7 High-Potential Online Opportunities for College Students

October 9th, 20074 Comments

College Startup is first and foremost about making money online. So I wanted to do a post that highlighted seven legit ways that college students can make money online, with the right amount of dedication and effort.

All of these opportunities have the real potential of turning into full time jobs after college … working out of your home … as your own boss. Or, if you prefer working as part of a team, you can develop these skills in college, make some extra money, while simultaneously making yourself attractive to the millions of online companies out there.

Some of these Net Professional (aka web worker) careers are higher-paying then others, but there are pros and cons for all of them. Here’s a quick overview for those of you considering online careers. The benefits are that these can all be freelance or consulting type gigs, so you control how much work you want to take on – which is ideal if you’re still in college. Don’t be deterred by being in college – you can still win clients. This may or may not mean offering services for barter instead of cash.

1. Blogger for hire.
If you’ve got reasonable writing skills (most college students do!), regardless of what you’re studying, blogging for hire is a nice way to earn a bit of extra cash.

• Pros: Writing for someone else for pay means that you probably don’t have to worry about a lot of the non-writing tasks. Start small, build a name for yourself and you just might earn a nice income.
• Cons: Your earnings are limited by how many articles you can write per day. Quality creative output can’t be turned on like a machine. (You could, however, start earning a bit of money by selling links from your college blog – just be sure you’re allowed.)
• Links: For a few great places to learn from and hone your skills, start at Daily Blog Tips, Chris Garrett, Xfep and Bloggers for Hire. For gigs, check out Freelance Writing Jobs, Performancing Job Board, Problogger Jobs, Blogger Jobs.

2. Designer.
If you’re studying print design or something related, or otherwise have the necessary skills, what better way to start than online.

• Pros: If you’re a capable designer than can offer not only logo design and general graphic design but also website templates, there is potential for a healthy online career. There’s also the standard print-based work such as business cards, flyers, posters, etc., much of which can be sourced online if you can prove your skills with an online portfolio.
• Cons: Much of the template market relates to the WordPress blogging platform. This not only means you’d have to learn to code templates in WP but also compete with all the literally thousands of free templates.
• Links: Daily Blog Tips lists their choice of top 25 web design blogs, though a shortlist is A List Apart, Smashing Magazine, Pearsonified, Dev Lounge, CSS Zen Garden, Randa Clay, Brian Gardner, Daivd Airey.

3. Blog overlord.
If you don’t want to blog for hire, you could always try launching and monetizing your own blogs, one at a time, then hire writers to carry on the work while you later promote. (Either that or partner up with SEOs or SMMs)

• Pros: You can launch multiple sites and hire writers for each – either on a flat-fee or revenue share basis. Try different payment models and see what works – replace unmotivated writers.
• Cons: Blogging for hire is still a relatively new profession and while bloggers abound, many are still learning the necessary skills. There’s a shortage of skilled bloggers for hire, so you might be writing your own content for a while.
• Links: Start with Problogger, Performancing, and Dosh Dosh to get a sense of what it takes to build more than one blog.

4. Copywriter.
Good copywriters earn more than most other types of professional writers, and the blogosphere is an ideal place for promoting these services.

• Pros: You don’t have to be a literary genius to be a successful copywriter, but you do need to learn the proper techniques. Also, one good gig per year that pays royalties could be enough to build enough supplementary income to pull of a 4-hour work week.
• Cons: Dry, unsexy niches might get boring after a while (but if you’re good, you can pick and choose).
• Links: Start building your repertoire of techniques by reading Copywriting, Copyblogger, Copywriter Underground, American Copywriter, Copywriting Maven, Writing White Papers.

5. Domainer.
Domaining efforts can be a good starting pointing into moving towards being a blog overlord (above).

• Pros: Of all of the above online professions, this one has the highest potential. Complete portfolios of thousands of domain names have sold for as much as US$300M. The top domainers are said to work an hour or two each day, and some literally sit on the beach sipping drinks.
• Cons: You need to keep up with trend studies and pop culture, to have a sense of what domain names might be worth purchasing and when to let them go. Also, the best domains are all gone and can be costly to buy. Cracking into the market at the bottom is not going to make you millions. You have to buy and flip lesser names and bootstrap your way to buying the expensive domains. Or partner up. Furthermore, domainers are often despised especially because they squat on domains.
• Links: There are a lot of domain blogs all of a sudden, but several seem inactive. Start at Domain News and Domain Name Wire, and read Aviva Directory’s How to Get Started as a Domainer.

6. SEO/ SEM
The Search Engine Optimization/ Search Engine Marketing niche is huge and is really perfect for college students because it can be done in short bursts of time between classes, etc.

• Pros: There is a large market for SEO/ SEM services, and some the top firms are commanding $100K/mth in billable work. There’s enough spillover work for those newer to to the niche.
• Cons: To get to the top levels, you really need to network and either know what you’re talking about or hire the appropriate parties. Outsourcing is one option, though marking up their services limits your margin, unless you can provide some value-added service not available elsewhere. The biggest drawback is being reviled by others who think SEO/SEMs are spam marketers.
• Links: Get part of your education reading SEOmoz, Search Engine Journal, Graywolf, SEObook, Tropical SEO, Scoreboard Media, Single Grain, Stuntdubl, Pronet Advertising, Cornwall SEO, Search Engine Land and loads of other great sites.

7. SMM.
Social Media Marketing (SMM) is becoming a crucial aspect of online promotions.

• Pros: People with “power accounts” are always in high demand with SEO firms, and these services can be offered as a supplement to other work as listed above.
• Cons: Because social sites are, well, social, paid SMM work is always frowned on. You have to not only build your credibility but maintain it without being overly commercial. You really need to leverage your networking skills. If you’re shy by nature, forget about this niche.
• Links: Build your profile on facebook, myspace, digg, sphinn, delicious, stumbleupon, shoutwire and any other social media sites you can manage.

Choosing one of these paths is not something to do lightly, if you’re just starting out. But if you already have skills in a certain area and feel you can promote yourself online or otherwise find the clients you’ll need, then all of these Net Professional careers have potential for providing you a nice income. There are other services you can offer such as writing business plans, resumes, copyediting, etc. However, I think that the ones listed above have the highest potential for college and beyond.   And even if you’re clueless about how to get started in any of these fields, there are plenty of people (me included) who are willing to train you for free.

Related Articles:

• Write for a PR7 Blog…
• Offline businesses you can start in college
• Forbes $100,000 Business Plan Competition
• When you need to market your services the old-fashioned way
• Keep Your Eyes open and Don’t be Lazy

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