After 7 years of trying, I'm close to waving the white flag...

Didn't read all the replies but words "me" and "I" repeat often in your first post.

Perhaps you've concentrated too much to "taste success" when in reality you should have focused even more to bring value to others?

Just my two copper coins - and I deserve the right to be completely wrong.

 

hello Shamus

please donot take this the wrong way. (i am in the same boat as you, online for about 3 to 4 years)

maybe a pdf "On what doesnot work on the internet" , motivational tips , etc for the newbie , or people been on the net for some time.


it is just a thought , please donot take it to heart. just an idea.


cheers
david


ps wish you best for the future.

 

i would advice you that you shouldnt compare with others as this is not a good winning strategy.
Do what is you think is fun? All those who worked their way to the top of this business are passionate people enjoying every bit of their work.

There is no such thing called winning formula and it aint some trade secret. Do anything useful or helpful to other people. Be it content or information or perhaps offering something free .

i want you to work more, and you need to find out where have you made mistake. Work your way towards it and dont expect to make money overnight.

Good luck!!!

 

Please don't give up. Success is something that we really have to work hard and fight for. If we really want something then we should not give up on it. As they say, winners never quit. In fact, some have found there aspirations and success when they are already in their retirable age. What I mean is, will it do you good if you quit? Also, maybe it's not the right field for you. There are many ways to achieve what you want. Maybe you can start really assessing your methods and contemplating on your goals. But most of all, always believe in yourself and keep the faith. Really, losers never win.

 

You sound like a lot of online entrepreneurs who fail... no solid plan. You need to get out of the "give me ideas of what might work phase" or you'll never succeed. Stop trying to think of the "next big thing" for yourself, and think about the long-term. You probably won't make much in the beginning. That's just life. It's the ones who stick it out and keep on going that start earning real money... you can't keep changing your path or you have to start from scratch again.

You said you're good at writing. Are you good at marketing as well? If so, combine your own blogs and content sites with offering writing services to others (just don't undersell yourself if you want that to really go anywhere).

It may work for you, and it may not. It's certainly not a get rich quick business model, but it can be done. I currently earn my "main" income providing services (between writing and PR work), and a "side" income (equivalent to a low full-time income) from my sites and blogs combined (in less than a year after launching most of them). Don't worry about a saturated market. Just find a niche you'll love (if you won't keep your drive to keep it going, it doesn't matter how much it could potentially make), and one that you could be considered an authority in, and take it from there. Spend time learning how to market your sites and services effectively, and find ways to monetize them out of the ordinary (in other words, don't get caught up only trying to earn from something like Adsense... diversify).

Write a solid business plan. Do real market research so you know what you're up against. And then work your ass off to make it happen, and don't quit.

 

Some solid advice here!

I will answer a few questions and clarify some points made later on when I get to work.

Thanks so much for the replies - I hope this helps everyone!

 

It sounds to me like your looking for 'one great idea' that will make you lots. It usually doesn't happen that way mate, unless your already loaded you wont have the money resources to market anything to a success, plus money for pro design and technology. Trying to come up with super unique things is a bad idea.

Obviously try it when you have the money and resources but what you should be focusing on is just building QUALITY CONTENT sites. Write about what you know, forget people telling you to find super untouched niche's do sites about what you enjoy and know you will always enjoy. Make blogs, forums and content rich sites, info sites, specific wiki sites. All sorts, just make sure they are quality and do as much good content as possible for them.

And especially with blogs these days, you need to blog pure quality to get anywhere, blog on a regular basis and as best to your ability. It's when you give up that it completely dies, if you haven't succeeded it's because you haven't tried hard enough init. Keep making quality sites, that's all there is to it. Then when these sites build up age, PR, kudos, good SERPs you can start putting Adsense, AuctionAds or just sell payed advertising. As that is a sure high earner and you cut out the middle man.

 

I haven't read the replies, but to me - it sounds like you've got one major thing wrong in your struggle to earn on the net.

You've not looked at the ability to build a substancial business from the efforts that you have entertained. Instead, it appears to me that you've focussed on short term, quick harvest projects which have no longevity what so ever.

Building an online income is easy. It's the type of income and how much you make which is the hard part. Affiliate marketing is a great revenue stream, however you need to do it right in order to make it into a business.

Buying PPC traffic and sending it straight to CB merchant pages is something which I would never personally do. Why? Well, it comes back to my first point - it doesn't have teh ability to contstruct a business around.

By substacial business, I don't mean making the next Youtube either. Just go after what's selling and build something off that. Make a service for people who go racing to record their results. Think out of the box for simple things. That's what'll make your money.

Oh - and I'm currently writing this whilst AT WORK. Yup - I have a job but don't fret - I've also got a large internet business on the go too. Do what works for you

 

My recommendation:

Get a "9-5" type job, and use the money to support yourself, but spend as little as possible on yourself. Make a single website about a niche that you are very interested in or care deeply about. Put all your free time into that website. Make it as great as you can. Use the excess money from your job (the money that doesn't go directly to your cost of living, e.g. food, clothes, shelter, etc.) to fund your website. You can buy advertising campaigns. Go for AdWords or some other quality advertising method. Keep making the website better and keep putting all of your money into it. Keep doing that until the website is making you enough money to quit your day job.

 

Find a niche market that interests you! Do a little research on it see what you're up against and go from there. This is what's worked for me everytime. I've tried getting into other subjects and I either don't have enough knowledge in that area or enough interest and thus it fails. I've created a number of sites around a niche that I like and can stay focused in and they pay off month after month!

 

So you cannot "find a niche that isn't crowded" after 7 years. I dont want to be rude, but where have you been that 7 years?

Anyway, you know how to write. If I was you I would sit down and rewrite 100 articles, 50 on one subject and 50 on another. The rewriting have to be done in a way that you write in keywords that has a search of 1000 to 5000 on overture. Then make two web sites with adsense integrated in the 100 unique articles. Then I would get links to that two sites. If you cant make money from that, then you will never make it.

 

show us your best attempt, the site or project you think you did the best on, and we can help point out where you went wrong.

 

The question is How much do you want to make? If you want to make thousands and failed, then you failed... and if others wanted to earn hundreds and succeed, then they succeed...

How far did you go? How much do you want?

 

That's some solid advice!

 

Maybe you should leave a link next time!

 

I'm also a little bummed because my earnings have been down for about a week. I have a 9-5 job, so I never feel too much anxiety over my online earnings. Perhaps you should get a 9-5 job and just do the online thing part time. If you're determined enough you can still get a lot done in your spare time, and when you find success for a sustained period of time you can quit the 9-5.

 

Based on your initial post and some of your follow up comments, you past poor performance is probably due to making a few bad investment calls. You mentioned you have lost a lot of money and that blogging has produced decent income that you use to fund other projects.

I think the best advice to anyone is to start small and test, test, test. Find small chunks of automated income and keep building that up.

I have a separate 9-5 so I can do this but here is what I did. I have been in the business for about 1 1/5 years. The first 6 months I invested small amounts of my own money (less than $900 total) to get me started. After that I only spent profits on developing new ideas. Each one I started out with shoestring spending. I developed it to the point of automated profitability (even if it was small, then moved to the next idea).

I never tried to come up with the next big idea. I just tried to take what others were doing and improve on it.

I think you best bet to move forward is this. Keep doing what you are doing but supplement your income. In 7 years you should definately know a decent amount about SEO, Web Design, etc. Find local businesses that can use these services. I found a couple of local companies that did not have a website or had a crappy site and did a basic redesign for $500-$700 to help fund projects, did SEO for a Real Estate Agents website, switched a few clients over and started hosting them on my shared server. (Most of these guys are happy to pay $15-$20 per month for a basic host) Get 10-15 of them with your only expense being a basic shared hosting account at $20 and this is extra revenue.

You said your friends and family support you, have them help you get the word out, talk about your skills with them and other people you encounter in business: your insurance agent, real estate agent, mortgage broker, lawyer, etc., anyone who provides professional service and work will get around. Go to a local computer repair store that may not offer web design or hosting services and ask to leave some flyers or something.

DO this while you continue to work on ideas to automate income. After a year and a half of slow growth with sites, I have 7-8 sites that auto 95% automated, each site makes money differently, and each site is averaging between $75-$200 per month in profit. I am certainly not getting rich or could not even pay my bills with this but it is a start. Over time I make little improvements to each site and work on another one. In the end I hope to have 10 automated sites each making consistant $600-$700 per month with less than 10 hours per month of my time. I am guessing it will take another 2-3 years to fully accomplish this.

I hope this helps.

 

Set-up a blog, talking about how I am trying to make cash online. THats a bit different to tall the others, and quite unique. All the others are how you CAN make cash. You could post about the scams and tripe.

 

I think a lot of people gave some good advice here and I just want to reiterate one of the best pieces of advice here. When creating a site, you have to be realistic about it. Are you providing a service or content that is useful? How are you different from most of the people out there? If you aren't different you will have a hard time succeeding (especially in a crowded market), but even more important... if you aren't providing anything useful no one will give you their money.

 

Have you used offline marketing techniques? If so what and how? What is your target demographic?