Laptop Jobs: Jobs You Can Do at Home… Or on the Beach! | The Student Pocket Guide
by William Terrell
If you’re going through school to prepare for better jobs later on in life, a little extra money can come in handy. Here are some genuine opportunities to earn part-time income and develop the beginnings of a resume. These jobs can be done from home, in a café or even whilst lounging outside, all you need is a laptop computer and WIFI connection!
Taking Surveys for Money
You won’t make a lot of money taking surveys online, but people who consistently do surveys can receive gifts, points toward cash payment, or even cash itself as payment for their trouble.
The danger is that this area is full of scams for the unaware. For instance, you should never have to pay a fee to join a site or reveal credit card information.
How do you know if a site is legitimate? A shorthand way to check out a site is to go to getpaidsurveys.com, which will give you their current list of the top ten legitimate paid survey sites, with brief descriptions of each.
Freelancing
Selling your services or products on a freelance basis presents a slightly more lucrative opportunity to make money from your laptop. If you have a skill you’re already pretty good at (good enough to be paid for) then, through freelancing, you may be able to get some quick money and also start building a resume of companies who have paid for your work
One site that puts sellers together with potential buyers is fiverr.com. This site allows you to advertise a product or service you will sell for $5 to an interested buyer. Don’t be put off by the five dollar price. Once you make some sales, deliver quality products or services, and gain a good reputation, you’re able to charge more for your services.
Selling Your Photographs
Did you ever wonder who takes those photos you see in magazines, on websites or TV? Those photos are taken by people like you! They in turn sell them to websites who then sell them to advertisers and other clients in need of photos. If you have photos you wouldn’t mind making a few quid from, a highly regarded site to get familiar with is istock.com. This site will pay you every time a client downloads one of your photographs for use in an ad, article, or brochure. But, if your photographs include people, you’ll need to get a signed release from them before you can sell the photo.
Selling Your Designs Online
Businesses need designs for business cards, book covers, logos, t-shirts and more. So, if graphic design is more your thing, you can create accounts on sites where businesses list design jobs and designers submit mockups for consideration by the businesses.
This is called crowd-sourcing, so realise that you will be part of a crowd of designers all submitting your work in an effort to get the same job. You may not get paid if your design isn’t picked, but it is a great way to get feedback on your work and build a portfolio. A site you can get started on is 99designs.
Creating Videos for YouTube
If you’re into film or video then earning money on YouTube may be for you. How-to uploads are always popular on YouTube, so if you create a step-by-step video on how to do something, you may be on to a winner. But, to earn money on YouTube, no matter how fresh and interesting your video may be, you will have to promote it. You can do this through social media such as Facebook and Twitter.
Once you gather an audience for your video you can link ads to it and look for other sites that will allow you to embed your video. Whenever someone buys something through one of your ads, you will receive an affiliate commission. For more information on how to make money on YouTube, you can… go to YouTube (they have videos on the subject)!
