The Work From Home Blog » Business Ideas

Rent your spare room to travelers

admin — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 00:01:50 +0000

Here is a way to make some spare cash and help travelers save money on pricey hotel accommodation at the same time. AirBnB is a global network of accommodation offered by locals in cities all over the world. You can rent out your spare room, an entire apartment, caravan, boat or whatever accommodation you have that a person traveling could use. You set how much you want to charge per night, what the rules are, how many people can stay at the same time etc. This is a great way to make some extra money when you need it without the commitment of having someone renting at your place full time. All you have to do to get started is sign up at AirBnB (which is free) upload some photos and list your room.

Spare Change: Post on forums for money

Create custom fabrics with SpoonFlower

admin — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 09:17:54 +0000

If you have ever wanted to design your own fabrics but were not sure how to go about it, take a look at SpoonFlower.com. It is a new web site that allows anyone to print any design onto fabric and have it shipped for a reasonable price, even internationally. Fabrics then can be used to make things or be sold as is (as long as there are no copyright violations of course). When SpoonFlower comes out of beta it will be opening it’s own marketplace for users who want to sell their designs but in the meantime there are already sellers who are using sites to sell their creations such as Etsy, Ebay or their own online shops.

Buying established web sites

admin — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 01:09:14 +0000

Buying an established web site is slightly more expensive then what some of you want to spend in order to start earning a living from home. But if you find the right web site it can be money very well spent. Established sites can sometimes go for as little as $100, simply because their owners have had to sell it for one reason or another.
Quickly some advantages of buying an established site:
– The idea, domain name, the design and some content is already taken care of and you don’t need to spend time or money in acquiring these.
– An established site will already have some traffic, people linking to it, be indexed by search engines etc.
– Often these sites are already earning some income which you can usually improve on.
How much to spend on buying a site
Generally sites will sell for about 6-8 month’s worth of whatever revenue they are generating. Some sites however will not be generating income, in which case you will need to take into consideration how much money it would take to develop such a site yourself and go from there. Traffic stats such as Alexa and Google rankings are taken into consideration as well.
Making money from this
Many sites will already be generating some income so you may simply need to continue promoting the site you have purchased and pocket the monthly revenue generated.

Another option is that if you are fairly comfortable with web design and promotion, you can buy a site on the cheap, improve the way it looks, increase it’s popularity and then resell it for more money.

To give you an idea (and maybe some inspiration), here are some sites that are for sale within the next few days, all under $500.

A four year old home business site – Currently $400
PTLovers – A forum with almost 5,000 members – Current bid $250
Baby Shower Niche Site – On $50 at the moment
Comfortable Ballroom Dancing Shoes – Earns $33/month, currently bid is at $180

These are just a few examples of what you can find, there is lots more on Sitepoint.

Bukisa – A new revenue share site with extra benefits

admin — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 05:31:16 +0000

Bukisa is a new site where you can share your knowledge and get paid. Although there is nothing new or revolutionary about this (I have a list of similar sites in other posts) Bukisa has an extra feature with lots of potential. You can refer users and create a network. A user that owns a network will not only enjoy the revenue sharing of their work, but will also profit from their network friends’ revenue sharing. A little bit like network marketing – the more people you refer the more money you can make.
The only problem at the moment is that as far as I can tell you can only invite people by email, not through a referral link. Which kind of limits your earning potential, or at least makes it a lot less automated. Hopefully they will introduce affiliate links in the future.
Found via Mashable

Resources for finding work online as a Psychic Advisor

admin — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 01:30:25 +0000

Becoming an online psychic is certainly not everybody’s cup of tea but for those who enjoy it, it is a choice that is very well suited to working from home. It usually involves doing Tarot Readings and giving advice either (most often) via the phone or by email, online chat or even video in some cases.

Where to offer psychic readings and find customers
On most sites getting started is simply a matter of registering and filling in your profile information. Once this is done you can concentrate on promotion and trying to gain new customers.
LivePersons
BuddySchool
Bitwine
Keen
PhoneFate
Psychic source – You need to be approved by the staff to work at this site.
Psychic center – US and Canada only
Circle of Stars – This is where you apply to work at AskNow

Promoting your services, building your profile
Although creating your own website or blog is not a must, it can earn you a little extra trust and business. Getting your name out there is always a good thing no matter what service you offer. Using social networks for creating profiles and making connections can help things along greatly. Don’t forget to look up any psychic fairs in your area if you are extra motivated.

DoublePalm is like You Tube for psychic readings. Give psychic readings to establish yourself as an expert.

Further reading and resources
There are many more out there but I have picked just a few resources:
newagedirectory.com/psi/psy_reader.htm
PsychicTrainingCourse.com
Article about becoming a psychic reader
Another article about the same topic

6 sites that pay you for writing book reviews

admin — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 02:16:54 +0000

If reading is your passion and you are wondering how you can turn this into an income, writing book reviews might be something to consider. Although it is not necessarily an easy field to get started in, it is possible if you are persistent. Naturally before you get started it is advisable to look up guides and tutorials on how to write a good book review. Writing a few free book reviews on sites such as amazon.com to have some samples of your work is also a good idea.

Many magazines pay for content and book reviews. To find paying sites for book reviews search for magazines on topics that you are interested in. Find their web sites and see if they accept and pay for articles and book reviews.

Below are a few sites that appear to pay for book reviews at the moment.
ReviewParty – Book and DVD reviews, possibly revenue share
A&U mag – A&U is a national, nonprofit HIV/AIDS magazine
The Antigonish Review – Published fine poetry and prose by emerging — and established — writers. Pays $50 per book review.
The writer magazine – A resource for writers
Good old boat – If you like boats here is your chance. They pay $50 per book review and up to $700 for a long technical article.
Astronomy magazine – Submit a book review proposal here if you are an astronomer or science writer.

More lists:

http://writersweekly.com

http://freelancewritingforwriters.blogspot.com

Monetizing video content

admin — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 23:43:38 +0000

An article on Mashable points out a study which shows that publishers who produce video content are able to monetize them at a rate that is about 3 times higher then money earned on other types of content. The study also found that this will only happen while there is a scarcity of video content. In other words you need to jump in now before everyone starts doing it in order to make the most money. So I have decided to put this article together about how to make money with your videos.
The below sites are for monetizing videos that are on your site usually by inserting advertising into the video stream.

AdBrite – Available to the small publishers too unlike many of the other networks.
Adap.tv
BrightRoll
Jivox – For small to medium web sites.
Advertising.com – Needs to have over 500,000 page views per month
Video Egg
BrightCove
ScansScout – Minimum of 1 million video streams per month, from U.S. based traffic
Auditude.com

This is all well and good if you run your own web site and get a fair bit of traffic but what if you don’t? There is still the option of uploading your video content on revenue sharing sites and taking your cut of the advertising dollars earned.

MetaCafe and their Producer Rewards is probably the best known one.
Revver
Flixya – This is also for photos or blog posts and at the moment the site offers 100% of the revenue that your content generates.
Atom – If you make funny videos this is the place to publish them.
YouTube partner programs

Links found via Techreviews and Mashable.

Selling your craft online

admin — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 09:13:20 +0000

I was planning to make a post about online marketplaces to sell your handmade art and craft items but I came across these two posts from At Home Mom Blog which I think do a fantastic job of summing up just about every place on the web. If you like to create crafty things and are wondering how to go about selling them then check out the following two posts, you won’t be disappointed.
Where to sell your crafts online part I

Where to sell your Crafts online part II

10 free ways to promote your business online

18 sites that pay you to write

admin — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 02:56:02 +0000

Updated June 24 2010. Interested in an even bigger list of online writing jobs? Take a look at Real Writing Jobs

Even if you are not a professional writer, you can still make money from your writing. As long as you know where to look, you can find opportunities to earn money. I have listed some methods and links to get you started.

Get paid to write blog posts or articles
You can write exclusive articles, submit them at these sites and get paid for each one.

Families.com – Pays $4 per blog post and you also get 5% of the revenue your blog makes.
Constant-content – Get paid for each of your articles that gets sold and you can also earn 5% commission on sales made by people you refer to the site.
Oboulo Get paid $10/essay or presentation that gets accepted onto the site.
Daily Article Sell unique articles at a price you specify. You are paid when someone purchases it.

Get paid by performance of your article – Revenue Sharing
Submit your articles to these sites and you will get a cut of the revenue your article generates on their site.

Bukisa – Share your knowledge and get paid
Triond – Publish writing, poetry, video, content, music and get paid
Associated Content
Ehow.com – Write instructions on any topic and get paid depending on how popular your article is.
HubPages
Squidoo
Suite 101
Xomba – You will have to sign up for adsense in order to earn revenue here.
Thisisby – You can even earn money by commenting. No longer around
Pakt – Write tutorials on any topic.

Bid on freelance writing jobs
This may sound intimidating for the average person but there are many freelance jobs that are not looking for top of the line professional writing skills but rather someone who can produce a set of keyword rich articles fast and inexpensively.
Some freelance sites are:

Sponsored posts on your own blog
You can join the below sites and find opportunities to post about a product or service on your blog and get paid for it. Some people feel this drags the quality of your blog down and I tend to agree but nonetheless there is money to be made here.

Pay Per Post Get paid between $5 and $20 per sponsored post, depending largely on your Google PR rank and which country you are blogging from. Maximum 3 posts per day and it’s getting very hard to find available posting opportunities, they get snapped up immediately.
Sponsoredreviews – Prompt paying, great company. Advertisers are a bit more selective and pay attention to your site stats.
– I didn’t find as many posting opportunities here but every now and then something does come along.

Got a job as a blogger/writer

Lifetips hiring freelance writers to write tips on a range of topics.
ProBlogger Job Boards You can find many blogging jobs here.

This article was written especially for the Problogger group writing project.

Ponoko turns hand drawn art into objects

admin — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 00:39:42 +0000

Ponoko offers some pretty cool services already which are worth investigating for the work from home crowd but now they have launched a new service called Photomake which I think is the most exciting so far. The great thing is you don’t need much technical knowledge or software to use it and anyone with an eye for design can create great products to resell at Etsy, Ebay, markets, etc.

Basically you can draw any design, either by hand or using software and Ponoko will turn it into a physical product for you with their laser cutting technology. You can watch a video of how it works and read a review at Mashable.