Blogs are here to stay, and many Wahms are taking advantage of the trend. Making money with blogs is a popular choice for many work at home moms. Blogs are simple to set up, and relatively easy to update. This is especially true when you compare blogs to other types of websites. Within just a few minutes, you can set up a professional looking blog for free and start your Wahm blogging business.
A blog is an easy to update website that looks sort of like a journal. Entries are made at a minimum of each week, and the newest entries appear at the top. Entries are normally short articles of 200 to 500 words. Readers visit the blog or read the new blog entries through a blog reading program. Readers can also comment on entries and provide links between their own blogs and your blog.
With blogs, the opportunities are wide open. Choosing a blog topic is as easy as looking at your own life for inspiration. There are blogs about everything from celebrity news to bathroom cleaning tips. Before you start a blog, do some research on the Internet to see if people are interested in your possible blog topic. Your topic doesn’t have to be popular, but it does have to have a dedicated group of people who are interested in the topic.
When you pick a topic, make sure to stay within a fairly small “niche.” The term niche is used to describe a group of people who have a similar interest. There are big niches – like working at home – and small niches – like tips for training your cat to sit on the toilet. Try to find a happy medium between a popular topic and a niche interest so your blog has plenty of readers. Some topics, like working at home or parenting, are too broad and have too much competition for readers.
You can set up your blog through a free blogging platform, like www.blogger.com or www.wordpress.com. There are also a half dozen others to choose from. The blogging platform will walk you through making your first entry into your blog.
After you’ve made a few entries into your blog, its time to monetize your blog. This means you’ll be making specific changes to your blog in order to make money. One of the most popular ways to gain income from a blog is by using a contextual advertising program, like Google Adsense or Chitika. Contextual advertising pays you for each time a reader clicks on one of the advertising links on your page. The advertising program will scan your blog entries for keywords, and then place advertising on your page that relates to your page content.
For example, if you have a blog on children’s television and write an article about Sesame Street, the ads appearing next to that article will have to do with that program. They might be links to shopping for Sesame Street items, or an ad for vintage Sesame Street collectables selling on ebay.
One thing to note with contextual advertising is that you won’t have to worry about placing the ads yourself each day. Once you enter the code on your blog, the program will automatically refresh the advertising when you make a new post. You will be paid several cents for each click. It doesn’t seem like a lot per click, but it sure does add up quickly.
Contextual advertising is just one way to make money from your Wahm blog. You can also make product recommendations and suggest information products (e-books) to your readers. Each time someone buys a product you recommend, you will get a commission. Many bloggers find that making gentle product recommendations throughout their blogs are a way to garner extra income.
Finally, some companies will pay bloggers to create posts that suggest certain products or services. These companies pay a few dollars per post, and are fairly easy to use. The only drawback is that you’ll have advertising posts throughout your blog content. However, many bloggers have found a way around this by putting “And now a word from our sponsers” at the beginning of each of their required advertising posts. This helps the advertising appear less intrusive.
Many Wahms find work at home opportunities with virtual call centers. These call centers marry two important needs: the needs for women to work out of the home and the need for companies to have polite and professional telephone customer service representatives. Virtual call centers help both the business and the work at home mom.
Wahms are hired as customer service agents to inbound callers. They use their own home phone and computer to do their work, and are networked into the company’s customer service system.
Virtual call centers are growing in popularity. Today there are roughly 100,000 people working at home in the United States, and many of them work for virtual call centers. It is estimated that by 2010 there will be 300,000 work at home individuals. Virtual call centers allow large companies to save money by hiring people to work out of their homes. There is also a low turnover rate for work at home jobs, which makes it beneficial for the company to hire Wahms.
Call center Wahms enjoy their jobs because there is a flexibility that they just don’t get when working outside of the home. Most call centers allow their customer service agents to schedule their own work hours. This can be a great convenience to a mother who needs to arrange her work times around their child’s naps and/or school hours.
Getting started as a virtual call center customer service representative is fairly easy. There are currently over 1,000 companies in the U.S. who hire people to work from home, and most of them are virtual call centers. You’ll need a computer with a high-speed Internet connection and reliable landline phone. You’ll also need a quiet place to work. Beyond those things, there is nothing else that you need to be a successful virtual call center worker.
Applying for a call center position normally follows the same method. You visit the company’s website and fill out their online application. If your application meets their standards, the company will e-mail you to arrange a phone interview. The phone interview is your chance to show them your assets as a telephone customer service rep. Schedule your phone interview for a time when you know your house will be quiet. Answer your phone in a professional manner and keep a light and friendly tone to your speaking. As a customer service rep, you’ll be challenged to sound helpful and agreeable on the phone at all times so this is your chance to display your communication skills.
You may also be required to pass a typing, writing and computer skills test on the company’s website. This will be used to test your ability to do the basic functions of the job. In some cases, you may also need to pass a drug and background screening as well before you are hired.
Once you are hired, the company will have you download a piece of software that will analyze your computer. This analysis will tell you what you need to do to your computer to make it usable in their network. Most of the time, you’ll just need to update a few programs and add the virtual call center’s website to favorites folder.
Typically, your calls will be scripted so you’ll never have to worry about what you have to say. The most successful customer service representatives take some time to practice their script so it sounds more conversational and less like they are reading. If you want to succeed in the long term, it’s well worth the effort to make your script sound conversational. Think about the worst experience you had with calling a company’s customer service department and then do the opposite.
Working for a virtual call center is not for everyone. However, the Wahms that are self-starters and have the requirements to work the job enjoy the steady paychecks and flexibility of working as a telephone customer service representative from out of the home.
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