I have until August of 2007 to make $5000 USD/month or more. The trouble is, I don't think any of my current ventures are going to meet that goal. Currently, I make around $2-5/day with Google Adsense and it is steadily increasing but no where near $167/day. Does anyone have a solid idea I could chase to meet this goal? If I do meet it, I will be able to continue making money online; otherwise, I have to go back to work. Until then, I have a bunch of time I can dedicate to my online activities. Also, I am a pretty decent PHP / MySQL programmer with some design skill. Does anyone have decent ideas as to how I might accomplish this goal in the allotted time-frame? This means a lot to me and I think it would benefit others to know this information as well. Thanks, Scott W
If you are generating $5 per day from two sites, that implies it will take 65 more websites of similar niche quality and traffic levels to reach $5,000 per month of AdSense revenue. However, getting there will likely attract negative attention from Google. I think that the reality is that while a few individuals and companies do very well from AdSense, most of us could never make a living unless we lived somewhere where the average annual income was under $1,000 per year. I know I could not. From my experience, success on the internet is hard earned and most successful small businesses are not relying on AdSense or similar programs for revenue. The number of "I was banned by . . . " threads make it clear that a great deal of instant success is fake and/or dangerous. I visited your sites and from the comments on your personal one I see that you are successful at driving lots of traffic to some of your sites. The question is whether those sites will attract sustained interest or if most people will visit once and never return. To me, visitor retention is a critical factor and getting there means having truly dynamic content -- a site where people need to come back tomorrow to see whats new. I believe that on the internet people's memories are unimaginably short and if nothing changes after three days on a website, you need to re-market that customer. There are a few exceptions . . . but very few. Therefore, marketing is essential. I use AdWords to a very limited extent. My budget is small and I am not willing to increase bids. On the other hand, I supply articles to a small number of real world magazines and data to two newspapers, which helps solidify my reputation as "the" source for information in my niche. I have need doing that for several years. I have also tried placing classified ads in publications with the biggest classified section in my general area of expertise. That has helped a little. Incidentally, the fatter the classified section, the more people dig through it. The smaller, the fewer. On the internet, I have tried to get links in high quality websites. Not so much because of its impact of page rank, but because people who might be interested in my site are likely to also go there. I have tried the article give-away route. But, I am uncertain if it really works. It is better to write good material and get really credible websites to mention it. I might mention that I would prefer a link in a news style site over page one of DIGG because of the quality of visitor. Ironically, it does not matter which route you go. Both are full time jobs and both are going to be mighty frustrating. That will be made worse by the limited time you have remaining in your experiment and the limited progress you report having made thus far. Good luck.
Create your own product and have affiliates help you promote it. If you are good at getting traffic, try selling a special report on getting free traffic to your site. If you don't have an autoresponder, get one. Have you heard, the money is in the list? Well it can be if you do it properly. Email marketing is huge and if you play your cards right you can make your living by it.
If you are currently making $2-5 a day, you have to multiply your efforts to a much higher extent if you want that 4 figure income you stated. Concentrate on what you are doing and have a little patience. Like the experts say, there is no real get rich quick schemes in this webmaster world considering long term in the mind.
Do what I do....write a script (PHP) and sell hosted versions of it for $200 a time. Find something you think will sell to LOTS of people - but without too much competition/ better than competition. That way, you get a recuring fee from yearly hosting!!
think of a unique website/project/app/script and put your idea in application that way you will have plenty of visitors...if we look that way what are visitors really interested in? To see genuine stuff what they haven't seen before
I suggest you do freelance since you have programming skills. It will later also help when you are looking for a job.
I second the freelance programming. You can get three to five contracts with $1.000+ each depending on the size of the agreement.
I already had a job but I quit so I could focus on building my own income here. Yes, I've thought of reproducing the successful methodologies but I agree, Google would not like that. I've done an "okay" job at bringing traffic into my websites, but I'd need to replicate it 100-fold if I wanted to make the amount of money I need to make. The problem with getting traffic is making other people want to come back once they've visited and making their visit a "sticky" one. Ideas like these are difficult to come by, but they would increase the CTR and therefore, decrease the number I would need to replicate the process by (perhaps all the way down to 25X, which is doable). But alas, I don't think this is a *solid* way of making that money. My budget is also small, and I have been spending countless hours on this notion. In fact, my relationship with my wife is suffering as a result because we're not seeing results. Once something changes, that problem will be gone. Despite all this, I do believe that the money earned is on a curve. I think the most difficult part is STARTING to make it and then once you're on the right path, it will come more easily-- both because you'll be listed on search engines so you'll get more inflow and because the process is streamlined and familiar. I'll keep looking though. Thanks for the input. You mean create an eBook? That's not a bad idea, I suppose. I do have some good knowledge that could help people. Autoresponder? I'd like to know more about that if you have time. Thanks! Wow, that sounds great. I don't have much experience with actual hosting though. Is there more you could tell me? I've written scripts before and my Romanian friend keeps telling me I should write a script and sell it. Is the money decent? Freelance programming would be great if contracts never carried out beyond a month. The problem is, as I've experienced in the business world, they most certainly carry over month-to-month as customers rarely know exactly what they want. Even then, there are always budget restraints and the like that put even more time into the equation. Don't get me wrong, I do appreciate the advice! I just want to get away from developing for individual customers and get more into developing web-based products, be it websites, website software, ebooks, etc. SOMETHING web-based would be perfect so I could work while I travel, you know? I think a lot of people would love to do so. The trick is not flooding a particular niche. Well, that's a great idea but it is *the* idea. If I could think of something smashing and unique, I would definitely pour my energy into it to get it done but the trouble is actually coming up with that unique idea. I am always open to ideas though!
From two websites you already made 2-5$/day, that's great, most people don't get there even with 10 websites. I do have a friend who can generate approx. 4000$/month, and guess what ?!! He has almost 200 websites to generate that amount, so in my opinion, build more websites pal !
that is easy ,i am in china ,i can help you build a lot of web,and we manager them ,then you can earn more money ,i also can earn a little money ,if interest in it ,just contact with me ,my email:4200301658@163.com
I only have two though. That's only two months! Plus, I'd have to buy the whole filtering machine that would replace the kidneys. Good idea but not feasible. :/ Thanks though.
200? Wow!! How does he maintain all of them??? I'd do that if I knew I could #1) Afford the bandwidth and #2) Maintain them all.
There's many other things you can advertise beside Adsense or YPN ads. If you can use your programming skills to semi-automate traffic generation, I suggest you look at the Affiliate program section of this forum (and other forums). Rotate through the affiliates until you find one that works best with your traffic. Here's a tip: Sculpt your content/ads around your traffic. Not the other way around. Here's a blog post on this topic: http://justtraffic.blogspot.com/2006/11/sculpt-your-traffic-into-cash.html
I really wouldnt rely on Adsense to be a primary source of income unless you have the resources to put up enough sites to make serious revenue. Trust me, I have researched it, I need 5K by April for a honeymoon. I feel your pain bro. Good luck.