The 5 legit ways to earn money online in Bhutan
Table of Contents
Introduction
How to earn money online in Bhutan? Is it possible?
YES! we the Bhutanese can earn money online and the trend is going very high. We see a lot of Bhutanese working online and getting paid. In this blog post, I will share my journey of having a high-index digital presence and earning some money online. I had been working online for quite a long time and I feel that I need to share with my fellow Bhutanese so that you can also take an opportunity that is free and doable.
I had a lot of casual interaction with many of my friends and strangers about my digital presence. The one common question is about how and from where you are being paid digitally. Is it possible to transfer the amount to our national bank account like BOB, BNB, etc…? Well, I would be sharing the payment gateway for all 5 legit ways to earn money online from Bhutan.
The list to earn money online is plenty. Some of you might have already surfed the internet about similar keywords. However, what’s working in other countries may not work in Bhutan. The highest earning platform in other countries might not have even generated a single penny from Bhutan. So, I am happy to share the 5 legit ways to make money online from my experience that works in Bhutan.
1. Start Blogging
Blogging is on my top list to earn money online. Now, Bhutan sees an increasing number of bloggers, they usually share the unique culture and traditions of our country with the world. I have even read some of the travel blogs and their daily journals online. It is a great joy to do what you enjoy and share with other people. Most importantly, while we maintain a blog, getting monetized and generating some revenue is quite an exciting thing about blogging.
How to maintain a blog?
If you want to be a blogger, you can go ahead either with the free platform or with a self-hosted blog. In a self-hosted blog, you must pay annually for the domain and hosting service.
For beginners, I would recommend a free platform such as
How to monetize your blog?
There are lots of ways to make money from blogs. However, It’s pretty challenging to implement every possible high-earning technique from Bhutan. Ever since I was writing a technical blog, the only revenue I make is from Google AdSense. It is a free-of-charge, simple way for publishers of all sizes to earn money by displaying targeted Google ads on their sites.
The earnings from Google Adsense are significantly very less if your blog visitor is only from Bhutan. This is because the Cost Per Click(CPC), Click Through Rate (CTR), and Revenue Per 1000 Impressions (RPM) are very minimal. You will be paid only a few cents if somebody from Bhutan clicks on ads displayed on your website.
To increase your revenue, you should try to get traffic(visitors to your blog) from the United States, UK, etc… Cost Per Click on the ads is very high. You will be paid around 1$ to 2$ for every click. Sadly, If the CPC is from Bhutan, you will get around 0.02$ per click. So, when you write a blog, make sure you do some keyword research. Try to rank high in search engines such as Google, Bing, Safari, etc… so that you will get good visitors to your blog around the world.
Other possible ways to monetize your blog are by doing some paid/sponsored advertisement and affiliate marketing. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen any blogger from Bhutan getting paid advertisement opportunities. Paid advertisement is like promoting other products or businesses on a certain commission. Bhutanese advertisers don’t advertise via website or blog, they do only through television (TV): BBS Channel. This is because Bhutan’s literacy rate is very low and the number of people with an IT background is very less. Therefore, Bhutanese advertisers usually don’t prefer doing advertisements via blog posts. Bhutanese are seen more in front of the TV rather than reading articles and blog posts online hence, getting sponsored advertisement opportunities is very very less unlike in other countries.
How to get paid from Google Adsense?
Google has multiple ways of payment methods. For a country like Bhutan where the payment gateway is very limited, Google pays us via wired transaction and cheque system. Most bloggers and YouTubers of Bhutan use the wired transaction method where the amount will be paid directly into our bank account. In your Google Adsense dashboard, you will get an option to set up your payment method.
Google will not issue a payment until your earnings meet a threshold amount i.e $100. If you’re earning less than $100 in a month then you won’t be paid in that particular month instead your earnings will be rolled over and added to the next month.
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If you want to be a blogger, you should try to focus on writing quality content. When you focus on writing quality content, you should also maintain the quantity. Both are equally important. Initially, rather than focusing on monetizing your blog, you should focus on marketing your content; letting people know that you write helpful, well-researched, and entertaining content. It takes a minimum of around six months to get your blog well-settled on Google. Once everything is well settled and when you have around 50-plus blog posts, monetize it with every possible means. Good luck!
2. Be a YouTuber
Why do people spend a lot of time and money creating content on YouTube?
Of course, they want to share their ideas and tips they know or maybe to entertain the viewer and promote their product but do you know you will be paid by YouTube if you meet the requirement for monetization?
Have at least 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time within the past 12 months to monetize your channel.
Can we make money on YouTube from Bhutan?
Nowadays, we see lots of content creators on YouTube even from Bhutan. That’s great! but I am not sure how many of them are making money from it. The maximum channel has passed the threshold requirement for monetization. Unfortunately, since Bhutan is not listed in YPP(YouTube Partner Program), we are actually not illegible for monetization by default. Check the YouTube Partner Program list here(Bhutan is not on the list).
There are six minimum eligibility criteria to join the YPP. Other five criteria are possible even from Bhutan. However, because of one criterion, “Live in a country/region where the YouTube Partner Program is available” is actually stopping us from monetizing our YouTube channel.
Not to worry much, you can easily bypass that criterion by changing your location to the United States or to any other country which is actually listed in YPP. You can check the YouTube Channels of Bhutan that are actually making money and are located in the United States(Go to their channel dashboard and under the About section, check the location.)
How do you get paid from YouTube?
Getting paid from YouTube is pretty easy. Once you met all the eligibility criteria for monetization, everything will be taken care of by YouTube teams. By default, your revenue will be from AdSense only, from the ads displayed on your videos. That’s why the one criterion to complete the monetization eligibility is by creating an AdSense account. Rest everything goes the same as the Google AdSense earnings I have shared under blogging. More views on videos, more revenue.
When you hook the viewers, you should always try to get viewers from other countries such as the United States. This is because the Click Per Cost and the RPM from the United States is always higher than in any other country. A thousand views on your video from Bhutan and 5 views on your video from the US will be equivalent to generating revenue.
Same as in blogging, YouTube also facilitates a wired transaction to withdraw the amount generated from your videos. If you are able to generate at least $100 at the end of the month, they will send the amount directly to your BoB account.
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Having talked a lot about the monetization criteria and payment gateway, there are a lot of things you should know to be a safe and profitable YouTuber. Maintaining consistency, quality content, keywords, viewers-centered videos, and thumbnail, and knowing their terms and conditions are a few things you should keep in mind when you start creating a YouTube channel. The maximum of Bhutanese YouTubers doesn’t focus on originality, which will actually leads to copyright infringement. Whereby it may even lead to channel termination.
Google AdSense is not only a money-making technique on YouTube. You can go further by doing some promotional videos such as films, products, etc, and doing affiliate marketing.
3. Start Freelancing
Freelancing is not a new term for the Bhutanese. However, freelancers’ profile from Bhutan is very less. The pandemic has given a great lesson for the company and the recruiters that hiring a skilled person from the freelancing portal is quite effective and profitable. Profitable in such a way that they can hire from the pool of skilled personnel at a low rate to execute the task.
I have tried two freelancing portals for quite some time. I failed miserably in one portal where I couldn’t get a single client after having my profile for years. But it does not mean you will fail too. Opportunities are endless. You just need to give it a try.
First I tried creating my profile on Fiverr and created some gigs. Did some bidding which brings no approval for the task. I failed in the Fiverr platform. But you can give it a try since there are some Bhutanese who are actually making good money on the Fiverr platform.
Towards the end of the year 2022, I created my account on a freelancing platform called Upwork. I created five projects based on my skills and mentioned hourly rates. Within a week, I received an invitation to do some work. The Upwork freelancing platform worked for me. Therefore, I will be sharing my experience of freelancing on Upwork.
What are in-demand skills in Upwork?
It can be as simple as a data entry job to software development work. We see lots of daily job posts that need to be done. The hourly rate or the fixed price depends based on the nature of the job. For example, a data entry job is paid less because it does not need high skills to do it. However, IT-related jobs are paid high whereby the expert level is paid even more than 100$ per hour.
The high demands and maximum job posts are in web development, WordPress design, E-Commerce site development, graphics designing, video editing, and content writing. There are also other job posts such as SEO optimizer, translators, proofreader, and the list goes on. The only thing is what you are actually good at. Go, create a profile and sell your skills. I am sure that you will be paid handsomely. I have even seen some profiles who made millions of dollars working on Upwork. We never know, one day It could be you who will be achieving that milestone.
How Upwork pays you?
It’s quite systematic how you are being paid. Upwork also facilitates wired transactions same as Google where you can link your BoB account number. However, unlike Google AdSense payment, charges are quite high in Upwork for wired transactions. Per wired transaction, they will deduct $30 excluding the service charge of 20% on your earnings for using their platform. It takes around a week to get the amount once released from the Upwork account.
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To be a profitable freelancer, it is all about the skills you have. If you can showcase your extraordinary skills, clients can hire you where you need not have to do bidding.
Additionally, I have also seen some job post which is actually like spamming. You have to carefully check the job post, and see whether there are red flags or not. For example, just for a simple task, they might assign a higher hourly rate which is actually not realistic. Do not fall for all those spam hooks. Moreover, do not do a task where the client’s payments are unverified. After submitting the work, clients may vanish without paying you.
4. Try print on demand
Print-on-demand is a type of dropshipping to earn money online. All you need to do is create eye-catching designs, configure your products, and sell them online. A print-on-demand company will take care of the rest!
There are lots of dropshipping platforms where you can be a part of it and earn some money. I had been doing some designing on Spreadshirt. It is your creative platform to customize clothing, accessories, and more. You need to create an account and upload your original designs. Everything will be taken care of by the company; printing and shipping a product. Whenever customers buy your design, you will be paid the commission.
If you are very good at graphics design, Spreadshirt would be the best park for you to make some money. There are also some similar print-on-demand platforms such as Redbubble and Teespring. The working modality is almost identical. You can give it a try.
You may also try Shopify for doing a print-on-demand business. I see lots of content creators making a huge noise about it.
How will you be paid in Spreadshirt?
Spreadshirt does not facilitate wired transactions. There are only two payment gateway ie a US bank account and a PayPal account. PayPal would be a better option where you can withdraw the money in a minute on your credit or debit card. They withheld some tax before releasing our funds.
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Once you have created your designs on Spreadshirt, it’s very crucial that you have to market beyond its own platform. You can use your blog or YouTube channel or social media platform to sell your designs. Remember, you should outsource your design since the maximum number of customers on Spreadshirt are western people only. Higher the order of your designs, the more the revenue.
5. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is one of the top most ways to earn money online. However, it’s pretty challenging in Bhutan and I kept it at last. It is a process of earning a commission by promoting other people’s products.
Some of the best-paying affiliate programs are amazon associates, click bank, eBay partner network, and the list goes on. If you are good at doing product reviews and have good traffic from other countries, I am sure that you will make a good amount like how social media influencer does in other countries.
Make the best use of your blog or YouTube channel by doing some product reviews and sharing affiliate links. If they purchased a product from your links, you will be paid a handsome commission. You can receive your international affiliate earnings from your local banks.
The ways to earn money online are plenty and you just need to explore and do try them!
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