The combination of faster internet speeds, a higher number of hours spent online, and the shelter in place policy due to the COVID-19 pandemic encouraged various companies and businesses to adopt and legitimize online work. It became accepted as a way of doing things because people couldn’t go to their offices and be near each other. Numerous companies were forced to allow their employees to work from home online.
This, however, has also nurtured online work for non-regular employees. These are workers who were, until very recently, considered just temps or informal workers. But they’ve become accepted now and are starting to become the norm of working for many people. There are lots of ways to earn extra money online. Some are easy and lucrative, such as answering paid surveys and doing click marketing for digital marketing agencies.
Here’s a brief guide on how to make some extra money from online gigs.
Prepare Your Hub
The first thing you have to do if you want to earn some extra money online is to prep your online work hub. Prepare a dedicated spot in your home where you can do your online work. You need to ensure you have the primary equipment required for the online job or gig you want to get into. You also need to ensure you have good reliable internet connectivity and speed.
Some online jobs or gigs won’t require you to be online the whole time you’re doing the assigned tasks. Most of these gigs are jobs that require you to do output-based tasks. These gigs allow you to do the tasks on your own time, as long as you submit the completed work within the deadline.
But some jobs require you to be online for the entire duration of the shift hours, for which you’re going to get paid. Some of these jobs have a tracking system allowing employers to see what you’re doing on your computer. Others require you to turn on your video camera for the entire duration of your shift so they’d know that you’re in front of your camera and ready to do the work you signed up for.
Prep Your Resume And Set Up Your Accounts
The next thing you have to do if you want to earn some extra money online would be to prep your resume and set up your online accounts. You only need to do the first requirement if you’re planning on applying for online jobs. Of course, it doesn’t apply to other online income opportunities, such as opening your own online store or selling some merchandise on popular eCommerce sites. You also don’t need a resume to earn money from blogging or podcasting.
However, most online jobs would require you to open an account somewhere on their platform or website. For example, most online job platforms and work order bidding websites will require you to open an account with them. For some, this is just a simple task of typing in your personal details, and you can start bidding for online jobs or tasks.
But some job platforms will verify your identity before you can start applying for jobs on their platform. They’d typically require you to submit proof of identity and proof of billing. Some would even ask for a facial verification through a video conference call which they’ll schedule with you. It’s better to prepare your IDs and proof of billing or where you live. You might as well be ready with some proof that you have good internet speed.
Ways To Make Money Online
Here are some of the specific online jobs and gigs that you can get into to earn some cash online:
1. Sell Your Photos
One way to earn extra money online would be to sell your photos. If you have talent and skills in photography, you can monetize your body of work to earn some extra cash. Photographers are some of the lowest-paid workers in many countries unless you’re a celebrity photographer tapped by high-value clients for their events.
The good thing is that the internet has spurred the growth of photography databases. These picture websites have hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of pictures saved and stored. Numerous magazine editors and designers often resort to these databases if they can’t find the time or talent to take new pictures for their publications and projects. You can upload your pictures and they’ll be included in the stock of photos. They’ll pay you each time someone gets a copy of your picture and buys it or pays for its use.
2. Become A Copywriter
Another great way to earn extra money online would be to offer your services. If you have talent in writing or copywriting, you can earn money by bidding for writing projects online. You can also apply for a writing job with a copywriting agency or content-developing company. However, it is significant to know the difference between these jobs. Copywriting is typically done by writing about a particular product in a positive light and highlighting its various features.
Content writing is a much broader and more subtle use of writing to promote businesses and products. There are numerous content writing platforms on the internet. You can apply for a job with them. Content writing includes writing guest posts in blogs, topic articles for online publications, and ghost-writing blogs for the bloggers themselves. Content writers are usually employed by companies who want to put out interesting content and then just backlink some keywords to their websites or social media pages.
3. Create How-To Videos
In recent years, there has been an explosion of self-help videos on the internet. More people are trying to learn things on their own. A vast majority of these people try to learn new skills by watching video tutorials created by specialists who have developed expertise on a specific subject. There are as many video tutorials online as there are topics that can be turned into how-to videos.
You can cash in on this trend by creating your own how-to or tutorial videos. If you have some skills in videography, you might want to try producing your own how-to videos. Try to do some research before you create your videos. A little bit of analytics would provide information about which how-to video topics are most watched or most in-demand within your scope. You can find this out from the most common search phrases used for how-to videos. This gig is quite profitable if you know a couple of things about some really interesting topics.
4. Podcasting
You can also earn some online cash from podcasting. Some people said that radio and print media died with the ascendancy of the internet. But radio is still very much around, only that they adapted by providing livestream to their radio studio when radio programs go on air. This is very different from when listeners could only imagine the radio commentator because the viewers couldn’t see anything.
Podcasting is another form of audio-only content production. If you have strong opinions about the burning issues of the day, podcasting might be a great way to channel all that insightful thought and discussion. You can talk about anything under the sun. You won’t even have to be concerned about being censored or edited before your podcast can go on-air.
You can earn money from podcasting by turning on the internet ads on your podcast page. There are also podcast-hosting services that can distribute your podcasts for a price or subscription fee. Another way of earning money from podcasts is by getting products that would be willing to pay you for endorsing them. Some people earn money from podcasting by getting sponsored advertisements.
5. Create A Blog Which Can Earn Money
You can also earn money online by blogging. If there’s podcasting for people who love talking about various issues, blogging is its counterpart in the purely written word. You can earn money from blogging by turning on online ads. If you write about highly technical or specialized matters, you can also earn money by writing limited viewership blog articles. You can limit the viewership of some of your written works to people who have paid to view the blog.
Another way to earn money from blogging is by getting companies who would be willing to pay you a fee for endorsing their business or products in your blogs. Blogging can be particularly rewarding if you have at least one area or topic you can write about without going through extensive preliminary research. You can also earn money from blogging by offering backlinking or link-building services to your client’s websites.
6. Try Drop-shipping
Dropshipping is another way of earning money online that has gained popularity in the past few years. Dropshipping is a way of selling goods online. In dropshipping, you just take the orders of your customers and relay this to your supplier. Most of these suppliers are wholesalers or manufacturers who don’t want to do the retail selling themselves but would be happy to earn some more money from dropshippers.
The buyer pays when they check out of your online store. The supplier packs the goods and sends the items to the address of the customer. They never pass through you. Some dropshippers who built million-dollar stores never saw the goods delivered to their customers. You then remit the payment to the supplier based on the price they quoted to you for the items or goods.
Conclusion
There are a lot of opportunities to earn money online. You just have to be persevering and resourceful enough to look for the gems so you can land really good-paying online gigs. You’d be surprised that there are small businesses paying well for their online workers, as long as they’re happy with the output they receive. This has created opportunities for tech workers, writers, artists, musicians, researchers, and many other workers who couldn’t find their place in the formal corporate world of onsite office work.
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