“Writing, at its best, is a lonely life,” said Ernest Hemingway, noting that the writer “does his work alone.” So who needs an office? Writers do need editors , but editors can also do their best work at home.The online revolution has had an adverse impact on print media, leading to mass layoffs of reporters and editors. Yet there are over 1 billion
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1. Writer/Editor
websites on the internet today that didn’t exist 30 years ago — and all of them contain text that was written by someone. Many websites thrive on a business model that relies almost entirely on the textual content, whether it’s news, features, advice, humor or “clickbait.” And many businesses use blogs to drive traffic to their websites. None of this content writes itself!
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2. Data entry/transcriptionist
If you’re a fast typist, data entry is remote work that doesn’t require any advanced skills. Data entry simply means taking text and/or numbers from source documents and inputting them into a computer system. You won’t make a fortune doing it, but all it requires is a computer, telecommuting and an internet connection.
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2. Data entry/transcriptionist
Transcription involves listening to audio or video and putting spoken words into writing. Transcription often requires time-stamping, or recording the precise second something is said. Transcription is needed for captioning videos — a booming field — and transcribing audios or videos also makes the content easily searchable. Another big part of
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2. Data entry/transcriptionist
this field is medical transcription, in which voice recordings from doctors are transcribed into written reports
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3. Translator
If you speak a second language well enough to translate it into English, or vice versa, then you possess an in-demand skill for a job that’s usually done remotely.Translators are often essential when a company wants to sell its products in another country. Or at times critical information, like technical documentation, is written in a language that the
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3. Translator
people who need it don’t speak. And translating a website into, say, Spanish can increase the potential audience by 500 million people.
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4. Social media manager
There are few businesses that wouldn’t benefit from a robust social media presence. Whether it’s a small restaurant that wants to promote its Taco Tuesday or a global sales giant like Walmart, social media like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are increasingly the go-to platforms to get the word out. The audience is immense, and the publicity is free.
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4. Social media manager
Social Media Managers are experts at managing the digital footprint of the enterprises that employ them. They develop targeted campaigns, coordinate marketing strategies with sales departments, and regularly post new content. If you’re an avid user of social media, this job may be a way to make money doing what you like to do.
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5. Graphic artist
If you’re a master at designing logos, creating striking illustrations or making sense of numbers with charts, you have a highly marketable skill that you can do in the privacy of your home.Think of any successful company, and you can probably picture its logo — an essential element of any firm’s branding. Go to its website and notice
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5. Graphic artist
how many graphic elements there are to break up the text. Even something as simple as illustrated icons to replace bullet points can enliven a website. Visual elements are essential because they catch the eye and draw people in, and these visuals depend on graphic artists .
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6. SEO specialist
Search engine optimization (SEO) is something that every company or e-commerce business needs. There are millions of websites that were created without much thought for SEO, but today everyone understands its importance. Many of these websites need to revise their current content, page by page, and all of them need to implement good SEO
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6. SEO specialist
practices going forward.Learn how to do SEO, and you’ll have a marketable skill that is in little danger of becoming obsolete. You may think of this skill as solely connected with Google, but in reality, search engines are a type of technology regardless of digital monopolies (in fact, there are lots of regional search engines that are very relevant in national or niche markets).
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7. English teacher
You may lack the expertise to tutor calculus students in quadratic equations, but do you speak English? There’s a market for that as either a private or formal teacher . In many countries, proficiency in English is a major key to upward mobility, and the lack thereof is a big disadvantage in the global economy.
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7. English teacher
Watch TV for a few hours in Latin America and you’ll see multiple ads for companies offering online English classes.Who wants to sign up for a community college class in Santiago when you can have live, personal instruction by two-way video with a teacher from San Francisco?
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8. Call center/customer service representative
Most consumer-oriented companies need someone who can do customer support like answer the phone — and some of them get a lot of calls. So we have the classic call center, jam-packed with cubicles, ringing telephones and chattering customer service reps .At some point it occurred to some call center that all of its
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8. Call center/customer service representative
telephone answerers have their own phones at home (not to mention the rising prevalence of online communication through VoIP technology and CRM systems). Why not route those calls to people working remotely, eliminating the overhead of the office space? If you have an abundance of patience and don’t mind spending a lot of
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8. Call center/customer service representative
time on the phone, there are lots of opportunities in this field.
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9. Salesperson (Sales Manager)
A sales office is often a place where people sit around not selling anything. The real action is on the streets and in face-to-face meetings, though the telephone remains the best way to set up the meetings that close sales.So if a sales manager depends on the telephone and meetings with clients, what good is the sales office? Many companies
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9. Salesperson (Sales Manager)
are realizing that good salespeople can do their jobs just as well working from home as working in an office. If you’re the kind of person who can “sell hay to a farmer,” the farmer doesn’t really need to meet with you at your sales office.
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10. Virtual assistant
Virtual assistants provide remote administrative support to executives of small businesses, large enterprises, and sometimes entire top companies — booking travel, scheduling meetings, organizing personal calendars, responding to calls and emails, and potentially much more. Think of the super-efficient, hyper-organized administrative
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10. Virtual assistant
or executive assistant who once sat outside the boss’s office, and the boss introduces her to others by saying, “She basically runs the place.” The main difference here is this person no longer sits in the office.