Thousands of people are now finding unique and lucrative ways to make money without leaving their front door – giving them more security by creating another stream of income.
There are several reasons why we might have an interest in using our own homes to make a living.
Commuting time is dead time: Not having to sit in traffic twice a day, or stare at the glum faces of other commuters on buses and trains are also strong incentives.
Home-based work is more productive: According to Tomedes, a professional translation services firm, employees working from home tend to get more work done than their peers in the office, mainly because of the fewer distractions, researchers from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) reported in a study.
The possibilities of home-based work are limitless; you can start a business, work for someone else, or simply use your home as an office.
This article provides information on some of the best ways to make money online or at home.
1. Freelance Writing
The internet has revolutionized freelance writing. In the past freelancers would sometimes have to wait months 2. before receiving responses from magazine or newspaper editors.
Waiting for freelance work is now a thing of the past. With the internet boom (of websites looking for content), there is huge demand for people to write and have their stuff published online. As long as you have adequate writing skills and knowledge in certain fields, you can become a freelance writer, and the choice of themes is virtually endless.
The 2012 Freelance Industry Report found that people enjoy freelance work because of its scheduling freedom, flexibility, and ability to follow or pursue personal passions.
The first step in becoming a freelance writer is to study successful blogs, and then write a few articles to use as samples. You should do this for every field you have set your sights on.
One of the drawbacks is competition. Freelance writers are competing against highly-skilled individuals worldwide; some of them living in countries with good education systems, excellent literacy, and much lower wages.
2. Teach
If you are an expert in something and have the space and tools to teach what you know to someone else, then teaching from home could be an option for you.
Selling knowledge can be one of the easiest ways of making money from home.
All you need is to make sure that people know you are out there, which can be achieved through advertising, word of mouth recommendations, posting fliers in supermarkets, schools, churches, and visiting neighbors to tell them about your business.
Examples include, teaching:
- a musical instrument,
- foreign languages,
- dog training,
- dancing,
- giving classes on academic subjects (such as chemistry, physics, or calculus),
- helping people improve their presentations techniques, etc.
Depending on where you live and what you teach, you can charge anywhere between $10 to $50 per hour. Teaching, say for 3 hours on a daily basis, could bring in an extra $210 to $700 each week.
3. Give Advice
If you are in expert in your field, there are many people out there who might pay to ask you questions and receive your answers.
The website JustAnswer (justanswer.com) is a paid question-and-answer site where millions of people in over 145 countries come to the site for affordable and timely insight in more than 150 categories, ranging from Medical to Legal.
4. Affiliate Your Website
If you run a website (of any kind), you can add affiliate links and make money every time somebody clicks on one of these links from your page.
The most popular programs that allow publishers at all levels of web traffic to place contextual ads in their website include eBay, Google, LinkShare, Clickbank and Amazon. Once you’ve included some ads in, the next step is to try and generate more traffic.
This can be difficult to achieve, however, if you properly build a website with original and useful content you should see your traffic increase (and along with it earnings from affiliate linking). You should research search engine optimization (SEO) techniques to boost your site’s appearance on search engines.
5. Rent A Bedroom
Do you have a spare bedroom in your house that no-one uses? These days, it is not only students looking for rooms to rent; with house prices rising, the number of new tenants appearing on the market is rising rapidly.
If you are not sure how to let people know you have a room to let, try posting your details online at Airbnb.com, where you can rent your spare room at any price. The site is active in more than 34,000 cities and 190 countries across the world.
6. Sell Arts and Crafts
Do you enjoy making arts and crafts? Another way of making money is by selling them online. Through the website Etsy.com you can make your crafts visible to almost everyone in the world.
If you really want to stand out it’s highly recommended to focus on creating personalized and custom products – creating an emotional connection.
7. Review Products
Are you an avid Amazon.com or Yelp.com reviewer? Did you know that there are other websites out there that will actually pay you for reviewing certain products, according to the quality of your reviews and knowledge in certain fields.
You can potentially earn up to $50 per review depending on your skills and what you are reviewing. The following sites will pay you to review products:
- Vindale.com,
- Usertesting.com,
- Dooyoo.co.uk, and
- Shvoong.com.
8. Sell Photos
There are literally hundreds of stock photo websites out there that give you a chance to upload your pictures for people to buy. Even if you are not an expert in photography, you can still try uploading some on a daily basis – you never know, some people might like them.
Did you know that the most sought after pictures are “everyday images” or “common action” daily life pics. Examples include photos of stop signs, road traffic, food and drink, and other ‘typical’ everyday items.
9. Flip Domain Names
Consider domain names the equivalent of internet real estate. There are plenty of people who make a decent living simply buying and selling them.
But, how do you flip a domain name? Google Adwords is a popular way of identifying keyword trends currently being used. Use that data to buy a domain name that appears likely to be in demand soon.
For example, if you find out there will be an upcoming device called “nextgenwatch101”, then you could buy the domain name “www.nextgenwatch101.com” for a cheap price. As soon as the next generation watch is launched onto the market (or just before), you may be offered a good price for that domain name.
Another method of flipping is through buying domains that could stand for random acronyms in the future. Everyday industry giants create new acronyms. If you manage to snatch the domain first, you might be able to sell it for a much higher price later on.
Flipping, in this context, means buying for a low price and selling for a higher price. The ‘flipper’ does this rapidly.
10. Referrals
Every business benefits from more customers and many of them have devised a clever way of enticing current customers to help them do that – by rewarding them for every referral. How does a referral work? Quite simply, you get paid for every person you bring to the business.
To get started, do a Google search for businesses with referral programs.
Once you’ve decided what business you’re going to go with, begin by branching out to people who you have on your personal and social networks. If you find that your network is small then join forums and groups to meet new people, and eventually refer them too.
(Foreign Exchange) Forex Trading
If you are willing to take some risk then you have the option of trading currencies. What Forex traders essentially do is place a bet that the value of one currency will increase relative to another.
This can be an effective way of making money. However, you have to understand the risk involved, have the skills to mitigate the risk, and have enough financial capital to get started.
There is also the option of receiving Forex trade alerts, or Forex Signals. These are trade strategies provided by either experienced traders or market analysts, often charged at a premium fee, that can then be copied or replicated by a trader to their own account.
There are websites, such as Zulutrade.com and Etoro.com, that allow you to copy another trader who has consistently performed well. This is an option for people with little to no Forex experience.