Make Money with Transcription

There are a lot of people who look at making money through transcription.  These people image that this is something that isn’t that hard because honestly all you are doing is listening to some audio and typing it up.  When you look at it that way it doesn’t seem that hard.  The problem is that the whole concept of transcription is misleading because it is actually very hard and a very fickle mistress.

There are a lot of things you need to consider before you delve into the world of transcription.  These things include the type of transcription you are going to do, the equipment that you need, who you are working with and just how much you are actually going to be getting paid.

The Types of Transcription

When you think about the different types of transcription you will think that it’s all the same.  You listen and type.  This is not true and there are a number of different sub-sections of transcription that you have to know about.  There are legal transcriptionists, medical transcriptionists and general transcriptionists to name but a few.  The big difference between them is that the legal and medical people need to study.

Yes, you actually have to do a course or have experience in the field to get these jobs.  This is why they are the high paying ones because not everyone has hundreds to spend on a course that they may fail. 

The Equipment

From personal experience I can honestly say that you need to have the right equipment to do this.  I started out with the headphones that I use to listen to music.  While this offers really great bass and tone it is not actually good for transcription.  I ended up buying a pair of transcription headphones from Olympus that are possibly the weirdest things that I have every put into my ears, but the sound difference was amazing.

Not only do you need to look at the hardware that you have, but you need to check out your software.  Using Windows Media Player is not going to cut it because the player sucks and is not made for transcription.  Luckily you can actually get transcription software for free and this is what I did.  I got Express Scribe which offers a free version and a Pro version, obviously I took the free one. 

Who You Work With

If you have everything you need you are now facing the tricky part of making money with transcription.  Who should you be working with?  My first stop was oDesk because that is my first stop for most things.  The people on oDesk do look for transcriptionists, but you don’t want to work with all of them.  You are going to find the people that are good to work with and then you are going to find the nightmare people. 

The audio that you get from people on oDesk will not be the best.  There will be crackling, mumbling and large amounts of background noise.  This makes it really, really hard to figure out what people are saying.  The turn-around time is also generally quite short when you look at these jobs.  This is annoying when you think that 1 hour of audio can take up to 4 hours to transcribe if it is very clear. 

Steering clear of oDesk is an option because there are a lot of websites that look for transcriptionists.  These websites and companies will vary in what they want.  Some of them will have you transcribe from your browser and others want you to be onsite.  Most of these websites will ask you to complete a test before they put you on their books.  The tests are not always very hard, but sometimes they can be a real nightmare.

What You Earn

Now to the important part and that is what you are actually going to be earning.  In the world of transcription the earnings vary so much it is both funny and scary.  Some people are able to earn $50 for an audio hour while others earn $10 or less.  The amount you earn will depend on who you are working for.

I have noticed that a trend with oDesk is to offer around $10 per audio hour.  This breaks down to $10 for 4 hours which for some people just does not cut it.  Of course, you do find the random oDesk employer looking to pay more, but then you are going to be competing with hundreds of other applicants. 

Legal and medical transcriptionists will earn more because of the expertise that they need.  For this type of work you should go through a transcription company because they will offer you better rates than freelance sites. 

I have found some general transcription sites that offer really good pay.  There are also certain sites like Quicktate that offer transcription work for a decent pay.  Sites like this are different to normal because you transcribe short messages or parts of a full transcription.  You will then get paid for the number of words that you have transcribed.  If you hit a busy time with them then you can make some decent money.

Making money with transcription is actually a lot harder than you might imagine.  It is also not for everyone as you need to be able to understand a range of different accents and mumbling.  Of course, trying it out never hurt anyone. 

Make Money with Smartphone apps

Making money with Smartphone apps is a relatively new way of making some money.  There are really two ways that this can be done.  One way is to create your own app that people will eventually pay for and the other way is to get apps that pay you to do things.

The route I’m going to be talking is the second one which really is the only way I can see myself making money from apps.  If you know your way around coding and other technical things then by all means try making an app and tell me how that goes.

Now there are actually a lot of apps on the market which pay you to do things.  Some of them will work better than others and some will only be available in certain countries, which is kind of annoying.  The key is finding the apps that work for you and that actually pay.

Where can you find these apps?

Finding these apps was one of the harder parts of this whole business.  The best way to find these apps is to go to Google Play, Amazon Apps or iTunes and find the apps that you know about.  From there these websites will suggest other apps which are similar.  They will also show you apps that others have downloaded if they downloaded the apps you know about.  This is a great way to find these apps.

What do you have to do?

Most of these apps will require some form of task to be completed in order to earn money.  Some of the apps will want you to take a survey while others want you to watch videos.  Most of these apps will pay you to download other apps that they recommend.  You can also earn more if you have referrals.  What you are required to do will depend greatly on the app you have chosen. 

How much can you earn?

Honestly you will not become rich off this.  Apps are more of a way to make a little extra.  Of course, if you happen to be a resident of certain countries like America and Canada then you stand the chance of making more.  I highly doubt that you will be able to make a lot of money with apps. 

Making money with your Smartphone is really becoming popular.  The problem is that a lot of apps are country specific so residents of certain countries can make more.  You should also be aware of the fact that lot of these apps are for the iphone and they do not have android versions yet.

Make Money with Online Surveys

If you go to any list on way to make money online or working at home then online surveys will come up.  There are lots of people out there who say that they make a decent living from doing surveys.  Now I don’t make a living out of it but I do get to treat myself to something every once in a while from what I do make.  With surveys it will depend on where you are and what demographic you fall into.

How this works

Working with online surveys is actually one of the easier ways to make money online.  All you have to do is sign up to a survey site, fill in the profile and they will send you links to surveys you fit into.  The sites will generally send you the links via email.  Clicking on the link will open up the survey and all you have to do is fill it out.

How do you get paid

Different survey companies will have different ways of paying their survey takers.  Some sites will pay you with points that you can then redeem for cash or gift cards while other will simply have a monetary value.  You will earn points or money whenever you fully complete a survey.  There are some websites out there that do give you something if you do not qualify but they really are few and far between.

Any issues with this

Whenever you look at a way to make money online you need to think about some of the possible problems you may come across. There are a few issues I have found with online surveys:

Partial completion – When you get sent a survey it’s because the website you signed up to thinks you match the survey’s criteria.  The problem is that sometimes you go through a whole bunch of questions only to be told that you don’t meet the criteria.  This is not only frustrating, because you spend time answering questions, but also really annoying because you spend time on this.

Demographics – Okay so surveys need information from certain people in certain places.  This means that if you live in certain areas, mainly certain countries, then you will get more survey opportunities than others. So this is only really a problem for anyone who lives outside these areas but I thought it best to mention it.

Country allowance – As the world of online surveys is so demographically driven survey sites often limit who can join.  If you live in countries other than the USA, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand (based on personal experience) then you may find yourself limited on the number of survey sites you can join. 

Online surveys are a good way to make some extra cash online.  I’m sure that some people can make a lot out of this particularly if you can get into the right websites.  

Make Money with Get Paid To

Get paid to or GPT is one of the ways that you can make money online.  The one problem with this method is that so many things can fall into this category.  If you think about it logically anything you do online is a GPT but I’m feel that certain things like surveys, blogging, paid to click and games deserve their own area as they are quick big methods on their own.

Get Paid to Upload:

Getting paid to upload is perhaps one of the least known GPT’s out there.  Honestly if you knew you could earn money uploading things would you still be using methods where you don’t? There are actually a lot of file hosts that will pay you to upload.  The way you get paid will vary from one site to another depending on how they are making their money.

Get Paid to Answer Questions:

Okay so this sounds really easy right?  Well it’s not as easy as it sounds.  Many of the websites that hire people to do this want you to be an expert in your field.  Those that don’t need expertise will either pay you less or work off a percentage of what they make.  A lot of these websites are geo-targeted so depending on where you live you may have fewer options.

Get Paid to Read:

Think about it, you are reading right now. So why not get paid to do something you do anyway?  A major problem when it comes to the get paid to read or PTR market is that there have been a lot of scams so the market on a whole has a bad rep.  The thing is that not all PTR sites are scams.  You have to just be logical when joining these sites, just like every online money making site out there.

Get Paid to Search:

Do you use Google or any other search engine?  Well if you use certain websites and their engines then you can get paid to do those searches.  A lot of these sites will not pay you for every single search but you could stand a chance of getting money.  There will be a bit of geo-targeting when it comes to who can join websites.

Get paid to sites are a great way of making a bit of money.  Unfortunately, not all of the sites actually pay that well and there are a lot of scams out there that you need to keep an eye out for.  

Swag Bucks Review

If you have never heard of Swag Bucks as a way to make some money then don’t worry.  I signed up on this site a while ago but never bothered about it because I always thought that there were easier ways than this.  The fact of the matter is that Swag Buck will not make you rich, at least I don’t think it will, but you can make some extra money on the side with them.

What the site says:

When you reach the homepage this is what it tells you:

Register: Register for FREE and earn 30 Swag Bucks.

Earn: Earn Swag Bucks for your online activity.

Redeem: Cash in reward points for 1000s of great prizes like gift cards, electronics and more.

The website also has some testimonials from users as well as the total amount they have given out is rewards so far.

How does it work?

So now that you know that Swag Bucks exists how does this whole thing work?  The aim of this site is to get as many Swag Bucks as you can.  These swag bucks are what you use to get yourself money, gift cards or electronics etc.  You can earn swag bucks by completing various activities on the site:

• Complete the daily poll

• Do surveys

• Play games

• Search the internet

• And more

When do you get paid?

Getting paid on Swag Bucks is a bit different to some other sites.  It really depends on what you want to get paid in.  If you are looking for Paypal payments then you can get $5 for 1049 Swag Bucks. If you want $10 then you need 1999 Swag Bucks.

Now you don’t only have to have Paypal gift cards.  If you want to build up enough Swag Bucks you can get a Kids Telescope Set for 2859 Swag Bucks or if you are really motivated you could even get a Playstation 3, Xbox 360 or Ipod touch. 

It’s best to know that sometimes Swag Bucks will have sales in their reward store but those big items are generally over 20000 Swag Bucks.

Experience on the site:

Swag Bucks is not a bad site to be a part of.  I have had a fairly good experience with it so far.  You can make swag bucks quite quickly if you are willing to put in the effort.  A rough daily average would probably be around 50 to 70 Swag Bucks every day.  Of course, that is just by doing some of the free activities on the site.

Personally I have never done anything where I need to pay but the rewards you get for those activities are generally much higher than the free activities so you could make more than my estimate. 

I haven’t claimed my gift card yet so I don’t know how long it takes but as soon as I do I will be updating this with the relevant information.

The verdict:

All in all I would give this site a pretty good rating.  The site is easy to navigate and you can earn swag bucks relatively easily.  Sure the payout for some of the higher end rewards are a little steep but if you have the opportunity and vast amounts of Swag Bucks then why not. 

I would say that this is a good place to earn a bit of extra cash as you don’t have to spend all day on it just to make a mere pittance. 

Make Money Writing Articles

Whenever you look up making money online you will find people talking about content writing.  So you may wonder what is this content writing thing?  Well what you are reading right now is content. 

I have found that this is one of the ways that you can make some steady money online.  Of course, as with everything on the internet, you need to be careful who you go with.  There are a lot of people who offer to pay you to write content for them but not all of them are legit.

If you decide that you want to write articles or web content then here are some tips and hints to help you along the way:

• Never join a site where you have to pay to get work.  Think about the logic of it.  Why should you pay someone in order to write articles so you can get paid? 

• Write a sample article.  If you are going through a website like oDesk or Elance some potential employers will want to see a sample of your work.  It would be best to have a sample that you have already written.  Personally people who want you to write a sample on a keyword they provide make my spidey senses tingle.  I applied to a few people like this in the past and found that they get a bunch of free articles and then take the job offer down.

• Be realistic about what you can do.  I think everyone believes that they can do more than they can.  With article writing you need to be realistic with how long an article will take you to write.  This is very important if you are bidding on work and need to quote how long the job will take. 

• Start with articles in your comfort zone.  If you know a lot about one subject then try and find people looking for articles on that.  This way you can start your article writing with something you have information about and you don’t feel too out of your depth.

These are just a few tips that you should look at.  I’m not saying that you have to go with them.  Working online is really about what feels good to you.  So if you want to start out of your comfort zone then go for it. 

Now there are a lot of article writing websites out there and here is a link to my master list that I have of some that I have come across:  Article WritingMasterlist

Article Writing Masterlist

So I thought it would be a good idea to make a list of all the sites I come across, you know for easy reference.  Here is the masterlist for sites where you can earn money writing articles.

London Brokers aka AMS

New Year Resolutions

Something that we all do every year is, make New Year’s resolutions.  Some people resolve to lose weight, others resolve to get a new job or give up something bad for them.  This year my resolution is to make a stable income for myself online.

I know a lot of people say this but don’t do anything and that is really the problem for most people, me included.  For this year I am really going to put my mind to it and try to honestly get myself an online income.

My first step is to revisit all of my old sites that over the years have fallen to the wayside.  From there I’m going to log in again and see what I can make.  I am also going to be trying some new sites and opportunities. 

Once I have done this I am going to tell everyone what happened and whether this is a good way to make money or not.  I may even add some guides to help out.  So if you do have an idea you would want me to test then just drop me a line and tell me about it.