If you’re looking for an easy and legitimate way to make money working from home, you’re in the right place!
And let me tell ya right now: this isn’t one of those shady get-rich-quick schemes or teaser posts that leads to an outrageous thousand-dollar product.
Nope. Aint nobody got time for that!
Instead, we’re serving up some fun facts + helpful tips from the lady whose been making money from home since I was 20 years old. Yeah, that’s more than a decade of time and experience I’m throwing your way today!
Man, I’m getting old!
These suggestions will be especially helpful if you’re trying to earn income while building your blogging biz.
HOW TO MAKE MONEY WORKING FROM HOME
Ultimately, making money boils down to this: knowing your audience and giving them what they want or need. If you take nothing else away from this article, take this away.
Every successful business is focused on serving their clients (or potential buyers).
The restaurant serves the patron, the doctor serves the patient, the plumber serves the homeowner, and the list goes on.
If you want to make money working from home, you first have to find a target market. Then, find a way to help them solve a problem, fill a need, or reach a goal. And we’ll get into some examples in just a moment.
HOW TO GET STARTED (THE FAST + EASY WAY)
There are a lot of ways to make money online. And if you’re just getting started, you can begin with something simple like taking surveys using Survey Junkie.
You’re not going to make A TON of money doing surveys, but it’s a good way to get your feet wet in the “working from home” zone. Even with my own successful online business, I’ll still do a few surveys when I get a chance. They’re kinda fun!
And once you’re ready to boost your income, you can think about moving onto this next option. It’s definitely one of the fastest and easiest way to make money from home. GOOD MONEY. The kind of money that can help you pay off debt, grow your savings account, and grow your blog.
Remember, we’re still going to be working within the bounds of serving our potential audience.
So, think about your target market and what they might NEED from you. Then, come up with a service that can help them solve a problem, fill a need, or reach a goal.
The absolute fastest and easiest way to make extra money online, is going to be PROVIDING A SERVICE that is helpful to your target audience.
EXAMPLES OF SERVICES YOU CAN PROVIDE
This list is just for informational purposes only. Not all of these ideas are going to be the right fit for YOU and your audience. We’re just trying to get the ideas flowing so that you can see what opportunities are out there for earning income! Because there are A LOT of opportunities if you really look!
Be sure to focus your attention on providing a service that will be beneficial to your target market.
1. Coaching or consulting
If you’re ready to train, educate, and motivate others in your area of expertise, think about coaching. You can set up your own coaching service to help people reach their goals. There are successful coaches in virtually every area of life and business: fitness coaches, branding coaches, voice coaches. The list goes on.
It’s as simple as creating a site that tells people what you provide, and then setting up a scheduling calendar with your availability. You can use a tool like Acuity Scheduling for booking appointments with your coaching clients.
I love Acuity because it’s very intuitive and your client can pay directly through this portal when they set up their appointment. Pssst: charging up front is the best way to ensure that you get the money you’re working for!
You can promote your services on your own blog, social media, to your email lists, etc.
| Start your FREE Acuity trial right here! |
2. Cover letter and resume writing
There are plenty of people out there that need a refresh on their resume, and they’ll pay to have the work done for them. If you’re skilled in this specific area, or can possibly LEARN how to create a quality resume, you can provide this service to others.
And again, you can easily set up a scheduling calendar with your services and availability using a tool like Acuity. You can also promote your services through local sources in your city, on Upwork, Fiverr, or Linkedin ProFinder.
Fun fact: I used to do resume writing for fellow students when I was in college! I got most of my gigs through word of mouth!
3. Proofreading or editing
Not everyone has a critical eye that can catch all those pesky little grammatical errors in our online content. Think blog posts, sales pages, courses, e-books, workbooks. Proofreaders can make A LOT of money just doing this freelance work from the comfort of their home.
Here are some places that you can find proofreading gigs that will pay proofreaders: Upwork.com, Fiverr.com, ProofreadingServices.com, and the ProBlogger Job Board. There are many more, these are just a few of the most common!
If you’re considering this option as an income stream, try to find a specific focus, like proofreading online courses, or contracts, or transcripts. If you do this, you’ll also be able to reach out to the people that create this specific kind of content and pitch your services to them (if you want to).
When I first started my blog back in the day, I did some proofreading and editing work to supply the funds to purchase my blogging basics, like a domain name and hosting. I found a lot of my clients through Facebook groups!
4. Freelance writing
Freelance writing is another option that can be very lucrative if you buckle down and get strategic with it. It’s also great experience for people that want to eventually start and monetize their own blog – all writing experience is GOOD for your blogging biz!
Similar to proofreading gigs, you can find freelance work on sites like Upwork, Fiverr, or ProBlogger.
Here is an article with 25 websites that pay moms to write for them!
And here are some other places you can find writing gigs that pay: FreelanceWriting.com, FlexJobs.com, WhoPaysWriters.com, or LinkedIn Jobs.
Growing a freelance business takes some time and effort, so we can’t expect overnight results. However, with some strategic effort and consistency, you can make money online with freelance writing.
There are many successful bloggers and entrepreneurs that got their start right here in the freelance world!
5. Transcription services
This one is such a fun way to make money online!
Transcribers listen to live or recorded audio files and then transfer what they hear into text files/written word. This used to be most common in the legal and medical field (and required experience and training). But now, even small companies want their interviews and videos transcribed into text for their audience.
How do you get started?
Sign up for an account with GoTranscript here. With competitive pay and the option to pick your own projects, they are one of the leaders in the industry for transcription services and gigs.
Other transcription jobs can be found here: Rev.com, TigerFish.com, and Aberdeen.com.
For free training to help you improve your transcription skills, you can take this free mini course from Transcribe Anywhere!
6. Social media management
Social media management s becoming one of the most popular ways to make money from home, even if you have limited experience.
You can develop basic social media marketing skills through hands-on experience OR through free tools like Hubspot Academy.
And with some experience under your belt, you can start managing other people’s social accounts for them. Most busy bloggers and entrepreneurs NEED someone to manage their social media accounts!
You will need to do your homework and prove that you can GET RESULTS, and this is where a little bit of online marketing training comes into play.
A few areas of social media management that are in-demand: Pinterest management, Instagram management, Facebook group moderation, Facebook page management, or some combination of them all.
This is another one of those services that you can easily fulfill with a simple ‘services offered’ page and an appointment scheduler like Acuity.
7. Graphics creation or design
Every business needs visual tools to reach their clientele, and online businesses are no exception!
If you have some graphic design skills, you can work from home creating branded images/graphics for other businesses and bloggers.
Of course, you’ll need some level of experience, and some examples and testimonials to showcase your skills, but this can be accomplished through educational training OR your own hands-on experience.
Some ideas for you: creating logos and mood boards, designing pin images for Pinterest, cover images for social media profiles, featured images for blog posts, e-book covers and marketing materials… The list goes on and on!
8. Teaching or tutoring
If you have a specific skill that you can teach to others, you can start your own teaching and/or tutoring service online and do all of your work remotely.
We’re not necessarily talking about a college education and working through a school system either, we’re just talking about teaching your specialty to others.
You can set up your own teaching website or you can work through someone else’s educational platform.
What can you possibly teach?
Anything that YOU are personally skilled at and want to share with others!
Music lessons, motor repair, cooking, marketing, English as a Second Language, crocheting, American Sign Language… So many options!
If you’re going to set up your own business, you’ll probably want a website and social media channels. And if your lessons are video based, consider setting up a YouTube account too!
As your audience grows, you can start earning passively through ads on your videos.
If you’re going to do your teaching/tutoring through another platform, they might have requirements or fees to consider. I personally use the Teachable platform to sell my online courses and I highly recommend them for selling digital products.
Most of the time, teaching anything online is going to require a laptop, a webcam (if video training will be included), and a Paypal account to get paid – at minimum.
Another option: teaching English as a second language to kids in China. Check out VipKids or QKids to get started.
9. Virtual assistant services
The virtual assistant (VA) has become one of the most in-demand work-from-home jobs of our modern day. Virtual assistants might have a specific skill that they provide to online business owners, or they might take on a wide variety of responsibilities to help others run their businesses.
Either way, a virtual assistant is the support person that helps another business with their duties remotely.
The virtual right hand!
Their tasks might include: organization, scheduling, customer service, writing, editing, marketing, graphic creation, content creation, social media engagement, social media management, and more.
If you’d like to try your hand at starting your own virtual assistant biz, you can follow these simple steps: choose a name, choose a target customer profile, decide which services you’ll provide for them, set up a self-hosted website using a service like Siteground, and start making connections with your potential clients online (Facebook groups are great for this)!
Be careful to avoid any spammy, pushy behavior. Provide the value that your potential clients need, and build those helpful connections first. Then you can share your services if/when they are applicable or requested by your audience.
MAKING MONEY FROM HOME IS MORE FEASIBLE THAN EVER …. BUT
It isn’t ALWAYS going to be easy.
Sometimes, just like anything worthwhile, it’s going to be really hard.
The most important thing to remember is: if you’re helping your target audience solve a problem, fill a need, or reach a goal, then you’re halfway there!
Now, you just have to learn how to get your product or service in front of that audience when they need it the most. This is where your blog and your search-engine-optimization skills come into play!
Blogging is one of the easiest ways to show off your skills, help your audience solve their little problems, and build authority in your niche. It takes time, but it’s budget friendly and pretty much anyone can do it!
Aaaaaaand… if you can get your solutions in front of your potential buyers right when they’re SEARCHING for a solution, you can earn income from those helpful services you’re providing.
To learn everything you need to know about blog post optimization, check out this super affordable SEO book by one of my favorite veteran bloggers.
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
Let’s wrap this baby up like a rolled taco and make sure we hit all the important points…Because now I’m hungry and I wanted rolled tacos!
Said points:
There are quite a few (relatively) easy ways to make money working from home in 2019. Most of the faster, easier ways involve providing a HELPFUL SERVICE to your target audience.
You can do coaching, create resumes + cover letters, do proofreading + editing, freelance writing, transcription services, graphic design work, tutoring, or virtual assistant services… and these are just a few options!
If you want to setup a business calendar and book that baby out, focus on providing a helpful service to your own targeted audience. Then create an availability calendar using a tool like Acuity. Get your FREE Acuity trial here.
Pssst: read your welcome email from Acuity carefully, because sometimes they throw in a few extra months of the service for FREE if you read to the end and follow the instructions.
Our little secret though, k?
And if you take nothing else away from this article today, take this away: consistency and strategic effort will get you where you want to go! Choose a path, keep refining your skills, learn all you can about SEO… and before you know it, you’ll be making money from home and living life on your own terms!
You got this!
Be sure to pin this baby to Pinterest for later, you’re gonna need to come back for a refresher now and then!
Great and much-needed post. As you’ve got something to work from home in order to support the family or either earn some extra cash to carry out own expenses. Will definitely help your readers in a lot of great ways. Good work keep posting such valuable articles/\.
Thank you!
Great advice as always!
Hello Cate! I found your post via the Facebook group post today, thank you so much for your group it’s awesome 🌻 Your post is great I have shared it on both my Pinterest profiles (personal and blog)
This was a great article, thanks so much! I’m wanting to get into VA work but it’s hard to step away from a full time job and take the plunge! A few of these I could start with to make some extra needed cash 😀
It’s so hard to walk away from the stability of a full time job (and it’s not for everyone), but if you want to do it, there are so many options these days! You got this!
Thank you!
I read Your Post & I must say it’s really very Nice Information and helpful for us… Thanks for Sharing
Thanks for reading!
So many great ideas. Now to pick one and roll with it. Thanks so much.