Pros and cons of working from home through the internet

Making a living out of the Internet presents several advantages and disadvantages. Before you decide to quit your job, postpone your studies, or take that big step towards relying solely on internet opportunities for a living, here are a few things to consider.

Is working online easy money?

Expect that you will have to work hard for it. How much you earn and how quickly your income grows will depend on the amount of time and effort. With the right opportunities, however, it will be worth your time. Expect to find many challenges and disappointments along the way. Expect that it won’t be easy, especially on your first few months. If you hear of people who earn more than $1000 a month, then I assure you that they deserve it.

Is working online free?

In most occasions, yes. You don’t have to spend anything to earn money online. Aside from the monthly fees for internet access of course. If you do have money to spend, or if you have already started earning from online work, you might consider buying your own domain name and hosting.

What are the advantages of working online?

Flexible time and schedule. In most cases, you will be in control of your own time. That means you won’t have to follow the 8 hour day shifts of regular employees.

Higher pay rate by the hour. Compared to the local rates of third world and developing countries such as the Philippines, the hourly pay rate of online work is much higher. For example, as of October 2008, the daily minimum wage if you work for eight hours is at less than $6. Honest to say, you can get that in only a few hours. A 200 word blog entry for opportunities from sites such as SocialSpark.com, SponsoredReviews.com, and PayPerPost.com runs at around $5-$10 per blog post. But of course, the number of articles you can write is dependent on the number of opportunities currently available.

Income grows with time. The cap in potential income associated with working for a company doesn’t apply for income generation through blogging, referrals, and advertising. The more quality content you have written, the farther your reach, in terms of number of visitors per month, will be. It takes time, but your past efforts will serve as your foundation to increasing your income potential. Presence builds on presence.

Passive income. In a sense, your website or your blog will serve as an extension of yourself. Once you’ve had it set up and once you’ve established a steady stream of traffic flowing from search engines, you can earn passive income through advertising and referrals. A great way to do this would be to first build content and traffic without the advertisements to build credibility, then when you have reached your quota, of, say, at least 100 unique visitors per day, you start displaying ads such as Google Adsense or let other companies rent a space on your site.

Be your own boss. You don’t have to work under anyone. You just have to work for yourself. Even if I do get project requests from other companies, none of them is my boss. You can be your own company, and instead of having bosses, you will have clients.

No diplomas, no degrees required. Students, graduates, working adults, even senior citizens can earn money online. Most of the time, you won’t be assessed based on your academic achievements. Remember that this doesn’t mean that earning online is easy. Instead, it means that anyone can do it, but only with hard work and persistence.

What are the disadvantages of working online?

Low initial income. Unless you have gotten a client to start you up, then chances are, your first monthly income will be low. This is true for referral, affiliate, and advertising programs that depend on your site’s popularity and traffic. The more quality articles you publish on your site and the more you effort you spend on promoting it, the more income you will get.

Takes time to set up. The fruits of your labor may not come instantly. You may have to face delays in seeing results. For example, no matter how much effort you spend on promoting a website, it won’t have an immediate effect. Promoting your site through search engine optimization will usually give you the full effects in six months. For get-paid-to-blog-opportunities, they usually require your site to be at least 3 months old. Some opportunities require a minimum amount before you can cash out your payments, so you may wait for long.

Internet SCAMS and illegitimate companies. Let’s face it. Not all companies offering ways for you to earn money are legitimate. Before joining a program, try a search in Google of that company and add the word SCAM. For example, if you’re looking into aCertainCompany.com, then type “aCertainCompany.com SCAM” and hit the Search button. Chances are, someone has already tried the programs offered by that company and has already blogged about his or her experience. Be aware though, that not all companies labeled as SCAMs are actually scams. For example, one site I’m working with, Academia-Research.com, is labeled as SCAM on some of the blogs. But aside from the rare occasions of delay in receiving payment due to technical issues, they have always paid me in full for all my work done.

Tempting to give up school, or work. If you are already confident and already get the hang of working from home on the internet, then you can decide whether or not you’d like to consider quitting from your regular work. I suggest that if you still have no solid experience on working online, then keep your job as a fallback plan.

For students, I suggest you continue and finish your course and get a diploma. Academic education is still important. If you manage your time well, you can do good in school and still be able to earn money online.