Many people enjoy very useful additions to their incomes, and even full time earnings from their websites and/or blogs. Imagine earning an extra several hundred pounds or dollars each month, or even being able to give up your job entirely and work full time from home. This is a real possibility, and is an opportunity enjoyed by a growing amount of people. My brother and I both enjoy full time earnings from the internet, so I know it can be done. It is a wonderful life as you no longer need to barge your way to work every day through the rush hour traffic. You can be around the home more for your family, and can work the hours that YOU choose. No more office politics or irate 'superiors'.
Here I will share with you some of our experience to help you to succeed in earning from your own website or blog.
Subject Matter
From the outset you must decide what your site or blog is going to be about. I would say that a good rule is to stick with something that you are knowledgeable and passionate about. The passion is more important than the knowledge in my opinion. If for example you are an accountant by trade who's fed up with your job, but have a passion for electronic gadgets, then probably an electronics gadget review site is a better option than an accountancy site.
When starting an online business you usually don't earn anything much for the first year or so. It can be difficult to remain motivated unless your passionate about the subject matter. Your content will also reflect your passion, which your visitors should notice and like. Also you will be more prepared to learn more about a subject area you are interested in.
However you must also bear in mind that a subject should also have some demand. Other people should also be interested in it if you wish to make money from it. Have a good look around the web for ideas. Good suggestions are technology, making money, self improvement, and pets.
Setting Up Your Site
You don't need to be an expert computer programmer or web designer to set up a site or blog. There are options. You could hire a professional to do this for you, but this will cost a lot of money.
For those that have never set up a site or blog before I highly recommend Site Build It!. They provide point and click tools and templates to help you generate your web pages quickly and easily. They help you with almost everything, including domain name registration, hosting, content management, market research, and search engine optimization. Site Build It! also provides unlimited customer support as well as a private discussion forum where literally thousands of members share tips and advice.
You could of course learn how to build websites and blogs. Buy a book or two, or even sign up to an evening class to learn how to set up a website. Personally I got round this problem by partnering up with my brother, who already knew how to set up and maintain web sites.
I would advise against using services such as Blogger, or those free site templates that host your site in exchange for putting their adverts on your site. Whilst they are easy to set up in the short term, you are effectively building someone else business and it could be taken away from you at any time in the future, and you will never have full control over it.
By the way, if you are interested in partnering up with us at HypnoBusters, we have a collection of freely available ready made hypnosis turnkey sites that contains a choice of 6 ready-made hypnosis websites that allow you to sell HypnoBusters products for a 50% commission.
Promoting Your Site
For a website to succeed it must receive visitors. There are many methods of achieving this, some better than others. I would say that the higher the quality and usefulness of your content, the more these will work. If your site gives very little value, then don't expect people to stay for long, come back, recommend you, or trust you. These are essential ingredients for a successful long term site.
Guest posting – Some sites will invite you to make a guest post. I have found these to be one of the best sources of promotion. They are also free, apart from the time it takes you to write your post. The deal is usually that you write an article for their site, and in exchange you get to write a short bio with a link back to your site at the end of your article. If you write quality articles, then some of their regular visitors will become your regular visitors. Also the link you receive will help you rank higher in the search engines. To find sites like this simply type into the search engine “(your subject matter) submit guest post”. So I might type “hypnosis submit guest post” for example.
Article marketing – There are also many article directories, such as Ezine Articles and Buzzle, where you can submit articles. If a visitors likes your article then they may reprint it on their site or blog, along with your bio and link. You can also establish yourself as an expert in your niche.
Forums – You can join discussion forums in your niche. If you are friendly and useful, you will get to know a lot of people who will like and respect you. Some forums also allow you to add a link or two in your signature. Always check out the rules when you join. What can be acceptable practice on one forum can get you banned in another.
Social networking – You can set up a Facebook group about your website. Invite all your existing Facebook friends to join. You can also put up a banner on your site inviting your visitors to join.
Blog commenting – I'm not a huge fan of this approach. Many blogs allow you to make a comment about a post and enter your web address. If you do decide to do this then actually read the post and make a useful contribution. Just saying 'good post' will just make you look like a desperate spammer. Providing useful and detailed comments can get you some positive attention.
Monetizing Your Site
Once you have traffic on your site, you are in a position to make money from it. There are many ways, and here are a few of them.
Google Adsense – This is most sites number one money maker. Once you join this program you basically embed some code on your site, which is quite simple to do. This allows adverts relevant to your site or the visitors searches, to be automatically published on your site. You get paid every time a visitor clicks on one of these adverts. Usually the more you can make these adverts look a normal part of your site, the more people click on them and therefore the more money you make.
Affiliate programs – some websites offer affiliate programs whereby you add a special affiliate link to there site. You automatically earn a percentage commission on every sale that you help generate. Sites such as Amazon offer around a 10% commission. My website HypnoBusters has a program that offers 50% commission. There’s a relevant affiliate program for almost any topic your website may cover.
Selling your own products – You may wish to sell your own products that you produce. They could be paintings, jewelry, hand made clothes etc. You do have the hassles of raw materials, production costs and time, and shipping to deal with though. I decided to create digital products to get around this.
Charge for advertising space – You could charge other sites a monthly fee to advertise on your site. The more visitors you receive the more money you can command.
Donation button – If you give away a lot of useful free content then it might be wise to add a donation button for people to voluntarily contribute to. If the content is really useful, you'd be surprised how generous people can be.
Charge for entry – This is a bit risky, but if you have really good content then you could charge visitors to use it. The gamble is that this charge might drive away visitors. A less risky strategy could be to provide some free content, then charge for 'premium content'.
Please think twice before adding those annoying pop up ads. They are quite effective at making money, but even more effective at driving away your visitors.
Quality Content
A site with good content builds trust, and people are far more willing to revisit, tell others, link to you, buy from you, and hang out on your site. This is integral to your success. Getting a thousand visitors per day who immediately click off your rubbish site is not going to get you anywhere. Always try to make ALL of your content of as high a quality as you can. There is so much rubbish and regurgitated fluff to filter through on the internet – don't let your site or blog be the same. I would go so far as to say that it is better to take 5 times as long to write one really good article, than to write five mediocre articles that can be found elsewhere on the web.
Many website and blog owners spend far too much time and resources on attempting to 'trick' the search engines. Ultimately the search engines want to rank high useful quality sites for their users. They are constantly refining their algorithms to better detect this good content, and filter out the bad. Even if you manage to fool them now, you won't in the future. If you want a solid long term site, then concentrate most of your energies on quality content.
Just a quick note – avoid automatically playing music or any sound when someone clicks on your site. The majority of users immediately click off because it can be quite shocking. If you must have music or a welcome message then have a play button where people can opt to listen to it, rather than starting it automatically.
Keep Driving to Succeed
It is highly likely that for the first few months, and probably longer, you will not make that much money. It is essential that you keep going. My brother and I made very little money after more than a year and a half of hard work. We could have given up but we didn't. If you keep promoting your site and improving your content then your income is going to rise over time as long as there is demand for your subject area. Try to find other successful sites in your niche. If they can do it then so can you.
But don't make the pursuit of money your sole aim. Most unsuccessful websites and offline businesses seem to do this. What you should aim for is to create something amazing. For example if you were opening a restaurant in the offline world, then make it provide an amazing experience. Make the food and the service first rate – the best in your area. People will notice this and will want your services. The money will eventually flow naturally. I see so many half assed sites that expect to make loads of money for little thought or effort. You do get out what you put in.
Actually Do Some Real Work
It can sometimes be very challenging to motivate yourself when working from home. There are so many distractions like the TV and the kettle. The computer itself has many distractions. You can spend hours checking and rechecking your emails, Adsense earnings, news sites etc. without getting hardly any work done. I find that it is best to allocate specific time for work and play. If you try and mix the two you will probably get little work done, even if you feel like you have done loads.
Conclusion
Working online is a very satisfying way of making a living. Like I said earlier, you can work hours that suit you in the comfort of your own home. You can work from anywhere in the world as long as you have a laptop and an internet connection. Moving abroad or long holidays become a real possibility. However you must be self disciplined and be prepared to work for many months or even years with little recompense. If you keep working towards your goals, then a truly wonderful and fulfilling life is possible.
