First I would like to thank Hesham for being so gracious and inviting me to be a part of this blog. I am looking forward to contributing and building relationships here.
The title probably drew you in because everyone wants to find the easy way to make money online, and not to burst your bubble, but I don’t hold those secrets, and if I did I would probably hold on to them for myself [insert evil laugh].
I do, however, make money online. It isn’t easy, at least it hasn’t been for me. I have worked hard, performed countless hours of research, experimented with different ideas, and tested, tested, and tested some more.
I want to make a few points in regards to making money online, and these are just my opinion based on my experiences:
AdSense and Affiliates:
I personally have never had much luck with either of these. I am not claiming that you can’t make money with these ads, I am just saying that for me it hasn’t been great. There are bloggers that make plenty of money this way. There are many variables though.
You need traffic to make money on ads, lots of traffic. If your site is getting 20-30k visitors a month or more (from search) then you can probably make money on ads like this. It is a numbers game, and that takes time to build up, so if you are looking to make money online this way, don’t quit your day job too fast.
It is important to note that other bloggers don’t usually click on ads, it is almost as if they can’t see them. You must get good search traffic to make money on AdSense or affiliates. I know bloggers that picked the right niche, wrote everyday, and built up enough traffic to make a living this way. But it also took time, proper research, a quality theme and lots of testing to get there.
Products and Services:
This is where I have succeeded in making money online. I sell products and services, some are my own (mostly services) and the products are mainly purchased from manufacturers and re-sold as retail.
I have watched many bloggers come and go recently, writing about how to make money online because that is what Darren Rouse or David Risley are doing. The difference is, they were making money online (a lot of money) before they started writing about how to make money online. Also, they have been doing this for years, not just a few months. And I promise you, they make more money from their own products than from any ads they have on their sites.
Patience:
Patience is something I have never been really good at, but it is a necessity if you want to make it in this business. You have to allow yourself the time to make a brand for yourself, build a community around your blog, build up a decent amount of traffic, etc.. If it sounds to good to be true, it probably isn’t true. Work hard, gain exposure, write about what you have experience in and you can make it. No one is guaranteed success online, in fact most fail.
Determination:
You have to convince yourself that you WILL make it before you can convince others. Most bloggers have to go through convincing family and friends that blogging is a “real” job, but if they haven’t even convinced themselves it is a hard sell.
Be determined to do well. Do research, study your competition (I prefer to call them colleagues), plan your course of action before you start. And then never give up.
Don’t Believe Everything You Read:
This one is really important, but hard to grip. It is really easy to believe every story on the internet, fall for every squeeze page tutorial, and think this will be easy. If you use logic, you can weed out the stuff that is a load of horse manure and then find the gem that actually helps you get on your way.
Conclusion:
Don’t be afraid to fail, you most likely will several times. Don’t be afraid to try different things, this has worked for me in the past. Be determined that you can make it. If you fail, pick yourself up and try again.
Always research before setting an idea into motion, turn on your niche finder and try to find out a lot from researching about a niche or product before trying to make money with it.
Tagged as: Bloggers, internet stories, make money, niche finder, page tutorial, secrets tips
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{ 40 comments… read them below or add one }
Although there are many people who will argue that it’s not easy to make money online, when compared to starting any other business, I think you’ll find it is. If you treat your website like a business and invest time and even maybe a little money, you’ll put yourself in a position to see much better returns.
thanks for this post …
Affiliates is best for me ..:)
Dev | Technshare´s last blog ..A Video Marketing Blueprint That Will Knock Your Socks Off
I have used AdSense for a few years now and find it to be a great way to start because you can use basic SEO techniques to top google for search terms with little competition. I personally always recommend people start with AdSense – it worked for me
Aaron @ Mario Costumes´s last blog ..About Us
(4 comments) February 21, 2010 at 4:28 pm
I agree, it can be easy to top some search terms, but then that depends on how competitive the the term is, and more competitive terms will produce a good income, but will take much more work to top the searches for.
Keith @HotBlogTips´s last blog ..4 Tips To Get More Blog Exposure Via Twitter
(10 comments) February 6, 2010 at 12:37 am
yup, it`s not easy to make online money.
I myself joined adsense and quite numbers of affiliate, but none give me well profit,
Everythings depends on traffic, readers, contents and geo-traffic.
Having floods of traffic around 20K unique visit per months is quite tough.
still planning on gainning traffic and more backlink.
Besides, I`m not posting daily in my blog..
hope everyone gain more.. let`s make money online
wniizzati´s last blog ..Should I join Ad.ly – in stream advertising ?
(27 comments) February 6, 2010 at 6:39 am
Consistent posting is probably the most important part of building your site…
Keith Bloemendaal´s last blog ..Where Are Your Readers?
Keith,
I agreed with you 100 percent. Making money online is not easy as most gurus mentioned on their sites. It takes hard work to get to their position where they can enjoy the passive income. Think about it if you start a new blog today, you need to optimize keyword research, post a keyword rich articles, submit your blog to the big search engine, build your link, leverage the social networking sites to gain traffic to your blog, and other….. On top of that you have to pick what niche you want to get into. It takes time to build your community to where you become one of the most influence person on the internet arena.
I kind of agree that bloggers are probably the least likely to click on Adsense links. I’m not saying that all bloggers ignore Adsense, but just going by the fact that my main blog (whose primary audience is bloggers / affiliate marketers / SEO specialists / social media addicts) doesn’t get many Adsense clicks, but my sites that are more geared to a general audience from search engine traffic get a lot of clicks… probably three times as many.
I think it has to do with the sensitivity to the ads. I’ve placed enough of them on my own sites, so I’m used to them and I just kind of tune them out when I go to other sites. Not that I mean too, but it’s like the sensitivity of having built a ton of sites on a particular WordPress theme, and then when you see it on someone else’s website, you just think “Oh, it’s Thesis” and you aren’t as impressed by the layout compared to someone who has never seen it or worked with it before – they probably think it’s very clean, organized and a nice design. I think people who aren’t website owners really see Adsense links as more resource links on a website and are more likely to click on them.
Kristi Hines´s last blog ..Best of #SMAZ – Blogging Tips, Social Media ROI, & SEO
(2694 comments) January 28, 2010 at 1:32 pm
Great to see you sharing such information about your blog!
Yeah! I can see the difference and the balance your provide in your posts with out losing the main track which make a lot of sense you are gaining more readers from different interests! very good Kristi, this is awesome way to blog, it’s like everyone visit will find something interest him/her!
I am trying to find different, low competition and high search keywords all the time for this blog to increase organic traffic, still not getting good results!
This post of Keith went big and now it’s covering one of my coming posts I already wrote, I think I will have to give it some editorial work to get it ready to be published
(58 comments) January 26, 2010 at 10:23 pm
Like you, I don’t make much from AdSense and those CPC ads
I wish I can have my own product to sell..perhaps one day he-eh
Michael Aulia´s last blog ..The winner: Hyundai Santa Fe R Diesel
(286 comments) January 26, 2010 at 9:20 pm
No easy money bro, lol! Everything need a hard work. I like your point about determination, if you want to success on something you must have determination and endurance to keep going forward and keep up grade your self for tight competition.
Thanks for very well written article Keith.
(27 comments) January 27, 2010 at 5:00 am
Thanks for the compliment Latief! Without determination, you can’t make it in any business, let alone blogging.
Keith´s last blog ..Dani’s health information.
(7 comments) January 26, 2010 at 8:20 pm
It’s true that you can’t make money off other bloggers on AdSense and affiliate products because they all know about AdSense and if they want an affiliate product they would use their own affiliate link.
You have to do keyword research if you want to make money with AdSense. You do not need to blog everyday to see results.
Regards,
Kai Lo
(27 comments) January 27, 2010 at 5:04 am
From my experience, depending on your niche and your audience, writing daily can have advantages because of the sheer volume of content. Some niches it isn’t needed though, I agree.
I personally notice severe drops in traffic on my sites if I don’t at least maintain a consistent writing schedule.
Yes, extensive keyword research is very helpful when building a site you plan to make money from advertising on.
Thanks for the comment.
Keith´s last blog ..Dani’s health information.
(235 comments) January 26, 2010 at 4:44 pm
Well said keith i have always admire your writing style and i totally agree with you with everything you have said and to refer back to hesham about the shoemoney issue my biggest concern is that every writes about making money online but never say how they did it unless you buy theire ebooks or paid subscription and take you through stages i am with you brother just have patience and find a niche that you are comfortable with welcome aboard.
lawmacs´s last blog ..Why Do Bloggers Blog
(3 comments) January 26, 2010 at 4:36 pm
It’s super easy for aspiring bloggers to fall into the MakeMoneyNow mode – it’s so tempting. I was actually one of those people who thought I could pull this one off – and some strange way – it worked for a while… then things slowed to a crawl and I realized I needed to try something else. That’s when I started offering my services – I didn’t realize there are so many people who can’t and/or hate to write. So I’ve made the bulk of my online income freelancing writing – lately I’ve been offering my services to small businesses and that’s working quite well.
I love the fact that there are so many possibilities for earning online. I’ve even got some offers to tutor online – but as far as getting rich quick – you’re right that’s just not happening. In fact, I run whenever I see a site that guarantees any amount of money in 24 hours, 7 days, 30 days, whatever, that’s just not realistic.
Thanks for sharing this great post.
Kiesha @ Affiliate Marketer’s Help Desk´s last blog ..Free blog set up or redirect, plus 2 free blog posts
(2694 comments) January 28, 2010 at 1:35 pm
Freelancing writing is good to go, and you have a goo point here.. no body can guarantee anything special when it’s about money! so people has to take care of that and think about making money online and blogging as a real biz they have to manage and plan it well and it has it’s own risk!
(2 comments) January 26, 2010 at 2:15 pm
Patience… I need more of it, fast! You’re right about everything you’ve said and your story is similar to most I’ve heard. The easy methods depend on huge traffic numbers but there is money to be earned even for beginning bloggers who are willing to work hard and be patient.
Brandon Cox´s last blog ..Bloggers Unite: Let’s Keep the Blogosphere Clean
(27 comments) January 26, 2010 at 3:46 pm
We all need more patience, unfortunately by nature, we are impatient and most prefer to go after the “easy money” and then find out it was either a scam or it is much harder than they thought and they fizzle out.
(29 comments) January 26, 2010 at 2:12 pm
Good first post here Keith, welcome to the “crew”. For me, the breaktrough in making money online happened when I started taking baby steps. I didn’t try to make six figures any more. I started by making one dollar, no time limit. Then I moved on to trying to make one dollar each day. Then five dollars a day and so on. It works wonders when you have goals you can actually work towards and not some distant dreams.
For the longer term goals, like making $4000 a month, I break it into daily chunks and further to how many product or affiliate sales I need to make to reach it. For example, $4000 is about $130 a day. So that might be 13 sales of $10, or 5 or so sales of $25. When I know how many sales I need to make, and I can start working on getting traffic and improving conversion. For example for 5 sales, with 1% conversion, I need 500 visitors a day or I can work on to improve the conversion if I already have traffic, but they’re not buying.
When I have a clear goal to get to 500 visitors a day (for example), I can easily track the progress. As the traffic grows, I can keep an eye on conversion. When people are buying, only then I can start looking at the end result, the money. With determination, it will come. With good goals, I have direction for that determination.
Antti Kokkonen´s last blog ..A Secret to Making Money Online
(27 comments) January 26, 2010 at 3:48 pm
Excellent comment Antti! I prefer to have goals that are measurable and reachable too, as well as challenging.
(29 comments) January 26, 2010 at 3:58 pm
I just happened to write on my own blog about the subject, and had the goals and numbers still running on my head
(57 comments) January 26, 2010 at 1:21 pm
I also have hard time with google adsense — the earning seems very low if compare with my traffic. And because of that, i try to sell my own service, and i earn decent money from it.
Dana @ Blogging Update´s last blog ..Effective Way to Learn From Favorite Blogs
(27 comments) January 26, 2010 at 3:50 pm
If you are good at marketing, your services and products will probably be a better source of income, at least that is how it has worked for me.
(2694 comments) January 26, 2010 at 4:04 pm
If you are able to sale your own products then you are doing the “1″ of making money online way!
AdSense actually is for two:
- Brand new blogs!
- High traffic websites!
Probably it’s not for someone in the middle! as he will never get satisfy running it, and most of bloggers remove AdSense if they can sale their own products, by this way they will not lose a chance that someone click on an ad and leave their website, so I suggest you remove AdSense completely to save your visitors click for your products!
(9 comments) January 26, 2010 at 11:58 am
It’s not so easy for a begginer to make money from blogging …A blogger needs a lot of patience and time to get some money from his blog.
NiceBlogger´s last blog ..The Top 6 Mistakes to Avoid When You Start Your Blog
(2694 comments) January 26, 2010 at 3:57 pm
Exactly, an probably it’s not expected to make money before 6 months of blogging and hard work!
(13 comments) January 26, 2010 at 9:59 am
The entire word DETERMINATION should be emphasized. It isn’t easy to make money online (at least decent money) most people struggle to make a hundred bucks a month from the variety of programs. Millions of competitors combined with so few programs makes it a very tough market.
But it can be done, AdSense for me only brings about $20 – $25 per month with about 20k unique visits per month, I am hoping to boost that up as AdSense and PPC programs type of programs require the least amount of work and if successful can be pretty easy to sit back and collect on.
Dragon Blogger´s last blog ..The Worlds Data Archived on Tape Cartridge?
(27 comments) January 26, 2010 at 10:49 am
Your traffic compared to adsense earnings is a perfect example of what I was talking about, 20k unique visits is a lot of traffic, and yet still only $20-$25 per month from adsense.
Is the traffic you are getting mainly from search? I also think the search traffic is more likely to click ads once arriving on your site.
Thanks for the comment!
(13 comments) January 26, 2010 at 12:31 pm
74% of my site traffic comes from search engines so yeah, but I didn’t heatmap my site and optimize my adsense ad sizes/placements as much as I should. I used to use 350×250 boxes and I got $33 in one month, but they were bulky in my posts and switched to smaller banner type ads, though less clicks as a result.
Dragon Blogger´s last blog ..The Worlds Data Archived on Tape Cartridge?
(2694 comments) January 26, 2010 at 3:55 pm
I imagine if your traffic is not from search engine, you will not earn anything from your blog, in your case I think you should try buysellads.com maybe you will get luck with those people, you need tones of impressions, and maybe PR of 3, but you are good on Alexa and have a not bad Compete Rank!
I am trying them as well! just started yesterday, but comparing to other websites on the network I discovered I need more more impressions to fix ads prices, so I am going to work on that!
(13 comments) January 26, 2010 at 4:24 pm
BuySellAds already rejected my blog
(2694 comments) January 26, 2010 at 4:58 pm
Ah! I see.. maybe after next pr update they will approve it, I also recommend before submitting it to take a serous look to your blog and remove some stuff that you really don’t need
You can always contact me at any time latter, and we can do this together as it’s good to have another (different) eye and point of view!
(286 comments) January 26, 2010 at 9:17 pm
That’s why we need to get traffic from the search engine (Google) for adsense success and Google know it
. High Traffic from the search engine (Google Search) is the key.
(199 comments) January 26, 2010 at 8:55 am
Keith
Nice to see you here.
Took me 2 years of hard work creating my own on-line business before I could give up the 9-5 corporate world – which I did a year ago.
It’s refreshing to see when someone else says it’s hard…makes a change to all those $27 e-book sales pages of those guys standing in front of a flashy car or mansion.
Hardest part for me was being totally overwhelmed and finding conflicting advice.
If you can, stick to following 2 or 3 people who have been successful and see what they do and what advice they share.
Andrew
Andrew @ Blogging Guide´s last blog ..Income Blogging Guide Closing
(27 comments) January 26, 2010 at 9:08 am
It does take hard work, took me some time to make money with websites too, my sites were different because I had a local business and used blogging to promote it, which paid off for me in only a few short months.
It is easy to get trapped into BS that is out there on making money online, but the reality is that it is no different than starting a business and it takes time to build up.
Thanks for the comment Andrew.
(199 comments) January 27, 2010 at 3:41 am
Keith,
Personally, I don’t think many people who blog see it as a business and that’s one of the big mistakes they make.
Andrew
Andrew @ Blogging Guide´s last blog ..Income Blogging Guide Closing
(2694 comments) January 27, 2010 at 3:49 am
Good point Andrew , and if we agree to take blogging seriously as a tool of online business then there must be a plan, and probably long term blogging plan could work!
(27 comments) January 27, 2010 at 4:57 am
Andrew, too many look at it as “Get Rich Quick” which I am ok with sometimes because those bloggers never last and get weeded out leaving others to rise to the top.
Keith´s last blog ..Dani’s health information.
(244 comments) January 27, 2010 at 2:08 pm
The second mistake is something you pointed to Keith…looking at fellow bloggers as competition instead of colleagues.
Dennis Edell´s last blog ..The Time Has Come. The Deal Is Done. It’s Time To Move!!
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