My Freelance Academy – Page 46 – Start Your Freelancing Journey

11 Online Advertising Tricks To Get More Clients For Your Freelance Work

Online advertising has a unique place in the business world. Advertising, regardless of the type of company, is critical to its growth.

There are several ways to promote your business, and in today’s world, as the internet is becoming a more dominant medium. Online advertising is an efficient way to promote your business and attract more customers.

It wouldn’t be incorrect to suggest that advertising is the most important way to get clients, particularly for freelancers.

If you work as a freelancer, it is your responsibility to find enough clients to make a living. When it comes to freelancing, this is the most difficult task. One of the most effective ways to broaden your customer base is through online ads.

You can market your freelance company online using a variety of methods. All you have to do is pursue them to see a rise in your client base.

11 online advertising tricks to get more clients

1) Networking events

Getting acquainted with others in your business or niche is often a good idea. It’s a cost-effective method of online advertising.

When you’re a freelancer, networking with other people will help you find more clients. Various networking activities take place on a regular basis.

When you go to a networking function, don’t go with the intention of finding clients. Always keep in mind that you’re going there as a freelancer to meet other people in your field.

People may or may not be your clients, but don’t dismiss anybody. This is because you never know who may be a connector who can help you meet potential clients.

It is your duty to search online for networking activities and attend them. This is one of the easiest ways for a freelancer to advertise online.

So, you can simply search for networking activities on different event boards. You will look for the same on the following websites:

Eventbrite.com- You can learn about various types of events that are taking place in your region. This site also has a filter in its search feature that allows you to scan for events that are specifically relevant to your niche.

Meetup.com- This is a well-known site for searching about networking activities and fun gatherings. So, you can do online advertising through this platform.

Facebook– Who these days doesn’t have a Facebook account? Almost everybody has a Facebook account. And, there isn’t a single industry that doesn’t have a Facebook community.

Whatever industry you work in, you can always find a community of people who work in the same field. You can also learn about upcoming networking events through these groups.

2) Referrals

When you work as a freelancer, you must always be on the lookout for new clients while never abandoning your current ones. It’s always a good idea to keep your current customers, regardless of industry.

This is because they’re the ones that will introduce you to new ones. This is another great way of online advertising.

Having referrals from current clients is a smart way to get more clients. It is your duty as a freelancer to please your clients with your work so that they can recommend you to others.

You’ll get more work and be more competitive this way. You may also ask for referrals from your existing customers.

Your clients can also exchange information about you online with others. This allows them to learn more about you and your work, resulting in new clients. Since referrals work so well, this is a very powerful method of online advertising.

A rise in price– Many freelancers maintain the same rate or price for their work. This is one of the major roadblocks to their success. As current clients refer you to others, they are, in a sense, adding value to your work.

Always remember to reflect this by maintaining higher rates for new clients.

Increases income– When you gain new clients and charge a higher price, your profits will almost certainly increase.

Encourages you to do good work– It motivates you to do good work and keep your clients satisfied. Eventually, you understand the benefits of referrals from current clients.

Only when you treat your customers well would they recommend you to others. This is an intriguing method of online advertising. That’s because keeping the customers satisfied leads to referrals both online and offline.

3) Sending cold emails

This is a method of online advertising that some freelancers may find intimidating or challenging. You may be afraid to send cold emails as a new freelancer, but it can be a smart idea to send cold emails to your future customers.

When sending cold emails, keep in mind that you do not have to send them to everybody. Just send cold emails to people who are in your business or niche and maybe future clients.

To get more clients, you just need to use the right tactics when sending cold emails for online ads. Once you succeed, you will find out that this is a good method for online advertising.

If you’re sending out cold emails, make sure they’re appealing to the people who will be receiving them. The following characteristics should be present in a strong cold email:

It must seem like you know the recipient– Make them believe you know a lot about them and their company if you send a cold email for online ads. There’s nothing wrong with complimenting others, so go ahead and do it.

Who doesn’t like being praised? When you compliment the individual who will receive the email, it helps you. When you express your interest in working with them, they will almost certainly give you a chance.

Make them give it a thought– Always remember to provide details that are important to the recipient. Only then can that person, or your potential client, read your email and consider it.

If you have some kind of relationship with that guy, make sure to mention it. This is because it will improve your chances of having clients.

Attract the potential clients’ attention– It depends upon you to make your email attractive. This way it makes the people say yes and become your client. When you select this method for online advertising, do it the right way.

4) Industry-specific Job Boards

It’s a smart idea to do online ads at places where you can find potential clients while you’re searching for more clients as a freelancer. Clients are best found on industry-specific work boards because they know exactly what they want.

These job boards are a great platform for online advertising if you are a freelancer.

There are work boards dedicated to specific sectors. As a result, you must locate the appropriate job boards for your industry or niche. You will be able to get a lot of clients if you do a lot of research and advertise on different work boards online.

We’ve compiled a list of some of the best industry-specific websites and work boards for online advertising:

For Developers or engineers– Toptal.com, iCrunchData.com, Engineering.com, SmashingMagazine.com

Illustrators/designers– 99designs.com, Designs.net

Media/publishing– MediaBistro.com, JournalismJobs.com

Healthcare/pharmaceuticals– allpharmacyjobs.com, healthcarejobsite.com

Non-profit– Encore.com, Idealist.com

5) Testimonials

This is one of the best ways of doing online advertising. People trust public feedback as much as personal decisions and advice in today’s world. When you work as a freelancer, testimonials are a great way to promote yourself online.

That’s because prospective customers often look for what your former clients and audience have to say.

Client testimonials must be shown on your website and social media accounts if you want to attract more customers. It’s a smart way to draw new customers through online advertising, but you’ll need good feedback to do so.

Always aim to make the most of your testimonials in order to create a solid client base.

If you want to attract more customers by showing testimonials, you must ensure that the feedback is from actual people. Analyzing your testimonials is a good practice to get into if you want to better your job.

All you have to do now is copy and paste the testimonials widget code onto your website and social media accounts.

To show testimonials, you must first obtain feedback from your current customers. It is your duty as a freelancer to request testimonials from your clients.

If you have a sufficient number of positive reviews, you can simply show them on your website to attract new customers. This is one of the most straightforward ways to increase your client base through online advertisements.

6) Social media platform

Social media has developed into a dominant medium in today’s world. Nowadays, almost everyone uses social media, and there are a plethora of social media sites to choose from. This is a great method of online advertising.

As a freelancer, you can do online advertising using social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Make sure you have accounts on all of the different sites so that people can find you. Also, on all channels, try to keep your personal details, bio, and profile picture consistent so that your future clients can remember you.

LinkedIn is a perfect place to find customers for a freelancer when it comes to business and online advertising. There are a number of trustworthy groups where you can engage in discussions and network with others, including:

Advertising freelance- Consultants who work in the field of communication should join this community. Media, digital, production, strategy, creative,

etc. are the fields for which this group is good.

Freelance professionals– This group is for IT, animators, 3D Modellers, editors, and art directors, etc.

7) Freelance Marketplace

Joining the Freelance platform for online advertising as a freelancer is a brilliant idea. When you enter the Freelance marketplace, you have a great chance of finding new clients.

Getting in contact with people in your industry or niche is often beneficial and successful. Treat everybody well when you meet people on the Freelance marketplace. You never know who might introduce you to potential clients or who might become your new client.

We’ve compiled a list of a few freelancing marketplaces where you can advertise online and gain more clients:

Freelancer– It provides freelancers with a wide range of assignments. It also allows them to compete with others and demonstrate their abilities. This is a perfect place to highlight your talents and draw new customers if you are confident in your skills and experience.

Upwork– It has millions of clients and offers both short-term as well as long-term projects.

Toptal– This is particularly for freelance designers and developers. Once you pass Toptal’s screening process, you will be able to get projects with good clients.

8) Optimize your website

Your website is one thing that says a lot about your work and helps you draw more clients. If you’re a company owner or a freelancer, it’s one of the most important factors that affect your business. When it comes to online ads, the website is also important.

Your website still takes precedence over your social media pages and other products. So, its design and content must be professional enough to catch the attention of potential customers. Hence, this is one of the most important ways to do online advertising.

Always remember to keep your website updated as a freelancer by reflecting on your work and the results you produce for clients.

You can also keep updating your website with pictures and videos related to your work and accomplishments. This helps prospective customers learn more about your expertise.

Not only that but make sure to configure your website so that it loads faster. Make it easy for people to use your website. That’s because it is an effective tool for online ads and attracting new customers.

9) Guest posts

What is a decent way to do online advertising? Well, whether it’s online or offline, having a strong sample of our work to demonstrate often helps to draw more clients.

Writing papers for reputable companies will help you reach a larger audience and gain more clients.

You can give editors emails directly informing them of the articles you’d like to contribute and asking if they welcome contributions.

Always try to get the editor ready to publish your article before you start writing to avoid wasting your time. Before you begin writing, read a few of the company’s previous articles.

It’s always good to try to learn and copy its style and tone to make it more appealing. People reading your articles will serve as good online ads for you and can help you gain new clients.

10) Starting YouTube channel and blogging

Nowadays, every business owner has a YouTube channel. When you’re a freelancer, a YouTube channel can be a great way of online advertising. To start a YouTube channel, you don’t need anything.

When potential clients watch it, they will learn more about you and your website. And, if they like it, they will contact you.

Not only that, but blogging is also a good way of online advertising. You can write blogs about your niche and post them on your website and social media accounts, among other places.

You would be able to draw the interest of potential clients and become a profitable freelancer in this manner.

11) Join groups

If you’re a freelancer, you can join a variety of groups focused on your industry. On different social networking sites, there are a plethora of online communities. There, you can interact with people in your niche and find new clients.

Joining a community dedicated to a particular industry provides you with opportunities for online advertisement. Not just this, it also allows you to learn about local networking activities.

Additionally, you will be able to obtain projects and be introduced to potential clients.

Well, are you a freelancer? Are you looking forward to getting more clients through online advertising? This guide has genuine tricks that can help you get more work and clients.

You just have to follow the given techniques and you will be able to attract more people to your work.

Non Profit Jobs Near Me: 10 Ways To Land A Non Profit Job

For non profit jobs near me, the search will lead you to several results on the internet. We are going to list everything you need to know about non-profit jobs here.

What Are Non-Profit Jobs?

Non-profit job refers to those jobs that are related to non-profit organizations. These jobs can be employees, CEO, managers, volunteers, and so on.

You may be wondering what a non-profit organization is. Their main aim is not to earn a profit but to work for the betterment of society. You may have seen animal shelters, research centers, religious institutions, and so on. Their purpose is not to make money but to ensure the welfare of society. In other words, they may provide care for animals, education for children, and so on. The difference between a profit-making organization and a non-profit organization is that the former generates income through its activities, while the latter does not. The former can be called a business, while the latter is a non-business.

A common thought process is that non-profit jobs do not pay well, which is not correct. They are successful organizations with good revenue. In addition to that, they also raise funds by various means like campaigns, donors, grants, and other fundraiser activities. Non-profit organizations ensure that after covering essential costs like employee wages, the rest of the money goes to furthering whatever cause they are working towards bettering.

They are being given an exemption from tax by Internal Revenue Service (IRS). An organization needs to request 501(C) before starting their work with a tax exemption.

A picure to represent non profit jobs near me — Photo by Katt Yukawa on Unsplash

A Few Non-Profit Job Title

Most jobs remain common between both non-profit and for-profit organizations. This means both have similar positions like human resources, accounting, directors, managers, and so on. Although, there are jobs that are unique to non-profit organizations and job seekers can apply to like:

1. Grant Writer Jobs

The job of filling out applications for funding falls under a grant writer. Grant writer aims to make sure they achieve their financial goal for the year. You have to be one of the qualified candidates. Meaning you have to be a good writer and have a good hold over the preferred language.

2. Outreach Coordinator

The Outreach Coordinator’s job is to reach out to society to raise awareness among them. Awareness can be raised by organizing different types of events. They also work to hire volunteers.

3. Development Jobs

People working under this position aim to make sure the annual goals of the organization are met. They plan fundraisers, manage finances and run other projects. It is one of the great professional development opportunities you can access working at a non profit organization.

Most Common Non-Profit Job Title In An Organization

1. Administrative Or Accounting

To run a successful organization, we need people who are good at planning, organizing, and also manage money. They should be able to interact with clients and do their everyday work effectively. Some job titles under this category are aides supervisors, financial aid representatives, community service project coordinators, and so on.

2. Human And Health

Many non-profit organizations help people who have dealt with abuse, traumatic events, addiction, and so on. An organization like this requires employees skilled in dealing with emotional, physical, and mental health issues. They should be able to help guide these individuals, be empathic towards them, and provide counseling. Job seekers can apply for various positions under this category like a case manager, child care worker, counselor, human service worker, medical social worker, and so much more.

3. Human Resource

You will notice both nonprofit organizations and for-profit organizations have one department in common that is human resources. The job function includes managing everything from building teams, manage community projects. They also hire and manage volunteers. Job seekers can apply for team leader, event team recruiter, volunteer coordinator, program coordinator, and so on.

4. Management

Management in nonprofit organizations can take many forms. The primary responsibility can include foreseeing a project from start to finish. Guiding the project in the correct direction and making sure all goals are achieved. They also oversee national or regional efforts to guide the projects. Job seekers can apply to various roles under this category like social service director, critical care director, administrator for nonprofit organizations, compliance director, development manager, special event manager, and so on.

5. Marketing

Marketing is a very important department in nonprofit organizations. They require people who can organize and manage the funds. The primary point in the marketing department is to make sure to manage the organization’s goals are sustainable and viewed positively. Job seekers can apply for fundraising coordinator, grant writer, grant administrator, marketing associate, online activist, social media coordinator, and much more.

10 Ways To Look For Non Profit Jobs Near Me

Now you may have an understanding of what non-profit jobs are. You can start your search for non-profit jobs near you. Job seekers will need to know a few things before they apply for these jobs. You need to decide where to look, what will be ideal for you, and who to connect to in the field.

1. Know Yourself

The most important thing you need to know is yourself. Let’s go point by point. First, let’s start with things you find interesting. You need to note down somewhere all things you like. When you look for jobs, crosscheck them with your list. The job you apply for should hold your interest or else, you will grow uninterested and will not work.

For instance, you are interested in gardening or like to read about plants. You can join a foundation that works towards saving trees and planting them.

2. Evaluate Your Skills

Next, you need to know the skills you possess. You need to be sure if they are sufficient for the role you want. If not, you can maybe learn them on online courses. Once you know your skills and interest, you will look for a job fit for you. And with the right motivation, you will be able to work at your best capability if you want to apply for a writer position at an organization such as a grant writer. You will need to be fluent in the preferred language. You can take a course to learn all the basic skills you will require for the position.

3. Make connections

Research who holds key positions in the company you want to work for. Try and get in touch with them. Make appearances in front of them. These could be people who are in charge of hiring or key players in the organization. Your mission is to be able to get them to endorse or recommend you. Or put in a good word for you at the company. For example, if the organization is putting up a public event and needs volunteers. You can join in as a volunteer.

4. Do An Internship

If you are sure, this is the field you want to work in for a long time, going the lengthier path might not be a bad idea. You can start by doing an internship, which will help you prepare for the actual job. You don’t have to wait for your studies to be completed to find an internship. You can do internships along with your studies.

This will help you build the skills and ethics required for the work. You will also gain experience while working. The key players at your internship will also be able to endorse your skills for future jobs. If you show great potential, you can also be offered a job in your interning organization. You can also volunteer at certain places or do small assignments to gain experience. Experience is a very important requirement to get your dream position.

For instance, you want to work for an animal shelter. You can volunteer at various places. Or you can join as an intern and learn how to take proper care of the animal. But also how to achieve a financial goal, host events, and community outreach.

Animal shelter as a part of non profit organization — Photo by Joe Duty/ Flickr

5. Personal Network

I cannot stress enough how important it is to have a personal network. Connect with people who work in the company. You may think your personal network is not sufficient. However, it probably is. Personal connections can be anybody you have met, studied, worked with previously. Friends and family can also be useful connections. They can help you connect with people who work at the organization you want to apply to.

With the evolution of social media, networking has become so much easier. The internet will play an important role in helping you grow your connection. One key site to help grow network along with Instagram and Facebook is LinkedIn. Search for the organization you want to work for. Look to see if you have connections in common it could be somebody you went to school with. Or you can simply connect with someone working there directly.

6. Be Well Prepared To Ask Questions

This is in continuation with the personal network topic. You need to be well prepared to ask the questions. People usually don’t have time to answer questions. You need to research well, write down questions, organize your thoughts. In general, you need to be clear about the topics you want to know more about. The person you are contacting should feel that you are well prepared. This will inspire them to help you connect with the organization or people immediately.

7. CV Or Resume

Build up your CV or resume. Volunteer whenever, wherever you can. Help organize events at your school or college. Participate in events, competitions and gain experience. This basic experience will help build skills like leadership, dedicated team player, ethics, time management, communication, and so on. The section your organization is most likely to look at is the interest section. You should do activities related to the cause the organization works. Again, most important is the volunteering experience. Volunteer towards the cause you want to work for or any other cause that interests you.

8. Be Motivated

Don’t let small hiccups derail you from your goal. Landing a job in the non-profit sector is not going to be easy. It is going to take a lot of motivation and focus on achieving your goal. Put in the time and effort to prove that you will be a valuable addition to the organization.

9. Be Thoroughly Prepared For Your Interview

You have achieved a major step in your process of getting the job. Don’t be too happy that you have scored an interview just yet. The interview is the most important and maybe a difficult step of your process. At this stage, you have to be sure of everything you want. You also need to be armed with all the knowledge about the organization, your role, and all related skills. You have to be confident in communicating. Ask well-thought-out questions this will make a lasting impact. Ask questions related to what your role will entitle. If you have done your homework properly, you will ask proper questions and not absurd ones.

10. Don’t Forget To Be Thankful.

Be thankful for all the people that helped you. Thank them personally for their support if possible. Stay connected with them and help them out too. You will likely need each other in future endeavors. Also, don’t forget to drop a thank you note at the place of your interview. Don’t stop growing your personal network. Connect with more people. Help those who need guidance.

Benefits Of Working Non Profit Jobs

1. What You Contribute To Society Will Really Matter

Being a part of the current young adult generation, you are brave enough to follow your passion. You are most likely to follow through with what you start. Working at a non-profit organization will positively impact students even when it is way different from other people’s paths. So, you are most likely to put your heart and soul into your work. All for the cause you are working for and make a difference. And the efforts that you put in will help the community a lot. You will work in diverse environments and work for well-known organizations.

2. Opportunities

A common cause of stress and anxiety after graduation is getting a job. It feels impossible to land a job in the for-profit sector with all the expectations they set. The for-profit organization will look to hire some with experience, the best skills, and much more. However, non-profit organizations, on the other hand, will look for your passion, drive, and motivation. Non-profit organizations are more likely to hire freshers.

3. Experience

Non-profit organizations will help you gain a lot of experience in different ways. You will meet a lot of new professionals with different backgrounds, goals and explore different situations. Every new project will help you learn new skills. Every day is not the same as the previous one. You experience newer things every day. Also, in addition to this, you will be working for a good cause. What you do will help people in numerous ways and will leave you feeling good about the work you do.

4. Networking

When compared to for-profit organizations, non-profit organizations make it easier to network with people above your role. In for-profit organizations, it is difficult to connect with managers and bosses. On the other hand, in non-profit organizations, you can connect with the higher-ups and learns valuable skills.

5. Responsibilities

Working for a non-profit organization will give you ample opportunities to have different responsibilities. Non-profit may have smaller groups of people. This allows you to work in different roles. On the other hand, for-profit organizations are usually very specific when they give you a set of tasks for your job. And there is usually no room for growth in other sections of work.

When you are taking on different major or minor responsibilities this early on in your career, you will reap its benefits in the long run. You will be way ahead in your professional growth as compared to someone working in a for-profit organization. You will be learning what is right and wrong for you. You will learn from your mistakes too. And taking on all these responsibilities will certainly elevate your resume and cv.

6. Make A Difference

You will be able to help make a difference in the lives of people. Working for a non-profit organization will help you take a stand for whatever cause you are passionate about. You will experience and learn new things along the way. However, you will also help spread awareness for a cause and, in turn, help a lot of people or animals. You feel content and happy when you achieve your goals.

Misconceptions About Non-Profit Jobs

1. Non-Profit Organizations Don’t Make A Profit

I think this is a common misconception people have. After all, the name non-profit/ not-for-profit can be majorly misleading. Non-profit organizations should make a profit. Compared to for-profit organizations, the profit made by non-profit foundations goes back to the cause or purpose they are pursuing. The profit made by them will not go to a particular individual, only towards the cause. The difference between the two is the distribution of the profit. Non-profit organizations are formed for the benefit of the public and not private gain.

2. Donations Are The Only Way They Get Money

Another misconception is that non-profit foundations only get money through donations or fundraising events. While this might be true for some, it is ideally impossible to run an organization like that. Some organizations have their own products or service they sell. They use the revenue earned from selling these services at an affordable price to grow their cause.

Donations are only way non-profit foundation works — Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

3. Services Provided By Non-Profit Are Free

Services provided by non-profit organizations are not free—local fundraisers or grants fund services. The end customer might not be the one paying but, somebody is.

4. Non-profit Organizations Don’t Have The Most Qualified Leaders

The leaders of the non-profit organization have extraordinary skills. It takes good leadership to navigate a whole organization, maintain a budget, work for their cause. They have to do this on a small budget. The most important thing is that they help people hurt, have developmental disabilities, solve problems, and work through complex situations. It can also affect their mental health. Their main aim is to make the world a better place and put their hundred percent towards it.

5. Non-profits Are Not Number driven

The difference between for-profit and non-profit is that the success of for-profit is calculated based on the revenue they make. On the other hand, the success of a non-profit organization is calculated based on its mission and goals. And this varies from time to time and organization to organization.

6. Running a Non-Profit Organization is easy

Nonprofit organizations take the same amount of planning and managing as for-profit organizations. Running a non-profit is definitely challenging. You have to start from scratch, most probably. Meaning raising funds will also be difficult. Managing with little funds and trying to further the cause is very challenging. Eventually, you gain recognition; however, still maintaining sustainable goals is tough.

7. Only Volunteers Work For Non-Profit Organisation

It might seem like the only people working at the non-profit organization are volunteers. However, that’s not true. Volunteers only make a small part of the organization. The majority of the people at non-profit organizations are paid, employees. Some non-profit organizations solely rely on their paid staff, and other non-profit organizations choose to hire volunteers for their help.

Misconception about non profit organization — Photo by Patrick Perkins on Unsplash

Is Working For Non-Profit Sector Worth It?

Based on everything we have seen so far, I would say if working at a nonprofit organization is a dream of yours, go for it. You need to have the drive and motivation to work for it. You also need to be empathic, dedicated and love making a difference in society. Working at a non-profit organization is probably one of the best decisions for your professional growth.

Is Blogging The Best Way To Make Money Online?

The best way to make money online just might be blogging. Of course, there are ample options out there to make money online. You have choices like creating your own youtube channel, test websites or do online surveys. You can also sell your own clothing line, food delivery service, and online tutoring.

However, blogging might be the best option for you. Creating your own blog is quite simple. Blogging is a full-time job for some people. However, if you are a college student, this is also the right place to start and earn money fast in your free time. All you need is a little creativity, consistency, and a lot of determination to keep going.

Why Choose Blogging And How Will It Prove To Be Useful?

Blogging at the start was used to pen down diary-style entries by users. Now blogs are used to upload not just write-ups but also photography, lifestyle, health, or any other topic that can be self-published. The blog also now helps grow businesses and make a reach to customers. Having your blog can be beneficial in a few ways like:

You get to connect with people with similar interests as you
You can get exposure for your existing business.
You can sell your own products
Make extra cash as a side income
Share with the world what you are passionate about
Improve your writing skills
Build your own identity and gain trust
You get to work your own hours
You might get invited to speak or write on other major platforms.
Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

A Few Simple Steps To Start Your Blog

Now that we might have convinced you to start blogging, you might have the question, how to create a blog. Don’t stress creating a blog is easily manageable.

1. First, choose what you are passionate about and what you want to share with the world?

2. Let’s pick a name for your blog. Make it creative.

3. Next, get your blog up and registered.

4. Choose a creative layout for your blog.

5. Now, you are ready to publish your first post.

6. Be consistent in posting, have a schedule. Promote your blog post on social media.

7. And finally, you are ready to start making money with your blogs.

How Is Blogging The Best Way To Make Money Online?

Once you have a blog up and running with steady traffic, you can start making money. There are not one but many ways you can earn money by blogging, making it the best way to earn money online. Some methods to make money online include affiliate marketing, selling your products, teaching an online course, sponsored posts,s and much more.

Well, you might wonder how much money you can make and let me tell you, you can earn a lot using these methods. We describe in detail in the below-mentioned paragraphs these methods and many more. Let us see how you can make money by doing what you love.

1. Affiliate Marketing

In simple words, affiliate marketing is a type of digital marketing wherein when people buy online products referred by you, you earn a good commission.

To get started, first join an affiliate program. Next, pick a product you want to promote. Add the link to your blog post, and every time someone makes a purchase using your link, you get a commission.

For instance, you are writing a review post on your own website about a skincare product you used and loved. And if you have an affiliate link for the item, add it to your post. Now, you can earn some money.

If you didn’t know, even big companies like Apple, Google, and Amazon also have an affiliate program. These affiliate programs are free to join by anybody in the world.

2. Doing Freelance Jobs

Freelance services, as you might know, you get paid per task. It gives you the freedom to work on your own terms and especially your own hours. You get to have a flexible schedule, work from home, and have a better work-life balance.

You can sell your skills as a freelance service on your blog. Skills like writing, designing, photography, and so on. It is the easiest way to make money using your skills. Post about your skills on your own website, and you are available to freelance and have a form where clients can contact you. It is a way to make money almost instantly. Whereas other ways to earn money online can take a long time.

3. Ad Networks

An online advertising network is a company that will help advertisers connect to you if you want to put up advertisements on your blog posts. You might need a particular amount of views for some companies to hire

you out. They will display ads based on your content or ads based on users’ interests. Some ad network companies are Media.net and Google AdSense, offered by Google.

4. Direct Advertisements

Direct advertisement allows you to connect to the brand or its distributing agents. You will be able to display more ads relevant to your blog. Direct advertising does not necessarily add value to its add recommendation. It is mostly targeted to an audience who might be looking for that product or service. It is also a better option than ad networks.

We all use google for almost anything and everything in our daily lives. You can also use google for direct advertising. Use google to search for direct advertisements for your blog. You can search by using keywords that would be relevant to your blog. You can then approach these companies to ask for further details.

5. Writing Sponsored posts Or Review Post

You might not want to display ads on your blog post. There is also the fact that more and more people are using ad blocks, which will affect your earnings. You are doing all this writing. So, why not also get paid for it. You can write a paid review post for a product or service. You can also allow companies to sponsor you to write about their service or product on your blog.

If it is a product you are interested in, don’t wait for the company to approach you. Go to the market, buy it, and review it. Suppose a brand is offering you to do a review of a free version of the product. You can search if they have a paid premium version. If you review the premium version, don’t be afraid to ask to be paid for it as you will be providing your service for them.

6. Native Advertising Is The Best Way To Make Money Online?

Another method of generating revenue from your blog is native advertising. These ads don’t stand out from the other content on the page. So, as an advantage, they won’t put off your readers by the sudden appearance of an ad. Native advertising is a paid ad that does not disrupt your content and matches the look and feel of your content. They can be of three types:

1. Ads that are promoted in feed on social networking sites or apps like Facebook, Instagram.

2. Ads that are promoted first in your Google search results.

3. Another type is content recommendations. In these recommendations for related articles, appear below the articles you have written or just read.

You can incorporate these ads into your content for the blog and earn ad revenue. They won’t be off-putting, match the flow of your writing, and are still one of the best ways to make money.

7. Write And Sell Your eBooks

Combine all your articles in one place. And sell these as an ebook online. If you are good at writing poems, you can compile and sell that as an ebook. You can also choose a trending topic to write on and sell as an ebook. Another way is to combine all the photographs taken by you and sell them online. This is one of the best ways to earn passive income.

Passive income is earnings other than your actual income. You get paid from a business you don’t have to participate in regularly actively. An example of this is stocks, rental properties, or book royalties. These are good money-making ideas.

Combine your photographs in an ebook. — Photo by 91 Magazine on Unsplash

8. Teach An Online Course

You can teach your skills in an online course. You can create online courses regarding your skills, experience, do’s and don’ts, tips, and advice on everything you have learned so far regarding your profession. You can charge and earn a good amount for your courses. You can make extra money by selling online courses.

One to two-hour-long video courses is exceptional. They help learn a new skill, and many people will be joining them to build up their skills. You can use different sites to create and sell your online courses. These sites are Teachable, LearnDash, New Kajabi, and many more.

Selling online course to make money online — Photo by Vika Strawberrika on Unsplash

9. Conduct Webinars

If pre-recording an online course seems hectic, another alternative is to conduct webinars. These webinars can be conducted for small groups or one on one sessions. You can charge anywhere from a small amount to a large about based on your knowledge and experience.

To successfully conduct paid webinars, you need to know your content and professional field extremely well. Webinars are also extremely important to bring exposure to your content. One site to host your paid webinar is WordPress. WordPress can also promote your webinar and create forms for your users to sign up for the webinar.

10. Online Consultation Sessions

Along with above mentioned online webinars, you can also offer paid online consulting sessions. Unlike freelancing or online courses, here you can teach your clients strategies. Help them make a plan for their careers. You can guide and advise them through each step of their career path.

You can put a page on your blog where you promote your counseling session. Make a form on WordPress or Google form where clients can inquire more about this service or register for the consultation service.

11. Sell Merch Related To Your Content

We all love a personalized t-shirt or a t-shirt that contains a phrase we use often. If you have a talent for designing, you can sell t-shirts, customize mugs and sell accessories on your online store as well. If your blog is related to painting or drawing, you can make commission pieces or sell your own. We have definitely seen influencers sell merch, so can you on your own online store blog page.

There are companies out there that allow you to upload your design. They then print them for you. Some even ship it to the customers for you. This is a great way to express your creativity in your free time while earning some good money.

You can also do seasonal merch items. You can create a page on your blog for your online store and sell clothes online.

12. Charge For Sponsored Social Media Posts

When you start your blog, you tend to promote it on social media as well. Now, as your blog gains traffic, people will also visit your social media from the blog. Leading to an increase in your social media presence. Once you have a good following count on your social media, you are all set.

You can now post sponsored posts on your social media by brands. You can make a sponsored post related to your content or even different from your content. You earn a huge amount from these sponsored posts. It’s one of the best ways of making money online. You can earn per-post or re-post.

This is also one of the best ways to earn money. Combine this method with a sponsored post on your blog or native ads, and you are ready to be Richy rich.

13. Speaking Gigs

Speaking gigs make you a good amount of money. Now, you might be wondering how you can get invited to speak. Two reasons you can be invited to talk are if your blog takes off or if your blog has a big enough reach. Another reason you might be called to speak is due to your knowledge of a topic. It can be a trending topic as well. You will most probably be invited to speak at conferences and webinars.

So, it is necessary to keep yourself updated with current happenings. When you are invited, you will be asked to talk about your story. And about your experience in your field. This is a great way to build confidence. This is also an amazing way to reach out to people who don’t know much about your work.

14. Write Content For Other Online Business Or Blog

If you are particularly knowledgeable on a certain topic, a magazine or another major blog might ask you to write as a guest for them. Not only will this be good exposure for your blog it will also earn you extra cash.

For instance, you are good knowledge about interior decorating. For example, decorating on a budget or on how to decorate a small space. An interior design magazine can ask you to write a piece for them.

Or maybe you run a health and fitness blog. You could be asked by a magazine or other major blog or brand to write for them. On topics like five ways to remain fit this quarantine, Fruits that you should include in your healthy diet, and so on. This will help increase the traffic of your blog.

15. Paid Newsletter

Another way to earn cash on your blog is by having subscription-based newsletters. You get to build trust with a small closed group of people. You will mostly send out newsletters as emails every week or month, and you can charge accordingly. It will help you make more money.

These newsletters can contain extra content; you can answer questions asked by your readers. You can also give personal updates. Readers who buy the newsletter subscription can, along with the newsletter, view snippets of upcoming posts or merch.

16. Sell Websites

I know this might sound weird, but you can create and sell websites with a WordPress expert. And also an expert at designing websites this might be for you. Some companies prefer to buy already established websites. So, if you create a website that already has good traffic, you can sell it to a company. Now, you can make money off your hard work.

17. Build Your Blog With The Help Of An Agency

Some agencies will help promote you to big brands. Yes, blogging has become that popular. However, working with agencies can be tricky. Firstly, you will need to have a good online presence on your blog. So, this is definitely not for someone who has just started blogging.

Since agencies usually only work with big brands and companies, you might not promote smaller businesses that you love. On the other hand, working with an agency provides you with good security. You will also be earning more than you usually do due to working with big brands.

How To Create A Better Outreach For Your Blog

We have seen many different ways you can use blogging as a way to make money online. However, before you start making money off your online platforms, you need to have an audience. You will have to have a certain amount of reads, views, and traffic in general on your blog. When you start your blog, it might seem impossible. You might stress a lot about how you can be in the top search results. Well, it is not as hard as it seems. All you need to be is focused and consistent with your work. Let us see some steps we can take to increase the outreach of our blog.

1. Topic

The topic you choose for your blog is very important. It definitely needs to be a topic people are interested in. However, don’t choose the topic just people are talking about it. You need to be passionate about it, too, as you will be writing about it regularly. Don’t be afraid to venture out and find new and interesting topics. Find what’s right for you.

2. Layout/Design

Don’t make your blog post overly crowded. Your audience should not be put off by it. Choose a good layout for your blog. Minimal layouts are really everybody’s favorite right now. An aesthetically pleasing layout will not only attract more readers but will also motivate you to write more.

3. Keep Your Readers Coming Back For More

Make sure your posts are engaging. They should not be monotonous. It should be a two-way exchange of thoughts. Ask them to comment on their thoughts, interact with them in the comments. You also use your newsletters to interact with them.

Another thing is you can ask them what they want to see you write or work on more. Suggestions are always appreciated. Also, always remember and never be afraid to ask your post with friends and family.

4. Promote Your Blog On Social Media

You need to promote your blog on all social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and so on. This is necessary to bring exposure and increase traffic to your blog. It might seem like a big task to promote it on all social media platforms, but I can not stress enough that this is how most of your future readers will find your blog.

5. Venture Out

Don’t be afraid to go off-road once in a while. By this, I mean try out different topics. It may be something related to your topic or something completely different. Yes, it is a huge risk as your readers might like it or won’t. But, if they do, then it’s gonna be the best decision you have taken. You can get a new audience by doing this. Also, your constant readers might love reading something new and supporting you in this new venture.

6. Be Concentrated, Confident And Consistent

You can not start a blog and expect it to work out. You have to put in hard work. Make sure you are focused on your task. Concentrate on writing amazing articles and bringing exposure to your blog. Be confident in your work. Don’t let anybody put you down.

Be consistent in your blogging — Photo by Prateek Katyal from Pexels

Being consistent is extremely necessary. You need to post regularly to create a community of constant readers for yourself. It will also help you increase traffic on your blog. Don’t let anything stop you. Put in the effort and watch the amazing results it displays.

As we have seen in this article, Blogging is definitely one of the best ways to make money online. Once you start blogging, there is no stopping you from creating a good income for yourself. Choose a topic you are passionate about and start blogging. And if you already blog, then what are you waiting for? Use the methods to earn yourself some cash. It might seem difficult at first, but with time you will be a pro at it.

What Is A Sales Funnel & How Does It Work? Complete Guide

To convert the website visitors into paying customers, any online business requires a Sales Funnel. Without the right sales funnel, a business can hardly make any money.

Successful businesses don’t just make sales, but they make sales consistently of high volumes. Hence, they can comfortably hire full-time working employees. Despite having recurring expenses, big companies are profitable and smoothly running.

The key to their success in consistent sales is the Sales funnel. The primary goal of a business with sales funnel is to move people from one stage to another until they are ready to purchase the product/service.

In this article, you will learn all about Sales Funnel and how it works. Let’s get started!

What Is A Sales Funnel?

A sales funnel (also known as a revenue funnel or marketing funnel) is a step-by-step buying process through which potential customers go on their way to purchase a product.

A sales funnel allows you to determine and reflect on your customers’ actions at every stage of the buying cycle. You can design a great customer experience along their journey.

The buying decision is empowered through a series of marketing actions like automated emails, articles, videos, and landing pages on the websites.

This marketing model uses a funnel as an analogy because many potential customers may start at the top end of the sales process. Still, only a fraction of those individuals actually ends up buying the product.

When you optimize your sales funnel precisely, more people will complete the journey from start to finish because your funnel serves your target audience in the way they need to be served.

Why Is Sales Funnel Important?

The sales funnel a vital tool that systematically increases a company’s potential. A company relies on a sales funnel that gives insight into what customers would like to purchase. For any business to be successful, it is necessary to be alert and adapt to the changing market and customer needs.

In today’s digital world, people are spoiled because they have so many options. So unless you already rule the target market, you will need some way to show customers your worth and win them over.

A well-crafted sales funnel an ideal opportunity to show your value to the customers. They can get to know the team behind the product, which raises trust, leads to purchases, and helps to scale sales.

Stages of a Sales Funnel

There are different stages like the top, middle, and bottom of a sales funnel. These stages may vary according to a company’s sales model. It is essential to review the different sales funnel stages to understand and create a successful one fully.

The original sales funnel includes four cognitive stages through which a customer goes during the buying process of a product or service: Awareness, Interest, Desire, and Action. This model of the sales funnels stages is known as the AIDA model.

Stage 1: Awareness

The awareness stage is where your customers read about you for the first time. You make potential customers aware of what your company has to offer to them.

Here, your goal is to let people know that you exist and reach your target audience, especially people who haven’t heard about your business yet but can benefit from using your product or service.

Customers become aware of new companies through an advertisement, google search, a blog post, or a cold email. If a company conducts keyword research accurately, it can capture many leads early on by creating content targeted to buyers in the Awareness stage.

There are various methods to reach your target audience and build brand awareness. The tools that are typically used by businesses at this stage are:

1. Landing Page

A Landing page (also known as a sign-up page) is a simple website designed with a clear goal of getting customer details like email addresses and contact numbers to reach and advertise their products to them.

It is also used to show key features or vital information about the product or service. It has a clear call to action for interested people and wants to learn more about the product.

2. Content Marketing

Content marketing is an effective way to create brand awareness. Writing quality articles can increase traffic to your website through SEO and social media, allowing people to see you as an expert in your field.

3. Video

Video is another handy tool that can help build awareness and in business growth. Videos allow people to see inside out of a company and form a deeper connection with that company. It is usually used to demonstrate a product, its features, and benefits or share other ideas.

4. Facebook and Instagram Ads

You can set up targeted Facebook and Instagram ads and find new customers.

If you already have some people on your contact list, you can use the email addresses of your current customers to create a lookalike audience on Facebook Ads manager.

Using this method, the Facebook algorithm will find Facebook users with similar characteristics to those on your contact list who are most likely to become your customers.

5. Google Ads

By Utilising Google advertisements, you can contact individuals who are effectively searching for an answer your product/service could assist with.

Recognize the terms your target customers would probably type in a while looking on Google and show them your deal. You can likewise limit the targeting by giving negative catchphrases, for example, ones that don’t apply to what in particular you’re offering.

6. Word of Mouth and Referrals

Word of Mouth and Referrals will begin to create mindfulness for your business if your products/services and content are acceptable. While getting clients through references is pleasant, please don’t depend on it. Rather, form a genuine advertising framework that gives unsurprising income and results.

7. Lead Magnet Funnel

A lead magnet funnel is an automated approach to produce leads for your business. It permits you to establish a campaign that includes paid ads promoting a landing page with relevant signup incentives, follow-up email series, and analytics that display important statistics in real-time.

Stage 2: Interest

At the Interest stage, your prospects understand their problem and actively seek solutions and ways to achieve their goals. They search for solutions on Google, and usually, they take into account all available solutions to solve their issues.

Here, the brand will develop a profound relationship with their potential customers, becoming more actively involved in learning about their issues or goals.

In doing so, brands start by providing preliminary solutions, allowing them to experience ‘quick success’— and become more engaged.

For example, a customer is sure that he needs to fix his back pain, but he is unsure whether he should buy your mattress. In other words, he is searching for types of solutions instead of evaluating solution providers.

This is where you need content that can attract that customer and tell him how your mattress can help him get rid of the back pain and why he should buy it.

This may be the time when he shows his interest in your product or service and follows you on social media, and subscribes to your list.

The tools normally used at this stage are:

1. Engagement Score

The contact card shows all your contact data. One of the snippets you might find specifically valuable is the engagement score – a tool that recognizes and scores the movement of your contacts based on their reaction to your messages.

You can send better-targeted emails once you have created engagement-based segments.

2. Facebook Pixel

Facebook Pixel is a piece of code for your website that allows you to calculate, optimize and set up audiences for your ad campaigns. It helps you to chase landing page visitors.

Once people visit that page, you can see what people like and then develop customized re-marketing campaigns based on it. You can also define custom audiences based on the pages people visit or ignore to make the most out of your social media ads budget.

3. Marketing Automation

Marketing automation can create workflows that will send emails and assign tags on their own, based on user behavior. These tags can be used to determine what kind of content your prospective clients are most interested in.

4. Push Notifications

You can deliver push notifications to your website visitors and stay connected with them. Push notifications(web) do not require email addresses. Hence you can send rapid and hard-to-miss notifications to individuals who opt for them after visiting your site.

5. Email Marketing

Email marketing is a popular marketing strategy because it is relatively inexpensive. Create content that enlightens your customers and helps new leads eventually make an informed purchase decision.

When somebody gets on your email list, you can continue communicating with them by delivering emails. You can even utilize retargeting to show promotions to individuals who visited your site before so you can keep on building brand knowledge with those prospects.

Stage 3: Decision/Desire

At this stage, a potential customer is armed with information about your company and planning to decide. Your prospects are at the bottom of the funnel, knowing everything about their problem, and they are keen and ready to pay attention to what you offer.

They will dig deeper into your packaging, pricing, and many other things before they are ready to make a final decision to purchase. Webinars, Sales pages, and calls are really beneficial to encourage qualified prospects to make a purchase.

This is the time to offer the customers something special and set yourself apart from your competitors. Small factors like discounts, free shipping, or a free item can increase the chances of prospects completing their customer journey from top to bottom of the sales funnel.

Stage 4: Action

The customers make a final move at the very bottom of the sales funnel, i.e., the Action stage. They purchase your products or services, and you, at last, convert a quality lead into a client through a distinct sales process.

At this stage, you ought to think about transforming one buy into multiple purchases. When they start to understand the genuine worth of your product or service, they’re bound to purchase again and start with the sales cycle all over.

If they choose not to buy from you, your marketing efforts can still produce outcomes. It would be best if you remembered that the deal isn’t lost for always. You can build nurture campaigns to make sure you stay ahead in the league.

Furthermore, you can interact with your customers and urge them to leave feedback. You can have one more sales funnel stage that deals with customer retention.

Customer Retention

Along with the four Sales funnel stages, this stage is also important because a customer has shopped from you and is on board with your company.

A company’s focus should be on keeping customers happy and satisfied to turn them into regular customers and brand advocates. Word of mouth is a significant force, and happy customers are the best way to use it.

Helping the customers with any problem related to the products they bought from you makes them happy and loyal to your brand. You basically want your customers to stay engaged with your product or service, and you can do that by:

Special offers
Emails
Product usage guides
Surveys/Outreach and follow-ups
Technical assistance literature

How To Create a Sales Funnel?

Now, let’s discuss how to create a sales funnel for your business. Follow the steps mentioned below to set up the sales funnel stages to improve your sales process.

1. Create A Landing Page

Most people learn about your company for the first time through a landing page. Capturing quality leads should be your main goal at this stage, rather than forcing people to purchase your product or service.

If a customer clicks on an advertisement, downloads an ebook, or signs up for a webinar, they will be taken to a landing page. It is a fantastic idea to create a landing page and use your content marketing efforts to steer traffic to that page.

It should be able to deliver a clear message to the public about your company and the products/services it offers. It should have all the unique benefits your products will offer to the customers.

Also, it must contain a form for people to fill in their information like email address, mobile number, so you can continue to interact with them.

A landing page should be used as a vehicle to take your prospective customers from the top stage to the next in the sales pipeline. Hence, it must have an explicit call-to-action telling your customers what they should do next.

2. Create Buyer Personas

Every customer is different from every other, and hence, you can’t have the same sales funnel for all of them. People are unique because they have different reasons for buying a product and different ways of making a buying decision or using it differently.

Therefore, creating separate buyer personas for each category is effective, and creating different sales funnels to enhance their experience.

You need to understand your audience accurately to establish a genuine connection with them. This will result in more people going through your sales funnel and a high chance of turning them into paying customers.

3. Lead magnet (Offer Something Of Value)

The lead magnet must give a deep insight or real value to be impressive. It should be something a user can hardly trust to be free and encourage him to become a paying customer.

There are various types of lead magnets. Some useful lead magnets are as follows:

An ebook
A video course to acquire a new handy skill
A free subscription to a newsletter or magazine
A webinar and much more

You can set any of the lead magnets you like and can change them whenever you want to.

4. Engagement Strategies (Nurture)

You have put big efforts into lead generation. Now, you need to constantly engage your leads at every stage of the funnel, inform them about the topics they are interested in and help them slide down your sales pipeline.

You should have great content to keep them engaged, and for that, you can use:

Blog posts
Videos
Podcasts
Social media posts
Facebook Live

You have obtained the email addresses of many prospective customers from the landing page. With that, you can develop an email nurture series to share useful content about your products.

5. Upsell

It would help if you offered something that pushes the prospects in making a purchase decision. This could be done using sales tactics like a free trial, product demo, or special discounts.

6. Closing Strategies

It is crucial to create needs for your target audience and then make clear offers that satisfy their needs. This will increase sales and help in business growth.

Finally, the marketing strategies that you use to convert your prospects into clients are:

Sales call and sales email
Sales and product pages
Webinars

7. Stay Top of Mind

In the Action stage, you will either land new customers or discover that customers aren’t interested in buying. Either way, you have to make sure to nurture your connection with customers whether they complete the sales funnel or not.

Focus on giving product information to new customers and keep them engaged. Please create a new nurture series for prospects who didn’t buy from you to keep in touch with them.

How To Optimize Your Sales Funnel

Missing a sale is very painful. Potential customers can drop out of the sales pipeline after days of content creation and pitches.

This usually happens when a company’s sales team doesn’t optimize the sales funnel. It’s essential to evaluate sales funnels if they are not generating sales.

Forgotten follow-ups, inappropriate messaging, missed appointments are some of the holes in sales funnels and they can be easily fixed. The marketing strategies mentioned below will assist you to optimize your sales funnel:

Use A CRM Software

If you wish to make your sales and marketing processes smooth, use a CRM like HubSpot to make your sales funnels work excellently.

The HubSpot Growth Platforms tools make it convenient to create and maintain an effective sales process that produces results.

Use Social Proof In Your Sales Funnels

Social proof escalates the conversion rate so that you can use it in your sales funnels and other marketing efforts. Social proof from existing customers, credible industry experts, and others can be of great help.

If you sprinkle social proof throughout your sales funnel, you’ll give your clients the confirmation they require to feel confident.

Modern customers have more trust in their peers than the brands they buy the products from. With the help of social proof, customers can understand what they will get when they do business with a particular brand.

Social proof can be of many forms:

Short endorsements
Long-form testimonials and video testimonials
Written case studies
User-generated content
Pictures and videos posted on social
Logos or trust seals
Before and after images
Numerical reviews and ratings

Locate Cracks in Your Sales Funnel

If you aren’t able to make sales like you want then try something different or try to find out the cracks in your sales funnel. Some ways to fix the cracks in your sales funnel are:

Re-visit your sales funnel- Be sure to break all the barriers at all sales funnel stages and make things effortless for customers to engage with you.
Check your initial lead response time- As per InsideSales.com, 35 to 50% of sales go to the seller that responds first. This means you have to prioritize quick responses to leads because speed wins deals!

Observe Relevant Data

Tracking your performance is very important. Setting realistic goals and then calculating your performance against those goals is the correct way to operate.

Scrutinize the relevant analytics, because it helps you to control relationships between you and your customers perfectly. Google Analytics is a really helpful tool that allows you to organize and supervise your sales efforts easily.

I hope that you have now understood the sales funnel and how it works exactly. Thank you for reading this article patiently and if you want to read more interesting articles like the one you just read, click here.

Wix vs Squarespace: Which Of The 2 Should Be A Freelance Blogger’s Best Friend?

Wix vs Squarespace: The Dilemma Of A Freelance Blogger

As a writer, I can vouch for the fact that writers have independent spirits. All writers are creators, and all creators like being independent. We do not really like being bound. So, the idea of being the sailor of one’s own ship may sound tempting to most of us. This, incidentally, is the very idea that lies at the heart of freelancing. These days many people are slowly moving towards becoming freelance bloggers. Now, newbies in the field of freelance blogging are probably aware of something called the “Wix vs Squarespace” tussle.

Before you start on your blogging journey, you’ll find yourself in a dilemma. The question of choosing a website builder will be difficult to deal with. How can it not? Choosing just one website builder from so many! That’s far from being easy. There is nothing called THE best website builder, after all.

We can delve deeper into this issue involving two of the arguably most user-friendly website builders- Wix and Squarespace. So, if you’re a blogger struggling with this inner battle about whether to choose Wix or Squarespace site, read on!

The Drift Towards Freelancing As A Career

In case you didn’t know, a lot of people are slowly gravitating towards freelancing nowadays. In 2020, when the pandemic had wreaked havoc worldwide, about 12% of the freelancers in the US made their foray into the freelance or the gig economy. Despite the uncertainties associated with freelancing, many people have begun to drift towards being their own employers in their respective fields.

Freelance Blogging As A Profession

Blogs and blogging — Illustration by Tumisu/ From: Pixabay

Blogging is a highly creative profession. It has become a much sought-after profession these days. Since you’re here, you’re probably willing to dive into the world of freelance blogging, aren’t you? So, you probably know how blogging can turn out to be an immensely rewarding profession in the long run. Yes, there was a time when many people would be skeptical about what I said just now. But times have changed!

Wix vs Squarespace: Which Website Builder To Choose As A Freelance Blogger?

Understanding the tussle: Wix vs Squarespace — Illustration by 200degrees/ From: Pixabay

But how to go about it? Firstly, as a beginner, you need to build your own website. Website builders can help you with it!

Now, there are a lot of website builders to choose from. You may find yourself wondering- Which website builder should I choose?

Most people prefer WordPress and would recommend using it. However, as a beginner, you can choose either Wix or Squarespace.

Here begins the clash between two of the best website builders- Wix vs Squarespace. Who will be your partner in freelance blogging?

Choosing between Squarespace and Wix is nothing less than Herculean labor. I mean, both of them are currently the most popular and user-friendly website builders. So, if you are torn between the two, I cannot blame you.

If you wish to know more, you may watch this video.

Features That Both Wix And Squarespace Have In Common: What Are The Similarities Between Them?

There are some features that both Wix and Squarespace have in common. In fact, both are equally good if certain characteristics are taken into consideration. That is why the “Wix vs Squarespace” tussle arises, in the first place!

The following section discusses how these two site builders are similar to one another:

To Use Wix Or Squarespace, You Do NOT Have To Know Coding Or Possess Other Technical Knowledge.

You do not have to know anything about coding to use either of these. Yes! You do not necessarily have to be tech junkies to build your website or your freelancer portfolio if you choose either of them.

Both the Wix site and Squarespace site make use of SaaS. Also known as “software as a service,” tools like these allow beginners with little or zero knowledge about coding to build their own websites as if the task were a piece of cake!

Many users would admit that Wix is easier to use than Squarespace, especially when it comes to speedy website building.

Both Squarespace And Wix Will Give You Access To Ample Eye-Catching Templates!

Both Wix and Squarespace will offer you visually-appealing templates and exquisite designs. The templates Wix offers are no less appealing than those offered by Squarespace.

You Can Increase Your Website Traffic And Improve Your Rank On Search Engines.

You can follow SEO best practices with relative ease on Wix as well as on Squarespace. Both of them come with suggestions regarding the optimization of websites. If you are meticulous enough to follow them, your site will obtain a better rank.

Both Offer Attractive E-Commerce Features.

Neither Wix nor Squarespace is E-commerce oriented, but the E-commerce features that they provide are pretty impressive. Neither of them leaves any room for disappointment in this case. Wix’s features about E-commerce can be afforded by many compared to those that Squarespace offers.

Squarespace And Wix Have Amazing Customer Support.

Customer support and services are pretty much important for any beginner. Squarespace and Wix are excellent when it comes to their customer support system.

You can contact Wix’s Help Centre and read up their blogs if you meet with any difficulty. If you choose Squarespace, you can participate in the discussions on their forum or share your opinions, queries, and insights. Their blogs and FAQs would help you too.

So, it’s understandable if you are preoccupied with the “Wix vs Squarespace” tussle in your mind.

However, Squarespace and Wix differ along certain lines. Each of them has something to offer which the other cannot. Simply put, Wix offers certain perks which Squarespace doesn’t and vice versa.

Wix Site, Its Merits, And Demerits

With about 100 million users and more, Wix is probably one of the most widely known website builders. Apparently, it has a lot of attractive features and a lot of people are drawn to it.

Why Wix: The Benefits Of Using Wix

Let us find out why so many users all over the world find it so alluring. I have talked about its numerous merits in the following section:

Wix will win you over with its user-friendliness. You won’t have to think twice before saying- Website building with Wix isn’t a big deal!
You can easily use the Wix editor. It is equipped with a drag-and-drop feature which most people can use effortlessly.
Worried about losing your data? Wix’s Site History system is here to help!
Create your website without too much effort with the help of Wix ADI. What makes it even more agreeable to users is a feature called Wix ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence). Wix Artificial Design Intelligence or Wix ADI is quite a marvel. Wix ADI makes website building a seamless experience.
There are myriads of Wix templates. You will find an array of beautiful designs and plenty of themes. I must also mention that Wix templates belong to diverse categories such as travel, beauty, and others. It also comes with more than 50 templates for blogging.
Wix has several great SEO tools too! As far as SEO (Search Engine Optimization) features are concerned, Wix offers several of them for all kinds of pages. These features include meta-description, page title, SSL encryption, and so on. Wix will, therefore, help you achieve a better rank on Google.
Wix has so many cool add-ons! There are many add-ons or extensions available on Wix. You can get all these add-ons from Wix’s app market. It’s a really cool feature. Don’t you think so too?
Oh, wait! Wix users can opt for a free plan! It’s Wix’s free plan that I’m talking about! Wix’s free plan is irresistible to many! After all, who can resist something free?

Why Not Wix: The Downsides Of Using Wix

Nothing is perfect, after all. But, Wix has several downsides too. So, let us take a look at why it may lose some ground in the “Wix vs Squarespace” battle:

Be very careful before choosing a template because you won’t ever be able to change it later! If you wish to change it, you might have to create your website all over again. That would be tedious.
Many of the templates on Wix aren’t responsive.
If you go for Wix, you have to create different versions of your website. This might not be good as far as search engine optimization is concerned. This is one of the chief areas where Wix may lose the “Wix vs Squarespace” battle.

Squarespace, Its Merits, And Demerits

Now that you know about the advantages and disadvantages of using Wix, you must be curious to know what Squarespace offers.

Why Squarespace: The Benefits Of Using Squarespace

So, let us find out why Squarespace may turn out to be the winner in the “Wix vs Squarespace” game. I have talked very briefly about the advantages of using Squarespace in the section that follows:

Squarespace is quite friendly towards its users. Squarespace is another website builder which many users prefer.
Squarespace brings a drag-and-drop page editor with it. The drag-and-drop editor for Squarespace is a section-based and structured page editor.
Squarespace offers about 100+ templates for website creation. It is equipped with many color schemes, fonts, audio, podcasts, and so on. All Squarespace templates are undoubtedly exquisite.
While choosing from the finely curated array of Squarespace templates, users will have to specify the category of their sites. Then they will be directed to specify the purpose of their respective websites, and based on these responses, templates will be suggested.
The SEO tools of Squarespace are quite good too. Squarespace comes with a host of excellent SEO tools. Concerning SEO, it is as good as Wix, if not better.
If you use Squarespace, you will be able to edit all source files. These include all CSS and HTML files.

Why Not Squarespace: The Disadvantages Of Using Squarespace

But there are a few aspects of Squarespace which may make Wix the winner in the “Wix vs Squarespace” fight. But what are they? The following section will give you a fair idea about the many failings of Squarespace:

Don’t expect to get your data back if you lose them by mistake. It does not have any backup and restore options.
If you choose Squarespace, you will get no free plan but just a 14-day free trial. Squarespace does not have any free plan to offer to its users.
Squarespace’s drag-and-drop editor is a little difficult to use.

Wix And Squarespace: So, Where Lies The Difference?

While it’s true that both Wix and Squarespace have some features in common, there are many differences between Wix and Squarespace too! I mean, you must’ve noticed that a Wix website looks different from a Squarespace website, haven’t you?

The section below ventures to explain the differences that both users of Wix and Squarespace are likely to notice:

Templates

Even though Wix has more templates than Squarespace, there is hardly one Squarespace template that you can turn a blind eye to. No wonder why Squarespace sites look so delightful!

You’ll indeed have a lot of options for your website template if you use Wix. Wix’s templates are available in abundance. But not all of these are responsive, especially on devices like mobile phones. You will have to create separate versions of your website like the desktop version, mobile version, and so on. It doesn’t sound convenient, does it?

But Squarespace templates win brownie points because they’re responsive, unlike Wix’s templates!

The Page Editor Of Wix And Squarespace

Wix editor is equipped with a drag-and-drop feature. I have already talked about that before. On the other hand, Squarespace offers a structured drag-and-drop editor.

Simply put, if you’re using Squarespace, you’ll drag elements across the page that will fit into particular rows and columns. You cannot alter the positioning of these columns and rows. This affects creative freedom to a certain extent which is not the case with Wix editor. Therefore, Wix offers more creative freedom than Squarespace.

Ecommerce Sites And Wix And Squarespace

The Ecommerce features and eCommerce tools that Wix offers differ from what Squarespace has in store. You can build a small or medium-sized online shop with the help of features that Wix offers. In comparison to Wix, Squarespace lacks a store of its own. So, if the online store feature isn’t a built-in feature, it cannot be put to use.

Squarespace Pricing And Wix Plan

Squarespace plans are four in number whereas, with Wix, there are eight. The cheapest among the four plans is the Personal plan. If you choose this Squarespace plan, you get a custom domain. Plus, you’ll get unlimited bandwidth and storage. You won’t be annoyed by ads, and you’ll have to pay $12 every month.

Unlike Squarespace, Wix offers no custom domain to users who opt for Wix Connect. Wix Connect is Wix’s most basic plan. This plan comes with 500 MB storage and 1 GB bandwidth. You have to pay a recurring charge of $4.50 and that too every month, and you’ll have to tolerate annoying Wix ads.

But, we must remember that Wix offers a free plan in addition to paid plans. Wix’s free plan is one of its striking features. The paid plans offered by Wix are of two types. If you are looking for a website builder to build a website for professional purposes, you can go for this Wix plan. For business purposes, you can go for Ecommerce plans.

Both Wix and Squarespace offer plans that are costlier than the basic ones. Apart from Squarespace’s Personal plan, the pricing plan includes options like business, basic commerce, and advanced commerce options. Also, all Squarespace plans offer unlimited bandwidth.

Extensions, Add-Ons, Third-Party Apps, And Integrations: Wix vs Squarespace

If you remember clearly, I’ve already talked a bit about Wix App Market, which is a feature that makes Wix a cool website builder.

The apps you can find in Wix App Market are not just third-party apps. There are Wix’s own apps too! These apps come with a lot of cool features as well! With the help of these features, you can enrich and enhance the quality of your website. You can find apps like Wix’s email marketing tools, Wix events app, notification tools, calendars, and so on in Wix App Market.

On the other hand, the add-on features and extensions that come with Squarespace are mostly Ecommerce oriented. Hopefully, they may diversify them. But, in contrast to Wix, Squarespace doesn’t offer apps. You can enable certain features via third-party integration. There’s no app market like Wix’s App Market. These tools and extensions include Squarespace’s marketing tools, extensions related to sales, products, inventory, and other Squarespace integrations.

At present, Wix seems to be the winner of the “Wix vs Squarespace” battle regarding the number of extensions and add-ons that both Squarespace and Wix offer. But quality-wise, Squarespace remains unbeaten.

Wix vs Squarespace: Let’s See Which Website Builder Has The Best Blogging Feature

Blogging on WordPress — Photo by StockSnap/ From: Pixabay

Many users favor Wix, mainly because it’s easy to use and offers a free plan. But when it comes to blogging, the scenario might turn out to be different. Are you curious as to why I said so? Then keep reading!

In several cases, Wix would become the winner in the “Wix vs Squarespace” scuffle. But all the tables turn when the blogging tools of both website builders are taken into account. That’s because Wix’s blogging feature is not as good as that of Squarespace.

And The Winner Is… Squarespace!

As a freelance blogger, you are likely to favor Squarespace over Wix. The blogging feature of Squarespace is very flexible if we compare it to Wix’s blogging feature. Wix comes with very basic in-built blogging tools, but Squarespace comes with some advanced features.

What Makes Squarespace One Of The Best Website Builders When It Comes To Blogging?

With Squarespace, you can add tags, URLs, audio, and visuals, maps, and whatnot.
Its WYSIWYG blog editor is something that many bloggers would prefer to use.
It is also geared with Google AMP functionality.
Furthermore, it supports multiple author management and has a great workflow feature.
Most importantly, you will connect with your readers or audience and get to know their opinions. That is what a blogger aims for, right?

Squarespace’s Members Area Feature Is A Plus

Let me tell you why you want to use Squarespace and not Wix at the beginning of your career as a freelance blogger. Squarespace has added a Members Area feature. This feature is a new one. What makes it interesting is that its chief goal is to monetize the content on your website. That includes your blog posts as well.

Why Wix May Lose The Game In The Case Of The Blogging Feature?

Wix will probably not become a favorite with bloggers. Its blogging features are somewhat inferior to Squarespace’s blogging features. So, let’s find out why Wix may lose the “Wix vs Squarespace” game to Squarespace.

Wix comes with a feature known as the Wix Blog app. With this free Wix Blog app, you’ll be able to schedule your blog posts and do other things. You need to integrate it on your website, though.

There will also be ads on your blogging site if you choose Wix. You cannot do away with the ads, no matter how annoying they might seem.

Besides, getting a blog on Wix with a domain of your own will cost you money.

Thus, when freelance bloggers appear on the scene, Squarespace will win the “Wix vs Squarespace” battle. About blogging, Squarespace can beat Wix.

You may check out this video to know more about Squarespace’s blogging feature. Hopefully, it will give you a fair idea.

Tired Of All The Talk On The “Wix vs Squarespace” Battle? Let’s Talk About Their Alternatives Then

Enough on the “Wix vs Squarespace” battle! Let us take a look at some other website builders other than Wix and Squarespace.

So, here’s a list of some website building tools other than Wix and Squarespace:

If you are fond of simplicity, you may consider choosing Weebly. It offers a lot of good blogging features.
Medium will be a good option for you if you want your voice to be heard by many people.
These days LinkedIn is gaining popularity among many professionals even though it’s not exactly a site builder per se.

Apart from all these, there are other lesser-known platforms or site builders. They include Jimdo, Ghost, SITE123, and so on.

Now, if you wish to choose either Wix or Squarespace to put an end to the “Wix vs Squarespace” tussle, you may. Or, you may choose any of the other alternatives. It’s totally up to you.

I hope I could offer some useful insight to you on this entire “Wix vs Squarespace” issue. When blogging is considered, before Squarespace, Wix seems not so bright, even though it offers a free plan!

Online Transcription Jobs: 10 Best Websites Where You Can Kick-Start Your Career

Writing is by no means an easy profession. But for lovers of words, it’s hard not to take up the pen (or the keyboard in today’s world) to make a living. Since you’re reading this, I presume you are a freelance writer or wish to become one. I have great news for you! You can take up online transcription jobs to earn well while doing what you love to do the most, that is, writing.

The Growing Popularity Of Freelancing

Research suggests that one-third of these freelancers are involved with jobs that require creativity. Plus, about 17% of these freelancers are writers or content creators. Yes! Freelancing is gradually gaining steady ground on a global scale.

Why Freelance Writers Should Consider Taking Up Online Transcription Jobs

Freelance writers can do transcription as well. — Photo by StartupStockPhotos on Pixabay

I have already told you that you might consider taking up transcription work if you are a freelance writer. Choosing to be a transcriptionist comes with a host of benefits. So, what are they?

Firstly, online transcription jobs will help you make money from the comfort of your home. Apparently, 25% of freelancers prefer working from home. With social distancing slowly becoming a norm, working from home naturally seems viable to many.

Secondly, you will have the opportunity to choose your own work hours. There are certain companies, however, that have stipulated work hours. But, otherwise, you are free to choose when you can complete your assignments and projects. What is more attractive than flexible work hours?

Thirdly, freelance transcriptionists can choose who they want to work with. Needless to say, that is the central idea behind freelancing. You are not bound to a particular company or client. You have the freedom to work with a client or multiple clients of your choice.

Finally, if you wish to take up transcription as a profession, you need not possess any special skills. Yes, you read that right! Plus, you need no prior work experience. To take up online transcription jobs, you don’t require excellent educational qualifications either.

But, to excel as a transcriptionist, you need to put in the best of your efforts.

https://youtu.be/MR4v8m9lU7A

What Is Transcription Work?

Online transcription jobs can be taken up by freelance writers — Photo by kaboompics on Pixabay

So, aren’t you eager to know what transcribing is all about? I have explained to you the various benefits of working as a transcriptionist. But what exactly do you need to do in transcription jobs?

To put it simply, you will have to translate audio and/or video into words as a part of this job. First of all, you need to listen carefully to what is said in the audio or visual document. Then, you just have to write, or rather type, what you heard.

In these kinds of jobs, you are allowed to work from home. You will get paid based on transcription done per audio hour or a minute or on similar parameters.

If you are involved in freelance transcription, you will have to edit and proofread your works very carefully before sending them to your client.

For your information, a professional transcriptionist may earn up to about $45,000 per annum.

Sounds easy? Sorry, but it isn’t as easy as it sounds. That is exactly why you need a lot of practice. Only then can you succeed in a transcription job.

Some Basic Requirements Before You Begin Working As A Transcriptionist

Equipments required for freelance transcription work — Picture by Darkmoon_Art on Pixabay

Although you need no special skill to take up online transcription jobs, you need to possess certain things or equipment. These are your basic requirements. Wondering what they are? You may want to take a look at the list below, in that case:

A Computer

First of all, you must have a computer if you wish to get started as a transcriptionist. It can be either a laptop or a desktop, as per your preference.

High-Speed Internet Connection

Having a computer isn’t enough. It’s also extremely important to have access to a high-speed internet connection for online transcription jobs. A stable internet connection is an absolute imperative.

Headphones

The most important part of being a transcriptionist is to listen carefully and attentively to the audio or video files sent to you.

Sometimes, you might be given audio files that are of dismal quality.

There might be occasions when you face difficulty in understanding what is being said. That may happen if the speakers use strong accents. It may also happen if there are unwanted sounds or noise in the background.

There might be some kind of disturbance in your immediate surroundings as well.

So, if you invest in good-quality headphones, you will be able to do away with all these troubles.

Foot Pedal

Do you know that if you use a foot pedal while transcribing, you will be able to complete your assignments really fast? Investing in a foot pedal will definitely benefit you in your transcription work.

An Ergonomic Keyboard

It is needless to say that you will have to type for several hours at a stretch if you choose to take up online transcription jobs. Your fingers might hurt in that process.

So, if you choose to get an ergonomic keyboard for yourself, it will certainly not be a bad investment.

An Ergonomic Mouse

It is also very important to invest in an ergonomic mouse to make transcribing easy for you.

Points To Remember Before You Begin Transcribing

The above appliances are very basic requirements. Apart from all these devices and gadgets, you must keep the following things in mind:

Transcription Requires Plenty Of Patience

To be successful in transcription, you must have a lot of patience. Without patience, this job might become very difficult for you.

As I have already said, sometimes you may be given audio files of bad quality. So, you need to be a very patient listener. If you’re too impatient, online transcription jobs are not for you.

Transcription Is Not An Easy Job

I have already talked about it before. If you believe that online transcription jobs are easy, then you must not make a foray into this field. You need to practice hard to improve your transcription skills.

You Need To Be An Excellent Listener

To become a transcriptionist, you must be an excellent listener. You need to notice every detail while listening to what the speaker is talking about.

Sometimes, your employer might instruct you to note down expressions like “hmm,” “ugh,” “umm,” and so on.

So, if you are a good listener, you can excel in this job.

You Must Be Very Accurate While Typing

Accuracy in typing is a skill that gets better with practice. If you take transcription seriously, you will be able to transcribe with great accuracy in a short period of time.

Be Wary Of Fraudsters

There is no dearth of fraudsters in this world. They are there everywhere. So, even before you apply for online transcription jobs, make sure that you don’t get duped in the process.

Firstly, a business venture or any other enterprise or individual will never ask you to pay them something before you begin working for them.

Yes, some companies deal with very sensitive information. Only some of these companies may ask you to pay a nominal amount. So, be careful if you haven’t applied for a job in any such company.

Secondly, it’s normal to expect clear guidelines from your recruiter or recruiting agency regarding your work. If they fail to provide you with this basic information, they are not worth your time.

Lastly, be very particular about the payment packages. It will be good to talk to your employer very clearly before you begin working on their projects.

Some recruiters will pay you only after you have successfully finished the projects assigned to you. Just talk about your payment very openly to avoid being deceived later.

Fields In Which Transcriptionists Are Much Sought After

Transcribing is of considerable importance in a lot of fields. I have mentioned some of these fields in the list that follows:

Some educational institutions often avail of transcription services. Transcription of certain research projects is carried out in these institutions.
In several business enterprises, transcriptionists are hired to transcribe recordings of virtual conferences, webinars, conference calls, etc.
Market researchers may often hire people offering transcription services to transcribe research lectures.
Journalists may work closely with those involved in transcription too.

Apart from those that I mentioned above, a transcriptionist is needed in a host of other fields.

The Various Kinds Of Transcription Jobs

Transcription can be of different types. In case you are not aware of them, you may read the list given below:

1. General Transcription

For wannabe freelance transcriptionists, general transcription seems to be the most suitable option. That’s because general transcription is the most basic variety of transcription and you need not possess any specialized knowledge for this. Most importantly, it’s easier than other varieties of transcription.

2. Technical Transcription

Technical transcription will be ideal for you if you hail from an engineering background. You will be given audio and/or video files where the speakers might be using many technical terms. So, it’s meant for those with a degree in engineering or those pursuing engineering.

3. Medical Transcription

You can make more money than others involved with transcription jobs if you take up medical transcription. But the catch is that it’s quite a difficult task. In addition, this form of transcription demands a very high level of accuracy.

4. Legal Transcription

As the name suggests, legal transcription entails transcribing recordings of court proceedings, hearings, verdicts, and so on. Long story short, it involves everything that is associated with the law and judiciary. Also, your work has to be very accurate in this case.

5. Financial Transcription

People hailing from the Commerce stream can choose to apply for financial transcription jobs. You will have to transcribe audio consisting of data like a company’s finances, sales, yearly reports, and other such documents.

6. Verbatim Transcription

To transcribe something verbatim means transcribing each word and non-verbal expression in a particular speech, podcast, or audio recording. This implies that you’ll have to include expressions like “umm,” “ahem,” and so on. This form of transcription requires a lot of patience, and it’s quite time-consuming as well.

10 Websites Offering Online Transcription Jobs For Beginners And Transcription Jobs From Home

So, you are now aware of the fundamentals of online transcription jobs. But where can you find such jobs? Is there any particular platform that offers transcription jobs for beginners?

Well, there is not just one online platform. In fact, many websites offer transcription jobs to beginners.

I have prepared a list of some of the sites that provide transcription jobs for beginners. The list is given in the following section:

1. GoTranscript

GoTranscript is probably one of the best websites offering transcription jobs to beginners.

Even if you are inexperienced, you can easily secure a job from this website. You can live in any corner of the globe and yet get a job on GoTranscript. You are free to choose your working hours as well.

Want to know what’s more interesting? The payout options they provide are quite secure. You will be paid close to $0.60 per video minute. The payments are made through PayPal or Payoneer and are processed every week.

Just sign up, answer a couple of questions, and translate the test audio files given to you into words. You will be notified regarding your selection within a week.

2. Verbal Ink

For US citizens looking for online transcription jobs, Verbal Ink is an excellent platform. It is one of the best sites for wannabe transcriptionists. Here you can choose your working hours. Plus, Verbal Ink offers a good sum as compared to other platforms.

Beginners can earn around $8 to $10. All payments are made through PayPal.

But, there is a catch. You have to sit for a test which is quite difficult. Only if you clear the test can you get a job on Verbal Ink. If you get selected, you can start working immediately.

3. CastingWords

You may be a beginner or an experienced transcriptionist. On CastingWords, it hardly matters. This website provides equal opportunities to all. That’s why it’s unique in comparison to other websites.

CastingWords is quite user-friendly and has a clean interface. You will have to provide some personal information when you open an account on this website. This information might be your email ID or something similar. If you manage to secure a job on CastingWords, you’ll be notified. After that, you can take a look at the jobs that are available on the site.

Besides, there is one feature that makes CastingWords all the more unique. The site ranks its users based on their performance in every task they finish. Those who score really high get the chance to bag well-paid jobs!

4. SpeechPad

SpeechPad, which was known as Speechlink before, is a platform that recruits people from all over the globe. This site presents a whole range of transcription jobs for beginners as well as for experienced transcriptionists.

But before you go and quickly open an account on SpeechPad, just listen to me. Unless you can type 40 words per minute (wpm), there is no point in signing up.

Now, if you can type 40 words per minute, you can sign up, after which your listening and typing skills will be put to the test.

On this site, beginners can earn as much as $0.25 per minute. On the other hand, the experienced ones can earn $1 per minute. They process the payments via PayPal.

5. Rev

Among all the websites offering transcription job opportunities, Rev enjoys a lot of popularity. Here both wannabe transcriptionists and professional ones can look for work opportunities.

Before you open an account and sign up on Rev, you’ll have to appear for a test. If you can clear it, you will be notified about the same within two days.

6. GMR Transcription

Freelance transcriptionists must flock to GMR Transcription if they wish to make a lot of money. Undoubtedly, the amount of money you earn on this site depends upon your qualifications, skills, and the difficulty level of the tasks assigned to you. Every month, you can earn as much as $1000 to $3000.

People from all countries can bag job opportunities on GMR Transcription. The company provides legal transcription, transcription for educational purposes, and similar services.

Here you will have to submit your CV at the very beginning of the process of signing up. Then, you’ll be notified about the test that you have to take. This is done via email.

If you end up being selected, you will receive an intimation regarding the same. It will, however, take nearly two weeks for you to receive the intimation.

There’s one more thing that I need to tell you about GMR Transcription. Here you will be on probation. It will last until you learn to transcribe for a minimum of two audio or video hours.

Those experienced in transcription will enjoy a lot of perks here.

7. Scribie

For beginners in the field of transcription, Scribie is an excellent choice. The audio files that they provide are not very hard to work with, and these mainly consist of interviews, speeches, and so on.

The jobs available on Scribie are known for their flexibility. Besides, you get to decide how long you’re going to work. Plus, Scribie lets you work from home.

Even on Scribie, you’ll have to pass an eligibility test. Only then can you get a job.

But, Scribie has a few downsides. First and foremost, you cannot earn much money on Scribie. In fact, the payments they make are quite low as compared to those made by other platforms. Also, Scribie has a turnaround time of two hours for every audio and/or video file.

You will be paid an amount ranging from $5 to $50 per audio hour. The payment will, however, depend on how fast you can complete and hand in your assignments. It also depends on the difficulty level of the files provided to you. Here, you get paid via PayPal only.

8. SpeakWrite

This company has been there since 1997, and it attracts clients from a variety of sectors like law, for instance. You’ll have to pass a test here as well to prove your eligibility.

Beginners in search of transcription jobs on SpeakWrite must satisfy a couple of requirements. The applicants must be able to type out 60 words per minute. They must be proficient in English and must be very accurate in terms of grammar. In addition to these requirements, they must possess some knowledge about MS Word.

SpeakWrite pays its transcriptionists via cheque only. No payment is made via PayPal or by other means.

9. TranscribeMe

Do you know what makes TranscribeMe stand out? Well, it offers a hefty sum of money as payments to professionals hailing from a medical or legal background.

There’s more! The payment you get over here is higher than what is offered by many other platforms. On TranscribeMe, for an audio hour, you’ll be paid a sum ranging from $15 to $25. They will pay you for your work via PayPal.

10. QuickTate

QuickTate is associated with behemoths like Ford, CocaCola, and the likes of them. On this website, you will be asked to work with voice memos, phone call recordings, speeches, and so on. If you manage to get a transcription job here, you’ll receive between $5 to $10 per audio hour.

Apart from the websites that I have discussed in the list above, there are many other websites where beginners can easily find remote transcription jobs. I must mention names among these sites like Happyscribe, Daily Transcription, Appen, Tigerfish, and more. On these platforms, you will find jobs that will involve transcription of YouTube videos, webinars, documentaries, and whatnot.

Now that you have a fair idea about online transcription jobs, you may want to get started in this field. Think about all the perks that online transcription jobs offer.

You can work from home with clients of your choice. You’ll be able to offer your services to global enterprises or companies while you work from home and make money.

You can work as much as you want and take a week or more to complete your work. Nobody will say anything to you.

You don’t have to worry about which field you are from. You may hail from a medical or legal background and still be a transcriptionist. You won’t require a lot to get started. You’ll just need a computer, stable internet, and a couple of other things to make money to your heart’s content. Also, you’ll get paid by most companies every week or per month.

Who Is A Brand Ambassador? Everything You Need To Know

A company’s reputation shapes its position in the market and governs its accomplishments to a great extent. And it’s certainly not enough (or viable) for a company alone to put itself forth in the best possible way. It needs reliable and credible brand ‘advocates’ since personal referrals from real people resonate far better with an audience than words from the brand itself ever will. This is why they need a brand ambassador (also known as the corporate ambassador), who is a person that represents the company, advertises it, and stands in front of the brand as the embodiment of the company’s corporate identity — through words and actions.

Before diving headfirst into what a brand ambassador is, let’s first get the basics out of the way: What is branding?

Running a business means you probably have a ‘brand’ for it.

Branding, in loose words, refers to the process of putting your product forth in a positive light so that people not only see it but also choose it time and time again. According to the American Marketing Association,

A brand is a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers.

Let’s say, for example; you have a clothing company. But isn’t there a myriad of companies already selling clothes? Then how are you supposed to convince people to purchase the clothes that your company sells?

By creating a brand.

A product can be copied. But a brand stays unique.

But here’s the thing, branding is not an easy topic to define, but Seth Godin, author, and entrepreneur, does it best:

A brand is a set of expectations, memories, stories, and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.

Why Is Branding Necessary?

In a study done by Princeton, psychologists found that it takes only a tenth of a second to form an impression of somebody. But branding still goes far beyond just a well-designed logo. When a company’s customer service, reputation, and advertising work well together, a brand deem itself overall healthy.

Since competition is always brutal, no matter what industry you’re part of,

Branding Assists You In:

Building trust and recognition (including reputation on social media).
Highlighting what you have to offer.
Elevating the way your business is perceived (in the market and consumers’ minds).
Providing an identity to your business.
Validating your financial value.
Supporting your advertisement (online and offline).
Generating new customers.

Branding is essential for the business because it’s what the potential customer is going to see first. But when do brand ambassadors come into play?

Who Is A Brand Ambassador?

In its simplest form, the brand ambassador definition would be ‘people with a flexible schedule who promote a product or company, both publicly and among their friends, as well as on social media on their own hours.’ A company sometimes gives a brand ambassador free products to use its products and encourages others to do the same.

product promotion — Photo by Product School on Unsplash

Usually, types of brand ambassadors are divided into these categories:

The enthusiast; who already loves your product and effectively raises an excitement in other people about your brand by airing it in their community and on their social media accounts,
The expert; who is in a position that allows people to trust their recommendations,
The peer; who is the most reliable to reach your target audience, and,
The celebrity; which is a famous, easily recognizable person.
The employee; who is obviously already part of the company’s own employees.

What Does A Brand Ambassador Do?

Being a brand ambassador means that you have certain responsibilities. Some of them are:

Positive Representation Of The Brand

Introducing people to the brand and the experience they are about to have as its customers is one of the biggest responsibilities of a successful brand ambassador. Brand ambassadors are well aware of what they want people to think about the brand they represent and then make sure that they deliver that very perception. They get across what makes the said brand unique and unforgettable while ensuring that the company’s image stays consistent. Presenting a brand positively is the sun that a brand ambassador’s planets revolve around.

Increasing Brand Awareness

While being a brand advocate, most brand ambassadors also assist in content creation — writing blogs, newsletters, and product reviews, creating shareable infographics, delivering word-of-mouth marketing as well as traditional marketing, improving SEO with user-intent related keywords — and maximizing their organic social media presence so they can develop a voice for their brand is the key to keep testing new strategies to make sure what makes the biggest impact. Additionally, brand ambassadors also stay aware of what is going around them to discuss brands online and increase brand awareness the right way with the right people.

Being A Leader

People like to be led and are always in search of new information. Hence, promoting content and brand online can be the easiest way to become an opinion leader. And social networks are the quickest ways to tell the world about yourself and tell your opinion on a matter. That also makes a brand ambassador a social media influencer. By gaining trust and building their reputation with the help of famous influencers, many brand ambassadors try to gain as much experience as possible, analyze them, and then tell the world about them by staying active on social media platforms.

Providing Feedback And Insight

Brand ambassadors are constantly listening to and engaging with their target audience on online platforms. They gather feedback on experiences with the products that their brand advertises and provide intelligence to optimize its marketing efforts. Hence, answering all questions about the brand and its products to maintain brand identity is part of a brand ambassador’s job.

Participating In Event Marketing

Brand ambassadors participate in face-to-face interactions since the people they speak to could be the company’s future clients. In fact, it’s a major part of their job to build relationships. Event marketing gives one the power to engage with buyers directly. Aside from helping brand ambassadors build brand presence (before, during, and after) at the event, it can generate leads, pipeline value, new opportunities, and more sales.

Other responsibilities of a brand ambassador could also include –

discussing strategy with management to best increase sales in the market,
visiting retail locations to spread knowledge,
recording concerns and feedback from customers and staff,
learning the lineup of the season’s products,
scheduling time with store management to discuss the impact of their product on the business,
posting about a new product on their social media networks,
distributing marketing materials,
wearing branded uniforms/other clothing items,
providing samples in stores,
being trustworthy,
not focusing too much on sales but authenticity.

networking — Image by ar130405 from Pixabay

How To Become a Brand Ambassador?

From the company’s own employees to popular celebrities, anyone with the required skill can be a brand ambassador. The standard level of education needed to be a brand ambassador is a high school diploma. Still, there are various job listings where companies try to find brand ambassadors that are in the middle of finishing their degree. Other general qualifications needed to fill the position of a brand ambassador require one to be friendly, charismatic, energetic and holding the potential to connect with their peers. Since they are close-knit with their campus communities, College students are very fitting candidates for most brand ambassador programs.

When written step-by-step, the process to become a brand ambassador would look something like this:

Researching the companies you are considering is always a good start. Look for brands that represent your interests well, or try to go for a brand that creates content you already produce. Going through a company’s social media posts is always the easiest place to start with. Also, research events happening in your area.
Having high interaction on your social media can make you more attractive to brands as a potential ambassador. Building engagement is a great way to advertise yourself, so consider commenting on well-known pages or blogs, as well as responding to the messages and comments you receive.
Create social media content that reflects a cohesive tone and set of interests. Most companies look for potential ambassadors who reflect a certain vibe to represent them.
Build a good online following to allow people to keep up with your in-person activities.
Make connections with other influencers to increase your own social media site following.
Start reaching out to companies you are interested in promoting, and make sure they hire brand ambassadors.

The basic demand for being a brand ambassador usually includes previous retail or training experience, willingness to travel to multiple locations, an outgoing personality with love for helping people, and excellent written and verbal communication skills.

Brand Ambassador Program

To keep the relationships with your brand ambassadors running smoothly, it’s best to create brand ambassador programs. Companies that set up a brand ambassador program are usually confident in their services, have a happy customer base, have the resources required to create strong marketing campaigns, and are active on social media. Plus, starting a brand ambassador program is cost-effective since the payments are based on results, which means that you only incur costs after you meet a certain goal.

Being in a highly competitive industry or targeting a niche audience can often benefit from an ambassador program.

Whether you want to keep your circle of brand ambassadors relatively small with only a few members or form an entire army that can promote your brand far more intensely is something you need to decide on before you work on the rest. Either way, it’s going to require a lot of your time and energy, as well as a lot of dedication. Therefore you need a clear map of what you’ll be getting out of the brand ambassador program before getting it started.

So that’s your first step: Don’t start a brand ambassador program ‘just because.’ Define the goals of your brand ambassador program, and know your end-game beforehand. Knowing these demographics can make it easier to identify brand ambassadors who can help you reach your goals.

The next step would include establishing your criteria. Different brands have different requirements for their brand ambassadors. Before reaching out, consider taking note of the following:

How much has this person engaged with your brand in the past?
How passionate about it are they?
How long have they been a customer?
What does the follower count on their social media look like?
How would you rate their social media interaction?

After settling all of that comes the policies and guidelines you want to set for the brand ambassador program. Since ambassadors reflect your brand, you’re supposed to review their presence on social media to ensure that their ideas go hand in hand with your own. Additionally, making sure that they maintain their own personal voice, don’t needlessly trash competitors, and promote the right products/hashtags also gets covered under this part of starting a brand ambassador program.

It goes without saying that working with a brand ambassador will be a long-term relationship after getting through the brand ambassador program. Don’t forget to give out freebies, financial compensations, as well as shout-outs to these brand ambassadors on your own account, so they remember what’s in it for them as long as they work for you.

Lastly, but most importantly, track your progress. You need to assess what’s going on as your brand ambassador programs grow.

Why Do You Need Brand Ambassadors?

In today’s digital and online marketing work, brand ambassadors can be seen as an essential element to your team. They fulfill the human aspect of your business and provide the genial voice that your company needs.

Brands hire ambassadors to help raise product awareness for the company and greatly assist the brand in question in boosting sales. Their job description promotes your brand and helps defend it — calming situations surrounding any negative attention your company and talking in a positive light.

It doesn’t always have to be a celebrity. They should only market your company and help consumers decide to know more about your product.

To understand more about business, check out another article by us: Understanding Operating Capital: How Do You Safeguard Your Business?

Importance of Backlinks

You must have come upon the term ‘Backlink’ if you have ever read about SEO, Search Engine Optimization. It greatly helps by boosting up worth traffic towards your website. For those who do not know anything about SEO or those who are new to this term, understanding what is a Backlink and why is it important to include them in your website.

What are Backlinks?

Backlinks are the inward links which directs right to your blog or a website. They are most commonly known as in-links or inbound links. They are very essential when it comes to Search Engine Optimization as higher the number of backlinks, the more credible your blog or website becomes in the eyes of every search engines.

Why are Backlinks important?

Backlinks basically let you to have track of every single page available on the web that links to your posts. Today, they have become an important part of Search Engine Optimization. Each time you build up a new backlink, the chances of getting your website indexed by various search spiders increases. It is said that a greater number of backlinks leads to better popularity of websites and blogs.

A number of search engines consider the backlinks to be a major factor for deciding a rank amongst various web pages in their ranking algorithm. Even Google have said that each backlink means one vote from another website, which means that the number of backlinks used in a website is a clear indication of how popular, credible and relevant that website is.

Having quality backlinks

There is a simple rule ‘higher the relevance of backlinks, greater will be their quality, and vice versa.’

Backlinks are the basic building block of a good Search Engine Optimization. While calculating a site’s relevance to a particular keyword, the search engines always consider the number of good quality backlinks to a website. It is not that only the number matters in the case of backlinks, the quality and content that it relates to a given keyword is equally important.

The quality of an inbound link is determined solely by its content. When inbound links comes to your site, somewhere from the other sites, these links are known to be very relevant to your website. If the inbound link on your website has any kind of content that do not relate to the given keyword, they will not be considered relevant and hence, the credibility of your website will be lost.

It is to be noted that relevant and valuable backlinks are two important scrutinizers. Sometimes it happens that Search Engine Optimizers try to manipulate or operate a search engine, if that is the case, the only legitimate way is to have high-quality backlinks which will increase the position of the website in a search engine index.

For example: If you are a webmaster and your website has a keyword that relates to travelling France and you receive a backlink from some other website that relates to the travel cost of Italy, then this link will be considered as an irrelevant link.

Webmasters often use more than 2 websites and for them, linking those websites helps your SEO efforts, however, it is not always true. This can hold good only when both website do not have the same IP, which means that if all websites are hosted on a single server, Google will take no time to penalize you.

A large number of bloggers usually exchange links through blogroll, where one blogger can easily link to another blogger and vice versa. This helps in spreading word about a new bog or website. But before you do that, it is important to be very careful about the one you are linking your blog with, as linking to bad corners may end up harming you in long run.

Building Backlinks

It is obvious by now that good quality backlinks are an inexplicable part of Search Engine Optimization success. Now the question remains, how to build these backlinks. Before starting building up your backlinks, you need to consider few things. It helps greatly if you keep a track of all your inbound links, knowing what sites are linking to your websites and how exactly inbound link’s anchor text incorporates those keywords which relate to your website. A tool that will help you do this is the Domain starts Tool. Google regards the inbound links coming from this tool highly important and relevant.

With the option of on-page optimization, it becomes easier because everything is in your hands, you can decide and do as you like, but with backlinks, it seems that you are relying on others instead of working for your own success. However, this is not the complete truth because though inbound links start from some other sites and directs towards yours, you can still discuss the details like anchor text, with other site’s web master. This may not be same as administrating your own site as you cannot have complete control over all the backlinks, yet there are a number of aspects for negotiation.

Importance of Quality links

It is ok to exchange inlinks until you are doing it with a trustful website, otherwise it would be dangerous for your site or blog. To get clearer with, let us understand the two types of incoming links to your website:

One Way Backlinks: If you have one-way backlinks, you are sure to get more value and better results. One Way incoming links are those kinds of links that top to your site from other sites. It guarantees better search positions, provides you more valuable and better audience, mainly from search robots.

Reciprocal Links: They might not be popular these days but in its latest update, Google said that reciprocal links were found to be the target among the latest filters of search engines. Many webmasters prefer these to boost the rankings of their website but according to Google, many of such links were not relevant and hence, were discounted, and large numbers of websites were removed from Google Maps.

Conclusion

Backlinks are extremely essential to SEO, and their importance, quality content and uniqueness makes them a priority in SEO efforts. This helps other trustful websites recognize you as a credible one and hence, link them to yours.

Social Media Marketing – The Top Mistakes You Need to Avoid

Yes, Social media marketing is the thing of the day! Who doesn’t want to sell and marketing online through social media is the ideal way to do it online!

For businessmen and entrepreneurs, the sky is the limit with this type of Marketing. However, there are certain mistakes that most entrepreneurs, businessmen and those looking to go into the world of Social Media Marketing make.

Here is a look at 5 of them!

Mistake 1 – Trying to make everyone follow you!

Yes, why do you want to make people follow you when they are not interested? This marketing technique could prove deadly in the long run with you having tons of followers but no response. Instead, try to make people interested in the products you sell and focus on what you are trying to achieve.

Mistake 2 – Simply Publishing Your Blog Posts!

Yes, we all know your blog might have the best content. Interesting and amazing, you might be baffled at why your blog is receiving such a low number of visitors. Truth is, just publishing does not help. You need to promote the posts too. Of course, SEO is one way, but good Social Media Marketing is a necessity. Also, your posts should have pictures. It is really a necessity because readers do not only want to read texts but also view pictures. You can promote your blog posts with interesting pictures to grow the reader base.

Mistake 3 – Not Doing Enough To Get noticed!

Yes, with the plethora of updates and statuses on social media sites, you are sure to find it difficult to get noticed. Your status or update will soon be lost in the ocean of other statuses. So, what do you do to make it stand out? Well, firstly, why not make it interesting? You could italicize your text, put in capital letters the parts of the text which you want to focus on and write updates which are sure to get the reader’s attention.

Mistake 4 – Making False Promises

Yes, this is one of the foremost things to keep in mind. It is pretty easy to give false promises and make new followers. But it is not worth it. In the long run, it will never fall off. Instead, try advertising on Facebook and other sites if you want to make more people follow you. The main priority is to extend the reach without spending much and Facebook Ads, for instance, could be the perfect alternative.

Mistake 5 – Not Interacting Enough!

Yes, you want to promote your products. But why will people buy your products? It goes without saying that you need to interact with your fans and followers. Make your customers and visitors feel that you care for them. Address their questions and concerns. Make people develop a bonding. Bonding with your website or business can be a wonderful way to promote your website and company. More, it helps develop trust between you and the visitors and is a great tool for Social Media Marketing.

How To Grow up Your Blog Business

Today, blogging is not a new phenomenon. Blogging emerged in the late 1990s which provided a platform for even nontechnical users to post their content. The user base of good-quality blogs differentiates them from other newbies. In February 2011, there is now about 156 million blogs in existence. So in this tough scenario, the question is how to grow one’s blogging business?

Here is a look at how you could expand your blog business faster!

Market The Content of the Blog

A blog becomes successful if it is spread efficiently. Meaning, the readers play the most important role in making the blogs popular by sharing them. For this, the blogger must understand what to write. The content of the blog should always target to audience making them share it. Blogs relating to a particular community, topic, tone, writing style, content are likely to become more popular than others. For instance, blogs relating to sports or a movie are likely to be spread more by readers interested in sports or movies rather than those who don’t.

Use the concept of Guest Posts

A blogger can grow the blogging business by creating new and relevant readers. For this one of the best ways is to write guest posts on other blogs. The posts should be informative as well as entertaining in nature. Guest postings often help the readers with what they want. Also many bloggers easily agree to publish guest posts as it helps to bring out a variety and diversity in their blog. Also bloggers should actively participate in certain communities and forums where their audience generally gathers.

Do NOT Forget to Make Blogs SEO Friendly

Search engines like Google provide a huge platform for bloggers to grow their blogging business. Search engine optimization or SEO, is very easy and simple to set up for blogs purpose. Bloggers can opt for SEO friendly platforms for writing their blogs. Some of these platforms are WordPress, Jumla or Drupal. The search engine traffic is increasing tremendously, day by day.

By 2011, Google alone had about 3 billion searches every day. Through proper SEO tactics and techniques, a blogger can easily take advantage of this massive traffic. A small effort to utilize SEO techniques can bring out a success rate of more than 80% for blog growth. One can only wonder the amazing power and contribution which proper optimization can bring to blog traffic. So adopting the techniques of SEO is a must for all bloggers which in turn would provide them with hundreds and thousands of readers, praising the blogs.

Do Use Social Networking Sites

The use of various social networking sites is on boom. Millions and millions of people are using sites such as Twitter, Facebook, etc. bloggers should embrace to these sites without any hesitation. They should share their posts and also find new followers and audiences to connect with. The word about the blogs is spread like wildfire through the readers participating and actively using these social networking sites.

Aside from these, bloggers should also think of other strategies which may help to grow their blogging business. A good blogger should always know the importance of the audience and their valuable contributions.