Tag: online income

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Making Money Online Online Business

Is It Worth Trying to Make an Income Online?

Freedom...

I quite often get people emailing me because they saw my semi-illiterate ramblings somewhere on the Interwebs. I had another one recently which asked – “are my efforts going to be worth it?” – or in other words – is worth trying to make an income online?

What I wrote back was – in part:

I can’t tell you whether your efforts are worth it? What are your income goals/what’s your time frames/ do you have financial support on the learning curve? What are your cost of living? To be honest I would never have made this a full-time income if I was doing it part-time – the motivation wouldn’t have been there  and I would be too burnt out after working for someone else all day.

Full-time though has its issues though  – I now tell people they should have enough savings for 2 years living expenses if they are contemplating doing this full-time.  Then there is the isolation of doing this alone (that’s driven more than one person I know back to employment), the sheer frustration of seeing a site take up to a year to settle down and be a consistent earner.

For me going back to a well paid professional job would be purgatory – but that’s just me! I’m 47 and my partner is 57 so I am looking for something that will support us both in “retirement” – and pretty much and am at that level now. I’m not satisfied with that – but I am sure this is what I will be doing for some time to come.  As recently as 6 months ago I was only semi-seriously saying “I was playing on the interwebs” when asked what I did. I still don’t know what to call what I do online to friends – but I do know its definitely worth it for me – your mileage may vary though 🙂

I had a particularly good freelance payment into my Paypal overnight – and when I logging in to transfer the money (don’t ever leave large sums in Paypal BTW people) – it occurred to me to check and yes since the start of the tax year, 1 July in  Australia, I had now earned enough to start making sure I make some provision for paying tax  –  that made me smile quite broadly and caught my partner’s attention (probably because his contract finishes in 6 weeks). Oh and don’t bother dropping a comment about how paying tax is awful – paying tax means you are making money what’s bad about that?

Yeah I look like a success right – but as recently as March I made a grand total of $141 from Adsense and affiliate sales –  Iwas pissed off, frustrated and guilty for living of my partner’s income. I thought long and hard about what I could do instead of this game of trying to make an income online. I came up with two:

  • I could get a job in IT or geology;
  • I could retrain – probably at university – but I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to do

and I didn’t want a job. Fuck it – I’d just have to make this work. And oddly enough from the day on I have made more and more money 🙂  Not every month do I make more than the previous month, sometimes Adsense is up, sometimes affiliates are down, sometimes freelancing pays really well. Swings and roundabouts – but they don’t make me question what I will be doing in 6 months or 6 years.

Freedom...
Freedom...

I will still be making an online income – because its basically the single best option for me. Here’s why:

  • its location independent. I’ve always lived to travel, now so long as the country has a reliable power supply and Internet (and that removes surprisingly little of the world) I can live there an earn an income;
  • I don’t answer to a boss. I really have a problem with authority, particularly with stupid authority – my definition of stupid can be a little too broad for many bosses to handle;
  • Its not boring – the whole game of working out how to persuade the search engines I am the best – that’s an ever changing game complete with deliberate obfuscation and an ever changing landscape of competitors and (unseen) rules – I find it fascinating. No real world job has held my attention for more than 18 months – after that I generally know all I care to know about that particular organisation!
  • I hate to have my life down to organised 1/2 hour intervals. I hate having to plan my lunch hours so I have the time to go to dentist or meet someone for lunch;
  • I don’t have to get dressed in the mornings, when I get dressed its neither business casual, or even smart casual – its down right comfortable and scruffy.;
  • In short working online gives me freedom to be who and what I am – without having to conform to some truely irritating social norms!

On the downside there are negatives but I for me they are far outweighed by the positives:

  • Income goes down as well as up. I finally started to make some decent dollars with eBay – the month they changed their program and threw me back to the cents/day level 🙂 I used to have a salary – I knew what I would be earning – to the cent months in advance. Now I can be up or down 20% a month just like that;
  • The work you do today will see you paid months or even years down the line- there is a complete disconnect between this month’s work and this month’s earnings – of course this can be good too – if you are on holiday!
  • I don’t make as much as I used to – true my expenses have gone down – but still I want to make more – its taking longer than the 3 months I thought it would when I started over 2 years ago – but it will happen.
  • Working from home is isolating. Now I never thought I was such a loser that I went to work to make friends and meet people – but I did miss it, a little.
  • Working from home can be a disaster in terms of weight loss if you are not careful you will put on a lot of weight – thought you had a sedentary desk job before – at least you had to leave the house walk to the car,  and then walk from the car to the office at the other end! I seriously suggest that if you are doing this full-time that you take some dancing classes or something else to keep your body working!
  • I have absolutely no idea to describe what I do for a living – my current line is “I work for Google” – I’ll see how that goes!

So is it worth it trying to make an online income? For me – absolutely! But for you – I don’t know. Its certainly been the single most frustrating and annoying few years of my life. I’ve given up twice, but third time lucky – I figure. How about you – what drives your dream to making money online?

Photo Credit

Categories
Free Tools Online Business Passive Income Tools

Its Spring! End of a Quarter Report – How To Manage the Dollars

So its the end of another month – another quarter anywhere so how is my journey to passive income online.  Well to be honest its been flat-lining since my record of making over $2000 in one month – in July. Bouncing around at the same level give or take in US$ terms, dropping in local currency because of the strength of both my local currencies (yes I run accounts in two countries – I don’t recommend it!).

Oh and finally spring has sprung – downunder in Perth anyways – finally I might add, so much for global warming its been freezing here for far too long. The photos in this post were taken in King’s Park, Perth a couple of weeks ago – yes we have quite a display of wildflowers at the moment.

New Custom Thesis Theme

DSCF4831I’ve been spring cleaning this blog too – a couple of you have noticed that the design has changed a fair bit.  None of my doing – Costa who makes cool custom WordPress themes at blogigs.com wrote to me saying that my previous design hurt his head and here is a new one. Well OK I can take a hint – I never claimed to be a designer – we played with his suggestion a bit so I am now down the beach (Indian Ocean) with my laptop. (BTW for any of you whose dream it is to sit under the sun umbrella with your laptop -reality check – sand is not good for laptops, sun umbrella as illustrated won’t stay up in an off-shore breeze, and won’t stop enough UV to prevent you coming out looking like a lobster. Leave the laptop at home when you go to the beach- but yes the beach is less than 10 minutes walk from my house! ) . Anyway if you want to know techie stuff like how to remove dates from any WordPress theme then check out Costa’s site. And BTW don’t tell me you aren’t technical – go learn how to do this stuff – its not hard and blogs like Costa’s will give you the right information. HTML and CSS are the basics of the Internet and yes you do evenutally need to know a bit about them.

Tracking Your Monthly Income Online

Anyway back to the subject to hand monthly income and managing cash. I don’t know about you – I am yet to see a QuickBooks or similar version which says – this is how to manage your online money – so I have kinda made up my own version – I thought it might help some of you. From day one its been important to me to know how much I made each month – that was my basic aim – $5000/month – so I really needed to see where I was at – even when I didn’t like the answer.

For the last year or so I have run a spreadsheet – its imaginatively named “income” – across the top I have the months : Jan, Feb etc – down the page I list my online income sources for the month. Note I ignore when I will actually get paid  that income – I just record what I earned that month. This is important – clickbank took over a year to pay me out, Amazon hasn’t yet, some affiliates pay 90 days in arrears. All of that is very relevant to your cash flow – but not to my aim in this case: to track my actual income from the month.

DSCF4823I categorise my income into the following block – and use sub-totals so I know what percentage of my income is passive and what is “active” – currently I am running rows down the spreadsheet which look like this:

  1. Niche Website  income
    • Adsense
    • eBay
    • Amazon
  2. Make Money Online Affiliates
    • various things I flog from this blog and my HubPages which you guys are kind enough to give  me the commission on – one line per an affiliate
  3. Freelancing and Consulting
    • Various writing clients
    • Today.com – yup they still pay me  (a little)
    • SEO consultancy
    • Hosting for clients
  4. Website /Domain Sales

The interesting thing when you split your income up like this – you will see the swings and round abouts far more clearly – Adsense tanked for me in September, but I had my best eBay month ever and a pretty good one iwth Amazon. You can step back and see the weakness in your business model. Basically the income in the first two groups are fairly passive income sources. The income shows up at least a month after I do the work – sometimes several months.

I try a lot of stuff in group two some work well but then the product is withdrawn e.g. NicheDevil, some work well but are too cheap and too niche to make me much (Elegant Themes), some are surprise stars (7 Minute Articles), others just trundle on and give me a sale or 2 a month without much effort (Hostgator) on part – everyone needs hosting from time-to-time.

Analysing Your Data To Plan Your Business

This month I went back through my last few months of the new tax year (1 July in Australia) and identified each item for my accountant – I got to wondering about my expenses – I have never tracked them in detail – they have always been lower than my income (i.e. if there was money in my PayPal account I could afford it – if there wasn’t I couldn’t), but I looked more closely this month. My current on-going expenses are;

Hosting: $25DSCF4808

The KeyWord Academy: $33

Various services for distributing my articles $125

Average cost for domain renewals $40 – this is very up and down because last year I went thru cycles of buying domains and then giving up on new domains for months at a time.

So my fixed expenses to stay in business are around $225 – I don’t know about you – but that’s pretty darn cheap rent where I live! For tax purposes of course I add in the Internet, a percentage of my rent, power bill etc etc – but those are the real costs of doing business – doing business online is not free – but its pretty darn cheap.

The obvious thing that struck me once I wrote these figures down is that I needed to spending more money! I am considering a nice resort for Christmas actually – well yes-  but that’s not what I meant. In terms of the business I needed to be investing more money back into it. I don’t know what figures are supposed to be  a good rule of thumb – but  for me I figured I should be spending at least 50% of my passive income into building more of the same – that only makes sense!

Having said that I immediately decided to up my budget for outsourcing writing on my sites and also decided to budget at least five new domains from freshdrop a month – where a dropped dot com costs me $12.45 after using the emma30 code which will get you the renewal for $7.49). Given that I have decided to try look to start selling five websites a month – it seems reasonable to buy the stock at that rate.

I am almost certainly going to buy new hosting – nothing wrong with HostGator but I want to spread my IP’s around if you know what I mean. BTW if anyone is looking for some very cheap hosting check out QiQ who has an offer until the 9 October for a years hosting for £11 ($17) – only one site and only per a customer – but that’s less than $1.50/month!

This turned into another long ramble – but I hoped it was useful to some of you.  As a business owner you need to look hard at your figures to know where to go with your business in the next month. I have found that my start of month routine is less and less about wow I made some money from an affiliate and more and more about he big picture – where is the money coming from – will  it continue?, how can I can I make it continue? how can I diversify? did I achieve what I wanted last month? if not why no? if yes why?

Quick Update

For those of you who are still confused as to which you might want to check out problogger.com – or at least Grizz’s take on Darren’s site!

DSCF4804

Categories
Making Money Online Online Business Passive Income

How Can I Make Passive Income Online?

We were talking last night, my partner and I, considering what we want to do in 2010 when his current contract comes to an end  and the obvious question came up – do I make enough passive income online for him not to work anymore.  The short answer is not quite – but we are getting close. What’s more I am definitely now of the opinion that it would be a huge financial risk for me to go and get a job now compared to my making money online – and here’s why.

Earning Passive Income while crossing the Nullarbor
Making Passive Income while crossing the Nullarbor

Passive Income in the Real World

Every month no less than eight groups of people pay me – they are tenants in various properties we own in New Zealand.  I hire a property manager so I count that income as passive – every month money goes into our account at home. There is a catch though – every month money goes out of that account too – usually just a little more than went in – all going well it will balance – but if you have a month where you need to replace not one but two hot water cylinders – it does not!

We didn’t plan it that way – but we couldn’t control all the variables – the most important variable is having a tenant – we have an excellent occupancy because we bought the right houses, tenants aren’t the problem. The issue is interest rates.

We bought the last time the interest rates were low – and have weathered our floating rate go from 6.9% to 10.45% and now back to 6.45% –  when you multiple that out with borrowings of just shy of $1,000,000 – it turns out to be quite a few thousand dollars a month – small in the scheme of things but large in absolute terms (BTW if the figures look wrong to you I am talking New Zealand dollars and interest rates).   Yes I know fixed rates reduces your risks but in NZ you can only fix for a maximum of five years – so over the 9 years we’ve owned most of the properties the low fixed rates ran out on us.

So in the real-world property is a great way to make passive income – but it has its risks, and for us the main risk is the leverage that you need to use by borrowing money.  The main way to control that risk is of course to pay some of the mortgages back. So its likely now that when we go home we will downsize our home and also sell our worst performing rental to reduce our outgoings to be comfortably less than our income – we will drop from a LVR of 60% to about 30%.

So what on earth does my adventures in  property investment have anything to do with

How to Earn Passive Income Online ?

Well its about not just the basic question about how to earn income online.  Well this is no secret:  my preferred method is to build silly little niche sites and make money while I sleep, drive the Nullarbor or sip gins by the beach!

Because really that’s the only way I know that you work now – get paid later. Sure there are lots of other ways to make money online – I’m looking at building a Legitimate Online Business to help with the expenses – especially if my partner chooses to stop working – but that sort of business does require a bit of customer service and support – not too much, but some.

Obviously there are lots of ways to make income online which aren’t passive – but are still better than a) working for someone else and b) having to get dressed in the morning. Into this category I put activities such as freelancing (be it web design or writing), selling things (either by drop shipping or from your back bedroom), and building a flagship blog in order to become a Trust Agent and kick start your book deal or speaking career.

But if you chose the right keywords (properties) and have more rather than less (diversification) you can make a very nice income from silly little niche websites.

But some people will even say that its almost impossible to build a significant business with just passive income. I disagree. The main reason people end up as tied up with their own business as they were when they worked in corporate hell – is quite simple – personality.

You Need The Right Personality To Earn  Passive Income

Let me explain, I used to think one of my strong personality traits was a negative thing, in fact so negative it wasn’t something I ever mentioned at job interviews – even when prompted to list my failings. It was a big secret, which I kept quiet – but now I’ve come to realise this personality trait of mine is in fact a huge advantage.

So what is my deep, dark secret? Well I’m lazy – yup bone idle. Give me the choice of working or playing I’d rather watch TV, or sleep, or go swimming.  You see my main motivation with this online income thing, is the actually the same as it was with the property investment. Its to make passive income, because I can’t be arsed working.

With property its easy – so long as you have a good credit record, a mortgage free valuable home and two secure jobs – the bank will offer you three times what you are asking for (good thing we didn’t take it we would have been in serious trouble with the interest rates). After a few years lots of people get out of rentals: its too much hassle – the tenants ring up at all hours complaining about broken light bulbs or leaking taps, the houses need painting etc. etc. But being lazy I had set it up right – I’d found a property manager first, found out what sort of property they had the least problems managing – and bought properties that fit that criteria.

We’ve never had the problem – the tenants don’t call us – I doubt they know who we are – they deal with the property manager. Property is entirely passive income if you have the right property manager, the right properties and the right level of debt.

Online income is similar. You can make yourself a slave to your online income business as easily as you can a real-world business. For a long time i.e. 20+ years I said I didn’t want a business. I’d worked for small businesses where the owner took less out of the busienss than he paid me, worked longer hours, never took a day off. I wasn’t delighted about working for someone but at least I chose the right profession, got well paid, normally had a choice of jobs and really should have had it made.

But I couldn’t outsource my real world job – so it was still an issue with my laziness – I still had to get out of bed in the morning and get dressed – that wast he problem.  Obviously I needed to own my business – but I didn’t want to work stupid hours – in fact I wanted to work as few hours as possible.

So now I need to set up a genuinely passive income online. That’s an income where the customers don’t call me – they don’t even kow who I am – they buy from me and they move on. That’s what I like about making passive income online. Some of the A-listers dont’ really believe that its possible – but they have a disadvantage – you see its important to them to work hard in a driven manner – but that’s not important to me at all. I don’t need to work to be important – I need to work to make money. If I won $5 million tomorrow in lotto – would I keep on building  websites – LOL don’t be stupid – I’d put in the bank and live of f the interest! Well I might keep this passive income online website going just to have fun calling out the scams, but that would be purely for entertainment – not work or anything.

Other Lazy Onliners

Phil @ I Need Money Now

Roland @ Online Income

Shane @ Freelance Writing

agrande @ MLM Leads Guide

Categories
Making Money Online Online Business

Do You Have a Plan B to Support Your Passive Income Business?

Now I like planning – its so much more fun than doing. I’m quite good at planning too -just ask anyone who has been travelling with me. But business planning is a whole different game – I know the theory:

  1. Decide what the end is – say $1,000,000 in round figure and by when.
  2. Work out where you are now  – that’s easy just done the taxes
  3. Work out how to get from 2 to 1
changing direction
changing direction

Hmm yeah oops – 3 is kinda the problem in my experience. This blog started as my attempt of at least an online diary of my journey of 100 sites – but got re-named when I figured I was the ONLY person who ever searched for that keyword LOL.I thought that might be close enough to a business plan – I may have been wrong …

Last month I wrote about making $1500 from Adsense and Affiliates this month its pretty much the same – slightly different winners and losers but generally, overall add up to about the same figure. I’m actually fairly happy with that – August is usually a very slow month online and I wouldn’t have been at all surprised to see my earnings drop,  Also this month I was focused on building stuff which will make money in the future – not right now.

Making an income that was real rather than just a joke made me even more determined to plan B – what if I suddenly was the only income earner in the house? What if we move again and my partner can’t get/doesn’t want a job? Plan B has been SEO consulting to small business. I wasn’t going to do it seriously until we moved back to New Zealand – a real-world business needs contacts and I don’t have them here, and yes I know you can do this all online but my potential clients don’t know that!

I must admit though that SEO consulting has some downsides for me:

  • you have to do a lot of education with clients – and a lot of definition of roles – no I don’t do flash development or even adwords I do SEO!
  • you have to get dressed in the morning

Frankly the second one is the real issue! I thought for a while I might like the human contact – but I came to my senses and remembered that business meetings are not human contact!

So I wanted another Plan B – I way to raise quick cash with a bit more certainity than developing niche sites and better paid than writing articles.

So after some thought and a whole lot more reading I think I am going into the site flipping business. I will build sites, do some other magic stuff to them (SEO) and sell them for a healthy profit. It fits well with my passive income – because if they don’t sell they will probably just sit around and make me money anyways!

If any of your are into real estate investing you will understand the concept of site flipping – a property flipper will usually buy a run-down house, do it up and sell it for a profit. Website flipping is similar – but without the downside  risk of mortgages!

Why do I want a plan B anyway?  After all my little ugly sites make me money while I sleep right ? Yes they do – but if I needed an extra $5000 tomorrow they wouldn’t be able to deliver on that! Websites typically seem to sell for up to 10 times monthly earnings – so if I had a site making $500 a month – there’s my $5000 . At the moment if we needed that sort of cash we’d use my partner’s income or borrow it – because of our excellent credit – again because one of us has a real job. Flipping sites seems to be the obvious adjunct income for me while I build the passive income empire.

By the way I still seem to have some of you confused about why making a few dollars of passive income is totally exciting to me – much more exciting than earning $1000 in a real job. Check out John’s description of why passive income is the best of all possible incomes to have – his story the same as my story – I was delighted in early June to have hit $100 in Adesnse for the month by the 10th – my partner’s reaction was – *shrug*  – in July he was delighted that I made 6 times that in Adsense, in August he was asking me how it was going on a weekly basis! So if you have trouble convincing people – don’t worry they  will understand when youstart making the cash!

Phtoto Credit

Categories
Online Business Passive Income

Online Income and Work Life Balance

I took the weekend off – I drove 300km and checked out the golf course at Augusta, went whale watching, ate too much, drank too much local red wine.

Golf Course Augusta
Golf Course, Augusta

Did I login? Did I check my email? Did I approve comments? Did I check in with clients that it was OK to take the weekend off – no to all of those above. You see I used to have a J.O.B (Just Over Broke) – I used to have to apply for leave or arrange not to be on-call to go away for the weekend. I don’t do that anymore. Instead, I put an “out of office reply” on my main email account and disconnected.

It wasn’t that hard for me – I must admit taking breaks and travelling is what’s important to me. Yes sure I’d like to make a zillion dollars a week – but only if I can still take off every month or so for a holiday! Although I now have a lot of American friends online, I still don’t understand the need to work 24/7 – if you are desperate to pay the bills sure – but for those who aren’t? To be honest if a client doesn’t want you to go away for a couple of days – do you need the client?

Why is that so hard for some people to just take off and let their online life go on without them?  I think there are two issues: one is cultural and one is about self-confidence. I come from a culture which consider a four-week holiday a bare minimum and two-months a reasonable break. I know many Americans have never taken more than 10 days annual leave.  To me that is a completely incomprehensible concept. It takes me 2 weeks just to forget about the job I hated and then I settled down to being on holiday! I certainly trained several workplaces to get by without me for 6 to 8 week periods – and no I don’t mean call me if you have a problem – I never holiday within cellphone or email range!  I presume its harder if employers are used to having employees around 50 weeks a year.

So when I decided to start making an online living I certainly had no intention of building an income which needed me to  baby-sit it 24/7 like some idiot boss!

The second reason I believe that people have trouble going on holiday and off line is around self confidence. I know people who live the location independent lifestyle – they are sometimes out of contact – does it hurt their business ? Maybe – the clients who want them available 24/7 may not like it that you chose to hop on a 24 flight. Who cares? Do you really need that client? I have lost jobs over the years because I was female, because I was a foreigner, in time I realised I was better off without them. Its the same with an online client who wants you available at their beck and call – its not how it works around here – and because this is my business I make up the rules – and I suggest you do to.

So before you become a slave to your online business I suggest you look at the big picture. Is this a business that is going to need you online 24/7 – how easy will it be for your to delegate and grow the business? Can you develop something that you work on, not in? Make sure you are building a lifestyle that’s better than the one you’ve got!

Oh you don’t recognise Augusta’s golf course? Course details about 5km out of town – at the top of the hill, a great 360 view of the Indian and Southern Oceans. Green fees: $15 on an honour system, golf carts recommended, blacks not greens around the holes, kangaroos a hazard, beware snakes in the bush. And as far as I know Tiger Woods has never played their though its possible that other soon-to-be famous golfer Grizz Brears may want to take a second look at it – you see Augusta is in Western Australia, not just Georgia!

Categories
Rants

Online Income and Dancesport

OK that title got you to click through because a) you don’t know what dancesport is and/or b) you are not sure what the connection with online income and Dancesport is.

So just to clarify – dancesport is competitive ballroom dance and no there is absolutely no way you can earn online income with it – its what I spend my online income on!

It does however fit well with earning an income online because it gets me up off my backside which would be a lot bigger than it is if I didn’t dance about 5 nights a week!

Just to clarify I’m the blond in blue and my partner Paul is the one who bankrolls my lifestyle as well as being my dance partner and this is my very first attempt at a youtube video!

Comments are welcome and YES we know the rhumba is out of time!

BTW if  you double click the video below it will open up on youtube and then you can make it a bit bigger!

Categories
Online Business Passive Income

Making Money with An Online Gold Rush

I had to explain my business to my accountant recently having finally made some online income to declare! Its been a while since I tried to explain my business to someone who, although they had their own website and is very computer literate, really had no idea what I was talking about.  The thing is that people think because the Internet has only be around for 40 years and Google for less than 10 years, maybe making money online is all different and there has never been a moment like this in history before – well I beg to differ  – there is nothing new under the sun and understanding history is certainly useful in avoiding the mistakes others have made.

Sovereign Hill, Ballarat, Victoria
Sovereign Hill, Ballarat, Victoria

The Internet Marketing is like a gold rush people – Klondike, Otago, Victoria, doesn’t matter which country: gold is found, some people make money, many don’t, some companies are made others die, and society changes forever.

For those of you are not familiar with history: gold rushes brought incredible wealth it a few and incredible hard work and death to many more – and I am a firm believer that understanding history can sometimes stop you repeating it.  Your average or typical gold rush goes something like this:

  1. Gold is found – the early prospectors try to keep it quiet but news comes out and the rush is on. Men abandon their families and start walking to the gold fields. Well at least you only have to walk to your nearest broadband connection these days! But try explaining to your spouse that your “playing online” is a serious business – they will think you mad or worse. My partner asked me the other day how many people make a living full-time online – I really have no answer but I suspect very, very few do, doing what I do.
  2. Many start digging the fields – backbreaking work, they go broke, the get sick, they die. Many of those diggers on the fields had been professionals they had never panned for gold in their lives – its hard and dangerous work. There is more skill than is apparent at first glance but basically its hard work, the tough survive. 95% of Internet Marketers give up before they make a $100 – I just made that statistic up, but its probably accurate. There is more skill required than is apparent at first glance but basically its hard work, sluicing a few pans of gold won’t make you a fortune, nor will your first website. Fortunately you don’t generally die working online though many  people do seem to have issues with weight gain and loneliness.
  3. Some of the people who nearly made a strike or made a small strike but didn’t make enough to retire they move sideways and  start to make a comfortable living by selling booze, picks and pans to the miners. A lot of booze was watered-down and some of the picks were of poor quality… The entire “A-list” blogger phenomenon are the the publicans and the suppliers of the gold fields – they sound like they have useful stuff to sell but there’s is not the business model you want to follow if you want to be the one to strike it rich.  How many pubs can one town support (well quite a few from the Australian gold rush towns I may be pushing the analogy a bit here!)
  4. A very, very few of the miners found wealth beyond belief, they built a fine house (a long way from the gold fields), had a family and lived happily ever after.  Most of them did not publish a book on how to make money on the goldfields.  The people who make serious money online you never heard of  -they don’t run blogs for sure!

Well most of them don’t write blogs – but one or two do… So if you really want to know how to make money blogging follow this link on how not to be a better blogger.

The gold rushes were a huge social disruption – they turned society upside down, they substantially changed the way society was forever. They created new towns, the Victorian gold rush stopped deportation to Australia forever. The wealth of Melbourne gave it some of the first municipal  public transport and electric light in the world.

They were a huge chance for people to make money – people who had never had a chance before.  Most people didn’t take the chance – they sat on the side-lines and worried about whether the gold fields were really a way to make money. Once the gold field became established they figured that they had missed the opportunity and stayed home. There are gold mines in Bendigo to this day – 140 years after the initial rush.

A lot of companies disappeared – they failed to realize the opportunity that the gold rush offered – some banks went broke because they didn’t open a branch in the new towns springing up to support the gold fields.  I think that many of today’s newspapers are the equivalent of those short-sighted banks – will newspapers survive? How will they compete with new citizen journalism websites?

Some people dug for a day or two but they didn’t strike it rich and so they packed up and left – or got a job at the pub – selling the watered-down beer. They told everyone who would listen that you couldn’t really make money with this new fangled gold thingy!

Some people got burned – they bought the poor-quality shovels, they noticed they couldn’t move as much dirt as their competitors down the road – the smart ones reinvested in their business and bought better shovels.

Some people dug for gold in the wrong place – they dug and dug and found nothing – until one day! Some people made money on day one, some took 6 months or 6 years, the ones that stuck at it generally did make at least a living at it.

I’m a geologist – I’ve worked in exploration – I can tell you there is nothing quite like the thrill of finding gold or whatever mineral you are looking for. Even today where its all automated, GPSed and computerised there is still a thrill of the chase.

I used to find looking for keywords boring and frustrating – but then I started making money from those same keywords – now I find them absolutely fascinating – mostly the topics I write about are really boring – but I never get bored with watching  the money come in…Gold panning is still back-breaking work I prefer the online alternative…

Categories
Making Money Online Online Business Passive Income

How To Make Over $2000 Online

I have been on and off doing full-time Internet Marketing as a way to make a full time living since Oct 2007. As recently as March I made a total of $144 from Adsense and affiliates, April was the first month I made the $100 Adsense payout within a month. In July 2009 I made $1500 from Adsense and Affiliates (what I can passive income) – with my freelance work my income came in at $2800 for the month. Where I’m from, New Zealand, that is about the same sort of money that a junior teacher would be earning – not bad if I do say so myself.

I dunno what full-time income is your part of the world but my definition has always been about US$1000/week – what I could make if I could get a job as a Business Analyst, Test Manager again.  I am not there yet – but in March I was ready to quit – now I feel like I’m close to success -my partner finally thinks there is something to this online lark – and I know that once you have the momentum its so much easier to build on it.

The Secret to Making $2000 / Month Online?

Simple self-belief – up until March I wasn’t prepared to believe that I personally could make serious cash online. I wanted it to happen first – then I’d believe it. It doesn’t work like that –  I’m not sure why – but I guess if part of your brain still thinks you really should go and get a real job then your actions really not reflect your potential.

My problem was that I have never been a business owner, I couldn’t sell or market and I thought entrepreneurs were losers who couldn’t compromise long enough to get a job (well I was right about that :lol: ). I’ve never known anyone in the real world that has the mind-set of going out and taking serious risks and building your own business.

I really didn’t believe that I could make money – so I didn’t – now this is not ‘The Secret” bullshite – believing in money flowing to you doesn’t work – you need a plan and to take action. For me until I really, if not believed that it would happen, couldn’t think of anything better to do, I didn’t take enough action – and that’s the real secret to making money online – massive action.

Step Two Take Massive Action to Earn Income Online

Carnavon Gorge, Queensland, Australia
Carnavon Gorge, Queensland, Australia

Or at least do something! I talked about taking massive action to make money online recently but the whole Niche Devil controversy kinda sums it up quite nicely. There are those arguing on the sidelines as to whether or not it will work, and then there are those for whom its working.

Some stuff works some doesn’t. Nothing works for ever, the techniques that worked 6 years ago don’t work now. There are short-cuts to finding out what works thanks to services such as The KeyWord Academy – but basically at the end of the day doing the work and monitoring the results will teach you more than just thinking about it!

Now go and build some sites!

Categories
Online Business Passive Income

Online Income How To Make $1000 Online!

River Cruise Europe

Well oops – I see I haven’t done an online income post for a while – and now its the new tax year in Australia this is as good an excuse as anything to avoid doing my taxes!

Back in May I had some new goals – so lets report against though shall we – well it amuses me – sorry if you find it boring!

What has happening in the interim is that my passive online income has doubled from May to June.  My overall income including some freelance work was US$1400 – not too shabby really – considering where I’ve come from. OK I’d struggle to live on that amount in Australia, though I certainly could in some parts of the world, but at least its more than I would have earned on the dole! And I figure its just the beginning because certainly the passive component of that (about 50%) will only keep on going up.

Update on Current Business Goals

Get those 10 sites up and running with backlinks built and starting their run up the SERPS.

Hmm not quite – “excuse” below

Build more backlinks to the hubs which make me money- after all they are hosted for free!

Thanks to the hubchallenge income this is where my time has been going – it started working for me so I focussed on hubpages for the last month or so. Yes I know I need to diversify – but I also need to build a winner while its working for me.

Looking to develop another website which will be more focusing on small real world business owners and micro-preneurs who don’t know where to start with ranking a site in the SERPS. Definitly there is scope here – I just need to focus my plan on this one.

Looking to develop a “real world” business of my own. I am considering starting doing some SEO consulting if/when we move back to New Zealand.

Maybe – we are in Australia now until at least the end of the year – I will probably combine these two somehow.

Meanwhile my real goal:

River Cruise Europe