Make Money 
4 Comments Earning online – too good to be true?
I’m sure I’m not the only one who has read about the many people who have managed to make a living online using a personal website. It sounds ideal being able to quit your day job to live the life many of us dream of – being your own boss!
Some of the figures quoted when I first read about this seemed far too good to be true. The more I read about this, the more I find myself becoming convinced that there is an resource here, at anyone’s disposal to make something from.
A lot of the advice seems to be repeated across the board. I first came across this whole making a living from a website when I stumbled upon 2createawebsite.com. The starting point is very much, find a niche – identify a gap in the market. I should be capable of this, as a researcher it’s my day job! Buy I’m still stumped as to what I should write about regularly. I’m interested in so many different things – most of them not related. So what do I do?
To start, I’ve started my blog series, “Survive a PhD“. This seems like a good starting point. I have experience, and knowledge, and have shared plenty of advice with friends and colleagues.
However, a small site like this isn’t getting much traffic. I have struggled to find many blogs which have documented their success right from the word go. Plantingdollars.com is a site which is relatively new, and already is getting plenty of visitors – I check it out daily!
What I plan to do with this site, is follow the advice of so many others. So I will be commenting on blogs that I read, trying to get my keywords chosen to satisfy the google bots, and will hope to do guest articles.
This series of blogs will be sort of access all areas. I have added my Alexa rank on the site. It looks a shameful 17 million or so at the moment, but it allows you to get an idea of how it is progressing. I hope to share with you information from my analytics, and how many visitors I am getting.
I would like to test these passive income methods. Some of the schemes I will use, or intend to join when I get the traffic are:
- Google Adsense
- Affiliate schemes
- eBook
I may potentially look at premium content articles on different subjects.
The long term aims really are to provide a resource to those other webmasters that are at an early stage of their site’s development.
Has anyone else blogged about their learning curve?
Mark, what you are writing about is exactly one of my ideas… I have plans to launch a blog that communicates honestly the journey from zero to something… But for me finding the time has been a challenge. The biggest piece of advice though for bloggers that I’ve ever heard: don’t quit too early. Most bloggers bail out because their dreams haven’t been attained (yet). Don’t give up! Be patient and give it time, traffic doesn’t develop over night no matter what anyone (or service) tells you.
Hey Daniel,
You’re very right. I’ve been told on a number of occasions to knuckle down and just work hard and steady. I’ve been at this a few months, and I’ve seen some good traffic come my way, which is pleasing.
I’m with you on the time matter. It’s hard, but it’s manageable. Give me a should if you need a hand!
Have you also considered building up a list to eventually make money and promote products?
As John Chow would say… “the money is in the list”
Hey Ryan,
I’ve recently added a newsletter optin to this website. I’m working on a similar set up for another site I have in the pipeline.
There is money to be had from a list, but I think it needs managed carefully. I think theres a fine balance to be had between pure promotion and information.
How are things going for you? I see Planting Dollars is killing it – PR5! Congrats! What about the Hawaii site?