Data entry is one of the simplest jobs you can do online today. You can start right away with no specialized skills. All you need to have is a laptop and an internet connection.

The kinds of data entry jobs available are as varied as there are clients offering these jobs. Most of the skills you need to succeed at this endeavor transfer from project to project. You won’t have any trouble handling different projects if you are motivated enough to put in the hours and get the job done.

Common Types of Projects

There are several different data entry jobs available to freelancers. Some of the most common ones include:

• Entering captchas
• Filling online forms
• Copy pasting information from one document to another
• Filling in survey forms
• Doing typing jobs (excel, word, etc).

If you want to do industry specific data entry jobs, you will have to school yourself in that industry. The medical and legal fields will require you to have at least a basic knowledge of their field before they can allow you do their data entry jobs.

Where to Find the Jobs

As a beginner, you will have to find data entry jobs from your networks or through online platforms.

The most reliable online platforms to land data entry jobs are job boards such as UpWork, Freelancer, Guru, and People per Hour. These sites have a consistent stream of clients looking to hire various services. Data-entry jobs usually have their own category on these sites.

How fast you land your first job and build a client base will depend on your ability to convince clients that you will be a better hire than the other freelancers pitching alongside you. You should therefore master the art of the proposal. Your proposal should be structured like a sales pitch and not as a resume. No one cares that you are smart and educated. The only thing a client cares about is whether or not you can help them get the results they want.

To learn how to send the perfect proposal, search for blogs on the topic or take an Udemy course on how to succeed on sites such as UpWork.

One of the challenges that new freelancers face with data entry jobs when they start working on sites such as UpWork is that the jobs they get are short and one-off. They therefore have to continuously pitch new clients to get new assignments. This process of constantly pitching clients can steal away a lot of your time. You only make money when you do real work and not when you are pitching clients.

To eliminate or reduce this problem, you want to be very deliberate about the kinds of jobs and clients you go after. The very best jobs are continuous ongoing projects or one-off projects that come with a big batch of assignments.

Alternatively, you can reach out to agencies that handle a lot of data entry jobs. In this case, the agency will be sub-contracting some of its assignments to you. Since agencies normally have a lot of clients, you will have a pretty reliable source of consistent work.