Oct 4, 2008
Many people who are trying to get a home business off the ground feel that creating a web site is confusing and possibly quiet expensive. As well as the prohibitive cost it can also be a fairly lengthy process. Whether you choose to have your site professionally designed or take on the learning curve required to learn how to build a web site, it can take longer then you are willing to have to wait.
It doesn’t have to be this way however and even if you have limited web site design knowledge to build your own web site and can not afford a web designer there are still options available. One service that is quiet good value for money is the “Build It Yourself” service offered at buildyoursite.com (take their service for a free test drive here ). Create your own web site with the site builder that comes with over 4,000 industry specific templates. You can use them “as is” or customize them to your needs without having to be an expert. Also included is a domain name and hosting for just $9.99/month which is a pretty good deal.
With the design and hosting out of the way it leaves you (and your money) free to concentrate on marketing your business and new web site.
Oct 3, 2008
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
Oct 1, 2008
This is just a very quick post today, it is school holidays here so I don’t have a lot of time to post until next Monday.
Below are a few alternate sites to Craigslist (free classifieds) which you may not have heard of.
Kijiji – called Gumtree in some countries, run by Ebay
ClickaPost
Zikbay.com
iList – This one is still in private Beta but is one to put in your bookmarks.
There are many more good ones out there no doubt. Do you have any favorites?
Sep 25, 2008
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
This article was written especially for the Problogger group writing project.
Sep 25, 2008
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.
Sep 24, 2008
These are just some ideas on how to sell more with your direct sales business. If you have more ideas I would love to hear them so please leave them in the comments.
1) Set up a stall at craft shows and fairs
2) Hold more parties where people can buy your products
3) Always carry a product sample with you and work it into conversations with everyone you talk to
4) Fundraisers
5) Always follow up with your past customers. Read more…
Sep 17, 2008
StudentOfFourtune is a homework help site where some people are earning good money by answering students’ questions. The most popular question category is maths but there are many other categories too including art and business. Many people are generating decent revenue by simply selling the same answers over and over again.
Something you might at first find confusing is that the word “Answered” is written next to most open questions. This means you can still answer them however and the buyer will choose which answer he wants to buy. He decides which answer to buy based on a small preview of answers available. Student Of Fortune acts as the broker and handles payment.
While this is a fairly new and not yet a very busy site, it is one worth keeping an eye on.
Found via Mashable
Sep 15, 2008
I came across Twittad.com the other day which is a site where people can sell advertising space on their Twitter profile pages. Some of the people selling ad space have as little as 20 followers so there doesn’t seem to be minimum. While I saw one ad that was charging $1000 for 7 days of advertising (!), the average price seems to be around the $10-$20/month range.
Sep 11, 2008
If you run a web site or blog, you might be familiar with the work and effort involved in running a competition where there are prizes to award. ContestMachine is a new widget that hopes to solve this problem by automating much of the process. You can read what exactly it can do here. It is free to use for up to two contests per month. If you need to run more promotions then you will need to pay a fee.
Found via TechCrunch
Sep 10, 2008
Australia only
2vouch is a new job site where you can receive a finders fee for referring someone who is right for the particular job that was advertised. It seems to be mainly IT jobs so if you work in the IT field or know someone who does, this might be an opportunity for you. With many of the finder’s fees being close to the $2,000 mark per job it is definitely worth a try.
