Want to know the online job that is easy, flexible and makes good money?
I might be biased but the best online job for stay-at-home moms, full-time workers or even college students is freelance writing.
I’ve been a freelance writer for almost six years now, and I have twins also! When I landed my first work from home job, I knew I didn’t want to do anything else. It was a freelance job and I loved it.
It paid me good money, and over time I picked up more gigs and now I am able to do this full-time!
To help you start working from home and make some income online, I’ll first share the best online job sites for you, then share my story, go into the different types of online work from home jobs and simple steps to start.
5 Online Jobs Sites for 2021
So, is it that easy to get started? Just look at a job board online and you can gain a gig online?
It can be. Check out these legit and safe online job sites – some may be new to you!
1. Indeed
Indeed’s online job board is one of the most popular sites out there. With thousands of typing jobs, editing jobs, writing jobs, and other work from home jobs, you can’t go wrong with using Indeed.
2. Glassdoor
Glassdoor is a platform where they combine jobs, company reviews and job salaries. Big brands post on Glassdoor including TV networks, magazines and big box stores.
3. Krop
Krop is mostly a portfolio website but they do have freelance jobs and creative jobs to help you work from home. Most of the online jobs on this site are for design work, often from well-known brands.
4. LinkedIn
Linkedin is a social media platform for professionals. Much like Facebook, you can create a profile, join LinkedIn groups and connect with others in your industry.
LinkedIn also has a job section and will soon have a marketplace to help people find the right online job for them.
5. Robert Half
Robert Half is a requirement agency and helps people find their dream job. This job site has dozens of jobs, so it’s worth checking it out every few days.
To search for only online jobs make sure to toggle on remote jobs.
My Story of Finding Working From Home Jobs Online
There is a lot of information about how to find work from home jobs or how to apply to them. I want to share my experience and help you navigate this path if you want to be a freelance writer.
My twins were around 15 months old when I decided I needed to find a way to contribute to our finances. At first, I looked locally.
I made some flyers and went to houses to offer my services as an ABA therapist for children with autism.
While I met some great families, the travel alone took most of my day. This meant I was away from my twins and my husband – who also works from home – couldn’t spare the time every day to watching the twins.
So, for me to work, I had to have daycare.
But, daycare costs would just eat up any money I earned from ABA therapy. So, it didn’t make sense for me to do that.
I needed to find a way to work from home with online jobs that pay well.
I learned from other mom bloggers they were dabbling in online writing. They would write for other blogs or businesses and get paid. Sweet! This could work for me, I thought.
But then I started thinking, how do I know if this job is legit?
From the pitching I was doing and the places I found online jobs, I had to weed out scams and research companies to find legitimate online jobs.
Once I figured it out, I landed my first job as a writer within months. I was ecstatic.
I know I could work from home if I kept landing more work. Over time I increased my rate, picked my writing niche and landed fabulous clients. These were definitely easy online jobs that I could do while my twins napped.
Now, I help others like you get started as a freelance writer and I also started new projects like more blogs!
So, if you’re interested, I’ll share with you how to get started.
What is an Online Job?
An online job is something you do as a self-employed basis. It’s similar to remote online jobs where you work from home, but many remote work job positions are with a company, and are therefore an employer of that company but working from home.
These jobs you can do online typically mean you are self-employed and you work for yourself. You are an independent contractor. You can have multiple online jobs and freelance your work to different online companies. In that respect, online remote jobs is similar to freelance jobs.
Different Types of Work From Home Jobs You Can Do Online
How can you tell whether all of these are legitimate and if these jobs pay well?
Personally, I would do my due diligence in researching the companies that are hiring and even check Reddit to see if there is some chatter about certain types of online jobs.
Since I’m a freelance writer, I rely on the job boards that I trust as well as connecting with the business.
You might see the income potential for some of these jobs, but make sure to check the reviews for these companies.
So transcription work may turn out to be a low paying online job, but if it’s flexible and you can do this with having a little one running around, it’s something to consider.
Do you enjoy texting?
Maybe you can do chat support for businesses.
Customer service is a huge online job industry, and you can decide to pick up this micro job while your baby naps. While you can’t make a living off of this, it is a quick win and a flexible idea if that is what you want.
By far, the most popular online work for people are teaching and tutoring. Later we’ll explore this gig to see if this is what you want!
More Placees To Look for Online Jobs from Home
For more traditional job sites for the best online jobs that pay well, check these out.
- Career Builder – This is also a huge job board to find online work
- Monster – Another popular and one of the first online job sites available. You can view listings, post your resume and find out about companies to help you figure out which online job would be a good fit
- Creative Circle – This is a recruitment site with freelance jobs. They offer many different types of jobs like project management, copywriting, and UX product jobs and more.
Many of these online job sites are different than the freelance writing job boards I visited when I first started. If you are interested in strictly content writing or online writing, try checking out these job boards.
These sites curate writing jobs from all over and many are good quality, good paying, and can lead you to the path of making a living as a writer.
- Problogger – This is the most popular job site for online writers. Every day there are more content jobs in all types of niches. From pet writing to SEO writing to lifestyle writing and more, you can find an online job easily.
- Freelance Writing – This job board curates writing jobs from several other job sites. I find this cuts my time in half when I can just go to one job board to find several freelance writing jobs.
- All Freelance Writing – What I like about this job site is that the owner tells you if the online job is low pay, semi-pro, or pro. This can help you gauge the quality and pay of the writing gig.
- Contena – This is a job board with high-paying writing jobs. I find this job site to have the best quality gigs and I can choose my niche and rate to find the exact jobs I want.
Online Teaching Jobs From Home
Okay, so maybe you want to explore online teaching jobs.
If you’re a teacher this is a great option for you.
These require you to have teaching experience and certification. For example, many online jobs require:
- TESOL, TEFL, CELTA, ESL certification
- BA or AA degree
- You to speak a different language (only teaching jobs)
- You to work certain hours – at night
- Tech equipment like a webcam, a computer, and headset
If you find some online teaching jobs that don’t require certification I would be cautious. Make sure to read the reviews if available.
Many reviews will let you know that to receive the pay that’s advertised you have to work long hours.
For example, this job ticks all the boxes as a good gig to apply to.
So, if you’re a teacher make sure the online job is legit.
Work From Home Online Tutoring Jobs
Another easy online job is tutoring.
Again, it’s important to have teaching certifications or at least a university degree.
These types of online jobs are primarily tutoring younger children or high school children. Many of these jobs are tutoring international students. This can open the doors to understanding cultural differences or learn how to provide tutoring using an online platform.
This, in turn, can help you as a tutor.
Many of these tutoring jobs:
- Supply you with the curriculum to tutor
- Supply the resources for your lessons
- Supply the training
What about Amazon?
Wondering,
How can I work for Amazon from home?
If this is something you’re interested in, please check out my post on Smart Mom Ideas and how to easily get stay at home jobs with Amazon.
What If You’re a College Student?
Many of the jobs mentioned are great online jobs for college students.
Since many of these jobs are flexible or have unconventional work times, this fits a college student’s schedule great. And for many high school and college students, tutoring is a natural fit.
However, many of these online jobs require certification, and if you don’t have that, you may want to find another job opportunity that doesn’t specify this requirement. But, as I mentioned previously, be cautious of those types of job opportunities.
Personally, if you opt for freelance writing, you don’t need any experience. You can get started without a degree or without having online work.
For example, for this freelance writing job as an automotive writer, the only big requirement is that they want a US-based writer.
So as a college student, you can still land some great online jobs, but maybe a content writing job might be a better fit overall.
What About Online Jobs for Teens?
It’s cool nowadays to have a side gig as a teen. Want to start a Youtube channel at 13? Go ahead.
Want to sell those felt flowers you’ve been making in your spare time at 16? Start an eCommerce site.
There are many different types of online jobs for teens besides these. Here are some other types of online jobs:
- Photographer – Enjoy taking pictures? Why not take some pictures and sell them online? You can start your own website and sell scenic photos or business type photos.
- Fiction writer – It’s easier than ever before to be a published author – at any age! An online job for teens is as simple as self-publishing a book and selling it on Amazon.
- Writing Jobs – did you know there are writing jobs for students? From video game writing to social media writing and more, get your writing on with this online job.
Which Jobs Can You Do Online?
Since Covid-19 hit, many brick and mortar businesses had to pivot and go online. But how do you do that if you are a restaurant or cut hair?
By thinking outside the box. Restaurants do online ordering and curb side drop-off. Beauty salons are ramping up with eCommerce side of their business and selling hair products.
If you want to get started with finding the jobs you can do online, I’m sure you can make anything workable online, but here are the most popular online jobs:
- Tutoring
- Writing
- Transcription
- Editing
- Proofreading
- Data entry (but is very low paying)
- Coaching
- Virtual assistant work
What Are the Best Online Jobs from Home that Pay $1,000/month?
I’m a little biased with this topic. For a fact, you can make more than $1,000/month with your writing.
Freelance writing, content writing or copywriting is very a legit and easy way to make $1,000 fast.
Can you make that much with online tutoring? Or doing online teaching? Yes, you can, but with anything it takes work and effort to get to that point.
There is no get rich quick online job for you. That would be a scam. The real sustainable jobs from home are ones that are recurring, part-time and are easy for you.
If you want to learn more about freelance writing, keep reading!
Best Work From Home Job Online
Wondering what are the best online jobs?
I think the best work from home job is freelance writing online jobs!
It’s a sustainable way to make money, not like a transcription job. And, if you land some great clients you can make a living off of this. A lot of my students found great success early on. But, to be a freelance writer, you need a presence online.
While finding online jobs don’t require you to have a website or social media profiles, a freelance writer does.
Why?
Because to make this a viable option to work from home indefinitely, you need an online presence. It’s much easier to create a writer website and have the writing jobs come to you!
It really is the easiest online job for beginners.
So, that’s why I’m a tad biased on freelance writing. 🙂
What You Need to Get Started
For jobs you can do from home, many require education, experience and time commitment to get started.
While they promote a flexible work option, to me, this isn’t freedom.
As a freelance writer, I can pick and choose my writing jobs. I can do this month after month, year after year and flex my writing muscles.
Teachers and college students can be freelance writers. If you love writing and love researching, you can be a freelance writer.
Make sure you have a business PayPal account before you begin looking for any online job.
To get started, here are the basics:
1. A Website
To make this a “real thing” it’s best to have a website that shows potential clients you are a legit writer. Here is my writer website:
My website speaks to my ideal client – native digital brands.
If a digital brand is seeking an online writer and happens to find my website, my copy shows them that I can be the writer for them.
If you need help starting your website, check out my simple tutorial.
2. A Writing Niche
Ideally, having a freelance writing niche can help you find work quickly as a work from home writer.
Definitively knowing that you want to be a pet writer or a food writer or a parenting writer makes it easier to find the right type of online job you want, right?
How do you find your niche?
I would look at your hobbies, your previous work experience or your passions and find some topics you might be interested in writing about.
Next, search on Google or on job boards, your topic to see if it’s a viable option.
For example, a lot of my subscribers mention the arts is a topic they want to write about.
Since my niche is small business, you can try to find art exhibitions or companies that supply the paint or art supplies to see if they have an online presence, a blog or a newsletter.
Or, you can write for magazines. This one – Visual Arts News – offers up to $250 per article.
3. Writing Samples
Look –
You’re not going to land a work from home writing job or remote writing job with no proof. While you don’t need experience to be a freelance writer, you do need proof you can write for an online audience.
Writing a blog post for your client is completely different than writing a blog post on your personal blog.
The blog posts on my blog – Elna Cain – are written as close to how I would write for my clients. The biggest difference is that my client pieces wouldn’t have “I” or a lot of my personal background story in them.
Instead, I would use facts and statistics in my writing.
If you need help with creating samples, make sure to check out this post on two unique ways you can quickly create samples.
Can I use fiction writing?
Many writers have short stories or books that they’ve written. You might be wondering if you can use these pieces of content for landing an online writing job.
Personally, I work with small businesses providing business type content. So, I know for my ideal client, they wouldn’t hire you if you provided a fictional story.
If you decide to be a ghostwriter for authors or businesses that want a ghostwriter for their book, then maybe showing your stories would help seal the deal.
Can I use writing from my current job?
Do you do some writing for your current job? Maybe you create reports or instructional manuals for your job.
You might be able to use these types of samples if your freelance writing niche is more tech-based writing. I would also get approval from your current job asking if you can use those as samples.
4. A Social Media Presence
Yes –
Another thing you need to start online writing is a social media presence. Again, you want to make writing a sustainable way to live, and to do this, you need to be “everywhere” online.
Simply having a Twitter profile and a LinkedIn profile is sufficient, though.
5. Know Where to Find Work From Home Writing Jobs
I mentioned some job boards for freelance writers in this post.
This is a great start. For more ideas, check out this post on 20 different ways to find a freelance writing job.
It is filled with the best, most up-to-date information regarding how to find a freelance work from home job easily.
You can also check out my free course. I show you the correct steps and give you tips and resources for finding your first client.
Online Jobs Questions You Might Have
This post isn’t that short and is packed with a lot of information on online jobs. But, you might be thinking of some other things that I haven’t covered. So I thought I would do a little online jobs FAQs for you!
1. What is the Best Online Job?
Now, if you read this post you know that I’m a tad biased! I think the best online job for moms, college students, part-time workers or just those fed up with working a traditional job is freelance writing.
You don’t need to have formal training or degrees for this online job. You can work at home and set your own schedule.
You write a blog post, or an email, or article or Facebook post and then you submit it to your client and they pay you! It’s that simple!
I’ve been doing this for many years and I work from home, my husband works from home and my twins are doing distance learning from home!
2. What is a Legit Online Job?
A lot of the online jobs job boards will have legit jobs and scam jobs. How can you tell?
Well, I would check out the company and any reviews about that company. Many job boards have a rating system to let you know the quality of that online job.
You can also type in the company + scam in Google to see if there is discussion about this company over on Reddit (an online forum).
3. How Do You Work For Amazon from Home?
I did talk about Amazon jobs a little bit in this post and then linked to my blog post over on Smart Mom Ideas on Amazon stay at home jobs.
There are many Amazon jobs you can do at home:
- AWS Partner Trainer – Amazon Web Services (AWS) is an online platform that is used by thousands of businesses all over the world. Your Amazon job would be to teach how to use this platform to those businesses.
- Solutions Architect – Here you will be designing and building computing systems for national security and public safety organizations.
- Migration Delivery Consultant – For this, you would help build Amazon’s Migration Delivery Competency center.
- K-12 Education Enterprise Account Manager – If you have a BA/BS and experience managing a pipeline in a CRM, you can land this online job.
Online Jobs So You Can Work From Home
Whether you apply to online jobs, or you pitch a freelance writing job, the goal is the same – to be able to work from home for good.
For more help with your online journey, check out my post on 18 online jobs for writers!
I started this journey over five years ago, and I was able to take care of my twin toddlers during the day and work at night.
My twins are in school now, and I’m doing still doing this part-time….because I can.
I’m sure you’ve been looking on the internet for jobs and have come across countless ways you can make money online. These online teaching and tutoring jobs can be a good fit, but they may not be sustainable over time.
Instead, why not try freelance writing? You don’t need a degree or experience 🙂
Over to you – tell me your experience with online jobs and freelance writing jobs.
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