Article #4

(737 words)

Seniors' quick guide to online freelancer income

Many American and European businesses are turning to the internet to find specialized labor. It's not like they can't find this labor locally. The problem is when they hire locally, they actually bite off more than they can chew.

Not only do you have to pay a person a full time income, but you also have to pay all sorts of statutory costs. We are, of course, talking about health care, insurance and other additional costs. All these cost add up and it's no surprise that more and more employers in the United States, whether they be start ups or long established companies, are turning to the internet to find freelancers.

The great thing about freelancers is that you pay them a fixed negotiated rate and once the project is over, they stop doing work for you. It's quick, it's easy and there is no administrative or book keeping mess to deal with. That's not the case with an actual employee in your physical business.

Also, there are many different types of freelancers out there. The main point of distinction is their skill sets and skill levels.

Senior citizens can make good money as online freelancers

If you're a senior citizen and you're looking to make money off the internet, you can be a freelancer. It all boils down to how you do it. If you want to be a freelancer offering services that most people who can speak English can offer, it can get depressing really quickly.

If you just want to fill out forms or if you want to be some sort of general all around virtual assistant, it can easily become a race to the bottom. Please understand that these tasks can be performed by a big population of people and they can be performed anywhere on the planet.

Accordingly, people from the Philippines, India and developing countries charge less than $5 per hour for that type of freelance work. If you live in the United States, you can not compete. You should at least charge $25 or at least $50 per hour. 

So the key here is not price. If you try to compete based on price, you will lose again and again. Don't even get started. That is a non-starter.

How to compete online as a freelancer

The key to success is skill specialization. The more specialized the skill and the more high value the skill is, the more money you stand to make. Do you have a legal background? You can write legal articles.

Normal articles that are used for search engine optimization fetch as low as $5 or less per 1000 words. Legal articles written by people with an actual legal background fetch $100 or less per 1000 words. Which would you rather write? Which rate does a better job of compensating for your time? It's a no brainer.

The same applies to medical information. If you're a nurse and you know how to write, you can command a pre-significant premium for medical information. There's a huge demand for these materials. But you have to have the right skills.

The more specialized your skills, the more money you stand to make. That's the bottom line when it comes to online freelancing. This applies to graphics, this applies to writing, this applies to marketing and this applies to research. So you have to have the right skill sets.

What if you don't have the skills?

The great thing about the internet is even if you don't have the skills, you can easily learn them. How? You can go to Udemy or even YouTube. There are all sorts of free coaching programs or low cost coaching programs. 

You can learn the information you need through the right courses so you can get the skills people are willing to pay top dollar for. You can also sign up for an online university. You can get an online law degree or even online MBA. It's all up to you.

To get the inside scoop on how to succeed with online freelancer income and marketing it the right way, click here. This is the only guide most senior citizens would need to turn their spare time into cash using the internet.

Make no mistake, thanks to the internet, you can make quite a bit of income online. You just have to have the right plan, method and strategy. 
