Chapter 1 – Making Money on the Internet with a Blog
You are probably wondering just how people make money with their blogs. It takes the form of many things.
- Pay Per Click Advertising
- Selling Ad Space
- Referral and Affiliate Advertising
- Paid Links
- Online Stores
- Text Link Ads
- Selling Reviews
- and Affiliate Networks…
These are just a few of the ways people generate extra income from their websites.
It may seem a little confusing at first but I have laid out my guides to walk you through the process. Even if you have never had a website before, I’ll provide you with the information you need to create a successful site from scratch.
There was a time when I didn’t know what any of this meant also. The idea of learning all kinds of new technology stressed me out beyond belief. The thing I learned is that all these methods go hand in hand. Learning one of these topics helps you understand five others.
I was amazed at how quickly I was able to learn and utilize all these methods. Don’t worry. You will pick it up really fast.
Humble Beginnings and a Pocket Full of Change
When I created my first website it consisted of nothing more than my thoughts about life. I didn’t know where I was going with blogging so I decided my site would be a testing area to try out different ideas.
This led me to a profound concept for making money with blogs.
- Create a Sand Box blog
A Sand Box blog is an analogy for a place where you can play and learn. It doesn’t matter what you do in the sandbox because it is a website that was designed to be explored and tested.
My sandbox blog was filled with personal quotes, thoughts, and other random topics. Amazingly enough it actually started to attract a few people. Some of my random articles contained niche information that people found when doing “long tail” keyword searches.
As time went on I started utilizing different methods I had learned for driving immediate traffic to my site. This traffic was nice because it provided instant gratification for the work I had done. The only drawback was the amount of time and energy it took to produce these visitors.
All the hours I was spending utilizing social networks and news sites, would benefit me much more if I put that energy into writing articles for my site. The reason for this is because the instant traffic was very short lived, while the organic hits were increasing on a daily basis.
I started researching various topics online for how I could produce more organic traffic and increase my exposure in the search pages.
Real Sources of Information
As I looked around I started coming across some great sites with very valuable information. I started off searching for ways to make money from blogging and came across a great post from Steve Pavlina entitled How to Make Money From Your Blog.
This was a great eye opener for me because it outlined topics I would later end up researching and in turn direct me towards other great online resources.
After reading the article a of couple times, I started branching outward and searching for some of the topics he had referenced in his guide. When I did this I started discovering other amazing sites like Pro Blogger, Yoast, John Chow, Shoe Money, DoshDosh and many more!
Learning by Doing
I spent several weeks reading and testing things these blogs suggested in my sandbox blog before I was actually comfortable enough to start my first serious attempt at a monetized website.
It was slow for a week or two, but following the information I had learned from these sites I was able to start driving traffic to my blog. Within just a couple days I started to see the beginnings of income start trickling in.
Now don’t get me wrong. If you read my main article about Making Money Online with Make Money Life you would know that I am not trying to hype up some “fast easy money” scheme. When I say “trickling in” I mean just that. I was making a couple cents a day from my blog.
This was a start though and it highlights what I mentioned previously about making money online being a numbers game. If I could get this site to make $10 dollars a day that would be an extra $300 dollars a month, but if I could get 5 sites to make $10 dollars a day that would be an extra $1,500 a month.
- That’s an entire mortgage payment for me!
ShoeMoney’s Real Life Example of Success
I decided to create multiple websites after studying the model that Shoe Money uses to make incredible amounts of money every month. Take a look at one of his AdSense checks from Google.
Now remember what I said before about the rare exceptions to the money making online. You are looking at one right there.
The question is why can’t that be you or me? Read Jeremy’s bio and you’ll realize he’s not some super genius with a degree in rocket science. I don’t think he even has a college degree. He was someone that saw how to make the most out of what had been laid out before him, and he continues to do it to this day.
Keep in mind that the check you see there is for “AdSense”, which is a Pay Per Click advertising program. “One” of the 8 different methods I mentioned at the beginning of this article. So now let me ask you this. How much money do you think he actually made that month if this is only one source of income?
Where Do You and I Fit Into All This?
Now because the internet is still relatively new there are hundreds, if not thousands, of opportunities available to people when it comes to making money online. Some are blatant and have a small payout because anyone can sign up and participate in them.
Others are the types of opportunities that are created by people like Jeremy Shoemaker. My goal is to teach you the skills needed to take advantage of opportunities like this whenever you see them.
Ways of making money online have changed a lot in the past 10 years. There is always something new to learn, and there is never an end to the race. This means that even if you are getting started late in the game you are merely playing catch up.
You can’t lose, because your competition is running for a non-existent finish line. The internet will only continue to grow, and methods of making money will change. Those who are on top today will eventually pass the torch to the next generation of creative entrepreneurs.
“While we are all competing against each other for our slice of the online pie, there is more than enough to go around.”
Everyday more and more people are using the internet, and going online for the first time. Kids are growing into young adults who are looking for information that your site can provide to them. It’s a continued evolution that presents people with more and more opportunities each day.
The way I look at it, I got into this late in the game. But I also feel that I couldn’t be involved at a better time. With the upward trend and the new audience that is available everyday, I do nothing but benefit from the work I do.
Now that you know this, you can operate under a powerful money making mindset. Your competition may question everything they do, if they are not aware of these simple concepts.
Make the most of what you learn, and use it to change your life. Only you have the power to decide if you succeed or fail. Those around you are just voices in the crowd that are trying to find what you already know.
A great idea is only original the first time around, but that great idea can change a person’s life. As Steve Pavlina said in his article:
“Your greatest risk isn’t that you’ll make mistakes that will cost you. Your greatest risk is that you’ll miss opportunities.”
Use what you learn to take advantage of your ideas. Anything that doesn’t work is not a failure. It’s one step closer to finding the idea that will change your life.
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Tags: blog, Blogging, guide, make money, Monetize, money, online, tutorial