Recommended Work-At-Home Tools and Resources
Below you’ll find a list of recommended work-at-home tools and resources. I use or have tested these resources and found them to work. They include tools and resources for:
- Work-at-home jobs
- Money making ideas such as affiliate marketing, blogging, transcription and writing
- Online income tools for blogging etc.
- Marketing tools and resources
- Business/freelance management tools and resources
- Extra income and savings resources
PLEASE NOTE: Not all resources or options may be for you. While I can verify that the resources listed hear are acceptable, you need to research and decide for yourself whether these resources will work for you based on your needs and goals.
Disclaimer: Some of the links below are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. A few of these resources I created, others I use or have tested. I recommend them because they are helpful and useful in achieving work-at-home goals.
Work-At-Home Jobs
Search for Jobs
WAHS Job Board
HomeJobStop
FlexJobs.com
Monster.com
Adzuna Has worldwide job search options as well.
Carebuilder.com
Indeed Telecommuting Jobs
Work-At-Home Job Resources
How to Get a Work-At-Home Job (Online Course)
Jobs Online: How to Find an Get Hired to a Work-At-Home Job
Work-At-Home Ideas and Information
I’m a big believer in making money doing things you already do any way if possible. My recommendation is that you start by inventorying your skills and interests, and look for opportunities that use them.
Here are work-at-home ideas and resources to help you learn more about them.
Affiliate Marketing
Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing: If you’ve never done affiliate marketing, this course offers a really good overview of everything involved, including how to choose and sign up for affiliate programs, and more importantly, different ways to get your affiliate link in front of people.
Free Affiliate Bootcamp: This is an extensive free affiliate marketing training that is focused on funnel marketing (as opposed to using blogs) to build an affiliate business. I’ve taken the course and used many of the tips and ideas it suggests.
Affiliate Funnel Success: This is my free email resource that teaches you how to make money in affiliate marketing without having to start a blog. You’ll get a free Affiliate Funnel Planner, then a series of emails that give you tips, insights, and resources to become a super affiliate.
Fulfillment By Amazon
FREE 7 Day Email Course: Everything You Need to Know to Start Selling on Amazon: Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) is the Amazon program that will house, list, and send your products for you. All you have to do is ship the stuff you want to sell to Amazon and list in the Amazon store, and Amazon will do the rest, and send you the money when your items sell. This free 7-day course gives you an overview of how it works and how you can make it work for you from one of the top FBA experts, Jessica Larrew.
Transcription
Free Transcription Foundation: 7 Lesson Mini Course: Janet Shaughnessy offers this free 7 lesson mini-course to explain what transcription is, how you can find work, and more.
Writing Online
Free Seven Ways to Make Money Writing Online: This one is from yours truly, and offers my list of 7 great ways you can use words to make money online including, blogging, freelance writing, ghost writing and more! This free report also gets you a weekly email with writing jobs, freelance writing markets, and more.
Digital Writer Success: How to Make a Living Blogging, Freelance Writing, and Publishing Online: This is the book I wrote that essentially explains how to make money at home doing what I do. It provides details on how to work at home blogging, freelance writing, or publishing ebooks, but also offers tips on how all three types of writing can work together to maximize your writing income.
Six Figure Copy Writing – I took this course to help me write better copy for my websites, however you can take the information and start a lucrative copy writing career. The real advantage of this course over learning from a book is the feedback. You are given homework and a professional lets you know how you did. Plus there is an active forum on which you can get support, advice and help. Of all the writing jobs, copywriting is the most lucrative and yet it doesn’t require advanced degrees. You just need to understand the power of words to incite action.
Affiliate/Ad Programs
If there is a product or service you love that fits with what you’re trying to do online, check it’s website to see if it has an affiliate or referral program. Everything on this list are things I use or have used and can recommend. Not all have affiliate programs, but some do. Beyond that, here are a few resources I like for affiliate products:
Affiliate Programs
Amazon Associates: Promote just about anything in the Amazon store.
ClickBank: Lots of digital products you can promote. I recommend viewing the sales page and buying or asking the product creator for a free copy to check out the quality.
ClixGalore: ClixGalore is an affiliate network that manages many companies’ affiliate programs.
Conversant (previously Commission Junction): Tons of big name and lessor named businesses use Conversant to manage their affiliate programs. The nice thing is that you can manage several affiliate products within one location.
JVZoo: Similar to ClickBank, JVZoo has lots of great digital products you can promote.
Shareasale: Like Converstant, Shareasale manages the affiliate programs for many companies.
Ad Networks
Google AdSense: Feed text, graphic, or video ads onto your website and earn each time a visitor clicks on the offer. Be sure to read the terms of service, as Google isn’t very forgiving if you break the rules. For example, never click on your own AdSense links, and don’t encourage others to click either.
Media.net: Media.net is an ad network, similar to Google AdSense. It’s a good network for new bloggers/websites as it has easier acceptance terms.
Business Tools and Resources
Below are the tools and resources I use to manage my online business, including my blogs, courses, and more.
Website/Blogging
MomWebs – For many years I was with Hostgator and had a bit of a love/hate relationship with it. This year, the final straw hit and I decided to move. When I reached out through social media for ideas on moving, Momwebs had the most recommendations. What I love about MomWebs is that they moved all my websites for me. Second, they set up Cloudflare to give me some extra protection…at no extra cost. Third, there were a few glitches, but they were fast at fixing it for me. MomWebs offers all the stuff you want such as cPanel with scripts like WordPress, SSL included on all your domains, and other great features. Finally, it’s very affordable.
Godaddy Domain Name – I host all my domain names (about 30 of them) at Godaddy. You can buy or sell new and used domains at affordable prices.
Aweber List Management – The real money on the Internet comes from having a list. You may have noticed that many bloggers have switched to Converkit, which does offer a great many bells and whistles. But, I’ve been with Aweber forever, and it now offers many of the same features, such as segmenting and tagging lists that Convertkit does, so I’ve stayed. Further, Aweber tends to be cheaper than the other list options when your list grows.
I use Aweber to manage nearly all my lists. Aside from sending emails and newsletter, you can also have your blog automatically send to your list or have your email posted to an RSS feed.
ClickFunnels – The funnel idea isn’t new, but it seems to have a resurgence in popularity and focus in online income. A funnel is basically a system by which you attract people who are interested in what you’ve got to offer, and then move through your sales process. There are many resources helping people build funnels, or at least the lead pages at the head of the funnel. I like ClickFunnels because I can do everything with it. Instead of having a lead page in one place that links to my sales offer in another place, I can do it all from ClickFunnels. I ran the WAHS Virtual Summit entirely from ClickFunnels. You can simply have a lead magnet and email system, or you can have a membership, course, or summit. ClickFunnels can integrate with other tools, such as Aweber, or you have access to an email list system. If you’re like me, and like an all-in-one resource to manage a single income source, ClickFunnels may be for you.
To learn more about funnels and making money online, I highly recommend you pick up DotCom Secrets and Expert Secrets (both you can get free, just pay shipping and handling).
Canva – I was slow to move to Canva, but now I use it regularly. Since the web is so graphic oriented now, being able to make great graffics for your blog, social media profiles and posts, marketing items and more, is crucial. You are judged by a cover (or graphic), so having a fast, easy tool to make graphics is important. Canva has both free and paid options. Within each, you have free graphics, templates and fonts, or there are some you can pay for. You can upload photos to use as well.
I use the Canva for work (paid option), which offers the ability to resize graphics without rebuilding them from scratch. This is helpful when creating social media graphics, since each platform has its own size recommendations. Plus you have more file type options when you save a graphic. Check out Canva’s Design school for tips and more.
DepositPhotos – Buying graphic is also something I’ve only started doing in the last year or so. There are many great resources for free graphics, but you’ll find that many sites used them, and they’re not always great quality. I ultimately decided on DepositPhotos because it was so affordable and there were lots of great photos.
WordPress Tools
I use WordPress for WAHS, and I use a variety of tools to help me manage and market the site.
Themify.me: Many bloggers use other themes, such as Genesis Framwork, but I love Themify for it’s builder (which can buy as a stand-alone plugin) and themes (that come with the builder included). The Themify Builder lets you take any WordPress theme, and modify the formatting of any page or post. For example, the home page at WAHS uses the Themify Builder to organize what is on the page. The interface is drag and drop, so it’s easy to add what you want, whether it’s a widget, a box, a count down timer, posts, or whatever you want. For a long time I had the Themify Builder and a different theme. Now I use a Themify Theme that includes the builder.
CoSchedule: Social media posting of content can be a complete time suck. CoSchedule makes it easy by allowing me to schedule the social media posts of my blog content at the time I create or update the content. CoSchedule offers a couple of options, the basic which allows you to post to several social media platforms (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc) and more robust services that offer Pinterest posting, automatic reposting of content and more. Plus, it has a calendar so you can see what’s scheduled.
PrettyLinks: This plugin has a free and paid version (I use the free). It allows you to not only cloak your affiliate links (to help prevent affiliate link stealing), but also, to track how your links are doing. You don’t have to just use it for affiliate links either. Any link that you’d like to have with your domain, can be set up through PrettyLinks.
Yoast SEO: There is a free and paid version for Yoast SEO. Before I used a different SEO plugin, but all the blogs that I follow that are doing well suggest Yoast. The plugin allows you to set up your keyword (1 with the free option) and meta description, plus it will give you feedback on on SEO issues such as keyword use in your content.
Post Gopher: This plugin allows people to request a PDF doc of a blog post delivered to their email. It integrates with Aweber (as well as other email services), so that when readers request the doc, they’re signed up for my email list as well (this is made clear upon sign up for the doc).
Marketing/PR Tools and Resources
Social Media
Did I mention social media posting can be a time suck? That’s why I love tools. I use a variety of tools, and have upgraded to the paid option on all of them. For me, the time they save is worth the cost.
Tailwind: WAHS’s number one source of traffic from social media is from Pinterest. When I saw this trend, I knew I had to do better, but like all social networks, it can take time to build and pin. Plus you don’t want to pin and repin all at once. The answer is Tailwind, which allows me to schedule pins. There are other options, but Tailwind is Pinterest approved. Note, Tailwind is straight forward to use, and will email you lots of tips to use it. However, I did take the Tailwin course at PinSimple, so I could maximize my time and income using Tailwin and Pinterest.
Hootsuite: Hootsuite will manage up to 3 accounts for free, but if you’re promoting yourself through social media, odds are you have more than three accounts. Hootsuite can let you manage and schedule posts for Facebook (profiles, pages, groups), Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram and YouTube. You can also use it to see whats going on with people you follow. You can create feeds based hashtags, and much more.
Other Marketing Tools/Resources
Free Publicity Resource HARO – The Haro report (help a reporter out) is a free resource in which writers and producers ask for help from experts on a variety of topics. If you’re an expert in your business, it pays to sign up and check the 3 emails a day for publicity opportunities. Many may be for blogs or podcasts, but that still gives you access to people who might not otherwise find you. There are also writers from major magazines, newspapers and TV shows. Through HARO I’ve been interviewed in Woman’s World and Redbook.
Vistaprint: I have bought business cards, postcards with my book cover and information, and banners for when I go to book signings. Even if your business is primarily online, (like mine is), it doesn’t hurt to have printed stuff to giveaway.
Other Office Tools/Resources
LastPass: Passwords are a way of life. If you’re running an online business, chances are you have more passwords than you can keep track of without risking vulnerabilities. In this day and age of cyber hacking, you don’t want to risk someone getting into any of your accounts. I like and use LastPass because it can not only store all my passwords, but it has a password generator that will create tough keywords, and then store them for you. The only password you need to remember is your LastPass keyword. One password to manage them all! For $24 per year I not only save all my passwords on my computers, but also, I have LastPass on my phone.
Simple Voicebox Voicemail – This is a great tool if you can’t have a second or dedicated line to your business or aren’t in the office much. You can have long or short messages. You can even make so people can’t leave a message which is perfect for network marketing teams to share information to prospects. If you want an 800 number that will come with a fee.
SiteLock: My websites had a huge breach a year ago. It’s risk you take when you have a website with scripts (such as WordPress). Despite my safety precautions, bots were able to get in and wreck havoc. These hackers and bots can do things like add questionnable pages to your website that Google may penalize you for. Or input malware that then infects your visitors. While there are plugins (some of which I’d installed), to protect WordPress sites, I don’t want the hassle of screening and cleaning if something happens. Now I pay Sitelock to monitor and clean my sites if needed, 24/7.
Vimeo: Free and paid video hosting services. I used the paid version of Vimeo (because my upload needs were too fast for the free option) for the WAHS Virtual Summit.
Zoom.us: Free and paid video conferencing and recording services. I used Zoom’s free services to conduct the WAHS Virtual Summit interviews.
Project Management Planners/Blueprints
When I work, I’d prefer to not invent the wheel. Not only do I like to follow other people’s recommendations, but I’m a fairly concrete person. I like to know in detail the exact steps that are needed. That’s why I LOVE CoachGlue’s planners (and most of all their other stuff too!) If I want to take on a new project, I don’t have spend hours figuring out what and how to do it, or spend hundreds on a course to learn it. I can grab a planner and it will take me step-by-step. What’s awesome about CoachGlue’s stuff is that not only can you use it for yourself, but you can use them with your clients/customers. Many have private label rights so you can customize them to your business. (Read the terms of use for details on usage rights).
Here are a few of my favorite planners:
Project Management
Trello – I’ve used Trello for my team-oriented project management for some time, but recently, I started using it for all my workflow management. For example, for WAHS, I have a board with post ideas and one with posts that need updating. Then I have boards that these ideas are moved to as I work on them. So one is “In Process” and when it’s done, it’s moved to “Completed” and then to “Shared” when I’ve scheduled for social media. It’s free and very easy to use.
Google Keep – This is more of a note keeping tool similar to Evernote. While I like Evernote, I’m really liking Google Keep. I have notes that keep things like URLs to courses and membership access, tools and resources I want to look into, checklists, stuff I want to read later and more. I like how it looks (colorful) and organized.
Extra Income/Extra Savings
Ebates: There are a ton of savings programs and you can use many of them. But I like Ebates best. It’s been around forever, and you can earn rebated online and off. Once you sign up, getting your rebates is often as simple as clicking on the “Yes I want a Rebate” popup when you’re shopping online (you’ll need to add the browser app for the Ebate popup), or adding your payment options to your account, and getting credit doing your regular daily stuff, like getting gas or eating out. I earn rebates on both personal and professional buys. For example, I recently bought a new domain name at GoDaddy…I got an Ebate. I earn a rebate every time I shop at Barnes and Noble (which is a lot!). If you only join one rebate program, I recommend Ebates. Oh…and did I mention, it pays you when you refer others to the program. If you love it like I do, you can tell others, and make even more.
Ibotta: I’m not a very good couponer, so I like Ibotta because I can find offers through the app, choose the ones I want, and then snap and send a picture of my receipt to get a rebate.
Thrive Market : The challenge of eating well is that it’s expensive. But Thrive Market will ship organic brands you love to your door for less.