My Process

Firstly, I decided to try pulling a quick StumbleUpon campaign; hopefully, this would get my ad revenues up (I’m using Smowtion Media at the moment, which pays per impression). No luck.

Then, I decided to take two steps back and try to hit myLot for some revenue; unfortunately, myLot doesn’t update its earnings that often. To serve as a record, my account had $0.27 in it and I posted twice. When I check back tomorrow, hopefully I’ll get an idea of how much (or little) I can make with myLot.

A benefit of browsing myLot was finding Bukisa.com; a site similar to Helium and Squidoo, it pays for information and pageviews per article. After writing a (half-assed) article about laptops and students, I signed off and watched some TV. When I came back to check statistics, I was disappointed to find that I had no views at all.

Enraged

As you can imagine, I was pretty upset. Pent-up inside my own house because of some stupid challenge (I never go back on my word, even if it’s to myself)! I felt worthless, because I couldn’t make a dime off the Internet even when I put my heart and soul into it. This despair turned into rage, and I got more and more angry.

Patience

It was only after I recovered from my temporary rage and disappointment that I realized – again – that the Internet was not a get-rich-quick scheme. I know I’d been preaching that for a while, but I never listened to myself (I mean, just look at how I challenged myself – fine, a buck isn’t a lot, but it’s still difficult to make quickly).

I felt like I had wasted time. Browsing through random programs, and stuff. And now, I’ll tell you what I’d really learned and now believe with my whole heart; that the real dollars lie in blogging and freelancing. In stuff that I can control and rely on skill, and not just mindless work.

I wasn’t in the mood to go out, so I decided to brainstorm through a bunch of ideas and write posts on them. I’m not sure if this was such a great idea (I feel kind of burned out), and my writing might have suffered a bit, but I ended up getting quite a few articles to work with now.

Disappointed?

If you ever feel disappointed in your progress, know that we’ve all been there. The key to making money (anywhere!) is persistence – so if you’re disappointed, sit back and call it a day. Go out! Enjoy life. But at the same time, you have to wake up the next morning, and go hard at making money again – otherwise, you’ll end up stuck in a plateau, and might even journey into a valley.

Image Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/35022021@N07/3769970445/

It’s absolutely shocking how fast time flies by in the summer; I’d realized (with a lot of surprise) last night that it would be the beginning of August today! Wow. And, true to my word, I’d decided on taking the first step to my journey as a freelance writer. I do hope to continue to keep posting regularly on JoblessJoes.com while freelance writing; who says I can’t do both, right? After all, summer can be a very fruitful time.

Day 1

Decide on the one service you will offer. I emphasize picking only one specific service because without freelance experience, you are probably not already highly skilled in the area you want to freelance in. Even if you have been practicing it as a hobby for a long time, providing that skill as a service is a different challenge.

If you are wanting to freelance in web design, don’t offer everything and the kitchen sink to begin with (complete design + front-end code). Provide PSD mockups only. If you’re more on the dev side of things, start with some code slicing jobs. If you want to write, start with one specific kind of writing.

This approach will help you become skilled in the service you provide very quickly. Since you want to be taking on your first client in 30 days, it’s crucial that you develop your skills to an adequate level. Once you become comfortable with providing that one service, you will naturally expand what you offer.

Source: http://www.skelliewag.org/30-days-to-become-a-freelancer-961.htm

I’ve decided to become a freelance writer; great, but what should I write about? I’ve decided to expand into the field of articles and reviews; I feel that my background in blogging and reviewing will allow for a natural development in this field. There’s also a constant demand for this kind of stuff – articles that explore products (which I consider reviews) or explore other aspects of life will always have a demand.

I plan to write for blogs and websites, but eventually want to work my way up towards magazines and other sorts of print and media, even. Now, with that said, this part wasn’t too difficult for me to complete and I had several days to figure it out already, so I decided to move on to Day 2. No use in wasting time.

August 1, 2009

Day 2

Gather learning materials to help you practice your service before taking on a client. As I mentioned in the introduction to this list, you should spend at least 1 hour per day just developing your skill. While this should be mainly direct practice (doing rather than reading about), you will need to gather materials to guide you here. This includes articles, interviews and tutorials. Focus mainly on developing techniques you could actually see yourself using in client work.

I kind of skipped Day 2 and proceeded ahead to Day 3 really quickly. My website, www.jotcomstudios.com is up and running; however, I found it too easy to make a new website with that little resolution (post idea?). I love the name Jotcom Studios because it’s a play on “dot-com”, as I have to do much of my business over the Internet, while retaining some sense of writing with the word “jot”.

August 1, 2009

Day 3

Decide on a business name – are you a studio or individual? Then, buy the domain name and hosting. You can freelance under your real name, a pseudonym, or a business name. Here are some example business names I generated with this cool little thing:

• Flying Dog Design
• Green Ant Productions
• Scarlet Zebra Interactive
• Blue Cat Labs
• Chestnut Rabbit Solutions
• Golden Lemur Studios
• Friendly Kangaroo Ltd
• Evil Pencil Media

Of course, some of these are really absurd, but they do give you an idea of some common naming conventions.

Once you’ve picked a name, it’s time to buy the domain for that name. If there’s no domain available for that name, pick another one. Your domain branding is really important.

Buy a domain name that comes with web hosting, as the next branding step is to create your portfolio.

Further reading: Naming Your Freelance Business – To Personalize or Not (With a Poll!)

I was initially going to go with Crazy Leopard Studios (believe it or not), but I decided on Jotcom Studios (as for the aforementioned reason). I kind of switched Day 2 and Day 3 around. You might be thinking I’m going a bit fast for myself, but I’d actually had a couple of days to work out Day 1 and Day 3. I got my domain and Wordpress installation up and running, and even e-mailed a website about guest blogging. As you may have noticed, I didn’t go through with my promise to work on Day 2 yet; I’m doing that as I write this article up (I find that writing in solitude helps get my brain juices flowing).

The most important part here is to find a sort of article or set of guidelines that I can go by when writing reviews and articles. I plan to analyze how Wired, Ars Technica, and PC World write their respective reviews and try to dissect what makes them so popular; however, in the meantime, I’m trying to scour around for tutorials with insight and instruction.

I’ve been writing reviews for almost two years now, but I’ve found myself to still lack many fundamentals in reviewing. Here’s where I started:

• http://www.possi.org/extended_attributes/2000/11/bitstream

Holy crap. It’s a bit overwhelming, but I think it really hit the nail on the hammer for me – the article is very exhaustive, and comments on not only instructions and criteria (such as the three essential questions), but also mentality of the reviewer and the importance of the reader, and how to go about examining products. I believe that this was the right place to start, and indeed I will have to print this article out for future reference.

• http://www.cloudynights.com/item.php?item_id=606

This second article actually helped organize reviews, which I could always use some assistance on. It offers guidelines on time (use your product for a month to get to know it best), and structure. And even though it was written with mainly an ‘astronomical context’, I found that many of its principles could easily be applied to writing reviews in general.

I felt quite exhausted after this studying, so I decided to take the dive and try “truly” reviewing my 16GB iPod Nano. Given that I’d already had it for a week and am very familiar with the iPod interface, I’m quite certain that I’d be prepared to write the iPod Nano review within a week. Of course, I still have to read the instructions. And decide who my reader is.

August 2, 2009

Day 4

Design your products. This is different from the service you are going to offer – here you decide how it is going to be packaged. Are you going to sell blocks of time? Completed projects? What will your rates be?

Your goals should be modest as you are only starting out, both in terms of how much you will work and how much you will charge. For your first job, I would suggest an hourly rate between $20 – $30. Keep in mind that you don’t publish these rates online and can therefore change them from client to client. Just because you do one job at $20 an hour as you’re starting out doesn’t mean you can’t be charging $50 an hour a few months later.

Per-project rates are a great option down the track as they decouple the direct exchange of time for money. I don’t recommend them to a beginning freelancer, though. It will be extremely difficult to come up with an accurate price estimate before you have the experience you’d need to look at a project and quickly have a reasonable idea of how long it is going to take. That’s something that will only come with time and experience. (Note that this advice doesn’t necessarily apply to smaller jobs like article writing.)

An hourly rate of $20 – $30 sounds awfully reasonable. However, I’ll definitely have to “ease” this transition of work into my life; I can’t afford to take on that many clients due to my pursuit of other priorities (education) and still hope to complete my work with the same amount of quality. Thus, I think I’ll be taking on two clients at a time for now; this will help me focus on the projects at hand while having enough time to get my schoolwork done.

And $50 an article would be a pretty valid per-project amount, wouldn’t it?

Now, in terms of services/products, I think I will be writing strictly essays/articles/tutorials/reviews. No poetry, no stories, no fiction. I feel as though I’m most familiar with these types of writing, and so I’ll probably have more success with them. At the moment, I’m pretty strict on taking on purely those types of work because I believe that I excel in these kinds of writing, but also because I feel as though there isn’t much market demand for the rest of them; however, I think I might be looking to expand into the more “creative” side of writing soon (after all, what do I have to lose?).

Also, should I find an editor?

August 5, 2009

Day 5

Set up a business email address and PayPal account. While your friends and family might not mind receiving email from ronny69@hotmail.com, prospective clients might! Create an email address linked to your new domain name. Forward it to a free Gmail account, then under your Gmail settings, put your domain email address as your default ‘Send Email As’ address. This will allow you to manage your domain email through Gmail, rather than the dubious email UIs provided by most webhosts.

A good format is @yourdomain.com. This will make it easy to give new people email addresses at your domain if your freelance business expands in the future.

Next up you should create a PayPal account if PayPal is available in your country. If not, try Moneybookers. Most online freelancing is paid via PayPal and I consider it a must-have. If you dislike the fees, you can build them into your rates.

If you already have a PayPal account, it might be a good idea to think about changing your address to something linked to your business, i.e. ‘accounts@yourdomain.com’ or ‘paypal@yourdomain.com’.

My new account: email[at]jotcomstudios.com is up and running on Gmail. I’m not sure if I’m going to go through the trouble of adding another account for Paypal though, I figure my current one is quite professional and should be fine.

Boy, I’ve been slacking. So here goes Day 6.

August 5, 2009

Day 6

Set up Wordpress under your freelance business domain. Every freelancer should have an online portfolio, even if it’s very simple. If you’re a designer with time to spare you can probably take control of this step. If you want a quick solution that is quite effective, download Wordpress and install it under your domain name.

Been done! But I’m using a temporary theme to hold the domain. I’ll apply a more “appropriate” theme tomorrow, I suppose. But here’s a problem; what do I put on my site? I was initially thinking about just work from my previous websites and other third-party work, but I think I’m going to write-up a review solely for Jotcom Studios and try to lay it out nicely and all. Oh, boy.

August 6, 2009

Day 7

Select and install a portfolio Wordpress theme. This platform will give prospective clients the means to learn more about you and your services, view your work, and contact you. You can browse some great Premium options under $30 at ThemeForest.

I actually chose to use a free Wordpress theme (http://wpesp.com/) and load it up with my portfolio work. Unfortunately, I stumbled into a roadblock very early on; what do I put in my portfolio (as I’d mentioned earlier)? I decided to firstly highlight my Adobe Photoshop Elements review (Adobe’s name is a head-turner), and my somewhat-established technology blog CutEdge.org.

I’ve also decided to do some minor Photoshop work and replace the default header as well as attach some pictures to my work. Time to practise some cool graphic and typography fusion work, haha.

In Retrospect

photo credit: TheSeafarer

Boy, what a week it has been. I think the most challenging part of this process is to consistently build up a habit of following these steps; as you might have noticed, I fluctuated between doing a lot of work and doing very little. I’d prefer to build up a more regular schedule and follow that. Other than that, things have gone relatively well and quickly, though.

…oh, and practising an hour a day? Oh, boy. Haha.

Header Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/23965383@N05/3797427824/

http://mikeslife.org/content/generate-income-your-blog-offering-service

Classifieds are an excellent resource when it comes to finding jobs – for this reason alone: employers that post in the classifieds are sure to be looking. However, it is also because of this fact and the wide availability of most classifieds (including online and newspapers) that there is bound to be a lot of competition when it comes to applying for jobs advertised in classifieds.

This goes double for any town that the Craigslist service works for; generally, Craigslist is pretty well-known and it’s a widely-visited site, and so there is a ton of traffic going towards Craigslist. And with this traffic comes a lot of applicants. And with a lot of applicants comes the difficulty of making oneself stand out from the rest of the applicants. What’s worse – Craigslist is done online, meaning that one will not be given the opportunity to appear in-person and make a statement to the manager (what’s the percentage of communication that’s done in body language?). This can be a benefit or a setback, depending on your people skills – but either way, it’s irrelevant in the “Expansion” phase of job-hunting.

So how does one set themselves apart from the rest of the herd?

1. Follow Instructions

photo credit: sillygwailo

This one seems obvious, but it’s surprising how many applicants carelessly break requirements (or try to sneak past them). If the employer requests that the resume be in the body of the e-mail, then don’t send it as an attachment. If the employer requests certain experience, don’t bother applying if it’s not there. Get the drift? This saves trouble and time for both the applicant and the employer. Undoubtedly, not following a requirement will likely disqualify the applicant from the position.

2. With the E-Mail…

photo credit: quinn.anya

Highlight pieces of the resume! Don’t be afraid to mention previous experience in the industry, or any relevant volunteering experiences. Because the e-mail is the first thing the Craigslist employers generally read (unless they request phoning in, which will be addressed in later points), hit ‘em hard with qualifications and past experiences.

For example, if it’s a bartending or restaurant job, mention the SmartServe qualification (for Canadian residents). (If one hasn’t completed it yet, please Google Smartserve and complete it; it opens up many possibilities).

If there’s no response within an hour, don’t panic. There have been times when responses took even a week or two to process and for the employer to reply; in this case, the key to getting more responses is simply to apply to more jobs (makes sense, right?)! Chances are one will receive more replies the more opportunities that he/she applies towards.

However, here’s an idea: consistency is appreciated mainly more towards walk-in methods of application – on the Internet, this method is called “spam”. One’s dedication towards applying for a job can easily be misinterpreted as an annoyance; this will further disqualify the applicant from the job. Don’t get desperate. E-mail once and move on.

To Whom it may Concern:

My name is Herbert Lui, and I’m interested in the ABC position in XYZ company. I believe that my experience with DEF company bolstered my communication skills, used to address customer inquiries and interact with co-workers. The details of my experience can be found in my resume, which you will find attached to this e-mail.

I hope to hear from you soon.

From,

Herbert

Granted, it’s a bit crude and not perfect (far from it, actually), but it’ll work. Do not copy this e-mail word for word (what’s the point? In fact, if a prospective employer gets ahold of this article and sees that the e-mail was copied and pasted, how would he feel?), but please try to take away the general picture. In fact, the whole “To Whom it may Concern:” part seems a bit formal, and can be simply replaced with “Hi there:”.

Secondly, don’t hesitate to create a framework for e-mails. Because of the numerous e-mails one will be sending throughout the distribution of his/her resumes, it will be very beneficial to simply copy and paste his/her OWN layout and adjust company names and personal qualities to suit the prospective employer. Don’t copy this one.

…and yeah, it’s the layout I like using.

3. With the Telephone…

photo credit: Daquella manera

It’s usually not common to see Craigslist employers request a telephone call (this is more common towards dedicated employment sites, such as Monster or Workopolis), but if the opportunity ever comes up, then by all means capitalize.

There will be people who are more comfortable speaking to a real person than communicating via e-mail; and with telephones, these people will naturally shine and stand out. They will have the voice, tone, and wit to carry a conversation with the employer. For everyone else (possibly the majority of people), telephone conversations will pose more of a challenge than an e-mail because text can be edited and revised, whereas spoken words can’t.

One possible solution would be to try emulating the conversation before it actually takes place; anticipate the questions (both common sense ones – like “What part of this job interests you?” and “What qualities do you feel can serve us best?”, but also more untraditional questions relating to your job, which can be usually expertise-related).

Secondly, try to breathe consistently. Breathing is key to voice control; try not to gasp, but breathe through the nose. A slow, relaxed, breath will set the tone for a more relaxed conversation, which can give off the sound-image of your confidence towards people.

With voice, try to show enthusiasm; don’t be afraid to inquire about the job (in fact, this can be recommended) – don’t discuss touchier subjects like Vacation Times or Wages, but talk about the developmental possibilities that this job entails.

Timing

photo credit: MarvinSiefke

One last thing about Craigslist is the importance of timing; weekends are usually when employers rest, so my recommendation would be to take a break on the weekend and switch gears on weekdays. A good time to check would be at 1PM, when the morning posts are up; and at around 5PM – I say 5PM because afternoon posts would be up, while there will still be people at the workplace to check responses (assuming that the employer stays behind to look into the job applications and doesn’t just leave work at 5PM).

Best of luck. Stay hungry.

Naturally, this was a bit disheartening, and I began reconsidering a lot of my options. At the peak of my disappointment with freelancing, I’d even considered switching to major in Business and out of the Media Information Technoculture course that I’m currently enrolled in. In fact, I took the month of July to study Calculus and Vectors to prepare me for a possible switch to Business.

Here was my rationale: although money wasn’t the most important factor in a line of work, it was definitely a major consideration for me. The side of me that loves money is a realist — it knew that the chances of me making money (I’m talking big money) on writing alone were slim to none. And it was convincing me that the feast-or-famine cycle was the least appealing quality of the job.

But lately, I’d been doing a lot of reading — I’d actually stumbled the majority of it accidentally. Through a lot of clickthroughs from various websites and blogs, I ended up at this article: http://www.skelliewag.org/30-days-to-become-a-freelancer-961.htm

I was deeply impressed. Although this wasn’t my first time reading Skellie’s work, I had never seen freelancing being broken down like that before. And the thing is, freelancing could be given a try while I was a full-time student (it was either on this article or another that mentioned freelancing should be started at 1-2 hours a night while maintaing a full-time job — my full-time job is studying). With my love for writing rekindled by this hope, I’d decided to go all-out in August and try to become a freelancer by the beginning of September.

No doubt, this part is a lot easier, because I’m on Summer break and have the whole day to work on freelancing. I’m aspiring to be a freelance writer, but I do want to try and get some other knowledge in; finances and employment opportunites, as well as online income, are piquing my interest right now.

Why am I saying all this? This is just an introduction into the world of freelancing, which I consider to be a source of making some money; secondly, I plan to study and personally undergo this 30 days towards being a freelancer, and keeping myself accountable with this blog. Hopefully, my documented journey will be able to help future aspiring freelancers.

It’s been two years. I’m studying calculus during summer afternoons, which really screws up my availability in terms of summer jobs (most of my offers were full-time). I also didn’t want to take a chance with marketing schemes, like Vector Marketing, at the time – although it does seem like an interesting learning opportunity, I don’t have the connections nor the experience to really navigate through the world that way. Naturally, I decided to start looking around for online income.

Why Online Income?

A lot of friends of mine don’t believe in making money online. I don’t blame them. There is such an overwhelming amount of scams, false information, and other sorts of dishonesty that can be found on the Internet that can dwindle enthusiasm very quickly. However, making money from the Internet, although sometimes confusing, isn’t really that difficult – once you get started, the possibilities are endless.

photo credit: Peter Hellberg

Online income offers an alternative method of making money – meaning that you can sit at home for probably an hour or two at night, and supply yourself with some extra spending money or bolster your savings. In my world, any alternative method is welcome – and so I adopted online income into my money-making strategy. Besides, online income offers many benefits – flexible schedules, little sacrifice (just time and perhaps a bit of money), and savings on travel-time and gas.

With some simple computer skills, common sense, and experience, I’ve been able to figure out most of the problems with making money on the Internet – and the safest way to do things. Here are three rules to remember:

1. Never pay up-front.

You can’t get scammed if you don’t give away your money. I made it a personal rule to never give away money to any program before I made more back – meaning if I was asked to give away $X, I wouldn’t give any until I made at least $X+5 ($5 is a random number, depends on how much time I put into it, right?). I really play it safe over the Internet, because it’s so easy to get caught up in false promises and such – so keep your money and just don’t bother signing up for programs that need you to pay up-front, before you can start making the money. Some programs are legitimate when they ask for up-front fees, but I just skip them – won’t I miss out? Yeah, but I’d rather have peace of mind as well as the knowledge that I didn’t need to invest anything.

2. Always use Google.

Googling around for experiences with particular programs or alternative methods of making money can save a lot of time and experimentation – I discovered this when I was seeking a method where I could control the entire process, and had an idea of what was really happening with my money. Google is great because it enables us to learn from other people’s experiences (assuming that they are true) – both positive and negative. It also provides access to so many tips and hints, and resources that can save a lot of trouble.

If you ever break the first rule, never break the second. Spend five minutes on Google, and simply type in: “(name of program) experiences”. Open the first page of results in tabs, and pore over the results. Of course, I’d still tell you to give up paying up-front, but if you become really desperate (which you shouldn’t, but I can understand that it’ll happen) and start grasping at straws, at least take a more calculated approach. Don’t let the scammers capitalize on your desperation.

3. Making money isn’t necessarily going to be fun and games.

photo credit: freshwater2006

Making money online can be fun, but it doesn’t have to be. Yeah, you heard me right. If you’re complaining about how making money online is tedious and boring, you should probably go find another job. Making money online is just as much a job as secretarial work and computer programming – and just like how people do their jobs without enjoying it, you will also have to be prepared to take it. If you can’t take it, then quit. Either learn to enjoy it, and make the most of the opportunities you are given (heck, if you’re making money online you should be proud of yourself already), or go find another line of work.

I hope I get my point across. This is serious business.

Methods of Making Money Online

photo credit: matsuyuki

There are many ways to make money online: I’ve mainly talked about programs – structured organizations that use advertising or exploit some sort of loophole in certain programs to make money. The programs paid for by advertising are usually the safer route, but will not make as much money. In contrast, you will also find programs that exploit loopholes or use some shadier side of marketing to make money – these have potential for huge dollars, but again, I would recommend against these due to their more dangerous nature (as well as the questionable legality). Due to my “safer” approach to making money online, I will be examining the more steady and established methods.

Firstly, there are programs that share advertising revenue with their users. Basically, companies are paid a certain amount per pageview (as a hypothetical example, $0.01). In this case, the company can choose to share a percentage of this $0.01 with the user per pageview – probably $0.003 or so. That way, the more pageviews a user receives, the more money they make for both the company and themselves. This is how methods like MyLot and Yuwie work – I can personally attest to having used MyLot, but with a dissatisfied result (too little money for too much work).

photo credit: bodycoach2

Based off this advertising model, many writing programs offer generous payoffs for well-written content. If content offers value and is well-written, then many people will enjoy reading it. The website will receive many pageviews (from Google, or general readers of the site); because of this increased amount of traffic, there will most likely be an increase in impressions in ads – which should hypothetically result in more clickthroughs on ads and more advertising revenue for the website. The website will, again, share this revenue with the user who wrote this well-written piece of content. This is how programs like Associated Content and Helium work. One piece of advice – if you plan to make some serious money with these programs, you will need to have excellent control of the English language, and you will also need to be persistent and consistent in writing your articles (the more articles you have, the greater the amount of cumulative pageviews you will receieve, the more money you get – assuming they are all well-written). Oh, and you have to be of 18 years of age.

Secondly, one can skip the other programs and create their own program. By this, I mean one can start a website and try to get their own traffic, make their own deals with advertisers, and create their own content. This option – while still legitimate, is riskier than the other methods previously mentioned – however, again, they offer much more reward. This is because the previous methods are all established and have many more resources and experience than one single person would probably possess – however, they also consume a lot more as the middle-man, which is why the rewards for users are scarcer through these programs. If one decides to start their own website and hits the jackpot, they technically get to keep everything (of course, hosting costs and domain fees still need to be paid).

The model for this custom-program is entirely up to the creator – while many writers/marketers/bloggers create their own websites, many solely rely on advertising revenue as their source of income. This has both benefits and costs – while advertising revenue is usually quite easy to come by (it all depends on traffic), advertising revenue can be inconsistent when traffic is inconsistent. Thus, the creator will have to craft other methods of intaking money – usually by offering specialized services. It’s also comparatively more difficult to gain traffic and make deals with advertisers (because of the traffic issue), and so if one doesn’t have a passion for entrepreneurship or is faint at heart, this method might be inappropriate.

I’ve already mentioned this method, but it’s probably among the least mentioned in MMO (make money online) spheres – and this is the matter of specialized work. People pay good money for themes, designs, and programs nowadays – so if you are technically savvy or have previous experience with programming/design, you are at an advantage. Get your skills back and start making money by promoting yourself. This method is also quite difficult to start up, as the web is filled with competitors – but I suggest keeping your rates low in the beginning (or work for free) and building your portfolio and popularity, all the while gaining traffic towards your portfolio/website (which I recommend for promoting your services). This is also just the beginning – people nowadays look for everything online, from counseling to outsourced work to healing – so if you have any sort of expertise that can satisfy some sort of demand (preferably in a field with as few competitors as possible), then do it.

Also, when one has their own blog or website, they are able to start writing sponsored reviews. These reviews do pay quite handsomely for the amount of effort required, but I highly discourage anyone hoping to gain credibility and long-term profits from taking this method – if your blog had a sponsored review, a reader like myself would scoff and never visit again because I would have lost all trust for you. Thankfully, not everyone is like me, and I’m sure that your traffic won’t take that huge a hit – but at the same time, the trust will be much more frail once money is involved in the review. Don’t do sponsored reviews. If you do, please disclaim that the money is going towards maintaining your website or paying for your reviewing efforts, and not towards swaying your opinion – justify yourself, and I’m sure the audience will understand.

photo credit: Exothermic

Thirdly, affiliate programs nowadays pay quite generously – basically, if one can convince another person to purchase a product from a certain website through an affiliate program, the website will pay the convincer a certain percentage of the price of the product. Typically, this needs to be done on a large-scale basis for it to work effectively.

Lastly, there are many survey companies that would pay excellently for your opinion or thoughts. I’ve never really enjoyed this method as much, because I find that I don’t qualify for many surveys or the effort isn’t worth the payout. However, money is money – I’m aware of a friend who received a whopping $50USD cheque for completing a series of surveys. Not bad, right?

In case that wasn’t enough for you, here’s an article on Dumb Little Man with 40 ways to make money (there’s a link at the bottom of the article to the second batch).

What Methods have Worked for Me?

I’ve experienced the most success with creating my own website. Two summers ago, I created http://cutedge.org to record my thoughts on technology and gadgets – in a year, I had $50-60/month coming in. This wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great – I had realized that I went into the wrong niche. Unfortunately, not enough of my information was original (how original can one get with technology?) – and none of my content was timeless, but rather just breaking news posts and opinions. In fact, I look back in retrospect and I’m surprised I got paid at all. However, this just goes to show that even a wrong step in unexplored territory can end with reward. I’ve gotten around this lack of creative/original content by deciding to focus more solely on reviews – after all, this is the only way to distinct myself from the rest of the technology crowd.

This isn’t to say that my website has been a walk in the park – my current revenue weighs in at a mere $24.50/month, based solely on advertising. I’m ashamed to say that my passion had died down early, and that I was writing strictly for the income for at least several months. Needless to say, this became evident to both readers and advertisers, who fled from my half-assed writing. Never, ever, let your passion die. And if it does, you better resurrect it as quickly as you can.

photo credit: DigitalAlan

At the beginning of my making money online journey, I had experimented with programs on a daily basis. Again, I never broke my first rule, so I limited myself to more steady and less rewarding programs – one I experienced mixed success with would be Helium. Helium is a website powered mainly by a strong community and a huge amount of writers – and it functions on the advertising model as mentioned before. The more pageviews the user gets for a certain piece of content, the more money he/she will receive. However, with this said – to this day, I maintain an 80%+ (sometimes I get updated to a 90%+) average on all my articles, and I’ve made probably $2.00 using this method. These articles have been there for two years – plenty of time to collect pageviews. The majority of money I made – a whopping $5.00 – was for the apparent sale of one of my articles. Great, $7.00 in two years. However, this is not to say that anyone else can’t pull it off – my articles tended to be denser and filled with more research – and thus, although I ranked well, my articles were hard to write and were in more competitive fields. I quickly grew tired of letting other people decide my popularity and decided to start my own blog.

As for another method, myLot – which seemed like a scam at first – is actually legitimate in that it pays for one just to post around on its forums; this program is sponsor-based (look at all those sponsors on its sidebar and tell me it’s not). However, again, I experienced mixed success – although I did receive some income, it was very little; for three-four days of hard posting and searching, I received a $10.00 payout. I was greedy, so I decided to skip myLot and look for the bigger bucks.

Where should you start?

Start with research. Generally, I’ll advise you to Google “Make money online” – however, there are many articles littered with affiliate links (which is how they make money – you have been warned – and yes, sometimes I will plug in my own affiliate links after disclosing them), and so might be written in the interest of enticing people to join certain programs. Those reviews will not be written totally objectively; don’t trust them. Hell, if any of my articles have affiliate links, you should think twice – I usually am not the type to go back on my integrity (as I hope you’ll see), but money can do crazy things to people.

I’ll also advise you to try a process which you can control and get to know well; although I’m not a big fan of controlling “everything” (I watched Fight Club for my third time two nights ago, and sometimes I feel like I just have to let go of the wheel), money and business is an aspect of life where I vowed to stay on top of. There is no ‘relaxed’ approach that I will approve of – especially not when it comes to your finances!

1. Tailor your Resume

photo credit: TheTruthAbout

This piece of advice was actually suggested to me by someone I bumped into at a job fair – but he told me to tailor my resume to whatever job I was going to. Similarly, another friend told me to create a second, more streamlined and slimmed down, version of my resume, which he felt would be appropriate for certain other jobs (“so you don’t seem overqualified”).

Either way, you get the point – a strategic approach would be to tailor your resume towards places you plan to apply to ahead of time – for example, if you’re planning to apply to a retail store, highlight your interest in fashion. Don’t be afraid to mention your previous experience in another retail store, and make sure you personally hand your resume in to the manager so that he/she can see your sense of style (thanks Nick).

Such minor observations and tweaks can make the difference between you and the next guy, so make sure you take every opportunity to tailor the resume towards where you’re applying.

2. Your Resume doesn’t have to be one page!

The general rule of resumes is to make it as short as possible and avoid the dreaded second page, but I’ve found it to be beneficial to go over the one-page limit sometimes. Firstly, the mindset of having a second page makes it easier to throw absolutely everything down on the resume. Keep in mind that this works well on a spill draft of the resume, but it would be wise to filter out much of the more important stuff (as my friend tells me, “No one gives a shit about which elementary school you graduated from.”).

Here’s the ‘checklist’ as found in the Simple Dollar article previously linked to:

• Name/address/phone/email
• Summary of Qualifications
• Work Experience (unless this is your first “real” job)
• Professional Organizations (unless these are slim, then eliminate or move to end)
• Honors (unless these are slim, then eliminate or move to end)
• Education
• A note indicating that references are available upon request

I found that my “Summary of Qualifications” and “Work Experience” (I also included a few volunteering experiences) already took up my first page, and I figured it wouldn’t necessarily be wise to skim down my experiences. One idea would be to cut down on the number of points per experience, another would be to simply extract the unnecessary ones.

photo credit: HowardLake

Under recommendations from a friend (thanks Dhruv), I threw in an Awards section to bring up the awards I’ve received in competitions (such as DECA) or other certifications that I’d earned previously.

Lastly, I mentioned this briefly: my Interests section used to have things closest to my heart – from random stuff like philosophy to music. It sounds silly, but I really wanted to personalize my resume. I got hit by the stone cold truth by the job fair guy: the employers don’t care about your interests unless it has something to do with them! Chances are if you talk about irrelevant interests, you’ll be diluting your qualifications and good points with unimportant interests and your resume will end up in the recycling bin. Sure, you can share interests with your coworkers and managers…after you get the job.

3. Highlights of Qualifications/Summary of Qualifications

Employers scan resumes, and the peak of their interest will probably be at the beginning of your resume. Make sure you highlight your strongest points by creating a Highlights of Qualifications/Summary of Qualifications section, where you bring out your most important skills.

For example, one entry on my resume is:

• Adaptability: able to understand situations, adapt accordingly, and obtain new skills

Although the grammar isn’t the greatest, it’s straightforward and concise, perfect for a quick scan. I recommend bringing up 4-5 of these entries in your Highlights of Qualifications section, and don’t be modest! If you’ve got something you really want to shine, then make it beautiful.

Icing on the cake…

photo credit: yumyumbubblegum

That’s just my two cents – the web is overflowing with information on resumes, so here are a bunch more for you to peruse at your own leisure.

• http://www.mahalo.com/how-to-write-a-resume
• http://jobsearch.about.com/cs/resumewriting/a/10steps.htm
• http://writing-resumes.suite101.com/article.cfm/10_tips_for_writing_a_killer_resume
• http://www.internationalgraduate.net/resume.htm
• http://blogs.bnet.com/ceo/?p=1899

Remember, the resume is the key to the interview, which is the key to the job. Don’t cheap out on effort when it comes to the resume. Enjoy!

1. A Commission-based Store

I base this model strictly on the only commission-based virtual store I know of – which is Zlio. Zlio is a service which enables to create your own store “within 5 minutes” – this is only half-true, as a careful selection of products is essential to the profitability of your store. Niche stores tend to better on Zlio and other virtual stores because of their uniqueness in products, and the lack of competitors. Think of it this way – if a consumer has the option of purchasing from Amazon, a well-reputed and established site, or a third-party website that they just landed on, where would they buy from? Where would you buy from?

So it’s essential to target products that Amazon and other big sites don’t sell. Another interesting idea is to sell products that you are extremely familiar with – that way, you can review them and recommend certain ones, which will establish trust with the consumer and increase chances of purchase.

Zlio pays different commissions for different products, and it is more than possible to make money – alas, this idea has already been done though, so don’t expect to make a fortune. I’ll be personally starting a store and reviewing Zlio as a service very soon, so keep your eyes peeled if you’re interested in Zlio. Or, take the dive and try it right now – it’s free to sign up, what have you got to lose?

http://www.zlio.com/

A word on Amazon aStore

Similar to Zlio, Amazon’s aStore service offers commission based on all their products. I’m not as enthusiastic as a supporter about aStore, because many consumers go straight to Amazon if they want something from there. From what I’ve seen, aStore offers only products from Amazon – and thus it’s impossible to avoid competition from Amazon, because you will both be offering the same products. However, Amazon’s products do sell well for a reason – and again, you do get paid off commission. Depending on how much time you have, it might be fruitful to look into this alternative.

2. A Custom-Graphics Store

photo credit: jm3

I like this idea because it offers a mixture of freedom and structure – this model is based on CafePress. CafePress has been around forever. I remember my cousin sending me an APH Networks hat that he created himself for my birthday (thanks Jon). If you have even an ounce of creativity and inspiration for graphics flowing through you, and you’d like to see your work printed on T-shirts, cups, and other “special gift ideas”, you might want to give CafePress a look. CafePress offers a service which prints these graphics onto products such as T-shirts, cups, and other “special gift ideas”, and ships them to your customers. They do reap a small portion of the sale, but you get the majority.

A tad more restricting in terms of products, but a major possibility of reward here if you can create nice T-shirts (you could be the next Threadless!).

http://cafepress.com

3. An Independent Store

photo credit: gfpeck

I can’t even stress how much thought you should put into this before you take the dive. Creating your own store will involve a lot of guidance, troubleshooting, networking, education, and effort that the previous two methods would not have required. However, the freedom with the independent store is much greater – for example, if you can find a cheaper supplier, then you can sell cheaper products, and thus you will have a price advantage over your competitors. Or if you can figure out a way to streamline your business and have fewer costs, then again, you can sell for cheaper. Or if you find a certain product that is designed uniquely and you are the only supplier of this product, then you will have another advantage over your competitors. …you get my drift.

Creating the website shouldn’t be hard, but the inventory, processing, shipping and handling, can drive a person like myself insane.

If you’re interested in this method though, I suggest reading Steve’s guide towards creating your own store – Steve’s the mind behind My Wife Quit Her Job, and owns his own wedding linens store. Initially, I thought it was a bit too specialized of a niche, but boy he’s making some nice cheddar.

http://mywifequitherjob.com/create-a-profitable-online-store-in-5-easy-steps/

Take a look, and if you think you’re capable, then give it a shot. What have you got to lose? (If your store doesn’t work out, you can always end up using a domain name and webhosting for something else. But just make sure you don’t have a huge surplus of inventory, or else you might have lost some money.)

The Trafficking Issue

photo credit: stevendamron

As I see it, the main hurdle (as with all websites) would be to gain traffic. More traffic means more consumers, which means more potential customers, which means more potential sales, which means more potential profits. Traffic is the key to success – everything else can be tweaked to increase sales rates or whatnot, but traffic is the foundation. If you don’t have traffic, it doesn’t matter if your sales rate is 100% – let me illustrate my point: 30 people visit your store, which you’ve meticulously tweaked to somehow make the sales rate 100%. You sell 30 products. Good on you. Or, 3000 people visit your store, which has a sales rate of, say, 5%. You sell 150 products. You get my drift? Focus on traffic first, before you focus on optimizing your sales rate – although the sales rate is important (imagine a 100% sales rate on 3000 people?), traffic is the priority.

Another method of generating Online Income

I’ll say it again – the web is full of opportunities. Storekeepers, start your engines. Don’t expect it to be an easy ride, but if you take on any of these options (which couldn’t hurt) – this goes quadruple for the third – expect trouble, expect difficulty, expect doubt. But if you’re able to persevere through these obstacles and start selling, then you’ll have made another stream of income and you’ll be a step further in your journey towards making money online.

Let’s get some things straight here:

1. This isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme. You’re not going to get rich, and if you are then it certainly will not happen quickly, I assure you. Nor effortlessly. Financial independence is no easy route, and if you’re thinking about giving up already then you might be better off doing some soul-searching (we’ll be addressing this issue in a post soon — I like to think I can motivate people).
2. This isn’t a make money online blog. There certainly are aspects to making money online that we will be addressing, but that is by no means the only method, nor the most reliable method of making money. I’ll say that straight up. But if you’re smart enough and resourceful enough, you just might be able to make money online with relative ease.
3. This isn’t just for jobless people. JoblessJoes.com will be addressing issues with employment as well, and offering ideas on promotion, expansion, and strategic planning for employment. The Art of War ain’t got nothing on this.
4. Money’s money. If you’ve decided that you don’t need a job, or can’t get a job, then good for you — we will find you other methods of earning money. Regardless of what people think, everyone needs money to survive (or they live on other people’s money).
5. My name isn’t Joe. It’s Herbert. Pleased to meet you. I hope to help you Jobless Joes and Janes find alternate methods of making money, or reaching the goal of employment. In this day and time, what have you got to lose? Read a few articles and — of course, tell me what you think.

At the moment, JoblessJoes.com has just been registered and hosted. A lot of administration work needs to be done — getting Analytics set up, a unique WordPress theme together, promotion of the website, and of course, an overall plan of how everything fits together. Failing to plan is planning to fail.

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