Pinoys earning online: ingenieure and her writing gigs

Winning entry of ingenieure in the "How Pinoys earn money online contest":

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As a child I was always told that money does not come from trees. While that may be true, I realized an even more comforting thing: money can come from websites.

People always ask me: "What's your job?" And though I never really had something concrete to say, I find myself able to sustain myself through my online earnings, mainly as an SEO content writer. I am a pure Internet worker at the moment, and I am proud to be one. When I tell them what I do, they often do a double take and could not believe their ears that the avenue most people my age normally use for Friendster and other social functions is already something with which I get most of my subsistence for living.

I have started out as a freelance magazine writer for Sense and Style, but it was more of a hobby than as a source of income. As more opportunities came only in ways that expanding networks could generate, I found myself immersed in search engine optimization writing. I started out working a few articles at a time. I started out earning less than 100 pesos per article. But as I met more people online and my experience grew, I started to earn more than enough for my living expenses. My capability to produce volumes of articles also increased over time because from being able to write one SEO article for one hour, I can now do it in as fast as 20 minutes.

Academic writing also fascinated me. For one thing, these academic writing jobs are usually paid on a per project basis directly from US clients who are more than generous if you do the nitty-gritty of research for them. I have earned quite considerably from a few pages of research ($11 per page). And it also honed my writing skills because in my engineering course, I am often bombarded and hardly given a chance to polish my writing style.

The thing I love about working online is that I hold my time. There are no cranky bosses, no hours to fill, no unnecessary trips. And no taxes. For as long as there is a viable Internet connection, I can earn money. And on my most comfortable clothing with a bag of chips on my side, if I may add.

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