For most people, having a work from home job is the dream. Imagine having complete control over your time, being able to work from anywhere in the world, and never having to commute in rush hour ever again.
For ease of use, I’ve compiled 88 resources that will help you create a work from home job for yourself, and linked directly to the tools mentioned. This way you can get to work on your dream of working from home as soon as you’re done reading this post.
Freelancing
Writing, graphic design, programming, customer service, translating, and internet marketing are in high demand, and are just some of the industries you can offer your freelancing services to with these tools.
The biggest freelancing platform on the internet is Elance. It has the highest paying freelance jobs but, as a result, it is the highest competition as well.
On 99designs, people will post the idea of the job they need to be done, you provide a mockup, and then they decide which one they like best. Be prepared to do some work you won’t get paid for as a result.
Peopleperhour is a bit different. Here, you post your “hourlies”, tasks you are willing to do for a seat price. People choose you to do the work.
Upwork is very similar to Elance, but tends to have more third-world labor, driving down the average wages for jobs.
Textbroker is specifically for writers. Lots of work to be found here, but for low wages.
Guru is another popular Elance clone.
Freelance Switch is just like Elance, but not as active. Less competition could make it easier to find work.
Behance probably has some of the highest paying jobs out there so, if you’re very good at that you do, start here.
Freelancer is another Elance or Odesk clone.
Affiliate Marketing
Who says you have to build your own product to sell? Many online-based companies have
affiliate programs, where you can make money by promoting their products on your website or blog. Keep in mind that because of low barrier of entry and high profit margins, affiliate marketing is quite competitive.
Clickbank is by far the largest affiliate marketing platform. They have a wide variety of products to choose from, and are very reliable when it comes to payments.
Amazon Associates is the one who started it all. While the margins are smaller than Clickbank, you’ll have the benefit of having the power and weight of Amazon behind your promotion.
Bluehost is a reliable web hosting provider, especially when it comes to WordPress. They pay pretty well for referrals.
Commission Junction is similar to Clickbank.
You probably didn’t know that Apple has an affiliate program promoting digital products, did you.
HostGator is another web hosting company, like Bluehost.
Apparently people still use Ebay.
Sell homemade arts and crafts
More than ever, people are looking for unique and handmade items. People are sick of buying the mass-produced garbage that everyone else has. If you have a creative touch, sell your items here.
Etsy lets you create your own online store to get your homemade products in front of millions of people.
Craigslist is one of the original online classifieds websites. Head to the arts and crafts area and post your stuff.
Ebay, once a massive online auctions powerhouse, isn’t what it used to be. It still has a loyal user base, so setup your own online store to sell your arts and crafts.
Are you talented in graphic design? Upload your unique designs to CafePress and they’ll print them on t-shirts, mugs, and all kinds of other stuff you can sell to people.
ArtFire is the lesser known competitor of Etsy, but still very useful.
Zazzle is a marketplace focused specifically on clothing items.
If you don’t live in the UK, don’t bother with Folksy.
Just like CafePress and Zazzle, Spread Shirt focuses on t-shirt designs.
CPA Marketing
This one is similar to affiliate marketing except, instead of buying products, you get paid when your referral completes an “action”. For example: getting a quote on car insurance, or signing up on a website.
Offervault is a search engine for CPA marketing. All of these are basically the same idea, so I will simply put the links here for you.
MaxBounty
GlobalWide Media
AboveAllOffers
Peerfly
CPA DNA
Content Revenue Sharing
The idea of this one is to put your content on other websites, ones with a high domain authority, have it seen by a greater audience, and then split the revenues made from your content. How much that split is depends on the site you use.
HubPages lets you create “hubs” of articles and monetize them.
YouTube is the Content Revenue Sharing powerhouse obviously, but it only works well if you’re able to create viral videos with a lot of views.
Digital Journal is difficult to get into but, if you’re able to, you will bring in tons of traffic to your site or blog.
InfoBarrel is a similar idea as HubPages, but with much less traffic. Only use these guys if you must.
Video marketing
Video is the future of content marketing. Just about every social network is trying to figure out the best way to incorporate video marketing into their platforms. So far, no one has been able to come close to Google’s behemoth, YouTube.
If you’re going to do anything video related on the internet, it’s going to be on YouTube first. Setup a channel and provide consistent updates so people know what to expect when they subscribe.
Vimeo is viewed as the HD, “premium” version of YouTube. You’ll find a lot more production value in the videos here.
I know what you’re thinking. “AOL still exists??” It does, and they’ve got a fairly large tutorial based video site in AOL On.
Metacafe is another popular video sharing site.
Instructables is another popular video tutorial site, similar to AOL On.
If you’re going to make tutorial videos, you’ll need a screen capture application. Camtasia Studio is one of the most popular, but it doesn’t come cheap.
Similar to Camtasia, but Screencast-O-Matic is cheaper.
Site flipping
Site flipping is the modern day house flipping. Essentially, you buy a site for a low price when it isn’t worth much, build up the traffic to the site, then resell it for much more money. This requires some significant SEO skills.
Flippa is the biggest resource on the internet for buying and selling websites.
Sedo is similar to Flippa, but focuses mainly on domains.
Websitebroker.com is exactly like Flippa.
Warrior Forum can be difficult to find the diamonds in the rough. There are a lot of shady people on here pushing crappy ebooks and marketing schemes.
Blogging
It’s true, you can actually make money blogging. It’s not easy but, if you have a true passion for writing about a certain topic, you can turn that passion into a profit. You’re not going to get rich blogging, but you can make a decent bit of cash with it using these blogging tools:
WordPress is by far the best and most popular CMS (content management system) in the world. If you’re going to blog with a goal for profit, do it with WordPress.
Joomla is also a powerful CMS, but I’d stick with WordPress personally.
GoDaddy is the largest domain name provider in the world. Not necessarily the best option though.
WooThemes is possibly the most popular place to get WordPress themes. There are countless other places to get themes as well.
Bluehost, with it’s one-click easy install of WordPress, is your best option to host your blog.
Q & A
If you’re really an expert, hop online to one of these websites and start answering peoples questions live.
You can use Liveperson to answer questions via email, phone, or live chat.
Just Answer is probably the most popular Q & A site on the internet. It pays well, but you really do need to know your stuff.
With Ether, you will provide your answers exclusively over the phone.
Paid Surveys
Don’t try to make any kind of living off of paid surveys. They can earn you some extra beer money, though.
MySurvey is the biggest online resource for paid surveys. Start here.
Aesthetically, Tellwut is a very dated website. You can still find some decent paying surveys here.
CashCrate is one of many identical paid survey sites.
Same idea with MyView.
iSay used to be top dog, but still has enough surveys to make it worth your while.
GlobalTestMarket is one of the biggest for paid surveys, even with the outdated look of the their website.
PPC Marketing
PPC (pay-per-click) marketing will drive traffic to your website much quicker than SEO ever will. This is because you’re paying for the traffic you receive. Instead of spending months of time trying to get your site to rank on the first page of Google, you can pay to have your site appear there for certain keywords. PPC marketing takes a lot of practice, testing and money to get positive results.
When it comes to PPC, Google is once again king. (obviously) Their Adwords platform is the biggest and best, so be prepared for high competition.
7search is not very well known, and they have very low cost PPC as a result.
Facebook Ads are a bit controversial. Some people swear by them while others, including myself, consider Facebook Ads to be nothing more than theft. You can decide for yourself.
Amazon‘s platform allows you to run banner ads on their site for your ecommerce store.
Bing Ads is the same idea as Google’s Adwords, just with a smaller user base.
Clicksor is one of many PPC platforms. Nothing unique here.
Chitika. Same idea.
Infolinks places ads in links attached to certain words in a piece of content.
Bidvertiser places your ads on websites of your choice.
Miva Merchant offers some real cheap clicks.
Prosper 202 is a PPC tracking software that is a must-have for serious PPC marketers.
Email Marketing
Yep, that’s right. Email. As an internet marketer, the most valuable asset you can build is a responsive list of email subscribers. So use these tools below to get started on it.
AWeber
Mailchimp
Vertical Response
iContact
Constant Contact
GetResponse
Investing and Lending
If you do investing and lending online right, you can make a much greater return than any bank would ever give you. Investing in the stock market online is a whole other story. High returns can still be made, but at much greater risk.
LendingClub
Prosper
Zopa
Etrade
Scottrade
Create a membership site
If you think what you have to offer is so valuable that people will pay monthly for it, consider creating a membership-based website. Keep in mind that it will take a great amount of time and effort to create and share regular content to keep your members satisfied.
Wishlist Member is a WordPress plugin that will easily turn your blog or website into a membership site.
1Shopping Cart is a shopping cart solution with built-in affiliate tools.
MagicMembers is just like Wishlist Member.
To charge your subscribers automatically each month, you will need a payment processor like Paypal.
Stripe is another payment processor, one that I greatly prefer over Paypal. They make subscription management super easy.
It would probably be more accurate to call OptimizePress a theme than a plugin, as it contains pretty much everything you need to create a complete sales funnel for your users.
Conclusion
There you have it. 87 resources to help you create your very own work from home job. No matter which ones you choose to use, it will take a great amount of perseverance, patience, and determination to make this work for you.
What are your essential tools and resources in being an entrepreneur from home? Let us know in the comments!