In today’s economy more and more people are turning away from employers to freelance. Employers have been heavily impacted by COVID-19 and many people have been furloughed or laid-off. During this time that the job market is not particularly friendly, but many people are receiving unemployment insurance, this is an excellent time to consider developing another stream of income. This could be a hobby, a side-job, or even a potential career change, but the first thing to do is to choose a path. Many of these careers can be learned online for free. Here are some places to start your new professional development.
Blogging
Blogging can simply be defined as an online journal, though many people have turned it into another stream of income by focusing on some niche where they have expertise, a combination of education and experience. With a blog, you can write about whatever you want, and you can use that platform for multiple methods of earning income.
Some bloggers use affiliate marketing to endorse products they have used and loved so that when their readers make purchases through their links, the blogger gets a small cut of the profit. Some bloggers seek sponsorship more directly as product reviewers. They often receive products for free when they have a certain number of followers which make the product they are reviewing more actively marketed.
Its difficult to estimate income from blogs, as it depends on your audience, and the methods you use to generate income. Generally, it does take a while to build up a large enough audience to start generating income. You can always continue learning beyond writing, to include social media and marketing to attract more readers.
Learn how to create a blog on YouTube, or just start writing until you have 10 or so articles, and then decide how to build your blog from there. That should give you a better indication of how dedicated you are to blogging as a hobby or as an income stream.
Copywriting
If you love to write and you are very good at writing persuasive articles, you may be ideal for this career. Being able to come up with high quality ideas quickly will greatly aid you in increasing your hourly rate, because companies and agencies that hire you generally higher per project. You must meet or beat deadlines, and be flexible working with different subject matter projects simultaneously.
This is a skill you can develop with practice! You can take a free online course in creative writing, grammar and syntax, and copywriting specifically.
Check out this article from The Balance Careers to learn more about freelance copywriting.
Proofreading/Copyediting
If you’re not so confident in your creativity but you love to read and know you have a decent grasp of the English language, you might consider developing a proofreading/copyediting career! Freelance copyeditors are not only looking for proper grammar and syntax, they are also looking for language inconsistencies, overuse of words, time inconsistencies, and more. You can get paid to read books, manuscripts, dissertations, etc. There will always be typos and amazing creative minds who write as fast as they think.
You can freelance on a multitude of websites, join groups like the Editorial Freelancers Association, Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading, and more.
To get started, check out some free proofreading courses on Coursera.
Transcription
Transcription is the process of converting audio to text. If you type quickly and accurately, you can earn quite a bit of money from this, even doing just a few projects per week. Generally these projects pay per minute of audio, so if they pay $1.00/minute and want you to transcribe a 30-minute youtube video, you would make $30 regardless of how long it takes you to do it.
You can transcribe movies for subtitles, news broadcasts for articles, court proceedings, and so much more. These jobs are very frequent in the age of social media, where YouTubers and podcasters want to extend their audience to include people who watch their shows without sound.
You can test your typing speed and accuracy online, this will give you an idea of how quickly you’ll be able to do the job and if it is worth it for the price that you will be paid.
This article covers some companies and networks that hire transcriptionists:
Narration
Do you have an amazing speaking voice? Are you soothing, powerful, sweet, or just super versatile? Do you have a knack for accents when you read aloud? You might enjoy a job as a voice talent.
As a freelancer these gigs vary wildly. You can narrate books or news articles, you can do voice-overs or voice acting, poetry recordings, and more. Some gigs will be ongoing, some will be one project and done.
You’ll need a decent microphone, mostly. Other than that you can learn some basic editing to smooth over the occasional stutter and you’re good to go!
Here are a list of jobs for narration that can give you an idea of the amount of work and the amount of pay that will be involved.
Bookkeeping
Freelance bookkeeping online is essentially basic accounting for small businesses. You’ll be immersed into a world of incoming and outgoing transactions, keeping track of all the details and stages of the purchase and payment processes. This one is more likely to be an ongoing job, as people like to work with someone they trust and switching employees is stressful.
If you are a numbers-oriented person, and you enjoy solving puzzles, sleuthing through documents for answers to unbalanced cash flow statements, you may very much enjoy a career as a bookkeeper.
Entry level bookkeepers average an hourly rate of $14.66/hour, average for the field is $17.45 according to PayScale.
You’ll need some training to get started, check out some of these free bookkeeping courses you can take online, see if the job appeals to you!
Check out this article for more information on bookkeeping as a work at home career.
Web development
Every company has a website these days, and most of their owners are too busy developing and expanding their actual business to learn the intricacies of designing and maintaining their own internet presence. Freelance web design/development is building websites for any client who may be building their first site, or re-branding as their business changes over time.
Besides the technical aspects of physically building the site, you must also have a grasp of what it takes to build an aesthetically pleasing brand that supports the client’s attitude and desires, even if they have no idea where to start.
You can learn a lot about web design online through free courses. Coursera has a ton of free and paid courses available. You can audit this course and see if you want to invest in the certificate or not.
I hope this list has given you some new ideas for developing a new stream of income! These careers can all become a new skill or hobby that you enjoy, a new side-job to help bring in a few extra bucks every month, or even a long-term, full-time career. If you or someone you know has developed another awesome career from home, let me know at heather@financialstabilityexperience.com!