Considering earning money online? Why not diversify your income? Assume you are talking to a financial adviser – s/he will always advise you to diversify your investments - you know the saying…don´t put all your eggs in one basket. However, most of us never consider diversifying our sources of income. But why consider this at all?  Because the world is changing and what was secure is no more. No, we are not scare mongering. We are simply acknowledging that given the constant change globally we all need to have some other money making options we can call on and the net seems to be an ever expanding market place.

Like most of you when it comes to income we used to work from the accepted mentality e.g. “get a good steady job” or “learn a trade and you will be set for life” or “get your degree and work hard” etc.  And, like you we ‘trusted’ our one source of income i.e. If we worked 40 hours plus per week, week in and week out, then it would be there… always. But the world has changed dramatically and what the net giveth – the net taketh away – or perhaps that’s vice a versa…. Due to globalization and the Internet, what once was, in employment terms ‘secure’ , is no more – just think of how many companies have outsourced work (way) offshore. AND at the same time the net is providing opportunities for work and research and development to individuals. Previously this ‘privilege’ was enjoyed primarily by multinationals and universities – times they sure are a changing….

Like I said, like most, we too lived in ignorant bliss. That is, from our (previous) point of view, the only way we knew to earn additional income was to have a second job. And a second job meant sacrificing valuable time with family and friends.  Assuming either one of us wanted to find a second job, some of the sort of questions we needed to answer included: How far would we have to travel? How would we fit it in to existing schedules? When would we see the kids? And what else would we have to sacrifice?  This all seemed too hard. Fortunately we think we found a better way – the net. It has opened up a whole range of options we didn’t know existed or that we could access.

Our trip to Bolivia forced us to explore other ways to generate an income as it was difficult to find work over there because we could not sign on for a year long contract and it is hard to work for people over 40years. Our only option was to look online for ways to earn money and boy were we surprised! Our research into the ‘online world‘ revealed one can either work online or earn money online. The difference being if you chose to work online you can find jobs that suit your skills and available time such as paid survey´s, data entry, virtual assistant roles, freelance work, etc.  We found numerous of websites that offer freelance projects and below are some of those site we found useful:

Or you can earn money online by:

  • Selling your own product,
  • Selling some one else’s product (aka affiliate marketing),
  • or advertising on your web site – most famously Google AdSense.

We decided to hedge our bets and try both strategies to see what yielded better results. Our first stop was paid surveys and we subscribed to an agency only to find that the amount of paid survey work available to people outside the US, Canada, Australia, NZ and Europe is almost non existent. We also found that you need to do quite few surveys in order to generate a reasonable income.  Because we were in Bolivia there were not a lot of surveys available as most survey sites used an IP detector. So we could not do the surveys despite being Australian citizens. Paid surveys look to be a great source of fast additional income for minimal effort if you are in the right place and there are a number of free survey sites that you can join that offer paying surveys, some up to $50.00+ a survey.

Our next stop given that we had a our travel blog, was advertising with Google AdSense. This strategy really appealed to the both of us because it provides a passive income – fabulous! That is, we get paid for those ads displayed and or clicked on, on the blog. However, like all things there is catch…TRAFFIC; in order to make this strategy work one need loads and loads of traffic and/or highly targeted traffic.  So, what are you waiting for? Go on – pass this blog around!!! Oh and while you’re there – CLICK DAMN IT – CLICK!!! Seriously, attracting loads of highly targeted traffic is a significant task and, believe it or not, there is a whole industry specializing in traffic generation i.e. the SEO industry.  So yes, you can earn money with Google AdSense but it is relatively slow and requires a fair bit of effort in creating lot’s of well targeted traffic.  Sure there are a number of techniques used by Google AdSense guru’s which teach you how to embed their ads into the blogs or a web site to increase the click through which for us seems deceptive because they embed the link to their ad in an article. People reading the article think the link is part of the article, clink on it and voila they have their click. So like we said – for us this is a bit dodgy – and it is a salient reminder to watch where you’re (walking) clicking.

Given our situation at that time, we decided to give up on paying jobs (online) and turned to Affiliate Marketing i.e recommending other peoples product and being paid a percentage on each sale. Affiliate marketing is a whole other world. Suddenly we were exposed to the possibilities and the shams on offer (see how to fund a trip blog). There is a mountain of information out there about affiliate marketing and some people are making a very lucrative living – others are not and many – like us are in between. Depending on how you become an affiliate you can lose a significant amount of money – so if you are lured by the world of CPC – tread cautiously. More on that in a future article.

We are very clear that we will not recommend products we have no knowledge of or experience with – sound obvious? Well, do not believe everything you read especially on the net. We have come across training programs for fledgling affiliate marketers advocating they write glowing reports on products they have NEVER SEEN and use that to sell. You have to be very careful when going on endorsements on the net. Affiliate marketers masquerading as real consumer is rife and you have no way of knowing – so caveat emptor! If you are interested in seeing a good affiliate marketer at work have a look at Rosalind Gardner’s site Roamsters Travel.com. Rosalind is one of the few high profile women affiliate marketers we have come across and no we are not affiliated with her but have included her site as an example of an affiliate marketer who, as far as we know, uses everything she markets.

You know the saying “if you always do what you have always done you’ll always get what you’ve always got” Well traveling in Bolivia meant that we could NOT do what we had always done – so we had to create something completely different. We stepped into the unknown and bought three products: first a ‘one stop guide to earning a living on line’; second a web site by Site Build It which we wholly endorse (watch out for our up coming article on Site Build It – they really are worth checking out) and third a training course to help us acquire the skills to effectively enter this very competitive and foreign ‘world’. It has been fascinating and in lots of ways completely weird (a technical term) but we have persevered. Although it is early days we are encouraged by the signs and will provide updates on our progress.

In exploring earning a living online the ONE thing we had to learn above all else was to read between the lines. Products in the making money online industry are written by very successful internet marketers who are making a very nice living. What’s more they are now selling their techniques to would be marketers who in turn are selling like crazy. Many of their sales pitches promise the world and provide ‘proof’ with testimonials i.e. people making money from their process – overnight. But when it comes to the crunch and you question these guys – if they ever get back to you – they will say things like “This was never a get rich quick scheme – it is a business and businesses take the capital of time, effort and money to bear fruit.” So marketing and reality often bear very little resemblance – and while that sounds like common sense here – read their sales pitches.

Given our experience of a fraction of what is available on the net we are convinced that now more than ever it IS possible to find alternative ways to earn or supplement your income online. You just have to do your homework and choose wisely.  And as we said – keep your eye on this blog – or sign up for updates as we will be publishing reviews of the products we have used/are using and our experience with them. We are building a site people know they can rely on – so be prepared for frank discussions about the product, the customer service/support and our outcomes.

In the meantime soldier on and explore this new and exciting frontier. If you are anything like us you will discover a whole new sense of freedom as the options open up to you. Do the research, choose wisely, be prepared to put in some creative energy and plan your business whatever it is.

Diversifying our income to us has meant more control over our lifestyle – and don’t we all want that?

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