Copyright © 2009 Glen OReilly
As the economy continues to tighten for many American families, more moms are looking to the Internet to find the extra money needed to help their families survive during this economically challenging time.
The good news is that there are plenty of opportunities for the mom seeking to earn money from home. The bad news is that there are a number of scams out there designed to trap the newcomers - to making money online, who simply do not know how to recognize the righteous among the wolves.
Be Very, Very Careful
Far too often, newcomers to the online job world have experiences similar to those experienced by Elmer Fudd, whenever he crossed the path of Bugs Bunny - as in the movie, "Wabbit Twouble".
Elmer Fudd: Wabbit, I came here for gold, and I'm going to get it!
Bugs Bunny: No! No! No! Not that! Not that! Anything but...
[Elmer and Bugs fight until Elmer has a gold tooth in his hands]
Elmer Fudd: Euweka! Gold at wast! He-he-he-he!
[Smiles, showing a gap where his gold tooth was]
Bugs Bunny: Euweka! Gold at wast! He-he-he-he!
[Points at his intact gold tooth]
When money is tight at home, it is important to absorb the lessons I am going to share in this article and not to be an Elmer Fudd. While spending money to operate an online enterprise may often make sense, be vewy, vewy careful. Oh - sorry... Be very, very careful...
Lessons From The Days Of Mail Order
If you go to McDonald's, Wal-Mart or any other Main Street employer, you do not have to pay money to get the job. While jobs are free... A good education is not free...
In the days of mail order, the big scam was that you could pay money to get a job "stuffing envelopes". The scam was that you would pay money to get the kit that enabled you to stuff envelopes, supposedly for pay. In the advertising, it was said that companies would pay you X dollars to stuff and mail the envelopes.
What the scammers never said was that what you were sticking in an envelope was a sales flyer, and you would only be paid if someone purchased a product as the result of a piece that you mailed.
The Internet equivalent of "stuffing envelopes" is affiliate marketing. That is not to say that you cannot make a lot of money with affiliate marketing, because you really can make a lot of money with affiliate marketing. But you should be aware that most people who undertake affiliate marketing - without first getting a good education - will fail to make any money with affiliate marketing.
Yes, affiliate marketing has a learning curve, but once you have perfected your formula for success, affiliate marketing can be very lucrative. It is true that a lot of Internet marketers are making a handsome living through affiliate marketing, but most of those people who have worked their way into "earning a living" from affiliate marketing had several months or several years of trial-and-error, before they could leave the job world behind.
If you are at all curious about affiliate marketing, the basic premise is that companies will pay you for helping them to acquire new customers. If a person that you referred to the company makes a purchase, you will earn a sales commission as a result of the purchase made.
If You Are Seeking A Job
You do not have to pay someone in order to get a job, whether offline in the real world or on the Internet. If someone offers you a job, and then asks for cash up-front in order to be able to give you that job, you should hearken back to the wise words of Elmer Fudd, "There's something screwy around here..."
For many telecommuting is just a dream, but when you know where to look for those telecommuting jobs, they are not that hard to find.
The only real telecommuting jobs on the Internet are frequently found on Freelance websites. But, you should keep in mind that these Freelance jobs are usually not long-term, and they are based on specific performance criteria.
For example, I could have hired someone to write this article for me for a fee. Many freelance opportunities are actually available in the content creation arena. Webmasters need content to fill and to promote their websites, but many of these webmasters simply do not have the skill or the time to do the work themselves. If you have the ability to write intelligible content, then there is ample opportunity to write articles for other people.
On the freelance websites, content writers are generally paid anywhere from a few dollars up to about fifteen or twenty dollars to write one article. If you are willing to put up your own website and to advertise your writing to other companies, it is not unheard of to be able to charge anywhere from $30 an article to $100 an article. But you should be forewarned that setting up your own website can be a very tough road, as there are thousands of other freelance writers competing for those more lucrative writing jobs.
If you don't consider yourself much of a writer, the good news is that there are thousands of freelance jobs offered that would enable anyone with a computer connection to participate.
For example, I know one company who pays people to write "every man" reviews of tourist destinations, motels, hotels and restaurants. The managers at this company do not want professional writers to write these reviews. Instead, the employer wants the reviews to appear as if Jane Doe, with an eighth-grade education, had written them.
Another company recently paid people to research and compile a list of all of the hotels in one metro area. This company wanted the names of the hotels, addresses, phone numbers, and it wanted to know the availability of swimming pools and other amenities. That particular job paid two dollars for every record compiled.
Other companies are willing to pay to have a list compiled of web pages that talk about a very specific topic. Manually compiled lists are popular, because we all know that the search engines don't always show the best content pages on a topic, and some webmasters feel that having such a list would be beneficial to their users.
I have even seen companies seeking freelancers to look at pictures and write a short description of what the picture contains. Others have paid to have a set of pictures reviewed and placed into their proper categories.
Interestingly, if you have a digital camera, there are hundreds of companies willing to pay you to travel around your local area and take pictures of specific homes, streets, addresses, tourism spots, and nature shots. Some of these companies are in the stock photography industry; and others are in the real estate industry.
If you are more of an artist, you will also find ample opportunities for graphic design jobs through the various freelance websites. Another graphics-related freelance job that some employers have sought is for people skilled with Photoshop to stitch together pictures to provide a panoramic picture of a particular event.
Other freelance gigs for moms include business support services, administration support, accounting, answering services, resume writing, grant writing, translators, virtual assistants, editors, fact checkers, gathering interesting quotes, and more... If you can envision an assignment that a company might need completed, chances are there is someone out there looking for someone to do those jobs from home...
Here Is Where To Find Those Freelance Jobs
There are many more Freelance Job websites than what I will mention here, but this will give you a good start towards finding jobs that any mom, in any part of the country, can use to find and earn the extra money she needs to help supplement the financial needs of her family.
General Freelancing Websites:
Sell Your Photography:
At the end of this road, there are many places to find jobs that can be worked from home. Many of these jobs are ideal for mom, and possibly even for dad.
If you are looking for extra money or a job you can work from home, print out this article now, so that you will have it available when you need it. If you have friends or relatives looking for work from home opportunities, print this article out and give it to them.
With this information in hand, you should have no problem finding the real work-at-home jobs that many people seek to find. At this juncture, one more quote from Elmer Fudd seems the perfect conclusion to this article:
Elmer Fudd: I finally got even with that screwy wabbit...
Keep your chin up and your mind clear, so that screwy wabbit will not clean your wallet, when you are in need of every penny you have available.
About the Author:
Glen O'Reilly lives with his wife and children in Detroit, Michigan. In good times he likes to travel with his family, and in slow times, he likes to help others through his writing. Recently, his wife was laid off from the job she had held for ten years. This opened a new chapter in their lives. His wife recently was able to find a job using http://www.jobsandpaychecks.com/ Thrilled about his wife's success, Glen signed on with the website to help get the word out about this excellent online jobs resource.
Read more Articles written by Glen OReilly.
