For a while it seems like the Internet marketing earth was moving and falling apart, but if you have been in this “game” for longer, you know that nothing is new.
Lady G has always been shutting down linkfarm and link networks. Lady G has always been de-indexing sites and she has always banned Adsense account in an attempt to whip Internet marketers into shape.
True, it does feel like the G is trying to get more and more power, she is trying to figure out ways that make her more money and make her rule the world.
So I received an email the other day from a fellow Dutchie, asking me if there was still money to be made online or if it is impossible. Now to be fair, he asked me the question because I think he felt that “all niches are taken” and there is no more room left, but I took his email as the push I needed to write this post.
For me personally, a lot has changed these past years. For most of that time, I have been a member at TKA and I learned my basic knowledge over there. I left the place last year though because I felt I did not need the distraction of their forum anymore, and because I had to focus on building better websites.
Also, reading about updates, “the sky is falling” messages from others who had their sites de-indexed or accounts banned, seeing how “proven methods” start failing, networks being closed, it can all be very disturbing, especially if you don´t have the confidence yet to continue to work.
While ages ago, all you needed to do to get traffic, was just put some content online, nowadays you have to really up your game to get people visiting your site. And in order to make money in some way, you need those people. Now, there is a lot of talk about what type of sites to build, if you have to concentrate on one big one, builds a few reasonable sized ones or just go full out on building small targeted niche sites.
More talk even about what type of monetization, adsense, amazon, affiliate marketing, direct advertisement, the possibilities are unlimited and truthfully, it is something you will have to test and work out for your self, to find the methods that work best in your case, on your sites in your niches.
Oh by the way, if you are still reading this in the hopes to get an answer to the question in the title, YES, it is still possible to make money online and it is still very possible indeed to make a full time income and then some.
But you will probably want to know how. So here is the thing, there is not one specific method that will stand the test of time forever. And I do not get why people feel that should be the case online, when they are ready to accept that is not the case out there “in the real world”.
I don´t understand why people make a difference between working online and working not online. As if working online is not a business?!
True, the fact that you can work “under cover”, “virtual”, “invisible” may blow some smoke in your eyes for a while and it might seem like magic that you can “harvest” money from your online websites, but in fact, this is a real business and it takes real work to grow it!
Now, the problem is, that there are always people wanting to make short cuts. The don´t want to do all the work, but they do want the results.
Just the other day, I caught a guy who had taken the header image off of one of my websites and put it on his site. So this header had been custom designed for me, to my likings, by a professional designer. I had paid for the different images used in that header, so I have the rights to using them on my site. The header actually has the name of my site all over it, plus the tagline is in there as well.
I had paid good money for the header, because I wanted to brand that website and make it stand out from the crowd. I wanted people to come to my site and immediately know what it is about. My custom header helps me reach that goal.
So I was in SHOCK to see a stupid ass blog with some stupid ass articles using MY custom header. Man, that ticked me off!! I mean… stealing a header with my website´s name and tagline, that is just plain stupid! My site is on the first page for many keywords, so this guy is just stupid, crazy and a lazy ass bastard for copying and being dumb about it as well.
Anyways, just using this one example to show that people want to cut corners.
They want the huge results you can get and somehow feel entitled to making thousands online without doing the work.
I also feel there is another reason behind the failure of many who set out to make money online but give up. We grow up with the idea that we should get something in return for our efforts. For example, you work a few hours, you get paid. You get a job, go to work every day and at the end of the month, you get your pay check. Or, you get a task, you finish it and you get the dough.
All these concepts work this way, because you work for a BOSS… but the moment you set out to set up shop for yourself, you no longer have that instant gratification. You will have to invest time, money and resources, in order to build a successful business. And even once you have build that business, there are hundreds of reasons why you would or would not make money. There are no guarantees, but, if you do it right and work hard and have the dose of luck, pay off can be immense!
So here is the problem. Once you get successful, you get noticed. Once you get noticed, people will want what YOU have, WITHOUT doing what you have done to get there. They want to take the short cuts. That is also the exact reason why they will keep buying courses and blueprints and promises of riches from some online gurus, thinking that the short cut road will get them the same amount of success.
Well, that is a freakin´ lie!
Many of these so called gurus make money off of people wanting to learn how to make money online, without them actually making a ton with what they are teaching. They just make the money BECAUSE they are teaching others. (well, selling their crappy rehashed courses, guides and blueprints to the riches)
True, you will have to spend time to learn the tricks of the trade, you will have to spend time learning how to do things like setting up sites (whether that be static or dynamic), how to protect your business, find the right niche, find what works for you, learn how to write articles, learn how to drive traffic to your site, learn so many aspects of this online venture that sometimes it will make your head spin.
But if you do, and put in the work required, hang in there, keep pushing forward, there will come a time that you will start feeling that you know at least something about how to make money online. You will see some projects start picking up traffic. You will see some of that traffic convert in clicks or sales. You will see money trickling in, finally.
And if you keep at it, build more and improve on those projects that are making you some money, you might be able to build yourself a bigger online business that will eventually lead to a full income. And if you play your cards right, keep on building, invest in your business, you can make it grow stronger and bigger and grow your income to a level you never even dared to imagine.
It gets asked and asked a LOT, just how do you make money online and how much does it take to earn a full time income.
This question alone is a real good indication of the mindset I was talking about before. It is the mindset of “if I do this, what is my pay going to be”.
So what, if I´d tell you, that for every article that you publish you will get paid $0.05 a month for the rest of your life? Would you be willing to work for that money? And I am not talking crappy articles that take you 5 minutes to write, but articles that add something online. Good informative articles that take a bit longer to write.
Seriously… would you?
Would you be willing to write good articles for $0.05 per article a month?
I have a reason for asking this question, particularly knowing that even if you write for others, you´d get far more than $0.05 an article. Low ball park figure is $0.01 a word, but a more normal rate is $0.04 per word and established writers get far more than that.
So, knowing that you could make $5-$25 per article if you sell that article, would you be willing to write articles for $0.05 per article/monthly?
$0.05 an article means $5.00 per 100 articles
PLUS you would have to research on which keywords, in which niche to write. You would have to buy hosting and a domain. You would have to learn how to set up your site. You would have to spend time on the design, maybe make some costs to start building a mailing list. Even buy more domains and set up more sites to publish your articles. Spend time learning to work with web 2.0 properties. Find which plugins to use if you are using wordpress, spend time promoting your site so that people come visit.
So apart from getting only $0.05 per article/monthly, you will have to spend an awful lot of time on other activities as well, that may or may not make you money further down the line.
I am sure that many will say that they would never do all that is needed for that kind of money, but the reality is, that if you want to make a full time income online, you will have to deal with the idea that maybe 90% of what you set up, will never make you a dime.
BUT you must push through, keep plowing away, writing, creating, learning, because it is what will get you to the 10% that WILL make you money.
YOU MUST LEARN what works for YOU. It is not ok to just copy what works for somebody else, because you will not know what DOES NOT work for YOU.
If you find out what works and what does not, you will get the confidence to keep on building, you will get better at creating sites with a higher ROI and things will eventually become easier. However, cutting corners will only stab you in the back later on, because you will not know how to deal with the situation when it goes wrong, when your sites get de-indexed, hacked or whatever.
This is also one of MY reasons why I don´t feel like showing my work to other IM-ers. I really don´t think it is in their best interest to see my sites. It is not going to help them to create better sites. Plus, I don´t have a magic formula either. I just write and publish a LOT of content and keep working on improving that.
So, have you come up with an answer yet? Are you willing to write articles until your fingers are cramped up and you are sick of it, only to receive $0.05 per article monthly?
- If you answer is no, please move on and find yourself a boss.
- If the answer is yes, let´s do some more math….
$0.05 per article, means $50 per 1000 articles. It means $100 per 2000 articles. It means $1000 per 20.000 articles.
Say you get to the point that you can write 20 articles a day (practice, and you will get the hang of it!), so that means you will have to write 1000 days to get to the point of earning $1000 monthly.
The good news though is, that if you are willing to do this kind of work for almost no pay in the beginning, keep at it, learn, invest in yourself and your future, improve your writing skill and pay attention, chances are, that at some point during those 20.000 articles, you will see which type of articles work best for you.
- You will find the niches that work best for you.
- You will find the keywords that convert best for you.
- You will find what type of sites you like best.
- Plus, you will find how to write articles that make more than $0.05 monthly.
The more you work, the more you practice, the more you learn. You learn from your failures, start weeding them out and instead of making $0.05, you will start popping out articles that make you $1 monthly, or $10 monthly or even more.
To answer another question in the email I received; “If I put in a lot of time and energy, is it possible to reach 2K passive income? Or is it also a case of luck?”
Ok… first question, short version answer: YES
Longer version: yes, if you make sure that a lot of time really is a lot of time and a lot of energy really is a lot of (focussed) energy, producing content and learning, as described above. The passive part… There is not that much about this business that is passive. True, I have a few sites that I haven´t touched in ages and that do make me money every single day, week or month. But still, I keep an eye on them, I keep an eye on the competition, I might send the occasional link, or add or improve the text I have online. BUT some of my other sites need daily attention, so I keep writing every day, I keep monitoring them, testing things, adding things, changing design etc. So really there is nothing passive about it.
I keep working, because I want to grow my business. I want to make it stronger. I want to diversify. I want to write my own products as well, I want to try and make sure that I have several projects that do well. I´ll become passive when I´m in my grave 
Second question, about the luck…
You create your own luck. Read this article on how I turned a site into earning over $1100 within 7 months and by just looking at the title you might think, wow a $1197 in 7 months, that is luck. But in order to be capable to build that site, I had gone through all previous steps I outlined in this article. I have set up numerous websites, had many fails, created, wrote, published a ton of information before I found the niche that works for me personally.
And once I had put in the time, effort and work to locate that niche, it has given me the tools and knowledge I need to know what works for ME, and I am now capable of building out that site and build out more sites in that same style.
So… some might call it luck, I call it create your own luck through hard work. Guess that makes sense
Another question I was asked and it is a question that many ask, is whether I outsource a lot or if I write all my content myself.
Well… it depends. I do have one person writing articles for me right now, so that I can focus on a few other aspects, but I do write myself as well and I write A LOT myself. My method might not be the fastest way to internet riches, but it is steady and it works for me.
The reason I outsource some of my writing at present is because I want to improve my overall online portfolio and well, I just can´t do all that I want to do alone. However, I would never recommend anybody to just start spending money on outsourcing, because you will miss out on the learning process.
Of course, if you have thousands to invest and it does not matter if you don´t get a high ROI in the beginning (return on investment), go ahead and throw you money at writers. But even outsourcing is a process and finding a good writer at a decent rate can be very time consuming as well.
Last question I am going to answer in this article about how I make money online, is about my target market. When I first started out this amazing journey, all my work was in English even though it is not my native tongue. I learned how to do everything in English because all info that was available back then, was in English. It just made sense to build sites in English as well and I never really thought about it. Besides, I thought that the English market had many more customers, so it would be more profitable.
Even though I do have some English property to this date that generates some income, I am switching over to my “own market” slowly. For one, because I prefer to be paid in euros as well, instead of just dollars. But also, because it is so much easier for me to write in Dutch. Yes, the market is smaller, but the Dutch are willing to spend money and … the “easier to write” just has me hooked.
I am in the process of setting up a few sites in Spanish as well, together with my fiancé, but it is still too early to tell how that is going to work out.
My initial idea when starting this post, was to give a short “blueprint” of what works for me, but this just crossed the 3000 words and I bet nobody actually got to read till the end … Next time it will be.
I´d love to hear your comments and please ask me more questions if you want to. I´ll just go ahead and answer them here
