How to get started working online

“Make money online” is a buzz word of late and has generated lots of controversies in recent past. Some people believe you can make money legitimately online while others think it is a hoax.

 

Now, here is what you need to know; making money online is real and it does work, however, there is a lot of misinformation about making money online and a lot of people have been deceived into get-rich-quick scheme through which they were bitten hard.

 

The first thing you need to come to terms with is that working online or doing business online isn’t less of work and you should be ready for it. The real advantage of the internet is that it removes some of the physical constraint required to work typically. E.g. Having an office, equipping it with the needed infrastructure and going there everyday. The internet also opens you to unbounded opportunities to take tasks and jobs.

 

For every money you want to make online, it is important to ask yourself, what am I giving back in return? Money, time, skill,  etc. If you are struggling to answer this question, then you probably have to review a couple of things.

 

Making money online is best done by giving value back, it could be in the form of providing some services with your skill/time or perhaps selling a product. Every money made online comes through someone directly or indirectly because of the value you have given back in return.

 

Let’s see a few examples;

 

Teaching: With English being one of the most spoken languages, people continually learn how to speak English for both academic and immigration purposes. The ability to provide this service would provide you money in return.

 

Software testing: With the proliferation of software, tech is being closely integrated into our lifestyle through application/software development. There has been an ever growing need to develop more apps, however, here comes a problem. An app that doesn’t work as intended is at the risk of being abandoned by the customer. So therefore, Product owner ensures that their product are fit-for-purpose by having user test them and pays for this service. This ensures problem are quickly fixed by the programmer before the finish product is released to the public.

Research: Business people when trying to create a new product wants to know what people think about their product. This saves them the cost of developing a product which user perceives as not useful.

Information marketing: This involves sharing information to people, which can be in the form of an ebook, audiobook, video material on an area of interest. People having challenges in this area of interest buys the product to gain knowledge to solve their problem.

 

Affiliate Marketing: This is actually selling someone else product which could be physical or digital and you get paid a commission per unit sold. 

 

ECommerce: eCom is a multi-billion dollar industry where products (physical and/or digital) are sold to customers and money is made back in return. It removes the burden of users having to go to store for purchases, thereby saving them time, money and energy.

 

Other opportunities include: translation service, web application development, UI/UX design, data analysis, accounting, nursing, consultant

 

Having a value preclude making money online, if you can’t identify the value you are providing, then you may need to build some skill or identify a need and solve it with a product/service. Without any value addition, hoping to make money online could be a mirage and the onset of frustration.