While there really are online jobs out there, there seems to be more confusion involving them and outright lies to be had than real and substantial information. Admittedly, there seems to be more in the way of outright scams than real work when you take a look at listings, however there are ways to tell what is real from what is a scam.

Below are quick points to look out for:

• Promises of huge earnings: Let’s face it no job is going to be giving you any kind of huge sum if you don’t have experience.
• The Words ‘Data-Entry’: Data entry is real work, BUT it is something you need to  train for.  Most of the ‘data entry’ jobs online are surveys which may or may not pay out.

To find legit work online jobs, you do need a definable set of skills.  Considering the largest growing portion of online jobs is blogging, writing is a must.  While you may be able to find jobs for coding or art, typically you need more experience than the ability to code.

No matter what you would like to look into, you need a way to back up any claims.  Anyone can claim to write or code, but claiming something won’t get you jobs.  Create a portfolio or a blog (there are tons of free areas to get set up, WordPress and Blogger being two of the best) and get to work showing your skills.

Any website you create doesn’t have to be insanely popular to get jobs from, it’s just to show that you really can do what you say you can.  It should have at minimum 10 or so posts or examples (fairly arbitrary number, but you need a good amount up to show what you can do).

So what can you expect?

• Rejection.  You will be rejected and ignored more often than you get a declined offer.  It may or may not be anything against you, often you just won’t know.  The important thing is to keep trying.
• Low pay.  You more than likely aren’t going to get much, especially if you are just starting out.  If you are brand new at writing online (and the same can be said about other areas of online work) getting more to add to your resume may be able to help more with early gigs, so it may be worth taking lower paid jobs for a while.
• A lot of work.  You will work, a lot.  Often the hours invested at first may not seem to be worth it, and often you may not want to work on a certain day.  Yet, you are expected to so if you are serious about working online you have to work even if you ‘aren’t feeling up to it’.  It will get better, and those long hours will be worth more in the end, and as you keep it up, it does become a lot easier.
• Topics you may not be interested in.  Most of the time you don’t get to pick and choose what you are writing about.  At times you may find a topic boring, or downright dreadful (admittedly some of us do get lucky).

It’s not a job field for everyone, and you really need a lot of time to invest and dedication to the work.  When you are looking for a source of income online, remember the adage: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Now, don’t get me wrong for all I know this is something else.  This is all merely something I just noticed and am incredibly uncertain about, see below and judge for yourself.  Normally I don’t write these kinds of articles here, and it admittedly has bothered me enough.  Considering that this ad is normally on this website, I’m putting this here to basically say: Buyer beware.

There is this ‘University’ (well, claimed to be university) that advertises a lot on my websites.  I finally was curious enough to Google them, and lo and behold I found Yelp reviews and they are all incredibly positive.  I read all of them and got to to bottom where it wanted me to verify I wasn’t a robot to see the rest of the reviews.

Last I checked it wasn’t indeed a robot, so I entered the code to reveal the rest of the comments, thinking of course they were simply older and less relevant.

What did it show?

All the negative reviews.

Strange I must add, mainly due to the ‘Review Filter’  heading they have (completely copy/pasted from the website):

Review Filter – Huh?

Yelp has an automated review filter to keep the site’s content as useful and trustworthy as possible. Read More

Erm, but the reviews that were filtered out were the negative reviews.

Before:

5 Star Review:

I have graduated from **** in 2005 and highly recommend it. I am thinking about going back for a Master’s degree in Internet Marketing. Full Sail is one of the best entertainment / arts schools in the world with cutting edge equipment and technology. It can be a very hard school, and therefore a lot of people badger the name when they don’t make it past the core classes. It won’t guarantee you a job, but it will give you all the tool and resources to launch your career in one of the most fascinating industries. Be ready to work very hard.

And:

5 Star Review:

****actually invests in giving each student industry relevant technology to work on that will still be relevant after graduation. My wife ended up dropping out, now she’s going to start at Full Sail in March I believe. She’ll be in Computer Animation, and from what the course adviser said they get even more cool toys than what we get, so that she can scan illustrations and such. I don’t think any competitor does that. Your stuck with whatever computer you had before enrolling, so
everybody is using different technology, which skews performance towards those with the most money. The instructors are definitely good, too. Although I can’t compare to any other online or physical colleges, everybody seems to be working in the field they teach.

Basically the whole comment was how you would be getting a super awesome laptop and some considerably expensive programs.  Okay, well sure no problem.

A lot of schools do that.  Some high schools as well, I sort of understand the logic behind it (really just to level the playing ground and all) but either way the whole review was just… off.  It basically made it sound as if getting new gadgets was the only fantastic part.

I do get that, and can see how it’s a bonus, but for the most part anything relevant to the educational part was.. light.

After the filter turned off:

1 Star Review:

I was a potential student for the online graphic design degree program.  I am a veteran at which my school is being taken care of by the Veteran’s Administration so the only thing I needed to do was find a school.  I have to say that I was very impressed by their website but I was extremely unimpressed by the admissions, financial aid department.  I practically did all the paperwork to include FAFSA but when I did have a question I would never get a return phone call or email.  after a week of no responses I went somewhere else, but usually when schools know I am a guarantee student and the money is for sure they bend over backwards, it was major red flags for me when a school lacks communication because if they can’t get back to me now for simple forms I doubt they are much help once I am a student.  So I have to say  def looks the part but acting it is a whole other story.

And:

1 Star Review:

The production company I work for was looking for graduate cadidates [sic] and we reviewed a couple people from ***. Each of them had completed a degree program but their reels were surprisingly paper thin and the work were only so, so. I heard **** charges $72,000 now, I could use that money, make my own movie and learn more myself. How the hell did they to graduate? Watch out for institutions that are in the business of making money not education.

While those are only two examples picked out, there are others from students and whatnot as well.

To get (finally) to the point, does yelp hide the negative reviews?  After all, if someone is just doing a very quick search, they are fairly unlikely to enter the captcha.  It has a noindex for the bots out there so they cannot ‘see’ the page.  However, the before view (before the captcha) doesn’t (I’ve checked), so all bots can read are those glowing bits and pieces.

Anyone can start a business.  It’s easy; write out a few things, set up a website and domain and you are good to go.  Really, even the out of pocket expense is minimal.  One can easily find $10 hosting with a domain, and with that comes a large abundance of business ventures.

Due to this easy nature, there are of course a lot of business out there vying for customers.  Most will sink quickly, and others may falter a bit but still succeed, or maybe if there is a lot of luck at play they will succeed right off the bat and keep growing.

Having a good business, is a huge undertaking. One may be tempted to buy into one of the many fly by night operations or even employ some shady business practices, but that would signal the death knell fairly quickly. Especially considering that many of the shadier practices will do little more than alienate any customers you already have.

While there is no ‘secret’ to a business’ success, at least nothing guarded by armed men and only told to a select few, a surprisingly large portion of people will quickly become frustrated and turn to a fairly shady avenue that they may hope will bring them success.

So, what is the solution?

Patience:

It takes time to get a business to grow.  If your product or service is worth it, it will be able to last, of course you do need good marketing methods in place and some tenacity as well,

Effort:

The more effort you put into your business the more you are giving it a chance, don’t simply ‘set it and forget it’ but work on it, write up blog posts and refine your overall networking, social, and marketing approaches.

Customer Service:

It don’t take too much to lose customers and faith in your business.  Heck, a simple search can reveal a lot.  Good customer service and an approach based on the customer and their satisfaction can help you get further than anything shady can.  A good customer will stick around and come back.

1) Answer your phone.

2) Don’t make promises unless you WILL keep them.

3) Listen to your customers.

4) Deal with complaints.

5) Be helpful – even if there’s no immediate profit in it.

6) Train your staff (if you have any) to be ALWAYS helpful, courteous, and knowledgeable.

7) Take the extra step.

(Source: About.com)

I’d like to add in: Believe in your product. No matter what it is, if it is something you aren’t sure about yourself, you shouldn’t be selling it.  No matter if it is anything from furniture to eBooks, if it isn’t of any actual use- avoid it.

In a nutshell: If it is something you wouldn’t use, or even believe in- don’t push it to others.

What would you like to see in a business?  Is there something that should be avoided (or even encouraged) that isn’t mentioned? Tell about it in the comments!

Working online with a primary focus on blogging, more specifically, for the last few years has taught me a bit about the business end of it.  Considering I’m also a freelancer, finding and securing those jobs that help me pay all my bills is obviously an important factor.

I can wholly admit, I never intended to be a blogger, let alone a freelancer.  It had never occurred to me that I could even make money online, especially a livable income.  I did enjoy writing even though most of my earlier bits were considerably shorter than my present standard of about 300 words (or more).  While I did enjoy it, I wasn’t in need of a job until some of life’s little things came my way at once and I had mounting bills and other financial problems that needed to be taken care of.  At the time, I did turn to the internet and found a few editing and writing gigs that I had thought would be only temporary.

Of course that was also about 4 years ago, and I’m still working in writing.  I wound up falling in love with the hours, and the ability to work wherever I wanted, with no real ‘set-times’.  Getting started is harder now it seems that it was when I started, but once you get the ball rolling jobs will come easier.

Setting up your own website for writing, and potentially impressing a prospective client isn’t easy and you will need to work on a few basics before getting into the full swing of things.  Once you do however, all that work will be more than worth it.

Read:

Read other blogs in your intended niche.  While you do not want to copy them at all, it can help to see what voices are already out there are see what you can add to the discussion.  If you have an inspiring thought that you think should be said, write down the general idea for the next step.

Write:

Consider first your topics and intended audience, and think up a few entries to get you started.  Write out at least 10 or so full posts before your launch, and write and polish them until they are the best they can be.  While you don’t have to use them all immediately, it really helps to have that cushion in case you won’t be able to post on a few days or so.

Design:

Having a special design for your blog can help create a more memorable feel for it.  While it doesn’t have to be too fancy, it does help.  Make sure it is what you are looking for as switching constantly typically can make you look unprofessional and chaotic.  Your design can set the tone for the rest of your website, so think long and hard about it.  It should fit nicely into the theme of your website, and while it doesn’t need to be overblown or outrageous, a nicely designed website can really help out and work wonders.  At times, the perfect design will be unique and mesh well to the point of not really being noticed.

Research:

A fair portion of the typical blogger’s time is spent on research.  From chasing stories to looking up relevant links to add to those stories.  It’s not the easiest thing for a good portion of the time, but the more consistent research you put into your writing, the more knowledgeable you will be.  Being knowledgeable is a good chuck of where your readership will grow from.

Learn:

It’s the same with anything that can payoff, it really is a continuous learning process.  If someone offers you advice, it may be wise to take it under consideration.  Be it through contacts, or comments- constructive criticism will help you grow not only as a writer, but as a blogger as well.

Keywords are important sure, but a lot of times they are avoided or just glossed over due to confusion or being pressed for time.  Having automatic tools is helpful, but actually finding some good ones with the thousands available is a imposing job.  Below you will find 5 automatic keyword tools that are easily available and free (because if you are anything like me, you can really get behind the whole ‘free’ thing).

Keywords can be useful little things, by helping out your search results or even just looking for an idea for a blog post.  At times, just looking at a list of related terms can help out immensely.

Wordpot

Wordpot has some interesting extras, while just like all of the others on this list it will give you keywords, it will also give you the exact amount a word was searched on the day you search spanning different search engines).  It also gives you related terms to help, associated words, definitions, and synonyms.

They have some subscription based services, and free account creation.  They are fairly new in the market and seem to be adding more services soon.  They are more advertising driven, with an intent of helping those who are looking into search engine marketing keyword tools.

Visit Website: Wordpot

Wordstream

Wordstream has some really useful free extras aside from the generated keywords.  A fairly nice service is their grouped keywords tool, which allows you to paste your top terms and will give you related broad terms, that narrow down further.   They also have some other informative and free tools available to the public (and you don’t have to sign up).  One of the more interesting tools is their Negative Keyword tool which advices you on which terms to avoid.

Altogether they seem to have a fairly good and robust suite of tools for the public’s use.

Visit Website: Wordstream

Wordtracker

Wordtracker will give you 100 free keywords, and some articles to help you boost your knowledge.  If you aren’t looking for much more than that it may suit your needs.  If you however want anything more, you will need to shell out a bit.

This tool would be best for someone just looking for words alone without any bells or whistles (keep in mind that this article is focusing on the free).

Visit Website: Wordtracker

Google Adwords Keyword Tool

If you have heard the term ‘Keyword’ you have almost assuredly heard of Google’s tool above.  They offer a ton of choices aimed at those looking for advertising options.  However when it comes to it’s keyword tool for other uses, it can be just as useful.  Being the most popular search engine around (and one of the most powerful companies) Google knows a few things about searching habits.

Visit Website: Google AdWords Keyword Tool

Google Search-Based Keyword Tool

Of course this tool can give you keywords and ideas based on them, but it can also tell you how robust your usage of those keywords are on your website.  It’s of course easy to use, and the results are based on actual searches for both what you enter and the related keywords.

Visit Website: Google Search-Based Keyword Tool

When looking for inspiration or a full logo don’t discount stock websites.  There are many very talented designers who use them and you may be able to find a perfect logo for your business.  Below is a gallery of a very small sampling from the very talented individuals at Stock Logo. `

It is just a very small sampling, all using the simple theme ‘Green’ just to give you an idea of the many amazing logos that can be found there.

Do you have a favorite? Admittedly, I’m personally partial to the bike to the left.

Simply click an image to start the slideshow:

I received a message not to long ago from a fairly disgruntled fellow blogger.  In short, they wanted to know why the bigger names out there don’t ‘share’ the market.

While I’m not one to speak for any others, the question did get me wondering.  If you are a new blogger, should you expect help?  When you were new did anyone help you?

There are a lot of bloggers out there, and while in a perfect world one could suppose that all the smaller websites would be helped by the larger sites, it really doesn’t happen (much).  Save for some very select times, even then it is usually more  of only a link and at times small quote.

While true, linking to other websites is a good way to get attention but it’s not the only way.  More than likely you won’t get help (if you should or not, is another question altogether), overall it’s one of the reasons I write about what I do here, to help get people started.

As for what kind of help the emailer was looking for, they didn’t say.  Obviously they meant more than a few how-to articles as you find at Paradox9, but if they were looking for a guest post, hand holding, or just some links I have no way of knowing. 

What kind of help should the bigger blogs give the smaller? Or should they just not help at all?

There is a school of thought that any traffic is ‘good traffic’, unfortunately it simply isn’t true.  There is both good traffic and unproductive traffic, and the SEO of your website will decide on which one you will ultimately receive.  If you are checking your search statistics and are finding that many are getting to your website after searching for unrelated terms to your business, you are suffering from not-so-great SEO.

Before you pull your hair out trying to figure out how to fix it, there are some simpler things you can do to help.  Some of those options are a bit more time intensive, but they are workable and will help you improve your relevant search rankings.  Before you continue, make sure to write out a lists of terms that you are looking to rank better for.

Start Now: This is an under-utilized but good choice.  If you have a lot of content and a lot of visits that you don’t want to lose start writing posts now geared towards correct SEO.  Use keywords properly and often, the list you made can also serve to give you some post ideas.

Rewrite: If you don’t have too much in the way of content already on your blog, you can seriously consider just rewriting your present content with the keywords you listed in mind.

Start Over: Consider starting over only if you feel that your website is truly hopeless.  Generally speaking, this should be only used if there are absolutely no other options,  this option used far more often than it really needs to be.

Constantly updated content is the key to better rankings and more popularity with the search engines. By incorporating your main keywords into your posts, the search engines will see them and you will rank better.

Friendgiftr is a new company with its roots directly traced to social media and social networking, the  inspiration behind it came from the virtual gifting applications in websites like Facebook (where you can use real world money to give friends little images of various things).

It is interesting to see what companies come up with to integrate real world things into the virtual networks and while there may be some vaguely similar things out there, it’s Friendgiftr’s full integration of real world and virtual interaction that makes it stand out.  I recently had the chance to ask Friendgiftr’s CEO Rob Carpenter a few questions (found after the jump).

What originally inspired your idea for Friendgiftr?

Friendgiftr was actually inspired by the very early stage virtual goods phenomenon on Facebook. We realized that users were willing to pay $1 or more on fake cupcakes and smiley faces, and thought to ourselves, “why not allow people to send real goods, too?” The idea then grew from this to incorporate multiple social media sites, mobile devices, and other forthcoming innovative shopping channels.

If you do give someone a gift card, but they may prefer another- are there any options for them?

Absolutely. I’m glad you asked the question. We allow the customer to exchange the gift card given to them or split it across multiple merchants free of charge and without the buyer knowing. It’s a really neat solution so that they giver gives what they want and the receiver gets what they want. It’s a win-win for everybody.

What do you think makes Friendgiftr different from the ’other’ gift card merchants out there?

Friendgiftr is the first e-commerce 2.0 company, meaning we enable people to buy in new contexts and on new platforms. Whether it’s bringing brand name e-commerce to Facebook or to the iPhone, Friendgiftr is transforming the shopping experience in profoundly creative ways. While we know we won’t be the only ones doing this for long, we’re happy to say that we’ve pioneered the social media and mobile e-commerce spaces. We’re also hoping to lead the way in developing many new angles for shoppers to make purchases in the future, too.

What are your goals for Friendgiftr for the future (anything you may like to add to the website, new things in the works, etc)?

We can’t strategically or tactically say where we’re going next, but we can say is that we’re expanding very aggressive both vertically and horizontally, and will have some major announcements that will have some pretty big implications.

Is there anything else you may like to add or say?

E-commerce is changing in real-time, and there will be many new exciting opportunities from many businesses for customers to shop more quickly, conveniently, and securely than ever before. We’re happy to be among the first to help re-define the industry in the new decade, and hope that many more companies join the movement. Shoppers are going to have a lot of really great choices in the coming months and years.

Check Them Out: You can also check out the available apps here: Friendgiftr Apps

Sure, anyone can have content.  It’s really not too difficult to throw together some words and call it a day.   Looking around the internet, it’s why there are so many people blogging and on social networks, they enjoy the attention and being able to be seen for saying something.  Inherently that is one of the issues, there is a lot of ‘something’ being said, but all in all very little content.

Anyone can tell you a bit about a ‘something’, however, being a good blogger or even a great blogger is a whole other ballgame.

Readers will know if you call it in, and most people don’t have much of an A game at first.  Let alone a consistent A Game.   Yet, most advice articles on blogging and internet writing in general, will tell you that daily posts are important.

Sure, they are, and while this blog is far from daily it’s due to the Editor (wonderful writing-type that I am) not wanting to post every little mundane thing that pops into her head.  Besides, I have a lot of other blogs for that kind of thing anyway.

Having great content may not mean consistently updates, let alone daily content, eventually you may get there. but having great content means having good copy and if you don’t have at least that, you may not get far.

Especially when you are starting out, you need to be able to develop a rhythm and have consistent sounding posts.  By that I mean, avoid frantically updated just for the sake of updating filler posts. Don’t even worry about updating daily, even once a week or a month is better than having a lot of filler.

At first my own posts were 95% filler, and well my visits were nothing.  Literally, nothing.  Zero.

I kept up however and while when I started the mere thought of 250 words per post was ridiculous to me but, I still kept at it.  Now, that is a small article and on average 500 words is about the norm for me.

Can you get there?

Sure, there’s no reason not.  It’s a lot of work, and you do need to keep at it and keep posting.  If you have to- post on a program like notepad (personally, I use Windows Live Writer but there are tons of different options out there).  Save it when you feel like you may start losing steam and post again when you are feeling better.

It’s not for everybody, at first it is a lot of work.  It actually outright sucks at times, but it’s perfectly possible for most people to get there.

Even if your topics are all over the place, sometimes it may even help to find a topic you love and stick with it.  Sometimes all over the place works, but often it doesn’t.   Find your passions and write about them.  For this very website, I write about making it as an artist or writer online.  Truthfully, it’s become my thing and I love it.  While I may not post everyday, my rankings are still growing regardless.

So to get right to the point; the ‘secret’ to having great content?  Keep at it.  While that isn’t something that most people want to hear, the best way to get there.  Admittedly, it isn’t much of a secret at all and in fact it’s the one thing people aren’t looking to hear.  It is, however the best way to get there and the only way to really stand a chance.