But, what, exactly is information marketing and how do you become an infopreneur?

Good question!

Simply put, information marketing is creating and selling information products. When you do this for a living, you get to call yourself an infopreneur. Infopreneurs make money by packaging their knowledge into products they can sell.

Some of the most common infopreneur products include:

• Ebooks
• Workbooks
• Ecourses

What’s great about selling information products is you can do the work once and make sales over and over again, often on autopilot (hooray for passive income!). This lets you create more products which will help increase your income — because the more you have for sale the more opportunity you have to earn.

And, it’s really a great time to be an infopreneur.

Consider this, in the United States alone, ebook sales go well into the billions each year — by 2018, it’s expected to be a nearly 9 billion industry according to Statistia.

Even if you get a teeny, tiny sliver of that gigantic pie, you’d make a good living just writing and selling ebooks. And, thanks to self-publishing platforms like Kindle Direct Publishing and services that let you sell on your own site like Shopify, Woocommerce, or Gumroad, you can easily get your digital products up for sale and in front of a worldwide audience.

But, before we get into all of that, let’s talk more about becoming an infopreneur and why it’s a great way to make money online.

Information Marketing

The most successful infopreneurs often follow a simple formula: They analyze what they know and use that knowledge to solve a problem within a targeted niche.

What Do You Know?

I’m going to bet you have a good bit of knowledge about a lot of different things. And all of this information you possess has the potential to turn into an information product.

If at this point you’re starting to feel self-doubt creep in — that’s okay. In fact, it’s perfectly normal. Many would-be infopreneurs give up before they actually get going because they falsely believe they have to be an expert to be successful or hold some kind of credentials to be taken seriously.

Let me reassure you, this just isn’t the case.

Most infopreneurs have real world experience. That is, they’ve been there, done that and now they’re showing others how they can do it, too.

What really matters is how you will take what you know or have accomplished and use it to solve a problem within a niche.

Finding a Niche

Here at Work from Home Happiness, you’ll notice a recurring theme in many blog posts and articles — the power of picking a niche. Whether you want to become a writer, proofreader, virtual assistant or, in this case, an infopreneur, my number one piece of advice is this:

Pick. A. Niche.

Information Marketing: Pick a Specific Audience

The power of a niche is undeniable. For one, it gives you direction. When you know what it is you’re tackling, it’s that much easier to get started and follow through.

Second, a niche allows you to easily find out where your customers are. And when you know who your customers are and where they hang out, you can effectively market to them which translates to more sales. Cha-ching.

And, last but certainly not least, picking a niche will cement you as an expert in your particular field, even if you’re not one (yet). Before you know it, people organically gravitate to you when they need help solving a niche-related problem.

Which Niche Will You Pick?

Ideally, your niche is something you have experience in. This allows you to write naturally and knowledgeably about the subject and deliver solid, actionable advice that gives your audience a lot of value. Your audience will reward you with positive reviews and this will naturally generate buzz around your information products.

But, your niche should also be profitable. One way to easily determine if a niche is profitable is to make sure there’s a common problem or pain-point people within this niche experience. If so, you know you’ve got a solid idea because you can take your experience and use it to help people in your niche solve this problem.

Always remember, when it comes to information marketing, people will buy things if it will help them solve their problem. Period.

The best thing you can do as an infopreneur is identify a common problem and create an information product that solves it.

Identifying Problems that You Can Solve

Pretend you had poor credit that was preventing you from getting a mortgage. So, you did a whole bunch of research to learn how you could raise your credit score, remove errors from your credit report, and improve your rating so you could qualify for a home loan. And in a year’s time, were able to raise your score over 100 points to qualify for a home loan.

You think, hmm, since I have the real world experience, I’d like my niche to be personal finance. But, what problems are people experiencing in this niche?

• Do they want to know how to save money?
• Are they interested in credit-improving techniques?
• Is eliminating credit card debt important to them?

These are all valid questions and possible pain points. But, if you want to be a successful infopreneur, you need to know that your product will address a real problem before you start creating it. If it’s not a common problem or pain-point within your niche, nobody will buy what you’re selling. And, to put it frankly, it sucks to create something only to find nobody is interested in buying it (been there, done that).

So, now it’s time to research your projected niche to figure out what people are struggling with so you can use your knowledge to help them solve that problem!

Google

Where do most people head online when they need to solve a problem? Google, right? They navigate over to Google, type in their problem or question and browse through the search results.

So, it’s definitely a good idea to use Google to your advantage to see whether or not you’ve got the potential to earn money in your niche.

Now, remember, picking a niche is one thing, but picking a narrow niche is another. You couldn’t simply write an ebook, create a course or workbook about personal finance.

Why not?

Because it’s just too broad. It’d be impossible to cover every aspect of personal finance to please all audiences. And, if you tried, you’d probably abandon the project early on after you realized what a massive undertaking it really is.

So, while your general niche may be personal finance — we need to narrow it down more, a lot more. Google can help with that too.

Keyword Planner Tool

I love freebies, especially helpful freebies. And the Google Keyword Planner Tool is one of the most useful free resources when you’re looking for a profitable niche.

If you don’t already have one, you need to create a Google account to access the Keyword Planner. Navigate over to adwords.google.com to get started.

Your page should look something like this:

See the big button that says, “Create Your First Campaign?” Don’t click it. If you do, you’ll be stuck in a sequence that will eventually require you to put in your credit card information. Instead, head on over to the Tools link where you’ll be able to access the Keyword Planner tool.

To make it easier to understand, I’ve created a 12-minute quickstart tutorial on how you might want to use the Keyword Planner Tool to help you nail down a niche. (This is my first screencast ever, so please be nice Give it a watch if you’re not familiar with Keyword Planner. If you are, no problem, skip on over to the next section to learn about other places to help you check whether or not you’ve got a profitable niche on your hands.

Is This a Potentially Profitable Audience?

In the video above, we learned that people want to check their credit scores for free, learn how to fix bad credit, and understand their options to secure a home loan when they have bad credit.

So, is this a profitable niche? Should our pretend information product cover these topics?

Here’s three questions we need to ask first:

1. Did we discover a pain-point or a problem within our niche?
2. Are people looking for solutions to these problems?
3. Can we use our existing knowledge to offer a solution to this problem?

Yes. Yes. And yes. Of course, this is a made up example to illustrate how to go through the process of nailing down a niche — but these are the steps you should take to help you create a narrow and profitable audience, one that has a problem you can easily solve with your knowledge.

Further Validation

If you wanted to validate this idea even further, I suggest visiting places where people actively discuss problems related to your niche. Reading real user questions, comments and answers can give you another level of understanding than the Keyword Planner Tool can provide.

Some great places to check include:

• Reddit
• Quora
• Niche Forums
• Niche blogs
• Facebook Groups

All of these online sites have tons of user-generated content. Looking through this information can take time, but it’s well worth it. It will help you validate your profitable niche idea and likely give you topics to cover in your information product that you hadn’t yet considered.

Another place I like to check is Amazon. Let’s say you decided to write an ebook about repairing your credit. Head on over to Amazon and type credit repair in the search box. If you find plenty of titles listed and see that people are actually buying these books, that’s a good sign!

The fact that other people are having success selling info products in this niche means you can find success, too.

We can see that not only are people creating and successfully selling ebooks in the credit repair niche, but that it’s such a popular subject that it has its own dedicated category in the Kindle Store.

Don’t Neglect Your Research

I’m not gonna sugarcoat it, taking the leap into information marketing requires a lot of work. But, when done right, the return on investment can be huge! After all, there aren’t a whole lot of chances to create something that only requires a time investment upfront but can lead to financial independence down the line. That’s why it’s important to do your research and know you’ve landed on a profitable niche before you put any time into creating a product.

The point of this post is to get you to put your information marketing hat on and start coming up with potentially profitable niches that you can turn into actual products. You don’t have to (and shouldn’t) create your first information product overnight, but you should start laying the groundwork — today! I know getting started is the hardest part, but picking and validating your niche should help you confidently go into the creation process knowing you’ve got a great idea.

And, remember, don’t get caught up in shiny object syndrome! Earning real money online requires real work. Commit to information marketing and you can make something out of it. We’ve all been guilty of starting something with great enthusiasm only to abandon it midway before moving on to the next project that will ultimately get abandoned, too.

picking a profitable niche can take a lot of work, but it’s worth it! When done right, you can set yourself up for success and end up with an information product that sells.

Remember:

• Pick something you’re knowledgeable about
• Identify a pain point or problem the audience faces
• Figure out how you can solve that problem
• Validate whether or not people are actually searching for it (Google, Quora, Reddit and forums are your friends!)

As always, if you need any help, I hope you ask. You can leave questions in the comments or reach me directly: ashlee@workfromhomehappiness.com

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The post Information Marketing: Nail Down a Niche and Start Creating Your Own Income as an Infopreneur appeared first on Work from Home Happiness.

This gives you the chance to keep the security (and steady pay) of your day job while hustling your way to success.

If you don’t think you have the business mindset to launch something from scratch and build it into something great, think again!

Becoming an Amazon FBA seller is a beginner-friendly online business idea that allows you to start small and grow into something big — all in your spare time and with no prior experience!

To immediately jump in, sign up for this FREE Amazon FBA intro course brought to you by The Selling Family. You’ll learn what it takes to be a successful seller and whether it’s the right hustle for you.

Amazon FBA Arbitrage Seller

Amazon is the world’s largest online retailer. And, with their popular Prime program, consumers get two-day shipping on many items.

That’s why shoppers flock to Amazon for everything from grocery items and baby products to electronics and home decor. Seriously, you can find and buy just about anything on Amazon (and get it delivered to your front door in a matter of days!).

This means there’s also a ton of opportunity to make good money as a seller on Amazon. Where else can you get your stuff for sale in front of millions of buyers?

If you’re sitting there thinking, “But I don’t know anything about e-commerce or setting up an online shop” — don’t worry. You don’t need to know anything.

With the Amazon FBA program, total beginners can have tremendous success.

What is Amazon FBA?

FBA stands for Fulfillment by Amazon. It’s a program that allows everyday sellers, like you and me, to send in our stuff to sell on Amazon. Amazon handles all the rest — housing, shipping, payments, customer service, returns, etc.

All you have to do is find items to sell and ship them off to Amazon. Then you can sit back and watch your seller’s account grow and grow and grow.

Amazon Arbitrage

Perhaps the most beginner-friendly way to get started on Amazon FBA is to source clearance and sale items at your local stores and flip them for a profit on Amazon. The technical term is called “retail arbitrage.”

What is retail arbitrage, you ask? In a nutshell, retail arbitrage is taking advantage of price differences between products at your local stores and those same products being sold on Amazon. You use this price difference to your advantage by buying them for cheap and selling them for a profit on Amazon.

This means on the weekends (or days you have off) you can head to your local stores and scour the aisles for profitable clearance and sale items. I’ll be the first to admit, this can be tedious. You’ll need to go through items to figure out which are worth purchasing and selling for profit. But, it can also be a lot of fun — it’s like a clearance treasure hunt, you just never know what you’ll find.

And the more experience you gain, the more you’ll develop a sixth-sense for finding those products that pull in a profit. In the meantime, you’ll need a little help to determine which items will turn a profit.

But, perhaps I’m getting a little ahead of myself. First things first, you need to sign up for a Seller’s Account on Amazon.

Amazon Seller’s Accounts

There’s two Amazon seller account options: Professional or Individual.

The Professional option costs $39.99/month. You can sign up for a free month to get a feel for it before paying — you can cancel at any time.

There’s also an Individual Account option. There’s no monthly subscription with an Individual Account. However, you’ll be charged an additional $0.99 for each item that sells.

Pros and Cons of Each Account

As a newbie, which account do you choose: Professional or Individual? It’s a tough call, for sure. But, if you think about it practically, you can easily select the right option for you.

Since the Individual Account charges an additional $0.99 for each item sold and the Professional Account costs $39.99/month, it makes sense to opt for the Pro Account if you plan on selling more than 40 items in a month.

0.99 x 41 = $40.59

As soon as you sell your 41st item in a month, you’ll be saving money with the Professional Account versus the Individual Account.

It’s also worth mentioning, the Professional Account comes with added features like analytics, inventory management, and multiple listing creation.

Right out the gate, you might not sell 40 items in a month. That means you’d benefit from the Individual Account. Or, better yet, sign up for the free 30-day Professional Account trial. Remember, you can downgrade to an Individual Account at any time!

The Amazon Seller App

Now that you’re up and running as an Amazon Seller, you’re gonna need a little help figuring out what’s worth reselling and, more importantly, what’s not.

Thankfully, you have all the answers you need right at your fingertips when you download the Amazon Seller App.

Note: This requires having a smartphone. There’s just no other way around it. Without the Amazon Seller App, you won’t be able to scan products as you find them. This means you won’t be able to determine whether or not they’re worth selling. And you don’t just want to blindly buy items in the hope they’ll sell — you’ll lose a lot of money this way. If you don’t have a smartphone, get one. It’s the only way to go if you want to actually make money as an Amazon Arbitrage Seller.

There are several product scanning apps out there. But the most basic and beginner-friendly is definitely the official Amazon Seller app. It’s free to download and is available for iOS and Android devices.

Finding Amazon Arbitrage Items

You’re an official Amazon Seller and you’ve got the free Seller App downloaded — now, the fun begins: Scouting. Your main objective when scouting (scanning items) is to find the most profitable items as quickly as possible. And, honestly, this isn’t always an easy feat!

Picking Categories

The easiest way to find products, as a beginner, is to pick a few categories you’re interested in and start there. If you know toys like the back of your hand or take many walks down sporting good aisles, these are good places to start. Plus, it seems like a much less daunting task to tackle a few sections of a store instead of the entire retail space all at once!

Restricted Categories

It’s important to note, Amazon has some categories that require approval before you can sell in them. As a beginner, it’s best to avoid these categories:

[one_fourth]Automotive & Powersports

Beauty

Clothing & Accessories

Collectible Books

Collectible Coins[/one_fourth]

[one_fourth]Entertainment Collectibles

Fine Arts

Gift Cards

Grocery

Health/Personal Care[/one_fourth]

[one_fourth]Independent Design

Jewelry

Luggage & Travel Accessories

Major Appliances

Sexual Wellness[/one_fourth]

[one_fourth_last]Shoes, Handbags, & Sunglasses

Sports Collectibles

Video, DVD, & Blu-ray

Watches

Wine[/one_fourth_last]

If you just read through that list and thought — What’s left? I get it. That was my first reaction, too.

But, remember, that leaves a lot of profitable and readily available categories like:

• Sporting goods
• Electronics
• Toys
• Games
• Pet supplies
• Housewares
• Decor
• Baby

Once you gain experience, you can expand into the approval-required categories — but when starting out, go for the unrestricted categories to get up and running (and earning!) quickly.

Once you know which categories you’d like to sell in, make a list of stores in your area that sell these items. These are the places you’ll want to visit when scouting. You can scout after work, on weekends, during lunch break — really, any time you’re free during store hours is a great time to go.

Start Scouting

Scouting is when you visit retail stores and physically scan product barcodes using your Amazon Seller App. This is the most time consuming part of being an Amazon FBA seller. In fact, many a well-intentioned seller gets defeated by this process. Why? It can get too overwhelming and cause sellers to quickly burnout.

Remember, go into each scouting trip with a positive mindset and stick to your game plan! Do not buy products just for the sake of buying products. And know that, on some scouting trips, you may not find as many items as you’d like. And that’s okay. It’s better to spend your money on items that will turn a profit instead of spending just for the sake of buying something.

And remember, where many sellers fail, you can succeed. Just push through the grind of scouting, at first, and know this:

It. Will. Get. Easier.

When is a Product Worth It?

We’ve gone through everything needed to get to the point where you’re in a store and scanning products. Now the big question is, “When is a product worth flipping on Amazon?”

Good question! Advanced sellers can have somewhat complicated systems for qualifying products. But, remember, you’re a beginner. The whole point of being an Amazon Arbitrage Seller is to make money in your free time. So, we’re gonna keep it as simple as possible.

In the spirit of earning money, you’ll always want to make sure an item has the potential to earn a profit. A good rule of thumb to follow is the three-times rule.

When following the three-times rule, you’ll only want to buy an item that is selling on Amazon for at least three-times what you’ll pay for it. (The Amazon Seller app will tell you what a product is selling for once you scan it).

So, if an item you’re scanning is priced at $10.00, you’ll want to make sure it’s selling for at least $30.00 on Amazon. Generally speaking, the three-times rule allows for enough room to make money when you factor in Amazon fees.

Competition

Let’s face it, there’s a lot of competition as an Amazon FBA seller. And, for good reason: There’s not too many places that give you the chance to earn thousands extra each month in your free time. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for you to make money too — you just have to factor competition into your buying strategy.

Even if an item is priced right and is selling well on Amazon, you may want to steer clear of it if there’s a lot of other sellers selling that exact item. When there’s too much competition, you’ll end up lowering your price and then lowering it some more just to get it sold.

As a beginner, you’ll be eager to make sales so you can use that money to buy more inventory. And, as your inventory grows you can really start to see your income increase month over month. But if you’re trying to sell a lot of high-competition items, you will end up selling an item lower than you should — and this is not the best way to build a successful Amazon Arbitrage business!

List & Ship Your Products

You’ve gone through your stores and found some products to sell for profit — that’s great! Now you’ve got to list them.

Seasoned sellers use a number of different programs and tools to make the listing process more efficient. But, as a beginner, all you need to do is log into your seller’s account, go to Seller Central > Inventory > Add a Product.

Listing Best Practices

To maximize your sales, you’ll need to make sure your listings are priced competitively. But you’ll also need to make sure they’re complete and optimized.

Fortunately, Amazon will let you know if some of your listings are lacking. Simply go to Seller Central > Manage Inventory to see what, if anything, needs your attention. If you see any quality alerts, simply click the “fix” link and make the needed adjustments! This will go a long way in improving your sales.

Labeling

Part of listing your products will include labeling. Each of your entered products will receive a unique label that you will need to print out and place on the corresponding product. This is how Amazon will identify your products and how you will manage your inventory! Once everything is labeled, it’s time to pack them up and send them to Amazon!

Shipping

Amazon will tell you where to send your items. And this may mean you’ll have to send out multiple packages even though all your items could fit into one box.

Say what?

Yep. Amazon has warehouses and fulfillment stations spread out all over the place. Your items will be split up and housed in any number/combination of these warehouses.

Let’s say you have 20 items labeled and ready to go. Amazon might tell you to send items 1-5 to Warehouse A, items 6-9 to Warehouse B, and items 10-20 to Warehouse C. Really, it all depends on their need and the items you’re sending in.

The good news is, you can take advantage of Amazon’s partner discounts when paying for shipping. Doing so will help you save on your shipping costs which can cut into your profits if not monitored!

Managing Your Inventory

Once your items make their way to their respective warehouses where they’ll be housed until sold, they will be unpacked and added to your seller’s inventory. And this is when you get to see the efforts of your work start to pay off.

Now when you log in to your seller’s account, you’ll see your actual items that are for sale in the world’s largest online store — pretty neat, huh? What’s even better is when your first sale comes in! Cha-ching.

Payments

So, how do you keep track of your sales? Sign into Seller Central and go to Reports > Payments. You will start to see the FBA sales and corresponding fees.

In the Statement View, you’ll see the balance owed to you and on what date it’ll be deposited into your account. Amazon issues payments once every 14 days. This, of course, is the most gratifying part where you get to see your efforts really pay off in the form of cash.

Tools to Make Life Easier:

You’re not going to know everything as a brand new FBA seller. And that’s to be expected. As long as you’re willing to learn, you’ll be fine. Don’t forget to take advantage of these helpful tools that will make life so much easier as an FBA seller.

The Fulfillment by Amazon Revenue Calculator

You know there’s going to be fees involved with FBA. And it would be impossible for me to try to tell you what each fee for each item could be. Fortunately, Amazon has a handy calculator you can easily use to figure out fees. The Fulfillment by Amazon Revenue Calculator factors in your purchase price, the selling price to customers and the fees associated with the sale. This leaves you with a final number that is your projected profit.

Seller Central Forums

If you’re ever feeling stuck, head on over to the Seller Central Forums. There’s entire sections devoted to all things FBA including general questions, shipping inventory, and customer service. These forums are very active and filled with sellers who were once in your shoes — browse through the topics or ask a question if you’re unsure about something.

FBA Video Tutorials

Amazon wants you to succeed. After all, the more you sell and earn, the more they make, too. To help new sellers find Amazon FBA success, Amazon has created video tutorials. These tutorials specifically address common FBA questions new sellers might have.

Learn More

Being an Amazon FBA Arbitrage seller allows you to work in your spare time and grow, what can be, a very profitable side business. Many sellers start out as arbitrage sellers before they turn to private labeling — and this is where the REAL money comes in. But you’ve got to start somewhere, and FBA arbitrage is the easiest place to begin.

To give yourself a leg up on your competition, sign up for this FREE Amazon FBA intro course. You’ll learn what it’s like to be an FBA seller and whether it’s the right hustle for you.

Have a question? Leave it in the comments below! You can also reach me at ashlee@workfromhomehappiness.com Don’t forget to like Work from Home Happiness on Facebook for daily job leads and other online business ideas perfect for beginners!

This post may contain affiliate links. Please see my disclosure statement for more information.

The post Easily Flip Products for Profit on Amazon in Your Free Time appeared first on Work from Home Happiness.

For me, it was all about reaching a point where blogging became my full-time job. But when exactly did that “tipping point” happen where a blog was producing enough income to live off of? As a beginner, I had no clue.

Fortunately, the book, How to Blog for Profit without Selling Your Soul by Ruth Soukup had the answer.

Ruth interviewed many of her blogger friends and asked them how many page views  they were receiving and compared that to their annual blogging income.  The results? On average, blogs with 100,000 page views a month were earning about $25,000 a year.

Thankfully, I’m already a ahem frugal person and live in a very affordable area. I reasoned that, even if it might be tough, I could live off of $25,000 a year. And so, I set my one-year goal firmly at 100,000 page views per month.

So, fast forward one year later. Work from Home Happiness is coming up on its one-year anniversary at the end of April 2016. How did I do?  Did I reach my goal?

Yes! Not only did I reach 100,000 page views per month but I did it in just 9 months.

It wasn’t always easy. But once I figured out what worked, the numbers grew and grew month after month. What worked for me? Here are the 3 tools and techniques I used to get 100,000 page views per month in just 9 months.

Get Blog Traffic

If you’re new to blogging, one of the first things you’ll probably Google is “get blog traffic.” And the results can leave you feeling overwhelmed — that’s how I felt, anyway.

I read article after article with headlines that promised 1001 Ways to Get More Blog Traffic Today or 500 Proven Techniques to Flood Your Site with Traffic (these are made up of course, but you get the point!).

Needless to say, there was too much information out there. So much so that it was difficult to actually put together an action plan to reach 100,000 page views per month.

After reading just about everything I could on the subject and taking a few e-courses, I determined that, for one, people tend to over complicate things, and two, I would build my traffic strategy around three things:

1. Content
2. Social Media
3. Google

While there are a number of different tools, techniques, tips and tricks that can help you get traffic to your blog, it made sense to start with the basics and grow from there.

Content

I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, “Content is King.” While a tad overused, content really is key to growing your blog. If you provide great content, you’ll be rewarded with social shares and repeat visitors — two important building blocks to steady traffic.

My content strategy? I focused on what’s called long form content. If you take a look around Work from Home Happiness, you’ll notice that the majority of articles are well over 1,000 words. Many of them tip the scales at 3,000+ words and others clock in with more than 4,000 words. I’m not writing a lot just because I have a lot to say (although that helps) but because in many niches lengthier articles often perform better than short ones.

What is Long Form Content?

There’s not really a set answer to this question. Some content marketers insist that anything over 700 words is long form. Others believe an article doesn’t qualify until it hits 3,000 words or more. It probably boils down to your niche.

What’s long form in one niche may not be so to another and vice versa. Here at Work from Home Happiness, I tend to think long form content is anything in excess of 1,200 words and almost always write blog posts closer to the 1,500-word mark.

What are the Benefits of Long Form Content?

I give long form content a lot of credit for growing Work from Home Happiness in a relatively short time. My longer posts are the ones that are linked to most often, shared more frequently on social media, and rank better on Google — and I’m not the only one who gets better results with longer articles:

• When WordStream increased their word count, their user engagement went up, too
• Search Engine Land finds that longer articles rank better in searches
• Neil Patel reports that 3,000+ word articles receive more backlinks
• Articles with at least 1,000 words get greater social shares according to Buzzsumo

But keep in mind, this content strategy only makes sense if your readers respond to it and what you’re blogging about requires in-depth explanations.

When Long Form Content Works (and When it Doesn’t)

Let’s say your blog helps others turn a handmade hobby, like knitting, into a home-based business. You’d probably include a lot of how-tos, beginner’s guides, and other step-by-step posts that spur readers into action.

This type of blog lends itself well to long form content. Why? Because it requires detailed posts to explain everything someone must do to get the end result they’re looking for. Plus, the reader will find value in in-depth articles that don’t leave them guessing on what they should or should not do to be successful.

On the other hand, if you’re blogging, say, about entertainment, pop culture, or create curated listicles that are meant to be consumed in short blocks of time, say while waiting in line or on break, long form content probably wouldn’t be the best strategy.

As a general rule, if your niche and your audience would benefit from long form content, so too will your traffic.

Social Media

Social media marketing is something I’ve had a hard time with in the last year  — but especially so in those first nine months. Even still, I can credit social media with helping me reach my 100,000 page views per month goal. However, I truly believe had I done a better job on social media, I may have seen those results much quicker!

So, what worked and what didn’t?

First things first, I knew that it would be impossible for me to try to keep up with every single social media platform out there. Instead, I made the decision early on to focus on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest.

Twitter

Out of the three, I see the least traffic from Twitter. However, I’ve learned that my Twitter traffic grows whenever I make a it a point to use relevant hashtags when tweeting. To help me with this, I often turn to Hashtagify.me.  The Hashtag Encyclopedia is free to search and can offer a number of useful hashtags that you might not have thought to use otherwise.

When using the right hashtag, it’s much easier to get found in Twitter searches and you increase your chances of getting more likes and retweets. And the retweets are where you can really start seeing some traffic roll in — so it’s worth researching hashtags and incorporating them (sparingly) into your Twitter strategy.

Facebook

I have a love-hate relationship with Facebook. Just when I think I’ve gotten a handle on what works well, Facebook goes and changes their algorithm and I’m back to square one. But as with anything worth doing (and Facebook totally is) it’s worth doing well. So, I’m always reading up on ways to get more traffic from Facebook.

My favorite guide to date is Drive Massive Traffic from Facebook (for free) by SumoMe.  This guide is a lengthy read (10,000 words!) — so set some time aside to get through it all. Thankfully, they’ve provided a checklist to help you digest everything!

I’ve also used Facebook advertising with varying degrees of success. My first campaigns went well. But then I was banned from Facebook advertising altogether (seriously. banned.). After a series of back and forth emails with Facebook, the misunderstanding was cleared up and I was reinstated.

For just $50, you can get your content in front of 10,000 to 50,000 people. And the best part? You can be very specific about who sees your ad and who doesn’t — so you dollar stretches very far here! If you’re only going to advertise in one spot, Facebook gives quite a lot of bang for your buck. Check out the Beginner’s Guide to Facebook Advertising by AdEspresso for a detailed look at how to make the most of your Facebook ads.

Pinterest

I always looked at Pinterest as a great growth tool for craft, DIY, home decor, food and other lifestyle-type bloggers but never thought it could work well for me. So, imagine my surprise, as a work from home blogger, when Pinterest became my number one source of social traffic. In fact, Pinterest accounts for more traffic on Work from Home Happiness than all the other social channels combined.

But gaining traction on Pinterest wasn’t easy going at first. Once I made a few changes, like upping my graphics game, taking advantage of automation, and joining group boards, my Pinterest traffic grew seemingly overnight.

Canva

You can’t get noticed on Pinterest if you don’t have pinworthy images. My favorite way to create images is through Canva. This is a free tool that lets you quickly and easily make images that are perfectly suited for Pinterest. They even have a selection of templates and stock photos you can use for free.

Tailwind

You’ll want to spread out your pins throughout the day. But since it’s not practical to be sitting at your computer all day waiting to pin, you’ll need the assistance of automation.  I prefer Tailwind because you get some really great analytics that let you see, at a glance, what pins are performing and what pins aren’t. These analytics were a game-changer for my Pinterest marketing since I was able to easily identify my highest performing pins and make sure those were landing in front of people at the right times. Before committing to a plan, you can try out their free trial and watch your Pinterest traffic grow.

Group Boards

When you’re just starting out, you won’t have a lot of Pinterest followers. And that’s okay. To help get your pins seen, join as many group boards as you can. If you join a board with 10,000+ followers, your pins have the potential to be seen as many people — no matter how many followers you actually have. Visit PinGroupie, The Pin Junkie, and BoardDeck for a directory of Pinterest community boards you may want to join. Remember, when asking for an invite, be polite and personable. And always, always follow the group board owner’s rules!

Pinterest for Business

Signing up for a business account makes it much easier to get a blog found on Pinterest. Plus, it lets you confirm your site and associate your account with other social media accounts. A business account also gives you access to some Pinterest “goodies” like rich pins, analytics, and button and widget builders that you make it easier to share your images directly from your blog.

A lot is being said about Pinterest marketing at the moment. And it’s definitely worth listening to all the buzz! Check out Pinterest Marketing: Your Complete Guide to Success by Social Media Examiner for tons of useful details and helpful hints for Pinterest business.

Google

Think about this: Google processes an average of 40,000 search queries every single second. That’s a whole lot of Googling. Even if you can get the smallest sliver of that gigantic pie, you’d be well on your way to 100,000 page views per month!

But making your content search engine friendly isn’t always easy to do. And then there’s actually tracking down and incorporating relevant keywords to use. How do you begin?

I started with the basics. I knew nothing about SEO, keywords, or analytics. And I certainly didn’t know how to incorporate these things into my content marketing strategy! So, I downloaded the Kindle App, signed up for Kindle Unlimited and started reading every ebook I possibly could on the subject.

What did I learn? That you want to optimize your content for both search engines and human eyes. But doing both at the same time, isn’t always an easy feat. Thankfully, there are a number of free tools that can help.

Google Analytics

After you set up your WordPress blog, you’ll want to place a Google Analytics tracking code on your site. This will give you tons of insight that you can use to improve your content strategy. Some things you can see in Analytics include your page views, number of unique users, where your traffic is coming from, and how long people are spending on your site.

Keyword Research Tools

The Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress is my go-to tool for making sure each and every post I write is on point with its SEO. The basic version is free and comes with everything you need to craft content that will rank well and help you reach your 100,000 page views per month goal. This plugin really has made all the difference for me in terms of SEO — when in use, I feel confident that each post is optimized before hitting publish.

Although I prefer Yoast for my WordPress blog, there are a lot of other options out there for you to. For everything you ever wanted to know about the pros and cons of different keyword research tools, check out this guide from Authority Hacker.

Keyword Research

Admittedly, researching keywords is something that made my head spin. Instead of opting for complicated tools or expensive memberships, I simply turned to Google.

You’ve probably noticed that when you type a term into Google, it suggests search terms for you. These suggestions are actually popular searches that others are actively Googling.

So, when I type in online jobs (a broad keyword in my niche) I can see related long tail keywords people are searching for. For me, this was the least complicated and yet effective way to find and target long tail keywords. Once I started using this method, I noticed my pagerank slowly started to grow week after week. This in turn created more organic search traffic since I was using popular long tail keywords into every post I was writing!

9 Months to 100,000 Page Views per Month

The road to 100,000 page views per month wasn’t exactly easy. If I had to start all over again tomorrow, there’s definitely a thing or two I would do differently. But, I would still focus on content, social media, and Google to get me there. In fact, continuing to focus on those three core elements has doubled my traffic in just another two month’s.

From March 25th to April 24th, I got 201,807 page views — more than double my original goal of 100,000 page views per month in a year!

Ready to start your own money-making blog off on the right foot? Check out this step by step beginner’s guide to setting up a WordPress blog. This no-fail guide will walk you through the process of picking a domain, setting up hosting and installing WordPress so you can begin your blogging journey quickly and easily!

Have a question? Want to share your own traffic-growing tip? Please leave it in the comments below! You can also email me at ashlee(at)workfromhomehappiness(dot)com and I’ll do my best to help.

This post contains affiliate links. Please see my disclosure statement for more information.

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The news is all around us: college graduates are graduating with more debt than ever before, and they are finding it nearly impossible to land a job despite their new degrees. In fact, data shows that 13.8% of 18- to 29-year-old Americans are out of work, which is more than double the national jobless rate of 5.4%. One solution is for new college graduates to consider self-employment. Self-employment may be a better option because of the instability of jobs today, the ability to create upward mobility, and the freedom of creating a more flexible lifestyle. If you want to be your own boss right out of college, here are some tips to get you started.

Do Some Soul Searching

Starting your own business and becoming self-employed involves some risk and is not an easy fix for being unemployed upon college graduation. One of the very first things you should do is conduct a personal evaluation and determine your best skills and the industries you know best. Then, think about what you love to do and which businesses and roles will utilize your skills best and have the potential to grow the most without costing too much.

You need to be honest with yourself from the beginning, once you decide to be your own boss right out of college. Can you afford it? Do you have a solid business plan? Do you know how to get financing without jeopardizing your credit or that of your friends and family who graciously offer to invest in your business?

Get Started in eBay Sales

If you have an eye for finding items that people want, or if you can create items that people desire, you could become successful in eBay sales. Maybe you peruse yard sales, flea markets, or thrift stores and sell the items online. Or, maybe you create one-of-a-kind pottery or other items using your art degree and peddle them on the Internet. No matter the commodity, if you can purchase it or make it more cheaply than you sell it, you can make a living being your own boss and getting started in eBay sales.

Get Involved in the Sharing Economy

Depending on the assets you have as a college graduate, you could get involved in the sharing economy and be your own boss right out of college. Peer-to-peer asset sharing is becoming a huge business, as Airbnb, Uber, and other startups are showing. Whether you become a TaskRabbit and run errands for someone in your neighborhood, rent a room in your home, or become a rideshare driver, the sharing economy has nearly limitless possibilities for college graduates who are resourceful.

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Other options, especially for people who love dogs, include becoming a dog walker or pet sitter. Quality, affordable pet care is in high demand today and these types of businesses offer a great way to turn a love of animals into a profitable business that allows you to set your own hours and choose your own clients.

Become a Freelance Writer

College graduates know how to read and write proficiently, and one of the ways to be your own boss right out of college is to keep up with your English skills by becoming a freelance writer. There are several online sites that look for people with college degrees to become freelance writers, and typically they require a sample of your writing before they offer assignments to you. You also can send pitches to blogs and online journals and magazines to expand your chances of getting picked up as a freelancer writer. Freelance writers determine their workload and enjoy a great deal of flexibility in their day.

Whether you can’t stand the thought of working in a cubicle from 9-5 or can’t find gainful employment upon graduation, you could become your own boss right out of college. By considering your strengths and the things you enjoy doing, you will narrow your choices to those options that are the best fit for you. You may just find that self-employment is better than any job you thought you would land with your degree.

This post contains affiliate links. Read my disclosure statement for more information. 

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When you sell designs online, you can live a successful creative life on  your own terms and collect payments over and over again — even while you sleep! How? By signing up at one of the popular marketplaces where you can use your creativity to turn everyday products into individual works of art.

These sites let you sell designs online (for free) and enable independent artists to easily earn passive income.Your designs make it in front of millions of shoppers around the world and the marketplace handles all the logistics for you —  manufacturing, shipping, customer service — letting you do what you do best, create!

1. Zazzle

Perfect for artists, graphic designers, & photographers — get your work in front of 30 million worldwide shoppers when you become a Zazzle Designer. Did I mention Zazzle is free to use?
After you sign up, you’ll pick a store name and set up shop. Choose from hundreds of products you want to apply your designs to including t-shirts, phone cases, greeting cards, and buttons. When you’ve got just the right design, post your item for sale.

Each time one of your designs sells, you’ll get paid a price of your choosing thanks to Zazzle’s “Name Your Royalty Program.” There’s no need to worry about manufacturing, shipping, or customer service — Zazzle takes care of all that for you.

Zazzle is such a large, popular, and reputable designers’ marketplace that artists are earning a passive income while creating the things they love. When you sell on Zazzle, your designs will be placed alongside big-name brands like Paul Frank and Disney. Plus, everything you sell is backed by Zazzle’s 100% satisfaction guarantee ensuring customers will love your designs as much as the products they’re printed on.

2. Society6

You can sell designs online and turn your artwork into a variety of products when you sign up as a member at Society6. You can sell your artwork as prints or on products like shower curtains, mobile device cases, and throw pillows — but you’ve got to become verified first (this is how you’ll get paid).

Once you’re verified, you can create “posts” that make your artwork immediately available for sale. As the artist, you retain all rights to your work even if one of Society6’s retail partners sells your designs on their site.

When you sell your art as prints, you get to choose the profit you make on each sale. When you place your prints on products, you’ll earn a predetermined amount each time something sells. For example, you’ll earn $6.80 for each shower curtain that sells with one of your designs on it.

Easily market and sell designs online when you connect your Facebook and Twitter accounts and start tracking your earnings! Payments are made via PayPal on the 1st of each month.

3. Redbubble

Redbubble (RB) is a global marketplace for independent artists. When you sell on RB, you get to place your designs on high-quality products and sell to a large audience — all for free.

Redbubble coordinates the shipping and manufacture of each design that you sell. They’ll also handle all of the customer service for you, leaving you more time to design and create — opening up even more passive income opportunities. There’s a lot of different products you can place your designs on like posters, t-shirts, and vinyl stickers.

RB gives you total control over pricing using their “Base Price + Your Margin = Retail Price” pricing system. The average RB artist’s margins are 17%, but you get to choose the price that makes sense for your designs.  Join the more than 350,000 independent artists who make money with their art and designs on Redbubble.

Sell Designs Online & Earn Passive Income

What’s great about these three sites is you still own all the rights to your work but are given a new way to monetize your creativity. As long as you keep uploading designs and creating new products, you’ll have the potential to earn unlimited sales anytime, day and night.

Unlike other marketplaces that let you sell designs and handmade items online, you don’t have to worry about collecting payments, manufacturing, shipping, returns, or customer service. Simply sell designs online and start earning passive income — you get to be creative while they take care of the rest.

This post may contain affiliate links. Please see the disclosure for more information.

The post Sell Designs Online & Earn Passive Income appeared first on Work from Home Happiness.

What if you could get even the smallest slice of the online-job-seeking pie? You could end up making a pretty good living! Many niche job boards charge $50 to $500 for each 30-day job listing posted. Even if you could get 10 new listings a month (to start!), that’s not too bad for a business that has little startup costs or monthly maintenance fees.

You won’t be able to compete with the large job boards like Indeed, CareerBuilder or Monster. That’s okay. You don’t have to.

You can carve out a nice little spot for yourself in the job board market by picking a targeted niche.

ProBlogger, AuntMinnie, and Dice are all good examples of how a job board can thrive by providing industry-specific jobs to a certain market.

So, what kind of niche job board will you have?

You can target your local community or focus on a specific industry. You could even establish a job board for certain professionals, say virtual assistants or graphic designers.

The kind of niche job board you set up is entirely up to you. It’s a good idea to play to your strengths and pick a profession you are experienced in or have worked in before. Why?

To bring in organic traffic to your job board, you’ll want to establish a blog on the site. Blogging is one of the best ways to bring in visitors from search engines like Google and Bing. It also happens to be a great way to get social shares.

The more traffic you can bring to your site, the more you can charge for your monthly job listings. Plus, when you provide job listings AND helpful industry-related news and advice, you become an expert source of information as well as a great place to find a job.

Without experience or at least an interest in the field, you’ll quickly burn out and lose your gusto before you even get started. That’s why you should aim at an industry you actually enjoy and can provide valuable insight into.

Still Stuck?

Picking a niche for your job board will probably be the hardest part of this process (and one of the most important!). Don’t rush and pick something just for the sake of getting started. Take your time and think of something that actually resonates with you — something you know you can sustain for some time and turn into a profitable business.

For a little inspiration, check out this list of 100+ Niche Job Boards. You’ll see that there are plenty of opportunities to launch a job board that is highly focused and targeted — and be quite successful!

Getting Established

Got your niche? Great! Now you need to get your niche job board up and running — don’t worry, no technical skills required.

First things first, you need a name. Ideally, your name will have something to do with your job board’s niche. This can be an industry term or directly reference the profession.

Look at AuntMinnie — it’s a job board for radiology professionals. What does Aunt Minnie have to do with radiology, you ask? It’s a term often used by professionals in the industry to refer to a very obvious radiological finding — something so apparent even your Aunt Minnie could see it!

While the term may be lost on most, radiology professionals get it. And so it works!

The ProBlogger job board is another very successful example. It’s a go-to spot for those looking for professional blogging and writing jobs — ProBlogger. The name directly references the types of jobs listed and is easy to remember.

The takeaway? Choose a name that professionals in the niche you’re targeting will understand OR directly reference the types of jobs being posted.

Niche and Name. Now What?

You’ll need to purchase your domain name and pick a hosting provider. If you’re new to the world of web properties, your domain name is the actual address visitors use to find your site. Here at Work from Home Happiness, the domain name is WorkFromHomeHappiness.com.

Your domain name should be your job board’s name — ideally with a dot com ending. Why? Most people will automatically put a dot com at the end of a web address, no matter what. Don’t miss out on valuable traffic because you opted for a .net, .org, .ninja, .family.

What’s a Host?

Every website needs to be hosted in order to be visible on the internet. Hosting is like your website’s monthly rent — a place for it to live. Like a good or bad landlord, your host makes all the difference in your experience as a website owner each month. That’s why you’ll want to choose a host with reasonable rates and a great reputation.

One of the best hosting companies out there is BlueHost. They have 24/7 customer support and make it easy to get your website up and running — all at an affordable monthly price. When you sign up, you get a free domain name to go along with your hosting plan. This eliminates the confusing step of buying a name somewhere else and then transferring it over to your host.

Getting Started

Ready to get started? Before you do, I suggest setting aside one day to devote to this process. That’s it. Just one day. How can you get your own niche job board set up in just one day? WordPress.

When you choose WordPress for your job board, not only can you get up and running quickly, but you also get a very professional and functional site. The best part? You can do it all yourself. You don’t need any special skills or coding knowledge. Using a WordPress theme and a combination of plugins, you really can quickly and easily get your job board set up by the day’s end.

Ready? Let’s go!

First up, head on over to BlueHost to get started. Through BlueHost you’ll be able to:

• Get your domain name for free
• Establish your hosting plan
• Install WordPress quickly and easily (also for free!)

When selecting a plan, the Starter Package will have everything you need (and more!) This package comes with your domain name, email accounts (YourName@YourWebsite.com), and even $50 worth of marketing offers.

Now that you’ve picked your plan, type in the name you carefully selected for your job board in this screen. As I mentioned, when you sign up for BlueHost, you’ll get a domain name completely free. In the event you already purchased a domain name elsewhere, no problem! You can transfer it over to BlueHost.

Make sure you provide up-to-date contact information. This is how BlueHost will relay important account information to you.

The next page will ask if you’d like to add any additional items to your monthly hosting package. In all honesty, you don’t need any of these things. They are all completely optional.

Note: Whenever I purchase a domain, I always opt for Whois Privacy. Why? Every domain that is purchased goes into a database. This database stores information about the domain, including contact information of the owner. Whois Privacy Protection keeps your personal information hidden from public view. You don’t need it but it is a nice option if you prefer to keep your information private.

When you’ve selected the options that make sense for you, it’s time to make yourself an official domain owner. All you need to do is put your payment information into the secure checkout form, read and agree to the Terms of Service, and click next.

Congrats! You’re now an official domain owner and super close to having your niche job board up and running. Now you’ll  need to install WordPress. Navigate to your cPanel and find the “Instal WordPress” button like the one in the screenshot above and click on it.

You’ll be given more information about how awesome WordPress is and also be able to start the installation process. When you’re ready, simply click the “Start” button as circled above.

Make sure your domain name is listed in the box and hit “Check Domain.” This ensures WordPress is being installed on the domain you just purchased.

Don’t forget to jot down your Admin Username and Admin Password. This is the information you’ll  need to access your site in order to make changes. Once you click “Install Now” this will initiate the process of actually installing the files needed to have WordPress on your site. Don’t worry — BlueHost takes care of all that for you. You just need to hit “Install Now.”

That’s it. You’ll see Status: Installing and then a success message — you’ve now got your own niche job board with WordPress installed. Now what?

Picking a WordPress Job Board Theme

There are thousands of WordPress themes out there. The theme is what gives a WordPress site it’s overall look. Themes can be easily installed in just a couple of clicks. But before we get to installation, you need to actually pick a theme.

Where do you start?

Head on over to ThemeForest.

Type Job Board WordPress into the search box. You’ll be presented with some really great themes that are specifically built to give you a beautiful and functional job board.

My personal favorite? Jobify.

Jobify is great because of the support that comes with the theme. When you purchase Jobify, you get SideKick Walkthroughs. These step-by-step instructionals can walk you through just about any task. When you purchase Jobify, you get an entire year of access to SideKick premium — for free!

On top of the 24/7 help and guidance, Jobify also integrates with all the great job board plugins you’ll need to monetize your site right out the gate.

Which Plugins Do I Need?

WordPress plugins complement your theme. They also provide specific functions to your site without having to write a single line of code.

The main plugin you’ll need is WP Job Manager. This is a free plugin that gives you a functional job board that allows employers to submit jobs and job seekers to easily search through your job board.

But if you want to monetize your job board, you’re going to need premium plugins. These cost money. At the very least, you’ll need Simple Paid Listings.

With Simple Paid Listings, you can charge a flat fee per job posted. Employees can pay through Stripe or PayPal before their job goes live.

 The cost of Simple Paid Listings is $19. Having this plugin allows you to easily accept payments from employers when placing a job on your site.

There are some other pretty amazing plugins you can purchase to help build different revenue streams — this includes Indeed Integration, WC Paid Listings, and Resume Manager.

You don’t need these plugins. But they do expand your job board and give you different ways to monetize. For example, with Resume Manager you could charge candidates to upload their resumes to the database or charge employers to browse through resumes in search of candidates.

And with WC Paid Listings, you can set up Job Packages which can be priced at different rates depending on what the package includes (featured jobs, 30-day listing, 60-day listing, etc.)

When just getting started, you may want to seriously consider the Indeed Integration plugin. Why? Your job board will look pretty empty at first. When you have the Indeed Integration plugin, your job board will be backfilled with listings from Indeed. This gives the illusion of an active job board even when you haven’t sold your first listing yet.

And the best part is, you can sign up to be an Indeed Affiliate through their Job Roll program. This lets you make money every time you refer a user to Indeed who then generates revenue for them. Pretty cool, huh?  It’s a great way to make passive income just for having Indeed jobs listed on your board.

The Indeed Integration Plugin is $39. If you think you may purchase two or more plugins to go with your job board, you may want to buy the Core Add-On bundle.

At $125, the Core Add-On bundle gives you all of the money-making plugins already mentioned and some other valuable ones as well but at a greatly discounted price if bought separately. I’ve got the Core Add-On bundle and use it here on Work from Home Happiness. You can see what it looks like by visiting my Job Board and the Upload a Resume page.

While this may seem like a huge, time consuming undertaking — a theme to pick out and plugins to install — it’s really not! In fact, Jobify and the recommended plugins can easily and quickly be installed. And, if you run into any trouble, remember, they all come with great support and documentation — it really is the no-fail way to get a job board set up quickly, easily, and frustration free.

While I suggest you do the work yourself, so you get a really good feel of how to navigate your site as an Admin, you can have someone do the installation and setup for you.

Fiverr has some amazingly talented freelancers who can get your site up for as little as five bucks. So, if you’re really not the DIY type, know you can outsource the work.

Create Your Own Niche Job Board Website

There you have it — the simplest way to launch your very own niche job board website thanks to BlueHost, WordPress, and Jobify (and Fiverr too, if you choose to outsource!)

There are plenty of opportunities to reach the millions of job seekers who head online each month to find and apply to jobs. If you have any questions, leave them in the comments below. I’d be happy to help (or track down the right person who can!)

The post Start a Profitable Job Board Website in Just One Day appeared first on Work from Home Happiness.

Love dogs? You’re not alone! Nearly 78 million dogs lived in homes across the U.S. in 2015. That sure is a whole lot of canine companionship.

The popularity of dog ownership can go far beyond pet preference and can actually turn into a lucrative home-based business. Think about this, people spend $60 billion annually on their pets. Even if you can get the smallest sliver of that gigantic pie, you’d be making a pretty impressive living each year.

The best part of starting a business built on passion? When you actually enjoy what you do for a living, it never actually feels like you’re working. Many home businesses start from finding what you love and figuring out how to monetize it.

Loving dogs is no different — here are ways to turn your love of dogs into your own business.

Dog Walking

Dogs need walking. Whether you live in a major city or the suburbs, there are plenty of opportunities to earn a living walking dogs in your area. The best way to start, is to find a client or two. When you start slowly, you can build up your confidence as a professional walker and practice handling multiple dogs at once. 

After you gain your footing, you can build up your client roster and the number of dogs you can walk at a time. It’s not unreasonable for an experienced dog walker to handle six large dogs at once.

How much can you charge?

The average dog walker charges $15 to $17 per each dog for 15-20 minute walks. For longer walks, 30-40 minutes, rates range from $18 to $22 per dog. Hour-long walks are charged at an average rate of $25 per dog.

Where do you find clients?

• You can advertise locally in a newspaper or monthly mailers, like Valpak
• Pass out or hang up flyers at dog parks & pet supply stores
• Post an ad on Craigslist
• Put a listing up on Find A Dog Walker

For additional inspiration, check out The Dog Walker’s Startup Guide: Create Your Own Lucrative Dog Walking Business in 12 Easy Steps.

Gourmet Dog Treats

I used to joke with a good friend of mine that her dogs ate better than I did. Turns out, many dog owners are committed to feeding their pooches quality food and treats with easily-recognized ingredients.

You can test the waters of your new gourmet dog treats business by selling them at your local farmer’s market or by purchasing a booth at a flea market, bazaar, or other  marketplace.

As your business grows locally, you can turn your attention to setting up shop online. Even the simplest ecommerce store can help you reach customers across the U.S. (or even internationally, if you choose!).

How do you actually make a homemade dog treat?

You probably don’t have a recipe on hand for concocting the perfect canine treat. Finding and perfecting signature recipes will make all the difference in how well your business is received by dogs and their owners alike.

For a little inspiration, check out these Gourmet Dog Treat recipes. You can always tweak them and come up with your own style of dog treat, too!

What should I know before baking?

Starting a home-based gourmet dog treat business may be the ideal career for the dog-loving baker, but there are some things you need to know before jumping in.

The pet food industry is regulated by the Department of Agriculture. This means you will have to comply with all of their rules when it comes to making, labeling, and distributing your dog treats. Your state may even require you to carry a business license.

Don’t let a few rules and requirements keep you from doing something you love — learn how to Start Your Own Gourmet Dog Treat Business and Bake Your Way to Success.

Dog Sitting

When dog owners go on vacation or need to head out of town on business, they need to decide where to board their pet. For many, the decision to send their beloved canine companion to a kennel isn’t the right choice for them. Instead, they rely on someone to take their dog in temporarily while they’re away.

The National Association of Professional Pet Sitters

If the idea of bringing dogs into your home and offering a loving place to stay while their owner away sounds ideal, head on over to the National Association of Professional Pet Sitters (NAPPS). They have plenty of advice on what it takes to get going as a pro pet sitter.

The NAPPS is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping people start a successful pet sitting business. You can choose to join as a member and gain access to valuable perks like being listed in their database, a pet sitter toolkit, and education opportunities.

While you don’t necessarily need any kind of training or certification to be a professional pet sitter, the NAPPS does offer self-paced training courses that, once complete, allow you to become a Certified Pet Sitter. 

The cost of the program is $245 for members and $395 for non-members.

More Information to Get You Started

Before jumping in and paying for a membership and getting certified as a Pet Sitter, you may want to do a little more homework on the opportunity first.

Over at About.com, you can learn How to Start a Pet Sitting Business. This article is pretty detailed and goes over things you may not have considered like insurance and drafting contracts.

One of the best books out there on the subject is Six-Figure Pet Sitting: Catapult your Pet Sitting Business to Unlimited Success by Kristin Morrison. This book is recommended by the NAPPS and helps you build a solid foundation to build a lucrative pet sitting business.

Rover

If you like the idea of getting paid to work with dogs, but just aren’t sure that starting your own business is right for you, no problem! You might find what you’re looking for in popular pet-sitting site, Rover.

Rover is like the Airbnb of dog services. At Rover, you can offer pet sitting, in-home daycare, dog walking, and a variety of other services.

What makes Rover great?

When you start your own business, you’re in charge of everything — billing, insurance, advertising. At Rover, they take care of all of those things for you. Some of the benefits that come with Rover include:

• 24/7 support
• Insurance that covers property damage, liability, and emergency vet bills
• Billing and payments handled for you
• Advertising

Although Rover takes over much of the business side of things for you, you still get to be in control in many ways. This includes:

• Setting your own rates
• Choosing your schedule
• Picking which dogs you want to sit for and take care of

Rover is a very active community that connects dog owners with service providers. In fact, Rover states that a pet owner books services through Rover once every minute — that amounts to a lot of potential work if you sign up with the site!

What else should I know about Rover?

Rover lets you set your rates and availability and offers a lot of tools to help you promote your business. For example, they let you bring in new clients by offering them a $20 coupon towards their first booking with you.

You can use Rover to help you supplement your income or use it as a full-time source of work. Rover is a good place to get a feel for the industry before investing a ton of time and money into building your own pet sitting or dog walking business from the ground up.

Your Rover Profile

As a Rover sitter, you will need to fill out a profile which will include your rates and some background information. It’s a good idea to include pictures of yourself with your own pets so people get the sense that you are a genuine animal lover. When a person books a stay with you, they get the opportunity to leave feedback afterward.

That’s it. Rover takes 15% commission on all services that are booked through the site.

Sites like Rover

To give yourself the best chance of securing work, it might be a good idea to sign up for multiple sites. In addition to Rover, Care.com and Dogvacay.com also help dog owners connect with people, like you, who offer dog sitting and walking.

Care.com

You’re probably familiar with Care.com as the place to go if you need a nanny or babysitter — but they have pet services, too! The average person offering pet services on Care.com earns $10.00/hour working on projects of their choosing.

Care.com works a little differently than Rover: People needing services post jobs on the site and you browse through listings and apply to the ones you think you’re a good fit for.

You can register at Care.com for free, but in order to apply for jobs you will have to pay for a Featured Membership.

DogVacay.com

DogVacay is currently accepting new members into their dog sitting community. At DogVacay, you get 24/7 support and premium pet insurance every time someone books services with you through the site.

There’s also free training and education opportunities for members. DogVacay handles all payments for you and gives you tools needed to promote your business. They take a 20% service fee from your earnings. Payments are issued through PayPal or via check — your choice!

Turn Your Love of Dogs into Profits

There’s few greater feelings than doing something you love for a living. For all the dog lovers out there, consider catapulting your love of canines into a lucrative home-based business. Whether you choose to start from scratch or use a popular peer-to-peer marketplace to get started, you can make a living doing something you love.

This post may contain affiliate links. Please see the disclosure for more information.

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There are so many different remote and home-based opportunities out there. Freelance. Direct sales. Home-based businesses. Work from home jobs. How do you choose?

Well, it depends what you’re looking for and your personal working style.

You can work from home and receive great benefits as an employee for large companies like Hilton or American Express. There’s also plenty of remote positions available at lesser-known but equally amazing startups and other companies who embrace the work-from-anywhere culture.

These positions are ideal for those who want some flexibility but crave the security of employee-based positions.

But what if you want to work from home with just a little guidance while also taking control over your earnings and schedule? Well, then, one of these companies that allow you to be your own boss online is probably perfect for you.

 What do You Mean by Be Your Own Boss Online?

There are several well-known and reputable companies that contract with people, like you, who want to work from home but don’t necessarily want to take on an employee role. This gives you the chance to work on projects you want without having to worry about finding clients. You bill these companies for your time and get paid twice a month as a contractor.

Sound like a pretty perfect work arrangement? Check out these companies that let you be your own boss online.

LiveOps

• Type of Work: Mostly inbound calls
• Payment: Per minute of talk time; Base plus commission; Strictly Commission
• Cost to Start: $65.00 for a background & credit check

LiveOps offered so many work-from-home Independent Agent positions in 2015, that FlexJobs named it the number one company to watch for online and telecommuting jobs in 2016. Pretty impressive, huh?

What is an Independent Agent? Independent Agents contract with LiveOps to provide services to LiveOps clients. Typically, this means answering incoming calls and/or placing outbound calls to customers (it’s mostly inbound calls).

Generally, the types of calls LiveOps Independent Agents handle involve:

• Inbound sales
• Insurance sales
• Insurance claims
• Healthcare
• Roadside service
• Customer service

After you become an agent, you get to see the current contract options and choose which one is perfect for your skills and interests. As you become established, you can contract with multiple clients and grow your business.

Even though you’re an independent contractor, LiveOps is very supportive and wants to help their agents succeed. Agents can even interact with one another through their official LiveOps Agent Community Facebook Page.

So how exactly does this allow you to be your own boss online? Well, you get to schedule yourself in blocks of time as little as 30-minutes, take calls during your self-scheduled blocks, and bill LiveOps for your time when you’re done. That’s it. Payments are made every two weeks via check or direct deposit — your choice!

NexRep

• Type of Work: Sales and Tech Support; Inbound, outbound, and email customer service
• Payment: On average, the equivalent of $15.00/hour with talk time, bonuses, and incentives
• Cost to Start: $25.00 for a background check

NexRep Agents get to work from home without having to commit to standard workdays or 8-hours shifts. Since you work as an independent contractor, you get to choose the hours and days you work. Instead of receiving a paycheck, you send out invoices for your services and are paid twice a month.

In addition to the flexibility and autonomy that comes with working as  NexRep Agent, you get to be your own boss online and work as much or little as you’d like.

The average agent makes about $15.00/hour (some of the best agents earn up to $25.00/hour!) while taking calls like:

• Outbound sales
• Inbound sales
• Customer support
• Virtual receptionist
• Beauty consultant
• Customer care

You need to pass certifications before you can work on certain contracts. And, since you’re in charge of your own time, you can optimize your schedule so that you’re working during peak hours — no sitting around waiting for work or sales opportunities.

Arise

• Type of Work: Sales and Customer Support
• Payment: $9.00 – $19.00/hour depending on performance
• Cost to Start: Cost to incorporate, Background check, Certification (total $200-$500)

When you partner with Arise, you get to support Fortune 500 customers as an independent business owner (IBO). Becoming an IBO will require you to incorporate. The cost to incorporate varies by each state, but will likely cost in the neighborhood of $100. When you incorporate, it really allows you to take the reins and be your own boss online.

As an independent business owner contracting with Arise, you get to create your own mini call center and perhaps even have agents work for you under your corporation. If you have an entrepreneurial spirit, partnering with Arise can offer you the chance to develop and grow your own home-based business.

Arise even has a Premier Partner Program that you can work your way up to which offers additional incentives and unlimited earning potential. Arise pays independent business owners twice a month via direct deposit. You can expect to earn anywhere from $9.00 to $19.00 an hour depending on the contracts you work on and the incentives offered.

What You Need to Know About Going Solo

As a home-based independent contractor or independent business owner, there are a number of notable benefits like:

• Flexibility
• Work-life balance
• Autonomy
• Increased earning potential
• No commute

But remember, when you get to be your own boss online, you are your own business. This means you are completely in charge and will need to set yourself up for success by providing your own:

• High-speed internet
• Computer
• Headset
• Landline

And as an independent contractor, you are responsible for paying your own taxes on money earned. But for those who are looking to start their own legitimate home-based business, the startup fees and monthly expenses are much lower than what it would take to build something entirely from scratch.

So, if you’ve always wanted to work from home but shy away from the traditional 9 to 5 routine, consider one of these opportunities that let you be your own boss online.

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I have this drawer packed with random chargers, old and broken phones, batteries, and accessories. I bet you have a drawer or box just like this stashed away somewhere in your home, too.

I don’t know why I keep all these things — I don’t use them. I don’t know what half of them belong to. And most of them are easy enough to find online should I get rid of them and suddenly find myself needing a Qualcomm charger circa 1999.

So, I decided to dump the contents of the drawer and head online. Surely, there must be someone, somewhere who wants all (or at least some) of these products. Turns out, there are. Here’s how to cut the clutter, sell used electronics online, and make a little cash along the way.

uSell

• Payment: Check or Paypal
• Shipping: Free
• Fees: None
• What They’ll Buy: Phones, Tablets, iPods, Textbooks, Video Games, Gift Cards

Instead of turning to Ebay or Craigslist to sell your used tech, you can enlist uSell for help. All you have to do is select your device and uSell will bring you offers from their network of trusted buyers. When you accept a cash offer, uSell will send you a shipping kit.

The best part? There’s no hidden costs to ship or sell your used item. The buyer will release payment within 5 days of receiving your device via check or PayPal — your choice! If you have other things lying around the house (textbooks, gift cards, video games), uSell may have a buyer for those too.

NextWorth 

• Payment: PayPal, Check, Discover Prepaid Card, Target Gift Card
• Shipping: Free
• Fees: None
• What They’ll Buy: Wearables, iPods, Smartphones, Tablets, Laptops, Games, Portable Audio, Action Cameras

At NextWorth, you get instant quotes for your devices with absolutely no hidden fees. Simply search for the item you want to sell, select its condition, and NextWorth will give you an offer.  They’ll provide you a free UPS shipping label, tracking, and insurance — just in case something happens in transit. Once items are received, payments are usually issued within a week.

If you prefer instant gratification, you can also head out to one of NextWorth’s 2200 partner stores to get a store credit on the spot. They partner with Target, Fred Meyer, and Meijer stores across the U.S. So, if you do a lot of shopping at one of these stores, the store credit option may be just as good as cash to you. Whether you choose online or in store, your quote is good for 30 days.

Gazelle

• Payment: Check, Amazon Gift Card, PayPal
• Shipping: Free (As long as your item is worth $1.00 or more)
• Fees: None
• What They’ll Buy: Cell Phones, Tablets, iPods, Apple Computers, Apple TV, Apple Display

Gazelle has accepted more than 2 million trade-ins and paid out more than $200 million for those devices. The process is simple: Find your device, answer a few questions, ship your item to Gazelle, and get paid.

Payments are usually issued within a week once Gazelle receives and inspects your item. They mostly buyback Apple products but also make offers for smartphones from major carriers like Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T. If you like a good bargain, you can also buy Gazelle certified pre-owned devices at a nice discount.

Bonus: They have a Refer a Friend program which will give you (and your friend!) $10 when they sign up.

Glyde

• Payment: Bank Account, Check, Bitcoin
• Shipping: $1.00 to $6.00 for the shipping kit
• Fees: 15% of your item’s sale price; $2.00 if you want to get paid by check
• What You Can Sell: Phones, Tablets, Video Games, iPods, MacBooks

Glyde is a marketplace people go to when they want to buy and sell used tech. As a seller, you have to list your device for sale (don’t worry, no product description or photos required). When your item sells, you get a shipping kit with tracking and insurance. Once the buyer receives your item, you get paid.

There are no instant quotes at Glyde since you will be selling your item directly to the buyer. Your item could sell in hours or take days — it all depends on demand and your sales price.

MaxBack

• Payment: PayPal or Check
• Shipping: Free
• Fees: None
• What They’ll Buy: Cell Phones, Tablets, Wearables, Broken iPhones

Search for your device on MaxBack and they’ll give you an instant offer. You can accept the offer immediately or think it over — the quote is good for 30 days. If you decide to sell, MaxBack will provide you with a prepaid USPS label to send your device in. Once they receive it, you get paid — fast. In fact, if you choose PayPal as your payment option, you could have money in your account within 4 days of accepting your quote!

If you’re a new user, they’ll even give you an extra five bucks when you sell your first item to them. If that wasn’t enough, you may even be able to sell your broken iPhone to MaxBack for as much as $100.

YouRenew

• Payment: Check
• Shipping: Free
• Fees: None
• What They’ll Buy: Mostly iPhones, BlackBerries, and Laptops

YouRenew is a bit more selective on what items they’ll buy back than the other sites listed. iPhones, BlackBerries, and select laptops are their most popular items they purchase. If they make you an offer on your device, you can accept it and mail the item in using a prepaid UPS label. Once your item is received and inspected, YouRenew will send you a check.

Even if your item has no value, you can still send it into YouRenew. They will recycle your device the right way and keep it out of landfills.

Amazon

• Payment: Amazon Gift Cards
• Fees: None
• Shipping: Free
• What They’ll Buy: Books, Consumer Electronics, Video Games, Movies, and More

There are hundreds of thousands of items eligible for the Amazon Trade-In Program — it almost makes up for the fact that you can only get paid with an Amazon Gift Card! The process is really simple: Find your item, get an immediate offer, ship it for free, and get credit for your device.

You can even use the Amazon App to easily find an item’s value by scanning it or performing a quick search. If you’re a Prime member, it may be worth cashing in your electronic clutter for Amazon gift cards (if you’re not a Prime member, Try Amazon Prime 30-Day Free Trial).

Store Trade-in Programs

While it’s convenient to have online options to sell your unwanted electronics, it’s also nice to be able to walk in a store and receive an instant credit for your items, especially if you plan on buying something from there anyway. Thankfully, several stores will let you walk in with a used device and walk out with a store credit.

Best Buy

You can search online ahead of time to find out what your used electronic is worth at Best Buy. They accept hundreds of different items, but their most popular include iPhones, iPads, gaming hardware, laptops, and video games. If you like the quoted price, you just have to fill out a short form and head on into your nearest participating Best Buy where they’ll give you a store gift card.

Walmart

Even your local Walmart may be interested in some of your unwanted devices. Walmart will issue a store gift card for devices like cell phones, tablets, MP3 players, and video games. If you like the idea of getting a Walmart gift card for your used electronics but don’t want to head over to your local store, no problem! Walmart also offers free shipping if you prefer to mail your item in. Once it’s received, you’ll get an e-gift card sent to you.

GameStop

GameStop will pay you cash or store credit for games, electronics, consoles, and accessories. All you have to do is bring your items into your nearest store, they’ll value you them, and make an offer on the spot. For example, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One will bring you $175 each at GameStop. If you have any old gift cards lying around, they’ll swap them out for a GameStop one through their Gift Card Exchange.

So, there you have it. I bet if you took a look around right now, you probably have a couple hundred dollars’ worth of old electronics cluttering up a drawer or closet somewhere in your house. With any one of these 10 options, you can quickly clear out the clutter and cash in (or trade in!).

This post may contain affiliate links. Please see the disclosure for more information.

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My grandma always said there was no such thing as easy money. Back in her day, I suppose this was truer than it is today. She and my grandpa worked tirelessly, sometimes several jobs each, to support their brood of seven children.

Did they live comfortably? Yes. Was it easy? Probably not.

Fortunately, by today’s standards, money can come easier. I’m not talking about get-rich-quick schemes or winning the lottery (although the latter could happen — fingers crossed!). I’m talking about passive income.

Now, don’t get me wrong, you do have to work initially to get passive income rolling in and keep up on marketing efforts to maintain it. In fact, you probably have to work that much harder if your ultimate goal is to earn money while you sleep. But once you do, you the reap the rewards of endless revenue streams that keep paying you over and over again for doing the work once.

If you are serious about creating residual income opportunities, read on. There are passive income ideas that allow complete beginners to set up avenues of incoming money with absolutely no money upfront.

Before You Start Earning Passive Income

Full disclosure: You don’t just wake up one day and decide to make passive income and then have money start rolling in. You work for it. Hard.

You will, in fact, invest a lot of sweat equity into creating passive income. If you’re not willing to put in the time, energy, and effort to get a passive stream of revenue flowing, it won’t be worth your time.

The only way to residual income success is to create a product or outlet that actually generates revenue. Doing this requires plenty of planning and many hours logged (for free) before launch.

If this sounds okay, or dare I say exciting, you are on your way to earning passive income. Now the question is, what kind of passive income ideas will work for you?

Online Passive Income Opportunities

In the real world, there are traditional ways to earn residual income like buying property and renting it out or smart investing. But today, there are plenty of online passive income ideas that give you the opportunity to have money rolling in day and night.

The best part is, online residual income doesn’t cost nearly as much as, say, buying a rental property. In fact, several passive income ideas come with zero out-of-pockets costs. The only thing you’ll need is time and the desire to make something out of nothing.

Write an eBook

You don’t have to be a well-known author to write a money-making eBook. If you can put together coherent sentences free of obvious grammar or spelling mistakes, you can earn money writing an eBook.

This is a great opportunity for the passive-income beginner because, one, it is free to do and, two, you can sell your product on big-name sites like Amazon and reach a global audience of millions.

If writing an eBook sounds like a good fit for you, great! There are a number of free valuable resources to help you get started. I suggest heading over to author of the 4-Hour Workweek, Tim Ferriss’s website. He provides real world case studies illustrating how people have had great passive income success just from writing eBooks.

For a practical how-to guide on the art of actually writing your Ebook, check out How to Write an Ebook by Amy Lynn Andrews.

Sell Stock Photos

You don’t have to be a professional photographer to make money selling photos. Chances are, if you’ve got an iPhone or  Android, you have a photo or two sitting in your gallery that is worth something.

For hobbyists and amateur photographers, microstock sites offer a platform to sell the pictures you take for profit. How does it work? Plenty of businesses, companies, and bloggers use microstock sites to source images for their blogs and marketing campaigns. They pay these microstock sites for a license to use these images.

Photographers can upload their photos for free. The microstock site will take a percentage of your earnings each time your image sells.

The best part is, you can take one photo and sell it over and over again. The Penny Hoarder has a quick-start Beginner’s Guide to Selling Stock Photography. For a more comprehensive look on what it takes to earn serious money selling photos (I’m talking quit-your-day-job-type-income) stop by Everything Microstock.

Create an Udemy Course

What are you good at? Can you juggle? Do yoga? Play the piano? Math whiz?

Whatever it is you’re good at, people will pay you to learn it. Udemy is becoming a favorite go-to spot for people who want to learn a new skill quickly and at a reasonable price.

This is great for those looking for passive income ideas since Udemy creates the perfect platform for you to sell your knowledge via an online course.

Forbes wrote up an interesting article on How to Create a Money-Making Course Online. In it, you can find out how the average Udemy Instructor earns $7,000 from one course. Some instructors can create a course in a weekend while others may take a month or two. But, keep in mind, even if you make one course in your spare time every two months, that is an average of $42,000 a year in passive income — not too shabby.

The best place to start if you want to create an Udemy course is Udemy itself. They have created their own course on how to be a successful instructor. Not only is it full of information that will set you up for passive income success, it’s completely free.

Establishing passive income is the goal for many but far fewer people actually succeed in doing so. If you’re willing to put in the work, you can reap the rewards. Remember, success often won’t come overnight but if you keep at it, you can eventually establish residual revenue streams.

For additional passive income ideas check out:

How to Earn Passive Income Online Writing for Revenue Sharing Sites by Free Work at Home Guide

15 Ways to Do the Work Once and Keep Getting Paid by Real Ways to Earn Money Online

Passive Income: The Most Effective Ways To Start Generating Passive Income Online Quickly. Proven Methods. (Passive income, multiple streams of income, make money online Book 1)

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