Leapforce is one of a small handful of companies that hire at home search engine evaluators. However, they have extremely mixed reviews online – some are claiming it’s a scam, yet others say it’s great. So what’s the truth?

So what’s the deal? Is Leapforce a scam?

No, they’re a legitimate independent company contracted by the big search engine companies (Google) to help them assess their algorithm. They say Google is always striving to be the best and give quality results, and they hire real people to help them in the process. When you’re hired as a search engine evaluator, you’re an independent contractor – not an employee. This means that you’re paycheck is not taxed and you’re responsible for withholding your own taxes.

In order to get hired you need to fill out an online application and submit a resume. If you’re selected, you have to take a series of 2 exams. They send you the training material and give you 1 week to take it. It’s a very difficult exam and a lot of people do not pass (but many do).

So why is there so much trash talk about Leapforce?

• Their pay rate is misleading – You’re told that you’ll be making a certain amount hourly, however that is not 100% accurate. You are paid for the time it should have taken you to do the work rather than how long it actually took you to do the work. In other words, they calculate how long they think each task will take you, and pay you for each task no matter how long it took. If they think a task will take you 5 minutes but it takes you 10, you’ll only be allowed to get paid for 5 minutes. Alternatively if it took you 3 minutes to do that 5 minute task, you don’t get paid more for working faster – you just have to sit there for that 2 extra minutes and wait for the next task. Those who work slower will end up getting paid a lot less and potentially fired if they are too slow. Those who work too fast won’t get any added benefit and could end up being punished too if they think they’re going too fast. Ultimately, you need to work at their pace.
• You’re not paid for training (which takes up a lot of time) -Once you get past the initial examinations (which are difficult and time consuming) there is a huge learning curve and you are not paid for any time spent training, studying, taking tests or watching webinars. This will have a negative impact on your pay rate, especially when first starting out.
• Not consistent work – Unfortunately work won’t always be available 24/7, and depending when you are able to work you may not be able to reach as many hours per week as you wanted. Some of these companies have a weekly/monthly cap on how many hours you can work, but I don’t think Leapforce does. However it may be very hard to actually reach 40 hours a week – expect around 20 and don’t count on it for a full time income.
• They can easily fire you – They’re known for letting people go at any time. They have certain work quality standards you have to adhere to and if you fall below you’ll get threatened with termination. However their “quality” is subjective and doesn’t mean the person isn’t working hard, just that they’re not agreeing to their standards.

What makes it hard is that they’re trying to standardize tasks that are inherently subjective!

Trying to standardize something that is inherently subjective is extremely difficult. Testing to monitor quality and relevancy of search engine result queries is something that isn’t an exact science. Of course there will be discrepancies, and however much they try to “standardize” it with their rules and guidelines, it’s still going to be difficult for a lot of people to perform in the exact way they want. Hence, why so many people complain about their sub-par performance levels.

I know first hand from scoring standardized tests, this was a huge problem. You have to be able to take their guidelines and apply them to each unique situation. There are people that will be really good at doing this, and those that can’t. It’s just the nature of the work.

The main thing to realize here is this job just isn’t for everyone.

It may not be the greatest job and you may be treated like a disposable object, but that doesn’t really make it a scam. The fact is they DO pay you and many people do this work with no problems. I think a lot of people who complain about Leapforce have too many expectations for the job. It isn’t a full time reliable job. You don’t get benefits, vacation time, nor are you guaranteed to remain working for them for any set amount of time. It’s a contracted project and you are not their employee.

Unfortunately it may require a large initial time commitment that may not pan out in the end. However for many it is a great source of extra income. I’d say if you are a college student, stay at home parent, or just in need of a second income source for yourself then go for it. If you’re trying to make it a full time profession, you’ll be majorly disappointed.

What other companies hire for this type of work?

• Lionsgate
• Butler Hill
• Workforce Logic

You can easily find these companies from a quick Google search.

If you’re looking for a sustainable way to earn a full time income online, learn how Wealthy Affiliate can benefit you…

The basic steps:

Step 1 – Start a blog! 

If you want to make money blogging, you’ll first need your own website! You can purchase your own domain name, which is definitely recommended. On your own domain you have total freedom to do what you choose, plus your website will get favored by the search engines and ultimately rank better.

If you aren’t ready to commit to your own domain, you can start a website on any free source. My recommendation? A free siterubix website is definitely the way to go – it’s fully WordPress functional and you’ll be able to transfer the content to your own domain at the click of a button.

You can make a siterubix site SUPER easy – with just a few clicks!

Step 2 – Blog regularly, and blog for a purpose

The trick to monetizing any blog is to direct it at a target audience - a niche market. You want to appeal to a certain group of people that have a reason to want to read your blog – think about popular blogs on the internet, what are they about? They probably mostly have one thing in common – they aren’t a personal blog.

Think about all the blogs out there – cooking blogs, dessert blogs, weight loss blogs, healthy living blogs, electronic blogs, gaming blogs – the list is endless! The narrower your focus the easier time you’ll have targeting an audience.

Once your blog is up and running and you have some content created – don’t stop there! You need to regularly write and publish content to keep your readers interested!

Step 3 – Get traffic to your site

Another reason posting regularly is going to greatly benefit you is because it’ll give you more chances to obtain traffic to your website.

So, how do you gain traffic from blogging? If you know the power of keywords, you’ll be able to drive a very successful web campaign. Keywords are very powerful, and if you use the right keyword tools you’ll have the secret to LOTS of traffic.

Another way to gain traffic to your blog is through social media – make sure you share your content socially on networks such as Facebook, Google+ and Pinterest.

Step 4 – Monetize your audience

You can have all the traffic in the world coming to your blog, but you won’t make a dime if you aren’t monetizing your audience!

The way a lot of bloggers do this is through programs like Google Adsense, (or similar ad networks), or selling ad space on their website.

Personally, however, I’d recommend affiliate marketing. It’s the simplest and most lucrative way to monetize the traffic coming in.However, some blogs are harder to monetize with affiliate marketing and may benefit more from things like adsense or selling adspace.

It’s important to figure out before you start how you’re going to monetize your traffic.

Step 5 – Whatever route you choose, treat it like a business

Just because it doesn’t seem like a real job doesn’t mean it isn’t – the fact is if you want to make money you’re going to have to be serious about it. Come up with a business plan, set goals, work consistently and be professional. Knowing what you aim to accomplish will help you focus on the task and be successful at making money with your blog!

Step 6 – Have support and help along the way

This is perhaps one of the most important steps along the way! Make sure you have people who support and help you every step of the way – it’s easy to get confused or stressed out when you’re trying to accomplish something on your own. Frustration is a huge reason people give up, so don’t let it be your reason!

Want to know the best place to access a community of people who will help you on your professional blogging journey?

Meet Wealthy Affiliate – an online training program for online marketers, as well as a thriving community of a range of professional marketers – anywhere from beginners to the most advanced in the industry. It’s an awesome place to get help and seek connections – and we all know how important connections are in the professional world!

You can join and get started with the training for 100% free, no credit card required. This is going to be the ultimate secret to your success for making money with your blog!

Click here to join for free!

Any questions or comments, please leave them down below and I’d be more than happy to help you out!

-Wendy

Did you know that those with social anxiety are more likely to be unemployed or underemployed than those with depression? A clinical psychologist at Brown University by the name of Ethan Moitra did a study comparing unemployment rates between those with depression, generalized anxiety, social anxiety, and other similar types of disorders. He found that those with social anxiety were more than twice as likely to be unemployed than the others.

While it is possible for some people to overcome social anxiety, it’s easier when treatment is done early. For those who have suffered for a long time, treatment may not help significantly. Even so, not everyone will always be willing to reach out for help. I truly believe that internet marketing is a fantastic career field for people who suffer from social anxiety disorder and cannot get adequate help. As an internet marketer, you have the freedom to create your own business with very little real world interaction.

You can work from home or wherever you feel the most comfortable. Unlike a real world business, you don’t have the in person customer interaction. The ability to talk to your customers over the internet takes away most of the social stress. And if you go into affiliate sales, your actual sales and customer complaints are taken care of by the merchant, not you. It’s actually a perfect scenario for people who hate or intensely fear interacting with the real world.

My struggle with social anxiety and how it affected my career

Something I don’t like to talk about is my social anxiety. It’s something I have been quietly suffering from my entire life. Most people who know me or meet me just think I’m shy or very quiet, but the truth is, it goes so far beyond that. Unless you suffer from it yourself you really have no idea what I and many others with social anxiety disorder have to deal with on a daily basis.

Let’s Talk about Shy vs. Social Anxiety

Being shy and having social anxiety are similar, but are on entirely different levels. While there’s quite varying degrees of social anxiety, even the mildest is above the point of simply being a bit shy.

Being shy is having a few butterflies in the tummy before meeting someone new, being a bit scared to make friends or speak up, or not liking being the center of attention. However, if those feelings are so intense they causes physical symptoms and get in the way of your life, it’s a sign you might have social anxiety. SA can make you fret over little things involving any form of social interaction for literally days, weeks, or sometimes even months before. Some people suffer so severely they have a hard time going out or interacting at all with others.

While my personal situation isn’t that serious, being involved or just thinking about certain social interactions can make me hot, sweaty and sick to my stomach. And still have to fight battles in my head every single day of my life.

I basically coasted my way through high school, college and all my past jobs with as little social interaction as possible, greatly hindering my ability to make connections and form relationships with my professors and supervisors. (These days I’m sure you know how important connections are when getting hired).

My situation was so bad I realized it had been nearly three years since I graduated college and I had nothing of importance to show for it…

I had hit a wall. I was letting my struggle with social anxiety take over my life, and I realized I had to do something. The whole career world out there was really hard for me to deal with, and I couldn’t keep working a crappy job forever. The bad economy made my already terrible situation just 10 times worse. Now not only was I struggling to try and be a normal person in the employment world, the job market was officially crap and even regular people who were friendly, outgoing and knew tons of people were having trouble finding a job. How was I going to ever compete with that?

That’s when I decided to try out online business

I thought about it for a long time and considered all sorts of possibilities, but then I had it. Everything is going online these days, I figured the internet was an excellent place to start making money, and best of all I could do it on my own. I spent countless hours researching and training myself how it all worked, I was absolutely determined to make it happen. I found an online training program and support community for internet marketers like no other place out there, and it did wonders to help me succeed.

I wish I had started this years ago, because lord knows how much time I wasted and how much farther along I could be now.

I would love more than anything to be able to effortlessly interact with everyone around me, but unfortunately I’ve been struggling with it from 27 years and I know it will never be something that comes easy for me. For me, the online business world was the perfect solution.

Do you struggle from social anxiety? Have any questions or comments? I’d love to here from you, so drop a reply down below or get in touch with me personally if you want, you can send me an email at wendyjane@survivingaftercollege.com. I’m always willing to offer my help and support.

Wendy
Owner, SurvivingAfterCollege.com

First let me make it clear the type of “jobs” I’m about to discuss aren’t the kind where there’s a direct exchange for your time and money. You’re not going to “clock in” and “clock out” and receive a paycheck 2 weeks later. I’m talking about money making opportunities that are available to you to take advantage of online. The internet is a great place for business and there’s tons of money to be made. Yes, legitimate money! So I’ve put together a little list of online jobs for college students–ones which I think you’d actually enjoy doing, could fit in well with your crazy schedule, and could earn you extra cash in the process.

The thing that’s great about these types of jobs is, while yes, they require a lot of hard work, at least you are able to do it on your own time. You don’t have to “go’ to work, work happens where ever and whenever you want.

Create your own website/blog

Go buy up a .com and create a website or blog. The theme could be something you love or are really interested in, but keep the focus on a particular niche. You want this to be something for the public to be interested in, not just your friends. So create a website with a target audience in mind. People make blogs and sites about anything these days, I’ve even seen many blogs reviewing different kinds of beer and malt beverages! It really can be anything!

The point is, if you can get people to see your website, you could be able to take advantage of the traffic flow and monetize it, whether it’s relying on ad revenue or affiliate programs. It may seem like it’d be impossible to develop a large enough following to bring in some cash, but with the help of SEO, social networking, and your unique engaging content, it’s not as hard as you might think. Keep in mind, there’s people making full time income doing this sort of thing, so it’s nothing to snuff about.

Start up a Youtube channel

You know how people create Youtube videos of just about anything these days? Like from makeup and hair tutorials to reviewing video games? People do this because it’s fun, AND they earn money!

It also helps to have a unique, like-able, or interesting personality for this, along with decent quality camera or webcam. No one likes watching someone talking in monotone on a bad quality webcam. Make them interesting! As with the blogs, if enough people watch and like your content, you can put ads on and it’s another source for revenue! You could also tie in the affiliate marketing with this if you have a relevant website to link back to. (Creating a Youtube channel AND a blog would give you the potential to make way more money.)

Advertise your services on Fivverr.com or Elance.com

If you are skilled at anything, you may want to check out Fivverr.com or Elance.com. With Fiverr, basically you advertise your personal services starting at $5. These can be anything from writing a 400 word article, putting together a resume and cover letter, to designing a Facebook timeline cover. You can up-sell your offers to include incentives or additional services if you want to charge more per offer (Like, “I’ll have it done in a day for an additional 20 dollars.”) After people have hired you for their service, they can leave a recommendation for you, so others can see you are a trustworthy candidate.

If you spend any time on the site, you’ll notice people are offering to do some pretty bizarre services! But in all seriousness, despite the weird offers, there’s people looking for legitimate services on Fivverr all time time, so put yourself out there! Just make sure you upload a video for each service you want to advertise, so people know you are a real person and serious about it. The downside of Fiverr is they charge a 20% fee per gig.

Elance.com is quite similar to Fiverr in theory, although it’s a bit more professional and they charge less, just 8.75% commission per gig. It can be a bit harder to get decent work on the site though. On the upside you have the potential to earn a lot more for each job you perform.

Don’t bother with online surveys!

Oh, and one last piece of advice– don’t waste your time taking online surveys. I know there’s a lot of hype out there talking about the great cash to be made from survey taking, but it’s not really true. Websites like Swagbucks and Surveymonkey may be popular, but they’re mostly for fun more than anything. I attempted to try and make extra cash from survey taking during college. I spent hours of my time filling them out, and all I got in return was a 10 dollar target gift card mailed to me a month later. Now, I could have spent 1,000 hours of my time and perhaps upgraded to the 100 dollar gift card, but would that really have been worth it?

Purchasing your own website is my #1 recommendation because when you have your own site, you have more control and the ability to make money however you want. In addition, you can work when YOU choose, as little or as much as you want. If you’re interested in a great online training community that will help you get started profiting from your own site, you can read all about it here!

If you have any questions or comments please leave them down below.