Bangladesh: Earning Money Online is not Easy

The history of Internet in Bangladesh is just 13 years old. E-commerce is still not legal here and there is no way of online transaction. SO, earning money through websites is a very big problem. I have written a detailed article about it in another blog: Web Entrepreneurship in Bangladesh. However, I am some shocked and perhaps worried to see that in the community blogs and some forums, these days, we can find a lot of advertisements about earning money online. Most of the time, they are useless scams or referrals through which you can never earn money. Recently, I saw a report a in a magazine that gave advise to open Google Adsense account from cyber café and then click from your home and this way earn money. Needless to say that this way, Google will happily ban your Adsense account.

In Bangladesh, unemployment rate is very high and may educated people are either without any job are in the jobs that they should not be. Here, many graduates are forced to apply for the posts of peon or typists. So, naturally, when they hear the news of any new business or income source then hundreds rush towards it without giving any serious thought. It has happened to the share market and many people suffered loss in 1996. Then, many young people became crazy to get training and study computer by spending 1 lakh or 2 lakh taka in the period 1998-2002 and only lost their money. Anyway, I am worried that again similar thing may happen about online income.

First of all, there is a number of ways to earn money through Internet. They are perfectly legitimate and reliable. You will never lose a dollar with companies like Google. However, you have to remember that there is no short cut in earning money through Internet. Basically Bangladeshi students and educated people can earn money through two ways:

1. Participating in bidding websites

2. Blogging and Freelance Writing

There are some websites famous for outsourcing projects. Rent A Coder and Odesk have become very popular and thousands of people from all over the world are getting projects from these websites. Monthly Computer Jagat Magazine has been publishing reports about the websites regularly for more than one year and you can find all the articles in their website Comjagat.com. Just remember that in these websites, there are many projects and there are many people competing against you to get them. You need several qualities to shine:

a. Be prepared to work at a very low rate at first until you can make your profile

b. You have to be skilled in your field.

c. You have to persistent. Success will not come right way.

d. You have to be punctual. You have to have the mentality and ability to deliver the projects within the deadline.

If you take a look the websites that I mentioned above then you will notice that you can find projects in many fields. It is not just programming. There are many projects in web design, graphics design, virtual assistantship, data entry, online marketing etc.

The second field is blogging and freelance writing. It is even a tougher field because blogging is very easy. There is no barrier to entry in this business. Anyone can join any time. So, the competition is huge. You have to be good at English language. Then, you must have good skill in your field of writing. You must have some decent knowledge about search engine optimization (SEO) and Advertisement programs like Adsense, Chitika, Infolinks etc. You have to get thousands of visitors per month if you want to earn any considerable money through it. Never think that you can earn money through blogging in Bangla language from Adsense.

Anyway, I am worried to see that many young people are now becoming excited about earning dollars through internet without any hard work. This is simply impossible. In fact, if you can read and understand English language then do just some search in Google and you will understand how difficult it is.

I would like you read some entries about earning money online:

How to Make Money From Your Blog

How Bloggers Make Money from Blogs

In the end, my advice is that please, do not rush for anything- especially when it comes to earn money online. It is not a joke. It is very tough and you have to compete with many people. If you are not serious, dedicated and committed then don’t try for it. There is no short cut.