Forest and Shanna Ventures

Traveling the USA

5 Ways to Make Money While Traveling

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Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. I may receive commissions for purchases made through links in this post.

5 Ways to Make Money While Traveling

Many people consider it simply an illusion to travel full time and to make money while doing so. It’s quite simple, as long as you stay realistic and do not lose yourself in dream imaginings. To successfully earn money in fulltime Rving, you first have to evaluate your starting situation and your existing possibilities factually. You should ask yourself the following questions for you to make money while traveling:

  • Which kind of professional background do I have? Can I use this to earn money on my travels?
  • Do I prefer to earn my money as an employee or a self-employed person?
  • Do I prefer to work in phases and then enjoy my travels for a long time or combine my work with traveling?
  • How much money do I have to earn monthly to finance my travels and cover any fixed costs?
  • What do I expect from my travels, where do I want to go, and what do I want under no circumstances?

This article is a guide on how you can successfully combine travel and earning money. It also shows you how you can make a living in the most beautiful corners of the world. Below are some of the activities that one should engage in to make money while traveling full time.

1. Nurse and caregivers.

Nurse and caregivers

In many areas, there is a significant shortage of specialized medical personnel. This also applies to the tourism industry, hotels, and holiday resorts. In other words, they often look for health care professionals to employ. Becoming a traveling nurse is a great way to make money while traveling.

2. Instructor and Dive Guide

Instructor and Dive Guide

Diving schools and safari boats operate in the most beautiful places in the world. There are ways to increase your job opportunities as a diving instructor. One way is to try and collect as much driving experience as possible. Therefore, It would be helpful to obtain useful additional qualifications. These can include things like a boat license, maintenance seminars, etc.

3. Tour guide

Tour guide

Many of the big tour companies are always looking for friendly tour guides. Small niche providers also often look for tour guides. It is ideal if you acquire an in-depth knowledge of the travel destination around the world. This will, in turn, increase your chances of getting employed in various companies.

4. Stock photographer or videographer

photographer

If you love to take pictures or create graphics as an illustrator, you can sell them. There are various photo exchanges that you can sell them on. You can also create advertising footage for local traders in the places you visit.

5. A web designer or web developer

A web designer or web developer

Websites are the business cards of the present, and no company can do without their own website today. This offers a lot of potential for constant revenue. You can sell your service directly to customers or develop so-called templates. When selling templates there are different ways you can sell them. You can deliver them on different exchanges or offer them independently for sale.

6. Author and Copywriter

Author and Copywriter

If you have the right writing style and enjoy writing articles you have many options. On the one hand, you can write texts for special text exchanges or articles for magazines and blogs. In the long term, you can also expand your earning potential by selling your own publications. These can include eBooks or your own blog.

In conclusion, there are many things you can do to earn money while traveling full-time in an RV.

5 Ways to Make Money While Traveling

25+ Sites Offering Free Training for Virtual Assistants

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Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. I may receive commissions for purchases made through links in this post.

25+ Sites Offering Free Training for Virtual Assistants

One of the ways we earn money is doing virtual assistant work. When I first heard of being a virtual assistant, I had no idea how to begin. There are sites offering free training for virtual assistants.

I purchased a course called 30 Days or Less to Virtual Assistant Success. Since I took the course, the price has gone up to $397.00. It’s a great course and I learned a lot. But, when you’re on a tight budget, it’s a lot of money! I’m not going to guarantee that you can find all the great stuff Gina has packed into this course in one spot. But if you are willing to take the time, there is a lot of great information out there for free. 

Virtual Assistance as a career

Virtual assistance as a career has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years. There is an increasing number of companies that now rely on Virtual Assistants. At one time, VA’s were only able to help in the day to day tasks of a business. Now they are now considered experts in their field.  

This means the VA industry has become a competitive market. One way to keep up with the growing market is to evolve as a knowledgeable Virtual Assistant. One who has the skills and the certification to prove it.  

Fortunately, there are many free training for Virtual Assistants offered online. Here’s a list of 25 websites offering free resources. As a Virtual Assistant, you have to be at par with what’s going on in everything digital marketing. There is no better way to learn them than by learning it from the pros.

Places to learn SEO, Social Media, and other things

  1. Google Online Marketing Challenge is a tutorial that offers courses and modules. They cover digital and search engine marketing. They also have search and display advertising campaigns via mobile, social media, and video, as well as analytics. Google AdWords Certification is also available. Especially if you aim to excel in the digital marketing niche.
  2. Hubspot Academy offers the following courses for free to everyone: Inbound (marketing methodology) Certification, Email Marketing Certification, Inbound Sales Certification, HubSpot Design Certification.
  3. Quicksprout University offers beginner, intermediate and advanced courses. Courses on SEO, Link Building, Content Marketing, Paid Advertising, and Social Media. They also have courses on Email Marketing, Reputation Management and Conversion Optimization. All presentations are on video.
  4. Search Engine Journal is an authoritative site with heaps of articles about how to make the most of SEO, content marketing, social media, and paid search. They have a FREE e-book – Search Engine Journal Whitepaper: “What Works in Content Marketing: Case Studies & Tools for Success” that will assist VAs in their search for the best practices in content marketing.
  5. Moz SEO for beginners is a ten chapter module that covers everything a beginner asks. Questions like “how search engine operates”, “why search engine marketing is necessary”, “keyword search”, “usability, experience and content”, “search engine tools”, and “how to measure and track success”.
  6. Social Media Quickstarter combines email marketing with social media marketing through its modules: Facebook 101, Twitter 101, LinkedIn 101, Pinterest 101, Instagram 101, Google+ 101, YouTube 101, Snapchat 101, and Blogging 101.
  7. An Internet Marketing Education in 16 Ebooks and 20 Emails is a tutorial that outlines a smart way to combine social media, content marketing and SEO for optimal lead generation. Sign up for free to get started.
  8. YouTube/Video Marketing teaches VAs to make the most of YouTube as a marketing tool. The FREE 5-part series of videos is a walk-through that helps create customers out of viewers.
  9. e- Marketing Institute offers online courses such as digital marketing, search engine marketing, SEO, social media marketing and web analytics. All these are FREE with certification.
  10. PPC University by WordStream offers a free course on Pay-per-click advertising 101. Learn the basics of PPC such as What is PPC? Keywords? Click-through rates? Quality Score? and everything you need to know to have a clear overview of what PPC is.
  11. Class Central offers “35 Free Digital Marketing Courses to Upgrade Your Marketing Skills”. This is a list of top-rated courses on marketing, which were discovered by Class Central and are taught by the world’s best universities. This will help VAs be up-to-date with marketing trends and hone their skills in the growing online marketing platform.
  12. RACE Digital Marketing Plan is an e-learning module that helps you create a fully structured digital marketing plan complete with budget, objectives and evaluation guides to improve digital marketing results. The basic or free membership gives you access to templates that will aid you in creating actionable plans to take your marketing to the next level.
  13. Alison is a worldwide learning community offering free online courses that are standards-based and certified. The lessons range from Technical resources, Publishing courses, Analytics classes, as well as Sales, Operations and Marketing classes.
  14. Udemy offers more than 40,000 courses conducted by experts in their field. Udemy students can learn and earn certificates at their own pace on any device. They offer free courses for Python, Java and Microsoft programs. Sign up to their newsletter and receive updates on their promos where you can get up to 70% discounts (maybe more) on paid courses.
  15. Coursera aims for its students to learn better and faster, and designed their teaching methods with these four key ideas: Online Learning, Mastery Learning, Peer Assessments, and Blended Learning. Students can learn at their own schedule and earn certificates for their course.
  16. FutureLearn offers hundreds of free flexible online course programs from universities worldwide. While learning from a leading university or organization, students can earn academic credit or even professional accreditation.
  17. Iversity is a personalized learning platform for professional development and higher education. A varied range of courses focuses on growing a business with digital analytics, digital marketing plan, and many more.

Microsoft Office

This is a no-brainer. As a Virtual Assistant, you should be very adept Microsoft Office. If you’re not or would want to learn more, here are 2 sites for you to check out:

  1. GFC Learn Free offers everything for free. All 125 modules from Microsoft Office classes to android and technology basics, social media and cloud use, digital photography and graphics, are all free. Don’t you just love them?
  2. MS Excel video tutorials are created to assist VAs in everything Excel. The FREE tutorials include financial planning analysis, functions and formulas, checking and monitoring and many more.

Website Design and Coding

Now, let’s get techie. If you find time to focus on studying techie stuff, you’ll eventually be a techie. In other words, don’t be afraid. However, there will be lots of trial and error. Good thing, these courses can help you set up the basic foundation of your techie skills:

  1. CodeAcademy offers complete web development education. You can learn specific web development skills, language skills, and more.
  2. WordPress 101 by WPBeginner is FREE a video tutorial on how to create and manage a website using WordPress as a platform. Just create an account to view the videos.
  3. Joomla 101 allows you to learn to use Joomla quick and easy for FREE. Learn to design and manage Joomla web sites properly with their short video tutorials.
  4. Podcast course by John Lee Dumas are free on YouTube. It consists of 19 videos ranging from 3 to 20 minutes in length. It covers beginner’s podcasting, how to succeed, ways to fail, how to monetize podcasts, and more.
  5. Free Code Camp is a nonprofit organization that teaches you how to code for free. You can earn each certification by completing its 5 final projects. It is 100% free although you are welcome to make donations.

Designing

Creating clean, professional-looking images is a must. So jump right in and learn about design basics from:

  1. HackDesign gives weekly lessons. They will help you get confidence in using typography, color combinations, and designs. Designs for multiple platforms including web, mobile and iPhone apps, among many others.

Tip: It is inevitable that VAs would have to learn a new tool or two as a part of their daily tasks. Fortunately, learning new software would not be a problem. Chances are, the software’s website offers FAQs, support and free basic training. In other words, training on how to use their product, so make sure to check on their site first.

  1. Camtasia offers free video tutorials to familiarize clients with the basics. It offers 30 minutes of video presentations via screencast or Microsoft PowerPoint.
  2. Infusionsoft offers many tutorials on customer relationship management. These range from e-mail marketing to lead capture and e-commerce.

Writing

However, don’t forget to sharpen your skills in writing because this will comprise 50% of your work.

  1. Copywriting 101 by CopyBlogger will teach you how to write a compelling copy. They do this by introducing you to the basics of copywriting. Even if you don’t plan on being a copywriter, it is always good strategy to learn. Learning the right words that will make people want to take action will help you down the road.

Do you know any other sources for free training for Virtual Assistants? Feel free to share them in the comment section below! In conclusion, there are plenty of sites that will give you free training to become a virtual assistant.

25+ Sites Offering Free Training for Virtual Assistants

 

Making Money from the Road

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Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. I may receive commissions for purchases made through links in this post.

Whether you are looking for a work at home job or you are looking for ways to earn an income from the road, there are quite a few ways to accomplish this. Being able to earn an income from the road was a big question for us before we took the plunge to full-time RV. To accomplish our dream, we created multiple streams of income to achieve our goal of living on the road. Here are some ways that we earn an income from the road to allow us to travel.

Virtual Assistant

Being a virtual assistant is pretty easy basically you have a skill, and someone pays you to use your skill to help them. One of the main reasons that I went this route was because I knew that I had a lot to offer as a virtual assistant because I’m very technically inclined, good with graphics, can write blogs, do administrative tasks and much more. Here are a few services you can offer as a virtual assistant:

  • Writing
  • Ghostwriting
  • Graphic design
  • Researching
  • Editing
  • Tutoring
  • Desktop publishing
  • Audio / video / photo editing
  • Consulting / counseling / coaching
  • Bookkeeping
  • Copywriting
  • Social media management
  • Project management
  • Transcription
  • WordPress management
  • Data entry
  • Arranging travel
  • Anything else you can do without having to be in the same physical location as your client

Horkey Handbook has a list of 150+ Virtual Assistant Services that you can offer as a VA. I took Gina Horkey’s course before I launched my business to make sure that I was doing it right. Please note that you do NOT have to take a course to become a virtual assistant. I’m kind of anal about doing things and wanted to make sure that I covered all of my basics, so I took a course. In a future post, I’m going to show you free courses you can take to become a Virtual Assistant so stay tuned for that!

To be completely honest, I’m not the greatest at selling myself because I’m an introvert and don’t like talking about myself. This makes it slightly harder to get clients on my own. While I do have a few of my own clients, I also work as a Virtual Assistant through Time Etc.  I make $11 an hour working through them and get to pick and choose my clients and tasks. They are great for filling in the extra time that I have.

If you do now want to have your own virtual assistant business or are like me and are an introvert so you would rather work for another company, here are a few places that hire virtual assistants:

Social Media Management

This could also fall under Virtual Assistant. There are many companies out there that recognize the benefits of having a social media presence for their business, but don’t have the time to take it on themselves. This is where a social media manager comes in. If you are interested in going this route, there are a lot of course and other free information out there on social media. The course that helped me the most was Rachel Petersen’s Social Media United Course.  I’m not an affiliate of her course (I don’t think she has an affiliate program), but I seriously loved her course. I have learned so much from it.

Freelance Writing

If you love writing, then freelance writing may be for you. There are quite a few places to find freelance writing gigs. I would stay away from places like freelancer.com and upwork.com. There are people that have great success with those kinds of sites, but I have not. Take freelancer.com for instance; I have found there to be lots of scams on there. If you take a job not realizing that it is a scam, Freelancer automatically takes a portion of your money even though you will never see a dime. They are also pretty much-bidding wars, so you don’t make very much money on them.

If you are looking for a great way to learn how to start your freelance writing business, Contena is a great place to start. Not only do they have a job board, but they also have an academy to help you.

Gina from Horkey Handbook also has a course called 30 Days or Less to Freelance Writing Success. I have not personally taken this course, but I have taken her 30 Days or Less to Virtual Assistant Success course and her Pinterest VA course and thought they were good courses.

If you are looking for some free job boards to find some freelance writing gigs, here are a couple to start with:

Blogging

While I don’t make a lot of money blogging, I do make some. Most of these come from ads and affiliate marketing. This is a new income stream for me, so it is still growing. At the moment, I only make about $100-$200 a month from both of my blogs, but I am hoping to improve that more in the future. I have taken Michelle’s course Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing to help step up my game, so I will do a review of her course in the future to let you know my thoughts. Here are some resources if you are looking to go this route.

  • Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing – Michelle at Making Sense of Cents has a great affiliate marketing course that teaches you everything you need to know to make money through affiliate marketing from your blog. Michelle earns over $50,000 a month through affiliate marketing, and she teaches you exactly how in this course. I have only recently taken this course and am still learning to apply what I have learned.
  • Elite Blog Academy – If you are looking for a great overall blogging course that will teach you how to start a blog from the very beginning, I recommend signing up for the waitlist for Elite Blog Academy. This is not open right now, but it will be soon so you will want to be sure to be on the waitlist right when that happens. I have not personally taken this course as I couldn’t swing the cost, but I have heard great things about it.  You can receive 7 Surefire Ways To Boost Your Blog Income Overnight for free for signing up for the waitlist too.
  • Six Figure Blogger – This is the ultimate formula for making six figures from your blog with digital products and services, all without being scammy or spending thousands on start-up costs.

Michelle at Making Sense of Cents also has a free blogging course that you can sign up for – How To Start and Launch a Successful Blog Course.

Workamping

Workamping is where you work at a campground or place in exchange for either a site or a site and salary. We always look for positions that also include the salary. There are many places to find workamping jobs. Here are a couple of my favorite places to look:

  • https://www.coolworks.com/
  • https://workingcouples.com/
  • https://www.work-for-rvers-and-campers.com/help-wanted.html
  • https://www.workamper.com/
  • http://workampingjobs.com/

Our first workamping job was at Trailside RV Park. Angela & Paul are such friendly people. We loved it so much that we decided to work a 2nd time there three years later. If you are looking for other workamping possibilities,  Amazon has a workamping position in the fall for their Christmas season. We haven’t done this one because they require you to have your high school diploma with you and we don’t carry ours with us. Sugar Beet Harvest is another seasonal job that some people do. Both Amazon and Sugar Beet harvest work can be lucrative but will require long hours.

The only thing we don’t care for about workamping is that how long you stay in one place depends on your position, so you have a little less freedom. That and some people can be quite piggy. But we do get to meet a lot of nice people.

There are many other ways to earn an income from the road, but this should give you a good start!

Getting to Know Instagram

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Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. I may receive commissions for purchases made through links in this post.

I have to admit it. I was a little slow at getting on board with the whole Instagram thing. But with over 700 Million users and over 1.2 billion likes on Instagram daily, it’s kind of hard to ignore it. After I had warmed up to Instagram, it was fun getting to know all the aspects of it.

Instagram is about telling stories through pictures. You don’t want to just throw any picture on it and call it good. You want to try and make your photos as professional as possible. I’m now saying that you need to go and get yourself an expensive camera to get the job done. Your smartphone can do the job just fine. 

Basic Smartphone Camera Tips

Here are some basic smartphone camera principles to help find your visual sweet spot:

  • Take many photos of the same subject (this means shooting outside of the Instagram app) to make sure you get the perfect shot.
  • Follow the light and always aim to take pictures in indirect natural daylight if possible, or during the golden or blue hours. Be sure to be aware of shadows and unintentional reflections that can appear in your images, such as those from your phone. The unwanted reflections can distract from the main subject and take away from the picture quality.
  • Make sure you edit your photo tastefully, and please try not to overdo it with the filters. There are many options for editing your photos. Some of them can mean the difference between an amateur and a professional result.
  • Find a visual style and stick to it. You want to make sure you have consistency in your images. Having consistency makes for an overall cohesion when your feed is viewed as a whole. It is something that lends to your credibility while also being visually pleasing to the viewers.

To go along with the awesome photos that you just took, make sure you have relevant hashtags and captions. If you are new to using social media, you may not know what hashtags are. A hashtag is a word or phrase comprised of letters, numbers, and/or emoji preceded by a #. A hashtag was once referred to as the pound or number symbol (#).

Instagram uses these hashtags to categorize the pictures into different groups. If you click on a hashtag, you can see other images that are similar. Make sure that you do not misuse the hashtags though. If Instagram deems that you have been misusing them, they will place a shadowban on your account. When your account has been shadowbanned, your images will not show up in any of the hashtags that you have used. So it is in your best interest to make sure that you research your hashtags. Be sure to only use ones relevant to your images and audience.

How many hashtags to use?

There are some contradictions in the social media marketing field on how many hashtags you should use. Some say to use all 30 hashtags, and others say to use 4-14 hashtags. The problem with always using 30 hashtags is that you could start getting the wrong kind of followers (like spammers). You could also dilute the message that you are trying to get across to your audience. You may want to also use most of your hashtags in your first comment. This way it doesn’t get in the way of the caption and make it look too busy.

You will also want to be sure to interact with your audience. Interacting with your audience is a great way to provide customer support. You can do this even if the customer isn’t aware that your business is listening. Marketing and branding are about building relationships with your audience. If you are just posting pictures and ignoring the rest of it, you are not getting the full benefit of Instagram. Follow other relevant users and share their content. This is an excellent way to show them that they are appreciated.

Instagram insights/ analytics

Instagram insights/ analytics is a good way to see how your posts are doing. It provides information about impressions for each post. You will also find the reach, engagement, and top-performing posts. You can also get key demographic information about your followers. This includes their gender, age, and location.

Be sure to review the Instagram insights on a regular basis. This will help you to determine what areas you need to work on. It will also show you what hashtags are working better for you, and will allow you to adjust your strategy.

Instagram is a relatively easy and fun platform once you get the hang of it. Be sure to watch out for more posts on Instagram in the future!

3 Ways To Manage Your Business More Effectively

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Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. I may receive commissions for purchases made through links in this post.

There are many ways to manage your business more efficiently. There are many technology and tools to increase productivity, and more coming out all the time to help your business. What happens when you start getting bogged down with emails and bookkeeping that start to take time away from the actual work that makes you money? Here are the top 3 ways to manage your business more effectively.

Efficient Project Management

If you are still managing your team with Skype messages, email messages, or Facebook messages, then you should think about an alternative way. Trello and Freedcamp are a couple of sites that are perfect for helping you manage your team. The best part is they are both free. They both have time-saving functions, including the setup of projects, inviting your client or other team members to projects that are relevant to them, and listing tasks in each project by priority and deadline. This gives you one place to be able to see at a glance what needs to be done still and what has already been done. You can also set one up for yourself to keep yourself on the tasks you need to do.

Effective Time Management

Use a calendar. I like Google Calendar. Google Calendar can easily be used with smartphones. You can color-code your schedules so you can easily see which ones are for personal or business. Schedule everything and use different colors for each activity including sleep, self-care, business activities and any appointments you may have. This will help you see at a glance if you can fit new clients in and what activities you may need help with to allow more time to focus on your business.

Prioritize Your Responsibilities

At the start of each day, go through everything that you need to do. Some of the tasks will be more important than others. Order the list starting with the most important and ending with the least important ones. I like to use a spreadsheet or a notepad on my computer to accomplish this. Figure out how long each task should take you and make a note of it next to the item. At the end of each day, go through your list and make any time adjustments needed for how long each task took. Also, decide if any of the tasks can be taken off the list.

All of these systems will save you time, and they are easy to implement. Planning is key to success and will allow you to be more productive with the management of your business. Hopefully, these 3 ways to manage your business more efficiently will help save you time.

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  Email: shanna@forestandshanna.com

   Phone: (715) 657-0685

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