Everyone can be a digital nomad as long as it doesn’t interfere with their capacity to perform their job. You can learn how to become a digital entrepreneur and resell hosting online, among other things, while working from home.
Despite how intriguing and fun the term “digital nomad” sounds, it’s not the same as going on a short vacation or taking more time off to travel for a few weeks or even months. The concept of a digital nomad was born out of the freedom to work peacefully from any location while traveling the globe.
The benefits of living a digital nomad lifestyle are numerous and appealing. In addition to exploring new cultures and locations and going on adventures, “said Hough. “I never get strange looks in Chiang Mai for not having a “normal job” or for traveling nonstop. Where are you from, what do you do, and where are you heading next? are the only questions asked.
Whatever the reason for searching out remote work, statistics indicate that this sector of the workforce is expanding. A FlexJobs survey from March 2019 revealed that while the remote workforce is not quite the same as digital nomadism, it has increased almost four-fold over the past ten years, from 9% of American workers working remotely periodically in 2007 to 43% in 2017.
How do Digital Nomads Make a Living?
Here are some suggestions for earning a living to get you started if you want to join the expanding group of digital nomads.
Do affiliate marketing.
When you advertise another company’s items on your website or blog and receive a commission each time a visitor clicks on an affiliate link and makes a purchase, this is known as affiliate marketing. Nevertheless, in order to make money, you must have a popular website or blog.
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If you already have a blog and readers, that’s terrific. You may already be familiar with affiliate marketing and how it can help you make money. As you increase your readership and commissions, you should have numerous sources of income, just like financial blogger Michelle Schroeder-Gardner does. She uses affiliate marketing, marketing and finance classes (she provides a free “How to Start a Blog” course), advertising, and her finance blog Making Sense of Cents to generate an average of six figures every month.
According to her, the first step in affiliate marketing is “creating a blog since it allows you to be your own boss and work from wherever,” as she travels full-time. Internet access and my laptop are all I need. Making Sense of Cents is a blog that Schroeder-Gardner began in 2011 to write about how she supplemented her income as a financial analyst.
She didn’t make any money from her site at first, but over the course of the following two years, she was able to increase its traffic, content, and revenue through agreements with advertisers and affiliate programs that suited her specialty. She left her analyst position in 2013 to devote all of her time to developing her brand.
She claimed that her blog generated $179,139 in February 2018—her greatest month ever—and $114,812 the month before. She made more than $1.5 million in total in 2017. (before expenses.) Her next journey will be as a digital nomad, when she heads to Florida to purchase a yacht that she will live on and utilize for travel.
Sell your expertise online.
Coaching and consulting in your field of expertise, whether it be web development, law, literature, or medical, can pay well by the hour for the digital nomad. Internet access and a computer or smartphone are all you need. Think carefully about your area of expertise and how it answers a common problem before deciding how to promote your services.
One way to achieve this is via the freelancing marketplace, which enables experts to market their skills from any location as long as they have access to a computer, wi-fi, and a smartphone.
Professionals with advanced degrees in a range of high-skilled fields, such as accountancy, law, medical, social sciences, grant writing, marketing, or veterinary care, can set up profiles on marketplaces for expertise, where customers can either choose you for your services or bid on jobs.
You can start on sites like Zeqr, where you can sell your knowledge one-on-one or through courses, or the consulting and coaching platform Clarity.fm, where professionals get paid per minute to speak with clients on the phone or online. On JustAnswer, registered professionals (such as doctors, lawyers, antique appraisers, engineers, essay gurus, and many more) can bid to answer questions that potential clients have posted online.
Other gig marketplaces where you can market your skills include Fiverr (the market is geared toward services needed by the lean entrepreneur, such as video and digital marketing), TaskRabbit (homework and errand services), Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (mostly menial repetitive computer tasks), Amazon Home Services (home improvement and handyman services), and Upwork (another marketplace also geared toward services needed by lean businesses). These markets have a variety of required knowledge and job remuneration that varies.
Be a social media manager.
A majority of the time spent on the job is spent online, and the social media manager can work from almost anywhere with a computer, smartphone, and internet access. You can work in social media marketing if you have an aptitude for it, have a social media presence and following, or are eager to learn the necessary skills and grow your following.
Setting up social media accounts, doing a social media audit (looking at the client’s social media presence), building a plan to produce, curate, and manage all published material across social media accounts, as well as creating marketing campaigns, are all duties of a social media marketer. Social media managers build enduring online communities.
The path to becoming a social media manager is varied. The majority of full-time jobs need candidates to have at least a bachelor’s degree in marketing, journalism, or communications. Look for freelancing employment to increase your experience and credentials if you don’t already have one. Also, you can pay for additional training: General Assembly conducts social media management bootcamps and workshops, while Hootesuite Academy certifies individuals.
The key to being a social media manager is to show that you are proficient in using social media tools and that you know how to grow and manage a following through content. While you can achieve this through employment, if you’re just starting out, you’ll need to establish your credibility and build a devoted social media following.
Also, you can market and advertise your services online, blog for free on related websites and offer free advice, use social media channels to establish a following, and get in touch with companies or individuals.
In the United States, a social media manager makes an average pay of $54,238. Search for more entry-level job titles in social media, such as “social media specialist,” “social media assistant,” and “social media associate,” if you are just beginning out in this field. A social media assistant makes an average salary of $49395.
Through job search engines like LinkedIn, Glassdoor, Monster, ZipRecruiter, CareerBuilder, FlexJobs, and Indeed, you can hunt for remote social media jobs. You can also try searching on Upwork, Freelancer, Fiverr, and PeoplePerHour if you’re seeking for freelance job. Work from home job boards like Remote.co, Remoteok.io, FlexJobs, Working Nomad, Upwork, and Outsourcely are also options.
Create online courses.
Making money while you travel the world is possible by developing online courses. Start by developing online courses in your specialty (such as financial literacy, public speaking, life counseling, or personal finance) on one of the many platforms for online learning, like Zeqr, Skillshare, Teachable, Uscreen, and Udemy.
It takes a lot of work upfront to record video lectures, design a course syllabus, write content, and come up with homework. Nevertheless, after the job is finished, all you need to do is post your course (for context, examine the structure and promotion of successful online courses) and collect a cut of the sales. While pay structures differ amongst online learning platforms, generally you receive a cut of purchases along with royalties determined by the number of minutes your videos are viewed.
Be a virtual assistant.
Demand for virtual assistants is high, and the work can be done virtually anywhere (with some limitations if there is a time zone difference that affects your performance.)
A virtual assistant works remotely in a variety of exciting industries, but their primary responsibility is administration. The skills you want to highlight for the job, along with any other organizational or administrative experience you may have, include the fact that most of us have scheduled travel, organized catering for meetings, completed expense reports, kept a calendar, conducted general research, and other administrative tasks.
There are virtual assistant employment that last a day, weeks, or even months. The hourly wage for this employment is $15.57, and like any assistant, a virtual one must be proficient with computers, well-organized, and able to carry out requests. It helps to have decent phone and email manners. Search for “virtual assistant” on job boards like FlexJobs, Upwork, Remote.co, ZipRecruiter, and Freelancer.com to get started with your job hunt.
Perform data entry.
Data input job can be done anywhere. Also, it doesn’t call for spending money on tools or training. The main component of data entry work is inputting information into a computer. The job does call for some basic computer abilities, like knowledge of typing, accuracy, and speed, as well as the ability to install and remove software, create new folders, send emails, and use the internet. Nevertheless, it does not require prior experience or a bachelor’s degree.
A data entry clerk makes, on average, $31,153 per year or $12.55 per hour in the United States. (Some businesses pay for each keystroke or completed piece.)
You can set up a profile on freelance job sites like Freelancer, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Upwork, The Smart Crowd, Fiverr, Working Solutions, Clickworker, and Microworkers if you want to start out in the data entry industry. After creating your profile, you can either search for jobs requiring “data entry” to locate opportunities to apply for, or you might get approached for work.
Visit more broad job sites like FlexJobs, Glassdoor, Monster, ZipRecruiter, CareerBuilder, and Indeed for more continuous part-time or full-time data entry jobs. Put “data entry” in the keyword field. (Be on the lookout for scammers that ask for money in exchange for registration in a database of data entry jobs.)
Program code.
Code programming requires a high level of talent, yet it doesn’t need a lot of equipment and can be done from almost anywhere. Coding requires careful attention to detail.
There are many free learning resources available online, including Code Academy (which offers classes in 12 coding languages, including JavaScript and Python, as well as markup languages HTML and CSS) and Udemy, where the classes aren’t free but are very reasonably priced, if you don’t have a knack for writing computer language for software, apps, and/or websites. The cost of programs at General Assembly ranges from $140 to $3,500. The coding school provides one-time courses as well as intense six- to 12-week training sessions online and in-person.
The term “coding” is broad. You can learn a wide variety of coding languages. Examples of popular programming languages used for website building include HTML and JavaScript. The benefit of programming from home is that you can choose your own hours; in the United States, programmers make an average hourly income of $38.39. A programmer’s average yearly salary is $79,840.
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Focusing on front-end programming, or creating elements like fonts, drop-down menus, buttons, and contact forms that you can see and interact with, is one route you can take. HTML, CSS, and JavaScript proficiency are required for this, and programmers should be familiar with front-end frameworks like AngularJS and ReactJC.
Before applying for full-time positions, you can develop your resume with freelance work as a fresh coder. For coding and programming jobs, look at Upwork, PeoplePerHour, and Freelancer. You can look for full-time or contract employment on job sites like FlexJobs, Glassdoor, Monster, ZipRecruiter, CareerBuilder, and Indeed once you’ve built up some experience and work references.
Do graphic design.
Freelance graphic design can be a fantastic option to support oneself for extremely creative and visual nomads. With the help of corporations and individuals, graphic designers create logos, websites, banners, and other advertising and marketing materials, to name a few. Understanding design principles and being proficient with software (such as Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign) are both necessary for carrying out the work.
The client element is the next: You must be able to understand the client’s needs and communicate effectively with them. Advertising agencies, publishing houses, periodicals, businesses, product manufacturers, and people are commonly clients of graphic designers.
If you’re attempting to work at a creative firm, the employer may require a degree or certificate, but you don’t necessary need one to be a graphic designer. But, if you work for a small business or as a freelancer, your work will serve as your resume. A strong portfolio is more important than a fancy degree. By taking on little freelance assignments, you can expand your portfolio.
You can get a sense of employment in your area by browsing the standard job sites, such as FlexJobs, Glassdoor, Monster, ZipRecruiter, CareerBuilder, and Indeed. The average graphic designer earns $48,256 per year.
