Learn about becoming a website tester

• Date: 28th April
• Time: 3:42 pm
• Location: At the table
• Money made thus far: $0

Me again, I hope you are all well. Things are going good, it’s the last day of school holidays (thank goodness) but that also means there’s only 3 days left until the end of my two-week holiday. Back to the real world I guess! So since my last post I have put in about 3-4 hours of work online. How much money have I earned you ask? Well at the moment its a big fat zero! But what I have gained is knowledge I didn’t have before, knowledge that im going to hand down to you grasshoppers in this very blog post! Ready? Here we go!
Naturally the first thing I do in my quest for the diamonds is simply google “the best ways to make money online”. After a while I came across this helpful list on savemybacon.co.nz, it was as follows.

Best websites to make money online:
• Qmee.com
• Usertesting.com
• Taluna
• Swagbucks
• Inbox Pounds
• Mechanical Turk
• Mystery Shopping

So I figured this was a good place as any to start. After some further investigation I found that some of these websites fall into the same category which is website testing, so that my friends is todays topic.

So what exactly does website testing entail you ask? To put it quite simply companies will pay you to review and test their websites, apps or games for usability, they want to understand more about how customers using their sites are finding the website navigation. You will be told a scenario such as “find out the opening hours of this location” and while you navigate the website to complete the tasks you will also be explaining you thought process aloud so the companies know exactly how your navigating their page. Once you complete all the assigned tasks your recording will be uploaded and reviewed by the company, if they are happy with your review you will be paid for your time.

This category stood out to me as you have the potential to earn $10 for 10-20 minutes of work! So with an average of $30 of potential revenue per hour it almost sounds to good to be true… unfortunately it is. While the pay is inviting these types of websites attract a lot of testers, so the amount of work you get seems to be minimal, still a bit here and their but nowhere near enough to quit your day job.

Before you can start earning bucks there is few things you’ll need to do first. Most of these sites require you to have a computer with a built-in mic. If you don’t have this simply purchase one from a local shop (I found that my Xbox headset works fine). Most sites will require you to download a program that records your screen while you complete the tests (I realize that as im writing this it kinda sounds dodgy but I’m sure its fine). Anyway once this program is properly installed you’re good to go! So after I got a feel for what being a tester is I decided why not sign up to as many of these websites as possible and see what happens. So after another google search I found this list of the best websites to be a tester and it was as follows:

• usertesting.com
• anayasia.com
• enroll
• start up lift
• testing time
• try my UI
• userfeel
• userlystics
• validately
• userzoom

I tried to sign up to every one of these but some I was unable to because I live in little ol NZ (most of the world don’t know we exist and the rest think were a bunch of hippie sheep loving Maoris) So due to this I couldn’t sign up to testing time, try my UI, userzoom, userlystics and valedately. However all hope was not lost and I pursued on. The first site I successfully signed up for was usertesting. This is open to anyone with a paypal account and the sign up was relatively simple. After the usual username, password and email validation was complete it was time to download the recording program. This aswell was simple with easy to follow instructions (unless your my partners dad who can’t even copy and paste without a lengthy phone call that me or Sam have to endure while we try to explain what the right clicker on the mouse is). Anyway slightly off track just needed to vent. So I’ve signed up downloaded the program now the test step was to do my practice test. This is to determine whether you are awesome enough to become a tester (and make sure your not an idiot). After the quick tutorial, a swig of beer and some deep breathing (I was quite nervous) I was ready to begin. The challenges I had to complete were easy such as “find the opening hours for this location” so while I’m looking for this I describe my entire thinking process, why I looked for the menu first, where i expected the hours to be located etc. Once I complete a few challenges I’m asked two follow-up questions about the website that I need to give written answers for. After I completed everything I was told that I would receive an email within the next week. To my surprise the next day I got the email to say I was accepted. Aswell as usertesting (which after a quick search seems to be the most popular of the sites) I signed up to enroll. start-up lift, testing time and user feel as with a similar process. I must say it is a downside that every site requires you to download a different program to record your screen. However we can always uninstall it if we get nothing from it. I kind of signed up to analysia but the program wouldn’t download properly and after a good 15 minutes of trying I gave up.

So currently I have joined 5 different sites and also currently I haven’t received a single test yet, not even one. It is early days though so we will see how it goes. I feel that while these sites may be a good way to earn some extra cash, it wouldn’t eventuate
into anything close to allowing me to quit my day job. My hope is that this may turn into a small income stream (hey a small one is better than none right?)
So the journey will continue, I will venture into the abyss in search of a better way. I will be back with more mind-blowing advice in the next few days.

Until then young grasshoppers.

May the luck of the gods be with you.

The Beginning

• Date: 26th April

• Location: On my couch

• Time: 6.30pm (told my 6-year-old it was 7 to get him in bed early #winning)

Ok so here goes, hi my name is Samantha and as of today I have decided to explore the possibility of working online and earn enough money to support my family and to quit my day job. After a bit of research I came across blogging. Now I’ve never considered myself a writer/blogger/person who people find really interesting but I thought hey why not give it a crack? I can blog about my journey, and hopefully help some like-minded people out there while also making more money muahahaha.

A bit about myself first, I live in a Christchurch a city in New Zealand (I was going to say small city but in NZ its considered large), I’m 26 years young and live with my partner Sam (yes i know Sam and Sam haha) and our….. incredibly energetic 6-year-old son Marcus. We have two cats, two fish and two snails. We live a good life, we don’t starve or struggle, we have enough money to get by comfortably from week to week. I manage at cafe at Ballantynes (very fancy rich people shop) and my partner Sam is a qualified Electrician who works in his spare time for himself. We have been together since we were about 16ish (didn’t take much notice at the time because I didnt think we would be together this long) so about 10 years. We have always hated the mundane view that some people have on life, people say “you better get used to working you’ll be doing 40 hours most your life” or “can’t you just be happy with what you’ve got, your lucky”. Now I understand that the life we are living now is a great one and for some people it would be enough, but we are not some people. Are you some people? If so some may call us greedy for wanting more but frankly I dont care and neither should you. You only live once, why no try for something better, be your own boss

To sum it up the dream is to slowly and steadily try to earn enough money online to eventually equal what I make with my day job, then quit!! If all goes well Sam will be able to follow suit, then once we are free from our day jobs the real adventure starts. We will travel the world, make amazing memory’s, tick off the bucket list, eat amazing food, sing be happy be merry, this is all only possible however if I manage to pull it off, I will blog every few days to give an update on my progress (hopefully there will be some) and I hope that throughout this journey I can help or inspire other like-minded people to take the plunge. So enough talking about it time to research the best ways to make money on the line (bear in mind my kitchen rules will be playing in the background). Wish me luck!

Until we meet again

Peace out

p.s. I promise my next blog may have some actual useful information.