How to Start an Online Interior Design Business at Home

Written By:
Published On:

Do you have an eye for interior design and enjoy redecorating and/or rearranging rooms? Are you good with Photoshop or already use it to create new room designs and finishes? Then you may have what it takes to be an e-interior designer and operate your own interior design business from home.

Online interior design is a growing trend because it offers clients an economical approach to redecorating and refurbishing rooms. Instead of committing to someone for a full range of services that can run into tens of thousands of dollars, the client works with an online interior designer who provides a master plan that can be implemented slowly and as finances allow.

E-interior design is also more convenient because the client works with digital files and room suggestions and doesn’t travel to showrooms or supply stores. Many e-interior designers offer online suggestion boards for furniture pieces and color palettes, as well as purchasing lists from recommended suppliers. This enables the client to be actively involved in the selection process right from home- and so be more aware of how the money is being spent.

How to get started as an online interior designer.

Know the difference between interior designer vs. interior decorator.

If you already have a degree in interior design and are certified in the field, you can call yourself an interior designer and set up your business as such. If you do not have an actual degree, you will need to check your state or province licensing regulations. Currently, 27 states (including Puerto Rico and Washington, DC) and 7 provinces require a combination of education, experience and/or NCIDQ exam completion to use the title ‘interior designer.’

However, you can get around this regulation if you call yourself an interior decorator or an interior home staging expert. Interior decorators, as opposed to designers, can only decorate and beautify an interior space. They cannot change the room structure (e.g., by adding/removing a wall) or layout (e.g., drawing a floor plan). While interior designers often work with contractors and architects, interior decorators usually only work with clients and furnishings suppliers.

Incorporate your business and get licensed.

Before you start advertising your services and working with clients, find out whether your city or county requires a business license. If you plan on working with retailers and buying goods at wholesale for resale to clients, you’ll probably need a seller’s permit and a sales tax license.

Interior design and interior decoration are two types of businesses where you are best served by incorporating as an LLC at the very least. Doing so protects you from personal asset liability should you end up in court.

Finally, if you plan to employ people, you’ll need a federal employer identification number (EIN) too.

Obtain a PhotoShop license and set up your website with examples.

Now the fun begins! Purchase a yearly license to use Photoshop® 7 or later for creating design and decorational elements within residential, business, recreational and other spaces. You can learn to use this program by taking online courses through Lynda.com or by reading books like Photoshop for Interior Designers.

The PhotoShop program will take some time to learn and effectively use; however, because this will be your main tool for planning, drawing and showcasing client spaces, it’s a good idea to take the time to master it.

Once you feel somewhat proficient, use PhotoShop to generate some example spaces that you could see designing and/or redecorating. Consider the spaces you already know well or live in- how would you switch them up to be more modern, ergonomic, functional, or just different? All these examples can be uploaded to your website and used to catch the attention of potential clients.

Start small and advertise.

Unless you know someone who really likes your interior design or decorating work, it’s unlikely that you’ll land a contract right away. However, you can start advertising right away with your website, social media accounts, and even flyers posted around town. This way, you can reach just about anyone, from a college freshman moving into a dorm to a small business operating out of a leased building or office.

What can you advertise? How about a package deal complete with a table or board filled with possible furnishings, materials and decor, plus a product source list with items and prices? Add to that a color palette and fabric guide, top it off with a floor plan showing where the furniture and lighting would go, and you have a good start for anyone looking for design and/or decoration ideas.

Be sure to join organizations such as the International Interior Design Association and the American Society of Interior Designers. Having a network of members to converse with will help you find clients and scale up your online business much faster than going it alone.

Team up with area suppliers.

Being an online interior designer or interior decorator enables you to make money not only from your clients but from the suppliers that you will be promoting in your product source lists. Along these lines, you should contact those suppliers and negotiate your commission rates with the owners beforehand. After all, if you’re going to be acting as their salesperson, you should make a salesperson’s commission.

Because this is all happening online and your clients are probably going to order their furnishings online, you may wish to obtain referral codes in addition to standard commission rates for in-store purchases. You can then insert the codes into any product listings you provide.

Alternately, you might consider ordering the furnishings for your clients as part of your services; this not only lessens their workload, but it helps ensure that your suppliers know exactly who is promoting their products.

The Bottom Line

Interior design and interior decoration have gotten a bad rap in some circles due to their high costs and astronomical markups. Perhaps this is part of the reason why e-interior design and decoration have taken off. Because the services are more transparent, and the furnishings listings can be easily checked with what’s offered at area retailers, clients are less likely to experience “sticker shock” and can implement design and decoration changes as their budgets permit.

For the e-interior designer or decorator, this means that there are expanding opportunities to work with clients, including those clients that live in rural locations and/or don’t have large budgets.

By going online, you can reach out to various clients and work within their budget “comfort zones” to design/decorate anything from a studio apartment to a 50-room business building. These clients can slowly but surely become the backbone of your business through referrals to their friends and associates and through increased commission revenue from your vendors.

How to Use Quora to Your Affiliate Marketing Advantage

Written By:
Published On:

I love getting my daily Quora Digest newsletter because the emails are filled with answers to intriguing questions such as the following:

Quora questions

As you can see, Quora differentiates itself from Wikipedia because the questions and answers are a bit…unexpected. Maybe a bit on the weird or improper side.

Quora was the brainchild of a Faceboom ex-CTO and began its public life in June of 2010. The site operated fairly quietly until it happened to get its moment of fame from a mention in TechCrunch. While this information is self-reported by Quora itself and may or may not be true, the platform does get an estimated 1.5 million worldwide viewers each month.

What is Quora?

Quora is a knowledge center akin to Wikipedia and AskJeeves…except that it’s also a social platform akin to Facebook, Google+ and the old version of Helium. Users can ask questions via the platform, and other users can answer them. Good and informative answers are “Upvoted” and rise to the top of the site; some are even featured in the Quora Digest, a daily newsletter that is sent out to users.

In addition to upvotes, Quora enables downvotes, follows, shares and comments. In 2013, Quora enabled its users to become authors by adding a blog platform.

There is no anonymity on Quora, at least for its users. When you ask or answer a question, you are acknowledged online. Note the following answer submitted by Chris Elliott:

Quora answers

So, why is Quora a place that you, an affiliate (or other) marketer, should be taking advantage of? Because the platform offers several major opportunities that should not be overlooked. Here they are…

1. Authority

As an affiliate marketer, one of your major challenges is to establish yourself as an expert in your niche. You audience isn’t interested in someone who is a newbie.

That’s where Quora comes in. It’s fairly easy to become a Quora member- you simply provide your name, email and desired password on the site. You can also have Quora link to your Facebook, Google or Twitter account and import the information from there.

That done, you are provided with a profile page that can be filled out to include your bio, including your occupation, education, geographic residences over time, etc. You can also add your areas of expertise.

knowitall

Based on the topics you select, you will be offered the opportunity to follow users in your niche. Quora will also have you personalize your news feed and go through several layers of specifying exactly which notifications you wish to receive.

Once your profile is complete, you can build your authority on Quora by searching for and answering questions within your niche. You might also want to blog about niche-related topics. As your answers are posted, users will either upvote, downvote, comment on or share the content.

Because each of your answers will feature your profile photo and bio, a good answer from you in your specific niche will build your authority and number of followers. If you post your affiliate website URL or other information on Quora, users will eventually go there for more information. Which leads to…

2. Traffic

Arguably, one of the biggest issues that affiliate marketers face is how to generate traffic to their blogs, websites and product pages. Using Quora, you can list your websites and affiliate pages directly inside your bio by editing it:

quora description

Doing so invites users to visit your sites to learn more about your niche topic and products- and about you.

Quora is also getting noticed by Google. When I performed the following query on Google, a Quora-generated answer came up as the second search result:

Google love

To encourage traffic streams to your Quora profile (and beyond), you can easily embellish your profile with a host of goodies including your linked social media accounts, blog posts, outside content and posts, and even repurposed articles.

However, the bread-and-butter of your traffic generation is going to be the in-depth and carefully researched answers that you post to questions presented within your niche. Overall, you should seek out those questions that have few or no answers posted yet. You’ll get more traffic from those answers simply because you’ll be one of the few ‘answerers’ on that page.

Try to seek out and answer fresh questions that have a lot of upvotes on them. Once you do, you can answer them and then link back to your own Quora blog or website for more information. After all, the end goal of generating all that traffic is to direct it back to you.

3. Content

Content generation is relatively easy for someone who has a fresh blog or website and a head full of great ideas. Six months down the road, those great ideas have been exhausted and the impetus to keep blogging is long dissipated.

That’s when Quora excels. Because the site enables you to input questions and have them pre-filled with suggestions (much like Google search) prior to the completion of your inquiry, you can obtain lots of content ideas.

To start generating content ideas from Quora, start typing a question that contains some targeted keywords into the search area of the site. Then, focus on finding related questions that are getting lots of upvotes and attention and use them as launch points for adding content to both your own website(s) and your Quora blog.

Here is an example search I performed by asking how to make a cup of coffee:

quora coffee chat

If I had a blog focused on coffee, there are several related questions here I could use as an article-generator.

Quora isn’t like its oft-compared-to cousin Wikipedia. Whereas the latter features objective, heavily edited and reviewed content, Quora maintains a first-person collection of personal anecdotes, opinions, jokes and even biases. As a result, the content you read is more likely to be a true representation of user (and your customer) sentiment.

It’s also much easier to become a Quora contributor than a Wikipedia contributor, and to use Quora to subtly promote your business.

The Bottom Line

Quora is an emerging player in the quality content landscape that also incorporates key aspects of a social media platform. Therefore, you should consider taking advantage of Quora for your marketing efforts. At the very least, you’ll learn some interesting facts and end up engaging with a community of niche experts who’ll give you additional ideas on how to grow your affiliate marketing efforts.

How to Start Your Own eBay Consignment Business

Written By:
Published On:

With spring right around the corner, many individuals will be cleaning out their homes, garages and basements. Many more will be wondering how to cash in on their spring cleaning treasures.

Most people are aware of eBay as a place to sell their items; however, the effort involved in properly staging, photographing, listing and shipping items can be too cumbersome for many. Also, eBay sellers need to have an excellent feedback score.

Because of the work involved in selling on eBay, you can start you own eBay consignment business and make good money by selling other people’s things. Here is how you can start:

1. Obtain a seller’s eBay account.

Nearly anyone can buy stuff on eBay, but you need to have an account with a feedback score of at least 50, and that’s as close as possible to 100% positive, before buyers will trust you. Incidentally, you also need to have a 50 interactions before Paypal’s $2,000 buyer protection plan kicks in.

To this end, you’ll need to make some purchases on your buyer’s account first. Yes, this is an investment of time and money. However, if you already shop online, it just means diverting your preference to eBay above places like Amazon, Groupon Goods, etc.

2. Obtain business supplies.

Anyone who has sold items online knows that one of the most time-consuming steps involved is shipping. Standing in line at the USPS or other shipping service wastes valuable hours of your day, especially when there is a holiday and there may be dozens of people waiting ahead of you.

To alleviate this pain point, purchase a weight scale and digital stamps for home use. Doing this will enable you to weigh, package and pay for your shipments ahead of time. You then only need to drop them off at your local USPS or other shipping location.

If you don’t yet own one, you will need to purchase a good digital camera. eBay items should feature at least one photo, and expensive items normally feature a half dozen or more photos.

3. Price your services.

How much you charge for a commission will depend on what it takes for you to make a profit versus how much similar local services charge their customers. To find out what your competitors charge, go to the eBay Trading Assistant Directory and look up your state. In most states, the commission range is 20%-40%.

4. Start advertising your consignment business.

It doesn’t take a lot of money to advertise your business. For example, you could start advertising by printing and posting some flyers around your neighborhood and/or in the local newspaper. Tell your family and friends about your new business and offer a cut of your commission in exchange for a referral.

Don’t be afraid to tap local consignment shops, Goodwill stores, etc. These stores also often are stuck with merchandise they can’t sell or house and may be very willing to go online with their wares.

You might also consider creating a website and displaying it on your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media accounts, or just advertising your services directly through social media.

5. Pay some in-home/business visits to potential customers.

As you start getting interested customers calling or writing to you, the best way to assess the true value of their items is to visit them at their homes or businesses. Take your digital camera with you and catalog the stuff that you are being asked to sell.

When you return home, research those cataloged items on eBay and learn about their last selling price. This can be done by going to eBay’s Advanced Search area and checking ‘Sold listings.’

eBay Search
Doing this kind of research ahead of time will reduce your risk of listing items that never sell or that sell at too low of a price.

6. Create a contract with your customer.

Whether or not you end up taking your customer’s items back to your house or just listing them on eBay, you need to prepare a contract and have your customer sign it. Having a contract in place, complete with your commission rate and allotment for selling costs (e.g., eBay selling fees, Paypal fees) will protect both you and customer and help ensure that you both make money from this business arrangement.

7. Stage, sell and (optionally) ship your customer’s items.

If you haven’t done so, take photos of your customer’s items and publish those photos on eBay along with the product descriptors, dimensions, shipping information, etc. As each item is sold, record its purchase price, shipping, insurance and final value fees, and possible refund and damage information. This is the information you will eventually need to provide to your customer and use to calculate your commission.

Your customer may prefer to ship his own items in exchange for a reduced commission, or the items may be in a different geographic location and/or otherwise unable to be shipped (at least by you). Different business arrangements can provide you with much needed insight on which ones work best for you and maximize your profitability.

8. Invoice and pay your customer.

One of the benefits of having an eBay consignment business is that you pay your customer, not the other way around. This reduces your risk of being stiffed on payment. However, you should still maintain detailed records (with shipping receipts) and note every transaction as it occurs. This way, you’ll reduce the chance of suspicion by your customer, and it will also tell you if your business is actually profitable.

Animal Magic: 15 Ways to Make Money with Animals

Written By:
Published On:

America’s love of pets is widely known, but maybe you weren’t aware of how awesome this is for marketers.

According to American Pet Products, the estimated amount of money pet and animal owners spent in the US in 2015 was $60.59 billion!

That’s a whole lot of cash!

The rough breakdown of this figure is:

  • Food – $23 billion
  • Supplies – $14 billion
  • Vet care – $15 billion
  • Animal purchases – $2 billion
  • Pet services – $5 billion

Obviously some of those broad niches are hard to get into, veterinary care for instance will take some study, but that still leaves a wide area that anyone can navigate to make money from.

Here are my top 15 ways to make money from pets and animals.

1. Pet Sitting

One of the simplest ways to make money is to look after other people’s pets.

If you have a healthy respect and love for animals of all kinds, and space to host them, then pet sitting is an ideal way to get involved in the animal industry while making money.

This is often an ad hoc way to make cash, but if done right, could turn into a fully-fledged business.

2. Animal Training

Are you awesome at teaching animals to do things? Do you have skills to turn problems pets into well behaved ones?

As there is no state or federal qualifications required to become a dog or animal trainer, pretty much anyone with a love of animals and the will to put in the time and effort for self-training can jump on this idea.

3. Dog Walking

People don’t have much time, and often their pets suffer because of this. Dog walking is an easy way to pocket some extra cash while hanging out with some cool pups and getting them the exercise they need.

There’s no qualifications needed barring a love of dogs and poop! Being in good health and loving the outdoors are also factors that should be considered.

4. Animal Masseuse

The idea of helping pets overcome chronic pain via massages is a pleasant one. The idea of earning $50 to $1,000 an hour might be an even nicer one!

This way to make money with animals is a little harder than the rest because there are, sometimes complicated, state laws about who can practice formal massage therapy on animals and who can’t.

The American Veterinary Medical Association has some advice for you regarding any form of complementary or alternative veterinary medicine, but you should also check your local state veterinary medical board for further advice.

5. Animal Grooming

Even if the idea of giving a dog a hairstyle turns you off, the animal grooming niche is wide enough to cover a variety of animal lifestyle and health choices.

For example, most animals with claws need regular trimmings, and some breeds of dog require haircuts just to be able to see.

You can offer things like:

  • Bathing and hair brushing
  • Haircuts
  • Nail and paw care
  • Face and ear care

You can even offer complementary products that can earn you a nice markup!

The main downside for this style of work is you do really need the space and tools to get started. Sure you could probably start in your garage, but you would need to look at commercial properties, especially if you want to bag the higher end of the market.

6. Animal Antics

The internet loves videos of animals, and if your pet has the tendency to act the fool video it!

Sticking up funny videos on places like YouTube can turn you (well your pet) into a viral star!

Earnings from YouTube adverts can start to rack up quite quickly if you can garner millions of views, and there is also the potential for your pet to be picked up for corporate sponsorship and other work.

Just ask Grumpy Cat…

grumpy cat

… who has made his owner millions (allegedly $99 million…) via pet food deals, two books and even a movie! All this after hitting the limelight on YouTube (19 million views and counting).

7. Pets Shows & Competitions

Perhaps considered a more conventional way to make money with your pets, pet shows and competitions are a fun way to show of your beautiful animal and perhaps make some cash too.

Be aware that you’re not guaranteed to win, or even win money with this method, so as long as participation is fun for you it’s worth a go!

For example the winner of The National Dog Show only walks away with $1,000 bucks.

Not to be sniffed (no pun intended) at but it’s certainly not going to buy you a condo!

There may of course be follow up sponsorship deals after such an eminent win which could increase earnings.

8. Pet Models & Film Stars

If your pet is good natured and can handle a crowd, why not consider pet modelling or film work?

Finding an agent is likely the best way to get started, such as Animal Actors whose website showcases their animal stars.

Your pet obviously needs to be in good health, trained to obey at least basic commands, but don’t worry if you’re pet isn’t the pick of the litter, as pets with unique features can get just as much work as perfect looking examples of the breed.

9. Pet Party Planner

Before researching this article, I never knew pet part planners exist, let alone that the term is searched for about 50,000 times a month!

Pet parties are booming, and like with any other celebration, they take work. Here enters you as the party planner!

Organize an appropriate venue, with facilities. Provide fun and interesting games for the animals. Order (or produce) high quality animal food and treats for the guests to chow down on and make sure you have a videographer grabbing all the antics. Job done, earnings made!

There are a remarkable amount of themes you can offer and there are even opportunities for pet weddings (and bachelor parties!).

The preparation for this can be done at your or the customers home, with you hiring a separate venue. Just make sure to pick up insurance, because who knows what will happen with a room full of dogs, cats or both!

10. Pet Taxi

Become the next Uber but for dogs! Seriously though, often people struggle to get their animals to veterinary or grooming appointments because they are at work, or perhaps don’t even have a car.

You can, for a fee, provide collection of the animal, delivery to the proper place and delivery back.

Easy money but you will need a vehicle suitable for the job with comfortable cages, and insurance.

11. Animal Photography

If you have a knack for taking awesome photos at just the right moment, then animal photography could be up your alley.

Most photos would end up on a stock photo site, but there are opportunities to sell to big media as well.

Another option would be to sell the photos back to the owners of the animals.

The legal area of taking a photo of a pet and using it for commercial use is murky. In theory, the pets have no rights; however as per the American Society of Media Photographers owners “do have rights and could claim that your photo of their property has caused harm”.

As such, try to get a release if you intend to use the photo for public consumption.

12. High Quality Pet Snacks

It used to be that pets got the scraps at the table and that was that. Nowadays though, more and more people want their animals to have the highest quality food possible, even human level quality food.

That’s where you come in. You can produce vegetarian/vegan/organic/nutrient balanced food appropriate to the animal and sell it.

You could sell direct in markets or via local pet stores. Or you could set up online and bake to order!

13. Pet Blog

As a marketer, there’s no way I could leave out the good old blog. Making money from a blog is fairly easy once you get the traffic: use adverts, affiliate marketing, and sell your own products/services or a combination of them all.

Just blogging about your pet and their antics is usually not going to cut it, there are simply too many cat lovers out there!

However, you can put a spin on it to make your content enjoyable or informative.

Take Simon’s cat. The creator turned his cat’s antics into a wonderfully funny comic strip. Or you could discuss how you overcame issues with your pet, such as stopping your dog from barking all the time, or how you kept the cat from spraying everywhere.

This sort of informative content draws other perhaps less experienced pet owners and could net you some sales on the side.

14. Sell Pet Supplies

Most people might think that pet stores have the monopoly of selling pet supplies, but it’s not true.

You can easily set up an e-commerce site through WordPress and be going in ´no time.

Product wise you could:

  • Order wholesale and sell those
  • Use drop shipping via the manufacturer
  • Create your own products and sell those

You’re not limited to selling via your own site either; you could use Etsy for hand crafted good or eBay to shift products you bought in bulk.

The Bottom Line

Owning a pet can be a lucrative way to make money, or to at least offset the cost of owning a pet! Even if you don’t have an animal yourself, but simply love them, there are many ways to turn that passion into a profitable job.

How to Make Money Running a Directory Listing Site

Written By:
Published On:

There are numerous ways to make money with a website, from affiliate marketing to selling your own goods.

One way to make money is with an often overlooked style of website: the directory site.

A directory site in its most basic form is a site that lists and links out to other websites and businesses within one or more niche.

Probably the most famous directory site out there is Dmoz, and it’s huge and covers a wide range of niches.

The thing is, not everyone is going to succeed with a directory site, so I’ve compiled some of my tips and ideas to help you get a head start with your directory website.

A Business Not a Blog

Most people who try their hand at directory sites fail. The simple reason is that they think that they can stick up a site and it will just work.

You absolutely must treat any directory site like a business, otherwise you will fail.

You need to make sure you have a plan in hand for how to generate traffic, how to generate listings and how to capitalize both to generate income.

Not being serious about the venture will end up costing you time and money.

Niche Selection

Let’s be frank, you’re not going to build a site like Dmoz easily, so like most things in internet marketing you need to narrow your niche down.

For example, you could focus on:

  • Dentists
  • Plumbers
  • Private Tutors
  • Music Teachers
  • Specialist stores
  • etc.

You could even narrow this down (initially) to just a single state or city if it’s large enough.

Having a specific niche will help with everything else you need to do such as traffic, SEO and listing selection.

As with any niche selection you need to be sure of two things:

  • Is there a market that is interested in finding quality sites?
  • Will someone pay you for it?

I once made a directory site that failed. It wasn’t because no one was interested; it was simply because the target market had no money to spare: the ones seeking the websites didn’t want to buy from the advertising, and the websites themselves ran such small margins, they didn’t want to pay to list.

Therefore, make sure you vet your niche before proceeding to make sure there’s at least some potential for earnings.

Traffic is Key

One of the most important things you need to realise is that building a directory site from scratch is a tremendous amount of work.

How do you attract people to list on your site when you have zero traffic and zero other listings?

Do you see the problem – without traffic people aren’t interested and without listings there’s no traffic!

How then can you get past this chicken and egg scenario?

Well, there are a few ways:

  • Start by hand selecting some sites/businesses and simply list them with basic details. It’s a good idea to contact them and let them know, both for marketing and so they can de-list if they wish.
  • Offer free listings. Everybody on the internet loves freebies, and free listings can help build up the site content quite quickly.
  • Promote the said free listings via social media and any sites that cater to your target location (remember, start small).

SEO

As well as starting to list sites yourself and reaching out to communities, you should be making sure your SEO is top notch.

A directory site rarely has much in the way of content, so SEO can be a pain to put it mildly, but there are ways to counter this.

Categories & Tags

Using a solid category structure helps both search engine bots and users find what they need quickly and easily.

It’s worth spending time in the early stages planning out your category structure to make sure that it will be efficient, easy to understand and just as importantly, scalable.

The last thing you want to do is to have to change your category structure later down the line as this can cause numerous 404 errors.

Tags also need to be considered as well, more from a user point than anything.

Meta tags

Sometimes called schema, meta tags allow search engines to understand your website content in semantic terms. This means that they should know that a listing for one of your sites, is regarding a particular niche.

If you’re a WordPress user, WordPress doesn’t come with the ability to use meta tags, but some smarts minds out there have created some great plugins such as the All In One Schema.org Rich Snippets, which can enable schema for you.

I’ll be honest, these things are a pain in the ass to get setup and running correctly, but they offer so much potential SEO benefits it would be stupid to set up a directory site without schema.

Content Marketing

Even though directory listing sites have very little content on a per listing basis, it doesn’t stop your from having a side-blog that can have more detailed content and help internally link your directory categories.

For example, you could write a monthly showcase featuring a particular site, talking about the website or business in detail and perhaps interviewing the owner or staff. This can then be linked back to both the website listing and the listing category. It’s a win-win for both the site/business as they get a spotlight, and you get the much needed content.

PPC

Another method of generating traffic is to use PPC or Pay Per Click advertising.

There are two potential routes you can go with this: advertising to get people to list and advertising to get traffic.

To begin with you want to get the traffic, as you can manually add listings. Later on down the line you may want to advertise to promote your money generating listings.

PPC is a risk as it costs money, but if done right you can get some targeted traffic to your site.

Quality Aggregation

Every directory site runs one major risk: having too many BS sites listed. This is why it’s important for your or a your hired help to manually check each listing and to review them every so often.

The manual check weeds out any undesirable listings from the outset (even paid for listings).

Sometimes websites fail, and sometimes their domains are re-purposed for spam, or porn or maybe just another website. This is why regular reviews are worthwhile, because the last thing you need to have are links that send your traffic to malware ridden sites, or even just to the wrong site.

I’d also recommend having strict terms and conditions for both free and paid for listings that gives you enough leverage to reject and remove listings and covers your back legally speaking.

Earning Money

The all-important question every marketer wants to know: how the heck do I make money from a directory site?

Luckily, there are a few ways.

Paid Listings

The most obvious one is for promoted listings. These are just like promoted posts in your Facebook feed: highlighted listings to grab people’s attention.

You can charge anywhere from $50 to $1,000 per promoted listing depending on your niche, and the listing placement and length of stay.

Ultimately it will be down to you and your niche knowledge to figure out the best pricing model, but if you have enough traffic and an affluent niche, higher prices are quite viable.

Adverts

There are two types of adverts in my mind: Networks like Google Adsense, and Private adverts.

Networks

I’m loathe to recommend using network advertisements. This is because they are so poorly paid, that people end up getting carried away in the effort of trying to earn something and plastering the site with ads.

This can become a very negative thing, because it not only looks tacky to your visitors, but you can’t guarantee what adverts will show up.

Private Ads

A better option, though not always easy to implement especially in the beginning, are private adverts. This is where you sell advertising space to sites that list on your directory. These can be pitched differently to the promoted listings as they allow the sites to use visual imagery or even video to promote their sites.

There are several WordPress plugins that can assist with controlling adverts, whatever type you decide on, such as the excellent AdRotate.

The Bottom Line

Directory sites can make money, of that there is no doubt. They do however take some planning and determination to succeed with.

Finding the right niche is only the beginning of your journey and traffic generation is paramount. If you can achieve that, then a directory site can be an excellent way to make money online.

How to Make Money by Hacking Websites

Written By:
Published On:

…he is the best guard of a camp who is best able to steal a march upon the enemy…he who is a good keeper of anything is also a good thief.

~Socrates, The Republic

Are you a whiz at cracking into systems and maybe even exploiting social media platforms like Facebook? You don’t have to admit to it here…but if you are a hacker, you can actually make good money while plying your craft.

And just who would be seeking out your services? Well, none other than social media platforms including Facebook, Pinterest and others. Major companies like Dropbox, Western Union and Tesla would also be highly interested in working with you.

Hacking for fun and profit

With crafty hackers constantly inspecting and injecting malicious code in an effort to hack passwords or obtain credit card information, companies have become increasingly alarmed about security breaches. To this end, they have invested in encryption, password verifications, etc. However, even these measures don’t always prevent a security breach.

One need only to think about the recent Ashley Madison reveal of user identities or the Target credit card breach to understand that, no matter how “secure” a site appears to be, there are always ways to get around that security.

This is why many companies have come to the conclusion that the best way to prevent hacking is to make friends with the hackers themselves. To this end, many companies are teaming up with hackers and asking them to deliberately exploit their passwords, platforms and systems. Successful hackers that manage to crack into Facebook, Pinterest, etc. are rewarded with money.

So-called white-hat hackers make anywhere from a few bucks to as much as $33,500 (according to Facebook’s payout to Reginaldo Silva) depending on the type of bug they find and report.

Here are some other companies that pay big bucks for bugs:

BitGo: $100-$1,000

Dropbox: $216-$4,913

Facebook: $500+

FastMail: $100-$5,000

Pinterest: $50-$1,500

Magento: $100-$10,000

Microsoft: $500-$100,000

Paypal: $100-$10,000

Spotify: $250+

Stripe: $500+

Tumblr: $200-$1,000

Western Union: $100-$5,000

Most companies have a security page on their website that describes their incentive program for finding and reporting security risks including the following:

· Cross-site scripting (XSS)
· Cross-site request forgery (CSRF)
· Database injection
· Open redirection
· Mixed-content scripts
· Privacy/authentication
· Server-side code execution bugs
· Open vulnerability

Finding the big payers is hard work, and some companies won’t pay you at all, or will only acknowledge your efforts with a thank-you note and a T-shirt.

So, how do you quickly sift through companies and find those companies that pay the big bucks?

The advent of ‘bug finder’ websites

Recently, several “matchmaker” websites have launched with the goal of pairing white-hat hackers with companies looking to improve their cybersecurity. These websites accumulate hackers, coders and programmers and offer their crowdsourcing services to companies. In exchange, the companies pay the matchmaker website a user fee and a bounty to the hacker who finds and reports a bug in the software or online platform.

Here are four websites where would-be hackers can sign up and earn bug bounties:

Bugcrowd

This website pairs a community of over 22,000 white-hat hackers with major companies including Microsoft, Tumblr, YouTube, etc. Hackers can sign up on Bugcrowd’s website and then apply to work on listed projects. Hackers can also submit independent bug reports to the corporations via Bugcrowd’s secure platform.

HackerOne

This website pairs companies with a community of hacker researchers who send vulnerability reports whenever a bug or security issue is detected. The companies are notified privately, so that any security issues can be addressed and corrected before malicious hackers and other online criminals become aware of them.

Hackers are rewarded for their efforts with monetary bounties. Example companies that work with HackerOne include Twitter, LinkedIn, Adobe and Snapchat.

Cobalt

Clients like Optimizely, LendInvest, Auctionata, Nexmo and Weebly use Cobalt to set up and operate bug bounty programs that expose cybersecurity risks. Security researchers (i.e., hackers) can sign up to this site and work with its roster of clients to find and report bugs.

While this is a newer website and doesn’t have as many clients as Bugcrowd or HackerOne, it does offer decent sized bounties from its current client list, with many bounties ranging from $100-$1,000.

Synack

This recently launched company sets slightly higher IT standards for its “Red Team” members, and you’ll need to submit a resume and cover letter to apply for a position. However, if you have some IT training or experience, you should get some response. This is because Synack works with a team of cybersecurity experts who are paid bounties for discovering and reporting bugs.

The Bottom Line

Bug finder websites are a win-win for both the client companies involved as well as their hackers. The companies draw from a large pool of brainpower rather than one or two in-house IT experts. They also don’t pay by the hour but by the product, which in this case is the bug. The hackers, meanwhile, are paid a large sum of money for finding those security bugs and alerting the respective companies.

10 Reasons to Sell Your Own Digital Products

Written By:
Published On:

Being an internet marketer isn’t just about promoting other people’s products. Sure, there’s money to be made doing that, but there’s even more money to be made selling your own products.

Of course, selling physical products has a lot of issues, such as production, storage, shipping, staffing and more.

The overheads and risks for physical products can be quite high, so why bother with all that when you can go digital!

There are plenty of reasons why you should consider this option, but if you’re not sure here are my top 10 reasons to sell your own digital products.

1. Startup Costs & Overhead Are Minimal

Seriously, the cost of setting up a digital business, can be incredibly low, pretty much all you need is a computer, an internet connection and some time.

Most digital products that you will sell you can either create yourself or use ready made products like PLR content. Creating the products yourself is definitely the way to get started, and the cost is simply time and effort.

Even selling the products can be free by using marketplaces, free websites and e-commerce sites.

The cost of setting up your own e-commerce site can also be really cheap: some basic hosting and a domain, WordPress and Easy Digital Downloads and you’re good to go!

Of course you will likely run into some costs as the business grows, but it’s easy to get started for under $10 a month – try that with a brick and mortar shop!

2. The Risks Are Few

Alongside a limited if any investment cost, the risks associated with selling digital products are quite few. At worst you would need to refund some people and cover the cost of your website. There’s no actual inventory to be concerned about or shipping costs to incur. In fact the only major issue you need to worry about is the law, especially regarding taxes.

3. Full Control

The absolute best thing about selling digital products online is that you have full control! You can decide what to sell and where, and you get to shape the products to be the best they can be.

It’s also the scariest aspect, but that comes with the territory!

4. Make Once, Sell a Thousand (Or More!)

If you had told people 60 years ago that you could make a product once and sell it a thousand or even a million times, they’d cart you off as a scam artist.

Nowadays though, all you need to do is create a product once and you can sell it as is numerous times.

You may need to do some tweaks and changes, depending on the product, software for example needs regular updates, and even e-books need to be tweaked occasionally to cater for changing information, but these will likely be smaller things that don’t impact too much on your time.

5. Passive Income

Earn money while you sleep! The great thing about digital sales is that they are automated, so you don’t need to actually be there to process the sales.

Passive income is a bit of a skewed term though, because you have to remember that even though the sales happen passively, you still need to actively promote and market your goods, even if you are using a third party marketplace.

6. Excellent Mark-up

Have you ever heard that most meals in a restaurant have anywhere between a 200% and 1000% mark-up?

Digital sales are the same. The cost to produce the content is usually very low, so the actual sales price has a very high profit margin. This is why you see so many internet marketing products with large affiliate commissions; they can afford to do it while physical product sales simply don’t have the room for it.

7. Helps You to Become A Brand

You may have heard it in the past where experts in the internet marketing field suggest that you become your brand. Well selling digital products allows you to do that.

You may have heard of the very successful WordPress plugin “WordPress SEO”. It’s made by a guy call Joost de Valk, more commonly known by his online pseudonym Yoast. He is so well known that the WordPress SEO plugin was eventually renamed Yoast SEO and everything he does has his pseudonym in it.

This is the power of branding yourself, and you can use your products to make your name in your niche.

8. Opportunities for Partnerships & Joint Ventures

OK, so having a digital product doesn’t automatically mean that you’re in a better position to find partnerships, but it makes it a damn sight easier.

You can easily add your product as a download bonus for others with little work, and no infrastructure needed (because they will just add it into their own e-commerce system).

9. A Powerful Affiliate Program

Mentioned briefly above, because you have a higher profit margin, you can afford to provide better affiliate commissions. This is turn leads to more people willing to promote your product (people are inherently greedy) and thus increase the number of sales you get.

Sure you get less per sale, but increase the overall number of sales and widen your market at the same time. It’s a winning situation.

10. Leverage Other Platforms

Even though setting up your own e-commerce site really isn’t that hard or expensive, sometimes you want to take advantage of existing traffic.

Digital products allow you to easily add the product to multiple online marketplaces, such as:

  • Amazon.com for ebooks
  • Themeforest for website templates
  • Google Play and Apple App Store for apps
  • Creative Market for design elements
  • and many more

These marketplaces have pros and cons. The biggest pro being you get a lot of free targeted traffic that should be interested in the type of product you’re selling.

The major con is that they will take a chunk of your sale amount, and it’s usually quite hefty – 35 -50% or more is not unheard of.

What Sort of Digital Products Can You Sell?

The other great thing about selling digital products is that there is a wide variety of things you can produce and sell:

  • Ebooks
  • Videos
  • Photos
  • Music and sounds
  • Software
  • Design elements
  • Memberships
  • Online events
  • Online tools

The Bottom Line

However you look at it, selling digital products is relatively easy, and has the potential to be very profitable.

If you are just promoting other people’s work, you really should consider starting to promote your own as well, as it is an excellent alternative revenue stream.

Even if you suck at producing content, you can always hire a freelancer to do it for you and release it under your own name (make sure you agree that with the freelancer though!).

Have you ever released your own products? How did it go? Let me know in the comments.

9 Ways to Make Money This Valentine’s Day

Written By:
Published On:

Valentine’s Day may have started off with best intentions, but nowadays that one day a year is a commercial juggernaut earning businesses worldwide billions of dollars.

You don’t need to be a big business to take advantage of this day of lovers. In fact there are many ways you too can make a profit while everyone else is canoodling in a corner!

Here are my 9 ways to make money on Valentine’s Day.

#1 Hand Craft Some Cards

If you are of the arty persuasion, making custom handmade valentines card is a sure fire winner.

More and more people are swaying away from the mass produced greetings cards for Valentine’s Day, in an effort to prove their love. Custom cards can certainly fill that void, but you need to get in early, as last minute shoppers will surely just hit Hallmarks!

Etsy is most likely the best place to sell these unique creations of yours.

#2 Sell Flowers

The hardest part about selling flowers for Valentine’s Day is finding a good supplier.

If you do the leg work and find a florist or wholesaler who will sell a bunch of roses for $20 bucks or so, you can easily double or triple the asking price, turning a solid profit.

Sell them via a stand on the day or set up a website and do some social media advertising to bring in the punters.

Even if you decide to not bother selling them direct, there are numerous florists that offer an affiliate commission for leads that purchase.  You can earn around 6% – 10% per sale depending on the florist, which is better than Amazon!

These florists offer affiliate programs, and there’s likely more that also offer one if you do some research:

#3 Home Made Chocolates and Baked Goods

If your artistry takes a more culinary bend, then why not offer homemade delicacies to people the day before and on the day itself?

The only downside to this is that you will need to make sure you follow any legislation regarding selling food stuffs in your area, so as not to fall foul of the law.

#4 Babysitting

Couples love to spend some romantic time together on Valentine’s but those of us with kids generally have a hard time finding someone to look after the whipper snappers!

While you can only get the one gig, you can charge a premium for it. The average babysitting gig pays $12.45 per hour, but you can easily hit the $20 or more per hour for this special day!

#5 Serenade for Money

If you have a deliciously deep or exquisite voice, why not put that to use and offer a serenade at peoples restaurant tables?

Clear it with a few restaurants (perhaps by offering them a cut), and you can sell your singing services directly there!

Another option would be busking, but with a more romantic feel to the songs than those typically chosen by sidewalk artists.

#6 Singles Speed Dating (or Party)

Why lavish all your energy on those who will be celebrating? Why not consider those who are unloved on this overly romantic day?

You could set up either a meet and greet style party for single people, or go the whole hog and set up a speed dating night.

While most bars and restaurants will be focusing on lovers, you will be able to find other venues for to hire quite easily even if they don’t offer liquid refreshments (which is a plus if they do!).

Speed dating events can be quite the little profit maker and it could even become a regular gig if things go well for you.

#7 A One Day Taxi Service

With companies like Lyft and Uber making it incredibly easy for anyone to become a one man taxi firm, you could spend the night ferrying lovers to and fro and earning a solid amount of cash from it.

#8 Romantic Photos

If you have a good eye for a photo, pick up a Polaroid camera and head out onto the streets. Snapping some romantic moments of people on the street is a great way to make some cash.

Your average Polaroid picture will cost around $3, so selling them for $5 or more is a good way to make some quick cash.

You can even set up a stall with a romantic background for more formal photos.

If you’d prefer to reduce potential cost (taking a Polaroid and not being able to sell it), then why not use a digital DSLR camera and take down peoples details/deposit and print the photos later.

#9 Impromptu Poetry

The idea here is to take a few facts such as the couple’s names, when or where they met, interests etc. and turn it into some romantic or novel poetry.

You could sell these online, or if you’re good at creating on the fly, set up a small stall.

There are potentially a few options as well: just the raw poem, it printed on fancy paper, hand written on hand crafted paper and so on.

The Bottom Line

There are lots of ways to make money on Valentine’s Day that don’t require you to be a big business, and that can even lead to future gigs and earnings. A lot of it depends on your own skills and talents, but whether you’re a singer, a cook or a web expert, there’s no excuse not to cash in on Valentine’s Day (well, unless your other half has something to say about it!).

What’s your favorite way to make money in February?

Make Money By Teaching Your Passion

Written By:
Published On:

The internet has many uses, but perhaps the most important thing you can do with the internet is watch cat videos, watch videos of people getting hurt, learn something!

That’s right; the internet is a huge resource for anyone wanting to learn practically anything.

How then, can you turn this to your advantage and make money off of the internet? In a word, teach!

You might be thinking, “but I don’t know anything” or “I can’t teach” or even “I don’t have the qualifications”.

Well, you’re wrong on all counts.

“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.”
― William Arthur Ward

Knowing Things

Everyone knows something or is good at something even if you don’t realise it.

You don’t need to teach things like physics or history (unless you’re good at them of course!) as there are many other skills and subjects that not everyone knows.

Here are some examples of things you can teach that fall way outside your school curriculum.

Cleaning

Everyone has a friend who is messy and cluttered, and sometimes it’s not down to laziness. In our modern age some life skills are simply not passed down from parent.

Beer Brewing

With craft beer having a resurgence, if you know how to make your own beer, people would love to learn from you.

Cooking & Baking

If an 8 year old can make $127,00 a month just from YouTube, imagine what you could do with YouTube and a course!

Life Skills

As with cleaning, life skills need to be imparted and often they aren’t. You can teach people a wide variety of tricks and tips that make life easier and better.

Knitting & Crochet

From scarves to jumpers, knitting is not as easy to learn so teaching people is the way to go.

Applying Makeup

There is a huge market for tips, tricks and techniques for applying makeup, from every day wear and party makeup to film standard makeup.

Being Thrifty

It’s amazing how much money people waste! If you are a penny pincher and know a great deal from a bad one, you can teach people how to save money.

Fishing

Yup, fishing. If you know your fly from your worm (I don’t obviously) then people will be willing to learn from you.

Making cloths and costumes

If you have made your own clothes or costumes before, then you have a wide market to target. You could focus on actual everyday wear, or party clothes or costumes for LARP or Cosplay.

Maintaining cars/equipment

If like me you are not engineering minded and want to fix something like a broken tail light without incurring the cost of a mechanic, the only way to do it is to learn from the internet. You could teach this!

The above list is far, far from complete, but it should give you an idea that there are a million and one topics you can teach about.

Your own life skills and experience will obviously push you in a certain direction with these, but as you can see, people want to know things that they can’t find in any academic book, and you can easily profit from teaching people things like this.

No such thing as can’t

Being a teacher on the internet isn’t like being a classroom teacher, and anyone can do it. All you need is a solid understanding of what you are going to teach and the willingness to get on camera to do it (depending on the niche you might get away with just your voice).

Qualifications are (mostly) meaningless

Unless you’re planning on teaching something like law or medicine, qualifications are really not needed.

I mean, who has a qualification in knitting? You might have 15 years’ experience with fixing cars but no qualifications: that’s fine!

As long as your teachings show that you have the experience and knowledge no one is going to care whether or not you have a slip of paper.

Teaching Methods

As with any form of making money online there are a few ways to actually teach, such as in written form, audio and video.

Honestly though if you’re going to focus on teaching as a method of making money then you will need to mainly use video.

By all means back this up with written articles where necessary, but for most topics and most students a visual way of learning is better: they see and then do.

The most straightforward way of earning from learning is to use a service like YouTube and offer out interesting and useful short videos, and link back to your website where people can gain access to your full course on whatever it is you are teaching.

For example, if you are a costumer you could post videos on creating small pieces or how to correctly hide a seam or a review/study on a material type. In your actual course you could walk people through creating a full costume from scratch and add in even more tips and tricks.

WordPress Makes it Easy

Actually selling courses might sound like a difficult procedure, but if you’re a WordPress user then there are numerous plugins you could be using to make it simple to sell your teachings:

Course Specific plugins

Obviously a plugin that is purely for selling courses is usually the best option. There are several options, but Sensei by Woothemes is very popular. Other than that there is the excellent WPCourseware, and the free CoursePress.

E-commerce plugins

This type of plugin isn’t the best for selling courses but you can do it. I recommend either Woocommerce or Easy Digital Downloads. Both offer free core plugins.

Membership plugins

Membership plugins are probably better for selling courses than e-commerce plugins, but their setup up can be more complicated especially if you want to sell more than one course separately. S2Member and Members by Justin Tadlock are both solid membership plugins for WordPress.

Training Marketplaces

Depending on your niche, you don’t even need your own website or marketing (though both are still recommended). Instead you could leverage the power of existing sites that sell course.

There are dozens of places you can sell your training:

This is not an exhaustive list so be sure to do your research.

As with anything, make sure you read through the site’s terms and payment options.

Make sure that your niche is a good fit for their audience, you can do this by seeing if anything in your niche or similar is already listed or not.

The Bottom Line

We all have skills and knowledge that we can leverage to make a buck online, and selling your skills in a training course is a very profitable way to do it.

Remember that in order to sell a course you need to give away enough value to prove that you and your course are worthy!

Is Mystery Shopping Really Worth the Effort?

Written By:
Last Updated:

For those of you who may not have heard of mystery shopping, it is an information gathering and quality assurance tool used by market research companies on behalf of their commercial clients. Mystery shopping may also be used by watchdog organizations or even companies themselves to measure certain parameters such as customer service, product selection, agent fairness, etc. The mystery shoppers who are contraced by the market research company or other establishment do not (usually) disclose their identity to the surveyed shop but act as typical customers.

They are also sent to the surveyed shop with a specific set of instructions; for example, a mystery shopper surveying a restaurant may be asked to observe whether the hot items on the restaurant’s buffet table are actually hot. When the mystery shopper has finished surveying the assigned shop, he or she fills out a detailed questionnaire at home and submits receipts. Once that paperwork has been successfully filed, the mystery shopper is reimbursed.

There are many market research companies that offer mystery shopping to everyday folks like you and me as a way of making extra money. There is no special training required to become a mystery shopper; in most cases, you simply submit your personal and contact information to the company and then check for shops that fit your profile. However, some mystery shopping companies do ask that potential shoppers go through their certification program before those shoppers can receive assignments. This certification ensures that the shoppers know and understand the company’s guidelines before engaging in mystery shopping. In such cases, the certification program is specific to the hiring company and is free.

For mystery shoppers who would like to get immediate preference on assignments from mystery shopping companies, the Mystery Shopping Providers Association, or MSPA, provides two levels of certification, termed Silver and Gold. These certifications are not free. Keep in mind that no mystery shopping company should require you to have MSPA Silver or Gold certification before you can start accepting shop assignments; however, having one or both of these certificates helps you get more and better assignments.

Focus on Cash Back Instead

We’re big believers here at optimizing your earnings while you spend time online. We highly recommend clicking here to create a free account at SwagBucks. You can get a percentage back on everything you spend online. It’s free to join and they’ve paid out over $115 million so far. Plus, you get a $5.00 bonus offer just for creating an account.

Mystery Shopping Scams

As with almost any work-at-home opportunity, there are mystery shopping scams out there too. “Middleman” sites that appear to be legitimate mystery shopping companies on the outside will ask you to pay an up-front or monthly membership fee before you receive mystery shopping assignments from them. Once you pay that fee, you receive the shopping assignments; however, these assignments would’ve been available for free had you gone to the mystery shopping companies directly instead of through the middleman site.

One of the best ways to ensure that you aren’t getting scammed is to check if the mystery shopping company is a member of the MSPA. Not every legitimate company belongs to the MSPA, but if it does, you can be assured that it is legitimate.

Is there money in mystery shopping?

So, how much money can you make through mystery shopping? Here is an example shop assignment that I completed not long ago:

We are currently looking for shoppers for great Italian restaurant shops in Madison WI.

Reimbursement amount is up to $70.

Shop must be performed with at least 2 adult diners.

We have lunch and dinner shops available in April and May. Shopper and guest must order two different entrees, a side dish and appetizer or dessert plus beverages. Children are welcome.

As you can see, this assignment did not make me money per se but I did get two free meals out of the deal. The shop report that had to be filled out within 24 hours of completing this assignment was rather lengthy and involved. Still- two free meals!

Here is another shop assignment that I applied for a few months ago (but was not assigned):

This batch of shops can be performed by a female or male shopper shopping alone or by a couple pretending to be getting married.

The main person doing this shop must be over 18.

Whether shopping alone or as a couple you need play the role as someone who is part of a committed couple looking for bridal sets. You can also perform the shop as though you are part of an established couple looking for “the set we couldn’t afford the first time.”

I need detail oriented shoppers between who are reliable and can write well.

These shops normally take between 15 and 20 minutes.

You are not required to make a purchase.

For this shop, you will be scheduled to go to a specific jewelry store. In order to complete this shop correctly, you will:

–Call ahead to the location ahead of time and ask their operating hours and confirm the address.
–You will visit the designated jewelry store, as a couple who is looking for engagement rings and wedding sets.
–Obtain a business card from the location.
–Submit your well written shop online within 24 hours.

Each shop pays $20 via Paypal.

As you can see, this assignment involves a call and visit to a jewelry store followed by a written evaluation of the shop. The compensation is only $20. Depending on where you live and how long it takes for you to visit and evaluate the shop, you could easily spend two hours on this assignment.

The Bottom Line With Mystery Shopping

To begin with, mystery shopping is not a scam but neither is it a full-time or even steady job. If you sign up with several mystery shopping companies, you will probably be doing 1-2 assignments per day at the rough equivalent of $10/hour. In some cases, your compensation will not be monetary and may include free meals, clothing, oil changes, product discounts, etc.

Personally, I’ve been able to do mystery shopping only because I’m now a full-time freelance writer and can therefore set my own work hours. Back when I was employed with an outside company, there was no way I could mystery shop around my work schedule. In many cases, the assigned shops had a completion hour assigned to them and that time typically occurred during business hours.

I’m not the biggest fan of mystery shopping but I’ve seen some of my friends “work it” and make several hundred bucks every month. As for me, I spend way too much effort on the assignments to really make them worth my time (which could be spent writing). Also, with gas prices rising ever higher, it’s hard to justify driving all over town for an extra $20.

Mystery Shopping Companies That I Have Worked With:

Here is a list of some legitimate mystery shopping companies that I have been associated with and some company reviews:

Confero Inc.

KSS International: This company offers shop assignments that pay anywhere from $5-$20 as well as high paying assignments like $40 oil changes. Payout is really slow though; my last assignment took almost two months to pay out by Paypal. I don’t do new shops with KSS until I’m paid, so I’ve done only three shops with them thus far.

NSite Inc.
SurfMerchants LLC
Synovate
Summit Scheduling

TrendSource: This site passes out a lot of easy-to-do mystery shops that pay $8-$20/each. However, I did have trouble with a Papa John’s assignment that was rejected on the basis of my photos- and similar complaints against PJ’s have been heard from other mystery shoppers. Payout is twice a month by direct deposit or check. Canada/UK payout is by Paypal only.

If you’d like to find mystery shopping companies in your geographic area, you can do an online search using keywords like “mystery shopping” and input your town or region. Alternately, you can peruse the mystery shopping member list published by MSPA and find out if any of the listed companies operate in your area.

How to Make Money Online Even if You’re “Just a Kid”

Written By:
Last Updated:

Summer’s coming and you want to make extra money- but you don’t want to be mowing Mrs. Meyer’s lawn again. The paper route is also not for you especially since someone ran over your bicycle. And your parents’ allowance just isn’t cutting it, not when you want to by cool stuff like the Xbox Kinect or PlayStation Vita.

The good news is that there are plenty of things you can do online to earn extra cash. The bad news is that many of these online sites require that you be 18 years of age or older. So, what can you do to make money online if you’re “just a kid”?

Browse the Web, Play Games, Watch Videos

If I told you could get paid to watch videos of cats on YouTube all day, would there even be a moment of hesitation on your part? Well it’s true. Create a free SwagBucks account and you can get paid to do just about anything you already do online. It’s free to join, you get a $5.00 offer just for signing up, and if you use the code IVETRIEDTHAT3 you’ll get a surprise cash bonus on top of the $5.00.

Swagbucks Bonus Code

Submit Content

Do you like to write, take pictures or create videos? If you said yes and are at least 13 years of age, you can get paid for submitting your content to websites like Helium, Triond and Gather. These sites are revenue-sharing sites that pay you based on the popularity (i.e., page views) of your content. Helium pays you through Paypal, Triond pays you through Paypal, check or Western Union, and Gather pays you through points that are redeemable for gift cards or cash through Paypal.

With Helium, you first need to find a channel that matches the topic of your proposed article. Once your article is submitted, other Helium users will rate it based on its quality relative to existing articles in the same channel. If your article lands in one of the top five spots of that particular channel, it will be featured and accumulate page views. Triond allows you to submit content in your choice of category and pays you 50% of your page view-generated revenue. The site also offers an online forum where you can make friends with fellow writers.

Gather is a content sharing site to which you can submit articles, photos or videos. You also earn by commenting on content submitted by other members. To purchase gift cards or obtain cash from your activities, Gather does require the involvement (i.e., consent) of your parent or guardian.

If you are 14 years of age or older, you can write for Xomba, another revenue sharing site that pays you through Google AdSense. Squidoo requires that its contributors be at least 18 years of age but will accept you if your parent or guardian acts as a proxy for you. This means that your parent or guardian needs to write a note to Squidoo authorizing your account.

Blog

If you already have a large online following and would rather keep all of your online earnings, creating and posting content to your own blog is a great way to make money online. Most online bloggers use Google AdSense as a way to generate online income.

You can create your own blog from scratch using a free program like WordPress and then pay a small fee for your own unique website address and hosting from a site like HostGator. Alternately, there are blog creation sites like Blogger, MyBlogSite and My Yahoo! Blog that allow you to post (and monetize) your content for free. The only catch with the above-mentioned free sites is that your blog’s web address will include a reference to that free site (e.g., http://www.yourblogname.blogspot.com/).

Fill Out Surveys

Is there a computer game that you recently played and can review? Do you like to shop at a particular store? Is there one brand name that you prefer over another? If so, then you can get paid for taking online surveys. If you are at least 13 years age, you can complete surveys posted by the following companies:

American Consumer Opinion
Cash Crate (with parent/guardian permission)
NPD Online Research
Palm Research
Squishy Cash
TeenEyes
Toluna

Most of these companies pay via Paypal, but some do send checks by mail. Other companies allow you to “cash out” by trading in your money or points for gift cards.

Create Your Own Job

What if you have a talent for singing, can create an animated cartoon, or are good at programming? Fiverr allows you to post odd jobs that you will do for just $5. Keep in mind that Fiverr pays you only $4 out of the $5 that you earn through the site- but hey, it’s still $4 that you didn’t have before. Fiverr payments are made via Paypal.

Sell Stuff

Ebay is by far the #1 site to sell stuff online, from your old textbooks to that itchy sweater your Aunt Sally gave you for your birthday. Ebay’s policy regarding underage members is pretty clear:

“You must be at least 18 years old to be an eBay member. A person under 18 can use an adult’s account with the permission of the account holder. However, the account holder is responsible for everything done with that account.”

So, if you can prove that you are trustworthy to your folks, you should be able to sell (or buy) on Ebay.

The problem with Google AdSense and Paypal

Many other sites are open to minors beyond those listed above. However, the major problem with many of these sites is that, even if they do permit underage user sign-ups, their payment structures are largely geared towards Google AdSense and/or Paypal account holders. In case you didn’t know, both AdSense and Paypal require their users to be 18 years of age or older.

There is a way around this age requirement, however, and again, it goes back to your parents or guardians. An adult Google AdSense account holder can allow a minor to use his or her AdSense code. Likewise, a parent or guardian can set up a student Paypal account for a minor, allowing that minor to collect money online through any site that pays via Paypal. So, now’s the time to show your folks how responsible and trustworthy you can be.

How are you making money online? Share a tip below!

Can You Make Money with Project Payday?

Written By:
Last Updated:

This is the last scheduled post we’ll be doing with Project Payday. This post will provide you with an in-depth look at the process Cheryl went through in order to make money with the program. Can you make money with Project Payday? Absolutely. Is it worth the trouble? Well, keep reading.

Making Money with Project Payday

As a follow up to my prior story about Project PayDay (PPD), I wanted to let others know about the process. I did make money, but it wasn’t much, and it wasn’t easy.

On January 7th I paid $34.95 to PPD for access to their program. Since this money was reimbursed by I’ve Tried That, it will not be included in my final total.

On the evening of January 7th, after reading the materials provided by PPD, I decided to do a few things to protect myself. First, I created a e-mail address just for the purpose of PPD. I then registered with Rememberthemilk.com to keep track of my offers, opened a spreadsheet to keep track of my transactions, and then registered and logged in to a forum recommended by PPD. I also made sure my PayPal plugin was up to date. Now, I was ready to start making money right away.

Going Green

I went into a forum called “Paying for Referrals” and started clicking links. There were hundreds of them, all claiming they helped newbies, or offering bonus payouts, or the biggest payouts. I wasn’t sure where to start, so I picked a name that sounded friendly. I sent her a private message and offered to “go green” for her. While I waited for her response I found another buyer who would pay bonuses on any referrals after the first one. I also sent a private message to her, picking two of her sites.

In the meantime, the first buyer had responded with a referral link and instructions on how to confirm the trade agreement between us. She offered very explicit instructions on how to go green as quickly as possible. It is a complicated dance of emptying the cache in your browser, waiting 5 minutes or more once the offer is completed, etc. I took the referral link, signed in, completed an offer and “went green” within an hour. I reported back to her that I was green, and she confirmed this, but informed me that the site was “pay on approval” which meant she wouldn’t pay me until the site approved her gift, which would take 3-4 days. She had a good trade rating, so I was irritated, but not overly concerned.

The second buyer responded and gave me links to both of the sites that I had requested for her. I logged in to the first one and completed an offer within minutes. I reported back to her right away, but she informed me that this was a “one credit” site, meaning that I had to complete one full credit worth of offers before I would be green. The offer I had completed was a one-third credit, so I still needed to do two-thirds more credits worth of offers to go green.

The site had 50 or so offers on it, and most of them either (1) cost more than I was making on the trade or (2) were less than one-quarter of a credit. I was frustrated, but completed three offers on one site, and two on the other by 10 p.m. that night.

Unfortunately, in the world of trading, most “instant credit” offers don’t credit instantly to your account (and some never credit at all). By the time I logged off at 11 p.m., I had still not greened on either site for the second buyer, and the first buyer wouldn’t be paying me for 3-4 days. Not counting the PPD program fee, I had spent $18.89 in offers and made exactly $0.00.

The site went green overnight, so I sent a private message to the buyer and she sent me payment of $35.00 (less PayPal’s take of $1.32). I was finally in the black, to the tune of $14.79. For 5 hours work the night before, I had made a whopping $2.96 per hour.

The $68.00 Headache.

I completed the rest of the offers for that buyer on the second site, and received payment for that site and the original site, as well as for a third buyer during the weekend. By Sunday, January 11th I had paid out $24.88 in offers, been paid $90.00, and paid $3.42 in PayPal commissions, which meant I’d cleared $61.70 from Thursday to Sunday. Only I hadn’t.

When I logged in Sunday morning, my PayPal balance was $0.00. How could this be?

I noticed a charge from a jewelry company for $68.00 that hadn’t been there before. I checked the name of the company against my notes in Remember the Milk and looked at the terms and conditions. According to those terms, I would pay $9.00 for a sample piece of jewelry, which would arrive in 10-14 days. If I liked it (or did not cancel), they would send me another two pieces in about 14 days from the initial order all for the low, low price of $68.00 per month. I had copied and pasted these terms to the notes section of the calendar. Sure enough, I had only placed the original order just four days prior.

Monday morning I called the company and canceled the order, asking them to refund my money immediately. They did, but only the original $9.00 I spent on the introductory piece. This credited 3 days later. When I called to find out where my $68.00 refund was, I was told that the second shipment had already gone out (I hadn’t received the first shipment yet!) and I needed to return it in order to get the refund. The introductory piece arrived that day, and the second shipment a few days later.

In the meantime I had completed another $3.95 worth of offers, received a $25 payment less the PayPal commission of $1.03. My grand total after seven days work? $22.72. Not exactly stellar income.

During the week I was also doing the second part of the job: canceling all of those offers. Since I had kept pretty meticulous records, this was rather simple. When completing an offer, I would copy and paste ALL of the terms and conditions into the note portion of Remember the Milk, then set a reminder for 1-2 days before the drop dead date to call and cancel the offer before those “monthly membership fees” kicked in. The vast majority of those offers were very easy to cancel. All I had to do was call the toll free number during the regular business hours and the operator would cancel and give me a cancellation confirmation.

So far, no additional charges have appeared on any of the accounts used to complete the offers. And what about the jewelry charge? I finally got a refund, a full 33 days after they charged my account.

The Bottom Line

Grand total earned: $84.42.

(Our recommendation: Your time is better spent at a free site, like SwagBucks, where they offer $5.00 just for signing up.)

I also got over 1,500 spam e-mails and more than 30 phone calls from the companies that I had placed orders through. The e-mail I set up for this purpose now gets over 400 spam e-mails per day.

So can you make money with PPD? Yes, but I’m convinced you can’t do it with Method 1.

You definitely can’t make money through PPD without thorough record-keeping and an excellent reminder system. Even with those things, some of the offer programs do not abide by their own terms and conditions. You end up doing business with companies like Google Profit System and Free Government Grants (both programs I’ve Tried That has railed against in the past month). Just today on the forums I read a story about someone who signed up for a trial offer and had the full $300+ taken from his account just days later. His mortgage payment and his car payment both bounced, and the company’s only response was that it was a computer glitch and they would refund the money. Meanwhile, this man has late fees and returned check fees to pay.

PPD’s trade program is risky business. From what I’ve seen, it doesn’t seem to be worth the cost.

Still interested? Click here to check out Project Payday.

Cheryl is a writer located in Southwest Florida. She’s been great to work with. Be sure to send some love and check out her blog at: http://www.cliopatra.net/