Advertise your skills and services online

Skills don’t wear out, fall out of fashion or break. Just about everyone has a skill of some sort. If you have a knack for piano tuning, or a garage full of power tools and not enough DIY projects to fill your day, then it’s worth considering putting these things to use.

Selling your skills online can be a great way to make money on your terms and at a time of your choosing.

The first thing to consider is the sort of service that will attract customers. It helps to have experience. This is where training, education or career can come into play.

Alternatively, it may be worth looking to hobbies or interests. For example, Computeractive readers have a better-than-average knowledge of computers and may already help out friends and family with PC problems.

Those with a knack for solving them quickly and simply, plus the ability to get on with just about anyone, might consider a little PC fixing on the side. Alternatively, that after-work woodwork class and garage full of tools, or years worth of experience fixing up furniture can be brought into play.

The internet is a great way to sell services both locally and at a distance. It pays to take a look long and hard at how and where services are sold.

There are plenty of sites that list local services. Search for a plumber or dry cleaner in one area using Google and you will find many sites selling listings but not that many sites belonging to the plumber or dry cleaner themselves.

As an example, we have searched for a gardener in the heart of London. Not such an easy job, you might think.

Luckily, this search pulls up a couple of good examples of how people looking for your service might shop. At the top of the results is the directory listing for Gumtree, the modern equivalent of the old classified-ads section in a local paper.

Next there’s Yell.com, the descendant of the old Yellow Pages. Finally, there’s Google’s own listings ­ gardening services that the search engine calculates are near central London.

A quick look at the services advertised makes it clear that most are small businesses, rather than sole traders, and are likely to have spent considerable amounts of time or money building an online presence.

It may be worth using a search engine such as Google to find the sort of service you plan to offer. This will give you a good idea of how the competition advertises, where it advertises and what people find important to know about a service before buying.

Going local
Many websites that list local services either charge for their services or compete directly with a multitude of other listings sites.

Sites such as Up My Street, Welovelocal.com and Smilelocal offer a decent service but they also compete for space in search results against many others, including Google itself and Yell.com.

A trusted local site is a benefit, so when you are thinking of selling your service online, consider which ones seem strong in the area. Give the local newspaper’s website a go, too, especially if listings are free or cheap.

Ask around and find out how friends in the area find services. Often, aside from word of mouth, local papers’ websites and services such as Gumtree see plenty of use. It’s these that are perhaps the best place to start.

Most of us are already pretty familiar with the idea of selling second-hand goods but not with services. Although it’s not strictly required, if you are offering a service as an individual, it’s probably wise to look at how companies offer services and apply the same practices of fair dealing.

Trading Standards offers plenty of advice for both consumers and businesses. We found some useful guidance on its website.

While the guidance offered by Trading Standards is really aimed at businesses, the general principles are a useful starting point. It’s also worth considering another important area ­ self-employment and taxation.

The Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) can be a great help. A simple introductory advice sheet can be found on the CAB’s Advice Guide section.

Finally, don’t be put off by the idea of offering a service using the internet, there are loads of ways to sell online. Many sites, such as Gumtree and Ebay, feature both classified advertising and people selling services.

A quick scan of Ebay turns up paint shops ready to powder-coat bicycle frames, gardeners offering four-hour blocks of their time in specific regions and more.

Think about what skills you have, who might buy them and get online and sell them.To learn how to set up a listing on Gumtree follow our workshop.