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Retail Arbitrage: 30 Products To Buy Cheap and Sell High

Last Updated:December 4, 2022

Retail arbitrage may seem like a big word, but the concept of products you can buy cheap and sell high should be easy to understand.

Quite simply, you purchase a product, either online or at a physical store. You can then sell it at a higher price and keep the profit.

The best thing about retail arbitrage is that there are millions of products you can buy and sell at any given time.

Competing with another individual seller or company trading in the exact set of products as you are is highly unlikely unless you intentionally copy their inventory, or they copy yours.

Thus, there’s a huge potential to succeed in a business model where you buy cheap and sell high. Of course, your success depends largely on the products you choose, the stores where you source your products, and the method you follow.

In today’s article, you’re going to learn about how to get started with retail arbitrage, the best stores to buy your products, and the best products to buy cheap and sell high.

How to Get Started in Retail Arbitrage

Retail arbitrage is just as alive as it was when it first became huge on eBay more than a decade ago.

People have been using this technique to build a real, profitable home-based business, thanks to buying wholesale-priced items and then flipping them with retail pricing. It’s totally legit and effective, so what’s stopping you from getting started in retail arbitrage?

It all boils down to the following:

What products can I buy for cheap and resell for a higher price?
Where do I find these low-priced products?
Where do I sell them?

If you are just getting started, be sure to read my guide on how to become an Amazon seller to learn the basics.

The 30 Best Products To Buy Cheap and Sell High

Before we begin, head to Amazon’s Movers & Shakers page.

You’ll find what’s currently trending to help give you an idea of what products to buy and sell on your store.

Here are the best categories and products to start your retail arbitrage journey.

Fashion Minded

1. Jewelry – Whether you go for a wholesale lot of jewelry, or specific branded jewelry, this category is highly diverse. There are many different types (e.g., earrings, necklaces, bracelets, rings, anklets, belly rings, cufflinks, pins, etc.) made with many different materials (e.g., gold, silver, rhinestones, gemstones, shells, beads, etc.) to cater to many different customers.

2. Sunglasses – eBay store intouchwithstyle sells bulk lots of sunglasses, starting at 10 pairs for only $20. You get to save more as you buy more pairs. Similar to jewelry, the diversity of sunglasses can be astounding, from the different styles to the materials.

3. Shoes and socks – For shoe collectors and enthusiasts, there can be no such thing as having too many shoes. You can sell anything from casual shoes to sports or hiking shoes and still make bank with the products. While you’re at it, you can also sell socks and earn even more from upselling.

4. Sleepwear and underwear – Silk pajamas are the cream of the crop as far as sleepwear, but they’re always super expensive. Go straight to manufacturers like Golden Eagle Home Textile and sell your customers’ sleepwear that are lower in price but are still high-quality.

5. Lingerie and shapewear – Shapewear remains one of the most sought-after products in the past few years and this industry will continue to grow for the foreseeable future. Find a Spanx copycat, or the manufacturers of these best-selling shapewear and sell them for profit.

6. Activewear – If you have to pick just one type of clothing, go with women’s leggings; they’re super popular and easy to sell. Another type of activewear that you can sell is sports bras. Sports bras are no longer just workout attire nowadays.

For the Tech Savvy

7. Smartwatches – Wearable technology has been on the rise in recent years, with plenty of new features and new manufacturers. Smartwatches are now a billion-dollar market, and finding the right supplier is the key to getting the maximum profits from your product sales.

8. Video games – Gamers are some of the most bargain-hunting, window-shopping buyers out there. They spend a lot on video games but are smart about shopping for them. If you’re interested in selling video games, be smart with the niche you want to enter because although video games offer huge profit margins, there’s plenty of competition in this field.

9. Phone accessories – The demand for phone accessories will never wane as long as new phone models get launched every year. As a reseller, you’d go crazy with low-priced items at wholesalers like Reiko Wireless Inc.

10. USB charging dock – When you have various gadgets at home that you need to charge, having a charging dock that can charge multiple devices at the same time is a game-changer. Sink your teeth into a billion-dollar market.

11. Security cameras – DIY home security, including security cameras, nanny cams, smart doorbells with cameras, surveillance equipment, motion detectors, and alarms, is a steadily growing field.

12. Drones – Drones are far from being toys for bored teens; they have found applications in various industries, from film to law enforcement, and even agriculture. In addition to the drones themselves, you can also buy and sell drone accessories, such as spare batteries, landing pads, bags, spare parts, and other accessories.

Don’t Ignore Your Family

13. Kids’ toys – In between Christmas and birthdays, toys for kids are always in demand. As an e-commerce store, you can either sell by age, by interest, or by product price (for example, you can market your online store as a $10-dollar toy store). Check out Aquarius Entertainment Merchandising, Inc. for inspiration.

14. Kids’ formal wear – The best thing about selling babies’ and kids’ clothes is that they can be bought in bulk for pretty cheap. Formal wear for kids often have higher quality, so you can easily sell these items at a higher price point without customers feeling ripped off.

15. Pet clothes and toys – Selling pet clothes and toys are specialty niches that you should explore. People with fur babies buy almost as much merchandise as parents of actual babies.

16. Pet Care Supplies – If you decide to sell pet clothes, toys, and accessories, why not go further and add care supplies as well? Grooming tools, clippers, blades, shampoo, and a whole lot more. You can get plenty of discounts from wholesale suppliers like Pet Edge or Inspirer Pet.

Around the House

17. Beauty products – Exploring this niche can be overwhelming – there are tons of pampering product categories from hair care to skincare, vitamins and health supplements, and a whole lot more. Go all out with a beauty product general store or find a sub-niche where you can sell specialty products, such as organic hair care products.

18. Men’s grooming and skincare products – In recent years, skincare and men’s grooming have grown in popularity. Skincare is traditionally a female-dominated category, but beauty brands have now tapped into the male market and started creating products especially formulated and marketed to men.

Products like body washes, shaving kits, beard-trimming kits, cologne, and other grooming products for men are also gaining in popularity, not just during peak gift-giving holidays like Father’s Day and Christmas, but all year round.

19. Candles and essential oils – While candles are the go-to gift for Christmas office parties and Secret Santas, essential oils are the holy grail of gift-giving. Check out the latest at Gem Candles or in-demand aromatherapy oils.

Stay Fit and Healthy

20. Fitness trackers – These smart devices you wear measure such biological data as the number of steps, heart rate, distance traveled, and elevation gained. Whether you’re a fitness enthusiast or a professional athlete, you’ll want one of these.

21. Indoor fitness equipment – Yoga mats, resistance bands, jump rope, kettlebells, etc. are great tools for those only starting on their fitness journey or those who can’t afford gym memberships.

22. Shaker bottles and personal blenders – The same fitness enthusiasts are usually the same ones who make healthy smoothies and shakes to couple their physical activity with just the right nutrition. If you plan to sell fitness equipment in your e-commerce store, these are great products to upsell.

23. Health care equipment – As people are driven indoors, health monitors are becoming more in demand in recent years. Health care equipment such as blood pressure monitors, portable nebulizers, blood sugar monitors, and the like can be sold at a higher margin.

Stay Trendy

24. Halloween – This niche may be a once-a-year industry, but it is always a profitable product category. Buy in bulk early, so you can sell Halloween items at a higher price when Halloween is near.

Apply this strategy to every occasion or season people spend money, so you’ll be buying and selling items throughout the year.

25. Specialty watches – Whether you’re checking out bamboo wooden watches or super-minimalist timepieces, the income potential of trending products like these is amazing. You can buy these watches at dirt-cheap prices and flip them for huge profits.

26. Keto products – The ketogenic diet has gone from a fad diet into a lifestyle, so don’t expect keto-themed items to fade out anytime soon. You can build a keto-focused store, or any health-conscious e-commerce business, then offer products like MCT oil or alternative ingredients (e.g. sugar substitutes, high-protein low-carb flour, shirataki noodles, etc.).

Sports & Outdoors

27. Indoor fitness equipment – Yoga mats, exercise balls, medicine balls, resistance bands, jump rope, dumbbells, kettlebells, training cones, agility ladders

28. Gym gear – Gym bags, shaker bottles, personal blenders, fanny packs, towels

Arts, Crafts & Sewing

29. Knitting & Crochet Supplies – Crochet thread, crochet hooks, knitting needles, yarn, patterns, storage

30. Fabric – Tulle, felt, cotton muslin, chiffon, synthetic fur, canvas, mesh, cheesecloth

Best Stores for Retail Arbitrage

To make a profit from retail arbitrage, you need to be able to find great deals on products so you can sell at a higher price point while still being able to compete with other stores.

Here is a list of stores where you can buy products for cheap and then sell them for a higher price:

Thrift stores. Goodwill or your local thrift shops can be good sources of low-priced clothing, as well as home décor and storage. You may even be able to find designer handbags, vintage toys, or antique glassware if you’re lucky.

Big-box general merchandise stores. Big box retailers like Target and Walmart usually offer discounted products all year round; it’s a matter of finding which products are on sale on a particular day or season. They also have large clearance shelves with products that have been heavily marked down.

Warehouse club stores. Sam’s Club and Costco have membership fees, but if you shop there anyway, their merchandise can be a great source of cheap products to sell.

Just last week at Costco, I saw LEGO sets on clearance for $49 that were selling for $108 on Amazon. Nothing better than finding quick wins like these.

Off-price chains If you have a local TJ Maxx, Ross, or Marshall’s, just know you’re going to be welcomed by shelves and racks full of branded items at bargain prices.

These are merchandise bought from suppliers at basement prices, which are either surplus, from canceled orders, or styles that are being phased out or released in a different color or modifications.

Specialty stores. While the range of products in stores like Best Buy, Lowe’s, Bed Bath & Beyond, Home Depot, Staples, Walgreens, and the like will be a bit narrow, their discounted and clearance items are likely to be fantastic.

Plus, keep your eyes peeled for items that you won’t expect to find in that particular store; they’re likely to be marked down. For example, check out electronics at Walgreens, DVDs at Lowe’s, or home décor items at Best Buy.

Dollar stores. Your local dollar store may have hidden gems priced at $1 (plus tax) that are priced higher elsewhere.

Liquidation stores. Liquidation stores purchase truckloads and pallets of returned items, shelf pulls, goods with damaged boxes or packaging, closeouts, and overstocked items, and then turn around and sell them at discount prices.

They’re good sources of “like new” products.

Check out Quicklotz, Direct Liquidation, and Department Store Liquidations to get started.

Mom-and-pop stores. These little gems in the community still hold value, even if they’re trapped in between multi-million dollar wholesale stores.

You’d be surprised at the high-profit, low-competition items you can find at mom-and-pop stores since the lack of inventory often means you can up the price because no one else is selling them.

Local and international wholesalers. If you don’t live close to any wholesale chain stores, your next best bet would be to find wholesalers online and go the dropshipping route.

To save time, check out the subscription-based wholesaler directory SaleHoo (for $67 annually or $127 for a lifetime subscription) and get access to over 8,000 manufacturers, wholesalers, and dropshippers that have been verified and categorized by product or whether they offer dropshipping or not.

A similar service is Worldwide Brands, which has been certifying wholesalers since 1999 and whose database can be accessed for a one-time, lifetime fee of $299.

The Retail Arbitrage Bottom Line

From sourcing products to comparing prices, and then selling items for profit, retail arbitrage requires a lot of hard work. If you get started in retail arbitrage fully understanding what’s involved, you won’t be scammed out of your hard-earned money.

Now with the right mindset, the right product sources, the right products to sell, and the right marketplace to sell your products, your chances of succeeding in retail arbitrage improve as you put more hard work into your business.

Top 4 Best Ecommerce Platforms for Your Business

Written By:Steve Wrzeszczynski

Published On: June 6, 2018

Gone are the days when building an online store means custom-making one from scratch.

Today, even beginners can put up an online store, sell products online, and actually make a profit – all within a few hours.

However, for an ecommerce business to succeed, one must address a few major decisions such as selecting the best ecommerce platform.

What is an ecommerce platform, exactly?

An ecommerce platform is a software technology solution that allows you to build a storefront (a client-facing online business that sells products or services), manage sales, and handle operations in a single platform.

These platforms contain various tools for an individual or company to run a business from scratch, expand from a traditional brick-and-mortar store with an online version, or replace an ecommerce solution that isn’t working.

Types of Ecommerce Platforms

Comparing ecommerce software can be downright confusing, especially since minor differences in features (such as load time, SEO, speed, etc.) could impact the success of your store.

Imagine uploading all product images and descriptions, plus designing your site’s theme or layout only to find out later that the backbone of your store cannot handle the load. Or you’d need to pay an extra $100 or more every time traffic to your site increases.

To choose the best ecommerce platform for your business, you should first learn about the two major types of platforms available:

1. Open Source

If you’re familiar with open source software, you know that these tools are freely available for anyone to use as is, or edited for further coding. It was built for the developers to play with, so programming skills is a major requirement for those planning to use an open source ecommerce platform.

Open source ecommerce is built with an original source code, which was then modified or redistributed to fit a company’s business model, ecommerce requirement, and other factors.

Examples of open source ecommerce platforms: Magento, OpenCart, WordPress with Woocommerce (or another similar plugin)

Pros of Open Source ecommerce Platforms

Mostly Free – The biggest benefit of going the open source route is the upfront savings you get. Most of the time, you only need to download the software and install it in your system. (Don’t skip the cons part though, since there’s a catch with its “free” price)
Highly Customizable and Scalable – Magento is the choice of many enterprise-level companies because of how customizable and scalable the platform is. Note that bigger companies have the funds to hire programmers who could turn an open source project into a fully-customized, branded online store and maintain the security of the site day in, day out.

Cons of Open Source ecommerce Platforms

Hidden costs – Unless you are a highly-skilled programmer who can tweak code as you please, you may need to hire someone to customize an existing code, edit a paid theme, or add more features manually. Hosting is another expense that would eat up your monthly budget, since it could go as little as $20/month to a whopping $200/month.
Continuous maintenance – Because an ecommerce site involves monetary transactions, the site should be free from bugs, hackers, and other threats. And since the code was created by someone else, it’s important to check the code and install updates regularly for your ecommerce site to be secured at all times.
No customer support – If you plan to build the online store on your own, going this route won’t give you any technical support aside from user advice on forums and other similar resources.

Open source ecommerce platforms are best for companies with plenty of time before launch and a lot of resources (budget and talent), which may include an in-house team of programmers or tech support.

2. SaaS (software-as-a-service) or hosted ecommerce platform

SaaS ecommerce platforms are hosted, maintained, upgraded within a single company. Users pay a monthly fee for the software, hosting and continuous service (add-ons, themes, upgrades, and so on). Depending on the SaaS company and plan you choose, monthly fees may range from as low as $5/month to over $200/month.

The biggest advantage of open source ecommerce platforms versus its SaaS counterpart involves the level of customization. However, more and more SaaS companies are offering in-house customization services for users who want a one-of-a-kind ecommerce site.

Examples of SaaS ecommerce platforms: Zoey, Shopify, BigCommerce and Volusion

Pros of SaaS ecommerce Platforms

Fully-managed – Non-techies would rejoice for SaaS ecommerce platforms because many of the features are managed from within the platform. From setting up the online store, to hosting issues, day-to-day operation, technical support, and a whole lot more. You don’t have to look for answers to problems as you go along, since you can either ask an in-house tech to work on your problem, or ask them to assist you through it.
No need to outsource or hire people – Because part of the monthly fee that you pay a SaaS ecommerce provider includes ongoing maintenance or upgrades to the software, there’s no surprise expenses or retainer contracts you’d have to worry about. Shopify and other SaaS stores provide drag-and-drop site builders perfect for anyone to use even without programming knowledge.
SEO and marketing – SaaS platforms have modern technology and up-to-date marketing trends built into the system for all merchants to use. This is important; since building the online store is just one part… encouraging people to visit (and hopefully buy your product or service) is the other side of the coin.
Secured – SaaS platforms are always on top of bugs, security patches, and other threats that could be left unnoticed on open source platforms. Giving your customers a secured site at all times is important to gain (and keep) their trust.

Cons of SaaS ecommerce Platforms

Custom Services are Expensive – SaaS ecommerce platforms have slowly been offering customization services to users who would want more features that aren’t included in the chosen theme. Unfortunately, this service isn’t affordable yet.
Extra Cost as Store Succeeds – Because this kind of ecommerce platform includes hosting, fees would increase whenever your traffic (the amount of people visiting your store) improves.

SaaS platforms are best for small to enterprise-level merchants, but be aware that the bigger and more resource-heavy your ecommerce project is, the higher monthly fees your online business would incur.

Top Ecommerce Platforms

You’d likely discover over 20 ecommerce platforms and tools (like shopping cart plugins, etc.) during your initial research. But if you want to find out the most used ecommerce platforms that merchants from all over the world use, here are the top 4 (in no particular order):

1. Shopify

Shopify is a Canadian-based company that has been around since 2004. It’s the most popular SaaS ecommerce provider today, and there’s no stopping this solution from being the go-to solution for small-scale to enterprise-level merchants.

Pros of Shopify:

Comes with a full CMS built-in
PCI compliant
Tons of free themes, extensions and plugins included in the monthly fee
Abandoned cart recovery
Mobile-friendly apps and features (to encourage mobile-based users to shop)
In-house tech support
Allows users to manage their stores from their phones

Cons of Shopify:

Shopify’s coding language (known as Liquid) is a challenging language for developers and not many programmers specialize on it so far. As such, customizing Shopify themes can be costly.

Reasons to go with Shopify:

If you want to turn your Facebook page into an ecommerce store, link Shopify for $9.
If you’re not planning to make a highly customized storefront
If you’re OK with a monthly fee in exchange for site security, in-house tech support, and overall peace of mind

2. Woocommerce

Woocommerce is very different to other platforms on this list because Woocommerce is a plugin created in 2011 by Mike Jolley and Jay Koster to turn any WordPress-based website into a functional online store. While the WordPress plugin itself is free, extensions and premium themes come at an extra cost.

Pros of Woocommerce

Secured – Although WordPress is open source, Woocommerce was built to provide a secure payment gateway – a must for any ecommerce site.
Newbie-friendly admin panel
Add as many product categories as you want
Tons of extensions and plugins

Cons of Woocommerce

The main problem with Woocommerce isn’t about the lack of features. However, as your store grows and requires additional functions, you’d be able to find extensions on Woocommerce for a fee, but the more you add a feature on top of the plugin, the slower your ecommerce site becomes.

Reasons to go with Woocommerce

If you want to add a store to an existing WordPress site
If you don’t require feature-packed ecommerce store (or if you’re willing to pay extra for one)
If you have basic coding skills
If you only sell a few products and don’t plan on adding to your inventory in the future

3. Magento

Launched in 2008, Magento is an open source ecommerce platform known for its massive community, reliability and scalability. It is the platform used by big brands like Huawei and Burger King.

Pros of Magento

Free to use
Over 9000 free and premium extensions and plugins, including social media extensions
Highly customizable and scalable
Huge community of programmers with plenty of resources (videos, tutorials, etc.)

Cons of Magento

The major problem of using Magento and other open source platforms is that a higher level of programming skills are required to handle the platform. There would be additional costs, such as:

$20,000/year if you buy the Magento Enterprise version
In-house programmer salary
Expenses for outsourced skilled talent
Fees for third-party plugins

Reasons to go with Magento

If your store will have massive amounts of products and the potential to bring in a ton of traffic, Magento is the way to go. That’s the reason many enterprise-level stores stick to this ecommerce solution.

4. BigCommerce

BigCommerce is home to Toyota, Martha Stewart and other SMEs. It boasts launching over 55,000 online stores since its launch, giving merchants without coding skills a quick and user-friendly method of building an ecommerce store from scratch. BigCommerce has in-house experts of Google Analytics and AdWords.

Pros of BigCommerce

Integrates with Facebook stores, eBay, and Google shopping, among others
Built-in analytics, newsletters, coupons and so on
Integrated marketing and SEO tools
No transaction fees
Mobile-friendly and responsive themes available (free or premium)
Quick wizard set-up

Cons of BigCommerce

Limited free themes
Limited third-party integration

Reasons to go with BigCommerce

The most attractive thing about BigCommerce is the access to experts in web design, Google Analytics and AdWords. If your business plan mostly relies on online advertising, BigCommerce and its team will be able to help you launch your store and boost its traffic and sales as well.

The Best ecommerce Platform for Your Business

If you have the people and funds to custom-make an ecommerce site, then the possibilities are endless with open source platforms like Magento.

However, if you need to launch a site within the day or require only a basic-featured online store, go for SaaS solutions like Shopify or BigCommerce.

For merchants who want to link an existing WordPress site with a new online store, adding a plug-in like WooCommerce can work effortlessly.

At the end of the day, there’s no one-size-fits-all ecommerce solution. The best ecommerce platform for you doesn’t have to have dozens of features, especially if all you need is to build a secure and functional store to sell just a product or two.

If you’re weighing costs of operating an ecommerce store, think about the domain, hosting, SSL certificate, UX, maintenance, documentation, third-party fees for payment solutions like PayPal, and so on.

Of course, these costs will be on top of the fees involved in your chosen ecommerce platform.

Factors such as budget, business plan, resources available, CMS used and ecommerce requirements (storage space, safety protocols, and site design) would determine which ecommerce platform is best for your needs.

Just remember that your decision would affect your store’s traffic, revenues, and future success (or failure), so choose wisely.

8 Skills You Need to Master to Become a Data Scientist

Written By:Steve Wrzeszczynski

Published On: June 5, 2018

Companies have been collecting data online for many years and the demand for data scientist positions, people who can interpret data, are at an all-time high.

As of mid-2018, businesses are always on the lookout for the best data scientist who can mine and analyze collected data, turning these into actionable insights.

The interesting thing about this job is that most universities do not have a program made for “data science.” Meaning, data scientists can come from various academic backgrounds and still be able to solve complex problems.

Great examples of popular data scientists today are U.S. Chief Data Scientist DJ Patil (took up Mathematics), Kirk Borne (studied astrophysics), and Facebook AI Director Yann LeCun (finished electrical engineering and computer science).

What is a Data Scientist?

A Data Scientist is someone who uses their knowledge in statistics, programming, mathematics, machine learning and business to “clean up” the data, discover possible solutions, and make sense of the information at hand.

At first, it can be daunting to use so much insider-knowledge for just one job, but as you perform the job itself, you’d understand that every data scientist has very-specific responsibilities depending on the needs of the company.

Data scientists work in the IT and business industries. Some specific job titles for data scientists include data mining engineer (examines in-house and third-party data), business intelligence analyst (uses data to come up with market trends), or data architect (create blueprints for data management systems).

The key to finding the perfect data scientist job is to read the fine print and dig deeper into the job description, since companies may assign a different job title than just using the general job title “data scientist.”

Data Scientist Salary: How much do Data Scientists make?

Entry-level data scientists generally earn around $60,000 to $100,000 per year. Senior-level data scientists can earn up to $200,000 annually.

Source: Indeed.com

The salary offers would depend largely on your skillset, experience level, and specialization. And since a data scientist can mean different things for different companies, here’s a quick guide of the most common job titles used (and their average salary):

Business analyst – $50,000 to $65,000
Business intelligence (BI) analyst – $45,000 to $65,000
Analytics manager – $90,000 to $120,000
Data analyst – $40,000 to $65,000
Data scientist – $80,000 to $120,000
Research analyst/scientist – $45,000 to $85,000
Statistician – $60,000 to $90,000
Director of Analytics – $110,000 or more

The job outlook of data scientists continues to be appealing. With millions of job openings (over 200,000 in the U.S. alone), those with the right qualifications won’t find it hard to apply to big-named companies like Walmart, Apple, Oracle and Microsoft, or go the work-from-home route and work freelance.

Companies know that hiring the right data scientist can be their secret to staying ahead of competition.

As demand for skilled data scientists to fill positions increase and as more companies discover the need to use insights from gathered data, salaries would likely increase as well.

If you’re wondering how to start a career as a data scientist, you’d need a good mix of non-tech and technical skills, several programming languages, critical thinking, problem-solving abilities, and strong communication skills (since you’ll likely be presenting your report to higher-ups who are not able to understand what these chunks of data mean).

How to Become a Data Scientist: 8 Skills You Need to Master

Ask any data scientist who landed jobs at popular firms and they’d tell you to focus on two main subjects – computer science and statistics. This is because any specialization you decide to take in the future would still include some form of data analysis.

Other studies that would be useful in this field include:

1. Mathematics

Remember when you were in high school and you question if calculus or algebra will ever have use in the real world?

Well, if you’re interested in a career as a data scientist, mastering the concepts of probability, multivariable calculus and linear algebra will get you a long way.

For companies with products that rely on data, a data scientist’s role is to continuously optimize algorithms or predict performance in order to increase revenues or reach other business goals.

Many interviewers will test your math skills by asking about past instances where you’ve implemented these techniques on the job, so it will only do your career good to brush up on these concepts.

2. Statistics

Most undergrad courses include an intro to statistics class – don’t skip it.

This class could potentially help you decide if you want to commit to a data scientist career. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to jump right into a data-based job without some statistics training.

Data scientists should be familiar with hypothesis testing, summary statistics, applied time series analysis, statistical distributions and maximum likelihood estimators, Bayesian Statistical Inference, Statistical Computing, Analysis of Categorical Data, and fundamentals of statistical data science, among others.

One of the most important statistics concepts you’ll use as a data scientist is to evaluate data and pinpoint which techniques or processes remain a valid approach and which ones aren’t.

3. Machine learning

Big companies with data-driven products, such as Uber or Google Maps, contain millions and millions of data that is impossible to evaluate manually.

Machine learning (as part of artificial intelligence) solves this problem by giving systems the “ability to learn” and improve through experience.

Understanding the tools and techniques of machine learning, such as ensemble methods, k-nearest neighbors, random forests, and so on, will help data scientists figure out exactly how algorithms work and decide which technique is the most appropriate for a specific scenario.

4. Data science

Data science is an inter-disciplinary field of scientific methods, systems, algorithms and processes that extract insights or knowledge from various structured or unstructured data.

Data scientists may use only one or all of the following techniques in their day-to-day jobs:

Data cleaning/wrangling – Cleaning up, or dealing with data imperfections are inevitable. From timestamps vs. unix time, date formatting, inconsistent string formats (such as NY/New York/ny). This job is often performed by data science generalists or entry-level data scientists since it involves a lot of repetitive, but easy, organizing and cleanup tasks.
Data visualization and planning – Start-ups often hire data scientists to help make data-driven decisions that would become a part of their overall long-term plan. Data scientists join the company, assess existing data and use data visualization tools like ggplot, matplotlib, and d3.js. Aside from the presentation part, communicating data must also be a skill you’re willing to learn since you’ll be interacting with fellow data scientists, clients, managers, engineers and so on.
Data intuition – Data-driven problem solving is the main task of any data scientist. If you don’t have data intuition, you’d find it hard to move past many of your responsibilities. It’s essential to have the instincts to know when/why/where to use specific data and when/why/where not to.
Big data platforms – Get acquainted with big data platforms (Hadoop, Hive & Pig, etc.) and software suites such as Dundas BI, Sisense, Domo, ClicData, Yellowfin and so on.

5. Programming

After a course in computer science, you can choose to master either statistical programming language such as Python or R, followed by C/C++, Java, Perl, SAS languages, and database querying language (like SQL).

You should also be familiar with cloud tools like Amazon S3.

Generally, you don’t need to code five or more languages if you can’t do all of them properly.

It’s better to specialize in one language to fit your data science profession. Python (used primarily by computer programmers) can be used in both data analysis and website development), while R (used by academics/researchers without IT background) in evaluating data.

If you don’t have formal training and would like to learn how to code on your own, start with intro to programming, machine-dependent programming, problem-solving programming, and data structures, among others.

6. Software Engineering

Software engineering isn’t a requirement for all data scientist jobs, but if you do have this training, you’ll have an advantage over your competition.

You’ll be able to handle data-driven product development, which is often reserved for senior positions.

Algorithm design and analysis, data structures, distributed computing, database systems, scientific computation, as well as image processing and analysis are ideal knowledge to have as a software engineer.

7. Industry Knowledge

No amount of technical skills will be enough, if you are not familiar with industry terms and concepts.

This is important regardless of which industry you land on, since you need to have a deeper understanding of how your industry functions and how data in this industry are collected, evaluated, and utilized.

You have to read everything you can about your company’s market, target audience, and trends.

Attend conferences, workshops and other industry events, whenever possible. If your job allows it, you should also embrace intellectual curiosity and explore new methodologies, techniques and territories to solve future problems.

8. Non-technical Skills

When it comes to non-technical skills, the two most important skills to have in this field are analytical problem solving skills and communication skills.

As a data scientist, you should be able to handle real data with real scenarios and real workflow, employing the most appropriate method to solve these real-world problems every time.

You then have to explain or communicate data gathered, techniques you used and other information to an audience without IT or data science knowledge.

The Bottom Line on Data Scientist Jobs

In 2012, Harvard Business Review dubbed “data scientist” as the sexiest job of the 21^st century. As the economy continues to be driven by data (even now in 2018), the future of this profession looks bright.

However, this isn’t the case when it comes to work-from-home data scientists. Although many companies have slowly been opening up to flexible working hours and remote setups, not all types of data scientists can take advantage of this.

If your job involves data analysis, crunching numbers and coding…and your company has the right tech to accommodate employees working remotely, then you’re lucky to have the option to work from home.

Unfortunately, senior positions or any data scientist who are required to present data to clients or higher-ups have no choice but to work office-based (unless of course your managers are open to video conferences).

Companies with sensitive data may also not allow its employees to access data outside their secured networks.

With this in mind, working from home as a data scientist can be a good option only on a case-to-case basis.

Sometimes, even if the company gives you the freedom to work from home, report via Skype (or other video conferences), and access data in the comfort of your own home, you may find logging into two secured networks frustrating whenever one of the networks fail to give you access.

If you’re lucky to find a data scientist job that encourages you to work from home, stick with it. It’s one of the legit work from home jobs with higher-than-standard salary in the IT industry.

AppCoiner Review: Here’s What You Really Get

Written By:Steve Wrzeszczynski

Published On: June 5, 2018

The internet is definitely the new frontier when it comes to making money. There are a vast number of opportunities out there, but as with any frontier it’s also home to bandits and snake oil salesmen.

Most of the programs and systems that you should avoid want you to believe that it is easy to make big money online without having to do any hard work.

AppCoiner is one of these sites, let me explain more.

What is AppCoiner?

The sales page for AppCoiner states that it can help you make money by testing mobile apps and games. All you need to do is sign up, download some apps and write an honest review.

This is not all it seems to be as it’s using the words test and review seemingly interchangeably.

For most people this might seem like I’m splitting hairs, but they are very different. Are you going to be doing a variety of tests on different resolution screens? What about hardware? Operating systems versions?

Or are you simply taking a look at the app and writing a review, like you would with a toaster?

The Sales Pitch

After handing over your email address, you’re taken to the real sales page for AppCoiner.

It pushes the idea that it’s easy to test apps and make money. All you need is a basic grasp of English and a smartphone or tablet.

In fact, it lures you in with an interesting fact: in 2016 224 billion apps were downloaded generating billions in revenue. Apparently you’re in for a slice of this cash because app developers want you to make reviews of their products.

While not strictly a lie, this is a misdirection as those billions generated from apps has nothing to do with how you’ll get paid. In fact the developers of the apps won’t even know you exist.

AppCoiner provides a handy calculator to help you work out how much you’ll get paid. This is a common technique seen on scam sites and doesn’t actually do anything. I mean, you can select how much each app review will earn you, between $5 and $30, but how do you know how much it will earn you?

It is meaningless junk designed to make you think you will earn big money.

Your Special Discount!

AppCoiner is open to anyone, anywhere, but if your country might have a huge demand for testers, as such AppCoiner will give you a $20 discount.

This is BS, as it’s the same no matter what country you are in, they are just using a tactic to make you think you’re getting a discount for a reason, when in reality, you’re not.

Try and leave the page and you’ll get hit with another $10 discount.

Not Really Testing

As mentioned above, I had some concerns about what AppCoiner is selling you. The reality is that you won’t actually be testing apps, but reviewing them.

What AppCoiner wants you to do is to log into your AppCoiner members account and write a review there.

This seems odd as wouldn’t it be better to write the review on the apps page on the App Store or Google Play?

It would yeah, but you’ll never get paid that way.

You see, the app developers have nothing to do with this, in fact if they were to pay you for a review they’d likely be banned from the various app stores for trying to game the system.

Instead AppCoiner provides you with a website to write your reviews on. This sounds great, though far from what is promised on the sales page, but it isn’t good.

The website you’ll get will be a subdomain of another website called popularreviewer, so for example you’re might be bobsmith.popularreviwer

Not only that but the site is a cookie cutter of every other site subdomain – they all look the same barring any unique content you add in terms of reviews.

There are a few problems with this sort of setup.

Firstly, you’re not in control. If the main site is taken down by the owners, your site and content is gone.

Secondly, subdomains are less likely to be ranked by a search engine. I did a search on numerous apps (“app name” review) and found only one subdomain from this site on page 5 of the results. That’s it.

Finally, you’re competing against every other AppCoiner customer.

Getting Paid

The sales pitch states that AppCoiner will monetize your reviews for you and will pay you out weekly, but how does this work?

At first I thought it might be some sort of affiliate marketing at the app store. That was quashed when I realized that neither Apple nor Google has an affiliate scheme for their app stores.

After looking at the sites provided by AppCoiner it became clearer –adverts. Each page of your site will contain 2 adverts, plus whenever someone clicks the buttons to go to the app stores, they are shown another advert and made to wait 10 seconds, and then forced to click a link to continue.

It’s these adverts that will make you money.

Adverts generally pay peanuts, but these are adverts for products on ClickBank, so it is in fact a type of affiliate marketing, so at least pay more in commissions.

As well as that, there is a built in optin form. If anyone signs up they will be sent emails that contain affiliate links with your tag in them.

Traffic, Traffic, Traffic

Due to the nature of the site you’re being provided, the only way to make it even remotely viable is to send vast amounts of traffic to it.

As these sites basically don’t rank, organic SEO is out of the question, which leaves social media and paid traffic.

Buying traffic to send to these sites is a very bad idea. Unless you know what you are doing it’s very easy to pay more on traffic than you get in commissions. That being said it’s a viable option.

Social media is also an option, but again unless you know what you’re doing it could end up with you simply being labelled a spammer.

Is App Coiner a Scam?

Is AppCoiner a scam?

By definition, no it’s not, but it’s certainly misleading – instead of simply testing apps and getting paid you’re effectively running a small affiliate website.

And that’s my other major concern with this system: you don’t own anything, but are required to do the work.

Everything you build here is owned by App Coiner. They could at any minute decide to replace your affiliate tags with theirs or shut the site down and then you’d have nothing.

My final issue is that you need to send traffic to the site, a lot of traffic for it to be worthwhile, and that will be costly in either money or time or both.

You’d be better off creating your own affiliate site; it might take longer to learn but you’d own the domain and have full control.

SEO Jobs: The Skills You Need to Land a Dream Job

Written By:Steve Wrzeszczynski

Published On: June 4, 2018

SEO isn’t going anywhere baby. And landing one of these SEO jobs could take your freelance career to the next level.

All of these SEO techniques aim to make search engines like Google deem your site worthy to be shown at the top of search results on certain keywords or key phrases. As you might have discovered, SEO jobs encompass a wide range of professions.

Generally, when you hear the job title “SEO expert,” this person can be a web designer, copywriter, marketer, advertising professional, and so on.

This is because SEO is a skill a person has on top of a larger skill, which is why you’d see job titles like SEO copywriter, SEO pay-per-click specialist, and so on. The only way to differentiate most SEO jobs available is by reading through the job description.

Whether you’re planning to switch careers or add another source of income by working online, SEO jobs are probably one of the first things you’d see on job boards.

This industry has been alive and well since the mid-90s, and since search engines continue to improve algorithms regularly, the demand for SEO professionals won’t go away anytime soon.

Types of SEO Jobs Ideal for Beginners to Senior-level SEO “gurus”

The good news for job seekers is that if you’re committed to landing a SEO job, there’s no special skill required except for continuous learning. Companies are hiring freelance SEO workers as well as agencies these days. There is a lot of room here for everyone.

However, SEO job titles are used so loosely that they’re always used interchangeably.

For example, a SEO auditor can also be called a SEO specialist, marketing technologist, content strategist, or SEO consultant and it can still be an accurate job title.

If you’re new to SEO and wanted to know if your credentials are enough to land you a job, here are 5 must-have skills and the SEO jobs you can get with these skillset:

1. Writing and Research Skills

Writing for SEO isn’t just about having advanced writing skill. If you have flair for words and willingness to learn keyword research, you have a good future in the SEO field ahead of you. Because the focus of content production is to bring a website higher into search result pages, there are very specific rules a writer follows to succeed in this field.

You’ll need to be drive traffic (more people) to a website by using the right search terms and phrases. To pull it off, the job requires in-depth keyword research, proper implementation of these keywords, and a solid content plan.

Keyword research can be learned and mastered on the job. This also goes for web content writing, since every corporate blog, marketing newsletter, email campaigns, or any other content uses their own tone, branding, and a set of SEO guidelines.

SEO jobs available for people with advance research and writing skills include (but are not limited to):

Content creator
SEO copywriter
SEO copyeditor
Content strategist
Content marketing manager
SEO writer

Manager-level positions often lead two or more writers within an organization, and oversee the editorial calendar and writing quality of the entire team.

2. Branding and Advertising

If you worked in a traditional advertising company, you’d know the importance of branding for a company or person.

The people that create advertising materials, such as photographers and videographers, work with digital brand executives to ensure that clients’ voice, theme, message, and all kinds of content (from ad copy to social media posts) remain consistent across the board.

Branding is a team effort, which means the SEO jobs available in this specific group of people can be from various industries like arts, advertising or IT and usually have more freelance/flexible openings compared to other SEO jobs.

What’s interesting with people involved in branding and advertising is that they’re often working on their skills to include everything from graphic design to photography and so on.

In some cases, jobs in this field are broken down per task, such as logo maker, videomaker, infographics designer, and so on. Other SEO jobs are even broken down based on the software used, such as Photoshop expert, or iMovie professional. Here are more general examples:

Creative assistant
Creative executive
Digital brand executives
Graphic designers
Videographers
Photographers
Branding consultants

Managerial and director-level positions – such as creative managers or creative directors – are also available and are often the jack-of-all-trades in branding and advertising.

3. Social Media Management

These types of SEO jobs have evolved in recent years as social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter established industry standards. As you would guess, the platform would dictate a job title (Twitter manager, Instagram manager, Facebook manager, etc.), or sometimes just fall into one big swoop like “Social Media manager.”

As the job title suggests, the main responsibility of a social media manager is to “manage” one or more social media accounts for other people or companies. You’d need a good mix of writing skills, personality, and instinct (especially if you’re deciding on what and when to publish posts).

Social media strategist, online community manager and other managerial positions often require advanced knowledge of social media analytics, ROI, audience reach, and so on. Because social media platforms change their algorithms continuously, someone working in this field should also be up-to-date with trends, insights and social media marketing techniques.

Most social media management jobs involve moderating comments, accepting/declining members of a group, answering inquiries, hosting contests, gathering feedback, promoting products/services through posts, or even getting into a trending topic. A social media expert may also be assigned to handle advertising campaigns, but additional experience would be required since money is involved.

4. Data Analysis and Internet Marketing

As a part of internet marketing, SEO is all about data analysis and ensuring that the content created (whether text, images, videos or other medium) reaches the right audience.

There are specific SEO jobs involved mainly in checking if every marketing effort done is producing a positive return on investment. ROI doesn’t necessarily have to be exclusive to revenues, but may also deal with website traffic, leads gathered, and so on.

The “data” analyzed would vary and define job positions, such as Google Analytics expert, WordPress pro, content data analyst, marketing analyst, marketing technologist, and mobile marketing analyst, among others.

In many cases, analytical marketer, strategic planning expert or “web analyst” is the general term used to describe jobs that study marketing data, improve marketing techniques based on past data, and oversee campaigns regularly.

Data changes quickly, which is why these positions work as part of a team.

This is particularly true for companies that outsource many of its tasks, such as content writing or graphic design, since analyzing ROI of completed tasks would dictate the company’s future marketing plans. Did an outsourced blog post reach 100k views after a month? Was the infographic successfully shared across social media by the end of the week?

5. Traffic Strategy

If you know how to bring a website to the first pages of Google, Yahoo!, Bing or other search engines using comprehensively-researched keywords or phrases, you’ll easily land SEO jobs focused on traffic strategy and general search engine optimization.

This is where job titles get jumbled up or invented more often than any other SEO sub-category.

Professionals who understand how search engines work are called SEO specialists, SEO ninjas, SEO gurus, SEO experts, SEO strategists, SEO marketer, or other similar titles. Sometimes, companies just make up their own job title, such as “SEO rockstar” and define duties on the job description.

The specialization can also be considered when listing SEO jobs. Meaning, a Google guru does the same job as a Yahoo! expert, except these two professionals are skilled at different search engines.

SEO is one of the most interesting sections of internet marketing because the ever-so-changing nature of search engines creates or phases-out jobs quickly. Keep in mind that this list isn’t complete yet, and that every firm will have their own version of the job titles underlined above.

The good news is that if you’re planning to work from home with a new profession, a career in SEO is your best bet as either an expert in the field or a beginner with opportunities for growth.

What is the salary range of an SEO specialist?

Non-technical SEO jobs (such as SEO content writers) start with around $60,000 per year, while senior roles (managers and directors) can go as high as $90,000 to $150,000. Those with proven experience in the field or equipped with technical development skills, such as link building experts or WordPress inbound SEO, are able to negotiate higher salaries due to the complex responsibilities assigned to them.

The SEO industry is home to professionals with diverse specializations, from web design to copywriting, PR/advertising to UI analytics, social media or web development, and a whole lot more. As such, the salary of SEO professionals would also vary considerably.

Another factor that could affect salary rates is whether you’re working in-house, freelance, or via an agency.

While there is no formal education required for most SEO jobs, joining seminars, workshops, and SEO events give you an advantage over your competition. Companies understand that SEO evolves whenever search engines update their algorithms, which means SEO professionals must be able to adapt with these changes.

The Future of SEO Jobs

No matter what type of SEO job you land on, the overall goal of search engine optimization is to target people in need of your company’s product, service or information, and ensure that they reach your landing page, company’s website, social media page, and so on.

According to a 2016 study by Borrell Associates, the SEO industry will continue to grow to an estimated $72 billion by 2018 and $79 billion by 2020. And they’re right on the mark.

This SearchEngineJournal report discusses the in-demand SEO jobs as of 2018. Hint: content marketing and pay-per-click/paid search are two SEO categories that are blowing up right now, and they’re expected to grow in the coming years. Since mobile searches have outranked desktop searches, SEO jobs with a focus on mobile optimization are also in-demand.

The Bottom Line: Is SEO Worth the Switch?

Many SEO professionals fall into this field from another career.

Copywriters hired to write with a focus on SEO, web designers infusing SEO elements into the site design, and so on. The job can be repetitive, but fulfilling, since most SEO campaigns take several months to finish and over a year to yield results.

SEO jobs are perfect for people who are self-starters with a passion to learn new skills. Because SEO relies on an active community of SEO professionals, you should have the personality and networking skills to get insider knowledge from fellow SEO experts.

If you’re planning to make a switch to SEO, do it now and earn real-world experience from your chosen specialization. However, do note that unless you build your own SEO firm, you’ll remain an employee for either a SEO agency or a third-party company.

If you’re interested in becoming your own boss instead, here are 50 Ways to Start Your Own Business and Operate Completely Online.

How to Make Money with Facebook Instant Articles

Written By:Steve Wrzeszczynski

Published On: May 29, 2018

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.

And because the attention span of people online is exactly 8 seconds before moving on to new things, Facebook developed Instant Articles to avoid this from happening.

FB Instant Articles Product Manager John Roberts explains:

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.

1. Sign up

Go to instantarticles.fb.com and sign up to the program.

2. Choose the Facebook page

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.

8. Join Facebook Audience Network

To monetize your Instant Articles, you have you sign up for Facebook Audience Network.

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 21^st. 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.

Sell Your Font: How to Make Money Designing Fonts

Written By:Steve Wrzeszczynski

Published On: May 23, 2018

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:

1. Join a Font Foundry

Known as a font publisher or vendor, the foundry (like FontSpring, FontShop, Linotype, Monotype and P22) is where fonts are “manufactured.”

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.

Instapage Review: Stop Leaving Money on the Table

Written By:Steve Wrzeszczynski

Published On: May 17, 2018

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.

10 Best Work From Home Jobs for Retirees

Written By:Steve Wrzeszczynski

Last Updated:January 22, 2022

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.

We’ve listed all the best places to find bookkeeping jobs.

4. Online teacher

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.

Just look at sites like Etsy and Amazon Handmade for inspiration. Additionally, we have listed the best crafts to make and sell.

Buy low, sell high.

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:

20 Ways Streamers Are Making Money On Twitch

Written By:Steve Wrzeszczynski

Last Updated:February 5, 2024

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.

It beats direct competitors Facebook Gaming, YouTube Gaming, and Caffeine by a long shot.

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.

The most popular Twitch casino streamers as of 2021 include ROSHTEIN, Trainwreckstv, and DeuceAce.

5. Radio-style stream

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.

8. Make crafts

You can find streamers making all kinds of crafts under the Makers & Crafting category.

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 revealed that she can make up to $15,000 from a sleep stream.

She’s not alone though. Kai Cenat made thousands of dollars sleeping earlier in 2023 as well.

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!

30 Places to Find Virtual Bookkeeper Jobs

Written By:Steve Wrzeszczynski

Last Updated:January 22, 2024

Do you genuinely love numbers arranged in spreadsheets with evenly spaced cells? Do you like solving intricate puzzles? If so, you might be a good candidate for virtual bookkeeper jobs.

Virtual bookkeeping is one of those jobs that require little more than you, your computer, and a natural aptitude for making sense of numbers.

As the entrepreneurship mindset becomes more widespread and more businesses are founded, the demand for bookkeepers can only increase.

Also, thanks to existing technologies, web-based tools, cloud services, and the internet, modern businesses are opening up more telecommuting or work-from-home positions, including those for bookkeepers.

Today, you’ll learn about what a virtual bookkeeper does, where to find jobs, and what can come next for a virtual bookkeeper.

What does a virtual bookkeeper job entail?

In the traditional economy, a bookkeeper is someone with advanced computing skills and knowledge of preparing financial statements who is in charge of a business’s daily financial health.

For instance, they’re usually responsible for processing bills and employees’ salaries, as well as collecting payments on invoices. They may also be responsible for the following:

Maintaining annual budgets
Updating chart of accounts
Analyzing financial statements
Collecting receivables on time
Recording cash receipts
Issuing customer invoices
Monitoring debt level or financial standing
Maintaining petty cash fund
Conducting monthly or annual account reconciliation
Processing payroll
Maintaining annual budget
Complying with local, state and federal government laws about financial reporting or taxes
Performing various admin support tasks

Many people confuse bookkeepers with accountants. However, they are not the same.

Accountants mainly figure out taxes owed and prepare tax returns. They also consult with individuals and businesses to organize their financial records, make sure that everything is compliant with state and federal laws, and suggest ways to save money and maximize tax breaks.

Unlike a certified public accountant (CPA) who holds a finance-related 4-year degree, a master’s degree, and a license to practice, bookkeepers don’t have strict educational and certification requirements.

In fact, bookkeepers perform various accounting tasks without any problems, but they often have to submit sensitive documents to licensed accountants for approval.

This type of delegation is how huge accounting firms are able to cater to multiple clients at any given time.

Virtual bookkeepers have the same responsibilities as traditional bookkeepers, except they do their work remotely.

How much do virtual bookkeeper jobs pay?

As of May 2021, the median salary of a bookkeeper is $45,560 annually or $21.90 per hour, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, with the actual range falling between $18 to $50 per hour.

A virtual bookkeeper can work as an independent contractor for an online bookkeeping firm hired by businesses who need bookkeepers, an employee for a company needing a virtual bookkeeper, or as an independent contractor with their own clients.

As such, the salary of virtual bookkeepers depends largely on the type of employment obtained, the number of clients handled, level of educational attainment, any training and certifications gained, work experience, and specialty.

Freelance bookkeepers who have multiple clients usually charge by the hour, and they can possibly make up to $50 an hour.

Bookkeepers employed with a company earn somewhere between $35,000 and $55,000 annually.

Of course, like most online jobs, virtual bookkeepers can work on the side and earn much more.

Do note that some bookkeeping firms would require you to sign a non-compete contract, which means you can’t put up the same business or offer your services as a freelancer to other companies or individuals as long as you’re employed with that firm.

30 Places to Find Virtual Bookkeeping Jobs

If you’re interested in a new field and would love to try your luck with bookkeeping, do note that aside from basic accounting and finance-related knowledge, you have to be able to work your way through programs like QuickBooks, Xero, Sage, and Kashoo.

When it comes to bookkeeping, practice makes perfect, so before you change your career, obtain proper education, train wherever you can, and master the science of bookkeeping through practice.

Here are some websites that are hiring for virtual bookkeeping jobs:

1. FlexJobs

Home to many freelancers, FlexJobs has an entire category dedicated to home-based bookkeeping jobs.

It’s a place for seasoned virtual bookkeepers who can take on the challenge of juggling multiple clients since the FlexJobs job board lists hand-screened job leads from numerous companies.

If you’re serious about bookkeeping as a freelancer, you’d find the $15/month membership fee worth spending.

If you’re on the fence, don’t worry, since FlexJobs offers a 30-day money-back guarantee if you’re not happy with the leads you see.

Check out the latest job openings on FlexJobs here.

2. AccountingDepartment.com

Launched in 2007 as ‘Balance Your Books,’ the site has remote positions available for bookkeepers.

The tasks required of bookkeepers range from payroll processing to preparing general ledgers.

AccountingDepartment.com hires only applicants residing in the US.

Virtual bookkeepers here are full-time, W-2 employees who earn by the hour, get paid holidays, generous vacation packages, 401 (k) plans, and group medical, dental, life, vision, and accident insurance.

3. Belay Solutions

Launched in 2010, this virtual assistance company offers virtual bookkeeper jobs as part of its talent pool.

Belay is always on the lookout for US residents in 45 out of 50 states with at least 5 years of accounting or bookkeeping experience and advanced skills in QuickBooks.

Of course, since this is an at-home bookkeeping position, you’re expected to have a home office set up, a computer with a webcam, fast internet, and the latest version of QuickBooks.

You’ll also have to consent to a background and reference check during your application.

As a Belay bookkeeper, you’ll be reconciling bank statements and credit/debit cards, processing payroll, preparing 1099 forms, maintaining a chart of accounts, managing cash flow, and producing weekly, monthly, and annual balance sheets, income statements, and other financial documents.

4. Click Accounts

Click Accounts is a BPO (Business Process Outsourcer) company aimed at providing accounting and bookkeeping services.

They help other businesses by processing bill payments, calculating accounts receivables, and reconciling bank accounts.

Not much is posted about the virtual bookkeeper job, but the company is accepting resumes all year round to their email address.

5. Bookminders

This Pennsylvania-based company has been providing bookkeeping services around Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, South Jersey, and Baltimore for the last 25 years.

It is home to many part-time and full-time licensed accountants, bookkeepers, and other finance professionals.

Note that even if you want a part-time virtual bookkeeping job, you’d need to live within 45 miles of a Bookminders office, as you’d need to come in the office for training sessions, meetings, and other important events.

Their requirements are less strict than others. Candidates must have at least 2 years of bookkeeping experience. Of course, those with accounting, finance, or business-related bachelor’s degrees always have an edge.

If hired, bookkeepers can enjoy a flexible schedule, a ton of training/career development programs, and incentive-based income with the potential of an increase based on performance.

6. Intuit

Intuit offers part-time virtual bookkeeper jobs through QuickBooks Live Bookkeeping.

A QuickBooks Live bookkeeper assists customers through video conferencing, messaging, and client management portal. These tools are provided by Intuit.

Examples of tasks you’ll be asked to do include setting up their books and chart of accounts, reconciliation of bank accounts, running balance sheets, closing their books at year-end, and other general QuickBooks tasks.

To be qualified to apply, you need to have at least one of the following: an active CPA credential, an active Certified Public Bookkeeper (CPB) credential, a bachelor’s degree in Accounting/Finance, or 3+ years of experience managing the books for a small business.

You would also need to have an active QuickBooks Online ProAdvisor certification by the time you start employment.

You must be willing to pick up a shift between 5AM to 5PM PST, Monday to Friday, and work 20+ hours a week.

7. Two Roads

Two Roads is regularly seeking workers to fill virtual bookkeeper jobs.

You will work fully remotely and will be expected to be available to be contacted Monday to Friday, from 9AM to 5PM EST.

They are seeking self-starters who do not need to be micromanaged. This is one of the more flexible jobs posted on this list where your passion as a virtual bookkeeper can really shine.

8. Fusion CPA

Fusion CPA is an Atlanta-based company that is constantly looking for people to fill various finance- and tax-related positions.

Virtual bookkeeper jobs that open from time to time include Outsourced Controller and QuickBooks Online Pro-Adviser Bookkeeper.

If your desired position isn’t listed, click on “Apply For Another Position” and fill out the form with your information.

9. FINSYNC

FINSYNC is an all-in-one payments platform combining software and services that helps businesses get their finances in order, centralize control of cash flow, and get in touch with the right financial professional at the right time.

FINSYNC currently has openings for virtual bookkeeper jobs for independent contractors to help businesses with such tasks as historical cleanup, invoicing, bill payments, maintaining a chart of accounts, and other simple bookkeeping jobs.

They need someone with more than 2 years of accounting or bookkeeping experience and proficiency in accounting software, such as FINSYNC’s solutions, QuickBooks, Xero, etc.

10. Robert Half

This specialized staffing firm got its start in 1948 and has now grown to offer its services to businesses worldwide.

They’re currently looking for remote bookkeepers for a few different companies, with pay ranging from $18 to $24 per hour.

11. 1-800Accountant

1-800Accountant is a full-service virtual accounting firm that helps businesses with their tax, bookkeeping, and accounting needs.

They periodically look for remote bookkeepers to help clients maintain accurate ledgers, prepare quarterly and yearly closing reports, reconcile bank and credit card accounts, and other bookkeeping tasks to maintain a business’s financial health.

You’d need to have a minimum of 5 years of experience in bookkeeping and knowledge of accounting software such as QuickBooks, Gusto, Xero, and others.

A minimum of 30 hours a week is required, with more hours during tax season.

12. Empowered Profit

This company organizes businesses’ finances so business owners can feel empowered instead of worried about how much or how little they’re making.

Empowered Profit is continually hiring virtual bookkeepers to be online financial managers who perform basic bookkeeping tasks as well as maintain good client relationships and client satisfaction through excellent customer service.

Applicants must have above-average knowledge of QuickBooks Online as well as 2+ years of bookkeeping experience, with bonus points for payroll experience.

13. Ledger Gurus

Ledger Gurus is an accounting firm specializing in eCommerce businesses, especially those selling through Amazon and Shopify.

They currently have openings for remote bookkeepers who are residents of Idaho, Wyoming, Florida, Arizona, Utah, or Kansas.

14. Supporting Strategies

Supporting Strategies has been providing outsourced back-office support services, including bookkeeping, to various businesses worldwide.

They’re currently offering virtual remote part-time bookkeeper positions to independent contractors who have at least 5 years of bookkeeping or accounting experience

You can earn between $29 to $31 per hour, depending on your education, certifications, licenses, and experience.

15. Integra Global Solutions

Integra Global Solutions prides itself on providing world-class technology and software solutions to help its clients focus on what they do best.

They continually offer full-time positions for remote bookkeepers who have graduated from college, have at least one year of experience in bookkeeping, and have an excellent grasp of QuickBooks or other accounting software.

16. Creative Financial Staffing

Creative Financial Staffing (CFS) helps big and small companies find professionals in accounting, finance, and IT to work with.

There are plenty of remote bookkeeper positions currently listed on their site, which you can skim on their job search page.

17. Accountingfly

Accountingfly is a job search hub, similar to FlexJobs or Indeed, but specializing in remote and cloud accounting jobs. It connects freelance accountants, bookkeepers, and tax preparers, as well as those looking for more steady employment with employers that they’ve vetted.

18. Accountingprose

Accountingprose is a small business bookkeeping and payroll service provider mostly to companies in the health and wellness, professional services, and technology industries.

They are always on the lookout for virtual bookkeepers who have more than 3 years of experience, can work with as many as 15 to 25 clients a month, and have a working knowledge of accounting software, preferably Xero.

19. inDinero

inDinero provides virtual bookkeepers and accountants to small businesses to help them save money and streamline their business processes.

They periodically have openings for virtual bookkeepers, so check back on their Careers page from time to time.

20. Backyard Bookkeeper

Backyard Bookkeeper offers bookkeeping and payroll services to various businesses. They take pride in their bookkeepers’ financial knowledge and skills.

They are periodically looking for virtual bookkeepers but are only considering Utah, South Carolina, or Georgia residents.

21. Blue Fox

Blue Fox offers bookkeeping, accounting, and tax preparation services for nonprofits and social enterprises.

They’re currently hiring virtual bookkeepers who can work full-time and are knowledgeable about QuickBooks Online and Bill.com.

22. Beech Valley Solutions

Beech Valley is a staffing firm that prides itself on providing only the top accountants, financial experts, and IT risk professionals to all kinds of businesses.

They’re constantly looking for bookkeepers with at least 5 years of hands-on experience and proficiency in QuickBooks and Xero.

23. iHireAccounting

iHireAccounting is a job board focused on the accounting sector, offering both entry-level and senior-level positions to accountants, bookkeepers, payroll specialists, tax specialists, and other financial jobs.

Search for keywords like “virtual bookkeeper” or “remote bookkeeper” to get a list of bookkeeping jobs you can do from anywhere.

24. FlexProfessionals

FlexProfessionals is a woman-owned business that matches businesses with professionals that are looking for meaningful part-time or flexible work. This is a great option if you can’t work full-time for whatever reason.

25. Reconciled

Reconciled is an online bookkeeping and accounting service provider with a 100% remote workforce.

They’re currently hiring online bookkeepers, aka cloud accounting specialists for both full-time and part-time positions.

26. SmartBooks

SmartBooks offers online bookkeeping services and often has positions for full-time, remote bookkeepers.

The SmartBooks team is completely remote, so you have more flexibility with your schedules.

As virtual bookkeepers, you are compensated with a monthly stipend for home office supplies and connectivity, as well as 401k with a company match, insurance (medical, dental, vision, life and disability) and ample PTO.

27. Bookkeeper360

Bookkeeper360 provides cloud-based accounting services.

If you’re looking for virtual bookkeeper jobs, this company is a good option, since there are positions for entry-level staff accountants, senior accountants, and even accounting managers – all with remote option.

What’s great about Bookkeeper360 is that they offer unlimited PTO, paid family leave, company-matched 401k, and insurance (medical, dental, and vision benefits). They also offer career advancement and work equipment.

28. LHH Recruitment Solutions (formerly Accounting Principals)

Accounting Principals merged with its fully integrated worldwide HR solutions hub, LHH Recruitment Solutions.

If you’re looking for virtual jobs in accounting and finance, go to the job search and enter “remote bookkeeping” to check for availability.

29. Cloud Friday Accounting

Make sure to bookmark Cloud Friday Accounting, which regularly opens remote accounting positions.

30. Good Accountants

GoodAccountants.com isn’t a company like other companies on this list. However, if you’re on a search for virtual bookkeeper jobs, register for this site since they connect businesses with accounting and bookkeeping professionals.

Pros and Cons of Home-Based Bookkeeper Jobs

PRO:

One of the best things about being a bookkeeper is that you don’t need to have a CPA to be one.

There have been office assistants who have earned their way into a full-blown bookkeeping career because they’ve developed real-world accounting skills.

CON:

Unfortunately, you can’t become a virtual bookkeeper on a whim.

This is the type of online job that requires a very specific set of skills, which includes advanced knowledge of the finance world and business transactions, computer skills, excellent communication, and the ability to connect with clients.

PRO:

Unlike an office-based bookkeeping job, a virtual bookkeeper job gives you the freedom to work whenever and wherever you prefer.

You’ll be in control of the clients you manage and work-related logistics such as your work hours and schedule.

CON:

Of course, having this much flexibility means that you’re going to work harder than traditional bookkeepers, especially if you decide to go the freelance route and seek clients on your own.

It’s not going to be easy to land an account if you’re new to this field, but once you’re in, you’ll be reaping the benefits in no time.

PRO:

The best things about virtual bookkeeping jobs are the income potential and positive job outlook.

Even if you work freelance, business owners will value the work you do because handling finances and accounting are highly sensitive and they would pay premium rates for your skills and loyalty.

Bookkeepers are always in demand (even after tax season), so you won’t have to worry about downtimes.

How to Start Your Own Virtual Bookkeeping Company

If you’re not interested in working for a bookkeeping firm, you can always start your own bookkeeping business from the comfort of your own home.

You’ll need a bit of capital here, but about $2,000 is still low when compared to traditional business startup costs.

This amount will mostly cover licenses to online bookkeeping tools like QuickBooks Online and Xero, as well as training (if you’re transitioning from office-based bookkeeping to a remote position).

Note that the $2k capital I stated only includes you as the main bookkeeper who would offer services to clients, so you’re practically investing in your own skills.

However, once you decide to build a bookkeeping firm and hire other accounting professionals, you’d need to allot salary and benefits, licenses to bookkeeping tools, and training packages.

Whether you’re offering bookkeeping services on your own or managing a team of bookkeepers, the biggest chunk of expense you’d be facing is ongoing training.

Just like any professional service, learning in the finance industry should be continuous to keep up with technology, new laws, and other fluctuating elements that affect your bookkeeping business.

To succeed in this line of work, you’d need to study how to compete in the ever-changing, globalized economy.

This means you would have to maintain deadlines, follow strict guidelines, and deliver work as smoothly as possible.

It’s important that you establish clear terms with your clients, which would help them manage their expectations.

Virtual Bookkeeper Jobs Outlook

As I said earlier, the outlook for virtual bookkeeping jobs continues to be optimistic as the need continues.

Ecommerce sites, modern businesses, and traditional companies that are embracing online technologies benefit financially from hiring bookkeepers remotely.

Whichever route you take in online bookkeeping, you have to agree that it’s a lucrative time for CPAs, any virtual bookkeeper, and other finance professionals.

Home-based jobs like virtual bookkeeping and work-from-home accounting jobs provide you with more time to balance life with work.

Your client base will also expand quite massively since conducting business online means your bookkeeping service can be sought by any entrepreneur or company no matter which part of the world they come from.

3 Challenges of Making Money Online and How to Beat Them

Written By:Steve Wrzeszczynski

Published On: April 6, 2018

Making money online in 2019 is attainable. However, even if the processes are well laid-out by people who have had success before you, you may still experience issues along the way. As someone who has transitioned from an 8-to-5 job to an online gig that turned out into a scam, I’ve had my fair share of issues from making money online.

I didn’t write this piece to scare you. Instead, facing the problems of making money online head on and learning how to beat them increases your chances of actually earning a livable income from stuff you do off the web.

How Can You Make Money Online In 2019?

Before we discuss the 3 work-from-home problems that continue to hinder many people from finding success online, you have to be aware of all the ways you can make money on the internet. The major ones are as follows:

Ecommerce (buying/selling products or services) – Whether you create a Facebook store or build a website from scratch, as long as you plan to sell products online, your chosen online business route is through ecommerce. You can run an ecommerce business with your own products, or go with a dropshipping route.
Affiliate marketing – Similar to ecommerce in that your goal is to sell products, except you won’t need to manufacture items to sell, or even handle traditional store operations (such as inventory or shipping). Instead, you need to join an affiliate program, promote products, and earn commissions whenever you refer a customer to buy.
Blogging – Blogging about anything under the sun can lead to a six-figure income, depending on what monetization options you use for the blog. Since blogging is newbie-friendly and requires very little capital, this is the most popular way of making money online. If you’re not good with words, you can always try vlogging (video blogging) or photoblogging (photography blogging).
Influencer Marketing – There are two ways you can do this – start popular and become an online ambassador to various brands; or start from the bottom and aim to become popular in the future. Either way, once you become an influencer, you’d earn from promoting products, services, information, and so on. And since you “influence” thousands or millions of people, advertisers are likely to pay you for access to this audience.
Service provider – If you’d rather earn by working from home and providing services like programming, app development, copywriting, virtual assistance (or a whole lot more), there’s a vast space for service providers regardless of specialty.

All these five methods are tried-and-tested, but your success or failure won’t just depend on whichever online money-making path you decide to take. Instead, it will rely on various factors and how well you solve the 3 common problems faced by those who earn their incomes online.

3 Challenges of Making Money Online

The best thing about the internet is that it gives you the flexibility to become your own boss without investing your entire life savings. However, to be able to increase your chances of success, you have to overcome these 3 problems of making money online:

1. Information Overload

In the past, people were experimenting on how to earn money from their blogs, or sell products online more effectively. They didn’t have much help, either from other people who could guide them or even resources. Today, you’ll find numerous experts helping you to do these things with a step-by-step tutorial. The problem with this though is that the more information available, the more confusion it brings.

For example, if you decide to focus on affiliate marketing, many experts would recommend that you build your own website. But plenty of people have had success with just a Facebook page or a Twitter account, and thus recommend focusing all affiliate marketing efforts on them instead of running a website as well. Both of these tips are valid and effective, but if you’re new to affiliate marketing, these contradicting recommendations can be the reason why you can’t move past step 1.

It’s easy to tell someone to do their research, but in this age wherein new information is published on a daily basis, how will a beginner decide which information has more weight?

Here’s how to solve information overload:

Determine the type of information you need – You can’t stop information from being released into the world, so in order to beat information overload, you have to identify the kind of info you’re looking for. Become super specific during research. You’ll be amazed at how precise the information you gather by choosing to use the term “highest paying web hosting affiliate program” instead of just “highest paying affiliate.”
Compile trusted sources – If you’re planning to earn money online for years to come, there’s a possibility you’ll need to perform research again in the future. Every time you do this and discover awesome resources, take note of them and compile into a list. Writers running a tech news blog would save time checking out answers from top blogs like TechCrunch, Engadget, Mashable and so on, instead of just Googling your questions away.
Create your own information gathering system – Having a research system would save you a lot of time and since time equals money when earning income from the web. This system would also increase your productivity and eventually, your income. A questionnaire, step-by-step tutorial, or if-when-then system are few examples of an info gathering system that could work for your business.
Delegate (if possible) – Once your ecommerce or affiliate marketing business picks up, or you rise in your career as a blogger, influencer or service provider, delegate research tasks to someone else. There’s a reason why most professionals like lawyers, accountants, and so on have junior colleagues who take over data gathering and disseminating for you. This also holds true even if your main income or business is online.
Don’t contribute to the noise – Now that you know all about information overload, make sure you don’t overload information as well. If you’re a blogger, influencer, affiliate marketer, or online store, don’t send staggering amounts of information out to the world if not totally necessary.

The make-money-online world has a remarkably quick turnover of hot products or services, industry trends, competition data, or even market changes. Knowing how to streamline and deal with a boatload of information gives you a clearer path towards your online income goal.

2. Scams

Scams are the most popular and common problem of making money online, even still in 2019. Scammers will never run out of ideas. Their main source of income relies on fooling other people into handing over their money or valuable information.

While there’s plenty of trusted information that can lead you into actually making money online legally, effectively and (sometimes) quickly, the downside to the make-money-online (MMO) industry is that it is filled with scams left and right.

The only way to keep scams from screwing up with your online business is to become experts in spotting and avoiding scams. Here are several red flags you must always keep in mind:

Promises of quick returns – Be careful with any program, eBook, course, marketing tools, or any other product or services that promise quick return. Terms like “get your money back within minutes,” “double your money quickly,” and other get-rich quick scams still exist even in 2019 so don’t let them blind you.
Disclosing “secrets” only after paying – It doesn’t matter if you’re trying to succeed in blogging, affiliate marketing or freelancing online. Once you try to find out how to do something, you’ll be faced with experts trying to sell you “secrets” to doing just what you came for. If details are missing from a sales page and promises to disclose information only after you paid, this is a red flag that you’re not going to find any special info afterwards.
Money Back Guarantees with a catch – Many programs, courses, or products and services offer trials for only $1 and with money back guarantees. In some cases, the scammer only wants you to enter your credit card details. And if the scammer didn’t use your info for fraudulent purposes, he/she just used this process to pinpoint you as a buyer (instead of just a website visitor).
Hidden Auto-Renewal Policy – The problem with many subscription-based services or products, such as membership forums, is that they often come with an auto-renewal policy. While the actual product or service isn’t a scam, hiding automatic renewal policies seems pretty shady especially since many people just cancel the subscription and consider their lost money as a “learning experience” instead of asking for a refund.
Missing Contact Details – One of the most obvious red flags of scams is the lack of contact details. Whether you’re buying a product, subscribing to a service, or gathering information from someone, it’s important you maintain a means of communication and a contact person should you require further assistance or flat-out ask for a refund.

These examples have yet to scratch the surface of make-money-online scams. Many scams that exist today have been around for years. Unfortunately, there are no internet police available to man the web 24/7, which is why it is up to you to guard yourself and your business against scrupulous people aiming to steal from you.

3. Procrastination

Making money online as an online store owner, affiliate marketer, blogger, influencer, or even a freelancer offering services means you’re the boss of your online venture. You’ll decide on many of the business specifics, such as working time, breaks, tasks to do, and so on. Of course, this sounds like the ultimate dream for most people.

But if you’ve given yourself too much freedom and have practiced “voluntarily delaying an important task despite being aware that unable to finish that particular task will cause us to suffer,” experts say you’re procrastinating.

Procrastination is a bad habit that affects your productivity, performance and even emotional well-being. How can you make money online with your app development venture if you’re spending half of your day playing video games instead? How can you improve your marketing efforts on your ecommerce store or affiliate marketing system if you’re busy on Facebook instead?

To avoid getting trapped into a cycle of procrastination, follow these few tricks:

Change the way you look at the tasks on hand – In most cases, people procrastinate because they are overwhelmed at the task on hand. If you change your perception towards the task (get excited instead of getting scared), it would motivate you to work on the tasks…
Divide a huge task into smaller ones – If you’re building an ecommerce site and you aim to launch at a given date, creating a to-do checklist with smaller tasks can help you avoid procrastinating because you get to achieve more tasks than try to fulfill a significant task all by yourself.
Practice the Five Second Rule – If you can’t succeed with making money online due to procrastination, you should check out Mel Robbins’ book “The 5 Second Rule: Transform your Life, Work, and Confidence with Everyday Courage.” In it, you’ll learn how to “hijack” your brain and prevent it from hesitating with whatever task you need to do by taking immediate action within the 5 seconds right after you start a task.

The Bottom Line

If you begin your online money-making journey without getting overloaded with information, faced with scam programs or services, and suffer from the cycle of procrastination, you’re lucky. Your chances of running a successful ecommerce site, affiliate marketing plan, blog, brand, or service are optimistic because they won’t be affected by these 3 common challenges of making money online.

If you feel overwhelmed by the massive overload of information, confused by the number of scammy programs to follow, or plainly lack the drive to reach your online income goals, then I hope the tips listed here could help you become a success story in the make-money-online industry.