First Experience Making Side Income, and Lessons Learned

The following is a guest post from Rita P

With a routine pay check and job you can end up saving limited amount of money and spending is restricted too. Earning side income has been quest for many of us to enjoy the extra luxuries and benefits. In the past people had to find ways to earn extra income but with advent of internet you can make side income easily at your home. My first experience of side income source was online. Thanks to internet, today my side business has expanded as I learned more and today it has turned into full time online business.

Well I knew my strengths and my area of focus was writing. It was the best choice for me to start writing for money. In nascent stages I was wondering how to start and where to start, I applied at freelance sites, content mills, top popular blogs and lot more. I sent inquiries for staff writer to popular and famous blogs as well as freelance sites; though I used to get email response but I was never hired.

My focus was clear to start writing and make money online, there was time to give up after failed attempts but thanks to one of my dear friend who advised me to put up a blog and apply to right job boards. After lot of marketing and different tactics for job hunt I finally got my first job from Problogger job board, it was 3 years back and soon I realized the power of writing and making money. I wanted to take it to next level by writing for various blogs and build my own niche sites

I want to share my experience with other fellow writers. I had emailed and applied for more than 80 jobs until I landed for the first one on job boards. Most of the emails which I sent would never get a response, some would reply but no closures. I didn’t give up and continued until my efforts paid off. If you stay there and hang on with patience until you strike your first deal, rest of jobs will follow and it will be lot easier. Below I want to highlight important lessons which I learned

1. If you are looking to earn from writing then you must have your own blog, it will help in marketing yourself and provide good reference
2. When you market your online business, always have your own hosted domain name instead of shared blogging platforms. Having professional domain represents your blog’s authority
3. Add self pictures, about me, services offered and contact me page
4. Market yourself; it is very important, you won’t get a writing job unless you market yourself. Connect with people using social media profiles such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook
5. After lot of trial and errors across various freelance and job sites, I found out that best way to get writing jobs is to apply via job boards, there are many popular job boards where you can apply for writing jobs
6. Finally never give up. Once you get your first job, your confidence will boost. All you need to do is keep trying : try try until you succeed
7. Once you grow, you can expand your business and there are many ways to market yourself such as: writing guest posts, participating in forums particular to your niche, networking and social media.
8. Identify your target niche and stay focused. People want to hire specialists and not generalists. All your efforts mentioned above must be focused on your strengths and skills

When I first made my mind to try freelancing, I didn’t know how I was going to earn money from writing jobs but all I can say my zeal to learn and passion to write helped a lot. All the information I gathered was reading different blogs, forums and informative sites. When I was about to give up, the beautiful thing that happened to me was my first job and soon I was flooded with multiple writing jobs. Don’t give up and back yourself with your skills as where there is a will there is a way.