So You Want To Make Some Money From Home?

When I researched working from home, I looked into many different options and what struck me was just how many, varied ways there were available to make money from home and in particular to make money online. There were so many paths to choose from, and so much information about making money online that I felt totally overwhelmed, I really didn’t know which direction to go in.

Since then I have tried out many of those various ways of making money from home, I have been down many of those paths. Some have been good and have brought me money, some are still be tested, and some were an utter waste of my time. This is what inspired me to create this lens. So that you can benefit from my experience and perhaps not have to spend quite so much time in the trial and error phase. This lens will provide you some helpful information about legitimate and fruitful ways to make money from home, as well as some things to avoid. If you are looking for reals way to make home based income, and passive income for the future, you are in the right place.

Making Money Online With Squidoo

Squidoo is great because it offers a place where you can easily create webpages FOR FREE, no experience necessary. It is also well placed to help you get your content listed in search engines, although this doesn’t happen magically without some effort on your part.

There are two main ways of making money with Squidoo, one is by using affiliate links to sell products, and Squidoo make this really easy, giving you everything you need to add relevant Amazon products into your articles. You can also become an affiliate for other companies and sell their products on your Squidoo pages too. So basically you make a percentage of any sales you make. Squidoo pages are called ‘lenses’.

The second way of making money with Squidoo is by creating REALLY GREAT lenses that rank highly in Squidoo. This is because you get a share of the revenue generated from the ads on Squidoo. The higher your lens is ranked the bigger your share. There are 3 levels or tiers and they are known. You can read more about this in my Squidoo earnings diary. So if you are a great writer and/or handy with a camera this can work for you.

I will be quite honest with you I am still fairly new to Squidoo. I have been joined for about 6 months, however it is only this year (since January 2013) that I have been taking it a little more seriously as a viable way of earning money from home, and really applying myself. My understanding is that it can take a few months before you will start to see earnings on Squidoo (once you start working with focus) however Squidoo can be quite profitable once it builds momentum

You can see my Squidoo earnings diary here. In it I am keeping a record of everything I earn with Squidoo.

In my honest opinion I don’t think Squidoo is easy money. However it is FREE to use and I think that it certainly can and does bring results for people long term. In fact I know of several individuals who make fairly good income using Squidoo.

Having said all this the real proof is in the pudding, so I am going to see how *I* get on here at Squidoo.
Watch this space!

NOTE – I would not have got ANYWHERE with Squidoo had I not bought a training programme called ‘One Week Marketing’ which you can read about below. Honestly if I hadn’t got this training I would still be floundering about in the dark and I would not have made any sales.

JOIN SQUIDOO HERE!

Do you want to write great lenses like this one and earn money at the same time?

Click Here to start making your first lens!

One Week Marketing

So this is the training that has helped me more than I can put into words. If you are at all interested in internet marketing, and especially if you are interested in making money with Squidoo, this is the training for you.

I was incredibly skeptical at first. Really, I wasn’t about to part with any money unless I was ABSOLUTELY SURE that this was good training. I read review after review and researched it for several weeks before I finally bought it.

Has it paid off?

Well it is still too early to say. What I can say is that I made my first 2 sales within 2 weeks of owning it. The lady who has written this training does not make any false promises. She is called ‘Potpiegirl’ and she is a self made six figure affiliate marketer. She started off on Squidoo using the exact plan that she shares in One Week Marketing (OWM). And the aftercare and support that you receive after you have bought the training is outstanding. There is a whole community where you can go and ask questions, and Potpiegirl stays in contact personally if you have a problem (or one of her team if she is not available).

In this training you will learn amongst other things, how to create GREAT squidoo lenses and how to optimise them and promote them to have the best chances of ranking well and making sales. There are so many great tools and ideas. I have learned so much. And it can take you beyond Squidoo once you are ready to expand your internet marketing career.

This is great training.

At the moment you can actually get your hands on a free trial of One Week Marketing. That means you will receive some e-mails from Potpiegirl, with helpful info that you can use for free. There is no obligation to buy the training if you don’t want to and the free info alone is massively helpful.

Click on this link: One Week Marketing, or on the box below to take advantage of this free trial.

Get Your Free One Week Marketing Trial Here!

Earn Money On InfoBarrel

YES! You definitely can earn money on InfoBarrel. I have only just joined InfoBarrel myself, less than 2 weeks ago, and have submitted 5 articles which have been approved so far. So far I have earned 68 cents! Not much I know, but like Squidoo this is passive income that will grow as my articles mature and I get the hang of using InfoBarrel.

For me the main advantage of using InfoBarrel is the generous adshare payment system. Writers actually get 75% of the revenue generated from the ads on their articles! That is very generous. And as of March 2013 you no longer need to have a google adsense account to join InfoBarrel, so if that was putting you off before, go ahead and join.

I think InfoBarrel is a better platform for article writers whereas Squidoo is more for people wanting to share information about a product or something else, including lots of pictures and interactive features. I will be using both and you can link from lenses here to articles there and vice versa, so perfect for increasing traffic too!

CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT WRITING AND EARNING ON INFOBARREL

Make Money From Home With Odesk

My experience with Odesk has been extremely positive. Odesk is an online community offering work which can be done from home, by connecting employers with contractors (us). There are all kinds of online jobs on offer from data entry to PA work, telephone calls to writing reviews and lots of article writing jobs. So if you are an aspiring writer this is a good place for you. All you need to find work through Odesk is a computer and internet connection. It is also helpful to make sure that you know how to use Skype as many potential employers like to interview you this way.

There are permanent and short term contracts available, and you can either work for an hourly rate or at an agreed set price per job. For article writing you are often paid per article. When you first join it is a good idea to accept some less well paid jobs initially to gain some experience. Employers usually prefer to take on contractors who have several hours of Odesk work experience, and also some feedback on their profile from other employers, however there are employers who are willing to take on newbies so you will start off with them. Start off with a low hourly rate until you gain some experience and then increase it.

I bega by setting my hourly rate at $8ph until I had accumulated 15 hours work on my profile, then I increased it to $10ph. If you have special skills (such as web design experience for example) you can set your rate higher as is appropriate for your line of work. A lot of the work I do is writing articles and I get on average around $5 per 500 word article, although it can be a lot higher or lower depending on the employer. You choose which jobs to apply to and what work you want to accept, so you do not have to take anything on that you don’t feel comfortable with. I could probably charge more however I am keeping it low for now as I like to have plenty of work. There is a lot of work available and you could earn a full time living this way if you wanted.

Click Here To Join Odesk

More About Working On Odesk

Please note that for most writing jobs employers tend to like contractors to have a good level of English and also good grammer and spelling.

Odesk has a two way feedback system whereby employers and contractors can rate each other after the job finishes. This means that you can see how well an employer rates before accepting any work from them. So look for employers with 5 stars. Also you will accumulate a good rating for work well done, and so be offered more jobs.

It is relatively easy to set up your account with Odesk, however there are a couple of little things you need to know before you start working on Odesk. As mentioned above, check out the employer rating BEFORE accepting any work. If you take a job with an hourly rate then your money is guaranteed to be paid by Odesk, no matter whether the employer pays or not. However Odesk DO NOT guarantee fixed price work (such as article writing), so if you do accept these kind of jobs it is a good idea to negotiate an upfront payment from the employer before you start the work. If it is a big job you may want to agree to be paid in increments, so you get paid as you complete various stages of the job. This reduces your risk of not getting paid for the work you do. This has never happened to me yet, however I understand that it is a risk, so I m mentioning it to you. This is also where the employer feedback becomes important, and if you view the employer profile you can also see how many hours they have already paid contractors for and how much money they have spent in total with Odesk. If they have good feedback from many contractors and have spent a lot of money with Odesk then they are likely to be a safe bet.

Odesk has been great for me because it allows me to earn money simply and easily from home. I can work to my own schedule and decide how often I want to work and much I want to earn!

Odesk For Outsourcing

Creating Your Own Website – How To Do It!

There are many ways you can create your own website for free, and even more ways that you can do it for a small amount of money. When someone initially suggested to me about making a website myself, I thought they were barmy! Now, almost two and a half years later I have several websites that I created myself. Anyone can make a website these days, it’s not that hard! There are content manager sites that will provide you with templates, do you don’t even need to know any html. It’s easier than you think!

THERE IS NO NEED TO SPEND LOTS OF MONEY GETTING A WEBSITE DESIGNED WHEN YOU START OUT ONLINE! SAVE YOUR MONEY!

I used Weebly to make my websites, although there are now several platforms that you can use for free.
These include:

1and1
Weebly TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT WEEBLY CLICK HERE
wix.com
Google Cloud Platform.
WordPress.

You can see examples of some of my free websites that I created with Weebly, in the links list just below. Initially I started off on a free membership, and this was fine to start with. I stuck with the free option for the first six months, and in the end I upgraded because I wanted some of the extra features that came with the Weebly Pro account, such as the ability to add videos. At the moment this costs around $96 for 2 years (Feb 2013) and I think you can have up to 10 sites. The free option is perfectly fine for a basic website with pictures and a blog.

In my opinion if you start our with squidoo and One Week Marketing, and then progress on to your own websites you will be on to a winner!

Join Weebly Here

Examples Of Some Of My Weebly Websites

Make Money Blogging!

A blog is a place where you can write freely about things that you have an interest in or feel passionate about. You can either just write articles that are useful or interesting, and you think people will like to read, or you can write about and review products. It’s best to write about things that people are interested in, or provide a valuable service (such as reviewing products) if you want your blog to become popular. If you want to earn money from your blog then it is important that you give value to your readers!

Blogs are usually updated regularly, daily in some cases, and tend to do best when they are about a specific topic. Having said that my Red Sirens blog is not really about one thing, but that is more of a personal pleasure, rather than a money making blog! It DOES make a little money from the Adsense ads that I have there though (see below).

Here are some of the platforms you can use if you want to write a blog.

Blogger.
Weebly TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT WEEBLY CLICK HERE
WordPress.

Monitize Your Website!

If you want to make money from a blog or website you have to find ways to monitise it. There are several ways you can do this. The first one is by using google Adsense. It is fairly easy to set up an adsense account with google, and you can place the ads easily on your site or blog once you go live. When people click on those ads google pays you a small amount. Google will choose what ads to display and they will be related to the content that you post on your blog.
You can join Google adsense here:
USAGoogle Adsense USA
UK Google Adsense USA
I haven’t made a lot of money this way, however it is gradually building. And once you have set it up you don’t have to do anything more, it is just there making money for you.
NOTE – Google will reject applications from sites that they deem poor quality or spammy, however as long as you are writing useful content you will be fine. Weebly has a built in template for google Adsense.

You can also make money by selling products through your blog or website. If you already have a product to sell then great, you are ahead of the game! If not then you will need to become an affiliate. This basically means that you sell other people’s products on your site. The easiest affiliate program to start with in my opinion is Amazon. Amazon is the market leader in internet shopping. Well known and trusted, and they have an excellent affiliate program. You can join here:
USA: Amazon Associates
UK: Amazon Affiliates UK

There are also two directories containing the details of many companies who run affiliate schemes that you can apply to which I would like to recommend. One is Commission Junction and the other is Clickbank. Commission Junction is the gateway to many, many affiliate programs. Trip Advisor, Match, Sainsburys and Superbreak are some examples. However you will not necessarily get accepted to EVERY program you apply to (this was a frustrating lesson for me!).
You can join Commission Junction Here: Commission Junction

And Clickbank is where you will find all the digital products available. When I say digital products I mean e-books and internet based courses. Things that people can purchase online straight away. This makes life easy because there are no concerns about delivery.
You can join Clickbank here: Clickbank

With Commission Junction and Clickbank you can browse through the various areas that interest you when deciding which products and programs to promote. So for example if you are interested in gardening you will browse the gardening section and look for products and services that you would like to promote. Obviously i is better if you have personal experience of that product or service, although it is not 100% necessary as long as you are willing to do your homework and research the product and company, including reading reviews and gathering information that will be useful to your customers.

THE JOB OF AN AFFILIATE IS TO MATCH PEOPLE TO SERVICES AND PRODUCTS AND BRING THEM EXTRA INFORMATION TO ASSIST THEM WITH THEIR PURCHASES. You are a ‘helper’ and a matchmaker between products/services and people who are looking for those products/services.

Interestingly just recently SEO (search engine optimisation) experts have been reporting that small sites with 4 or 5 pages are tending to do better in the search engines than one page sites. So this is perhaps something to bear in mind when you start making small websites. Although if you are blogging it is acceptable just to have one page, and you may well get your traffic from other sources (such as facebook or word of mouth!).

If you have no idea what SEO is, don’t worry at this stage, although at some point you will need to learn about this.

Below you will find some links to information about SEO, although if you don’t know much about it START WITH SQUIDOO!

Image courtesy of ‘Marin’ freedigitalphotos.net

A Bit About SEO

So just in case you are a real newbie SEO means ‘Search Engine Optmisation’. It basically refers to your ability to get your site listed in google, and other search engines, and in particular you will want to aim for getting a listing on the first page if you want to get traffic from the search engines. The internet is a MASSIVE place, which is great because it means you have a massive audience and a massive customer base. It also means you have a lot of competition, and this is where SEO comes in.

SEO is just the BIGGEST topic you imagine, and you will find LOADS of information out there about it. The nature of it means that it is always changing too, so what might work one day will not work the next day. Some people spend a lifetime learning about SEO. When I first started I thought SEO would be easy. IT ISN’T! Well in actual fact it is quite SIMPLE, but it is not always easy to judge, and there is a little bit of luck involved too, plus, as I already mentioned it is always changing, so it’s important to keep abreast of what is happening.

My advice is to familiarise yourself with the basics of SEO but DON’T stress about it! You will learn about this quite naturally as you progress with your journey of making money online. Also, just note that 2012 brought about a LOT of changes to SEO. And practices that used to work well stopped working. A lot of people suffered with their websites falling off the radar. This is all tied in with Google and some changes that they made, in particular the Panda and Penguin updates (I know funny names right!). If you are interested to learn more you can read about it here: Panda and Penguin Updates. Listen DON’T PANIC’ about any of this. However just start to learn a little bit and become educated so that you can keep up with things.

If you feel overwhelmed at this stage just START WITH ONE WEEK MARKETING!

However if you are a newbie I advise that you don’t worry too much about this level of detail for now. Work on the basics first!

You will need to learn a bit about keywords, and use keywords to promote your lenses on Squidoo or your small websites. If this is mumbo jumbo to you right now, don’t worry, but do get the One Week Marketing Free Trial

This lens is not about SEO, although if you are planning on making money online you will need to at least learn the basics. So below I have included some useful links for you.

(image courtesy of ‘Stuart Miles’ – freedigitalphotos.net)

Some Useful Links To Help With SEO

Forever Affiliate

Forever Affiliate is a little more advanced and Andrew is a very successful affiliate marketer. In this course he shares many of his secrets with us, including how to identify a winning niche, how to get traffic and promote your site in 2013, even amongst all the google updates.

Click on the link to find out more about his course.

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS FOREVER AFFILIATE

How Not To Make Money At Home!

> Answering questionnaires and surveys online for money or points – it just takes too much time for the amount you get paid, it would be like working for pennies! Plus I found it really, really boring! Yawn.

> Bubblews – This is a revenue sharing site, perhaps trying to be a little like Squidoo? However my main problem with this site was the quality of the content. It seemed to me as though people there were just intent on getting as much stuff up on the site as they could, with little regard to the quality of the information, in an attempt to increase their earnings. Also there was very little policing of the site, again meaning that quality of work submitted was not monitored. It didn’t seem like people really read each others work much and I didn’t get ANY traffic to my websites in the months that I was on there. So I asked them to delete my account, which they were reluctant to do. Since the google Panda and Penguin updates I didn’t really want any backlinks to my sites from potentially low quality sites anyway. It’s a shame as I think the idea is good, and it could be a good site, however the quality of posts needs to be addressed. I don’t know if they removed my account, and I feel kinda bad about the negative feedback I am giving, because as I said, I think the idea is good, however I did also give this feedback to them directly and it is just my opinion!

> Swagbucks.com – Getting paid to search the internet.
This seems like a good idea in theory (I mean we all search the net anyway so why not get paid to do it right?), however my boyfriend and I both tried this and the toolbar that we downloaded really slowed our computers down, to the point where it was just not viable. Plus it was really hard to actually make any money this way. It was set up to encourage you to participate in the community, however it just seemed like a giant time sucker to me. Not recommended.

Obviously you will have to make your own mind up, this was just my experience.