One of the top questions I have received from readers is how to make money blogging. Truthfully, there is no single answer to this question, since there are hundreds of different ways. For this post though, I will write about one popular choice, which is paid posting. Paid posting is usually where companies pay money for you to write reviews of their various products and websites on your blog. Of all paid posting sites, the two that I have heard of most often are payperpost.com, and www.reviewme.com. Both work similarly, except that payperpost seems to focus more on products, while reviewme focuses more on reviewing websites. Basically, you just have to sign up with these companies, and they will contact you whenever they receive something for you to review. Keep in mind, the more traffic your website receives, the higher the pay is. From what I have seen, pay can be anywhere from $5-$300 per post, though it usually averages about $25/post. It all depends on the company which is paying, as well as how popular your blog is. With a little work, you could easily be making money off your blog with these two options.
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Monday
Voicelog Pays Hourly!
I have been receiving many requests for work at home call center jobs (similar to Liveops), but which pay a guaranteed hourly amount. After talking with many other work at home contractors, I found Voicelog, which seems to be a perfect fit. Unlike Liveops, which pays you only for the time you are actually on the phone with customers (and not while you're twiddling your thumbs, waiting for calls), Voicelog pays a guaranteed minimum $8.50/hour and up! Even better, there are no annoying upsells. There are no upfront costs to being an independent contractor for them, and they will provide personal training. Voicelog is currently hiring in all US states except for Alaska and Hawaii.
Instead of selling products, Voicelog is in the business of verifying orders to prevent fraud. Your job would be to talk with customers who had recently ordered products and verify that they wanted what they were being charged for. Though this could be an excellent work at home job, there are a few downsides to consider. For one, unlike with Liveops, you will have to work at least 2 days per week to stay active. Also the smallest block of time is 2 hours, versus only 30 minutes to one hour for other work at home jobs. If this is fine with you, read on.
Below is some additional information, as well as links:
Women Diet Pills
Instead of selling products, Voicelog is in the business of verifying orders to prevent fraud. Your job would be to talk with customers who had recently ordered products and verify that they wanted what they were being charged for. Though this could be an excellent work at home job, there are a few downsides to consider. For one, unlike with Liveops, you will have to work at least 2 days per week to stay active. Also the smallest block of time is 2 hours, versus only 30 minutes to one hour for other work at home jobs. If this is fine with you, read on.
Below is some additional information, as well as links:
- Pay is a guaranteed minimum of $8.50 weekdays, and $9 on weekends.
- Are you Bilingual? Pay is $9 weekdays and $9.50 on weekends.
- Call hours are from 9am-6pm and you can reserve job spots in 2,3,4,5 or 6 hour blocks.
- As usual a noise-free workstation
- PC with Microsoft 2000 or XP (No Macs, no emachines, and sadly for me I'm assuming no Vista)
- Minimum of 1 GB Ram
- Pentium 4 1.6GHz or higher
- IE6 (You can download it at http://www.download.com/ or at http://www.microsoft.com/)
- Excel, Microsoft Word
- Working Printer
- Paid Email Provider that provides enough space to receive fairly large documents (No Yahoo, Gmail, etc. accounts)
- DSL or High-speed Cable
- Recent Antivirus and Adaware software
- AOL Instant Messenger Account (You can get one at: http://www.aim.com/)
- A second phone line (must be already installed) dedicated to accepting inbound calls.
- Phone with no features (no VOIP, no digital phone, no call waiting, voice mail etc...) To find some of the most reliable (and inexpensive) one's, just click the link right under the picture at the top of this blog page.)
- 1 Year of Customer Service Experience
- http://www.voicelog.com/careers/job1.html (I have already covered pretty much everything on this page.)
- http://www.voicelog.com/careers/info.html (Information Page)
- http://www.voicelog.com/careers/faq.html (Frequently Asked Questions Page)
- http://www.voicelog.com/careers/job1app.html (Job Application Page)
Women Diet Pills
Saturday
Work at Home Identity Fraud?
Every year, the number of identity fraud cases increase dramatically, and I often hear people worrying about having their own identity stolen. What I haven't heard mentioned is how this can be a gigantic issue for work at home jobs.
The U.S. government has implemented a law requiring employers to report their employees' earnings to the IRS. Because of this, many work at home companies require you to type in your SSN (Social Security Number) when applying for a job. The problem with this is that scam companies could (or already do) use this law as an excuse to get people's SSNs online. Think about it. When applying for most online jobs, you not only are giving out your SSN, but also your Name, Address, Phone Number, as sometimes even your date of birth. All of these things can easily set a person up to have their identity stolen. Just as an example, I know of many fellow wahms who are extremely careful about avoiding phishing scams and hate giving out their credit card, yet happily type their social security number into any website that offers them a chance of making money online.
We all need to be more careful when applying to work at home jobs. Your social security number is your life, and could never be guarded carefully enough. Even when sites aren't scams, you still should be careful. I recently was applying to work for stay at home job that was well known and 100% legitimate. I had passed all of the certification tests, and was at the form where you have to fill out your SSN number, when I noticed something. The site was not even encrypted! Even when a site is legitimate, if it isn't encrypted, a hacker could easily swoop in and steal your info.
Below is a list of things to look at before applying to an online job.
The U.S. government has implemented a law requiring employers to report their employees' earnings to the IRS. Because of this, many work at home companies require you to type in your SSN (Social Security Number) when applying for a job. The problem with this is that scam companies could (or already do) use this law as an excuse to get people's SSNs online. Think about it. When applying for most online jobs, you not only are giving out your SSN, but also your Name, Address, Phone Number, as sometimes even your date of birth. All of these things can easily set a person up to have their identity stolen. Just as an example, I know of many fellow wahms who are extremely careful about avoiding phishing scams and hate giving out their credit card, yet happily type their social security number into any website that offers them a chance of making money online.
We all need to be more careful when applying to work at home jobs. Your social security number is your life, and could never be guarded carefully enough. Even when sites aren't scams, you still should be careful. I recently was applying to work for stay at home job that was well known and 100% legitimate. I had passed all of the certification tests, and was at the form where you have to fill out your SSN number, when I noticed something. The site was not even encrypted! Even when a site is legitimate, if it isn't encrypted, a hacker could easily swoop in and steal your info.
Below is a list of things to look at before applying to an online job.
- Is the company well known and trusted? To find this out, you will have to do a little research. Google the company's name. If there are no results for it, or many complaints, the company is likely a scam. Next, check the Better Business Bureau (bbb.com) to see if any complaints have been filed against the company. Then, go to a work at home forum ( I prefer using wahm.com) and see if anyone has talked about this business.
- Does the company say that you will make large amounts of money in little or no time? If it says anything like this, leave the site immediately.
- Is your information encrypted and secure when you send it to them? The way to check for this is to see if a picture of a lock
appears either in the upper or lower toolbar of Internet Explorer when on the company's page. I recommend downloading the new Internet Explorer 7 on your computer as an added benefit, as the address bar of your computer will turn green when you are on a secure website. - Lastly, trust your instincts. If the site seems like a scam, don't put in your info! Hopefully, these tips will help to keep your identity secure as you search for work at home jobs.
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Tuesday
Mystery Shopping. Is it Worth the Hassle?
You all have probably seen those ads looking for mystery shoppers when researching work at home jobs. The sad fact is, a majority of those companies are scams looking to make a buck off you, and most of the rest don't really pay what it's worth.
When I first was looking for a work at home job, I did a large amount of research on mystery shopping, and came up with a list of legitimate companies. For those that do not know, mystery shopping is a job in which a company will pay you to spend money at their business, while making sure that it is being run well and everything is satisfactory. When I first started this job, it seemed to be quite fun. No, I wasn't making a profit, but I was able to buy items while the company paid the tab. After a while though, I came to the realization that to me, mystery shopping is definitely NOT worth the time and effort it takes. With most of these jobs, you are given a specific time to shop and even the specific item to buy. After shopping, you are expected to usually fill out a very specific report form (with lots of detail) on almost every possible aspect of the shopping experience. I found these to be extreme time wasters. It is unusual to make money off mystery shopping, as the companies will usually only help you to break even with your purchase. So no, for me mystery shopping was not a job that I could enjoy doing for months. Still, some of you might want to give this unique job a try, so I am posting a few links to companies which should match you with businesses in need of shoppers.
Note: Though the companies below are recommended, DO NOT sign up with one if you are required to pay money to join, as this is likely a scam. If the job seems fishy, it probably is! Use common sense when applying for these jobs.
Links:
http://www.aamerch.com/b2c/secret.htm
http://www.a-closer-look.com/
http://www.a-insights.com/
http://www.mystery-shopping.com/
http://www.mysteryguestinc.com/MGI/
http://www.usd-datatron.com/
When I first was looking for a work at home job, I did a large amount of research on mystery shopping, and came up with a list of legitimate companies. For those that do not know, mystery shopping is a job in which a company will pay you to spend money at their business, while making sure that it is being run well and everything is satisfactory. When I first started this job, it seemed to be quite fun. No, I wasn't making a profit, but I was able to buy items while the company paid the tab. After a while though, I came to the realization that to me, mystery shopping is definitely NOT worth the time and effort it takes. With most of these jobs, you are given a specific time to shop and even the specific item to buy. After shopping, you are expected to usually fill out a very specific report form (with lots of detail) on almost every possible aspect of the shopping experience. I found these to be extreme time wasters. It is unusual to make money off mystery shopping, as the companies will usually only help you to break even with your purchase. So no, for me mystery shopping was not a job that I could enjoy doing for months. Still, some of you might want to give this unique job a try, so I am posting a few links to companies which should match you with businesses in need of shoppers.
Note: Though the companies below are recommended, DO NOT sign up with one if you are required to pay money to join, as this is likely a scam. If the job seems fishy, it probably is! Use common sense when applying for these jobs.
Links:
http://www.aamerch.com/b2c/secret.htm
http://www.a-closer-look.com/
http://www.a-insights.com/
http://www.mystery-shopping.com/
http://www.mysteryguestinc.com/MGI/
http://www.usd-datatron.com/
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