Home Working Ideas

BlogDistributor – Is It Still Working?

Keith Lunt — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 22:11:49 +0000

I’ve been writing various posts for BlogDistributor for some time and over the last year earned well from them. However, something seems to have happened there.

First, the huge amount of weekly work dried up to just odd posts and then I realised that although my balance was in the order of hundreds of dollars, I’ve not been paid for a few months. This has happened before and a couple of contacts with them and then the payment is received.

But not this time. I’ve been emailing and using their contact form for over two months and although the opportunities still keep coming through, and the review process is going ahead, no one there can be bothered to reply to me. Even worse, they are not paying me!

So I am left wondering what the situation over at BlogDistributor is. Are they still alive and well or are they running on automatic? Are they still paying bloggers or has something gone drastically wrong? If you are currently working with them I would love to hear comments as to whether they are still worth working for.

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UPDATE: Well, it has taken several months and too many emails, but finally a payment has arrived from BlogDistributor. No explanation as to why it has taken a few months, but at least an apology and a little extra cash.

Work At Home Freelancer

Keith Lunt — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 21:11:28 +0000

Working at home as a freelancer must be one of the easiest ways to get going and can be very rewarding. But, what is involved and what must you be aware of?

If you have a skill that can be offered as a freelance worker, then you are likely to be able to continue that work from the comfort of your home as a freelancer. It can be easy to set up, especially if you take your time and establish yourself well from the outset.

The possibilities
Many trades and occupations will be able to be offered as a freelance worker, although not all and some are certainly more successful than others. For example, graphics and logo designers can quite often find a lot of work on offer, whilst editors, copy writers, proof readers and even translators can also find plenty of work if they are good enough.

In short, if you have a skill that involves working on a computer and you can transmit the required materials and the finished product over the internet, then you can probably set yourself up as a freelancer. Even a photographer can be requisitioned to take photographs remotely and then provide proofs via email and then final images.

Where to find the work
There are a few different suitable sources for such work. Within your country there will be a few freelancer type websites in which you can see a directory of available work and bid on the jobs. There are also similar type websites about that act as competitions. All interested freelance workers can, for example, have a go at building a sample logo (or whatever is required) and submitting that to the customer. The customer then picks the design that they like the most and appoints the creator to make for them the required resolution files.

Setting it all out properly
However, none of this will work well in the long term if you don’t get it all right from the start. Most customers are either going to want to see a sample of the work that you will be doing for them or a portfolio of quality work and testimonials from customers that you have worked with in the past. Even a most simple website, set up in WordPress, is going to be a help here, but it has to look professional. And if you are selling website design, logo design or graphic design or any other related skill set, then the website should reflect this and offer in itself a high quality look.

You also need to set up your own office and administration ready to deal with everything that will be thrown at you, carefully recording expenses and receipts. All of these sort of tasks need to be considered straight from the start, not months or even years later when the time comes to show you have the records.

Work From Home Selling Photography

Keith Lunt — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 18:11:25 +0000

This must be one of the easiest ways to get started, but you just need a little bit of skill, the right equipment and some time to get going. Read on for a beginner’s guide to working from home selling stock photography.

Stock photography varies. Some directories will now only accept the very best photographs that are more creative and totally different to everything else currently on their books. Others will not be so fussy and just want to get hold of as many stock photographs to sell as possible.

Where do you come in then? Well you need to match up your photograph portfolio to the various directories that are available to sell the pictures for you. If you are a fantastic photographer then you can work with the best directories about, maybe even selling your reject photographs through the lower quality directories that the not so good photographers are using.

Why use a directory?
This is quite a simple question to answer – because they have traffic! Yes, they have a lot of competition already for their searches and what they are selling, but if you are imaginative with your subject and careful with your keywords, you stand a chance of some of your pictures appearing in search results and if they are good enough, then someone will start downloading them.

How you earn
The amount and exact policy will earn from one directory to the next, but basically every time someone has the need of a photograph and decides that your photograph fits the bill they download it from the directory. You then earn a percentage of the price that they are paying for this download.

Exclusivity
Most of the stock photograph directories about will also pay you a lot more if you keep your photographs exclusive to them. Doing so reduces competition, so they like this. But that does not need to hinder you if you are working with multiple directories. If you take a handful of shots of the same subject and then select a few suitable photographs you simply upload some to one directory and the rest to the other. This way all of your work is on offer, whilst not filling one directory with too many similar shots!

Taking photos
Sorry, but holiday snap shots are unlikely to be accepted by any directory and if there is anybody in the picture, then you will need a signed release by that person to say you can use the photograph, unless it is impossible to identify them from the picture. Also, photos of brand labels and trademarks are almost certainly not going to be accepted.

Photos from your phone will also probably fail even the basic quality checks, you need to be taking well thought out pictures on a really high resolution camera. Do remember at this point that the bigger the picture will go the more someone might pay for it, especially as they might want to crop the end result.

Where might the pictures be used?
From website designers wanting a stock picture to newspapers wanting to brighten up a news story, I’ve seen pictures that I know are stock photographs appearing all over the place. If your images are good, they could be used almost anywhere!

Envelope Stuffing From Home – The Good And The Bad

Keith Lunt — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 20:11:25 +0000

There are two ways to go about stuffing envelopes from home – the right way and the wrong way. Doing it the right way can be rewarding and earn you money, whereas doing it the wrong way can cost you money. What should you know?

First, the wrong way
Maybe you have seen the advert on the internet, or one in a newspaper, offering ‘envelope stuffing work from home’. Just send some cash to the address provided and they will immediately despatch the starter kit. Stop right there, you are about to go about this the wrong way!

All you will get is a set of instructions telling you to place a similar advert and then as the cheques arrive, to post out the same instructions to the next victim of the scam. Not exactly what you want to be doing.

Now, the right way
If you want to go about envelope stuffing as a job then you need to think of it as a business and to start the work properly. What is needed? Where do you find customers and what are you offering them? Most importantly, why can you offer them something they cannot already do?

The opportunity
How often have you received junk mail through the post and just binned it without a second thought, maybe not even opening it? How often has that junk mail had a hand written envelope? Probably almost never. A letter with a hand written envelope will grab your attention and get opened. Your initial junk mail warning flags miss it because it is a plain envelope with a hand written address.

Your offering
So that is what you can offer to smaller companies. If they want to send out marketing letters to potential customers, maybe even existing customers, you can help them by hand writing addresses, which makes the recipients far more likely to open and read the letter.

Finding the work
As always with these sort of ideas, setting up a simple website first of all is always a good idea. Work out your pricing and create a small website on WordPress, using a suitable theme and your own domain name. Include example prices and contact information sand you are done.

Then look around for companies in your area that are sending out unsolicited mailings to customers. Contact them, telling them how you can assist them and increase the rate of envelopes that are actually opened. Give them a variety of different offers, from just hand writing the envelopes to going the whole way and also folding and stuffing the envelopes, writing the address and providing the stamps.

How the company can check your work
This might be a question that they ask, or they might do it anyway, but if they want to check the quality of your work they can simply insert a few ‘seed’ addresses into the list of destinations they send to you. These can be fictitious (or real) names at addresses that they can collect from. By adding these to the list of addresses and not telling you which they are, you will be sending them an example of your work and showing that the envelopes have gone out on time and to the quality required.

Work At Home As A Quiz Master

Keith Lunt — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 21:11:27 +0000

It might sound like a totally daft idea, but did you realise that you can work from home as a quiz master? Better still, you don’t even need to leave your desk to do it. Here is what is involved.

Many local pubs struggle mid week to pull in plenty of customers. Visit them during the evening between Sunday and Thursday and you are likely to find that although it is supposed to be peak time, they are not as full as they would like to be. That is why many resort to promotions such as pub quizzes to pull in more punters.

It can be a lot of work for the landlord
However, running a quiz is a lot of work for an already busy landlord. Researching sufficient questions each week, putting together the question sheet and some posters and so on can be too much like hard work and that is where you can come in to help them out.

First, visit a few local pubs on their mid week evenings, checking that they do not already run pub quizzes and see when they are quiet. Then just have a word with the landlord and ask if he or she has considered running a pub quiz. When they say that they have but the effort of finding the questions and promoting it is too much, that us where you can come in.

You can help support their needs
Offer for a small amount to do the leg work for them. Tell the landlord clearly what you are offering to give them and what it is you would want in return. If you are the outgoing type then you might also want to offer your services, for an additional fee, as quiz master, but for most people that is unnecessary and the pub would rather save their money and run that bit themselves.

Then all that you need to do is to research the questions, put together a few themed question sheets and hand them over each week. This is actually a lot easier to do than it sounds! For example, if you want a 40 question quiz, you can easily buy a sports quiz book that provides tons of sports questions and pick 10 questions from that for your quiz. Do the same for music and entertainment, or whatever best suits your customer. Add to that 10 questions about current affairs by reading the newspapers in the week and you have everything you need.

Promote yourself further
To make sure the evening is well noticed you can simply design a few basic posters advertising the quiz, print them out and hand them over. And by the time you have done this for a handful of local pubs you are well on your way to a good little home business. But to push it further, print out some answer sheets (a piece of paper with “Team Name” on the top and numbers down the side!) and add a link to your own website, which tells people about the service you are offering. This way players stand a chance of seeing what you are doing and telling other landlords in the area, who might also catch on!

Work At Home Blogs

Keith Lunt — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 08:36:20 +0000

It sounds great – make a living from home by blogging. But, what must you do and more importantly, what must you be aware of? Take a read of this guide from an experienced blogger.

When everything is going well you can make a good amount of money from blogging and I am sure that if you were to dedicate enough time to it then on those good periods a decent full time wage is possible, by running several quality blogs. But, what is a quality blog, how do you earn from it and when are the good and bad times?

A quality blog
What to me might look a quality blog might to you look rubbish and vice versa. It is a very subjective statement. However, if you are trying to earn from it then there are attributes the advertisers will want to work with.

First, it must look professional. Uploading WordPress and just leaving the default theme in place is not heading off in the right direction. Get some free themes and make it look good.

And when you edit them, do not overload with advertising. Yes, more advertising space means more potential, but potential that will not be realised. Just two blocks of adverts to keep everyone happy.

Then you need to work on the blog so that it has a good amount of readers – which is one aspect that advertisers may want. Now is not the time for detail, but SEO, article marketing, guest posting and so on are all good techniques. Also work on increasing your backlinks as this will increase the ‘value’ of your website.

Earning through blogging
For a blog with traffic the easiest way to earn is to sign up to Google’s Adsense and add a unit or two. If you are working with a local geographic audience then affiliate marketing can come into play, but this isn’t great for a worldwide audience. Selling links through various systems is also possible and lastly, the good old paid posting is what can really make a lot of cash.

The good times and the bad times
Unfortunately this is the risk of blogging an income. There are good times and there are bad times and you can control neither. One month I can have dozens of paid posts to write each day and barely keep up with them, then I can go weeks without any. One system can be my favourite for a few months, then suddenly dries up and provides no work.

For the big money you need to be depending on other systems to market your blog and find the work and this is the greatest risk and why to me, work at home blogging is nothing more than a really nice bonus and can never become a full time income. It is too dependent on other systems over which we have no control.

Is It Legal To Post Someone’s RSS Feed To My Blog?

Keith Lunt — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 10:30:31 +0000

Are you hoping to fill your blog with quality content from someone’s blog by using their RSS Feed? Are you worried about what happens if they find out, or are you sure that this is a great and easy way to fill your posts?

There are plugins galore on WordPress, and the same for other blogging systems, that will allow you to tap into someone’s RSS Feed and to publish the content directly to your own blog. There is no more struggling each day thinking about what you should be writing about, you just find a few blogs that are well written and highly on target for your own blog and off you go.

It sounds very easy, your own blog full of quality content that other people are writing for you – absolutely free. So, where’s the catch?

Is it legal, or even moral?
A lot of people take the stance that if it is published on the internet and available in Google then it is free for anyone to use in whatever way they like.

However, this is wrong. Many stock photo directories have all of their images listed by search engines, however copy the images without paying for the licences and their lawyers could be chasing you for thousands.

And the same goes with written content. It is the copyright, or the possession of, the original author. If I write an article and publish it to whatever blogs, article directories and other sites that I want, it is still up to me what happens with reprints.

Why syndicate then?
Just because a blogger publishes their content through an RSS Feed does not mean that they are inviting duplication by other bloggers. The purpose of RSS Feeds is to allow regular readers easier access to the latest ramblings of the blog, not to allow copying.

Is copying possible legally?
If you are desperate for some extra content and can’t face writing it all yourself, you might be able to use other bloggers for the job.

The first step is to actually just write to the bloggers who’s blogs interest you and ask them if they would like to become guest writers on your blog. In return, allow them to leave links back to your website. However, a lot of this depends on the bloggers having the time and energy to write sufficient for their blog and your blog.

You could ask them for permission to republish from their RSS Feed, offering to include some links back to their website. However, if you asked me I would say “No” – unless you had a good PageRank or a large readership.

What’s the problem with trying and giving it a go?
Unfortunately this is something that happens a lot and many people do try it. However, when bloggers find out there are processes in place for reporting the problem to the copying site’s host, who will insist (due to international copyright) that all content is removed. Usually someone copying will be given 24 hours to remove content. Be caught out too often and the hosts might just close the site down.

Better still, when it happened to me I also referred the case to Google, who closed down the copying blog’s rather profitable Adsense account!

So no, copying content from someone’s RSS Feed is not legal and can have many come backs in the long term.

Home Business – The Importance of Having a Good Work Environment

Keith Lunt — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 08:24:52 +0000

If you are used to a formal working environment then taking up home working can be quite a shock and to complete the transition correctly you need a good working environment. Why is that so important and what does it involve?

Your working environment when you set up your home business has to achieve many different aspects. From comfortable to inviting you to work fully to allowing you to keep the records that you need, there are many different objectives you want to achieve.

A comfortable environment
If your chair and desk are uncomfortable and you are supposed to be working from home full time, then within a short time you could be suffering health problems. From a sore back to a stiff neck, you need to take time to make sure that your environment is correctly laid out to ensure a comfortable working environment. Working with your feet up on the sofa with a laptop on your knees might sound luxury, but the bad posture position will soon pay its toll on your health.

Make sure that your chair is the correct height for you and that your desk is positioned with your keyboard and screen directly in front of you, at a comfortable height.

Inviting to work
Get up in the morning and look at your desk. Are you going to sit down and start working on time, or are you going to wander down stairs and watch morning TV for a few hours? Your working environment must tempt you in to it.

What will inspire you into your ‘office’ and to your desk. I have a fish tank in my office that at the very least needs food dropping in and the lights switching on. What will draw you into the office and get you working? Maybe a photo of your family or something that reminds you of what you are working for?

Able to work
The home working environment has to be sufficient to allow you to carry out the work and the record keeping around it. For example, on the records side you will need to be able to keep copies of invoices that you have paid and charged to customers.

You also need space to fulfil your job. If you are blogging or affiliate marketing then you need space for the computer. But more than that you might also need some space to leave notes of what you plan to do tomorrow and the day after, maybe space to lay out what you are talking about.

If you are creating a product then you need space to store the completed products, package them up and to ready them for despatching. Without this, you just will not be able to function!

The importance of your environment
Having a comfortable environment protects your health; having an inviting environment draws you in and encourages you to work and having a satisfactory space allows you to actually carry out the tasks you need to do.

How To Make A Voucher Website With WordPress

Keith Lunt — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 09:17:24 +0000

A voucher website is a good way of affiliate marketing, but if you want to set up a simple voucher website using WordPress, is it possible and how do you go about it? Be up and running today with this guide.

Step 1) Get a name and a host
The first step in the process is very easy, you need to find a unique URL and somewhere to host it. There are plenty of website hosts about, look either for one that offers 1-click WordPress installations or at the very least can provide a MySQL database. Create your account, register a URL and that’s the first step complete.

Step 2) Create the blog
Possibly a little more work here! If you have a 1-click installation from your hosts then fine, else go to wordpress.org, download the latest release, unzip it and FTP the files following your host’s instructions. You will also need to create the database and update the config file to provide logon details.

Next, whichever step you are using you give the blog a name and create your user id. Don’t use ‘Admin’ as the user id, instead use something tricky to guess and use a strong password. Protect that blog!

Step 3) Make it look nice
Search the internet for some free WordPress themes and download a few, install them and try them out. You want that site looking the best it can do, not as though it was put together in an hour (which it was!).

Step 4) Find some voucher codes
Sign up to some big affiliate networks (join local affiliate forums to find the recommended sites) and start joining merchants. Some of these will email you codes.

But it is also well worth go directly to non-affiliate merchants and signing up to their newsletters and adding their vouchers. You aren’t going to get paid for these, but not so many people will publish them. This means that lots more people will find your site through these rarer voucher codes an it gives your users more value. This means they are more likely to stick with you!

Step 5) Publish the codes
When you have a code to display, create a new post. Include the full voucher details and an affiliate link to the merchant’s website. You can use the WordPress category structure to categories your vouchers, maybe by merchant name or product type (or both). For example, visitors looking for sports shoes can then click the relevant category and see what’s on offer.

Take this a step further and use the tags to mark posts with various end dates. A lot of merchants don’t allow you to display old vouchers, so you can use the tags to group expired offers so that you can quickly go in to the old posts and edit them, or at least mark them as expired!

Work At Home As A Translator

Keith Lunt — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 09:11:12 +0000

Working at home as a translator can be an interesting and fulfilling job. And the best part is that you don’t actually need to be fully fluent at the second language to do it, in the right circumstances.

Many companies need translators for a variety of reasons. Maybe they are printing documents in a second language, or maybe they are delivering abroad and need to be able to read and reply to customers’ emails in a second language.

And if you have a second language, this is where you can come into action. If these businesses are not doing enough trade to employ full time language specialists, or their language specialists are on holiday, then they need short term translators working for them.

You don’t need to be fluent in both languages
However, it is not always the case that you need to be fluent in both languages. This is certainly the case for a lot of people who are able to best make use of this idea.

For example, I know of someone who moved from Spain to England. Her English wasn’t that great, but she was able to find plenty of work translating from English into Spanish – her native language.

Businesses can’t always use translation tools
If a business is dealing with customers who speak a different language that business is probably happy putting the foreign language emails through a translation tool. It gives a near enough translation for what is required. However, typing in English and then translating to Spanish with a tool is not a good way to send an email to a new customer.

However, if you can then put that translation by a native Spanish speaker, or someone who has a good understanding of the language, then the translation can be cleaned up and can look completely correct.

Your job in the translation
And if you are also living abroad where the local language is different to your native language, this is how you can work. Even if you don’t yet have a full grasp of the local lingo then you can use a translation tool to get most of the way there and then read through the draft, retyping it in the correct grammar.

With time, hopefully you will pick up the second language and be able to translate fully, but that then begs the question of how to find these companies.

Finding translation work
Well there are a lot of freelancing websites that advertise opportunities for freelancers to pick up a bit of work, and translations are one of the aspects that are covered by these sort of sites. So dig out a few such sites that cover wherever you are living and see what opportunities there are for translating work.

You could also visit some of those automated translation tools and take a look around their website. Many offer paid additional services in which a human translates the provided text. When you find these, drop them a line asking if they are taking on any translators in your field!

Simple Working From Home – Getting Started

Keith Lunt — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 14:01:33 +0000

If you want to start working from home, what’s a really simple piece of work that you can do that is safe? Forget the get rich quick schemes, everything that you need to know is here.

Many get rich schemes exist just to make the owner of the scheme rich. However, if you want to start a really simple working from home scheme then you can do so and you really can be up and running in an hour or two. The steps involved are:
1) Set up a free blog
2) Add some advertising
3) Get some traffic

1) Set up a free blog
Just head over to Blogger.com, sign up for a free account and create a blog. Two minutes or so after starting you are set up and ready to get going! The only question is – What will you blog about?

Sports blogging is very easy and if you are involved in a sport then there is plenty to write about. However, there are a lot of sports blogs competing for the adverts, whilst there are not that many advertisers out there for this niche.

At the other extreme there are niches such as travel, gaming and finance that can have advertisers clamouring to pay a fortune for the right adverts. If you can write about one of these high paying niches then you are well on the road to success. If you can’t, then maybe you can research one of these and make your fortune with a bit more work?

2) Add some advertising
I suggest Blogger.com as the starting point for a simple reason. Not only is it quick and free to set up, but with just a few mouse clicks you can add Google’s Adsense to your new blog. Sign up to Adsense and add it to your blog and this will be your method of income.

If you don’t already know it works in a very simple way. Google reads every page of your site that they are displaying adverts on and picks from its huge bank of a advertisers those that are most likely to be of interest to readers of the current page. If your reader then clicks on the advert you earn a commission. There’s nothing for you to be maintaining!

3) Get some traffic
Now the work really begins, however without the work you would not be working from home! Research your posts and add them a few times a week to your blog. Maybe once it is older you might like to slow down, but you are aiming to build up a huge library of useful content.

Now for free traffic unique content is good, but you also need links in. So check over those posts and rewrite them for article directories – or just post them as they are if they are good enough. Don’t worry about ‘duplicate content’ here – if the duplicate links to your site it isn’t an issue!

You can also ask similar sites if you can submit guest posts to them in return for incoming links and start leaving comments on other useful sites. Just do everything and anything possible to get some free visitors to your site.

Summary
So, to start a simple home working scheme that works, sign up to Blogger and Adsense, create a blog with some Adsense units in it and then start writing your blog and submitting to article directories and submitting guest posts.

How To Get Your Website On Google

Keith Lunt — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 12:55:57 +0000

Have you created your own website, or maybe been provided with a white label website? Are you wondering now how to get it listed on Google and other major search engines? Done correctly it can be achieved in around 24 hours. Done badly and it can take 2 months!

There are two ways of getting listed on Google – the right way and the wrong way. Yes, the right way is a bit more effort, but the long and short term benefits are well worth it.

The wrong way to get listed on search engines
You could go to the search engines’ add URL pages, type in your website’s URL and hit submit and then sit back and wait. Google used to state that submission this way took about 7 weeks. Why so long? Well, they are waiting to see how well you do the job properly. How well you do the job the right way.

The right way to get listed
The correct way to get listed on Google is not their add URL form. Instead, you need links and without any incoming links you site will not get listed. Even if you use their add URL form, if they don’t find any links to your site then you risk having the listing ignored or dropped.

But to get listed quickly is not just about any links, you need quality links. A link or two from a popular blog could see you listed on Google by tomorrow morning. The search engines will see this links and recognise your site as a new find and follow the link. Even if the link is “nofollow” they will probably still visit the website, you just don’t get any PageRank for the link.

But, that’s not all
And this is the problem. For most sites this second part is not an issue, but for some people it is. If you are running a new blog and have stuffed it full of articles from article directories then your site will be full of duplicate content. However, when the search engines arrive and see this they will likely ignore your website!

So as well as links you need tempting content on your website so that when they arrive the search engines find something that makes them want to come back and also to list your website in their results. Their reputation depends on listing only quality results – give them the confidence that this is what you will provide.

Back to the links
How to find those links then? Avoid buying them and avoid generating too many – it looks false and the search engines can punish you for it. If you already run a blog that is popular with the search engines then a mention there can help, else ask blog owners if you can write guest posts for their blogs which will link to your website. Just one good link is all that it takes to be listed in a day or two.

So forget the Add URL forms – just get a few good links from on theme blogs and the search engines will soon be loving your website and its unique content!

Working At Home – Doggy Day Care!

Keith Lunt — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 11:45:49 +0000

Are you looking for a home working idea and stuck for what to do? Are you a dog lover who would maybe enjoy spending time with more dogs? Then maybe here is the idea for you!

I have a customer who offers dog walking services as her main business idea. It is actually a model that many people could follow if they also wanted to run their own business from home, however, there are a few considerations.

Doggy Day Care
Rather than just dog walking, maybe dress the idea up a little as “Doggy Day Care”. Dog walking makes it sound as though the owner is lazy, whereas Day Care implies they are active and busy people. You are, after all, aiming your services at business people and those that are out all day.

Your audience
As I have said a main audience for you will be those people who are out all day and worried about the welfare of their canine friends. Those commuting for an hour or so each way and spending a full day in an office can be leaving their pets for a long time. They are also the people likely to have the disposable income to pay for your time.

Your offering
A dog owner that is out for 10 – 12 hours each day might just need someone to pop in most days and see that the dog is well. The visit does not need to be the exact same time each day and you can probably be flexible with how long you are there for. Maybe good long visits most days, but a shorter visit when needs must.

Even just going in to the house or flat and changing the pet’s water, maybe allowing them out into the garden to relieve themselves and giving the dog a fuss and a bit of attention is probably all that the owner needs to ease their mind.

What to consider
Obviously, you are going to be letting yourself into strangers’ houses whilst they are out and letting their best friend run free in the garden. You might prefer to walk the dog on a lead around the garden, just in case there’s a gate open somewhere. Or a short walk around the block might be more enjoyable for you.

And it is very important to reassure the owner that you are trustworthy. Testimonials and references from other people saying you are trustworthy will go a long way and if you can get a copy of your CRB (or whatever your country uses to show that you are free from a criminal record) it might just reassure people.

Finding the work
Because of the level of trust it is probably well worth starting with friends of friends and so on. Spread the word through word of mouth rather than traditional advertising until you get going.

Home Working As A Dog Walker

Keith Lunt — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 21:45:28 +0000

If you want to mix your health, a love of dogs and your own business from home, why not try your hand at a dog walker? Here’s a few pointers to get you going.

For whatever reason there are many dog owners that just cannot give their pets the time that they need in the week for a healthy amount of walking. From the owner being infirm to a full time job and commuting, lots of distractions can prevent the loving dog owner from giving their pet the time that they need.

The solution
This is where you can provide the solution that the owner desperately needs – you can take the dog out for a good walk in the day time, exercise the dog and take care of him for the owner. This way the owner knows that they canine friend is being well looked after and is not sat at home frustrated and wrecking the place.

Your considerations
Obviously, you will need to collect the pet from the owner’s house and take him or her to a suitable walking environment, such as a dog friendly park. This is going to require transport of some form, for example an estate car or a van. Assuming you already own the transport, you will need to tell your insurance company what your intentions are in case one of the dogs in your care damages the car or you are involved in an accident on the way to or from a walk.

You might also want to look at indemnity insurance in case anything happens to a dog in your care. Unlikely, but it could happen that a dog is dog-knapped in your care or runs off or just gets hurt. Your insurance would cover you in this case.

Advertising your home business
Assuming that you live in a commuter zone and most of your customers will be commuters, there is little point putting up adverts in local offices. However, distributing leaflets at railway stations might get people on their way to and from work. Likewise, ask your local vets if they could put up a poster for you advertising what you are doing. They might charge you a little for this, but they are also a focal point for many dog owners and also where many dog owners would go to in order to find such a service.

Keeping records
As with any home business, it is time to keep records and you must keep plenty! Keep a note of your costs, including advertising and extra insurances, plus also note your mileage to reclaim that. And, of course, you need to be recording your weekly income and noting who owes you money!

Home Working Through Selling Local Deals Vouchers

Keith Lunt — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 22:06:02 +0000

Here is a different home working idea. Rather than an affiliate site listing voucher codes, why not have a members’ site that displays local voucher codes? It’s a clever idea and could have local merchants lining up to advertise with you. Here’s how.

We have all probably heard about voucher code websites that are advertising the same old affiliate merchant discount vouchers, but why not turn that all around and run a useful voucher or deals website? The idea is very easy, if a little complicated to explain in a paragraph!

The idea
Instead of listing voucher codes cribbed from affiliate merchants, the idea here is that you approach local companies and suggest that if they can create a special offer for your website you will advertise it for free to your members. For example, restaurants might offer a free bottle of wine, or a clothing company 10% off etc. It is free advertising for the businesses you are speaking to!

You don’t charge the merchants for the honour of being listed – this makes more of them happy and willing to be listed on your website. Instead, you use other means to make money.

Members
Local people will be your members and the key to the website. It is probably the sort of website that will not get a lot of natural search engine traffic, so you are going to be marketing the website a lot, but that does not need to be difficult. But by using local companies you just need local members, so there are a lot of tricks available to you.

What you are spending your time doing
Yes, it is a home working job and it will take some time and that is spent first approaching local companies and seeing if they want to create a deal to be listed, then also spending time making sure that potential customers know about your website and are visiting it. Whether you are networking in Facebook, joining in with local forums or advertising in the press, there is plenty for you to be doing! Even just posters and mentions at local events!

How to earn from it
There are many ways to earn from this idea. A little bit of extra advertising on the website such as Adsense is always a neat trick, but you can also use two level (or more) deals. You can have a basic level that is free and a paid members’ level that offers better conditions, but the members are paying you a small amount each year.

Put it all in place
Unusually for my ideas, this one does not drop easily into WordPress or any other blogging platform! If you don’t want to earn from the multi level method (a free membership and a paid membership) and are happy to publicly display all codes then they will work, but you need to build a basic website that allows members to sign up, chose their plan and request the appropriate level of deal voucher.

Some Great Ideas For Blog Revenue

Keith Lunt — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 15:44:58 +0000

A lot of bloggers are currently making money from their blogs, so if you are running a blog and want to join in, what can you do? Here are a few steps ranging from the obvious to the surprising that you might want to consider.

Adsense
If you are running any kind of website with traffic, whether it is a blog, a forum or whatever, then you can look to Google’s Adsense system for an extra income. With a profitable niche and plenty of daily readers, you can be earning a reasonable monthly amount. Easy to install and set up, you can be earning from this system in an hour or two.

Don’t forget here that if you push your RSS Feed through Feedburner (free and easy to do) then you can also add Adsense into the feed. Maybe not a huge income potential, but there is some potential and it will all add up at the end of the month.

Infolinks
A similar idea and premise to Adsense, however this sort of system identifies words in your posts and links them to paying advertisers. But, although the links are highly obvious to your readers, too many can make the pages look messy and untidy, so take care if you give it a try.

Selling Automated Links
There are loads of systems about which will sell links for you on your blog. Just sign up, add their widget to your side bar and then wait. Hopefully, if your site has some PageRank then some willing advertisers will sign up for a link from your blog.

Paid To Post
Big news and big potential, for those blogs that qualify. There are an assortment of services from which you can sell your services as a blogger and my favourites swap by the month. It seems in this game that the best system this month might not be doing much next month. So search around for as many as you can find, sign and and see what you can do. They will simply pay you for writing about a subject and linking to an advertiser!

But your blog must give something back in turn – usually either it has a good PageRank or lots of visitors, or both.

Automated Paid Posting
The same idea as paid to post, however here the advertiser writes the post and the system updates your blog! You might be paid per post or even per post per month! Much easier than manual paid posting, however the rewards can be lower.

Affiliate Marketing
If you have a lot of traffic reading about a certain subject, then it is possible that there are merchants wanting to sell to them. Maybe a running blog can advertise shoes and accessories, or a mobile phone blog can advertise wallpapers and ring tones. Sign up to the affiliate scheme, find some products and link to them either in your side bar or in mentions in your posts.

Making Photo Mugs At Home

Keith Lunt — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 19:44:11 +0000

If you want a fun way of earning from home, why not create some photo mugs? It is far easier than it sounds and there is no outlay at all! Just create the photos and you are up and running!

Creating photo mugs sounds expensive, however it is not! You can have a huge range of different mugs on sale and even a different range of mug shapes, without it costing you anything.

What you need to get started
Simply, a camera and some good photographs. Pick your subject and start taking photographs. Whether you are great at photographing pets or wildlife, or have an aptitude for a great shot of wild flowers or airplanes, start accumulating a catalogue of perfect photographs.

A word of caution here – buying stock images from libraries and putting them onto photo mugs is nearly always not allowed under the licenses of the libraries – you have to supply your own photographs.

Creating the mugs
Although this might sound like a complicated and expensive step, it is in actual fact very easy to do. There are various sites, such as Cafe Press, at which you can sign up for a free account. You then upload to these sites the pictures that you want to use on the mugs, select the styles of mugs that you want to print the photos on and that’s about it. Now, you just have to sell them!

Selling the mugs
This is the difficult part and can be free, cheap or very expensive, depending on what techniques you want to use. The site that produces the mugs for you will no doubt offer you a mini web site for free, but these websites are difficult to search engine optimise. Yes, you can buy traffic and send the traffic to this free site, but that will be very expensive.

You can easily and cheaply create a basic website for free, maybe in Blogger or WordPress. Then start writing posts about the individual mugs that you are ‘creating’ and link to them in the free mini site. The advantage of this is that when you start search engine optimisation work you are working in favour of your own website.

Promoting your mugs
Once you have your own website set up then it is time to drive traffic to it. I’ve already mentioned search engine optimisation, which in reality means a lot of link building in this case. On top of that you can buy Pay Per Click traffic if your budget runs to it.

But there are also clever tricks that you can use, such as participating in forums and discussions on the subject you are photographing and leaving your signature on these, which links back to your site. You might also try guest posting to other blogs, also great for a bit of search engine optimisation, if their readers might be interested in your work. But dig around here, use your imagination and find ways of getting people onto your site for as little as possible!

Can You Make Money From Voucher Codes?

Keith Lunt — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 20:33:37 +0000

With so much talk these days of affiliate programs and voucher code websites and the market seeming full of both, can you really make money from them? Or are they all a waste of time and should you be looking elsewhere?

For starters, if you are operating a voucher code website then you are going to be making most of your income through affiliate commissions when people click the links to the merchants that you are promoting. You will also be able to add other advertising, if you wish, such as Google’s Adsense.

Your costs will be very simple – you will need to pay to register a URL and to host the website. However, if you really want to you can even avoid these costs and just set up a blog on a Blogger account. So a voucher code website is cheap to set up and run. Where’s the catch?

Getting people on to your website
Here is the big catch – driving people to your new website. You might be spending hours every day updating the website and adding new voucher codes, but how long will it be before you are getting people onto the site and earning you commissions.

The other part of this problem is that it is not just getting people onto the site. You need plenty of people arriving every day, so that when a percentage of them actually find the voucher codes useful and then some of these visit the merchant’s website and a fraction of these then go on to make a purchase, the effect of the constant reduction at every level of the process finally leaves you with enough people at the end buying and making you commissions.

Is it that bad?
I’ve made it sound quite harsh and it can be that way. At every step of the way you are losing people’s interest. Maybe they have seen the voucher code already, or maybe they don’t click your affiliate link or find that the product is cheaper at a different merchant’s website, which you are not promoting.

However, if you can build up a loyal band of visitors then they will get into the routine of looking at your voucher codes and then becoming customers of the merchants you are promoting.

So that is the secret of success
Yes, you can make money from a voucher code website, but you need plenty of traffic. The costs are quite minimal, however the profits can also be very small compared to the traffic volumes. The key to success of this sort of website is that you are original and make sure that you are producing tons of traffic. If you can get plenty of people onto your voucher code website and show them voucher codes that they are interested in, then you should be able to make a profit.

So it’s not so much can you make money from a voucher code website, but can you generate enough traffic to make money from that site.

How Much Do You Get Paid Per Click With Adsense?

Keith Lunt — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 08:10:38 +0000

Are you wondering if it is worth while including some Adsense blocks into your website? Are you wondering how much you can earn per click? If so, read on.

Google are quite fair with paying out on their Google Adsense program. Depending on whether you are receiving clicks through content units, search results, RSS Feeds or one of the other possible options, you will receive a fixed share of the profit.

Some people talk about this share changing depending on your Click Through Rate, but this is just not the case. Take a look around your Adsense account (under the My Account tab) and you will see a statement of the percentage you are earning, with a link to their general FAQs, which also display the same percentages.

But that does also give us another variable in the quest to work out how much you will get paid per click – it is a percentage of what the advertiser is paying. So what is the advertiser paying?

That entirely depends on your website’s niche. For example, advertisers buying clicks in the finance sector can be paying several dollars per click, whilst in other niches they can be down to a few cents per click. If you already have a website established then you cannot really do much about this other than work out the potential for interest, but if you are choosing which of your ideas to work on as an Adsense website then you can do some homework first to work out the best paying niche of your possibilities.

To do this go to Google and enter a few search terms and try out a few searches. If some of those searches just result in a few adverts (less than a page full) then there will be little competition for the terms and it is highly likely that you will not be earning much along the way. On the other side of the coin, if the page is full of professionally written adverts and as you go through the search results you are finding even more adverts, then you are likely to be in with a well paying term. And you can check this out even further!

Just set yourself up with a Google Adwords account and create a dummy advert. Then choose a handful of keywords that relate to your website and go through the process of bidding on the keywords. Google will tell you for your bids what position you are likely to get. By doing this you can take an educated guess at what the top 3 or 4 advertisers are paying per click and as it is probably their adverts you will be displaying on your website, if you know what they are bidding you can work out your percentage!

How to Sell Insurance From Home

Keith Lunt — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 22:17:57 +0000

Selling insurance from home can be very profitable, but how can you jump on the bandwagon and earn money through this trading? Done properly, anyone can do it. But, what must you be doing?

If you are an authorised insurance broker then the process is quite easy and a lot more open. However, even as an average person on the street you can still get involved and be earning commissions.

For a qualified insurance broker
For a qualified insurance broker, you can arrange with the insurance companies that you will take details or provide quotes directly from your website. All that you need to do then is to get plenty of people onto your website.

For every body else
Selling insurance and advising people as to what insurance policies they can buy is a regulated business, so you cannot sell directly to the man on the street. However, there are still ways for you to make money selling through insurance policies.

For a start you can simply display some banners on your existing website. For example, if you have a travel website then you can link to an insurance company that has an affiliate scheme. Then if your visitors click on the link and then buy some insurance you earn an affiliate commission, and in the insurance business these commissions can be quite substantive.

Or you can sign up to various schemes that will provide you with insurance comparison tables. Again, you can build these into an existing website or you might want to create your own website to host these tables and other banners. Now all that you need to do is (as with the broker) drive some traffic to the website and wait for the commissions to start rolling in.

Where can the traffic come from?
You can use all of the usual forms of traffic, as long as you take care in different ways. For example, if you want to use Pay Per Click to advertise your insurance website then be aware that so do a lot of other websites and the costs are going to be very high, unless you are very clever with your choice of keywords.

You also have to be very careful with the wording of your advert so as not to tread on other companies’ toes whilst not making promises or claims that are outside of what is permissible.

Search engine optimisation is also possible and maybe has a little more freedom, but again it suffers from a lot of competition. You can optimise your website for long tail keywords that have less traffic than the obvious keywords and this tends to have more success.

But as an affiliate, then the best way can be the traditional affiliate working of running a website with plenty of traffic and adding insurance banners that are relevant to your readers.