Social Media Communities

Social Media Platforms are some of the best business platforms on the internet. They work best for someone selling quick or small products. Almost any product can be sold through social media quickly than any other product listing service because most social media platforms have an active audience.

Social Media Platforms are websites that allow people to connect with one another mainly for social purposes.

  Examples of social media platforms are Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, Instagram, etc. 

Most products on social media are sold through, social media communities, which are the smaller groups made up of people with a common interest.

For example: someone starts a group, a group administrator, on a platform like Facebook, and the aim of that group is to connect people who are interested in buying or selling Expensive Used Weaves in Zimbabwe, and every time someone posts about expensive used weaves, almost everyone in the group sees what one user of the group has said about used weaves. 

That’s just an example of a social media community. There are many groups on social media platforms.

I’m sure you have been in at least on one social media platform group in your life time. If you have never used one, you can just search on google or any other search engine for a term like ‘groups on Facebook about entrepreneurs in my area’ or any of your interests, and you will be led to loads of results you can make use of.  

If you have products or services you are selling, you can search for groups meant for people in Zimbabwe, and specifically your area if available. (For usually the buyer and the seller might have to travel in order to meet up for the trade to take place, just google search for precautions to take before meeting anyone). 

Examples of social communities you could make use of:

Bid Sites Buy &Sell    

Bidding Wars BuyAndSellZimbabwe    

Bidding Wars (PurchaseMate - Buy $ Sell) Zimbabwe Buy and Sell    

‎Bidding Wars Zimbabwe Buying and Selling Zimbabwe 263  

Three steps to selling on a Social Media Platform

You have a product or service for sale (You want to reach a bigger audience through social search)

You join, or create a group and invite people interested in that kind of service or products

You make posts about your products

Classifieds

Classifieds refers to putting things into categories for easier identification according to their varying attributes or characteristics.

Selling or advertising through classifieds platforms

Classifieds would work best for you, if you already have a product or more that you’re selling, or you might be looking to broaden your business audience for your service, let say as a car mechanic you have been servicing cars for people in your area, or a freelance hairdresser plaiting people’s hair in your area, a tutor or whatever, and now you would like to find customers from a wider location, classifieds would make it for you to connect with anyone from other locations who searches for your kind of service.   

Online classifieds are a great way of getting a business audience easily. On a classifieds platform, your products or services can get in front of potential customers in a short space of time.

People looking for products and services visit classifieds in order to get in touch with the most suitable suppliers. Most likely, for more affordable things other than those available in their physical locations, or the things that are not at all accessible anywhere in their immediate areas. 

In order for that to happen, you have to find a reputable classifieds platform, making a post in the correct way that will make the platform’s audience find you, this can be done through using the right keywords,  keywords are just the main words that would at best describe your business.

Here are some of the goods or services you can list on a classifieds platform

Services

Cleaning

Body

Car Mechanics

Accounting

Rentals

Goods 

Electronic Goods 

Automobiles 

Clothing

Food

Farm Produce

Examples of the most visited classifieds websites you can list your products or services:

List of classifieds websites (Click To Visit)

Classifieds ZW

My Classifieds

Onwai

Smeaz

#Carry out a search for classifieds websites in your location.

Niche Store

I recommend that you go with the Niche Store Strategy for quicker gains in the market.

It is the best strategy for new payers in the market, and definitely the best small and successful E-commerce stores.

Niche (or specific market) refers to products, services, or interests that appeal to a small, specialized section of people.

The Idea Behind A Niche Store

You have less competition, (since you’re targeting a smaller, specific market, chances are that there is less or zero competition)

You will rank higher quickly on search engines, meaning people will come across your goods in small space of time. 

You will get loyal customers overtime, if the customers get attached to your products or services and feel that their expectations are met with what’s on offer, a return for more is quite obvious.

Here is a list of lessons on how to start a Niche Store 

How to Start a Successful Online Store (Hint: Nail Your Niche)

General Store vs Niche Store(Should You Build a Niche or General Store?)

What should you sell online (What Should You Sell Online?)

Good examples of niche stores you could take a look at:

Luxy Hair 

Cuppow 

E-commerce Services 

If you are not willing to go through the trouble of creating a store on your own, you might sell on an existing e-commerce service that allows you to post your products or services without you having         to create anything.

Good examples for you to do that will be:

Flexi Africa (local platform, knows your market very well, you can become a vendor on the website)(Become a vendor here)

Aliexpress (Become a seller)  

Amazon (Become a seller)

Local ‘bid’ sites

Another way to get buyers quickly if you have physical products is using local bid sites 

A good example for that is Econet’s Bid Buddie, the down side before I get into details about the platform is that you have to pay a service fee, though it’s just a tiny fee, just that free things on the internet are usually the best. Not that I really pay for anything.

Bid Buddie is one of Econet’s e-commerce platform, which is an online auction. On Bid Buddie you can sell almost any kinds of goods, from thing that you no longer need, or things you already have for sale. 

Buyers are the ‘bidders’, these are customers who compete to put place the highest price for the products that are for sale.   

You can get started with with selling on the platform through downloading and installing the Bid Buddie application on this link.

Don’t Have Anything To Sell On An E-commerce Store?

Here’s a strategy named drop-shipping meant for entrepreneurs who do not yet have products or services of their own to sell. It’s Called Drop-shipping.

What is drop-shipping?

Drop-shipping is a selling method where an online-store doesn’t keep, or at times have the products that are for sale in their stock (stock – where shops keep products). The store lists the products for sale, giving as much details as possible, pictures, weight, whatever necessary detail.

 Figure : Snippet Extracted From Movie Scarface 

When the store sells the product, it purchases the item from the original product seller and has it sent 

directly to a customer.

The store has a mark-up set on the original price from which profits will be realized, for example, the customer pays, ZW$49.99cents to the store, then the store gets the product for ZW$39.99 from the original seller and leaving out ZW$10.00 as their profit.

On the internet, on an online store, the store never sees or handles the product.

In Steps Here’s How Drop-shipping Works 

Customer buys product from your store

You forward order details to the supplier and make payment

  (You look for supplier on huge e-commerce stores like Amazon, Alibaba, Buy China, E-Bay,    

and More according to your what you’re serving)

The original seller sends the goods to the customer directly

 Figure : Illustration By Oberlo 

Steps On How to start a drop-shipping store learn here 

Decide your product

Create an e-commerce store

Add Product Inventory (Photos of the product, and full information of the product)

Start Marketing

E-Commerce Store

E-Commerce (electronic commerce).

E-commerce is a process of buying and selling of products or services, transferring money and data over the internet. This allows people to do business with no barrier of distance and time.

Much of e-commerce is carried out through what are called Online-Stores where the store runner displays the goods or services that are up for trade.

Examples Of An E-commerce Store 

An individual purchases a book on the internet. A government employee reserves a hotel room over the internet. Your uncle’s business orders computers through the internet.

Examples of things you can sell on an e-commerce store

Electronic Goods

E-books

Cellphones

Body

Lotions

Deodorants

Fashion

Men’s Clothing

Women’s Clothing 

The goods you can sell on the platform could be second hand items or new depending on what you have.

How E-commerce Works 

Figure : How an e-commerce store works

You might be thinking, I don’t have anything to sell. Well, there are ways to get things to sell for free. I will show you below a way in which you can start an online store and make it without having a single product to your name. 

And if you don’t have money to buy an e-commerce store plan from web builders. I will also show you ways for you to get around for free.

But if you have a product or service you are selling, you could just jump into starting an e-commerce store:

How to start an E-commerce Store

(1) You find an E-Commerce Store Builder. (An Online Software which lets you build your very own online store without needing advanced tech-skills, or coding knowledge).

(2) Get a domain name for you store (Build Trust With Your Customers)

(3) Pick your E-commerce Templates (Design): You can make your site look good without being a design expert, or touching a code.

(4) Add Your Products: The main things you need to add a product are!

(Pictures of Products, Name, Price, Category, Weight,  Files for downloadable products)  

(5) Add Payment Method: Find out where your customers are from in Zimbabwe the common payment gateway is Paynow, but you still have to put gateways that available world widely, just in case you come across international buyers, (Don’t pick a payment method without working on your store’s needs)

Are you ready to get started or have something that needs to be sold from an Online-Store?

Here are five platforms to set up your store

(You can set up your store free on some of the services) 

Ecwid 

Shopify

Hipkart 

Magnento

Facebook Store 

Aliexpress Store Plugin (If you have money to invest you could just get this plugin, it has everything readily set up) 

Tip

If you’re going to start an e-commerce store, it will be wiser to smaller range of products, something you can become an expert at, that as time goes on you can have an audience that trusts you. 

I would even recommend that you sell a single product on your store. There are huge online stores that are well established, and so many smaller stores.

But in case you’re selling a unique range of products, that isn’t available anywhere on the market, you can just go ahead and get started with the traditional way.

Learn the best of e-commerce strategy here: Niche Store Strategy

Trading

Forex 

E-commerce 

Classifieds 

Social Media Communities 

Trading Stocks 

Trading simply means an exchange of goods or services. Goods are merchandise or possessions such as clothing, furniture, food, etc. 

Sorry, for goods, I just had to give a definition.  

And services is the action of helping or doing work for someone.

For example: Haircuts, medical check ups, car repairs etc.

How trade or the exchange works

Anything from this book you will do to earn an income will involve trading in some way, but for the sake of simpler classification, this part to means ways of earning an income on the internet that are, on the web, directly called trading.

Here’s a list of the trades you can start working on the internet that require the least possible financial investment on your part.

Trading Forex

Forex is an abbreviation for the term Foreign Currency Exchange Market. 

Forex trading means buying, and, or selling a currency (a currency is a medium, or a way of exchange).  

The Foreign Market is an over-the-counter, (a counter like in a store), market which the foreign currencies of the world are exchanged. It is the relationship of value, between one currency, vs another.

Trading Forex online is normally done through a broker which is a website which allows exchanges to go through.

How you can earn income through Forex Trading:

The strategy for forex trading for end users is simple. You buy your foreign currencies at a lower price and sell at a higher price. 

You earn an income when;

Let’s say you have $100.00 on your trading account

The current exchange rate of the EURO vs the US$ is 1.25. (Meaning for a single Euro, €1.00, you get 1.25 US Dollars, $1.25cents).

The Euro rises versus the United States Dollar from 1.25 to 1.26 

Being in the profit or $0.01 you carry out the trade. 

You change your €80.00 to $100.80cents, your profit is $0.80 cents. 

From my example, you might think the profits are too low, but these trades take place several times a day, and there is huge chance for you to earn a respectable income daily from carrying out trades. 

Here’s what someone with experience in the trade had to say on forex trading forum:

 Figure : Extracted From iHarare

Here are the well known forex trading platforms I recommend for you to use: 

Website Minimum Deposit Payment Methods    

MT4 App

US$0 Credit Cards    

Just Forex

US$0.5

BTC, Payoneer, Credit Cards    

IQ Option

US$10 BTC, Payoneer, Credit Cards    

Markets.com

US$100 Credit Cards  

Links to lessons for Forex Trading Beginners 

Please just take the lessons to avoid the mistakes that others have came across. Forex Trading has a reputation for being a risky business and some who have done it before say, ‘it takes time and effort in order for you to understand the market’.

 Here’s what Mazai from the same forum had to say:

 Figure : Extracted from iHarare

However, that should not discourage you because making gains in the trade is a reality.  

Learn as much as you can before you can deposit any money, in order for you to avoid loses. But also avoid the mistake of researching a lot and doing nothing in the end. Remember to assess in brief, and get started. Get started! 

Learn more here if you would like to profit from forex trading.

I). Firstly, about forex trading

II). Secondly, about the website you’ve chosen to focus your trades.

I’m sure a loss in any little amount of money would make anyone want to quit.

Here’s how you can find some of the best lessons’

Note the web is full of free $0.00 lessons on almost anything, so just remember to always search for what you want to know.

Links to People and Communities in Carrying Out Forex Trades 

Forex Trading Zimbabwe 

Forex Trading School – Zimbabwe

Note you can always search for communities that relevant to you on your social media accounts.

BTC (BitCoin)

BTC (Bitcoin) is a digital currency and peer to peer payment system. Bitcoin came around in 2009 and has been used quite a lot in world for carrying out different trades.

Figure : Bitcoin Logo - Google Images

Bitcoins are kept in a wallet just you would do with your money, a times,  but a digital wallet. The common way of getting to own Bitcoin is through purchasing from other people who own the currency, or from earning in some other way you would just like with money. 

The other way is quite complicated, and requires loads of technical knowledge in the digital field, and at times investment in the technical equipment. It’s called Bitcoin Mining. If you’re interested in Bitcoin Mining you can always google search how it is done.  

Bitcoin’s, value can be measured in formal currencies. For example 1BTC is equals to US$10.000.00.

Bitcoins can be acquired in smaller amounts, or fractions like ¼ of a 1BTC, that will be BTC0.250, meaning the price money will be US$2.500.00.

How to trade through BTC 

When trading in BTC, to make profits, usually you will be taking advantage of the rapid changes in prices.

Figure : Bitcoin Price Chart 18 November By Cryptocurrency

You can note the rapid changes in prices on the bitcoin price chart that the price is changing from time to time, in the space of two weeks getting to a low of US$7.300 and getting to a high of over US$9.500.

The strategy for trading BTC is buying BTC when the dollar exchange rate is low and selling it when the exchange rate is high. Just as you would do in Forex Trading  (though I feel trading in BTC is less risky than Forex Trading).

For example you buy a fraction of BTC 0.040 when the price for one Bitcoin is US$10.000.0. Meaning you would have paid US$400.00.

(BTC0.040 x US$10.000.00 = US$40.00)

Then you wait for the price of BTC to change to a higher price and the you sell to grow your BTC or take the profit from the trade.

Let’s say the price of BTC rises to US$12.000.00 due to the natural changes on the Bitcoin Market, and you decide to sell your BTC0.040 at the current price, meaning you will make, US$80.00, as your profit.

(BTC0.040 x US$10.000.00 = US$48.00).

Note: there are trading fees deducted by your wallet holder. But the fees are reasonably low.

Figure : Chart Credit Statista.com

There is always an open market for Bitcoin on the internet, people at varying times are in need of the currency, so there won’t be worries about finding a buyer when you would like to sell your Bitcoins. 

You can create a Bitcoin Wallet on one of these websites, and as well carry out the trades (please, constantly check using search engines the Bitcoin Price to know when to carry out trades).

Recommended websites to trade Bitcoins

 Website Minimum Deposit Payment Methods    

Local Bitcoins You buy with what you have (YBWWYH) BTC, Payoneer, Credit Cards    

IQ Option $10.00 BTC, Payoneer, Credit Cards    

OlympTrade $10.00 BTC, Payoneer, Credit Cards    

ExpertOption $10.00 BTC, Payoneer, Credit Cards  

Remember to deposit $10 or a higher amount. 

There are no guarantees when trading in currencies, your your money can go up as well as down in value. If you feel you can do it, I recommend you learn much about your market. 

How To Get Started On Academic Writing

 How to get started:

You register at the writing website

Pass the grammar test (normally made up of 15 multiple choice questions), the formatting styles test, and write a sample essay on a given topic.

Upload your essay and educational certification 

Wait to for an account approval, given you have passed the tests 

How it works 

Select Writing Project (From your work dashboard)

Upload the work 

Get Paid

Here are three ‘legitimate’ Academic Writing websites you can sign up on and start working as soon as possible

Website Payment Methods    

Writerbay Payoneer, Credit Cards    

Writing Creek Credit Cards    

Writers Department Credit Cards  

Writerbay 

Freelance Writing Jobs for professional authors.

Looking for authors who are proficient in their respective fields and who can deliver high-quality papers

Registration form: Writerbay.

Writing Creek 

Offers online writing jobs for freelance writers. Experts wanted!

Register: Writing Creek 

Writersdepartment

At Writers-department the usual pay is $10 – 15 per written double spaced page

Register: Writersdepartment

Writers Work

Writers Work connects anyone interested in writing, with the companies that need them desperately. There are thousands of writing jobs that are available on Writers Work, and available also are, training, tools, and support you need to the best writing jobs. 

Sign up: Writers Work Here

Essay or Article – Bidding Websites

The other kinds of websites you can check out if you would like to pursue web-writing as a way of earning an extra income are what I can call Essay bidding sites. 

 On Essay Bidding website a person who would like to have an essay or article written posts their request with the full details concerning the work,  

For example: “I would like someone to write me an essay about my dog,” the person sets their budget, which is money that they would like to pay you, and the bidders, who are the writers, at any level, submit their bids.

For example: You would respond to the post bid proposal saying, “I would like to work on your essay, and you give reasons why they should choose you over other bidders to work on their essay, and you can negotiate expect them to pay when you’re done with the work”.

For your own safety, to avoid getting scammed, recommended or legitimate, websites often have clients deposit their money into their account on the website to make sure the writer gets paid once the process of submitting the work to the client is completed. And once you are granted a project by the person, the project is taken away from the list of jobs that are available. 

My tips when working with these sites for good results;

Academic Writing?

 Academic Writing here refers to, quite, formal writing, that involves the different aspects involved in writing research-work in the varying intellectual fields.

The requirements to start working on opportunities on academic writing sites is usually passing a series of simple tests which you take to complete signing up on the websites.

Although there are so many websites that require academic writers, most will require personnel from specific countries, usually western, and unfortunately in most cases, at the time of writing, third-world countries are not usually to open to most of the opportunities.

And if you think you could somehow workaround the requirements on these websites, if I were you, I wouldn’t risk it, considering the work involved in finishing acceptable papers.

If you can workaround the sign-up process on those websites, at the end of the day,  there’s still the issue of receiving the money that you’ve worked for. And trust me, you won’t get it.

So I have compiled a list of academic writing sites that will pay you in ways that get your money to you despite your geographical location.  

But before I give you the Golden-List, let me just share with you a breakdown of how Academic Writing sites work in the following steps below;

1). You get Writing Work on a website (listed on the website)

2). You complete and upload the work to the website

3). You get paid on your account

Here’s why you should go with Academic Writing Websites

The internet is filled with various writing opportunities, but the competition to get work is even double.

Why you should go with Academic Writing websites that test you?

These are some of the reasons;

You have your own writing opportunities set aside for you, whereas in the other ways of getting writing opportunities you will have to compete with other writers from around the world to get a gig. On freelancing websites for most work is awarded on a bid-system.

Trust me, you might spend a month or so on a bidding site for writing opportunities on a non-test website without getting a response from a single client, that will be bad for you, sometimes financially. 

On a website dedicated for writing jobs, you have your gigs set aside for you, there might be a cap on the amount of writing tasks you can complete for per month, but you’re guaranteed a certain amount of work each month.

Find out how you can get started in the next post

E-commerce Store

 E-commerce 

In brief, here’s how earning on your blog through an e-commerce store will work;

You create an online e-commerce store (Some web-hosts have this feature available already)

You can put your store along with your blog 

Your blog readers buy from your store 

Types of Blogs 

Sports

Instructions 

Politics

Fashion/Clothing

Education 

Music

Cooking

Food

You know your interests best.

How to start a Blog 

You can start your first ever blog, hopefully a successful one by following these simple steps

In the early internet ‘age’ it was a long and difficult process to start a blog, everything was done in what I will call a sort of a manual way that required tons of professionals just to get the blog to work properly.

But nowadays thanks to the growth in numbers in Information Communication Technology personnel world widely who’ve made it easier for almost anyone interested of course, to get around difficult web-tasks easily like starting a blog and have users reach and make use of it easily.

You can start your own blog in just a few mouse button clicks and have it configured so that your users people can access find it when you start putting your content.

With so much done for you already, that means you’ll focus your efforts on finding the right content for your blog and be able to establish loyal readership (an audience that can be easily turned into customers).

Steps to starting a blog in brief

Generate a blog idea

Choose a platform for your blog

Make blog content

Detailed Steps

Find a subject for your blog

1). Chose what type of content you would like to put on your blog. For example;  you want to write about the latest drama series in your country, that will be your blog’s subject. And the content you will put on the blog will be related to that subject, the information you would like to share about drama series.

2). Decide on the value of your blog topic to your audience. 

For example:

You can do that by questioning and answering simple interests 

How someone interested in your area will benefit from your blog topic?

Someone might visit your blog because you have videos of a certain series showing for free

Why someone might want to visit your blog in relation to the drama series?

Someone might want to know what time their favorite drama series will be showing on television (as good blogger you would have researched and put that information on your blog)

What someone in your country who’s interested in drama series might want to know

A reader might want to know who plays the main character in ‘Sabhuku Vharazipi’ (a Zimbabwe drama series) and you will put that information on your blog

3). Plan your blog categories or subtopics.

More steps of how to start a blog 

Pick a blog name.

Get your blog online. By finding blog host 

(some blog hosts are paid, some are for free, learn about it here)

Examples of blog hosts: A2hosting, Bluehost, Siteground.

Customize your blog. Choose a free template and tweak it.

Write and publish your first post

Promote your blog

Make Money

Writing for Money 

Another great way to earn income on the web is Academic or Professional Writing. It’s not as scary as it may seem, you might find someone who wants you to write a well referenced article or essay about their dog.  

There are so many websites that make it possible for Academic Writers from the various fields of study to find work or clients. 

Blog Advertising As A Way Of Making Money Online

 Much of the blogs that advertise, (do so with other) companies, people or group products or services. The company pays you directly or indirectly (will discuss this later on) to have you place their products or services on your blog.

The products or services that you’ll advertise on your blog do not necessarily have to be yours, but if you have your own products or services, I recommend that you serve your advertisements on your blog.

To make money with showing advertisements you have work hard, being strategical (just in almost anything in life, if you work without strategy, you’re going to find yourself worn & attain very little results), and lastly being patient. 

Showing advertisements on your blog, usually does not mean you’ll earn anything during maybe the first six months or two years or so, blog advertising is a congested area and the earnings have become too low. 

I’m not saying this to discourage you, but to let you know that you have to dive into the attempt with a clear strategy, and a strong focus in order to get a particular audience, also having learnt the best lessons about blogging for money. 

Four Major Types of Advertisements

Sponsored Posts

Text (Links)

Banner

Video 

Your Own Products

Other Media

Sponsored Posts 

Sponsored Posts are articles that a Blogger is paid by a service provider or person selling a product to have posted on blog.

A whole lot of hard-work and taking the right steps is needed for your blog to start getting sponsored posts.

The purpose of a ‘sponsored post’ is to promote something to an audience, which is a product or service. So your blog needs to have enough value to attract people who would like to sponsor your posts. 

There are mainly two sources of sponsored posts, which I have put into two groups, direct and indirect.

How sponsored posts work

A person wanting to sponsor a post approaches you with an offer 

You make the post on your blog & your blog visitors see the post

They take the required action if they’re interested in the product or service (an event or whatever) 

Where to get Third-Party Sponsored Posts

You can get sponsored third-party services that have readily available merchants or service providers who are looking for blogs with content that relates to their products or services that they would like to have posted on a blog (the sponsored posts).

You can search for these networks and sign up: 

ValuedVoice

BlogHer

SeedingUp

Bloggers also list their inventories on third-party sponsored post providers lists so that their blogs maybe found by people looking for blogs to promote their products or services on. 

Find out more ways to get sponsored posts on ‘Let’s Reach Success’ 

Text Ads/Advertising Links

Text Ads are those that simply used words to describe the company or products that are offered.

A link on internet is simply a doorway from one location to another on the web.

Here’s an example of text advertising links on a football blog:

 Figure : Example Of Link-Text Advertisements  

Links are usually within a section of your blog, usually showing text that leads a user to a location or website on the web with contents of the service or product seller.

Banner Ads or I mage 

A simple photo showing information of products or services or any other promotions. Usually, it links to the stuff that is being advertised.

Banner Ads are the most popular types of ads on the internet.

Video Ads 

Video Advertisements belong to a category of ads known rich media ads, which are interactive, video ads are playable, stoppable ads. Advertisements that are shown within a video media player.

Other Media 

This advertising material that is available on affiliate marketing you will be using.

Examples of where to get ads to display on a blog 

Affiliate Marketing 

Affiliate marketing is when you promote other people’s products or services, and in return you earn a commission when someone buys the service or product. 

Affiliate marketing is usually done through an affiliate network that has products that need promoters, and also tracks details of all activities associated with the promotions. 

Good examples of affiliate networks are Amazon’s Affiliate Network and Gearbest Affiliate Network. 

Advertising services or third party providers 

Examples:

Google Adsense 

Probably the biggest advertising network on the internet that most bloggers make use of, it serves varying types of advertising material that you can find on the website.

You have to find the right 'niche', when using Adsense, and produce good content that draws the right visitors in order for you to earn a good amount of money.

Media

Allows you to monetize your blog, suitable for most blog content, you can make the most of your advertising revenue and take advantage of a huge search market.

On Media You get paid around $2.00+ for one thousand views per advertisement (that's before clicks, and more).

 Propeller Ads

Propeller Ads is another big advertising network that offers different types of advertising material like banners, and

sponsored links.

There are loads of advertising services on the internet, I have only highlighted the most trusted networks, you can always search for more and weigh on your own to find out what would work best for you.

Direct companies or promoters 

You should go with this when starting. This is how most new bloggers earn a steady income in their early years.

If you’re coming up with good, quality, niche content for your blog, another way to earn money on your blog is to get a company, organization with services or products that relate to your topics that wants to reach out to an audience through advertising on your blog. 

For example if you write about baby products on your blog for a targeted audience, you might approach a company that sells baby products to reach out to people who are interested in baby related topics.

E-commerce store or your own products or e-commerce store

I will speak about E-commerce-in-detail in the section where I will be giving you information about Online-Trading as one of the ways to earn income web. 

But in connection to blogging, an e-commerce store is in my view the best way to monetize your blog.

One of the things an e-commerce store in its first days will depend on is Traffic that is generated from posts on your blog before it can generate it’s own audience. 

Freelance Writing

Web-writing means putting information or publishing (usually named content) on internet platforms using the text format. Much of the text that you see on the internet is written by human beings, just like you, (unless you’re one of those bots I will speak of in the next line. And at-least some of the text is generated by bots, which is some software developed by programmers).

If you would like to start a career as a writer on the internet so that you can earn a side income, I have broken down the major ways you can do it below:

You can start a blog 

Blogs have always been the backbone of the internet. Much of the useful information we access on a daily bases on the internet is available through the various blogs that are written by bloggers. A blog is a knowledge website that is published on the internet, usually done through informally written posts.

A Blogger is a person who runs or writes on a blog. And you are a publisher if you own a blog.

Bloggers know of the necessary information to put on their blogs through researching on the subject, knowledge they already posses from ‘learning’ or from their experience. 

There are many types of blogs you can start and earn income. I’ll discuss about that in the segment after the following part.

Here’s how you’ll earn money if you start a blog

There are several ways in which you could start earning money on the web with a blog. But note, the value of your blog, usefulness to users, is largely going to determine how much you’re going to earn from it.

There are so many ways in which you could earn money from your blog. But these are just some of the ways you can do it.

 Here’s how you can earn money while blogging: 

One of the ways to earn money through a blog is serving product or service advertisements 

I will define advertising as only to make something known.

When you make a blog, the people who visit the blog are called visitors, an audience given their interest to keep returning to the blog remains overtime. You can take advantage of your web-space, the blog, to show advertisements in exchange for money.    

 Figure : Example of a monetized blog

More on Freelance Writing: Next Blog 

Services that you can easily sign up teach on and find teaching work

Website Payment Method Subjects    

Bibo Global

Western Union (Bank Transfer),

English

Tutor

Credit Cards

Various Subjects

Konversai

Stripe (You’will have to transfer funds into your Payoneer Account)

English, Mathematics, and More  

(1) Bibo Global

A learning website that teaches Conversational English, Business English, Reading and Writing Skills, Listening and Speaking Skills, Grammar and Vocabulary, or Useful Language Expression and Idioms. 

Also conducts exam review classes like IELTS, TOEFL and TOEIC. 

Learn how to join Bibo Global as a teacher here.

Ways to teach online – Bibo Lessons. 

Apply for a teaching position at Bibo Global here.

(2) Tutor

You can teach on various subjects or skills via Tutor. You can earn money teaching whatever you want, on your own time, irregardless of your location.

Tutor believes tutors that are signed up on the platform should enjoy, complete teaching freedom, control over their business, and monetary independence.

Apply for Tutor Position at Tutor – Sign up form, or Here.

(3) Konversai

Konversai allows you to teach and educate students all around the world. Teach the English language and become your own boss. 

Konversai is a marketplace for everyone, anywhere to share their knowledge. As a Provider, set up your own marketplace, build your brand, and enjoy a new revenue stream. As a Seeker, simply explore a new topic or take a deep dive in live video sessions. The only limit is your imagination! 

Sign Up form: Konversai

Other online teaching services you could check out:

Website Estimated Pay US$    

Topica Native: 

According to yourrank    

Fluentbe 

$10.00p/h    

First Future 

$16+for 45 min    

Italkie 

You Set Your Own    

Learn Light

$12.00 p/h    

Preply 

Commission  

Services that allow teachers to sell their own courses

On these services you can design your own lessons and find an audience to sell to easily. 

Udemy

Skillshare 

Udemy 

Udemy: Teachers use the site’s platform to easily build courses by combining video Power Point – presentations, PDF’s, and audio files and zip files. On Udemy you can host live classes.

Some classes on Udemy are free. Paid courses typically range from $5 to $250, and Udemy keeps 20% of the money you earn as a service fee. 

Skillshare 

Skillshare is an online learning platform where anyone can teach. 

Teachers at Skillshare are everyday creators, entrepreneurs, and professionals who are passionate about what they do – people like you. 

There’s no need for you to have experience or be well known to publish your first class and grow a following. 

Other similar platforms to teach; 

Skillwise    

WiziQ  

Besides using third-party services you can also deliver lessons independently, through your own means;

Here are other ways you can teach online 

Start a blog on a subject of your choice

Let’s say you’re a highly gifted person in the field academics, or you have mastered certain topics or fields you know some people might be have trouble understanding, all you have to do is make lessons, but paying attention to your context.

This doesn’t have to be necessarily a killer topic or subject, this can be something you just know about, that will be useful to someone.

(Keep in mind that at times lessons are already available for free on the internet, but if you'd take a deeper look you’ll find out that much of the lessons are meant for people from specific geographical locations, those lessons may not apply or be exactly suitable for someone in your country. 

Let’s say an Ordinary Level, student looking for lessons in the subject of mathematics may find lessons on the meant for students of a ‘universal’ board like Cambridge, and that wouldn’t be any much good to the student. 

But if you find a way to package the lessons for your countries’ students you’ll definitely get students who are interested in your work. - if you find lessons on the local web (they’re usually in a one size fits all)

And also just because someone else has done it already don’t mean you shouldn’t do it – just find a unique angle to it.

Learn how to start a blog later in the book. 

Write short e-books with simple and easy to understand

An E-book (E-Book short for Electronic Book) is a book that is in a format that can be presented or

downloaded online.  

Write an an e-book on your subject of expertise and sell it, or a smaller market, (you can simplify instructions): 

How to earn money with e-books 

E-books are sold for money.  You can sell an e-book through your own website through a shopping cart that you can make for free on a website like Paynow (a local payment gateway), or a third party store like Amazon, you just head over to Amazon Kindle Publisher and you will be shown steps to publishing and selling your e-book.     

How to get started with writing e-books

Target your market (niche, know who you want to write for, know their needs).

Choose a topic you are knowledgeable or passionate about

Get Writing (Be informative)

(Note: Your level of language skillfulness doesn’t matter, we all know you speak grammatically horrific Shona or Ndebele, that shouldn’t keep from saying what you want to say, content is what matters, what the book is saying, or trying to say at least). 

Make videos with lessons

Another way is to teach a subject or lessons in a series of videos and start a Whatsapp Group with a paid membership and advertise to get member on the various social media platforms.

You can learn how make videos for your lessons here or at least get an idea of how it’s done if don’t know already: learn how to do it on this link.

What To Teach Online

Figure : Snippet From Hacker 2016 Movie 

A lot of services look for teachers to carry out classes through the internet. But unfortunately most of the services require that you’re from certain certain geographical locations in order to get work, or do not support payment gateways that would allow a teacher from any country around the globe to receive payments, and those are usually the ones that pay well. And you can’t blame those websites for those websites for loads of reasons I am not going to discuss in this book.

But still, that would mean the opportunity to a capable teacher to provide lessons to students is shut.

I have compiled ways you can teach on almost any subject and income.

What you can teach online 

The simplest way to find a subject to teach online is to assess your skills or knowledge and make lessons, or you can simply find out what you can teach on some of the services for teachers that I have listed below:

These are some of the things you can teach through the internet:

But before that you could discover what you might want teach by answering these simple questions, don’t worry it’s not an ‘exam’:

What do you love doing?

What are you naturally good at?

What do people ask your help for?

If are you good at your hobby if you have one? 

What’s your field of expertise?

Education

Mathematics 

Shona

Ndebele

English

Accounting

Food 

Baking (Unique Baking Recipes)

Cooking 

Beauty

Some teach about make up

 Skills

Anything you can do that you know, that can be useful to someone

Online-Freelance Teaching

One of the things the internet is highly accessed for on a daily bases, or useful for, are lessons that are available whether for free or paid. 

Anyone can package whatever their skill or knowledge into lessons and deliver through the internet. 

And the guy from this movie, ‘Hacker’ a 2016 movie, claims that he learnt coding, and hacking entirely on the web. Fiction? I have learnt a lot too. See Next Post

More on Micro-tasking

You can note that the pay per task is very low, but is suitable for the kind of job you’ll have done (without getting too technical of course).

For a period while freelancing, I made use of micro-tasks website named Microworkers, I noted that the most amount you can make per month while doing the work is around US$20.00, around US$10.00 when you’re just getting started,  although I have seen some leading workers on the site reach as much as US$200.00, wouldn’t know how to get in the range of those amounts, so being realistic, if you would like to make use of the website or any other micro-tasks website, you can expect to make between US$10.00 – US$20.00 per month.  

Examples of websites you can work on as a Micro-tasker:

Microworkers 

An innovative, International online platform that connects employers and workers from around the world. 

Microworkers has a unique approach that guarantees Employers that a task is paid when successfully done, while workers that successfully complete a job get paid.

Payment Methods: Credit Card, Payoneer, Skrill 

Minijobs

It connects advertisers (employers) with publishers (workers) in a partnership to help generate natural organic web-traffic and increase business sales or get paid without investment. 

Payment method: Credit Cards

Rapid Workers 

Is a crowd-source (micro-tasks) service that combines workers and employers to minimize publicity and marketing costs.

Payment Methods: Skrill, Credit Cards 

QUICK MONEY – SMALL MONEY – Micro-tasks

One of the easiest ways to earn money on the web from almost anywhere in the world is carrying out micro-tasks. Micro-tasks are a series of small tasks which together make up a large unified project.

Micro-tasks can be easily found on micro-tasking websites, and as soon as you sign up work will show up on your dashboard.

Micro-task websites or clients are the ones that split the bigger projects into smaller tasks that can be carried out with ease by almost anyone who has access to the tasks on the internet.

Here are some examples of tasks you can find on a micro-jobs website: 

 Figure : Work On Tasking-

Read More Here 

How to get started as freelancer

Figure out your skill for example, Photographer, Designer, Writer etc 

Determine your target market

Create your online portfolio

Set your prices 

Reach out to find clients 

Websites you can work on as a freelancer:

Freelancer 

An online job marketplace that provides a means for employers and freelancers around the globe to collaborate for mutual benefit.

Payment Methods – Credit Cards Skrill, Bank Deposit – Web-Money

Fiverr 

An online marketplace for freelance services. The company has been around since 2010, it provides a platform for freelancers to offer their services.

Fiverr used to be a platform on which Freelancers sold their services for only $5.00, but, recently it has changed, Freelancers can price their services as they see fit.

People Per Hour 

Allows Freelancers from around the world to find work that is suitable to their qualifications.

Payment Methods: Payoneer, Credit Cards 

There are many more freelancing websites, for quicker progress, you might want to explore at least one of the three that I have pointed out. 

You can simply visit the websites and decide on a single skill you would like to make use of, and set up your profile and begin to work. There’s no guarantee on how much you will earn, for what you put in is  what you’ll get.

Freelancing?

A Freelancer is a person who is self employed and gets work through a number of ways. Freelancing is a verb for Freelancer, a doing word. Freelancers complete a task, project, or a service, for a client (a person who needs work done by the Freelancer).

Freelancing on the internet is usually known as Online-Freelancing on which you carry out tasks, projects, or provide services through the internet

Freelancing Illustration:

Figure : How Freelancing Works

Online Freelancing is for people who are looking to offer their skills or knowledge without investing money in order to get an income.

Freelancers are self employed people, who offer services, often working on several jobs for one or more clients at one time. Freelancers normally earn money on a per-job bases. Clients hire a freelancer to complete a task, project or provide a service for them.

To work as a freelancer, you don’t need any certification to carry out most of the work so if you get a job, the only requirement to get paid is to use your skills to complete a job according to what you agree with your client.

Freelancing is one of the fastest ways to start earning an income from home if done properly.  

Freelance work can be found on freelancing websites or a freelancer can reach out to expected clients through their own means. And I will show you the basic ways you can get work as a freelancer online.

But first here are some of the advantages of freelance work.

You make use of your best skills or do what you love 

You choose your own schedule 

Pick and choose clients 

Better Paying

Examples of work you can carry out as a freelancer 

Photographer 

Designer

Writer

Virtual Assistant 

Influencer

Artist 

Illustrator 

Micro-tasker 

Anything else you might feel you can do on the platforms

Where To Start - Blog Guide

Preface and Disclaimer 2

Introduction 3

Freelancing? 7

How to get started as freelancer 8

QUICK MONEY – SMALL MONEY – Micro-tasks 9

Online-Freelance Teaching 11

Services that you can easily sign up teach on and find teaching working 13

Services that allow teachers to sell their own courses 14

Write short e-books with simple and easy to understand 16

How to earn money with e-books 16

Freelance Writing 17

You can start a blog 17

Here’s how you’ll earn money if you start a blog 17

Here’s how you can earn money while blogging: 17

Ecommerce 22

How to start a Blog 23

Academic Writing? 25

Here are three ‘legitimate’ Academic Writing websites you can sign up on and start working as soon as possible 26

Essay or Article – Bidding Websites 27

Bidding websites that will pay you via payment methods that are available in Zimbabwe 28

Trading 28

How trade or the exchange works 28

Trading Forex 29

How you can earn income through Forex Trading: 29

Links to lessons for Forex Trading Beginners 30

Here’s how you can find some of the best lessons’ 30

BTC (BitCoin) 31

How to trade through BTC 31

Recommended websites to trade Bitcoins 33

E-commerce 34

E-Commerce Store 34

How E-commerce Works 35

How to start an E-commerce Store 35

Local ‘bid’ sites 37

Don’t Have Anything To Sell On An E-commerce Store? 38

What is drop-shipping? 38

In Steps Here’s How Drop-shipping Works 39

Classifieds 40

Social Media Communities 41

Examples of social communities you could make use of: 42

Three steps to selling on a Social Media Platform 42