through their Pro Rates chart that shows average rates by industry. The data is sourced from real writers.
- All Freelance Writing
I like the job board because, despite the few listings, the rates for the jobs on offer are higher than most similar platforms.
You can find many highly-paid writing opportunities for free.
Want to know a secret trick to land jobs even without a proper writing sample at hand?
This should be used only when you have little to zero experience and just want some quick money in your hands.
This proves that even without experience you get land clients all day long.
It’s nearly zero risks save that you need to spend some time. With this pitch you can get in front of the decision-maker and turn the tide in your favor without much work.
The method requires that you have innate writing skills and are worth your mettle. Because if you’re not, even though you land the client you won’t be able to keep him.
Keep that in mind. Here’s how to do it
The method relies on using the Problogger job board. The board despite years of existence hasn’t waned in quality. In fact the kind of gigs you find there has improved in quality. This used to be my go-to place for years.
When you find a job listing you;re interested in writing them an email. Make sure the subject is apt or as mentioned inside the listing description.
Subject Line: Your Marketing writer
Hey SAM,
I will make this brief. I do content marketing for a living. I am interested in writing about the topics you mentioned in the gig.
However I don’t have any current samples of the work.
A lot of the content I read fits the style you requested and I’m willing to put in the time and write an article on a topic you give me in this niche. I will do the required research, source images, and send a ready to publish article completely free of cost.
You only pay me if you like the work and if it meets your standards. Otherwise toss it to the garbage bin.
We’ll still be friends.
What do you think?
Thanks for your time and consideration,
George Mathew
Yes you have never written an article as is asked in the job description. However the job interests you. You like to write about the topics and trust you have the skills.
Despite the lack of samples the sheer confidence exuded in the email is enough to get the foot in the door.
The pitch works and it can get you a client to try you out despite them receiving hundreds of pitches.
When applying for jobs through boards it’s essential that you’ve some samples. A blog’s ideal. Even the one on Medium works.
You need to be persuasive in your email and give them a strong reason to hire you.
If it’s your first time, dig up as much info about the company and include some of that info in your email. Personalize your pitch. All this hard work improves your odds of landing that job.
If they have a blog check it out and find out the topics they’re writing about.
If you follow all the steps you will land a paid gig soon.
Here’s another rock-solid strategy.
Cold Pitching Leads
With cold pitching you need to have samples of only one niche. Research and find more about businesses in that niche and then start clicking away at your keyboard. There are tools to automate outreach but if you’re thin on money then free works as well. It just takes longer.
You can reach out to businesses that don’t have a blog and who have a blog but don’t maintain it well.
Just introduce yourselves in the email. Link out to your Medium or WordPress blog and talk about how you can improve their blog and get them more leads.
Instead of a text pitch you could send an email pitch. This requires more work and a personalized approach but instead of 1 sale per 100 mails with the earlier method you might land 1 sale per 10 mails with video.
What sort of writing pays well?
You might have some rosy ideas about the kind of content that you want to write. But not all of those content types or topics pay well.
You need to be able to meet your ends and that’s not possible if you don’t take to paying markets.
Technology blogs, product reviews, personal essays, poetry don’t generally pay well.
Technology blogs primarily rely on Google AdSense as their bread and butter. AdSense barely pays peanuts and as a writer you get a tiny share of that peanut. The same goes for poetry.
Whitepapers tend to be quite high in remuneration but that requires personal contacts. Nobody is going to drop $1000 to $2000 on a no-name writer.
Larger companies typically sport a higher budget and pay more. It all depends on your skills and what you’re able to deliver.
After you get your first few clients ask them to recommend you to others and see if they know a lead or two. Recommendations that come this way can result in long-term clients who don’t mind paying a higher fee.
What should you charge?
When I started I charged $80 for a blog post that was around 1000 words. Over the years I kept the same rate or went higher charging $150 to $200 for a blogpost and often never lower than $100.
As a small experiment once I started charging just 1 to 2 cents per word meaning $10 for a 1000 word article. These were low paying clients and I wanted to see if low paying meant less work or less numb of revisions.
Surprisingly, the lower I charged the messier clients I got. Ones who demanded revisions over and over. Who wasn’t happy with anything and so on. It was a nightmare. English being a second language it might be difficult for you to command high rates.
However if you work on your grammar, sentence structure, and fine-tune your copy you should eventually land good gigs.
I would suggest starting at 1 or 2 cents per word and going up from there. Don’t expect good payor acceptance if you send half baked articles that are poorly written and poorly researched.
On job boards it’s pretty clear what their budget is. It’s often written and mentioned front and center.
Once you’re more confident you can charge higher.
Start at something. Next time quote higher and repeat the process until you reach a place where you’re happy with your earnings and clients.
How much money can you make as a freelance writer?
The State of Freelancing report conducted by data compiled by Contently after surveying 643 freelance writers, 24% of who earn more than $50k annually found that how much you earn as a freelance writer depends on you well you market yourself.
Of those surveyed it was revealed that their median annual income is between $10,001–$20,000.
A little over 19 percent of respondents made more than $50,000 last year, including about five percent who earned six figures.
- Offering Virtual Assistant Services
If freelance writing is not your cup of tea then you might want to go for virtual assistant services.
It’s easy to become a virtual assistant to earn money online.
All you need is an internet connection that’s stable (think Jio). With the internet it’s easy to complete everyday tasks, work from home, attend to social media marketing, and so on.
Most of these boring tasks can be carried out by an assistant. But the assistant need not be physically present with you.
Heck they can even be in another country if they so wish.
People generally hire virtual assistants for n number of tasks including formatting and editing content, scheduling appointments, email management, and replying to social media posting, and management.
This is by no means an exhaustive list. Head over to onlinejobs.ph to find all tasks virtual assistants are hired for.
All of these are tasks that aren’t very technical but need to be necessarily completed. However the task need not be handled by say the CEO of a two-member startup or a manager. Hence it gets outsourced.
How Much Money Can You Make as a Virtual Assistant?
What you earn as a virtual assistant is only limited to how much time you can work as one. The number of hours you can dedicate to the tasks at hand.
At the start of this career you don’t have much to go on. There are no reviews, no testimonials and nothing to attest you of the quality of work you provide.
With positive reviews you can get clients and the number increase with the number of reviews.
In the US VAs generally charge between 20 to $40 an hour. This can go up to $100 per hour considering the living costs in the country.
In a country like India $10 to $20 per hour is ideal. You might not get anywhere in the ballpark when starting but as you establish yourself that will be the norm.
Being an established player comes with its set of benefits. You generally have more work than you can realistically do allowing you the freedom to take on easier tasks and not work with low paying clients.
You can join any number of freelancing platforms to start. The goal at joining should be to take up as many positive reviews as you’re able to. Not money, not proper hours. Just golden 5-star reviews. At this juncture pitch the lowest possible rate and put in more work than you otherwise do.
Once reviews are done half the job is done.
Any new client will see reviews as a testament to the quality of work provided and your dedication to the craft.
The service you provide should be in-demand and as you progress you should re-skill yourself or add more skills to the arsenal. If skills are in demand there’s no dearth to work you will get. And these skills can be applied outside the VA ship.
How you’re able to sell yourself directly impacts how much you will be able to earn. Read through profile descriptions of VAs on the freelancing site and understand why some are successful. Think hard about the unique benefits and advantages you offer and sell them. You should create your own Unique Selling Proposition.
List out all your skills.
- It helps if you’re multilingual. Most Indians know at least two languages. Put that to use.
- Written and spoken fluency in English beyond the basic literacy level is highly preferred.
- An in-depth understanding of grammar can help.
- Communication availability on platforms like Skype.
- Great at Excel or some report generation software and tools.
- Market research skills
- PPT making skills
- Proficiency in Cloud-based platforms
- Know-how on editing a theme and moving things around. Basic design and WordPress skills.
Conclusion
What do you think of the ideas I offered in this post?
Money earning has always been seen as a traditionally offline forte.
We work in cubicles and make sales calls through mobile these days but even before that our ancestors farmed, raised livestock and sold milk and wool to keep things spinning.
The traditional ways are slowly treading the path that dinosaurs went.
A large subset of the population doesn’t realize this and are still latching on to what they’ve been used to— government jobs, engineering or medicine. The safe and secure ways to make a living.
They deposit money in FDs and buy some real estate and rest assured in the hope that everything will be fine.
But change is what drives lives forward.
When Alexander Graham Bell, who invented the telephone approached Western Union (who at the time was the leading communications company) to buy his patent this is what they said, “The Telephone purports to transmit the speaking voice over telegraph wires.
We found that the voice is very weak and indistinct, and grows even weaker when long wires are used between the transmitter and receiver. Technically, we do not see that this device will be ever capable of sending recognizable speech over a distance of several miles. In view of these facts, we feel that Mr. G.G. Hubbard’s request for $100,000 of the sale of this patent is utterly unreasonable”
As Graham secured funding from other investors he was able to turn the telephone into a gadget that became commonplace. Months later no one wanted to telegram. Western Union having realized their blunder hired Thomas Alva Edison to create their own telephone. And he did.
But Graham who was now rich contested it in the court and shunned Western Union from commercializing or patenting telephones. Graham was the sole holder.
The point of the story? Learn to embrace change, despite what old-world-thinkers say.
There’s no doubt about the fact that the internet is part and parcel of our lives. Thanks to the internet, one can sit in the comfort of his home and make a living, sometimes much more than what traditional jobs offer.
Even if you don’t want to make it a full-time gig, there’s no harm in getting a few thousand dollars in extra income.
What goes wrong is people get enticed by the huge number of scams online and end up losing money. In this post, there are no scams and there are multiple methods in case you don’t like one.
Go ahead and try a few methods listed above and let me know what you think of the methods and if you were able to succeed with any of them. You can approach me anytime for help.
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