In 2015, Google officially stated that mobile-based internet searches have surpassed the number of desktop-based searches.
Meaning, people are accessing the internet via their phones, tablets, and other mobile gadgets more than traditional computer set-ups (like laptop and desktop).
Everyone with a website panicked. How then will they make sure people visit their sites?
Google gave guidelines on how to make websites mobile-friendly.
While these tips did help, newer data two years later showed that mobile apps are more utilized than mobile browsers – Facebook being the most used of all popular apps.
Facebook knows this. The FB team has been working on the social network tirelessly so people won’t have to leave the app anymore. Facebook adds more features regularly to meet the demands and have launched programs like Canvas ads and Facebook Instant Articles focused mainly for publishers.
What are Facebook Instant Articles?
Fast-loading websites are a must because visitors won’t spend more than 7 seconds for a site to load.
It’s the same as mobile app users. Facebook Instant Articles was developed so that the target audience would be able to access your content quickly.
Originally, when a person or company shares a link to a website, each person who clicks into it would spend somewhere from 7 to 15 seconds to access the site on a mobile browser.
We built Instant Articles to solve a specific problem—slow loading times on the mobile web created a problematic experience for people reading news on their phones. This is a problem that impacts publishers of all sizes, especially those with audiences where low connectivity is an issue…Facebook’s goal is to connect people to the stories, posts, videos or photos that matter most to them. Opening up Instant Articles will allow any publisher to tell great stories that load quickly, to people all over the world.”
Pros and Cons of Facebook Instant Articles
With Instant Articles, content will be hosted on Facebook’s servers, making the load times of content uniform and faster than the Facebook-to-mobile-site route. This Facebook-native publishing platform also has other advantages and disadvantages.
Pros
“Articles” have interactive features (tap-to-zoom image galleries, auto-play videos, tilt-and-turn mobile device to see other angles of an image, etc.)
Instant Articles are clicked 20% more from the newsfeed (when compared to third-party links)
Encourages viewers to read more of your content with a spot for “related content” at the bottom of your articles
Ability to capture leads thanks to an email lead capture you can embed at the bottom of your articles
Content can be “branded” with your custom themes
Cons
Traffic doesn’t go to your mobile site
Facebook takes 30% cut from ad revenue
Facebook limits the number of ads you can include in an article
You can’t share a Facebook Instant Article to your other social networks like Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn or so on.
Setting up Instant Articles requires a bit of technical support
Do the pros outweigh the cons?
Generally, this will depend on various factors such as size of publisher (smaller companies are able to compete with bigger companies without spending a lot of money).
What’s interesting is that people actually make monthly earnings of up to $20k with Facebook Instant Articles… and you can do to if implemented properly.
How to Make Money with Facebook Instant Articles
People don’t really know much about Facebook Instant Articles, or that these could potentially be another source of online income. In order to begin publishing on this Facebook platform, you should have an existing FB page with an admin/editor role status.
Choose the FB page whose content you’ll begin publishing for. Once you’ve found the page, click “enable Instant Articles.”
3. Claim your URL
You have to assign a URL where you’ll be pulling all your content. (In most cases, this will be mysite.com/blog or blog.mysite.com). There’s a bit of technical task to this, since you’ll need to add a meta tag to your HTML <head> tag, before adding the URL to your Instant Articles settings.
4. Sync Your Blog to Facebook
This step also requires some techy know-how, depending on which method of syncing you choose. If your blog is using WordPress, you’re lucky because you only need to install and activate a plugin to setup Instant Articles and add your “Facebook Page ID.“
If your blog isn’t based on WordPress, here are your options:
RSS Feed – This method is the most-used, since RSS feed integrates effortlessly to Facebook, automatically syndicating new blog posts whenever you publish one. The challenge here is to format the feed in a way the entire content of your blog can be read within one view. If you need help with formatting, here’s how.
Publishing Tools – If you’re not a fan of the WordPress plugin, you can integrate Facebook Instant Articles with ShareThis, Perk, Distributed, Drupal, Medium, Tempest, Atavist, Sovrn, Steller, RebelMouse, and other partners. Check out the guide here.
API – As an alternative to RSS, API gives you the option of connecting your content management system to Instant Articles. With API, you can create, publish, edit, or delete posts straight from WordPress or any other CMS your blog is using. Follow this guide if you wish to set-up Instant Articles API.
5. Customize Styling
Facebook Instant Articles allow companies to maintain branding even within the social network. You can upload a PNG logo, assign fonts for use throughout the articles, and customize other elements of your content. To change these settings, you’d have to find “Publishing Tools,” “Configuration” and “Styles” at the settings.
6. Become a Facebook Developer
Sign up for a Facebook Developer account to have your own App ID. After you’ve successfully registered, check out the “App Secret” information on your dashboard and click “show button.” Go to “settings” – “basic” – and select “Website” when the pop up to “add platform” shows up. Enter your URL and save the changes you’ve made.
7. Create Articles
With Facebook Instant Articles, you don’t have to re-publish articles you’ve publishing on your blog onto Facebook every time. If you’ve synced your Facebook and blog properly on step 4, your articles should be appear for review on Facebook. It could take up to 72 hours for the post to be transformed into an Instant Article, which is enough time for you to make necessary changes. When the post does appear on your Facebook dashboard, click “submit for review” and wait again for 24 to 72 hours for approval/decline.
This is Facebook’s CPM platform, which pays its publishers eCPM (effective cost per mille) rate based on the volume of traffic articles get and countries where traffic comes from.
The cool thing about Facebook’s Audience Network is that you don’t have to spend hours experimenting ad placements or clickthrough rates, since you’ll make money just with the traffic your articles bring. Plus, it can work alongside AdSense perfectly (if you format your articles with an AdSense banner).
Go to your Facebook Fan Page panel, followed by “Publishing Tools“, “Instant Articles Configuration” and “Audience Network.” Accept the terms and conditions, then click “Submit.” This creates a new app called “Your Dashboard,” where you can view all your articles and earnings in one place.
9. Insert Ad Placement
Go to Your Dashboard and click “Placements” > “Get Code” and “Banners.” Save it. Find your “Placement ID,” copy it and go to the Instant Articles advanced settings, where you’ll paste the Placement ID onto your “Audience Network Placement ID.” Wait for your application to get approved.
10. Get paid
Facebook Audience Network sends payment via direct deposit or PayPal every month by the 21st. To set-up your choice of payment method, go to “Publishing Tools,” > “Instant Articles Configuration,” > “Your Dashboard,” > “Audience Network” and “Payout.” Click the ‘create/select payout button, and fill-in the tax form.
Should You Bother with Facebook Instant Articles?
Facebook Instant Articles and the Audience Network are both underrated, but hold much potential if implemented correctly. I should’ve included this combo program along with these 25 Passive Income Ideas that Generate Money While You Sleep.
After all, posting articles on your blog automatically transforms these content into Facebook-friendly, fast-loading content your Facebook fans would love.
If you’re thinking about setting up Instant Articles and joining Facebook’s Audience Network, there’s no harm in trying your luck.
While Facebook has become stricter post-Cambridge Analytica and deny applications left and right without explanation, the Instant Articles and the Audience Network combo remain a good source of passive income.
Sure, the set-up can be confusing with plenty of steps, but after the initial configuration, you’re all good to earn as you go. Plus, it’s compatible with AdSense.
When you decide to push through with Facebook’s Instant Articles and the Audience Network, make sure you create, share or promote your articles regularly.
Remember that the more traffic your articles have, the better impressions its ads will get and eventually, the more money you’ll earn.
How fancy is your handwriting? Fancy enough to create and sell your own font?
Designers can sell fonts online and earn passive income.
But it’s not as easy as it sounds. Just as the complicated history of fonts, wherein web designers used images as text on websites, earning money from font design can be complicated if you don’t know where to start or where to market your work.
Fonts have been a huge part of web design, ever since designers and programmers decided to make sites “look nice.” From then on, gone are the black backgrounds with neon green font, and then came a plethora of cool-looking fonts for everyone to use.
Today, the font family used in a website is considered as heavily as the site’s color palette, voice of content, and logo – it’s a part of branding.
If you have the eye for good design and the skills to match, you could sell fonts online and actually make a killing.
However, you do need to decide on several considerations, such as how much to price the fonts, where to sell your work, and how to market fonts continuously.
How much can you make selling fonts?
When it comes to licensing commissions, 50% rate is the average among font retailers like MyFonts, but there are rare 70% commissions from foundries like Fontspring. In most cases, you are the one who will set the price for your font, and receive the agreed-upon commission whenever the site makes a sale.
Finding the best royalty rate should be your priority, but your considerations shouldn’t stop there. You should also consider where you’d want to sell your fonts.
If you’re new to this industry, the first thing you’d want to know is how much to price each font. Unfortunately, the question doesn’t have a one-size-fits-all answer. Several things would dictate the amount of money you can earn from selling fonts online, such as:
Whether you sell it via a font foundry (vendor/publisher) or a font reseller (retailer/distributor).
Whether you’ve agreed to a one-off payment, or continuous commissions
Whether you’ve created only one or multiple fonts
Whether you plan to market the fonts (and how good you are at marketing)
Whether the font retailer markets designers’ fonts
And so on…
How do you sell your font?
There are 3 methods to sell fonts online, but each method has its own pros and cons.
Unfortunately, every designer’s needs and skills are unique, so the best method of selling fonts on the web depends largely on these factors. Compare and analyze which one is best for you:
As a designer, once you join a foundry, you’ll be selling your work within that site and whichever resellers that site has within its network.
This is an exclusive set-up, so you can’t sell your fonts anywhere else.
Your chosen foundry has the right to sell your font within the bounds of the contract you (and other designers) signed.
The main issue with foundry that you should know is that every foundry has a well-written pricing agreement. Royalty designers get from foundries range from 20 to 50 percent, but you have to read the fine print. Most foundries only pay the percentage of wholesale font price, which means designers will be paid smaller amounts if the font has gone through two or more channels.
In a few foundries, designers earn percentage of the suggested retail price, even if the font was sold directly off the foundry or through a reseller’s channel.
Font Foundry Pros:
Fonts under foundries are sold through multiple channels, which means your font would have better exposure beyond the foundry’s main site or store
Foundries protect their designers and the designers’ fonts against piracy
You don’t need to market your own font
Foundries will handle customer support for you
Font resellers prefer foundries
No administration or business knowledge needed
Get design assistance (not all foundries)
Font Foundry Cons:
Smaller income if fonts are sold by resellers
No control how or where your work is sold
Stuck in a contract
Go with a foundry if you think its library can accommodate your font style and that your fonts wouldn’t get buried under millions of fonts. Learn how much assistance a foundry can provide you when it comes to marketing and communicating with resellers.
And before you sign the dotted line, make sure you know (and agree to) the length of your contract with a foundry.
2. Work with a Reseller
You’ll know if a site is a reseller if the fonts come from multiple foundries (mostly, when it re-directs you to another website when you’re interested in a particular font). Good examples of resellers are Fonts.com and MyFonts.
Every reseller has a specific customer base, a font style preferred, and even promotional methods used.
Resellers go to a font foundry and make a deal to sell the fonts within the foundry’s library.
In this method, foundries get about 40 to 65% of the retail price of the font. Designers do have control on pricing their fonts, but there’s only so much you can do when you’re trying to compete with a huge font market.
More often than not, resellers can sign contracts with multiple foundries using the same fonts. However, some resellers like Veer use “exclusivity” as a marketing technique. You should know the resellers’ techniques in marketing the fonts of designers, and if you’d be okay with the strategies they use.
Font Reseller Pros:
Fonts are sold in various channels
Fonts reach wider audience
Designer keep pricing control
Sign with multiple resellers
Font Reseller Cons:
Smaller percentage per sale
Resellers have thousands of fonts (your work may get buried by other fonts)
Go with a reseller if you’re confident that your fonts would shine amidst thousands of other fonts.
You have to consider the target market of each reseller and discover how a reseller markets fonts, deal with customers, and handle complaints. Check if you need to place your fonts exclusively to a particular reseller (or if you can sign with multiple resellers) before signing any contract.
3. Sell Fonts Online via Your Own Website
This method is probably the riskiest and hardest among all 3 methods, but if you succeed, it will all be worth it.
You’d have to know how to build a foundry, market your exclusively-designed fonts, find customers, and handle post-sale customer service all on your own.
If you’re planning to open your world to resellers, you also need to learn how to negotiate and maintain these relationships for the long run.
The most obvious advantage of going at it on your own is that you receive 100% of the font sales every time. Check out Jeremy Tankard and Lineto if you’re looking for inspirations of designers successfully creating and selling fonts online.
The major downside to starting a font empire from scratch is that you’ll have to be willing to give a lot of time, effort and hard work to bring paying customers to your store.
You have to make a name for yourself to bring in people organically, so you should also develop a long-term marketing plan (that involves social media and paid ads).
Selling On Your Own Pros:
Get 100% of font sales every time
You have total control over every aspect of your business, from store design to website elements, marketing strategies, pricing, and a whole lot more
You have direct access to all your customers, so you can build long-term relationships if you want to
Designers have full control over their brand
Selling On Your Own Cons:
Creating a storefront, handling sales, and providing customer support may require extra funds (or additional effort from your part if you don’t plan to outsource these tasks)
Marketing may be costly
Juggle font designing and performing business tasks at the same time
Go with this route if you are absolutely sure you can commit to designing fonts and marketing them on your own.
Building your own foundry from scratch isn’t easy, but the fruits of all your hard work will be worth it if you do it right.
The cool thing about these three methods of selling fonts is you can succeed and earn passive income online whichever path you decide to take.
However, the amount you’d likely take home will depend on factors, such as number of fonts for sale, percentage of revenue, overhead costs, and more.
Tips on Marketing Your Fonts
Whether you decided to sell fonts exclusively to a foundry, sign with multiple resellers, or sell fonts online on your own storefront, website, Facebook page, Deviantart page, and so on, promoting your work is the best way to find more customers who would buy your work and improve your income dramatically.
1. Decide on a Niche
Let’s face it.
The typeface or font industry is a fierce one. Ask anyone who has tried to make a living off designing fonts and you’ll be discouraged completely. But if you’re smart with how you find your market, you’ll be able to craft fonts based on a very specific niche.
With every font that you create, add special characters (numerals, small capitals, ligatures, etc.), and provide versions with different widths, weights and styles (italic, condensed, etc.) to be as exclusive to all markets as possible. If you’re willing to extend this courtesy, you can think about global usage and how you can convert a Latin font into a non-Latin font.
Find a twist that you can explore, so that all fonts you create are authentic and irresistible to font buyers.
2. Invest in Yourself
You have to get the best software if you’re serious about font design.
The industry standard is FontLab Studio, which is available for both Mac and Windows, but it wouldn’t hurt for you to learn new software like Robofont or Glyphs.
Just like in any skills-based profession, you have to continue learning and being up-to-date with font design trends. You have attend workshops, read up on other font designers, and improve your skills with new gadgets.
3. Break the Rules
Follow this advice from Alex Haigh, founder and creative director of HypeForType:
He says: “Typefaces such as [Alex Trochut’s] Neo Deco are incredibly unique. It would be really refreshing to see artists and designers take a more experimental route. We’ve got thousands of sans-serif fonts, so why not create something no one has ever seen before?”
If you have to break the rules and redefine font design to make people notice, then do it.
4. Skip the ABCs when making photos and Videos
The traditional way of showing off fonts is to display the ABCs using the featured font. While this continues to be an effective method, you can always try out different presentation ideas, such as:
Instead of ABCs, use connective words (“with,” “my,” “and,” etc.) and common words (“love”) when displaying the font
Create videos showing ways the customer can use the font (as flyers, website template, and so on)
5. Offer Freebies
If you went with a foundry or reseller, check if you can include freebies with the fonts you’re putting for sale. For those selling fonts on their own channel, take advantage of giving away freebies to your customers. People love free stuff, even if it’s just a set of holiday fonts that they won’t be able to use for months.
The Bottom Line
You have to understand that you can’t replace the revenues you get from selling fonts with your full-time job. It is possible, but it won’t happen overnight. You’d have to build your reputation or create numerous fonts for sale before you can make a killing with font design. Add the business decisions and marketing techniques you have to learn, and you’ll understand how hard it is to make it big in this industry.
However, if you do make it, every hard work, contract negotiations, marketing efforts, and investment placed into this business will be all worth it since you’re getting paid to do something you love.
If there’s one thing to take away from my Instapage review, it’s this:
The importance of a landing page cannot be overstated.
These pages are designed to focus on one thing, whether it’s to sell a product or to get people to sign up to a mailing list.
Distractions are a major issue when it comes to converting people, even things like your sites menu, or adverts or the latest post feed can have people wandering off to explore instead of taking action.
The idea behind landing pages is to reduce the clutter and shiny things that may distract people so that they focus only on what’s in front of them, which ideally is the action you want them to take.
Creating landing pages on existing websites, especially with CMS’ like WordPress, can be a chore. Also you may not want to even create a site on a domain, but just one or more landing pages instead.
Luckily there are tools out there that can assist you with this, one such is Instapage
What is Instapage?
Instapage is a “Software as a Service” (SaaS) online program that allows you to create landing pages for one or many domains.
Depending on your site setup, nearly everything is self-contained within the Instapage site allowing you to build and manage all your landing pages from one location.
Instapage uses an amazing drag and drop system to build pages, so let’s go through what it takes to get an Instapage landing page created.
Creating a New Page
Once you log into Instapage you‘ll see two buttons, one to create a new page and one to create a group.
Groups are merely for organization and you can create them and assign pages to them at a later date.
If you click the new page button you’ll see a pop up.
This allows you to create a new page from a template (including a blank one) or even upload a template from a different source.
Instapage provides you with 193 Templates, plus 1 blank one to get started with. Plus you have the ability to import free or premium templates sourced from designers located on sites like ThemeForest.
With so many template options it’s nice that Instapage have some filtering options based on the most commonly used landing page types such as Lead Generation, E-book, Apps, etc.
Some of the template designs are similar but there’s a lot of choice just in the default templates which is great, especially if you’re not too great with designing things. You can also preview these without committing to them which is a nice touch.
After selecting a template you need to name it.
After that then it’s down to modifying the template for your own needs using Instapage’s drag and drop builder.
Using the Instapage Landing Page Builder
Perhaps like me you’ve used a variety of page builders before. They often have some limitations or are awkward to use, especially when it comes to the placement of different elements like forms, images or tittles.
Instapage doesn’t suffer from this at all – it’s a true drag and drop builder and it’s a delight to use!
Every element on the page can be moved wherever you want, no blocks, no columns, nothing like that – you have full freedom to place elements wherever you want!
There is a downside to this though as while there are some guidelines (that cannot be moved), there is only a limited snap to grid system.
This means that getting elements precisely positioned can be a pain. Luckily there are some keyboard shortcuts that can be used. These aren’t mentioned anywhere that I could see but if you click an element you can use the keyboard arrows keys to move the elements a pixel at a time.
Use SHIFT + keyboard arrow keys to move elements 10 pixels at a time.
By selecting multiple elements with the shift key, you can also group elements together and change their alignment relative to one another.
One disappointment was the inability to group elements and then edit certain things such as the font color.
This means you have to select each element individually, edit it then change the color and save. Not a deal breaker but it makes things a bit more awkward and time consuming if you decide at the end that the font color should be blue and not pink.
Also, the color was not retained for new elements which made it a little frustrating when you need to add a lot of text elements to a darker background and have to constantly edit each one to change the color away from black.
Free Images
One of the pains of getting a landing page made quickly and easy is image selection. I can’t count the number of times I’ve spent more time finding and choosing an image than actually creating the content!
Instapage eases this by supplying 100 free background images. These are fairly generic but they cover a wide range of topics such as scenery, coffee cups, people typing on keyboards, and so on.
You can also buy images directly from Bigstock while within Instapage, but the prices are quite expensive at $4.99 an image – you can certainly get stock photos cheaper.
There were also two other things missing from the images: icons and patterns.
Of course you can import these, but a small selection of basic icons and patterns would have really helped make Instapage that bit more special and help validate it’s price.
Blocks
I know I said that Instapage doesn’t use a block system, and that’s still true, but it does have something called blocks.
Blocks are like mini templates for different sections of your Instapage. Included are approximately 113 templates consisting of the following types of blocks:
Headers
Benefits
Descriptions
Steps
Testimonials
Pricing Tables
Call to Action
Blocks will help you speed up your page creation by allowing you to insert common elements as a framework, meaning you just need to fill in the details.
It doesn’t take long to modify a block to make a pretty professional looking section of the site and you again have the power to move any of the block elements wherever you want on the page.
You can also save your blocks for reuse on any of your other Instapage landing pages.
I’ve Ran Out of Undos
Instapage has a limited undo feature, it’s OK, but if you really need to go back more than 10 changes you’re out of luck.
The worst thing I found was the complete lack of any form of autosave. If you’re in the middle of changes, forget to save and your cat closes turns off your compute (yes, my cat has done that to me on more than one occasion), then you’re starting your landing page from scratch.
The Mobile Generator is a God-Send
By default you are on the desktop view of your landing page. By clicking the toggle at the top you can swap to the mobile view.
Instapage landing pages are not truly responsive; instead the mobile view will automatically try to turn your desktop view into something usable on mobile devices.
It’s not perfect and you will need to tweak the design to fit on mobiles.
Oddly it doesn’t show how it will look on phablets and tablets which are generally wider than your typical phone.
As such you may be tempted to preview the page and resize your browser window. This will show that the page is not responsive!
Fear not though, because I also panicked at this stage and ended up doing some tests. While resizing the browser resulted in a less than optimal site until it hits phone size, when viewed on an actual tablet or mid-sized device it looks perfect!
A/B Testing: The Most Useful Tool Offered
Before I discuss this, know that the A/B testing feature is only available on the Instapage Optimizer plan or higher: see the Pricing section below for more info.
A basic landing page can work well, but unless you already know your audience intimately a landing page will require tweaking to make it perform at its best. To do this you need to use A/B testing (also known as Split Testing).
Instapage’s A/B testing is built into the landing page builder itself, and can be activated from the top left of the page.
Click the Create an A/B Test link and you can then create a variation. You can either create a new variation (so based on your current design), or choose/import a template.
You can seemingly create as many variations as you want (I got to Variation F before I got bored), though in reality 2 of 3 versions is sufficient.
From here it’s simply a case of modifying your variations and saving.
Publishing Pages
There are a few choices when it comes to actually showing the world your landing page:
Custom Domain
This is probably the most technical option as it requires you to mess about with CNAMES and things like this. It’s probably the most ideal option if you just want a domain with the landing page and that’s it or you want the landing page as a subdomain such as mylandingpage.example.com.
WordPress
If you’re a WordPress user then this is by far the easiest option. All you need to do is install a plugin and log in to Instapage from the plugin.
It will then pull your landing pages in and you can select a URL where you want the landing page to show, such as example.com/mylandingpage.
Facebook
This will show your mobile version of the page on Facebook. I actually couldn’t get this to work for some reason, but the idea is that the landing page is published to a Facebook page.
Demo Page
If you just want to see how the landing page will look on a real site then this is your option. It saves the page to a demo site which you can view live on any device. Perfect for making sure it looks right on multiple devices and in multiple browsers.
Instapage Analytics: What does it tell you?
Landing pages are worthless without knowing the stats behind them. Luckily Instapage makes this pretty easy.
You can connect your page with Google Adwords, Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel and Google Tag Manager.
As well as that you can set conversion goals for links and subscriptions which are shown in Instapage’s own analytics section.
Another handy tool that Instapage provides is the Heatmap tool. This allows you to see precisely what people are doing on your page.
There are 3 types of heatmaps you can view:
Scroll depth – how far down the page people scrolled
Clicks – where on the page people clicked
Mouse movement – where the mouse was located on the screen
Combined, these different analytics systems and features should give you more than enough information to make informed decisions about the page and what tweaks need to be made.
Documentation
While Instapage is quite intuitive, there are a lot of hidden settings and features, so I was glad to see that the documentation for Instapage is large and detailed.
As well as written text that has plenty of pointer images, the most popular topics also have accompanying videos.
The documentation is clear and easy to follow, which is perfect for when you get stuck with something!
Instapage Pricing
Instapage starts at $69 per month and goes up $179 per month with even more expensive Enterprise options out there.
Quality products cost time and money to make, and as such they can often cost the end user a decent amount as well.
If you want A/B testing (which you should want) and Heatmaps, then you’ll need to go for the middle level, Optimizer.
As well as that the month to month prices are significantly higher than the annual pricing. At the Optimizer level, paying month to month will cost you $30 per month extra.
I get that paying annually should offer a saving, but it does feel like they are gouging monthly subscribers.
Is Instapage Worth it?
If you are an occasional user, it’s hard to justify the high-monthly costs, especially when you need the more expensive plans to unlock the best features.
A one-month minimum trial is strongly recommended. You can test your current landing page against variations to see what exactly you are leaving behind.
If you are someone running multiple campaigns perhaps even over multiple websites then yes, it is definitely worth it.
The ease of creating pages and the added features easily offset the cost if you’re using landing pages regularly.
Why Not Use a WordPress Landing Page Builder Instead?
There are a lot of landing page solutions out there, especially for WordPress so you might be wondering why Instapage is a better alternative.
Well, as mentioned above, if you’re a very light user or low on funds, then a WordPress alternative probably is better for you.
If you’re a power user then there are several reasons why you should consider Instapage over the alternatives:
It’s Easy
I can’t get over how beautiful and easy to use the Instapage builder is. Sure it has some areas that could be improved, but I’ve used a lot of builders and this one was an absolute delight to use. There will be no more fighting the builder to get the exact layout you want, which is priceless.
It’s Just for Landing Pages
If you look at something like Thrive Leads for example, Thrive do a lot of other products including Leads. Instapage focus purely on their Landing Page product so all of their time, expertise and effort goes into making it the best landing page system out there.
Multiple Pages, Multiple Sites
This is a big one for a power user: you can manage all your landing pages across numerous domains from one control panel. Not more logging into this site or that site or dealing with different software on different sites.
Asset Management
Instapage allows you to host assets directly on their server and server them to your subscribers directly.
The Bottom Line
I’m beyond impressed with the features offered by Instapage.
With the free trial they offer, it’s a no-brainer that this one comes with a very positive recommendation.
It’s not the cheapest option out there, in fact it’s fairly expensive, so you do really need to make sure you’ll use it.
If you can get over the price then the builder is wonderful, and so easy to use you’ll be firing out landing pages left, right and center!
I’d definitely recommend Instapage to anyone with multiple sites who needs to have multiple landing pages across the site network.
For many, retirement is a life stage where one can sit back, relax, and enjoy life.
Or maybe it’s when one travels all over the country or the world, even.
But other retirees actually keep on working. They either continue their profession in a different capacity, or try out a different career.
So if you’re considering working in retirement, know that you’re certainly not alone.
Retirees look for work in their retirement years mainly because of financial reasons, but plenty of them want to work; either because they want to keep their brains alert, they want a sense of purpose, or they simply genuinely enjoy what they do.
The pandemic didn’t help, either.
A recent FlexJobs survey found that after the pandemic hit, a mere 9% of older workers feel financially secure.
And retirees are turning to the internet to find online jobs that allow them to work at a more relaxed pace, dictate their schedules, have a less stressful work environment, and grab opportunities for something new.
Today, we take a look at various work from home jobs for retirees.
What Types of Work at Home Jobs are Available for Retirees?
No one can force you to retire from your job unless your state or profession has a mandatory retirement age (military, Supreme Court, etc.).
Forced retirement based on age is even illegal. But if retirement is on the horizon or if you’re newly retired, a home-based job may be something you’d be interested in.
Unfortunately, trying to find an online job can be confusing at first. Don’t get turned off too soon.
See which group of retirees you belong to discover what types of work from home jobs for retirees are available for you:
Retirees who want to continue their profession in a different capacity
If you’ve been an accountant your whole life and want to continue doing what you love after retirement, you’re in luck.
This group of retirees has an easier transition from traditional jobs to work-from-home jobs since they already have extensive experience.
Those who’ve worked as teachers, customer service providers, architects, artists, and other similar jobs can easily find the same jobs online and work in the comforts of their own homes.
Unfortunately, there are particular jobs that have no home-based counterparts, such as those in the construction or manufacturing industries. Your best bet is to change careers (see the next group) or to start an online business.
Retirees who want to change careers completely
Whether you’re up for a challenge, want a simpler job, or have no choice but to switch careers after retirement, know that you have plenty of options for home-based work.
From online chat support to social media manager, marketing gigs, IT-related work, education, and more, it’s inevitable that you’d find something you’re interested in.
Retirees who want to start a business (and quit being an employee altogether)
For retirees who plan to set up a business but weren’t able to save up enough to use as capital, retirement gives you the perfect opportunity to quit being an employee and begin an online business from scratch.
Like many who have successfully started an online business, the journey can be scary or confusing at first. However, since you can operate the entire business from home, you’ll be able to save on expenses such as transportation and rent.
Whichever group of retirees you fall under – whether you’re continuing your profession, changing careers or starting your own business – you’d soon realize that the next phase of your life involves a good way of earning extra cash that can increase and take the place of a full-time job.
The Best Work from Home Jobs for Retirees
There is a plethora of online jobs that you can do after retirement.
It just depends on the type of job you’re comfortable doing and the skills you already have (or are willing to learn). Before searching for the perfect job, you’d have to focus on your passion, interests, hobbies, skill set, and considerations such as hours of availability, amount of income needed, and openness to learning new things.
Here is a list of work from home jobs for retirees to inspire you.
1. Career coach
If you genuinely enjoyed your previous job and if you like mentoring newbies to the industry, being a career coach can be a good fit for you.
You can help those who are applying to jobs in our field by sharing your own experiences and career path, coaching them for interviews, as well as looking over and reviewing their résumés.
Thanks to modern video call software, you can work as a career coach from your home or anywhere that has an internet connection.
2. Consultant
Perhaps your skills and qualifications can help entire companies flourish. These companies or consulting groups would be willing to pay you for your expertise.
Use your background and experience to help companies to set their goals, overcome any obstacles to these goals, and plan for the future.
3. Bookkeeper
Working a financial job if it wasn’t your original career may sound daunting, but if you’re willing to be trained and to study hard, you can start by working as a bookkeeper.
Bookkeepers maintain the day-to-day financial records of a company, such as sales records, invoices, bill payments, pay slips, and other similar transactions.
If you’re shifting careers, being a bookkeeper is a good “starter” job for accounting and auditing because little training is required. As long as you can work with numbers and have great attention to detail, you can certainly handle bookkeeping.
On the other hand, if you’ve previously worked as an accountant, bookkeeping is a way to apply that knowledge while having fewer responsibilities and a more flexible schedule.
Helping students with their schoolwork can be quite a fulfilling endeavor. Why not get paid for it, too?
What makes this a popular work from home job for retirees is that even though you didn’t have a degree in education or worked as a teacher previously, as long as you have enough knowledge of a particular subject and you’re able to communicate that knowledge, you’ll be able to find students online.
Teaching English remotely is another in-demand online job that can be perfect for retirees who don’t mind staying up late or waking up early to be able to work with students in places with different time zones.
Depending on the English teaching company, you might be asked to get certified to teach English.
Another field you can go into is online adult literacy, where you teach adult learners how to read or to increase their reading level. Some adult learners may be more comfortable having teachers that are older than them, and this is where you come in.
5. Virtual assistant
Virtual assistants can be given a wide variety of clerical and administrative tasks. They may book appointments, schedule meetings, make and respond to phone calls, manage email accounts, organize files, create presentations, do some research, and many other similar tasks and combinations thereof.
And they do these all right in their own homes.
Time management and organizational skills are a must for this job, as well as some financial skills, depending on the duties assigned by the individual or the business.
6. Paralegal
Paralegals provide support to lawyers by doing tasks such as legal research, organizing documents, maintaining files, writing reports, communicating with clients through various channels, and any other related task that law firms big and small may require.
If you used to be in the legal profession and want to still work in it but with different responsibilities and more flexible hours, being a paralegal might appeal to you.
However, if you don’t have experience in the legal field but you’re willing to learn, being a paralegal can be a great work from job for retirees.
7. Graphic designer
If you have a talent in drawing, cartoons, caricatures, logos, t-shirt designs, banners, flyers, social media hero images, and other graphic design tasks, you can offer your services full-time or part-time for businesses as well as individuals.
8. Proofreader
Do typos or spelling mistakes distract you? Do you wish you could get paid to point them out?
Proofreaders do exactly that. And nowadays, with the sheer volume of content being produced, there is a big demand for proofreaders, especially those who can do it online.
If you need some training or advice on online proofreading, try out Caitlin Pyle’s workshop at Proofread Anywhere and learn how to work as a proofreader, either for a company or for yourself.
9. Freelance writer
It doesn’t matter if you’ve never written an article in your life.
If you have something of value to share, writing will come naturally once you begin your journey in freelance writing.
Some of the types of freelance writing you can do include copywriting, résumé writing, academic writing, news writing, legal writing, blog content writing, technical writing, and many more.
We’ve shared a massive list of freelance writing jobs that you can go over and see which ones fit your knowledge and writing style.
10. Transcriptionist
Transcription requires excellent listening skills coupled with typing skills.
And if you have a background in an industry that frequently requires transcription services, then this is an online job that you’d be able to do well.
Examples of industries that regularly require transcription include the medical field, law enforcement, and digital media.
Online Business Ideas for Retirees
Of course not all retirees who want to earn post-retirement want to work, or at least not for another employer.
If you’re ready to be your own boss and work on building your own online business from scratch, retirement is probably the best time to do so.
Not only would have more free time but you’re also likely to be receiving social security or a pension that you can have as a backup income or invest in the business.
Below are effective and low-cost online business ideas you could check out:
Make and sell handmade products online.
For many retirees, retirement is a time to take up a crafting hobby (or two, or a few).
Whatever you’re into—woodworking, leathercrafting, metalworking, knitting, crocheting, quilting, jewelry making, candle making, soap making—handmade products are in demand nowadays.
If you have a knack for finding products below market price, such as in thrift stores, garage sales, flea markets, clearance sales, and other sources, you can turn this into a business!
You get high from bargain hunting while earning enough profit to fund your shopping trips and more.
Sell these items on your own website, or through sites such as Amazon, Facebook Marketplace, or eBay.
Run a dropshipping business.
Not everyone can make handmade products, though.
If you prefer to have a purely online business, you can go into dropshipping instead.
Dropshipping is a business model in which the retailer (that’s you) never handles the items for sale. Instead, you forward the order and customer address to the supplier or manufacturer, which then packages and ships the items directly to the customer.
You’d be in charge of the “selling” part, which involves marketing and promoting the products online through your own online storefront.
It’s quick and simple to start a dropshipping business, plus you don’t have to have a lot of capital since you don’t actually buy and store your inventory.
However, you’re heavily dependent on the supplier to do everything they’re supposed to do. If they’re not reliable, the business model fails.
A Warning on Online Job Scams
Whether you’re starting an online business, offering a freelance service, or applying for a full-time online job, you’ll inevitably face scammers eager to steal your precious information, fool you into investing in shady businesses, or dupe you into thinking you’re going to be paid for a month’s worth of work only to be left in the dark when it’s payday.
Unfortunately, seniors and new retirees are more often targeted by these scammers compared to any other age group. According to the FBI, elder fraud is a billion-dollar problem.
The only good thing about this is that there are resources to use, such as the Better Business Bureau or just by Googling the name or company name that you’re dealing with.
In general, you shouldn’t pay a company or a person to find work or start a new job. Most job boards are available without charge.
Red flags may include requirements such as “attend training” that you’re going to pay, list down your Social Security number to be given access, or vaguely-worded promises such as “earn unlimited amounts of money.”
Wrap Up: How to Succeed with a Work at Home Job after Retirement
Even if setting up an online business seems more laid back than traditional businesses, the key to a successful venture lies in hard work and consistency.
Consider your online gig, freelance job, blog, eCommerce site, or anything that’s keeping you busy as your full-time job.
Be consistent in promoting your website, finding new clients, expanding your consulting business, and improving your skills for your online venture. It will be hard sometimes, but if you go at it every day, you’ll reap what you sow in no time.
Aside from the links I’ve placed all over this article to help any retiree discover what the next phase of their careers would look like, feel free to check out these awesome resources:
Ever find yourself watching a video of someone playing a video game and wondering if you can make money on Twitch?
It sounds like a dream come true, doesn’t it?
Well, it’s not a dream anymore. It’s now a reality. People have found out how to make money on Twitch just by streaming their gaming sessions.
With Twitch.TV, you can join 3.8 million broadcasters and live stream anything from you playing your favorite game to a tutorial on how to assemble a computer table Ikea-style to more than 15 million daily viewers.
As of 2022, Twitch is the number one esports live streaming service in the world.
And streamers are leveraging the power of the platform to make more money than ever thought possible.
How Much Money Do Twitch Streamers Make?
Making money with Twitch can be impressively lucrative, especially if you’ve got the right mix of personality, skills, and luck.
For example, popular Twitch streamer Ninja (real name: Tyler Blevins) has previously revealed that he earns around $500,000 per month from Twitch Prime subscriptions, sponsorships, and partnerships, as well as YouTube revenues from his 5 million subscribers.
Note that Ninja has been livestreaming since 2008.
For a time, Ninja exclusively streamed on Twitch’s rival Mixer (now Facebook Gaming). He has since returned to Twitch with a multiyear exclusive deal. He’s now worth upwards of $25 million, so he’s not doing too bad.
Not everyone will be pulling that kind of money, of course. But it’s still possible to earn some money.
How much cash you can make through livestreaming will depend on your popularity, number of subscribers, type of content streamed, and the monetization option you choose.
7 Ways to Monetize a Twitch Account
Here are all the possible ways you can make money from your Twitch account. The next section will show you just what some of the most popular and highest earning Twitch streamers are doing to earn their views.
1. Donations
Donations may seem like an insignificant monetization option, but imagine having a million followers who all decide to each donate a dollar within a span of 30 days.
You’d be a millionaire in a month, just from the donations.
Realistically, though, only a few of your viewers will donate, so keep this as a secondary option for income and don’t depend on this too much.
2. Affiliate marketing
Another common way to monetize your Twitch account is by joining various affiliate programs and promoting other companies’ and people’s products and services.
You do this by displaying a customized link to a site where your viewers can make a purchase. For every purchase coming from a click to your custom link, you’ll get a percentage of the cost.
This is different from the Twitch Affiliate Program, which you’ll learn about below.
3. Sponsorships
If a brand is impressed with your content and happens to have the same target audience as your videos, they might ask to sponsor a livestream or two (or two dozen, if you’re really good) so you can get paid to promote their brand to your viewers.
To be seriously considered for sponsorship, whether one-off or long-term, you’ll need to have a huge fan base with specific demographics that appeal to a certain brand. Plus, you’ll need to maintain a solid, reliable reputation.
As you know, these don’t come overnight; it takes a lot of work and a lot of livestreams to build a fan base and a good reputation.
Once you have these, though, it can really open up a huge source of steady income for you.
4. The Twitch Affiliate Program
Twitch sends an invitation e-mail to any streamer who has been working consistently to produce content.
Those with at least 50 followers and over the last 30 days have had: an average of 3 (or more) simultaneous viewers, at least 500 minutes total broadcast, and at least 7 unique broadcast days can get an invitation email from Twitch to be part of the Twitch Affiliate Program.
Once you become an affiliate, you can earn by accumulating “Bits” or when people subscribe and support your channel.
You also have the chance of earning from game sales and in-game items that originated from your channel.
5. Twitch Subscriptions
Once you’re a Twitch Affiliate, your viewers can subscribe to your Twitch channel.
Subscribing to a Twitch channel is more than just following; it’s following with added monetary support.
There are three subscription tiers currently available to users: $4.99, $9.99, and $24.99 monthly subscriptions.
Twitch has partnered with Amazon to offer Prime Gaming, which viewers can use to subscribe to a channel of their choice for free.
What do viewers get from their subscriptions? They get unique emotes (or emoji), badges, special alerts, ad-free viewing, exclusive chatrooms, and exclusive competitions.
Which viewers are willing to pay subscription fees? Your genuine fans who truly like and appreciate the content you’re offering.
As for you as a streamer, subscriptions are a good, steady way to make money on Twitch. Also, it’s a good incentive to keep creating content.
Twitch keeps 50% of the fee and the Twitch Affiliate or Partner gets the other 50%.
6. Ad revenues
Twitch affiliates can earn money with shares in the advertisement revenue generated from video ads shown during their streams.
There’s no set income earned this way, but as a streamer’s followers increase, so will their ad shares.
Traditionally, video ads on Twitch streams are disruptive, but Twitch is introducing changes to make advertising on Twitch beneficial to everyone: advertisers, streamers, viewers, and Twitch, of course.
Twitch affiliates (and partners) are now allowed to take ad breaks and show ads via picture-by-picture so viewers don’t miss any of the gaming action. Enabling ad breaks would also allow streamers to disable pre-roll ads, that is, video ads that play before every stream, for a certain amount of time.
This is similar to the primary way of making money on YouTube, which is through ads. There are also a few other ideas listed there that could possibly be used to make money on Twitch as well.
7. The Twitch Partner Program
Any Twitch streamer who aims to make it big in the site dreams to be accepted into this program.
Unlike their Affiliate Program, the Twitch Partnership program is exclusive. You’d have to send an application for Twitch to check if your channel is qualified.
There are no published, set criteria on how Twitch Partners are selected, although they are known to consider content quality, average viewership, your engagement with your viewers, and stream frequency and consistency (that is, can they expect new content from you every week on a certain day?).
When you do make it as Twitch Partner, you’ll reap all the benefits offered to affiliates, plus live chat privileges, custom emoticons and prefixes, verified user badges, and other exclusive-to-partner perks.
20 Ways You Can Make Money on Twitch
Below are 20 ways people are making money on Twitch to give you some ideas on how you could start and what kind of niches are available on the site.
If you’re just starting out, try and remain mindful of the type of monetization path you’d like to pursue down the line.
Make sure you keep your content relevant to that path to further your chances of succeeding.
1. Live video game, “Let’s Play” style
Twitch.TV is first and foremost the home of esports, so expect the competition among gamers to be fierce.
But if you’ve mastered a particular game and have a unique personality, there’s a good chance you’ll succeed in competing with older, more popular streamers.
The best thing about Twitch is that anyone can do it. Take Mackenseize, for example – she’s been diagnosed with a seizure disorder as a teen.
Now, even if the 29-year-old Hearthstone streamer seizes every once in a while during a stream, her 37,000+ followers continue to support her with every game she explores.
2. Speedrun
Speedrunning is the same as livestreaming any game, except that the goal of “speedrunners” is to complete an entire level or a whole game as quickly as possible.
TheMexicanRunner, for example, is a hardcore speedrunner for classic games and has made a huge following with his NESMania quest, wherein he tries to finish every officially licensed game from the original Nintendo Entertainment System at record-breaking speeds.
3. Talk shows and podcasts
Twitch.TV also has streamers who host talk shows on gaming, where they talk about various games, review them, talk about the latest news, gossip, and issues about the gaming industry, and maybe even interview guests and hold round-table discussions.
Other talk shows on Twitch do not focus on gaming.
For instance, ComedyHub is a live comedy club featuring shows created by the best up-and-coming comedians.
TheHarryHorrorShow features true crime, conspiracy theories, and paranormal phenomena.
Because more and more people and content creators are staying at home these days, expect Twitch to have more and more talk shows covering a variety of topics.
4. Play casino games
If you’re not a fan of video games and instead prefer playing poker and other casino games, there’s a special place for you on Twitch.TV.
Whether you’re a fan of slots, poker, or roulette, there’s room on Twitch.TV for you.
It’s not as popular as esports, but the Twitch Music category is a goldmine for anyone looking to create content or just chill.
Aside from taking advantage of the Twitch Music Library, which houses precleared music for Twitch broadcasters to use in their livestreams, you can also discover other streamers like NoCopyrightSounds who are focused on providing non-stop music to the Twitch community.
Of course, if you have the resources, you can always copy the success of legit radio-style streaming channels of Monstercat, SpinninRecords, and RelaxBeats, among many others.
6. Perform music
When the Music category was first launched in 2016, Steve Aoki, T-Pain, Deadmau5, and other EDM artists supported Twitch and the users embraced them wholeheartedly.
Today, big-name artists like Kanye continue to use the platform as a way to promote their music, increase followers, or simply chill with the Twitch community.
Even if big-ticket artists are sure winners on Twitch, it shouldn’t be stopping anyone with real musical abilities to earn money from Twitch, or even making it big.
There are plenty of hidden gems on Twitch, such as husband-and-wife gamers/musicians Travis and Allie of a_couple_streams, Kyle Landry’s Piano Madness, and a whole lot more.
7. Livestream your art
If musicians can livestream their music, graphic artists can also livestream their art on Twitch.
The Art category on Twitch is one of the most interesting non-gaming categories on Twitch, featuring artwork on different media, physical as well as digital, being created live while audiences watch.
Some watch to relax, others want to learn new techniques they can incorporate in their work, and still others like to see their favorite video game characters or worlds come to being as tangible artwork.
If you do plan to do this, make sure that your “info” section has relevant information and links to your portfolio so that your subscribers can find your other artwork.
Also, if you have a shop where they can buy your art, it’s also important to link to it so they can buy your art.
If you sew or make your own costumes for your cosplay, assemble your own gaming computers, or create jewelry or accessories, this might just be a video category you can get on board with.
Considering this is still primarily a video gaming stream site, you can make more money on Twitch if your crafts are related to games. Not only will more people view your videos, but they’re also likely to buy what you’ve made.
9. Play Magic: The Gathering
The cool thing about livestreaming is that even physical games like Magic: The Gathering can be broadcasted from your home.
And if you’ve been a master-gamer of Magic since it was launched in the early 90s, you can still bring out your card collections and revive the glory of competing against other Magic fans.
However, playing the digital version of Magic: The Gathering, Arena, has been more popular in recent years, enabling gamers who aren’t in the same location to stream their game.
Interested in joining Twitch.TV and earn money from your Magic: The Gathering skills, but don’t know where to start?
Check out the channels of LSV, Caleb Durward (CalebD), and Kenji (NumotTheNummy), and see how you can stream your own MTG plays and actually make money.
10. Live IRL
Twitch opened the IRL category to a ton of criticisms, but once the initial shock has passed, many existing Twitch streamers welcomed the idea and use it themselves for downtime, non-game streaming.
Within the IRL category, gamers could eat, sing, craft, cook, play sports, and do other activities without being reprimanded for doing so in their respective game-specific category.
Since then, the IRL category has broken into different categories, but you can still tag videos as IRL.
IRL streams can be anything under the sun. Here are multiple examples that actually happened on Twitch IRL streams:
Kitboga calls IRS, tax, virus, and other scammers and plays along for hours. He uses a voice changer to get into full characters like old-lady Edna and fools scammers for as long as possible.
Someone doing math homework
A guy assembling an Ikea closet
Someone decorating a Christmas tree
Architect designing a house
Bounty hunters who livestream while working
Someone who made two Google Homes talk to each other for hours
A garbage collector streaming his job on a regular day
Japanese man going to his local barber, eating out, and taking his viewers to interesting parts of his city
An Arby’s employee who streams his entire shift
As you can see, IRL is the most flexible and fastest-growing tag yet still provides a way to make money on Twitch.
As long as you go live with your idea and give it your all, you’d be surprised that there will always be a market for anything streamed.
People generally want to be entertained, taught to do things visually, or just get a good laugh from something totally random.
11. “Just chat” with your viewers
A natural offshoot of the IRL category is the “Just Chatting” category.
Just Chatting videos are exactly what they sound like; it’s you just talking to your viewers and subscribers.
You can try to share your views about the latest news about the topic of your streams, educating people about certain issues that are near to your heart, or maybe even just funny stories.
Even merely asking how they are, answering their questions, asking them questions, and at times merely acknowledging your lurkers (i.e., those in the chat, watching but not commenting for various reasons) can increase engagement with your community, keep them coming back, and spread the word to new viewers.
Aside from your regular content on your channel, having a stream under the “Just Chatting” category every once in a while can boost your popularity, and thus your earnings.
12. Cook food (and eat it!)
Another popular non-gaming Twitch category is the Food & Drink category that has all kinds of food prep, meal prep, cooking, baking, and all other videos related to food.
Videos under the former category Social Eating remain tagged as such but seem to have been lumped in this category as well, where streamers eat live on camera and share their meals with the community.
13. Create ASMR-trigger videos
ASMR on Twitch is a bit controversial, and we’ll get into why in a bit.
What is ASMR anyway, and why has this content been popular in recent years?
ASMR (autonomous sensory meridian response) is a complicated emotional state elicited in certain people when they hear, see, or feel certain triggers.
Not all people experience this, though, but enough people do such that it surged into popularity first on YouTube, and then on Twitch.
People who experience ASMR report a general feeling of “tingling” and then calm and relaxation, which is useful for those who have anxiety or insomnia.
But how can such a thing be controversial?
ASMR can be experienced by people differently, and some sights and sounds in ASMR videos may be erotic to some.
Creators of ASMR videos are aware of this and may sometimes amp up the “sensual” aspect by dressing and posing suggestively or by naming their videos with titillating titles.
If you post quality content, though, and you listen to your audience’s feedback about your content and what they want more of (as well as what they want less of), it’s a good category to start making money on Twitch.
14. Go to work and make money on Twitch
The majority of game streamers on Twitch have some sort of IT-related jobs or skills.
There’s a huge demand for game development tutorials, so if you’ve got the patience, talent, communication skills, and passion to teach programming, coding, web development, photo/video editing, robotics, or any other tech topics, you’re good to go.
Twitch is where it’s at.
This also goes for specific programs.
For example, if you have advanced knowledge of Blender (the 3D modeling software), you can stream how you do things and you’d be surprised at the interest these streams bring.
If you’re under 20, you might want to check out our list of online jobs for teens for some ideas on jobs you could potentially stream from the comfort of your home.
15. Wrestle
If you don’t know it yet, Twitch.TV has been promoting professional wrestling in recent years.
They’ve got several big companies already involved and have partnered with the likes of IMPACT! Wrestling and House of Hardcore to grow a Twitch community around wrestling.
Twitch even joined WrestleCon, giving its partners like Tangent access to stream the slams, dives, and global wrestling action live and share it with other fans.
If you’re a fan, don’t miss Knokx Pro Wrestling Academy’s Twitch channel, where you can watch streamed pro wrestling and listen to the input from the crowds watching to influence matches.
You can definitely get some ideas on how you can run your own wrestling channel there.
16. Slots
In late 2022, Twitch has announced a partial gambling ban, targeting slots, roulette and dice games. The Amazon-owned livestreaming platform barred videos of gambling sites not licensed in the US or “other jurisdictions that provide sufficient consumer protection
Ironically, one of the top 10 categories on Twitch is slots. Curious how this works? Check channels like CasinoDaddy and TySlotFather.
17. Sleep Streams
Sleep streamers are exactly what they are – live streamers who broadcast live footage of themselves sleeping.
When Amouranth (one of the most popular women Twitch streamers around) visited the Iced Coffee Hour podcast, she revealedthat she can make up to $15,000 from a sleep stream.
If you wish to try this, make sure you don’t place your stream under any categories like Just Chatting. Leave it under no category to prevent having any issues.
18. Live shopping
Livestream shopping, or live video commerce, combines the immersive experiences of in-store shopping with the convenience and reach of online shopping.
Doing shoppable livestream means you unbox products, talk about services, and do hands-on demonstrations, while your viewers ask questions and make purchases—all in real time.
19. Teach
If you’re not a fan of games and fooling around, you can always stream serious stuff, like courses and online learning.
Figure out something you’re good – this can be anything from playing an instrument, doing arts or crafts, cooking, baking, bread-making, or other highly-technical topics like appliance electronics, and so on.
Make a plan on how to present your DIY program, and wait for subscribers. You have a choice to do one-on-one or group lessons.
20. Play Dungeons and Dragons
Who knew a game like Dungeons and Dragons can be a hit on Twitch?
Critical Role, for example, is one of the highest paid Twitch streamers around. This profile is made up of a 30+ group of professional voice actors who create well produced Dungeons and Dragons content and provide value for money.
The team has been together since 2015, but have only been streaming on Twitch since 2018.
Critical Role streams range from 3 to 6 hours, but they only stream once a week. This, however, doesn’t stop over 35,000 people from watching those streams on a weekly basis.
It’s Never too Late to Make Money On Twitch
The best thing about Twitch is that it’s free to use for all.
You don’t have to set out to make money on Twitch, but why not create an account, start streaming while you game or do your other activities, build a following, and see what it turns into?
You could try and land a beta tester jobs or a video game tester job and stream yourself at work. Who knows, you may be the next hottest Twitch streamer!
