Make Money Online With Your Blog: March 2013

Friday, March 22, 2013

Learn Exactly How To Make Money Online As A Freelancer/Outsourcer

Freelancing: Everything You Need To Know

Freelancing & Outsourcing: Everything You Need To Know

What is Freelancing?

Freelancing is one of the many ways to make money from home when you’re not ready to start a home business – it can be full time or part time. Freelancer is a self-employed person who works from home for a number of clients/businesses for a fee. Freelancers are usually skilled professionals who are neither employees nor employers – usually work as a contractor. They can be amateurs as well who have just started freelancing or can be professionals who work for big bucks.

They offer their services (writing, designing, coding etc.) to clients without any long term commitment and they charge by hour or on a contract basis (i.e. fixed rate).

Got Nothing To Do? Start Freelancing!

Wait, Freelancing does not mean that you are your own boss and it’s not going to make you rich overnight. It means that you are going to become a contractor and hence you do have some responsibility and commitment to your clients and have deadlines to meet.

If you have great expertise in some fields (programming, designing, writing, marketing, consulting etc.) then you should start Freelancing as a part time to begin with before going full swing.

According to PayScale.com (which is the world’s largest database of individual employee compensation profiles) the average hourly rate for a Software Engineer in India is around $15 per hour while the average hourly rate for a programmer atFreelancer.com is $20 to $35. So you can imagine the potential of Freelancing.

5 Reasons Why You Should Freelance

You work from home, do what you love to do and still make big bucks.
You decide what to do and what not to.
You decide when and how to work – day or night, weekdays or weekends.
You don’t have a boss who controls you.
Freelancing offers unlimited opportunities as it never gets saturated and so there is surely a job out there for you.

5 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Freelance

Uncertainty of work and hence no steady income is the biggest problem when it comes to Freelancing.
You don’t have a boss to motivate you so you need to motivate yourself to achieve your goal. And, most importantly you won’t have colleagues to interact with.
If you are working for a company then you get paid in full irrespective of the working hours (i.e. you’re making money even when you’re having your lunch or break). But it’s not the case with Freelancing where you will be paid only for billable hoursunless it’s a fixed price contract.
Unless you are a disciplined Freelancer you won’t have free time because of procrastination.
Your family won’t respect you unless they are tech-savvy and know what you are doing which is very unlikely.

So, How To Make Money As A Freelancer (or Outsourcer)

If you check any of the freelancer websites then you will see that Development (Web & Software) and Writing (Article Writing, Copywriting, Ghostwriting, Technical Writing etc.) are the most popular skills in demand. So, I’m going to focus on Freelance Writing as an example since Freelancers Writers are always in great demand as “Content is King”. I’m assuming that you’re a newbie writer and you don’t have a good portfolio to show your potential clients.

The first step in Freelancing is to create a professional profile on Freelancer.comwhich is very essential to effectively showcase your skills and portfolio (if you have some).

Turbocharge your Freelancer profile with technical exams and get certified. There is a test for each skill you claim to have and if you pass the exam a special badge will be added to your profile and that will increase your reputation as a Freelancer. I hire freelancers with tested skills only and not based on self-assessed skills. So, Go Get Certified!

Now, the #1 challenge of a Freelancer is “Finding Clients & Dealing with Competition“. It’s never easy as you probably know there are hundreds of thousands of freelancers. So, why should one hire you? What makes you stand out from the crowd? Think out of the box! Instead of finding clients initially from Freelancer websites you can establish an online presence. How? Start your own professional blog (highly recommended especially if you’re onto Freelance Writing) showcasing your talent, publishing industry news, rich content etc. Brand yourself as an expert on Social Media –Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ is your friend. You can even guest blog on other established blogs as it further increases your exposure. Initially you may have to offer your services for free as part of branding but in the long run it will surely help you.

Okay. Now, What is Outsourcing?

Outsourcing is the process of contracting with another company or an individual (who is usually a Freelancer) to do a particular function.

Why Do Companies Outsource/Hire Freelancers?

There are several reasons why companies outsource jobs abroad by hiring freelancers but the primary reason is to reduce cost. As you probably know everything ‘IT’ is outsourced to India and everything ‘Manufacturing’ is outsourced to China. Why? The average annual salary of a Software Engineer in India is USD 6,000 while the average annual salary of a Software Engineer in United States is USD 60,000. So it means if a U.S IT Company outsource their jobs to India then they can save up to 90% of the cost.

In other terms, if it costs $100,000 to develop a software in United States then it won’t cost more than say $30,000 if you hire freelancers from India or Philippines.

Outsource Yourself: A Personal Outsourcing Case Study

Says a programmer who Outsourced his job to India:

“About a year ago I hired a developer in India to do my job. I pay him $12,000 out of the $67,000 I get. He’s happy to have the work. I’m happy that I have to work only 90 minutes a day just supervising the code. My employer thinks I’m telecommuting. Now I’m considering getting a second job and doing the same thing.”

How To Build A Business Using Freelancers: An Outsourcing Case Study

Now, I’m going to tell you how to build a profitable business online using Freelancers only. Let’s say you want to start a blog and you’re an alien when it comes to the art of blogging and online marketing. All you need to do is follow the six steps below.

But Wait, Why Freelancers?

No Infrastructure (Property, Office Space, Equipment etc.) needed so it means huge savings.
Since freelancers come from different geographic locations you will have access to talents across the world.
Get the project done at a fraction of your real budget. If you choose to hire an agency/company then they will charge you at least thrice (if not more) the amount charged by freelancers.
Freelancers are professionals who know what they’re doing so you don’t have to train them and you pay only for results
Freelancers are flexible, innovative and tends to deliver the project earlier than agencies who rely on their own employees.

A Step-by-Step Guide On How To Start A Blog [Outsourcing Case Study]

Image Credit: Sean MacEntee

Step 1: Setup Blog (Register Domain Name, Web Hosting & Install WordPress)

The first step to blogging is obviously to register a Domain Name (a brandable .com I would say) and sign up for a Web Hosting Plan. If you’re bad at picking domain names then you can consult someone for an idea or run a contest elsewhere to get the best domain name possible.

Step 2: Designing & Coding

Your blog needs a logo and template design. Hire a logo designer or post a contest onFreelancer.com (recommended since you will get hundreds of designs and you pay only for one that too if you’re 100% satisfied). And, Hire a WordPress Developer who will be managing the blog (publishing content, updating, troubleshooting etc.).

Step 3: Content Creation

Content is King. But it doesn’t means that you have to write it by yourself. There are hundreds of thousands of freelance writers available on Freelancer. So the next step is to hire few freelance writers who will write quality content for you.

Step 4: Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

A blog without any traffic is a sign of no blog. You have to increase the visibility of your blog in Search Engines so hire a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) expert who does that job for you.

Step 5: Social Media Marketing (SMM)

Today, Social Media plays an important role in driving traffic to your website/blog. And most importantly Search Engines are using social media signals for determining the rank of a page. So hire a social media strategist to engage your visitors.

Step 6: Virtual Assistant

Your blog is online and you have traffic. Now, you may hire a Virtual Assistant. But what can they do for you? Well, you can hire a Virtual Assistant for managing your content & advertising, pay-per-click advertising campaigns, e-mails, guest posting (collaborating with other bloggers in your niche) etc.

How To Effectively Hire Freelancers For Outsourcing

Image Credit: Cisshadab

Check the freelancer’s profile/résumé – his/her feedback, ratings, portfolio, experience.
Communicate with him/her preferably over Skype (if it’s a big project) and use some jargons in your conversation so that you can know whether the person is really experienced.
Make sure that the person has really understood your project and it’s requirements.
Don’t depend on only one person. Instead, split your project into modules and outsource them separately to different freelancers.
Never rely on a person if he says that he is good in designing, coding, writing etc. It’s always the best to select the right person. It’s true especially when you’re hiring content writers. I never trust a writer if he says that he can write content in any niche.

Pre-Sell And Make Money As A Freelancer/Outsourcer When You’re Not

If you want to make money as a Freelancer then you must have certain skills (programming, designing, writing, consulting etc.). Now what if you don’t have any of the mentioned skills but have a marketing skill? Now, you can still make money even if you don’t have any of the mentioned skills provided you know how to market. How? Pre-Selling. Now, what is Pre-Selling?Basically, Pre-Selling is a marketing tactic in which you’re offering something which you don’t have. It can be applied to service industry as well.

Pre-Selling is the key to Internet Marketing. One of the reason why most newbie freelancers fail is that they don’t pre-sell their services. It doesn’t means that you should go ahead and bid all the projects you come across. Just bid if it’s something which you can really do and make sure that you clearly understand all the project requirements.

Now, let’s say I came across a big Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Project. I wouldn’t call myself an SEO Guru but I can still go ahead and bid for the project as I know the jargons of SEO. So what I’ll be doing is Pre-Sell my service to the client and give them the confidence to hire me. Once I bag the project I will be Outsourcing (or Crowdsourcing) the project to Freelancers I know personally by splitting the project into modules. I know it’s not that easy, especially if you’re a newbie, but it’s something which I have tried several years back and it worked for me.

So, What exactly are you waiting for? Sign Up today on Freelancer.com and establish yourself as a Freelancer.

Happy Outsourcing/Freelancing!

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Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Money Lessons For Your Kids: What They Should Know By Age 5, 10 & 15

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During a lesson on credit one of Stuart Ritter’s college students raised her hand and asked him to clarify what he meant by “carried balance.” He explained that if she were to swipe her credit card for a $10 meal and pay the credit card company $8 that month she’d then receive a bill for the remaining $2, or the carried balance. Her response: What do you mean they send a bill?

Talk to kids about money as early as 5-years-old, or as soon as they realize money buys things.

“She didn’t understand that you actually pay for the items you swipe on a credit card with real money,” Ritter says. “Her parents always pay the bill and she was never taught how basic money transactions work.”

That’s an extreme case but indicative of a larger problem kids face: Lack of education on money. Not enough parents are talking to their kids about money early enough, says Ritter, a CFP and senior financial planner at T. Rowe Price.

Teaching kids the mechanics of money is important for their future financial health. Lessons about money should start earlier than high school or college where there is sometimes a brief course taught on financial planning.

How early? “Talk to kids about money as early as 5-years-old, or as soon as they realize that money buys things,” Ritter says.

Basic money vocabulary is a good place to start. By age 5, Ritter recommends teaching your child the following terms:

Savings Goal – a savings goal has three elements: (1) what you want to buy, (2) when you want to buy it and (3) how much it will cost at that time.
Bank – a place that helps us safely store, organize and manage our money
Check – a way to pay for items where we write a note asking our bank to send our money to someone to pay for our purchases
Bills – notes letting us know how much we owe for our purchases
Trade Off – A decision we have to make when we are considering whether to save for something or spend our money

At age 10:

Interest – money you are paid for lending your money or an amount of money that is added to money you borrowed
Loan – money that’s borrowed and is expected to be repaid, usually with added interest
Time Horizon – the amount of time that you will save for a big purchase
Inflation – a general increase in the price of goods and services over time
Taxes – money that we pay to the government to help pay for public programs and necessities.

By age 15, teach your children the definitions of:

Investing – putting money into assets (like stocks, bonds, mutual funds, etc.) to help you reach your financial goals.
Asset Allocation – how your money is divided among asset classes such as stocks, bonds, and short-term investments
Diversification – spreading your money amongst various types of investments within an asset class (different kinds of stocks and different kinds of bonds)
Stock – a share of a company that is sold to the public
Bonds – an IOU issued by the federal government, state governments, or corporations in which you earn interest, and receive your investment back at a later date

Seem like a lot of information for kids to handle? It’s not. Consider that parents talk to their kids about drugs, sex, internet and personal safety but the topic of money is somehow taboo.

Ritter says you don’t have to tell your kids exactly what’s in your bank account or how much you make, but they should understand that money comes out of an ATM machine only because deposits, like earnings from work, are made into the bank account. Also, that a portion is then used toward things like the mortgage, taxes, credit cards, savings, etc.

The lessons are not taught in a single sit-down talk but rather they’re more effective in real-life situations. Ritter gives an example with his own kids who were squeezed into the backseat of the family car recently. When he asked if they’d like for him to buy a larger car where they could all sit comfortably the answer was a unanimous and enthusiastic, “Yes!” Ritter agreed but mentioned that the money for the new car would come from the family’s vacation savings, and that plans to go on a beach vacation would be put on hold. Suddenly, the crowd became less enthused about the car.

Those kinds of real-life examples illustrate the mechanics of money, values and priorities. “It’s not about saving for the sake of saving. It’s about spending choices and figuring out if you should spend now or spend later. It’s about teaching priorities and trade-offs,” Ritter says.

Those kinds of lessons can pay off later when it’s time to make decisions big decisions like paying for college, for example. With delinquency rates on the rise, student loan debt has become one of the biggest financial concerns in the country. Early money lessons could help your kid make smart financial decisions and avoid burdensome debt they may have otherwise taken on.

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

How Much Traffic Do You Need To Make $100,000 With Google AdSense?

Is it really possible to make $100,000 a year fromGoogle AdSense (or by selling ads on your website/blog)? If so, how much traffic do you really need to make big bucks with Google AdSense?

How Much Traffic Do You Really Need To Make Money With AdSense?

Let’s say you want to make $100,000 a year from Google AdSense and/or Google AdSense alternatives.

Read: 20+ Google AdSense Alternatives You Probably Don’t Know

$100,000 divided by 365 = $274 a day.

So, you have to create either: 274 pages which earns $1 a day OR 548 pages which earns 50 cents a day OR 1096 pages which earns 25 cents a day (which sounds reasonable, right?). Let’s say you have 1,096 high quality blogposts and you earn $0.25 per click from AdSense.

I have analyzed the traffic and AdSense stats (using Google Image Search) of several websites including my own blogs and websites.

Read: How To Find The Traffic Of (Almost) Any Website

From my analysis, I found that the averagePage CTR is around 1%. But it really depends upon your niche, web site design and other factors. In fact I have achieved a Page CTR of over 20% in 2007 for a niche website and was making $100+ a day from Google AdSense alone.

Google AdSense Glossary

Page Views

A page view is what Google counts in your reports every time a user views a page displaying Google ads. We will count one page view regardless of the number of ads displayed on that page.

For example, if you have a page displaying three ad units and it is viewed twice, you will generate two page views.

Clicks

For standard content ads, Google count a click when a user clicks on an ad.

For link units, Google count a click when a user clicks on an ad on the page of ads, after selecting a link in the link unit.

Page Click Through Rate (Page CTR)

The Page Click Through Rate (CTR) is the number of ad clicks divided by the number of impressions or page views that you have received.

Page CTR = Clicks / Page Views

For example, if you received 5 Clicks from 100 Page Views, then your Page CTR would be 5%. (5/100*100=5%)

Cost Per Click (CPC)

The Cost Per Click (CPC) is the amount you earn each time a user clicks on your ad. The CPC for any ad is determined by the advertiser; some advertisers may be willing to pay more per click than others, depending on what they’re advertising.

Page Revenue Per Thousand Impressions (Page RPM)

Page Revenue Per Thousand Impressions (RPM) is calculated by dividing your estimated earnings by the number of page views you received, then multiplying by 1000.

Page RPM = (Estimated Earnings / Number of Page Views) * 1,000

For example, if you earned an estimated $0.15 from 25 page views, then your page RPM would equal ($0.15 / 25) * 1000, or $6.00.

Estimated Earnings

Your account balance (or earnings) for the time period selected.

Source: Google AdSense Help

You can increase the Page CTR by using one of those high CTR WordPress Themefor Google AdSense. But I really wouldn’t recommend those WordPress themes as it will impact the user experience very negatively. Instead, you can focus on creating awesome content and driving more traffic so that it increases your Google AdSense earnings (or advertising revenues) naturally.

Now, let’s assume that you have a Page CTR of 1% and your average CPC is $0.25 (I believe it’s a quite achievable target unless your keywords have no advertiser competition – e.g. a recipe blog).

Some of the top paying AdSense niches are Finance, Internet Marketing, Technology, Web Hosting, Internet & Computers, Software, Health etc. and some of the lowest paying AdSense niches are Entertainment, Arts, Movies, Celebrity Gossips, News blog, Jokes, Wallpapers, Quotes, Recipes, Photo blogs etc.

So, You Want To Make $100,000 A Year With Google AdSense, Right?

As mentioned earlier $100,000 a year means you have to earn $274 a day. If your average CPC is $0.25 then you need 100,000/0.25 = 400,000 clicks a year (or approximately 1,000 clicks a day) to earn $100,000 a year from Google AdSense. Assuming that your Page CTR is 1% you need approximately 100,000 page views a day. Now, let’s say your “Bounce Rate” (it is the estimated percentage of visits to your website that consist of a single page view) is 100%. It means that you need 100,000 unique visitors a day itself to generate 100,000 page views a day.

In a nutshell, you need 100,000 visitors a day to make $100,000 a year from Google AdSense alone (with a CTR of 1% and CPC of $0.25).

But you are not using AdSense alone to monetize your website. Right? Let’s say you’re selling banner ads directly and is also selling CPM advertising which is an effective way to monetize your website.

Read: CPM Alternatives To Google AdSense

What are CPM ads?

CPM (Cost Per Mille) stands for Cost Per 1,000 Impressions. CPM networks pays for every 1,000 impressions you generate. If a CPM ad network is paying you $1 CPM then it means that they’re paying you $1 for every 1,000 page views you generate.

CPM Network earnings total depend upon your traffic quality but you can expect anywhere between $1 – $3 per 1,000 impressions. So, if you generate 100,000 page views a day then you can make $100 – $300 a day from CPM Networks. Again, you can earn $100 – $300 (or maybe even more) a day by selling banner ads directly to advertisers.

Now, you can split the traffic into three as you’re earning $300 each from 3 advertising networks. It means that you need 100,000/3=33,333 unique visitors a day (with a bounce rate of 100%) to make approximately $274/day.

Again, if you have an authority blog then your bounce rate will never be 100%. In that case you can expect an average page view of 1.5 per user. It means that 50% of your visitors exits from the landing page and others visit more than one page from your website.

All in all, you need approximately 20,000 visitors a day to generate 30,000+ page views and it can earn $274 a day which translates to $100,000 a year in advertising revenues. Need a little more help reaching that $100,000/year goal? Add commissions fromAffiliate Programs as well into the equation and you can hit that $100,000 goal with much less traffic. In fact, in 2008 I was averaging $200+ a day from less than 200 daily unique visitors with affiliate marketing. It was possible because when it comes to affiliate marketing it’s all about traffic quality and not traffic quantity.