Friday, March 8, 2013

Make Free Printable Candy Bar Wrappers and Earn Money


I find free cute printables very amusing.  So I decided to make my own website of free cute printable chocolate candy bar wrappers.  

They look like this!


The goal is to make these cute printables and share them for free, and at the same time earn some extra money from Google Adsense.  I made chocolate wrappers for different occasions: birthday, graduation, thank you, fathers day, etc.  You can just imagine the fun I was having while I was making the wrappers.  All you really need is a template and you just change the graphics and the text.
 
I came up with an idea to make inspirational candy wrappers.  I love this theme!  It is so fun to give a chocolate bar to somebody with an inspirational saying on the wrapper.

And I love thank you chocolate wrappers too!  Can you imagine someone giving you a chocolate bar with cute thank you on the wrapper?  Isn’t that sweet?



And I made some funny birthday candy bar wrappers like this!


I called my website www.cutecandywrappers.net.  It earns money from Google Adsense.  How? When people view my candy wrappers, see the Google Ad around it, become interested in the ad and click on it, Google pays money.  Google shares its revenue from its advertisers with the website owner, which in this case is me.   And Google automatically puts ad content that’s related to the topic so it’s attractive to the viewers.

I made my candy wrappers in Word Format to make it easy for people to add in whatever text they like.  And I made the wrappers to fit the standard regular size chocolate bar.  Each chocolate bar wrapper is cute and unique.  People print the wrapper, wrap it over their chocolate bar and give it away as a gift.

This is what I meant on my blog earlier that as you expand your horizons, you will discover many venues to earn money online.  The important thing is to stick to what you enjoy, make it simple and stay focused.

Earn Money at Home Just by Writing Very Simple Stuff


Yesterday I mentioned that I submitted articles for websites which continue to generate money till now.  I tried several websites but the ones I became most active on are Triond, Bukisa and Xomba.  I wrote mostly about recipes and cooking, then later on concentrated more on writing lists of ideas.  Why do I like writing lists? Well for me lists are very helpful to people, and no two lists are alike.  So this makes you unique and more valuable, because your content is different from the rest.

I wrote about practical lists of potluck ideas.  I also mentioned that I like cute stuff so I wrote (and still continue to write) lists of cute name ideas, cute username ideas, cute nicknames etc.  This may seem to be a very insignificant topic to many, but in reality it is popular as many people search for this topic on Google.

I write lists, people read them, some readers become interested in the surrounding Google Ad, click on it, and it generates money.  That is the simple concept. 

If it is that simple, why can’t everybody earn money from Google Adsense?

For me there are several reasons:

First, when you are passionate in what you’re doing, you put more thought into it and dedicate time.  You strive to make your article full of good content.  You are very careful in the keywords you write, in how you title your articles, in how you link your articles so you gain more viewers, etc.

Second, it depends on your motivation.  The rate of return is very slow.  Many people get discouraged when they see their articles earning only a few cents.  To them it eventually means a waste of time and therefore they stop pursuing it altogether.  I have been a victim of this mentality too.  Even though I liked what I was doing, in the beginning I was discouraged by the little amount of money I received for all my efforts.  Eventually though as I learned to “branch out” and think wider, more opportunities came which increased the income. 

Third, finding the right topic to write about is very challenging.  How do you really know what topics are popular? The best thing to write about is a topic that you know and enjoy.

Forth, many people think they have to have professional writing skills in order to write online articles.  This is not true.  I can attest to it because I am not a professional writer.  I just write simple articles but with content that’s both fun and helpful to people.

When I mentioned about “branching out” earlier, what I meant is aside from submitting articles for websites, I realized there are many other venues of earning money online through Google Adsense.  I still stick to my passion which is “cute”.  The doors just opened one by one.  First, I created a website offering free printable cute candy wrappers. Oh that was so fun! I will talk about it in detail next.

Thursday, March 7, 2013

How to Earn Money From Home

Hi Moms and everyone!

Let’s face it, most of us moms are multi-tasking endlessly day by day.  Not only we do need to raise the kids and fulfill household duties, we also need to go out and make a living.  At the end of the day there’s very little time left for anything else.

And there’s a tiny problem here many of us face: we still need to find ways to earn extra money, because the income is just not enough!

In the past, I used to search online “how to make extra money at home”.  So many ideas were listed, such as making and selling crafts, being a Virtual Assistant, direct marketing, etc.  For me it was hard to get into something that wasn’t truly my passion.  And it’s equally hard if it didn’t fall under my natural ability.  I’m a shy person so I didn’t want to sell to people.  My craft making abilities are average, not professional level, so I knew selling crafts would be tough with all the competition going around.

I kept on searching what I truly wanted to do on the side. Something that’s fun and I would enjoy, and at the same time earn some money from it.  As the years passed I discovered what they were.  And I discovered there could be multiple ways of earning.

There are too many things I want to share that I don’t know where to start!

Okay, so the most important thing I learned is think simple and focus!  I was thinking of too many complicated things, not realizing what I needed was just in front of me.  Just my computer. 

I joined article-writing sites not really knowing what I was going to write.  I am not a professional writer, I can only write in “mom’s lingo”.   But I took courage and started writing about things I know: cooking and baking.  I wrote the family recipes, some tips, etc.  Then as I was writing about food, potluck entered my mind and I started making lists of potluck ideas.  I published my list of potluck ideas and to my surprise the article gained so many views. 

Therefore I realized that writing about what I know and giving away ideas actually help a lot of people.  So then another thing popped into my mind: if I can write about potluck ideas, then for sure there are other topics I could also share ideas on.  But what are those popular topics that people actually want and I actually know?  That got me into thinking.  I asked myself, what are the things I like?  I realized, even if I’m a mom of 2 already, I still like cute stuff.  Anything cute.  Whether it’s something I can hold, something I can see, or even something that I can hear.  Out of the blue, “cute names” entered my mind.  So I thought..hmmm why not make a list of cute username ideas? Isn’t that what many people are looking for?

So I started making my first list of cute username ideas.  I called it “99 Cute Usernames” and I published it on Bukisa.  Whoa! I was startled at how many people viewed my article.  Thousands of them.

I was so excited so I wrote and published more lists of cute username ideas.  It was fun.
 
So why did I keep on mentioning about this random article-writing thing?  It’s because I learned that this is a way of making money through Google Adsense.  When people read your article and click on the Google Ad surrounding it, the owner of the website shares the revenue with you.  So I earned a few cents per article.  And the cents added up to become dollars.  Then I received my cheque from Google Adsense and I was so happy!  Every month when you reach $100 Google will send you payment.  Now, 3 years later I still earn from those articles that I wrote years ago.  So it has become a passive income or what they call a residual income.  

I know you’re wondering how much I’m earning from the articles.  It varied from month to month, year to year, but I can say that the average now is $100 per month.  It may or may not seem a lot to you.  To me I’m pleased with it because it’s money earned every month whether I write or not.  And the good thing is it has potential to grow.

If it sounds interesting to you, you can give it a try too!  There is no harm.  Think about what you like and write about it.   Professional writing skills is not required.  Of course there has to be good grammar and correct spelling.  But just write like you’re having a conversation with other moms.  It’s fun!

Next I will write about the sites I joined and the experiences and lessons I learned along the way.

Goodnight and take care!  Till next time.