Check your email or visit almost any site on the internet and you’ll be greeted with banner ads and missives promising to make you rich from the comfort of your sofa. Unfortunately, the veracity of these claims is dubious at best and criminal at worst. That said, there are legitimate ways to make money online. They may not always be easy and they may take some discipline, but with the right mindset and skills, you can carve out a living online (or at least make some side cash). Here are five legit ways to do it.
- Social Media Manager
Got the chops to make pithy posts and the smarts to use pics and graphics that grab attention? More and more, businesses are connecting with their base using social media, an arena where potential customers are bombarded with companies marketing to them. Because of this, businesses want people with a good feel for how to reach a target audience, build a brand image and connect with users. Being successful as a social media manager means more than just adding fun posts — it’s all about finding the right tone, staying on brand and using SEO to reach the right consumers.
Unless you’ve got a degree in business or marketing, you may want to start small and work your way up to bigger and bigger brands. According to the site Payscale.com, social media managers make an average annual salary of $50,040.
- Online Tutor
If you’ve got the skills, you can pay the bills by becoming an online tutor. If you’re particularly proficient at math, English, a foreign language or any other subject for which people might seek your expertise, online tutoring is always a viable option. You can hook up with tutoring sites that connect you with clients (for a cut, of course) or you can start your own site and use your marketing and networking skills to find clients.
According to Glassdoor.com, the average salary for an online tutor was $23,245 a year (math tutors took home $26k).
- Virtual Assistant
Administrative assistant used to be an in-person position but, with the ubiquity of technology, assistant positions have moved into the virtual realm. Virtual assistants might do all sorts of things for a business:
- Plan schedules for the workplace
- Arrange meetings with clients
- Make or take phone calls
- Facilitate communication between management and employees
- Organize the boss’s personal life
- Handle emails
Nailing down a salary for virtual assistants isn’t easy because pay depends largely on the company and your experience. Some earn around $10 an hour while others in high-profile assistant positions could fetch as much as $50 an hour.
- Writer/Editor
If you’re the grammar guru of your group or you’ve got a way with words, you may be able to find work as a writer or editor. Much of the world is online now, so writing jobs you can do in your slippers can be found in almost any industry.
- Branded content. Fresh, unique content drives traffic and businesses crave traffic. If you can develop grammatically correct, click-friendly, search-engine-optimized copy, you’re likely to land a gig with any number of content creating companies.
- Technical writing. Technical writers make the complex simple; they might write complicated business proposals, press releases or instruction manuals for a new product.
- Blog writing. Blog writers create content they’re passionate about, which could include teaching people a skill, writing humorous stories about life, reviewing media or ranting about issues in the world. If you can get enough people to read your stuff, you can monetize it by selling advertising, sponsored posts or affiliate marketing.
- Computer Programmer
According to a 2015 study conducted by Quartz, computer programming is the field with the most remote workers. It makes sense — programmers already spend their days on the computer and companies can save on physical infrastructure and employee perks by taking on flexible, at-home workers. Computer programmers often need at least a bachelor’s degree but the beauty of this type of work is that it speaks for itself. You can either program or you can’t and an employer will be able to see either one right away.
Don’t know how to program? There are plenty of free online programming classes or online programming degree programs that can get you up to speed. If you’ve got the know-how, the organizational skills and the patience, this career can pay off: the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the median salary for computer programmers in 2018 was $84,280.
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