Online Income from Writing

In times of economic recession when many businesses start to struggle it may seem paradoxical that the number of small, home based businesses begins to boom. Many people worry about the long term security of their jobs or businesses and begin to explore ways of creating alternative income streams. In the past this would have probably taken the form of joining a direct sales scheme, perhaps hosting cosmetics parties or promoting kitchenware. Nowadays the internet offers far more possibilities for the average person to earn money from a home based business without having to sell anything to friends and family. Even if you have no business skills, you can use a basic knowledge of English grammar to make an income by writing. Let’s examine a few ways in which the average person can make money using just a computer, an internet connection and some English language writing skills.

Freelancing
This is an option mainly, although not exclusively, for people who possess skills, such as programming knowhow or secretarial skills. There is a big demand for people with these office based skills from businesses who wish to outsource their work. Outsourcing of jobs increases during economic downturns as businesses can not afford to hire new employees. It is far cheaper for a company to source freelancers who can work on an hourly basis from their homes thus negating the need for the company to provide equipment, office space and all of the other expenses which arise from employing someone.

There are also openings for unskilled people as well with many freelance agencies, mainly in the area of customer support. Openings exist for individuals offering general customer support by e-mail or via support ticket systems. Often the required support will be of a non-technical nature and will involve gathering information about customers’ needs or providing help with online services.

To find agencies to register with, try searching for ‘freelancing’ or visit odesk.com which is one of the larger, better known freelancing agencies.

Article Writing
Most people in the English speaking world came out of high school with an excellent knowledge of English grammar. If a person is prepared to brush up on those basic grammar and writing skills, there are many ways to use this knowledge to create an online income.

There are thousands of people with websites and blogs who need a constant, fresh supply of unique, professionally written content. Many of these bloggers or webmasters do not have the time to create enough content for themselves and are therefore willing to pay a writer to produce it for them. If a person has a good working knowledge of grammar and can learn how to structure an article for publication on the internet, then there are agencies they can submit their article to. The better agencies have queues of potential buyers looking for quality content for their sites and blogs so selling well written, engaging articles is not as difficult as it may sound. Perhaps the agency with the highest standards and therefore the highest reputation in this field is called constant-content.com. It costs nothing to become an author and there is plenty of help and advice on how to produce articles which meet the accepted standards.

Blogging
If someone has the ability to write engaging, entertaining and informative articles for the internet then starting a blog would be another project which could produce an online income from home. The success of a blog is measured by the numbers of visitors it receives. If visitors enjoy reading a blog they will return frequently and spread the word to other like minded people. This basically means that the success of a blog is governed by the frequency and quality of the posts that appear on it. When a blog has become popular, there are a number of income generating strategies which can be employed. One such strategy is to place contextual advertisements on the blog. Contextual advertisements closely reflect the content of the blog and therefore visitors are likely to click on an advertisement as they have already demonstrated their interest in the subject matter by reading the blog in the first place. The blog owner will be paid a small fee for every advertisement which is clicked by a visitor. When a blog is attracting many hundreds of visitors a day, these small fees can add up to a significant amount. Google have traditionally dominated the contextual advert market but these days there are many alternative businesses, such as advtiser.net, offering competitive deals.

Another income strategy for bloggers is by posting occasional product reviews. Many products and services offer affiliate programs which reward people for sending leads which convert to sales. A blogger reviews a favourite product or service on their blog and at the end of the review includes an affiliate link to the provider of the product. As the review appears as a personal recommendation, the percentage of people taking a look and converting into sales can be high. In fact many successful bloggers are frequently given free ‘review copies’ of products or services in the hope that they will post about them.

Conclusion
This article has only scratched the surface of ways to make an online home based business by writing and using your English language skills. There are many more opportunities for those who take the time to research them. One thing that makes starting an online writing business unusual compared with starting a more conventional business is that, providing you already have a computer and an internet connection, all of the ideas mentioned here require no additional investment at all.