Write

Writing is communication. To succeed, you need to reach your audience on both an intellectual and an emotional level. You want them to understand your premise–and feel inspired to use your ideas. So, for the moment, forget about sales and promotions and focus on creating a quality product.

Promote

You know your book will change the world; but unless the world knows about it, it is unlikely that it will even make any ripples. So what do you do next? Promote it, that’s what. Here’s how to convince others to buy it.

1. Pre-buzz

Don’t be shy; let everyone know you’re writing a book. It keeps you writing, for one thing. For another, it builds interest in the finished product. As soon as you publish your book, you’ll already have a little queue of interested buyers. If you blog (and if you don’t, you should), share the writing process with your readers. Your Twitter followers and FaceBook friends will also follow your progress with interest; some of them may also be inspired to buy the finished product, if only to be supportive.

2. Post-publication PromotionsOnce your book is out in the open, it is time to ramp things up a notch. You need to keep promoting the book until you reach the tipping point where your first set of customers will bring in your second set of customers and so on. Here are some tips to create that post-publication buzz.

• Social Media
  If you don’t already have a company page on Facebook, set one up, as well as an author page, both of which will attract the attention of people who may not want to “friend” you, but are very interested in your topic. The same goes for twitter, google+, pinterest etc. Here you can publicizes special promotional offers, post excerpts from your book, and apply your information to current situations. You can also interact with your fans and potential customers, driving more traffic to your website. Finally, don’t forget to ask. Social media interactions create loyalties between people who may never meet in person; many authors have found that they can boost sales just by asking “friends” to buy their books.

• Blogging
  Your blog audience is full of potential customers; after all, they already have an interest in your topic, enjoy your writing style, and have a perceived relationship with you. Chances are, they’ll buy your book without much prodding. However, you can make it fun (and attract the casual visitor) with incentives such as giveaways (an autographed hard copy, small token, copy of a popular business-oriented book, etc.). If you can, trade guest blogging gigs with your colleagues; you’ll reach out to new readers and prospects.

• Advertising
  Use your affiliate marketing experience to advertise for yourself. Implement your own pay-per-click program. Place ads on colleague’s sites. Create several landing pages, each designed to appeal to a certain set of keyword searches. If you have a database of customer email addresses, send a promotional email (no spam, please!). You might consider traditional print and radio promotions, or doing a library program; people are interested in authors, and you’ll reach a hitherto untapped demographic. Whether you are selling Castle Cover Home Insurance or an eBook, the basic principles are the same – try and reach as many potential buyers as possible.

No matter how you advertise, however, remember one key promotional concept: focus on your customers. Keep their interests, their problems, their objections firmly in mind. You’ve written a  book that addresses their concerns; make sure that your advertising portrays your book as the  solution they’ve been waiting for. Provide excerpts, testimonials, reviews–glimpses of the product to convince readers they need more.

Sell

Now we are in the home stretch. You have written a spectacular world. You have created a wonderful buzz and people are queuing up to place the orders. Now, its time to sell.

For those wishing to move beyond simple affiliate marketing and blogging–to build their platform, audience, and income, an eBook is a solid, cost-effective method. With time and effort (occasionally exhaustive effort), you can produce a quality book that delivers the information your clients need–and leaves them clamoring for more!

Pros and Cons of Searching for Jobs Online

Searching for online job opportunities has become popular because of the flexibility they offer. People can work at a time and place that suits their schedule. Freelancers can fit their online work around family commitments, hobbies, or other paid work. Because online freelance work can be undertaken from home, it removes the costs associated with working, such as commuting, store-bought lunches, and business clothing.

Undertaking online work via reputable intermediary websites, such as Elance and oDesk, gives freelancers confidence that they will receive payment. Elance offers an escrow service, where customers deposit money with the website prior to offering work. Although a dispute can occur, freelancers have a good chance of being paid because the website already holds the money. Freelancers working for oDesk on an hourly-paid basis are guaranteed to be paid, although fixed-price assignments are exempt from the oDesk payment guarantee.

However, online freelance websites also present disadvantages. The global nature of these websites means that competition for high-paying jobs is fierce. The willingness of workers in weaker economies, such as India and the Philippines, to work for a fraction of the living wage in the United States places U.S. freelance workers at a disadvantage. The average gross monthly wage in the U.S. is $3,263, compared to $295 in India and $279 in the Philippines, according to a recent survey by the United Nations’ International Labour Organization.

Another disadvantage of online freelance work is that it passes a number of work-related costs on to the freelancer. The individual must source his own health insurance, sort out his own taxes, and make plans for his retirement without the safety net of employer benefits. Again, this places U.S. workers at a disadvantage compared to workers in countries with well-developed public health and social security systems.

Online Networking

Once a freelancer has built a reputation, customers may begin to seek her out. However, for most freelancers, particularly those who are new to Elance, Freelancer, oDesk, or similar websites, online networking is vital. Networking in relevant industry groups keeps freelancers up-to-date with new developments and publicizes their expertise.

Freelancing can be a solitary occupation. Networking with other freelancers will provide much-needed support when the going gets tough. You may also pick up hints and tips about where new sources of work can be found.

The downside of networking is that it can easily feel like work, while producing zero income. Be sure that your networking has purpose. Focus in on forums and groups that offer an identifiable benefit. Limit the time you spend on networking to ensure that you do not encroach on working time and reduce your earning potential.

Building an Online Portfolio

Employers that make hiring decisions online cannot carry our traditional interviews. Instead, they rely on the freelancers’ portfolios as evidence of whether they are likely to complete an assignment to a reasonable standard. According to the Elance Employer Online Hiring Practices survey, 84 percent of employers find contractors’ portfolios important when they are making a hiring decision online.

Make sure that you put together a killer portfolio that includes samples of all the different kind of writing you are capable of. The more variety you can show, the better. So, for example, you can include a sample of the thought provoking essay you wrote for a magazine, a news release for a simple landlords insurance website, a popular guest post on a blog that went viral and so on. If you have accounts on public knowledge sharing sites such as hubpages, squidoo or wikipedia, be sure to include those samples as well. Last but not the least, if you have written or co-authored any eBooks, be sure to mention them too. Overall, the idea is to appeal to a potential customer, no matter what his needs are.

Writing a Persuasive Pitch

To win work online, you need to write a strong pitch that will convince the customer that you are the best person for the job. Customers are more interested in how you match their requirements than your personal details. Highlight your expertise, demonstrate how you have addressed similar requests in the past and include examples of your work, where possible. Customers may not have time to search through a lengthy portfolio for samples of your work that may be relevant to the assignment on offer. If you have examples, make them easy to locate.

Writing a great pitch can convince a customer to choose you, even if you are not the cheapest option. Freelancers in countries where English is not the first language may charge less, but if their pitches contain spelling mistakes and grammatical errors, customers are likely to think twice before allocating work to them. So put in as much effort on your pitch as you would on a paid assignment – without the pitch, there may be no paid assignment!

Cultivating Online Relationships

By cultivating great relationships, you will generate satisfied clients, receive positive feedback, and win new assignments. Satisfied clients will return to you time and again with new assignments, confident that you will consistently deliver high-quality work in a timely manner. Positive feedback will be recorded against your profile on online freelance websites. Five-star feedback will tell potential clients that you are dependable and reliable. The onus is on you to ensure that the customer to whom you provide good service will leave a feedback in the first place. If you think you deserve good rating, don’t be shy to ask for it.

Overall, the online freelancing sites like oDesk, elance and freelancer offer several opportunities, but may seem daunting when you just start out. Take your time to figure out the ropes to give you freelancing career another avenue to find new customers from.

I recently wrote a post about The 6 Essential tips for importing from China. Not surprisingly, it sparked an interest among some of the enterprising readers about what is possible when you import items from China to sell on eBay and they want to learn more. So, I have put together this little guide to cover some of the finer points of importing goods from China to the US. Read on to equip yourself with the knowledge you need to import cut-price goods to resell for a profit.

Finding a supplier

Obviously this is the first step to importing anything. I covered some crucial tips in my last post, but if you need a refresher, the main things to remember when ordering from an overseas supplier, from China or elsewhere, are:

• Use safe payment methods such as PayPal or ProPay. These payment methods offer you some level of protection if something goes wrong between the time when you pay the supplier and when you receive and inspect the items at your home or warehouse.
• Be wary of on large marketplace-style wholesale websites such as DH Gate. While there are plenty of trusted suppliers here who offer great service, these sites are also rife with scammers posing as suppliers who will either take your money and run, or deliver you poor quality items that you won’t be able to give away, let alone sell for a profit.

Ensuring that you can legally import your chosen items

Common sense can often determine whether you can import a particular item, but it’s worth doing a thorough check anyway to avoid the disappointment of spending time and money trying to import something that you cannot legally bring into the country.

Check out the Customs and Border Protection’s list of restricted items and prohibited items to check your items are fine to bring in.

Preparing for the costs associated with importing

“How much will it cost me to import X?” is a question I get often. The costs involved with your import will depend on what you are importing, how much you are importing and how quickly you want it to arrive.

Here is a quick list of what will determine your total cost of importing:

• Your PPC or product purchase cost. This is the total cost of buying your items from your supplier.
• Freight costs. Go for sea freight over air freight. Yes, it’s slower but unless you are making a small order, it will save you a lot of money.  When you deal with large orders there are a number of terms of shipping you can negotiate with your supplier. Freight on Board (or FOB) is the most common of these and is generally the best option for the supplier and you the importer.
• Import duties. How much your import duties are will depend on how your products are classified by Customs and Border Control. Duties are higher on restricted or taxed items like alcohol.  Some products are classified as duty-free and therefore, you won’t incur any duties.
• Whether you hire a Customs Broker or Freight Forwarder. Customs Brokers and Freight Forwarders are professionals you can hire to make the process of importing a lot easier.  Usually you can hire them once and learn enough to do your second import yourself.  While there are upfront costs of using a Forwarder or Broker, they usually save you money (and a lot of headaches!) in the long-run. Hire trusted forwarders and brokers here.

Filing the paper work

To import into the US you will need a business tax number. You can get these from the IRS if you don’t already have one. You will need this number to complete all your customs and importing paper work.

Clearing customs and having your products released when they arrive in the US involves a) filing the necessary paperwork to have your shipment deemed able to be released into the US and b) filing the paperwork that discloses information for “duty assessment”. You can do both these steps online here.

Preparing for duties and tariffs: What you need to know

When you bring goods into the US, they will be subjected to duty or duty-free entry conditions. How they are classified depends the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States.

The fastest and easiest way to determine what you will pay in duties and tariffs is to use the Interactive Tariff and Trade DataWeb system. You will need to create an account to use it, but it won’t cost you a thing.

Have you imported items before? What was your experience? A logistical nightmare, or a breeze? Share below!

For many items such as electronic gadgets like mobile phones and mp3 players, it’s pretty much impossible for a new seller to make sales. This is because you are going head-to-head with long-term sellers with big budgets (they often make wholesale orders of over $20,000 -$30,000 at a time) which is difficult to compete with.

However, there are still a lot of unsaturated markets on eBay and therefore, there are still plenty of opportunities for you to cash-in. One of the best ways to ensure fast sales on eBay is importing from China, the global manufacturing giant.

When you import from China, you open yourself up to being able to source products that sell like hotcakes on eBay at a fraction of the cost of sourcing them locally. Products at 60% below retail prices? Yes please!

Importing from China isn’t as complicated as you might think. Here are six essential tips to help get you started.

Take precautions when importing from china

This is especially true when you order from suppliers on DHGate, China Vision, iOffer, etc. While these sites can have some exceptional bargains, they are also rife with dodgey suppliers who are offering products that are of such poor quality that you will have trouble selling them. In some cases, products bought from sellers on these sites never even show up. Your best protection is checking the suppliers feedback score (most wholesale marketplaces have feedback systems just like eBay) and contacting the supplier for a chat before you purchase anything.

Above all, remember that if a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Stay away from branded or designer items

While a lot of designer and branded items are manufactured in China, 90% of them coming out of China are fakes. There’s no such thing as an authentic Dolce and Gabana suit being sold at wholesale for $59! Avoiding fakes is crucial because if you get caught importing them into the US, you could be prosecuted. If you do manage to smuggle them through customs and list them on eBay, you will have your account closed down before you can say “but the supplier told me they were authentic”.

Determine whether your supplier is legitimate or a phoney

Unfortunately, when you import from China, you open yourself up to a myriad of ‘fake’ suppliers who are simply scammers hiding behind what appears to be a website full of bargains. These con-artists prey on retailers who are looking for a good deal. They often lure you in with extremely low prices on hot selling items such as iPads for $120 or Nike shoes for $14.Your best defence against falling victim is to run a quick check on the supplier. You can do this by testing the contact information they provide on their website. If they have a phone number listed, call it and ask them about their products. If they have a physical address, copy and paste it into Google Maps and see if the address really exists (note that not all streets in China will be indexed by Google). If they have no contact details listed, or just a Hotmail or Gmail email address, there is a real chance that you are dealing with a phoney supplier.

Always use safe payment methods when you import from China

Western Union, wire transfers and money orders are not recommended! If something goes wrong when you use these methods, there is very little hope in getting your money back. PayPal and other safe payment options such as ProPay or Escrow give you some level of cover should the transaction turn pear-shaped. If a supplier insists on using an unsafe payment method to avoid paying fees, don’t let them sway you, just find another supplier.

Order a sample first

If you find a supplier with the products you want to sell, order a sample before you dive in and order a wholesale lot. By ordering a sample, you can fully inspect the product’s quality and the supplier’s service. Expect to pay for the sample – very few suppliers will send them out for free. You should also be prepared to pay a retail price for the sample: Suppliers cannot offer wholesale rates on single items.

Hire a freight forwarder

There are a lot of logistics that go into importing items including paying customs fees and liaising with freight companies. If you are serious about importing, but a little overwhelmed by the details, consider hiring a freight forwarder to take care of the tricky parts. Good freight forwarders will be able to work with you on your first import and educate you enough so that you can do your second import yourself. The National Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association of America is a trusted way to locate reliable forwarders.

Have you got questions about importing? Get in touch by leaving a comment below.

I’m usually not comfortable telling people how to make money online but I wanted to share my story because if I can do it then you can do it.  I’ll also give you some tips on what NOT to do when starting a niche site like this.  If you avoid the mistakes I’ve made then you’ll save yourself a lot of wasted time and energy, and you’ll probably start making money a lot more quickly too.

My story

I am a qualified independent financial advisor, and although I had a decent job in the UK financial services industry, like many other people I found myself dreaming of making money online and living by the beach.  I tried a bunch of things and nothing seemed to work until I started Compare Logbook Loans, a financial comparison site in the obscure niche of logbook loans that I’d never even heard of before.

It wasn’t an easy ride, and I’ve made lots of mistakes along the way, but it now earns me and my business partner a basic living each month, and since it really took off I spent most of 2011 in Thailand and Vietnam living by the beach.  The site won’t make me rich – it now makes around $8,500 net profit per month between two of us – but because I get paid in UK pounds it allows me to live an excellent lifestyle in exotic places where I benefit from the great exchange rate.

There are many different online business models but the one I have managed to get working is a cross between affiliate marketing and lead generation. Put simply, this means that I get paid a commission by loans companies every time my website sends them a new visitor who goes on to become a customer.  Everything is tracked automatically by online software and the lenders simply transfer money into my bank account at the end of the each month – it’s great!

Obviously there is a large amount of work of be done on the website each month – it’s not one of these automated cash machines that you hear about – but in relation to the income the amount of hours worked is pretty good and I can’t complain.

What NOT to do

Rather than just give you give you a chronological account of what I did, it might be more useful for you if I break it down into mistakes I made and how you can avoid them.  I have always found negative advice more useful, simply because it is much easier to know when something does NOT work than when it does, because there are so many variables involved, including blind luck and random chance (which most of the so-called “gurus” never seem to mention.)

Here are a few of the mistakes I’ve made and what I learned from them – I hope this helps you to shave at least a year off your learning curve!

1. Don’t choose a niche you absolutely no interest in (unless you have a budget set aside for hiring writers.)

If you choose to create a niche website in an area you have no interest in then you will get bored of it before your site has a chance to start making money (this is especially true if you are relying on SEO traffic, which takes time.)  The reason I chose the finance niche was because my background is in financial services, but obviously I don’t have a genuine passion for bad credit loans!  This made writing content for the site extremely difficult as I was writing about things I had no interest in, and for long periods I didn’t add new articles to the site because it was boring.  It also makes link building very difficult because many personal finance sites won’t link to sites that deal with bad credit at all.

The reason I chose the logbook loans niche in particular was because I had used it as one of my test campaigns for learning how to use Google Adwords.  This was over 3 years ago and in those days this niche was quite unknown so I found myself making an easy profit at the time.  At this point I thought it would be a good idea to promote the site using SEO techniques as well.

2. Don’t write spammy low-quality articles just for SEO purposes.

This came back to haunt me last year at the Google Panda update.  Websites could get away with this in the past and still climb to the top of the rankings but the Panda update has made this much harder, and we can expect more of the same as Google keeps trying to filter out low quality content in favour of useful and interesting stuff.  During the update my site dropped from number 1 for its top keyword down to number 4, which in financial terms meant a loss of 75% income.

What I did to remedy this was a gamble but it seems to be starting to pay off.  I deleted over 120 pages of low-quality repetitive content and added some genuinely useful and informative articles in their place.  There is no way of knowing for sure but I think this is what stopped my site going disappearing entirely (which is precisely what happened to so many other people during the last update.)

Another problem related to this is that because I thought I just needed articles for SEO purposes (i.e. lots of keywords endlessly repeated in every possible formation) it prevented me from discovering the power of guest posting, both as the best SEO technique for link building, and as a way of getting excellent free content that my visitors would enjoy.  For example, look at the articles on Grad Money Matters and the other top personal finance blogs – they are all useful, informative and entertaining, written in order to help other people get what they want and need.

3. Don’t think about “making money” instead of “creating value for other people.”

This mindset is the underlying cause behind the above two mistakes.  If all you think about is making money then you won’t create useful content for other people, you’ll use pushy sales techniques that frighten visitors away, and in many cases you’ll pick the wrong niche in the first place.  Once I changed my mindset to creating value I immediately came up with dozens of article ideas and possible partnerships with other personal finance websites.  If I had known this 3 years ago my site would probably be earning at least 3x what it is today.

4. Don’t be impatient and quit too soon.

You have to be smart enough to know when you’re getting lucky.  So if something works just a little in the early days then it is most likely that a bit of work and focus will get it to be successful in the future.  After my initial success using Pay Per Click I hired an SEO company with the profits and they totally failed to deliver.  As the PPC earnings dropped over the next few months I found myself losing money rather than making money, so I got disillusioned and quit working on the logbook loans comparison site altogether.

This was followed a year of flip-flopping from one project to another with no real success, and lots of self-loathing in the process!  Then came one of those beautiful coincidences that happen every so often.  Two years ago Yahoo accidentally charged my credit card for some ads that I had cancelled several months previously.  On a whim I decided just to use the credits to buy Yahoo PPC ads and use them on promoting the loans site.  I really lucked out here and it started turning a profit on the very first day!

It’s a tiny niche and there is not enough traffic to earn a living just doing PPC alone, but this time I was smart enough to know that I was getting lucky and that of all my current projects this was the one with the most potential.  So I decided to start developing the site in order to attract organic search engine traffic rather than have to rely on paying for ads all the time.  If it hadn’t been for Yahoo’s mistake I never would have gone back to the site at that time and would have missed the opportunity.

Conclusion

I really hope a few people reading this take inspiration from it and go out there and build their own money-making website so that they can quit their job like I did.  I feel grateful every day and don’t take anything for granted, it took a long time coming.

If I had to give one piece of advice to beginners I’d say: be smart enough to try lots of things until you find something that works, then be smart enough to know you’re getting “lucky” when something eventually does….

By ‘it,’ my friend meant leaving my full-time job and embarking on a new professional path as my own boss. No more 8am conference calls with an unsympathetic manager; no more weekend calls to work overtime; no more office politics.

The fact is, just about anyone can use their skill set to make money outside of the traditional workplace. Whether you’re a journalist, like me, who wants to branch out on her own, or an independently-minded businessman looking to take advantage of the dozens of franchise opportunities available right now, if you look hard enough, you’ll uncover many creative new ways to expand your income.

Become A Mortgage Broker

With mortgage rates at all-time lows, there’s never been a better time to become a mortgage broker. You’ve got two options when it comes to pursuing this career path. The first is the more conventional of the two – signing on to work as a broker with an established office or company. The second gives you more freedom and control – and more responsibility as well: taking advantage of mortgage broker franchise opportunities.

To get an idea of the mortgage broker franchise model, think about the world’s biggest franchise: McDonald’s. While most people associate this chain with Ray Kroc, the first McDonald’s was actually opened in 1940 by two brothers, named – what else? – Richard and Maurice McDonald. It wasn’t until Kroc signed on as a franchise agent in 1955 that the chain took off. Under the McDonald’s model, qualified franchisees pay an upfront fee to open a location under the parent company’s name. They follow the parent company’s rules, usually offering the same products or services with minimal variation. While the franchisee ultimately reports to the parent company, they enjoy the benefits of owning and operating their own office or storefront.

Multiple parent companies offer would-be mortgage brokers a chance to get in the game. To start with, you’ll need to get your license in mortgage broking; requirements vary by state. The parent company will also look at your assets to gauge your net worth; they’re looking for individuals who have enough liquid cash available to successfully start and maintain the franchise. Franchising fees can range from just a few thousand dollars to tens of thousands of dollars. In addition to that fee, you’ll also be required to pay your parent company royalty fees on every transaction. In exchange for those expenses, you’ll be able to take advantage of the company’s advertising and training programs. Some companies will ask you to attend an on-site training session, where you’ll learn to become a mortgage broker, while other organizations train you online.

How do you get paid? Every time you broker a loan for a customer, the company that provides the financing pays you. New federal laws that took effect in April 2011 made it illegal for mortgage brokers to double dip – receiving payments from both the lender and the borrower – in an effort to prevent brokers from steering customers toward bad loans.

Other Franchise Opportunities

Once you understand the concept of franchising in a business like mortgage broking, it’s easy to see how the model applies to virtually any industry you can imagine. The janitorial services sector brings in about $20 billion annually in the U.S.; perhaps that’s why there are literally dozens of home and business cleaning franchise opportunities. What about fitness or exercise franchises? You’ve probably heard of Curves, one of the biggest fitness chains for women – and guess what? It’s a franchise. Restaurants, retail, healthcare, entertainment: they all have franchise opportunities for individuals or groups who have the start-up capital and desire to succeed.

Freelance Writing

If taking advantage of the thousands of franchise opportunities – like becoming a mortgage broker or a restaurant owner – isn’t right for you, you’re by no means out of luck. My path to becoming a freelance writer started when I began looking for a way to supplement my current income as a TV news producer. Journalists are notoriously underpaid; five years into my career, I was making less than $35,000, and that was with a master’s degree. I started writing for an online content mill, receiving $10 an article. It wasn’t glamorous, but it gave me the chance to earn as much as I wanted whenever I wanted.

As my knowledge of the freelance writing industry expanded, so did my opportunities and income (similar experience observed by other contributors to our inspiring stories section – you can read it here and here). I quit the world of content mills – which don’t give you any rights to your work once you submit it – and began writing for smaller publications. Within just weeks of accepting my first staff writing position with a mid-sized financial blog, the site’s owner referred me to one of her friends… who referred me to one of his friends… and so on, and so on.

It doesn’t matter whether your passion is personal finance, like mine, or something less technical, like parenting advice. You don’t even have to be a professional writer. If you have a good grasp of the English language and can weave a bit of personality into your articles, there’s a place for you on the web as a freelance writer.

Educator Opportunities

But what about my friend – the one who was insistent she couldn’t return to her job as a biology teacher after having kids? Turns out, there are income-supplementing opportunities out there for educators as well.

My friend’s first brainstorm involved the community college network. While most four-year colleges and universities are looking for an individual with a doctorate, the majority of community colleges only require a master’s degree. With her master’s in biology in hand, my friend applied to three different community colleges in our area.

What if you don’t have an advanced degree? Try an online high school. North Carolina operates a virtual public high school. This online school is “attended” by students who can’t make it to class due to illness, location, or discipline problems; some school districts also use it to supplement their in-house teachers with specialized curriculum. The best part? You don’t have to have a master’s degree to teach at an online secondary school – just a bachelor’s degree and your teacher’s license for that state. Because it’s online, many of these teachers still work full-time jobs as well, using their virtual public school income to supplement.

The Final Word

Can you find success with these out-of-the-box money making ideas? My friend sure did. Within days of applying for those community college teaching jobs, she received two offers – one to teach two classes a week (at $36/hour) on campus, and the other to teach online courses (at $32/hour). She accepted the online opportunity and hasn’t worked in a physical school since.

And as for me… well, I’m writing this article, aren’t I?

What is a keyword? A keyword is the word (or phrase) your potential customers type into the search box as they look for images. Within mere seconds, they’ll be rewarded with a flood of suggestions. Your goal is to be one of these–the closer to top of the first page of results, the better your chances are of making a sale. If your pictures stay buried on page 18 of the search results, chances are no one will even bother to look, much less buy. To ensure that doesn’t happen to your photos, choose your keywords with care. Here are ten suggestions to help!

1. Avoid generic terms.

If you’re posting a photo of a Golden Retriever, don’t tag it as “dog,” and be done with it. The microstock photography business has grown over the past few years; you have plenty of competition. Chances are good that your “dog” photo will simply be overwhelmed in an avalanche of “dog” photos. Your buyer, who really did want a great picture of a Golden Retriever saving the life of a young boy who was about to go over Niagara Falls, is going to give up in disgust after scrolling through the first 5 pages of dog results, and buy a “good enough” photo of a wet spaniel. Make it easy for people to find your work.

2. Be Specific

You do this by being specific. Look at every aspect of your picture. In the example mentioned above, you could use “Golden Retriever,” “boy,” “child,” “Niagara Falls,” “lifesaving,” “waterfalls,” “heroes,” “rescue,” etc. Which season is portrayed in your picture? Is there a dominant color scheme? What is the orientation of the picture: vertical or horizontal (these things matter to a web designer)? The more specific your keywords, the more likely your photograph will be presented to the people most likely to buy it.

3. Describe the Mood

This is one of the most downloaded pictures on fotolia.com with over 10K downloads. What keywords can you think of when you see it? Bet you didn’t think “thirties”, “countryside”, “generation x” or “family activities”, did you? Check out all the keywords here.

4. Location!

Don’t neglect to use your photo’s location as a source for keywords. Some locations are obviously a plus, such as Paris, Timbuktu, Antarctica, or the planet Saturn. But add keywords that narrow it down a bit, such as Sacré-Coeur, “tree-lined suburb,” “New York City brownstone,” and so on. Again, the idea is to provide enough information that the person who is really looking for your image will be able to find it (and buy it) quickly.

5. Use a Thesaurus

Let’s face it: we’re not all English majors, and even if we were, some days the words just aren’t there. How many other words can you think of for “sunrise”? Using this online thesaurus I can bet you can come up with at least 20 different keyword you can use to describe that perfect surise shot you captured. Even if they’re not all suitable for your photo, they might inspire a train of thought that will help you find the word that is.

6. Ask for Help

As an artist, you know that sometimes what you really need is a different pair of eyes. When you’re at a loss for keywords, give the photo to a friend or family member and ask them to come up with ten terms they would use to describe the subject. This method can be invaluable. After all, not all people think alike; your uncle may come up with a word you’d never have imagined, but which will deliver that photo to a whole new group of prospective customers.

7. Scope Out the Competition

As you’ve probably already noticed, there are a lot of aspiring stock photographers out there. Don’t let this discourage you. Instead, learn from the competition by examining the keywords they use. Search for photos with the same subject as yours, and then look at their keywords for ideas. Some microstock photo sites also provide a list of their most popular search terms; after all, they want to make a sale almost as much as you do!

8. Use SEO tools

Yes, the same tools that Internet Marketers use for coming up with keywords to market their site can help you find the keywords to market your photographs. The most popular free tool is the Google Keyword Tool which you can use for getting ideas of new keywords that are related to the keyword list that you have already put together. A paid tool, which we use a lot for our own SEO research is the Market Samurai tool. You can plug in one term, see a list of hundreds of related terms, and then pick any of these terms and continue looking for terms closest to them and so on.

9. What’s My Motivation?

Remember, the people searching for your photo are doing so, not because they like pictures of fluffy bunnies, but because they need your image to achieve a purpose. Find a keyword that describes how your photo might be used, such as “instructional,” or “motivational,” and add it to your list.

10. Never Tread Water

You’ve spent time and effort choosing just the right keywords. You’ve uploaded your photo, and you’re done. Nothing to do now but sit back and wait for the dollars (or cents) to roll in, right?

Not so fast!  Make it part of your work routine to go back and tweak your photos’ keywords every so often. Affiliate marketers know that one way to propel their website to the top of Google is to continually add new, relevant content. Adopt this strategy by changing a few keywords. Add new ones, get rid of underperformers, and check the “most popular” lists to get ideas on what’s currently garnering sales. By doing this, you’ll ensure that your image will appear in new results lists, attract new eyes, and find new buyers, making you new money.

Money making ideas, such as selling stock photos, are a great start; however, making money in any business requires time, effort, and attention to detail. By working hard to find the right keywords for your stock photos, you’ll attract the right buyer, at the right time, and ensure that your photographs can keep on bringing you money even for a long time to come.

Software engineers and network experts often hire out on a contract basis.  Case managers and clinical study professionals for pharmaceutical firms, even executives with backgrounds in finance or operations management are to be found today working under contract.  But this article is about people who are interested in starting a freelance writing business in partnership solely with a computer and high speed online service.  One of the cultural phenomena that are driving the freelance writing business today is the remarkable range of online commercial enterprises.  Those that are depending on using the internet for marketing purposes need quality content, and a lot of it, to establish their presence.

Beware the Bidding Wars

Some freelancers read everything they can about blogging and set out to develop a site with sufficient quality to build a following that in internet terms, translates into a revenue stream from advertising dollars.  Others who are casting about for a starting point in the business gravitate to one of the bidding sites for freelance services such as Guru, Elance, oDesk, ScriptLance, and many other lesser sites offer the freelance writer an opportunity to sign on and bid on posted writing jobs.

Most of these have a premium subscription level that provides full access to listed jobs, so you’ll be paying a monthly stipend.  In addition, once you land a job with one of these services payment is handled through their site and they take a cut of up to 10% of your earnings.  If you’re being paid through PayPal, that’s another deduction from your earnings.

But the real high wire act with these services is the bidding.  You can count on some ridiculously low bids, usually from offshore writers; it’s a phenomenon that has skewed the entire pay structure in the business (see the comments on the article How Much Should You Pay a Freelancer, for example).  The best you can do in these situations is to develop your profile on the site with a focus on quality work.  You can’t sell yourself out for jobs that end up paying $4 or $5 an hour; you’ll just have to wait until a potential employer comes along who is looking for quality along with price and hope that you get the job.  Once you’ve established contact with an employer and made a favorable impression with your work, you may have your first steady client.

The Craigslist Carnival

I turned to Craigslist when I was first starting out in this business.  There are postings for legitimate writing jobs to be found there, interspersed with a remarkable variety of hustles.  You’ll learn to recognize the frauds fairly quickly; the most obvious being those that promise instant income of thousands a month while working from home.  Don’t even think about responding.  Then there’s the “paid internship” opportunity and the listings that are looking for bloggers or content writers for unspecified topics, work available instantly wherever you are.  Those sorts of open ended ads are usually a waste of time.  There are also ample placements for non-profit organizations involved in social activism; generally they are counting on your dedication to the cause as justification for starvation wages.

There are also listings for legitimate positions at various seniority levels, but many of those are for office jobs.  Occasionally you’ll find one that will consider telecommuting but often those are for technical writing or specialized work that doesn’t require interacting with a team.  Most of them want some sort of background: could be SEO, could be medical writing, and could be finance.  If you meet the qualifications for experience it is sometimes worth submitting your resume and bona fides with an inquiry about at least part time telecommuting.

Sometimes the best legitimate gigs on Craigslist are the most boring but they can mean steady work.  Commercial websites that need a paragraph of written material to accompany every picture for the hundreds of items that they are selling are in need of a ton of content.  It’s assembly line work but it’s steady – and if the proprietor has a list of keywords then you can raise the pay scale a bit.  The best way to find these and other legitimate telecommuting jobs is to check the twenty five largest cities in the country every couple of days.  Listings do vary from market to market although you will see the same listing in each of the cities; usually those are listings to avoid.

Building a Client Base

If you explore the writer profiles on Guru or Elance you’ll read about writers that have earned a handsome living working with the one-off proposals put out to bid by employers.  That’s one way to do well in the freelance writing business but it requires a lot of personal marketing through the site, and the ability to write on many topics knowledgeably without much time for research.  The job bid sites and Craigslist all have listings from employers who need quality product and will continue to need it, but you’ll have to search through a lot of writing opportunities to find them.

Those are the people that you want to connect with and stay connected with, if you don’t wish to spend endless hours bidding on jobs.  Once you’ve proven your worth as a writer, employers are going to stick with you because if they’ve been in the business for a while, they’ve encountered lots of inexpensive writers for whom English is a second language.  You’ll also find that the entrepreneurs building out commercial websites tend to know one another and are not averse to recommending a writer who has given them good service.

Basically, creating a freelance writing business requires a startup period when you get your first jobs and in so doing, establish some experience in the business.  From there if you keep up your trolling for new clients eventually you will find a few that are a good fit for you, that pay a decent sum for your work, and that have constant needs for additional content.

It is simply a matter of working the odds: connect with lots of people who need content, stick with those who don’t haggle over price, and develop a group of clients that keep you working full time.  Good writers are not that easy to find, even though the competition is fierce.  Employers who connect with a quality writer will often take steps to maintain those writing services – it’s not always the employer that holds all the cards.

Why Do We Hire Freelancers?

Generally there are 3 reasons why we utilize the services of freelancers. These include:

1. Freeing Up Time Many individuals do not want to sacrifice time for money. When considering the online market, for example, it allows Internet Marketers the opportunity to outsource work such as article writing or graphic designs etc.  Many established Internet Marketers will rather pay someone else to do the work for them in order to free up more personal time.
2. Professional Service Very often the skills of a professional are required to carry out certain tasks. With our example above, Internet Marketers involved in affiliate programs wants to motivate readers landing on their websites into purchasing the products advertised. Not everyone can write great motivating sales copy, and therefore the services of skilled professionals are often utilized.
3. Freedom of Choice
   This is a combination of the above 2 points but with the focus of having the freedom of choice in utilizing any freelancer on an as and when required basis. There is no formal contracts entered into, and you have the freedom to decide whom you want to use and for which project.

Tips in Deciding How Much To Pay Your Freelancer

First of all, you will need to determine how a freelancer is to be paid, whether it is per hour or per project, or by some other rate. There is, however, a few ways to gauge payment structures. These include:

1. Industry Rates By finding out what others pay for a similar service is often the first step in deciding how much to pay. The more common the skill, the higher the competition tends to be, and therefore the cheaper the rates for the particular service. This, unfortunately, does not necessarily mean that a standard quality will be guaranteed.
2. Skills and Experience At the end of the day you want to ensure that you receive value for money, and therefore freelancers with great testimonials and proof of work is often is seen to charge higher rates.  A pool of online writers, for example, may charge similar rates to write informative articles about a specific subject, but might not be as effective in writing sales copy. A professional Copywriter, on the other hand, does possess the skills to motivate most viewers in purchasing the product, and therefore charge higher rates for their skills.  At the end of the day it all boils down to what you want to achieve.
3. Quality of Work Generally, people are willing to pay more when their given product or service beams with quality. If you pay a lower rate compared to the industry norm, than you will need to accept that you might receive substandard quality. On the other hand, you may have just stumbled upon a ‘gem in the making’, especially with new freelancers competing for the same market. In such situations, however, there is nothing more motivating paying a little extra to the freelancer especially if you understand the amount of work that was invested in the end product, and if you want to create a long term relationship with the individual.
4. Negotiating Other Rewards The rates charged from a freelancer may not always suit your budget, and therefore other rewards could be negotiated. If, for example, you want a specific designer to create a specialized set of logos and headers, but find the services charged is to steep, you could offer a lower payment in return for a revenue sharing deal. If you want a cheaper flat rate, determine what other rewards the freelancer may be willing to negotiate on.

Final Word

Considering all the above mentioned factors will help you in deciding how much to pay your freelancer as well as identifying a range of fees charged in the specific industry. From here there is nothing stopping you from contacting the individual and negotiating deals.

Luckily, I had attended an SAT preparatory academy during high school to study for the SAT’s and had done well enough to get asked to teach there during the summers while I was in college.  And that marked the beginning of my decade-plus long career as an SAT instructor. While I’ve had numerous jobs from being a barista to taking sushi delivery orders, no other job has given me the opportunity to pay my way through school and to gain financial independence from my parents.

From then on, I’ve always been fortunate enough to help a steady stream of students through word-of-mouth (thanks to all the tiger moms!) and this financial freedom has allowed me to take certain risks, ones that I would never have been able to do without these teaching gigs. For example, I had worked in publishing for some time and was seriously considering a career change, but without having a severance to fall back on, there was no way that I could’ve taken the leap without having tutoring’s safety net catch me.

Lesson 1: Get Everything in Writing

Whether you’re acting as a freelance tutor or working for a private institution, make sure all the terms, including number of hours worked, hourly rate, cancellation policy, etc., have all been discussed, negotiated, and on paper. If you’re working for a private institution, pay close attention to your hourly rate for a class versus a one-on-one tutoring session. Although logically, you should be getting paid more for a class in comparison to one-on-one tutoring since you’re teaching more students and the academy is making a greater profit, ironically, most places pay a flat hourly rate per class and a higher hourly rate for one-on-one tutoring simply because the hourly rate that it charges parents is higher. If you’re a freelance tutor, you’re your own boss, so you have the freedom to make your own hours and charge whatever you want per hour. But beware—that flexibility comes at a cost! Since parents are paying a higher hourly rate, they also have higher standards and demands, so if you can’t deliver, you won’t be able to maintain a steady workflow. Ultimately, by making sure that everyone’s on the same page, this will prevent unnecessary conflicts.

Lesson 2: Be Selective with Your Students and Don’t Overload Your Tutoring Schedule

If you’re working for a private institution, you don’t really have much of a choice in this matter. Since at the end of the day, it’s still a business, a private academy’s number one priority is profit, so it’ll do whatever is best for its bottom line. Because that’s the case, you’ll encounter all kinds of students, even troublesome ones, who’ll have absolutely no desire to learn, which means your success rate with them is generally low. But that’s not your problem—you didn’t choose them! With a private institution, you’re not liable for your success rate and won’t have to play PR manager with the parents either. However, if you’re working as a freelancer, know that reputation is gold and word-of-mouth goes a long way! Just because you have many students, doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re a good tutor or that you’re the right tutor for a particular student. Ultimately, if you’re not a good fit with a student, he/she will neither perform well on the exam nor get into his/her first choice school, which can be damaging to your reputation. Don’t get me wrong—the money can be tempting, but remember that your hourly rate and the pool of students you have to choose from will be based on your success rate. Also, if you pack in too many students, then you won’t be able to provide the same focus and enthusiasm to each student (especially those later on in your schedule), which can hurt your success rate as well. I recommend a trial run with each potential student for about a month to see how well you mesh with him/her and take it from there.

Lesson 3: Prepare, Prepare, Prepare!

Whether you’re working for yourself or for an academy, preparation is a MUST. Be sure to review all the material that you’re going to cover in class because if you’re unprepared, students will take notice and are less likely to respect you let alone pay attention to you. If you’re working for a private institution, it will have the agenda set and resources made available to you, so all you need to do is show up. If you’re working for yourself, make sure you create a precise and focused road map of your plans then buy your books, create lesson plans and tests, and be ready to assign homework.

Lesson 4: Be Patient with Your Students

I know everyone’s all too familiar with the cliché quote, “patience is a virtue,” but there’s no other quality more necessary than in teaching. First, if you don’t like adolescents and can’t stand the teenage angst years, then this is definitely not the job for you. There are already so many odds stacked against the teacher-student relationship, ie-age, culture, and the usual differences in personality just to name a few, so a little patience can just a long way. Point out that this is a short-term goal (especially since we all know the short attention spans of teenagers!) and to relieve the pressure, emphasize that the SAT’s are just a means to an ends (more specifically, getting into college), which may help to manage them a bit easier. Don’t use threats or ultimatums. Instead, use your patience to learn to read your student well and find out what methods work when trying to get through to them.

Lesson 5: Just Have Fun

Do you remember that one teacher who always had a scowl on his face, barked through an entire class, and expected everyone to magically understand everything he taught? If you don’t like what you do, your attitude will be reflected in your demeanor and in your ability to teach. The money is only a temporary incentive, and eventually, you’ll turn into a cantankerous wolfman (or woman!) who’ll make everyone suffer, but most importantly, not learn anything! Know that whether it’s tutoring for yourself or at an academy, you have an amazing opportunity to make some good money AND to mold the minds of tomorrow’s generation. I’m have never been prouder of myself than when I was contacted by an ex-student who told me that he got into his top choice university because I pushed him to work a little harder and dream a little bigger. Being able to help a student realize his/her potential and help them to achieve his/her goal is the most fulfilling aspect of the job, something that even money can’t replace.