Hey,
Thanks for your blog on making money online. It has
been very helpful. I originally found it because I was
searching for a review on project payday. I never
bought the book, and I've made a few hundred dollars
from that system and I have a plan to make much more
from it.
I appreciate your honesty and good information on how
to make money. I finish college this year, and I don't
want to go out and get a job because I want to do some
traveling and other things. I've had some success
with MLM, but I don't know if I can get a big enough
business built before I graduate. I wanted to ask you
what kind of income you think is possible from online
marketing and how much you make from the blogs you
run.
I've got some time I can put into researching and
learning about different methods. Would you recommend
that I put my time into learning blogs, adsense, etc.
and then selling products from a website I make? Or
what?
Any suggestions or advice you have would be
appreciated. Also, is online marketing all you do?
Thanks. I'm sure this is a stereotypical message you
get from beginners, but I appreciate your openness to
helping out.
Daniel
Thanks for the email Daniel.
First off, let me say to everyone that you can make money online and some of you can even earn a living doing this... but
There are a few things that need to be understood before you get your hopes up. The biggest hurdle you will have is your own patience, or lack thereof. One thing that I have found is that unless you have your own product to sell and even then it has to be somewhat unique and have mass appeal, you will not make a lot of money quickly. This fact alone will cause a huge percentage of marketers to try for a while and then give up. Having said that I am not suggesting that this is the only way to earn a living online, it's not - it's just one of the fastest ways to make cash online and sometimes a lot of it.
Now, given that most of us don't have our own product we have to look at other methods and accept the fact that it will take longer and the money will flow in slower. People like me have turned to the publishing side and basically make money by selling other peoples stuff. To do this successfully you need to put in a fair amount of time researching your chosen method, ie using Adwords to sell Affiliate products, adsense or squeeze pages/landing pages. If not Adwords then you need to look at websites/blogs and learn how to master SEO techniques in order to attract traffic. This method (which I primarily use) takes time and in truth allow yourself 6 months to start seeing anything approaching results. Eventually you will combine both methods - SEO and PPC for even better results.
I get a lot of emails from people who are in many ways "Desperate" and need to make money online as a way out of the job they hate or the mountain of debt they have accumulated. They are inasmuch saying that they need money now and can't wait 6 months to start making money and even if they did the money made wouldn't be enough. For these people I tell them the truth - online marketing is not the answer. There are online jobs though for those that can't or won't look for a new job in the "real" world. Project Payday is a job. Type at Home jobs, call centers, online writing jobs, web site design, software development are all available and the list goes on. You won't get rich in most cases but you will earn money and you can start right now. That said - these kind of jobs are probably not what most of you want - am I right?
We all have a dream - I want to turn on my computer for an hour a day - push a few buttons - watch my bank account balance balloon to obscene proportions and then saunter over to the first Tee box at the golf course located next to my 80 room Mansion. Oh and I want this daily.
While the details may differ I bet a lot of you have the same dream. And why not - it's the dream of "Freedom", real freedom of everything we hate; having a boss, having a schedule, worrying over money.
Of course some of you aren't as greedy and only want to make a few bucks to help out. You aren't looking to quit your job and you aren't desperate for a quick fix. I mention you folks for a reason. You are the ones that will most likely make a decent living online.
Why?
Simple really. People like you will stick with your online business long enough to see results, albeit a little at a time. Each time you succeed you will move to the next step, expand your knowledge, try more things, get more results and the cycle will keep repeating itself. As time goes on you will find yourself making a decent income, realizing that it didn't happen overnight and that a lot of work actually went into it.
Before any of you do anything else ask yourself which type of person are you? Desperate? A get rich quick Dreamer? Or a stable, patient and hard working person with a real interest in the online world?
If you are desperate or dreaming of getting rich quick - quit now. I really mean that but I know you wont. You will eventually but not until you have wasted enough money and time that your optimism turns south and then and only then will you join the legions of bitter and cynical ex-internet marketers. By the way, along the way you will fill the pockets of the people who are successful at this game. They thank you and really don't want you to quit yet.
I hope I am not being to hard but I have learned that short of being born with a rare and special gift we have to work for what we want and need the patience to see it through. Actually the super talented people have to work hard too. Any successful person has too and does. So will you.
Daniel asked, "what kind of income you think is possible from online marketing and how much you make from the blogs you run."
There is no single answer to how much you can make simply because your own abilities are the measure of your limitations. One of the biggest marketing ploys is to hype products with the "Anybody can make money with this or that" pitch. This really isn't true in most cases. Let's face it - the smarter you are (whatever that really means) , the more knowledgeable you are, the harder working you are, the more persistent you are, the length you are willing to go and the boundaries you are willing to cross all play a huge factor in your chances of succeeding online.
I could say that if you do everything I've done you should be making such and such amount per month in 6 months. I wont say this because even if you followed my every step I can think of one thing that will affect the outcome adversely for some and beneficially for others. To make money online you have to sell things and to sell things you have to be able to convince people to buy. To do this you have to use words - written or on video - and the fact is - the better the writer you are the better you will do. If you can't write then you are doomed or you will spend a lot of money having other people do it for you.
read this
"Hi, i've read your articles, pretty nice. actually i found your website from goarticles, when you have the havads articles. i kindof interesting with this internet marketing stuff, i read lots of ebooks - which i get it for free :) , ... but the more i read, the more i get confused.
i have to admit i haven't read all of your articles, too much information. i really need to know what to start, i not feel i can write articles, i mean my english is not good gramatically, so i guess blogging? is difficult. i don't live in uk,can or us so i cannot use that payday project thing. so i really need help .. thanks"
These types of emails always break my heart. I have no answer for this person other than to tell the writer to stick to marketing in his/her own language - or if English is his/her language then they should look for something else. I don't mean to sound harsh - I'm definately empathetic to the writer but reality says they will not succeed.
I know most of you shy away from writing - I've offered to get your articles listed on GoArticle's top download page (for free just to help you out.) and only a few of you have taken me up on it. Those of you that have asked me to critique your websites or blogs know that most of my advice centers around your writing and presentation. The online world is not unlike the real world - you have to look professional to succeed. This is very important.
Do you spend money on sites that are poorly written and lack presentation?
No.
Ok, I hear all you non-writers groaning out there. All is not lost. I mention writing primarily because, one way or another, that is how I make most of my money online and I know that most of the top money earners online all share an affinity for writing. If you are not somebody who loves to write or are simply lousy at it then you should not waste your time with websites and blogs.
PPC campaigns and affiliate marketing is where you should concentrate your energies. Make no mistake the people who do this well make a lot of money - but you have to spend a lot of money as well. And you have to do your research, lots and lots of research before you set up your campaigns. The successful Adwords user has spent years honing skills like writing compelling ads and landing pages and this is great - because you don't have to. You just have to copy them - they have done the hard work for you. This doesn't mean that you don't have to put in a lot of time researching, you do. You have to learn who is making money before you copy anyone.
I've discussed adwords elsewhere and have made recommendations on where to start so I wont get into it now. My point in all this is that all of you have to figure out your strengths and narrow your focus down to the type of online marketing you want to do and moreover what your own abilities allow you to do.
If you just need money then try an online job.
I should mention that in my case a pleasant way to make money just fell into my lap unexpectedly one day when I received an email from someone asking me to write an article for them. I had never even thought of this as a means to make money. I said sure and charged a small fee. As time has gone on I now charge a much larger fee and actually earn some decent money from it. I mention this because I have met a lot of you who are quite good at writing and you might be interested in exploring this avenue. There are plenty of sites that cater to this niche and you can join several services and sell your writing skills. Just from Daniel's letter I can see someone who knows how to write well and suggest he/she (sorry Daniel you have a gender neutral name) look into this. I love it because I just need my laptop and can work from any golf cart on the planet.
In getting back to Daniel's letter I get asked how much I make often. I can't give you an exact amount because it changes frequently. Suffice to say that my little blogging empire has generally made me about a hundred bucks a day with adsense for some time now. I use SEO and Adwords to get traffic. Lately I have been experimenting with my own ads ( Havads ) and affiliate landing pages and have been achieving some decent results.
I also have a number of strictly Adwords/Clickbank Campaigns and several mature websites in highly targeted niches that get decent amounts of free search engine traffic.
I have had weeks where I have made $3000 on adsense and as much selling affiliate products but this is by no means typical. I am always experimenting with different things so my sales are all over the place but over the last 2 months I have earned (net) about $15,000 from various projects. Keep in mind that this is not typical as I made a lot of that money from a single project that I am still refining.
If I was to give you a realistic estimate of what you could earn, given a similar set of abilities as me, then I'll use the blogs as an example. I have only been using blogs for about a year now and I have built them up to a point that they make me on average about $3000 a month. I will be honest with you though - I have a few secrets that I have not divulged to you yet and maybe never will. The reason is not so much greed as it is the fact that if everyone used my little tricks their effectiveness would be severely hampered. The good news is that while my tricks are helpful and give me a slight advantage for some things, overall they don't contribute that much more to my bottom line. (I have tested blogs using white hat and black hat techniques and while black hat is quicker at making money fast it is only temporary and then gone. White hat takes longer but once established it keeps money rolling in month after month.)
My websites are much older than my blogs and they are indexed nicely and produce a small but steady stream of income comprised of adsense and affiliate sales. They are all white hat and over time they are producing better and better results. Keep in mind that I use blogs to promote the websites and used in conjunction with each other, both perform better together than apart.
I don't use mailing lists. Most do but I don't for a couple of reasons. First of all I am not an "Internet Marketing" marketer - meaning that I am not interested in selling to the internet marketing crowd. People like you to be precise. Secondly - I'm no salesman and hate the thought of bombarding people with hyped up sales come-ons'. Just not my style but good for you if you can do this effectively.
Mailing lists are big in this niche and can be used in other venues as well but they don't really help in most of my niches. It's a battle to get people to sign up on a site that contains info on UGG boots or one that sells CROC sandals. The only IM blogs I have are like this one and I started this blog to test out my blogging techniques. I wanted to see how long it would take to conquer a large niche - and Internet Marketing is huge. By conquer I mean get my blog on page 1 of Google. If I can get there then I figure my system will get me to the top of any niche. I may not achieve my goal but that doesn't stop me from trying. Experimentation is the key and I love to experiment.
Is online marketing all you do? asked Daniel.
No.
I own my own business in the real world. It has nothing to do with the internet - I'm in the Hospitality/Tourism field. I am successful enough that any money I make online is spent on Golf Vacations. My business is seasonal and having half the year off allows me to dabble at my hobbies - this being one of them. I started playing around on the net just for something to do. I became interested in how to build my own website and everything has spiraled from there. Several years later I am still playing around with it and find myself making money doing it. I stuck with it because I could and wanted to. Time and patience. This is the only secret you really need to know about making money online.
Oh... a little luck always helps as well.
I mention luck because I have found that a lot of my "epiphany" moments online have come about because of luck and then knowing how to take advantage of the situation. Without giving away the farm I have been experimenting with a system that combines blogging with the power of social bookmarking. (By the way - the more you experiment the luckier you get.) Most of you wont know what I am talking about but you have probably seen those buttons for Digg, Delicious, Technorati, Sphere and many others in your travels. Get educated on them quick because these social bookmarks are quickly proving to be a great way to get traffic. If you use them correctly you can just about get all the traffic you want on demand - but only for short periods of time.
I was experimenting with social bookmarking "tags" when I got lucky with a subject matter that suddenly produced 1000's of hits to my blogs in a matter of minutes - yes thousands of people suddenly showed up at my site and I didn't know what to do with them. In they came and out they went - and I only made a few dollars on adsense. I quickly figured out what ads got the most clicks and changed a few keywords to get more quality ads and my adsense profits started to soar. Then it dawned on me that the advertisers were making more than me so I got rid of the ads and put up my own ads selling the same products. Bingo. The money started flowing in - and then bang. Interest in the subject matter dried up and I was done.
Now I'm waiting for another subject to come along with mass appeal and I will work the system all over again. Luckily there is always another subject coming along. At the moment there are only a small handful of people who know about the system I am talking about and we are all keeping quite - it's greatest weakness is that it won't work very well if everybody tries it. It only works because there is no competition.
Interestingly enough, because of a little luck and experimentation I discovered the concept of using my own ads which I am now using on my websites and some blogs instead of adsense. I have always known what ads performed best on my sites but traffic was never high enough to get me thinking outside the box. It was only when I suddenly got thousands of hits to a site that I stopped to realize that I was wasting traffic - ie, not profiting from it.
If 20 people come to your site a day and you make a buck with adsense you think - hey not bad, I just need a hundred more sites to do the same and I can make some money.
When 10,000 people show up and you make $2.00 on adsense you do not say - hey not bad. You say - holy crap - all those people and I made a stinkin' $2.00! You quickly look for ways to convert those people into dollars. I found a way with my own ads and then it dawned on me that I should do the same with the sites that have low traffic as well.
If I only get 5 clicks a day then why not have the person go to my salespage through my ad instead of to someone else's salespage. One sale makes a lot more money than what I lose not getting the adsense clicks.
I'm not telling you this to get you to do what I do but rather to get you to think the way I do. Nothing is written in stone so experiment - keep trying different things. Keep what works and add it to other stuff that you find that works. Don't stop experimenting just because you find one way to make money online. In time you will find yourself at the helm of a ever changing but successful online business.
In summation, each person must define their own goals and match them to their abilities. Find your strong suit and stick to it until you are competent in your field - websites - blogs - Adwords - affiliate marketing - MLM and so on. When you have mastered one area then try combining it with other fields and master each in turn or until your abilities won't allow you to go further. And remember - research, experimentation, discipline and copying what already works are all the tools you really need to succeed.
One last thing, develop an online network of friends - use the forums to start - nobody is good at everything and nobody knows everything - the more friends you make the more areas of expertise you tap into. Help others and you will help yourself.
And if you want my help just ask.
Good luck,
Grizzly
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