It only just occurred to me that I’ve been at this online
earnings game for a little over a year now. So how has it gone? Not brilliantly…
To be honest, one of my biggest issues has been a lack of
structure and focus. In addition to being distracted by offline job hunting and
business endeavors, I also find myself jumping from one shiny new thing to the
next:
- “Earn $50 in a day” – great, I’ll try that.
- “Affiliate marketing made easy” – cool, let me read up on that.
- “How to make money blogging” – fantastic, I need to put some of these ideas in place.
And so it’s played out. A diffusion of time, energy and
focus. To be honest, I still haven’t sussed what strategy works best for me.
There are so many interesting, challenging, empowering and exciting ways to
earn an income online I feel I’ve only scraped the surface.
I have a feeling it will be a long time before you’ll see me
writing about working online from a beach in Bali. But on my journey, I guess there are a
handful of things that I’ve already learned:
It is possible to
make money online. This might seem obvious to a lot of people, but when I
first decided to try I honestly didn’t have a clue. I didn’t know the process
at all, whether it was going to be too difficult, whether I had the right
skills and so on. I started reading books on the topic about two years ago but
only got round to trying a year ago. In fact, my first goal was to find a way
to earn $1 online. One single dollar. Looking
back I think, “Wow - only $1?”, but it was a whole new world for me, like it will be for
some of you.
You’ll find scam
artists out there. I haven’t come across many and the vast majority of
opportunities have been genuine. But the few I have fallen upon have
disappointed me. Disappointed me in terms of: “Why would you do that?” Too many
people out there are looking to cut corners at the expense of other people. Not
nice. My due diligence process now is simply to put the name of the site into
Goggle followed by the word “scam”. That way you get to read other people’s
experiences.
The more value you
can offer, the more you can earn. This applies both online and offline. In
the online space I noticed that many of the better-paid freelance writing
opportunities, for example, were for those that had a specific skill or
knowledge. If you are able to add value to someone’s life you’re likely to be
able to earn more. “Value” itself can be subjective but very loosely those able
to create wealth or improve someone’s health are likely to offer more than
someone that writes on celebrity gossip.
If you know more than
someone else, you have something to offer. As a continuation of the
previous point, those that can be defined as “experts” can earn more. What is
an expert? Well, in the context of online, to me it’s someone that knows more
than the individual reading it, or at the very least has access to information
to give the impression they know more. Maybe that sounds a bit crass. But how
often have you Googled a topic, read a well-written article and taken it as a
truth? Online you can be a genius.
Race to the bottom –
you choose. There are a lot of marketplace sites that have sellers offering
services for rock-bottom prices. That’s the charm and curse of the internet.
Service providers are all over the world, some of whom live in low-cost countries.
It’s great if you’re a buyer but can be a challenge if you live in, for
example, the US where the cost of living is higher. So if you do see a
freelance role or microjob you are capable of doing, it’s really up to you
whether you’re willing to work for lower fees. Not everyone is willing to write
a 500-word article for $2. Some people will be.
Believe you can make
money. This isn’t meant to be a call for positive thinking (though I really
do love that space). No, it’s more a very basic statement that links back to my
first point. I didn’t have a clue how to make money online when I first started
out. But there really are some very basic, simple ways to make money. If you
have the ability to read this article (and hence read instructions provided on
the relevant sites) you can certainly make money online.
I will continue to do reviews on those sites
with which I have found success (or not). But I also want to record my journey
here as well, noting down what I’ve learned, what I've messed up, the frustrations
and the knock backs.
I’m anything but perfect in this world. But I’m guessing
that most of those that have got to the end of this article are in a similar
space as well.
Let the games begin!
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