Anytime you want to make money, you have to bring something to the table. Something that someone is willing to pay for. Whether you are working in a regular job, part time, looking to work from home or want a gig to make some extra cash on the side, in every scenario you need something to sell that someone else wants to buy.
(Read “50 Websites To Make Money” for realistic ways to earn from home. There is something for everyone.)
It is always to your advantage to leverage some knowledge, skill or expertise when looking to make money, regardless of whether you are looking for something casual or serious. There are many skills that are in demand online. Let’s have a look at a few of them.
Writing Online Is A Favourite Money Making Skill
Writing skill is our favourite when it comes to money making skills. The reason is that there is so much you can do with it. There are many ways that you can put it to use. Writing is a highly reported skill and you would be surprised at knowing what how much the best copywriters charge per hour and what The income the annual income of a popular blogger.
The written word is everywhere. Content is the number one commodity online. Don’t millions of people come online to look for information every single day? Your written word could be in front of them every day. They could be reading your content while you are asleep .
There are two ways that you are going to make money with your writing. You are either going to write for yourself or for someone else. However, there are also two major hurdles in front of you, if you are A beginner that is.
The first hurdle. Most people do not to take writing seriously. They think that they can write even if the only writing they have done is when they were in school. Writing to make money is Professional skill and not the same as writing school essays. Think about it for a minute. Will anyone be to read your school essays? Or even to write one for that matter.
You can overcome this first hurdle by getting good at writing. Don’t expect to have a clear perspective about your writing abilities commotion writing abilities commercial writing abilities. Even writing a casual blog is considered commercial writing because, one, others are going to read it, and two, it has the potential to make you money . The best way to determine how much you know about commercial writing is to learn a little bit about how to do it well. If you have a level Done this before the odds are that you could do with some help. These are some great resources on learning how to write well.
- How to Improve Your Writing Style in 10 Minutes or Fewer
- Learn to Write: The Ultimate Guide to Get You Started
- How To Write Well: 10 Essential Self-Editing Tips
- 5 Writing Tips from Someone Learning to Write
- Average Content Writer Salary
- Write in English
We said that there were two hurdles to cross. The second is actually finding ways to turn your writing into an income. Like I mentioned before, two ways you are going to do this, writing for yourself or writing for other people, and there is no rule saying that you cannot do both. In fact, it’s a great idea to do both to maximise your writing income.
We are posting a few links to places where you can discover writing jobs online. If writing for yourself you can start a blog, write an e-book, a novel, seek occupation with local publications (to begin with) self publish etc. Each of these options can be discussed in the much greater detail but not here. Here A few helpful links for finding writing work online.
FlexJobs. Freelanced FreelanceWritingGigs
Graphic Designing and Animation.
I include this skill with mixed sentiments because of one reason. Graphic designing is an extensive field. Learning the skills involves a lot of patience and an inherent love for doing this kind of work.
I know of children who learn graphic designing on their own and are pretty good at it. And that’s because they love doing it and do not mind spending hours in front of a computer Learning and creating. It’s almost like how some people can spend a copious amount of time playing video games. So for you to learn graphic designing you have to be someone who enjoys doing it. That is perhaps the only way you will be good at it. If not, it will be the most boring and tedious thing you have ever learnt.
Learning graphic designing is the digital equivalent of learning how to draw and paint. Graphic designing is one of the most sought after skills online. People post all kinds of jobs and thousands of these come up every day. These jobs have a wide range of complexity starting from some very basic ones. This means that you can probably start picking up the simpler projects as soon as you have learnt enough. You can grow in experience and skill at the same time.
You can also create and upload your own work for people to buy and download. You can do this through stock photography websites where graphics and animations are just as much in demand. Popular stock websites or Shutterstock, Getty images and Dreamstine.
There are many ways to learn graphic design. It is even a full fledged college curriculum. But I am not going there. If you want to learn on your own with online remote learning lessons, try Udemy.com. Udemy offers online courses in a host of fields. The good thing about Udemy is that you can access all course material for free. You only need to pay if you want a certification from them saying that you have finished and qualified a certain course.
You can also use a search engine and find various free resources for learning graphic designing online. Check out this link for 11 helpful and free online graphic design courses.
Photography For Stock Photography Websites
Do you know that you can take interesting pictures from your camera and even your phone camera, provided you have a good one, upload them and make money from those pictures over and over again? This is called stock photography and we have written more about making money from stock photography. So why not hone your skills, start taking better pictures and earn some money with them.
Video making – A new and hot trend for streaming as well as stock
We have spoken about photography and how you can use that to make some extra income online. You can do the same thing with videos but a little differently. You have probably guessed that I am talking about making YouTube videos where very often you yourself are the content.
The first thought that comes to peoples mind is that they are not comfortable being in front of the camera. Well there are many kinds of videos that don’t involve that. I have seen several reviews and how to do videos that only show the object or the process and do not show the face of the person making the video. What is more important is how well the video is made and how helpful the content is.
Go through YouTube and you will find a wide assortment of content that people post. The more popular your content the more you earn through googles advertising program called AdSense. You also have the ability to insert affiliate links which further increase your earning potential.
So this is something a lot like blogging that can make you some extra money on the side, and with some hard and persistent work you can even turn it into a source of full-time income .
You can make do with basic equipment. A good phone camera is sufficient. But you need a good lighting, sound and picture. So you might want to invest in a mike, tripod stand and some light boxes all of which can be easily procured and none of which are expensive to buy.
Another new creative method that has come up for making money with videos is through stock photography websites. The same websites accept video uploads along with photographs. I think video clips will be the better description.
Shutterstock is one such stock photography website. Head over there, join them for free and you will learn what kind of clips you can upload.
This is a good option right now because stock videography is not as saturated as the stock images . Fewer people are doing it so your work has better chances of being found and bought.
Social media skills can help make a good income online
Is used Social networking a skill? Maybe not for most people who use it casually and for personal purpose. But there is a lot to be learnt if you want to use it for financial gain.
The idea is simple and based on the very basic principle of any business, large or small. To sell anything You need to find interested buyers. The more targeted and closely matched your audience is, the easier it is to sell stuff. Social media platforms make it possible to create content and attract a tailor made audience that shares the same interests.
There was a time when the content you posted organically reached many people. But that is no longer the case. For example, on Facebook even the people who follow your page do not see the content that you Post. Now you have to pay and promote your post to reach more people. In a way that is a good thing because it allows you to target millions of users and you can closely specify exactly which people you want seeing your content. You can specify geolocation right down to a city, age, income, interests, family and marital status et cetera.
So advertising and paint promotions is just one of the things that you need to learn in order to leverage social media for financial gain.
My point is that if you learn to harness the power of the social media platforms you can very successfully use them to make an income online. This is a long topic and is covered more in detail in this post.
Essentially you learn how to create valuable content, attract readers and followers and interject your content with relevant promotional offers, advertisements and affiliate links. You can read 6 ways to make money with social media.
Researching – A simple skill that pays
Researching has been valued skill since years before Internet became omnipresent. It was valued even more because information wasn’t so readily available. Nevertheless, good researchers are still important because they are able to glean the good stuff from the sea off information available.
A very large part of researching is the ability to read faster and better. That comes with practice. You can learn a few tricks about reading faster. Look it up online.
Developing good research skills are going to help you in two ways. Firstly, it will complement other online skills like writing, blogging, photography et cetera. It is basically a means of becoming better informed in any field. Secondly, good researchers are very much in demand on freelance websites like Fiverr. So practice reading and assimilating information on a regular basis.
Reviewing skills.
There is a hungry audience on the Internet looking for other peoples reviews on a wide variety of things. You can start posting your own reviews on social media platforms, your own blog and on YouTube. If you can generate some viewers Over time you can monetise this content.. Sample, if the product you are reviewing is available on Amazon, you can include your affiliate link in there so that if someone happens to click and buy from that link you will get paid a commission. You can also host and it smells on a popular blog.
Reviewing the product is different from merrily having an opinion. A good You looks objectively at all the facets of the product. That means that you have to be well informed. While writing a recording your review you need to be clear, concise and address all possible questions in the mind of the reader. If it is a written review additional clear pictures and videos are welcome.
The idea is to make your reviews full of information and enjoyable so that they get popular. It is also important to be accurate so your real Just know that your information is reliable. Once you build trust you can also make other recommendations from sponsors, advisers and affiliate links. But only make these offers in good faith and which you yourself believe to be beneficial to your readers. For example, on this blog I only prefer to promote offers which are backed by a full money-back no questions asked guarantee for my subscribers.
Custom Sewing – Start a small business sew shop
Custom sewing is huge. With sewing expertise and some savvy promotional campaigns, this can be a thriving way to earn from home.
Sewing in one of the most popular choices for a home-based small business. Not that it cannot be anything more but that’s just to say that it is a great choice for someone who wants to have a small start up from home.
There are so many possibilities for things to make with a sewing skill. For the sake of starting a small business it is perhaps the best option to find a popular niche that also interests you. Start there and think of expanding later.
We have a large section on the blog devoted to starting and running a sewing business. Here are some popular reads to get you started.
Top 10 sewing crafts that sell.
Starting a sewing business in 7 steps.
11 Must Have Sewing Accessories In Your Sew Shop
We have an entire section on our blog for running a successful sewing business from home.
Start an Embroidery business – It’s in high demand
Many people do not realise how big this is. Embroidered things are in a lot of demand and sell really well. The advantage of an embroidery business is that you can take an otherwise ordinary product and turn it into something special. For example, a simple plain cap that costs nothing gains a lot in value when embroidered with an insignia. The same goes for collared t-shirts. T-shirts emblazoned with logos can sell very well. Yes, the initial investment in an embroidery machine is needed, but if you know what you are doing, the investment will pay off quickly. We have written on how to start an embroidery business here.
Getting innovative.
Yes. Getting innovative is actually a skill. Internet has opened up some unlikely and unexpected opportunities for everyone. One of my favourites websites that demonstrate this is Fiverr.com. Head over there and have a look at some of the things that people are doing for earning some extra money. You will be amazed and hopefully inspired.
Of course there are conventional job offerings but also many others. People are simply leveraging whatever knowledge, skill or advantage they have and using it to earn some extra cash. While I use Fiverr personally for getting my hand written notes transcribed people are doing everything from singing, dancing, playing musical instruments, recording testimonials, being virtual assistance Et cetera.
Food Skills – Cook and serve, start a blog, make e-courses
I don’t know if you know this but food is one of the most popular content online. It comprises of millions of searches and is one of the major categories on Pinterest. Pinterest is an extremely popular resource for web content. Given the number of people that Visit Pinterest looking for information it is accurate to describe it as a search engine rather than a social media platform.
Regardless, the point is that if you have any skills related to food, for example, cooking skills or knowledge about health foods or how to address people’s need for better health through food, you can start leveraging your skill online. You can blog about it, make videos, post pictures, spread the word through social Media et cetera and create a source of income for yourself. The idea is to create popular content and then monetise it through advertisements and various food related affiliate programs.
Learn a foreign languages – Second language skills are highly in deamand
This is also a skill that will take a great deal of time to master. So it is better to start sooner than later. Many of us have the opportunity to learn a foreign language early on in our education. But it usually doesn’t progress to a serious level because of the inherent lack of interest at that young age. But the same mundane exercises can become an exciting per suit in later adult years.
If you have the Aptitude for it, learn a second language. You will be among a niche group of people with this skill. You will have many opportunities to leverage your unique skill into an income. If you happen to be one of those people who are multilingual on their own because of situation or environment, you can start combing the freelance sites and Search engines for translation work.
Learning a foreign language has become very accessible. There are some very good apps for your phone that are also very interactive. Of course, the learning atmosphere, discipline and the inspiration of a classroom cannot be easily replaced with remote learning. Look for language classes in your area if that’s the route you would like to take . Or you might prefer the accessibility and convenience of remote, online and ‘anywhere’ language lessons. There are two popular online platforms for learning a foreign language and they both have a corresponding app for your mobile device which are really very good.
Duolingo and Rocket Languages.
Having a skill is good. Learning a new one always an option.
How can you learn a new skill? Where do you need to go for it? Wouldn’t it be convenient if you could do it from the comfort of your home? Just like working from home would be. What if you could take the lessons and the tutorials online, at your own convenience and pace… And you could learn for free. I think that ticks all the boxes on the checklist of an easy way to learn something new.
And I have just the resource that teaches you some of great money making skills, right from the comfort of your home, on your phone app or a computer, with free access to all the great lessons.
