Searching For What It Takes To Make Money Online

I was recently reading through my last post and started to kind of chuckle to myself. I re-read all the resolutions that I’d promised but never followed through on. All I could do was think to myself “how do you expect to make money online if you don’t do anything?” And now it’s almost a year since I’ve really done anything with my business.

Why?

To be completely honest, I lost the drive. I was going strong up until the summer of 2013, but soon dropped off the marketing scene. Every now and then I would make an attempt to come back (last one was in March, I think), but it was very inconsistent.

At first, I blamed it on the weather and seasons and I recall thinking it was too nice out to be inside writing. I’ll pick this up when the weather turns and I’m inside again.

Winter came and I started a new job in construction. Now my excuse was being too tired. I was going to bed at 8pm and waking with the baby every other morning at 4am before going off to work at 7.

Now, here I am, still thinking about a possibility of success in online marketing. I’ve come the closest to giving up than I ever have before, yet I haven’t. I’ve neglected to put the time into building my business, but all the while, I couldn’t give up the possibilities it offered.

Beyond having invested all this time so far, why wouldn’t I just give up?

Well, as I went in every day beating my body up from working construction, I’d dream about working at my desk and not worrying if I’m going to hurt myself. I’m 40 years old with a blended family of seven, so being out of work would be disastrous.

Then I start then I started thinking about retirement. I have no retirement so far and there’s no way I could continue doing what I’m doing for as long as I’ll need to work. With online marketing, I don’t think I would be concerned about a retirement age.

Becoming successful in online marketing would be a great skill to teach my children. If I could show them the proper steps, they could possibly live the life I dream of, just sooner.

And the biggest reason I want to succeed? It’s a big one, one I haven’t shared with my wife.

In ten years, I want to pull my youngest son out of middle school and home school him. Only this home school will be done in a RV, traveling cross country with a hands on approach concerning all subjects. The older 4 will be out of the house (fingers crossed), so it would just be my wife, youngest son and myself. Maybe for a year and we’ll see what happens from there.

Now, what makes this post any different than my declarations to retry from the past? Nothing really. I’m just going to try to be more honest with myself and remember why I’m doing what I’m doing. To make money online in order to do all the things I want to do.

2014 Is My Year To Make Money In Affiliate Marketing

It’s been just over a year since I began a subscription to Wealthy Affiliate, marking the point when I felt I could make money in affiliate marketing and wanted to pursue it very seriously.

My first six months were very productive. I started a couple sites and wrote articles linking to them. I updated my blogs and kept pretty well on top of things, keeping a log of publishings and posts so I could see my progress at a glance.

My second six months, not so much. Warm weather came in and I put off sitting at the computer for colder days. I just never realized how difficult it would be to get back into the swing of things.

But with a New Year comes new opportunities, so I’m going to hold on to my internet marketing dreams for a little bit longer. I’m carrying on into 2014 with the same desire to succeed, but looking back at 2013 to see what I can learn.

Here are my 8 “resolutions” I plan to implement and remember throughout the upcoming year, in no particular order.

1.Try not to take on too much. When I first started out, I never took into account there was going to be a learning curve. I may not have picked up as quickly as others, so my progress may be less. But not only was I trying to learn the business, I was trying to create content for two websites, maintain a blog for each website and submit articles two separate article directories for each site. All in all, I set myself up to have to create 8 posts and pages a week, never mind the learning I still had ahead of me. Slow and steady can win the race.

2. Focus on a niche. My first site, “Learn Meditation” was much too broad and I found myself going in way too many different directions. I plan on narrowing my next site to  a smaller niche, letting me focus a little better on the site instead of how many different variations of the site I can come up with.

3. Work on it every day. Even if it’s only 30 minutes a day, that time adds up. After a week, you could have more than 6 hours invested towards learning and creating, whereas if you waited until you had a block of time to work on it, you may never get to it.

4. Create a reasonable schedule. I have five children running around the house at any given time. I found it reasonable and necessary to take an hour a day away from the chaos and work on my writing, in private. I’ve tried to just “do it when I can”, but as you can see, I haven’t written anything in 6 months, so I’m hoping this schedule will help keep me on task.

5. Remember I’m responsible. There’s no one else creating and contributing content, no one else to push me when I don’t feel like writing and no one to hold me accountable for anything but myself. It can be difficult to self motivate sometimes, but there’s no way around it in order to be successful.

6. Have reasonable expectations. When I first started this endeavor, my hopes were to make enough money from affiliate marketing the first month to pay for any subscriptions or programs I was going to invest in. The fact is, I knew nothing when I started out and never took it into consideration. It takes time to learn and build a respectable presence online.

7. Make mistakes. At first, I was so afraid to publish something, re-reading it and constantly revising it. I would spend way too much time second guessing my work. This year I’m going to try to remember that I won’t learn unless I make mistakes.

8. Stick with Wealthy Affiliate. Even though I haven’t been working on my websites over the last few months, I maintained my subscription to WA for the day I knew I was going to start working on it again. So, here I am!

I’m looking forward to see what the new year will bring. These little notes may not seem much, but are easy to forget and frustrating when you let them get to you. And I do that way too often.

Have any ideas or advice to improve productivity? Please share below! I can use all the help out there!

Thanks for reading!

Why Use Wealthy Affiliate?

Wealthy Affiliate University

I’ve recently been thinking about my online endeavors and where I am in my pursuit. Am I chasing a dream that is that, and only that? A dream?

Since my start in 2012, I’ve practiced a lot of trial and error concerning internet marketing. I spent about a year finding information on my own, trying to learn as much as I could without spending money.

I soon found this to be a very frustrating and tedious way to learn the business. My biggest concern was I didn’t know where the info was coming from. On top of that, was I spending my time on suggestions that didn't even work, or worse, hurt my marketing reputation?

That’s about the time I joined Wealthy Affiliate.

But now I’ve been a member of Wealthy Affiliate for almost six months. Why use Wealthy Affiliate if I haven’t seen a return yet?

It really come down to what I’m getting out of it.

I know there’s huge potential for internet marketing. There’s just so many ways to approach this business, I can’t help to see the potential in it. So, I still pay for my subscription because:

Training- I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again, I’ve learned more in a month after joining Wealthy Affiliate than I did on my own the year prior to joining. The website builder alone makes it so easy to build a site, I just follow it step by step and I have site ready for content in minutes.

Tools- I’ve wasted full Sundays doing keyword research for my articles, making it a long, tedious and sometimes a task I used to avoid (unacceptable when it comes to keywords). The keyword tool alone has saved me countless hours of cross-referencing and, to tell the truth, really don’t know what I would do without it

Support- Having a network of successful online entrepreneurs to ask questions and get feedback from is priceless. The community is full of support, not only from members, but the owners, as well. So no more worries about where the information is coming from!

So, yeah, I’m not making any money yet, but that’s not going to deter me from continuing my membership at Wealthy Affiliate. If anything, it will make me work harder, smarter and enjoy the accomplishment more when I do make a sale.

I neglected to mention an inspiration to all this. Dominic Wells recently posted some earnings and I was extremely motivated. I think he joined a few months before I did and is already showing excellent returns. Thanks, Dom!

Are you new to internet marketing? How long would you continue without making a profit?

Please share your thoughts below and thanks for reading!

Scott

My Online Business That I’m Still Working On

My Online Business

I was just reading back to the last post and wow, I haven’t written on here in quite some time. A lot has happened over the last few months, influencing my online business that hasn’t taken off like I had hoped for.

I still haven’t made any anything from my websites. It’s a little disheartening because I see associates making sales and they may have been marketing for a month or two before me.

I joined Wealthy Affiliate at the end of January and have been working on my online business off and on ever since. I suppose that could attribute to the fact that's why some are getting a response from their efforts. Just working off and on.

Looking at how I have approached this endeavor, I see the two major impedances I've put on myself.

One of the biggest things that has affected my progress in consistency. I have to be completely honest and say I haven’t been consistent with my work. Look at how long ago it was since I last posted here.

There are times when I can’t get enough writing done, sometimes posting an article or page twice a day. But then there are weeks that will go by and I don’t write anything.

Two different mindset go into play. I start writing because I feel a strong potential. An ability to work from home by creating a recurring monthly income. Perhaps one of the more popular mindsets.

But then, things change. I may feel I’m not getting a good enough response for the efforts I put forth.

Back and forth, back and forth I go, excited and full of potential one minute to feeling I may be wasting my time the next.

And that’s where persistence comes into play. I realized during those weeks I felt down and unmotivated, I need to remember the promise I’ve made to myself about persistence and working through it.

I really believe if I stay consistency, coupled with persistence, I’ll get my online business that is in the red (not much red, other than my subscription to Wealthy Affiliate) into the black.

photo credit: SEOPlanter via photopin cc

Still Trying To Make Money With My Computer

I've been working on this affiliate marketing venture for some time now, just about over a year. And to be honest, I'm still trying to make money with my computer.

When I started this campaign, I fully intended to pursue this with no out of pocket expense. But, the greatest asset you expend when trying to cut cost is time. I have been saving expenses for some time now, but I have spent an enormous amount of time researching and learning through trial and mistakes.

My first article was published Feb 17th, 2012. It linked to a Squidoo lens I had started developing in December of 2011 but didn't post until mid January of 2012.
It's funny thinking back to how long it took to write a 400 word article.

When I first started writing, it would easily take me three days to complete the process and finally publish something. Whether it was a post on a blog, page for a lens or writing an article, I took way too much time to write something that should have been a lot better if it took that long in the first place.

Normally, I would have given up, but I kept going. I have finally got my page posts and article writing down to a manageable hour or two, depending on research. It's taken awhile, but it did get easier the more it was practiced.

And using simple recommendations from the article sites themselves were useful. Offering template ideas and form suggestions, they have helped break down some of the overwhelming issues into manageable pieces when writing.

I started a website, but began to think about the domain and realized it was inappropriate for the niche I was pursuing. Something I should have reconciled before starting a fan page on Facebook, but no sense crying over spilled milk. Besides, I think I can use it for a different angle.

Right now, I'm in a transitional phase, figuring out how I'm going to approach another campaign while continuing the one I'm currently managing. I've got the steps and just need to apply what I learned from the first one to avoid time consuming mistakes that have hindered my progress in the past.

I could have continued a fee free endeavored, but the downside I have discovered is you won't own any of your sites.

So, I'm considering setting myself up with a budget now to help purchase necessary things such as domain names and help.

Make Money Online, No Money Invested?

When I started this blog, I wanted to see if I could start a career in affiliate marketing without spending anything. Earn as I learn, I phrased it. I wanted to see if I could make money online, no money out of pocket and start something from scratch?".

I started this blog, trying to get traffic to a site I had no idea how to put together. I paid for a domain and hosting every month. It wasn't much, but it wasn't free, either. For the duration of 2012, I blindly posted on blogs and wrote articles, trying to build traffic without much luck.

Then I started thinking about an affiliate program called Wealthy Affiliate I joined back in 2009. I was a member for only about a month but was happy with what I was getting. Thing is, I wasn't mature enough to do the actual work necessary. Ever since then, I haven't been able to forget about their program and wanted back in.

So at the end of January, I joined again and wish I had done it much sooner. At least looked into it. I could have saved myself a lot of time, aggravation and money.


Some of the tools I took advantage of seem invaluable now that I've used them.

The keyword tool is worth the paying subscription alone. I have had tremendous turnaround in my article views and have a much better understanding of how keywords work since using this tool.

The education I've been getting is also very valuable. I joined in the end of January and took part in one of their training modules. I have learned more with better results in the last month than I have in all of 2012 trying to do it on my own!

The sign up process was simple and I didn't need to pay anything to access some of the best tools I've come across, for free!

You can actually set up a website, have it hosted and market it without paying anything. What I found was if you wanted to learn about the business, paying the subscription fee is well worth it. As you can see on my profile, it's the best education I've paid for (or my parents).

Using Wealthy Affiliate, I found it is possible to make money online, no money out of pocket and potentially build an online business out of nothing. It will just take lots of time, patience and consistency.

Market Niche Overlooked? Not Good For Affiliate Marketing

It's been just over a year since my re-introduction to affiliate marketing and many lessons and mistakes have been made along the way.

Originally, I wanted to create an income out of nothing, but I abandoned that when I became too impatient and wanted to have my own website. It made it much easier to become an affiliate for particular products and to market, so over the last few months I've spent some money for my domain and hosting.

Getting back to my marketing endeavors...

Seems I need to learn things the hard way (ie. my own way) sometimes, so I'm looking at the last year as being very productive in education. Optimistically, I see the last year as opportunity for knowledge.

I haven't earned anything yet, which is why I'm going to weigh heavily on the educational aspect of this experience. Education has a value in and of its own, so I guess it's just a matter of how much I value my time.

Since beginning myaffiliate marketing aspirations, I've come to see many important aspects that need to come together to optimize the efforts put into my site. Market research, SEO, proper keyword research and applications along with working with all the social networks and email marketing all play a large role in promoting a website.

But the one big marketing technique I never implemented was finding my market niche.

When I first started my affiliate marketing campaign and began writing articles, I had all sorts of ideas of what I wanted to offer on my website.

As I was developing my website, I would come across something I would feel complimented my site.

So I added it. So on and so on, I began adding offers from different products, expanding my site by adding pages to it.

I first thought this was good, developing my offerings and hopefully reaching a potentially larger audience.

I found myself overwhelmed. I had read the advice to begin with a focus on a small, reasonable market, but I didn't heed it.

As I was developing my website, I created more work than I was ready to handle. It was a mistake to take on so much when trying to learn the basics at the same time.

Thinking if I used a broad area such as personal development, it would leave me room to go in many different directions.

Sometimes there can be too many directions to go in when it comes to affiliate marketing.

I've found out that if you don't have a specific direction, you can get lost in the vast universe that is the internet. There are to many big guns to compete with so you may never be seen. Very few search beyond the first page of results, so getting pushed back in page rankings from more established companies is very likely.

The plan now?

I have the basics of the site in place. I want to optimize my site by finding a good market niche to implement, but it will have to be one page at a time. See what I mean about creating too much work? But breaking down page by page at least makes it seem more manageable and still gives me a broad area to work in, accommodating my short attention span.

Still not sure what page I want to start with my site, but it's going to use a market niche technique to narrow in on stronger buyers.

I'd at least like to work on the one particular page long enough to measure a result. Then I'll know I'm going in a positive direction.