With an abundance of job losses, salary cuts, eliminated bonuses and diminished 401(k) matching contributions, your income may be shrinking -- but the bills aren't. If your regular job isn't earning you enough cash or you've lost your job altogether, these simple side gigs can help put some padding in your pockets until -- maybe even after -- you get back on your feet.
Here are 10 ways real people are creatively taking home some extra dough:
1. Do freelance work
Felice Premeau Devine left her lucrative, full-time job two years ago to raise her son. In the interim, she's picked up writing and editing freelance work and started a blog, where she is able to earn a little cash from advertising.
Nowadays, almost any job can be done on a contract or freelance basis. Check out sites like Sologig, which lead job seekers to contract, consulting, freelance, temp-to-hire and part-time project opportunities in their field.
2. Sell your books
If you're a college student or you hung on to your college textbooks thinking you might want to read them again somewhere down the line, some retailers like Barnes & Noble allow you to sell your textbooks for quick cash. Or, take some classics from your personal library and sell them at a local secondhand bookstore.
3. Search circulating coinage
Susan Headley, the "guide to coins" on About.com, is a lifetime coin collector who has been boosting her income by searching through circulating coinage for the past six years. In 2008, she made about $2,500 and so far in 2009, she has earned approximately $500 from coins she's found.
People who search circulating coinage successfully for a side income do so in very large numbers, she says. They buy rolls of coins from banks, typically in whole boxes, and sort through it to find stuff that just doesn't belong, Headley says. Half dollars, for example, were no longer made from 90 percent silver after 1965, but they still had 40 percent silver in them until 1970; either of these turn a nice profit. Presidential dollar errors can be worth $50 to $5,000 each; uncirculated state quarters can sell from $10 to $50 per roll; and rare error coins can value up to $35,000.
4. Start a "business"
Turn your hobby, skills or expertise into a part-time business. Sites like Jobvana.com can help you do so by providing you with free tools to market your services and offer specialized skills to those looking for help.
Peter Olson says he built a profile in September 2008 offering to teach guitar lessons. He has since gained two students, earning about $240 extra dollars per month and grossing around $1,000 since he started teaching.
5. Enter local and online sweepstakes
Wendy Limauge has been entering sweepstakes since 1993 and teaching others to win through her Web site, Sweeties Sweeps, since 2002. Though winning sweepstakes rarely provides actual cash, her winnings have consistently provided her and her family with 200 to 300 prizes a year, many of them large items she and her husband couldn't afford on their incomes alone.
Prizes she has won include three TVs, two of which are flat-screens; a home theater system; three dishwashers, each won on separate occasions; at least $1,500 in grocery gift certificates; an $18,000 voucher for the vehicle of her choice; a trip to France valued at $25,000; and, in March 2009, she won $5,000 in an instant-win game.
"The Internet has so many options for saving money, getting something for free, winning a prize or earning money from home," Limauge says. "You just need to find those resources that offer helpful information and point you in the right direction to get you started and keep you motivated."
6. Give your opinion -- and get paid
Linda Childers, a California-based freelance writer, says many of her friends participate in focus groups. Contributing an hour of your time can earn you up to $100, sometimes more. Online surveys, phone surveys and product trials can also earn you anywhere from $5 to $150. Check out http://freepaidsurveys.net or http://findfocusgroups.com.
7. Sell your junk
Terri Jay earns $2,000 to $3,000 per month just by selling junk. On eBay, Jay not only sells stuff she isn't using; she hits up local thrift stores on 99-cent days, garage sales and tack sales, looking for things of which she knows the value. She says her best sale was for a drink tray from the 70s; she paid 25 cents for it and it sold for $87.
"The trick is to [sell] what you know," she advises. "Therefore you can list them [at correct prices] so they will get picked up in searches [on eBay]."
8. Join a direct selling company
Direct selling is one of the easiest ways to earn some extra cash, especially if you sell products you love. Avon, for example, allows you start your own business for $10 -- what you earn depends on your efforts. Some full-time representatives earn six-figure salaries, others own licensed Avon Beauty Centers and many just sell Avon part time around their family's schedules.
Haizel MacIntyre started her Avon business in June 2008 to earn supplemental income to her full-time job when her husband was laid off. Since joining Avon, MacIntyre averages $1,800 a month in sales and her husband is helping her run the business. Her Avon earnings help pay the bills and provide extras for her three kids, and she is hoping to earn enough to put towards her college tuition when she goes back to school to get her master's degree in social work.
9. Be a secret shopper
A keen eye for detail and a good memory are really all that it takes to succeed as a secret shopper, says Zippy Sandler, who has been mystery shopping for about 13 years. After registering with a secret shopping company, you are paid to basically go undercover and report on a company's operation from the customer point of view.
Sandler decided to start secret shopping not only to earn money eating, traveling and shopping, but also to learn customer service skills to pass along to the employees she managed at a retail store. Depending on the clients she is shopping for, Sandler says she has earned anywhere from $100 to $2,000 per month.
10. Sell your photos to stock agencies
It doesn't matter if you're a hobbyist, an amateur or a seasoned-photographer -- anyone can submit their photos to stock photo agencies like Shutterstock.com. If your images are accepted, they will be available for download by subscribers. Each time someone downloads your photos, you get 25 cents.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
5 Things you need to know before choosing a web hosting company
Selecting a reliable web hosting company is always been a difficult job because web hosting is a big and competitive field. Every hosting provider would like to give as much as good features as a customer wants. But good features is not always what people require. Good customer support as well as good up time is also needed in order to keep running your website and obtaining your money making goals.
Here are some simple but effect tips you can follow to select a better web hosting company in terms of price, features and support/up-time.
1.Love at first sight is always not successful
Never select a hosting company at first sight by looking at their features table. If you run though the web hosting sites you’ll find this table in almost any web hosting company. Such as larger bandwidth, large disk space, php, mysql, databases, Free softwares (one click installed) etc. Every host have these features.
2.Forget the pocket and analyze your requirements
First of all you have to see what you want in a hosting environment. If you are starting a lot of mini sites then you may not need Bandwidth in terabytes. Just a couple of GB’s will work because people don’t work on mini sites too much.
On the other side, if you want to start one or few websites but having a traffic and community members goal then see how much bandwidth and disk space you may need. Video and photo sites always suck large bandwidth and disk space. PHP, mysql and other stuff should not be in your analysis because almost every hosting company have these features.
3.Build a list of your favorite companies
After analyzing your requirements and looking at features table of hosting companies, build a short list of names. Some i can recommend are
4.See your pockets now
Now see how much you can afford and choose the one name to purchase hosting from.
5.Find the words from world
Go though popular web hosting forums and find and read reviews about your selected company. This must be done in order to find how other people feel about this hosting company. You can try WHT (Web hosting Talk) forum and many others too. They can give you best advices too. And then purchase the hosting and start running / hosting websites.
Never select a hosting company at first sight by looking at their features table. If you run though the web hosting sites you’ll find this table in almost any web hosting company. Such as larger bandwidth, large disk space, php, mysql, databases, Free softwares (one click installed) etc. Every host have these features.
First of all you have to see what you want in a hosting environment. If you are starting a lot of mini sites then you may not need Bandwidth in terabytes. Just a couple of GB’s will work because people don’t work on mini sites too much.
After analyzing your requirements and looking at features table of hosting companies, build a short list of names. Some i can recommend are
BlueHost (probably best, also best if you are going to use wordpress)
StartLogic ($5.95, but best recommendation due to their high quality service)
Lunar Pages (Cheaper $4.95/m only and rich features and support)
Hostgator (best , reliable, sometimes less supportive staff but it works)
Now see how much you can afford and choose the one name to purchase hosting from.
Go though popular web hosting forums and find and read reviews about your selected company. This must be done in order to find how other people feel about this hosting company. You can try WHT (Web hosting Talk) forum and many others too. They can give you best advices too. And then purchase the hosting and start running / hosting websites.
3 ways to make your blog profitable
Few years back, nobody was aware of what the heck is blogging. But today’s nobody care about building websites. Everyone is going to stick with blogging because its sometime fun and you can even make yourself rich with blogging.
Blogging is basically an update of your thoughts that you gives to other readers. Unlike a web forum or community website, blogging is a personal publishing system. Anyways, lets keep the heck of definition away and start the topic.
There could be many way to make money with blogs. Some can bring you a lot while some can give you only few cents a day. Its all up to you that how you run your blog and how much of course.
The key to success with blogging is to update your blog as much as you can. Do an update at least 4 times a week and you are not going to lose generic search engine traffic. Because thats the traffic which brings free money and traffic.
1. Three old words - Sell Advertisement space
Of course selling advertisement space is the biggest way to make money with your blogs. As long as you have enough traffic on your blog, you have the gold chain. If you are starting a blog then choose the topic you can write most because people will stay on your blog as long as they have good information on your blog. Otherwise they will just read and go away forever. You can sell advertisement space on your blogs easily as much as from $50 to $200 per 125×125 banner. But this really need good and targeted traffic. To obtain traffic, you might need to read SEO Tips section to learn how to optimize your website search engine friendly and the best way to get backlinks to your blog.
2. Write reviews for other blogs
This is another good way to earn with blogging. You can go to some best review sites like sponsoredreviews, payperreview, reviewme etc. Then sign up as blogger and start writing reviews or posts on a topic of advertiser’s choice and give them two or three link backs. This way you get two things. One is the few dollars for writing reviews for advertisers and second is the update of your blog. Yeah , your blog is always up to date to get more traffic from Google and other search engines.
3. Write reviews for affiliate Products
Another way to earn with blogging is to start writing your own reviews or posts on different affiliate products. In an action (e.g sale or lead) you can get a good amount of commission from your affiliate advertiser. You can sign up for commission junction, neverblueads or some other good affiliate networks and find the product you can write on, and promote. A good and helpful review always returns something. People make plenty of money by running web hosting blogs, health & fitness blogs etc.
If you like this post on blogging, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed from top right corner of this website. This way you can get latest updates in your feed reader or email whenever I publish any post
Blogging is basically an update of your thoughts that you gives to other readers. Unlike a web forum or community website, blogging is a personal publishing system. Anyways, lets keep the heck of definition away and start the topic.
There could be many way to make money with blogs. Some can bring you a lot while some can give you only few cents a day. Its all up to you that how you run your blog and how much of course.
The key to success with blogging is to update your blog as much as you can. Do an update at least 4 times a week and you are not going to lose generic search engine traffic. Because thats the traffic which brings free money and traffic.
1. Three old words - Sell Advertisement space
Of course selling advertisement space is the biggest way to make money with your blogs. As long as you have enough traffic on your blog, you have the gold chain. If you are starting a blog then choose the topic you can write most because people will stay on your blog as long as they have good information on your blog. Otherwise they will just read and go away forever. You can sell advertisement space on your blogs easily as much as from $50 to $200 per 125×125 banner. But this really need good and targeted traffic. To obtain traffic, you might need to read SEO Tips section to learn how to optimize your website search engine friendly and the best way to get backlinks to your blog.
2. Write reviews for other blogs
This is another good way to earn with blogging. You can go to some best review sites like sponsoredreviews, payperreview, reviewme etc. Then sign up as blogger and start writing reviews or posts on a topic of advertiser’s choice and give them two or three link backs. This way you get two things. One is the few dollars for writing reviews for advertisers and second is the update of your blog. Yeah , your blog is always up to date to get more traffic from Google and other search engines.
3. Write reviews for affiliate Products
Another way to earn with blogging is to start writing your own reviews or posts on different affiliate products. In an action (e.g sale or lead) you can get a good amount of commission from your affiliate advertiser. You can sign up for commission junction, neverblueads or some other good affiliate networks and find the product you can write on, and promote. A good and helpful review always returns something. People make plenty of money by running web hosting blogs, health & fitness blogs etc.
If you like this post on blogging, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed from top right corner of this website. This way you can get latest updates in your feed reader or email whenever I publish any post
Professional Hosting with Unlimited Features from £4.99
PapaWebHost is leading Web Hosting Provider with high quality customer service. Our stable and innovative hosting platform, extensively examined and consistently reliable, exceeds your expectations. It is the exceptional service that makes us a leader in the modern Web Hosting Industry.
What makes us the leading Web Hosting Provider?
Dedicated Support
PapaWebHost specializes in customer satisfaction. Our Support Team takes care to offer you the excellence you deserve by choosing us.
Custom Installation
We provide Cheap, Professional and fast Custom Installation service
Great Hosting Package
* Silver Hosting
* Bronze Hosting
* Gold Hosting
Hosting Features
Guaranteed 99% uptime
We provide 99% uptime. That is really need for any website running all the time.
Unlimited Bandwidth
We provide unlimited Bandwidth for every Plans including Silver Plan. Unlimited Bandwidth is necessary for website's traffic.
Free Site Builder
Our Web Site Builder is the perfect tool for building your website quickly, without investing in a webmaster or expensive web development software package.
Free Pre-Installed Scripts
Fantastico is cPanel add-on that allows you to instantly and automatically install a huge variety of PHP scripts with just a few clicks of your mouse.
Hosting Plans
At PapaWebHost, you will find few features that you really need for your web hosting like 99.9% uptime which you really need, Unlimited Bandwidth, Unlimited Email Accounts, Free Instant setup(Some companies charge you to set up plans), Free Site Builder, Unlimited Databases etc.
Silver Plan:
Plan Specifications
# Disk Space 60 GB
# 24/7 Support Yes
# Allowed Sub Domains 100
# Email Accounts Unlimited
# Bandwith Allowance Unlimited
# Guaranteed Network Uptime Yes
# CGI, Ruby (RoR),Perl, PHP, MySQL Yes
# Instant Set Up Free
# Free Site Builder Yes
# Databases Unlimited
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Bronze Plan
Plan Specifications
# Disk Space 160 GB
# 24/7 Support Yes
# Allowed Sub Domains 200
# Email Accounts Unlimited
# Bandwith Allowance Unlimited
# Guaranteed Network Uptime Yes
# CGI, Ruby (RoR),Perl, PHP, MySQL Yes
# Instant Set Up Free
# Free Site Builder Yes
# Databases Unlimited
For Only £2.99/m
Order Now
Gold Plan
Plan Specifications
# Disk Space 360 GB
# 24/7 Support Yes
# Allowed Sub Domains 400
# Email Accounts Unlimited
# Bandwith Allowance Unlimited
# Guaranteed Network Uptime Yes
# CGI, Ruby (RoR),Perl, PHP, MySQL Yes
# Instant Set Up Free
# Free Site Builder Yes
# Databases Unlimited
For Only £3.99/m
Order Now
Don't miss our Professional Hosting with Unlimited Features for only £4.99!
# Unlimited Hosting space
# Unlimited Monthly Bandwitdh
# Unlimited Email Accounts
# Free Instant setup
If you have any questions, please visit our website at http://www.papawebhost.com/contact.html. You can send us an email or if you wish to chat with one of our representatives, you can reach us at Google Talk : papawebhost. Our Support Team is available 24 hours a day.
What makes us the leading Web Hosting Provider?
Dedicated Support
PapaWebHost specializes in customer satisfaction. Our Support Team takes care to offer you the excellence you deserve by choosing us.
Custom Installation
We provide Cheap, Professional and fast Custom Installation service
Great Hosting Package
* Silver Hosting
* Bronze Hosting
* Gold Hosting
Hosting Features
Guaranteed 99% uptime
We provide 99% uptime. That is really need for any website running all the time.
Unlimited Bandwidth
We provide unlimited Bandwidth for every Plans including Silver Plan. Unlimited Bandwidth is necessary for website's traffic.
Free Site Builder
Our Web Site Builder is the perfect tool for building your website quickly, without investing in a webmaster or expensive web development software package.
Free Pre-Installed Scripts
Fantastico is cPanel add-on that allows you to instantly and automatically install a huge variety of PHP scripts with just a few clicks of your mouse.
Hosting Plans
At PapaWebHost, you will find few features that you really need for your web hosting like 99.9% uptime which you really need, Unlimited Bandwidth, Unlimited Email Accounts, Free Instant setup(Some companies charge you to set up plans), Free Site Builder, Unlimited Databases etc.
Silver Plan:
Plan Specifications
# Disk Space 60 GB
# 24/7 Support Yes
# Allowed Sub Domains 100
# Email Accounts Unlimited
# Bandwith Allowance Unlimited
# Guaranteed Network Uptime Yes
# CGI, Ruby (RoR),Perl, PHP, MySQL Yes
# Instant Set Up Free
# Free Site Builder Yes
# Databases Unlimited
For Only £1.99/m
Order Now
Bronze Plan
Plan Specifications
# Disk Space 160 GB
# 24/7 Support Yes
# Allowed Sub Domains 200
# Email Accounts Unlimited
# Bandwith Allowance Unlimited
# Guaranteed Network Uptime Yes
# CGI, Ruby (RoR),Perl, PHP, MySQL Yes
# Instant Set Up Free
# Free Site Builder Yes
# Databases Unlimited
For Only £2.99/m
Order Now
Gold Plan
Plan Specifications
# Disk Space 360 GB
# 24/7 Support Yes
# Allowed Sub Domains 400
# Email Accounts Unlimited
# Bandwith Allowance Unlimited
# Guaranteed Network Uptime Yes
# CGI, Ruby (RoR),Perl, PHP, MySQL Yes
# Instant Set Up Free
# Free Site Builder Yes
# Databases Unlimited
For Only £3.99/m
Order Now
Don't miss our Professional Hosting with Unlimited Features for only £4.99!
# Unlimited Hosting space
# Unlimited Monthly Bandwitdh
# Unlimited Email Accounts
# Free Instant setup
If you have any questions, please visit our website at http://www.papawebhost.com/contact.html. You can send us an email or if you wish to chat with one of our representatives, you can reach us at Google Talk : papawebhost. Our Support Team is available 24 hours a day.
How to not get banned from Google adsense
The biggest fear using Google Adsense is getting banned after you have made some money, many people get banned everyday because they braked the rules without knowing so i would like to make it clear how to avoid getting banned in the following tips
Fraud clicks : Never click on your own ads, that’s the number 1 rule! And if you accidentally click on your ads report it directly to Google
Encourage Clicks : Don’t ask friends of family to click on your ads, you can’t fool Google believe me they will know, Don’t put phrases like ” click here ” or ” support us ” referring to the ads, Don’t put arrows referring to your ads
Be careful about your content : Don’t place your ads in pages that contains Guns, porn, hack, Violent content, Gambling, Illicit drugs, sales of alcohol, Sales of tobacco, Sales of weapons
Copyrighted Material : Never take Copyrighted Material and publish it in your website, make your website full of original content
Make your ads clear : Don’t try to make your website hard to navigate so you get more clicks, make your website simple and make your ads clear don’t try to fool your users
Limit of ads : Google allows
3 AdSense for content units (standard ad units)
1 Link unit
2 AdSense for search boxes
2 Referral buttons for EACH referral product
Register after getting banned : Don’t try to join adsense after you got banned, they will know and banned you again
Make sure you follow the rules or you will banned
Fraud clicks : Never click on your own ads, that’s the number 1 rule! And if you accidentally click on your ads report it directly to Google
Encourage Clicks : Don’t ask friends of family to click on your ads, you can’t fool Google believe me they will know, Don’t put phrases like ” click here ” or ” support us ” referring to the ads, Don’t put arrows referring to your ads
Be careful about your content : Don’t place your ads in pages that contains Guns, porn, hack, Violent content, Gambling, Illicit drugs, sales of alcohol, Sales of tobacco, Sales of weapons
Copyrighted Material : Never take Copyrighted Material and publish it in your website, make your website full of original content
Make your ads clear : Don’t try to make your website hard to navigate so you get more clicks, make your website simple and make your ads clear don’t try to fool your users
Limit of ads : Google allows
3 AdSense for content units (standard ad units)
1 Link unit
2 AdSense for search boxes
2 Referral buttons for EACH referral product
Register after getting banned : Don’t try to join adsense after you got banned, they will know and banned you again
Make sure you follow the rules or you will banned
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