As I reflected back on my 2009, it was quite a good feeling, mainly because I achieved many things that I didn't even really plan for or expect. That's not to say I didn't work hard to get them or focus, but when you achieve more than you planned on, it's a great thing. In the past year, I made more money online than in any previous year, and probably more than in my first two years of internet moneymaking ventures combined! That's an incredible surge of positive energy when you realize the vast possibilities that the world wide web holds for turning passion into profits...
I say passion because if you are doing something and enjoying it, then you will work even when the money isn't necessarily flowing to you. Writing has been a passion of mine since a young age. While I don't write novels or write for awards these days, I was a finalist in several contests back in grade school. I continued writing from there, working on a school newspaper and other projects, but I chose a major that was totally different from that. Oddly enough, the major I chose, Criminal Justice, lead me right back here to the internet, to writing and to making money on my own. I ended up in a job where I was put in charge of the agency's web operations and IT.
As of three years ago, I was in debt bigtime, after losing that job as an IT Project Manager. It can be a scary feeling not knowing where or how you'll get the money to pay rent, and having to use credit cards to cover bills doesn't exactly make you sleep well at night either. There came that proverbial point of "rock bottom", but amazingly what goes down often bounces way back up. I feel as if in 2009 I have bounced back up, and the momentum feels pretty darn good.
I'm telling you those little tidbits not to impress or give a tale of woe, but more to say I'm much like the average person out there who wants to make money on the internet. What I chose to do was become passionate, determined and not give up in my quest. Continual education through several websites really helped and inspired me to get where I did this past year. And oh yes, a lot of writing, writing and more writing. But as I mentioned, if it's something you're passionate about, the writing isn't necessarily so bad.
I'd like to give credit to a few internet marketing mentors who really motivated and inspired me this past year. In no particular order they are Courtney Tuttle of the Keyword Academy, Ben of Make Money Online with SEO, and Jackie Lee of Beginners Internet Marketing Strategy. These three individuals' efforts really drove and inspired me to do more with my time and focus on what was important. I recall when I first began this whole making money thing I was an avid reader of John Chow and Problogger, sometimes even Shoemoney. Honestly, if I had to count how many times I read their blogs this past year, it wouldn't require both hands to do so. No disrespect to their efforts, but I've found that what the three bloggers I mentioned above teach is invaluable information to all people who want to seriously make money online.
I give credit to them, and also to the fact I read a lot of inspirational books. That keeps me going as well. From Napoleon Hill's "Think and Grow Rich" to a new favorite of mine "The Top 10 Distinctions between Millionaires and the Middle Class" by Keith Cameron Smith, I probably read at least 20 success/personal development titles in 2009. I plan to do more of that in 2010, because the more of those you read the more you begin to incorporate positive beliefs, values and inspiration.
A bit about my 2009, it was the Christmas shopping holiday with Black Friday and Cyber Monday in particular that really showed me how much is possible for making money online. Between Amazon, Squidoo and several other sites I now realize that if you can get the traffic, you can get the money. And when the money rolls in, it's quite a nice feeling. Additionally, as I mentioned before Courtney Tuttle and Ben were two bloggers this past year who really pushed me to work with Hubpages, infobarrels and Blogger blogs. Doing that increased my Adsense income to a nice level that hadn't been seen before.
So it's with great optimism that I head into 2010. On New Year's Eve I not only reflected back but jotted down my 2010 goals in a journal under headings such as Health/Business/Personal/Mental. I have several goals ready to be focused on for the new year. In 2009, I paid off several debts, and in 2010 I will pay off the rest. I've set a goal to become an eBay Powerseller which seems very achievable at this time. I already bought myself a brand new website back in late 09' which will be my pet project for the new year. I believe based on my success with specific efforts online this past year, I can turn my new site idea into something quite profitable.
I believe you also can achieve great success making money online in 2010. But remember, it will always come down to how much work you're willing to put in, how determined you are and how optimistic you remain while you're on this course to make money online.
Wishing everyone health, happiness & prosperity in 2010 and beyond!
1/1/10
Goals, Determination, Optimism & Moneymaking in 2010!
12/3/09
Make Money Online with Paid 2 YouTube?
The Monetizer will try anything when it comes to making money online. I've done surveys, blogs, websites, various affiliate programs, and even have looked into how to make money with data entry jobs. There's a world of possibilities online for making money, and experimenting with different program can pay off if done with some degree of caution. You never know when you'll stumble on the next big thing, or get lucky and rake in the dough with an opportunity. You might even find the next shortcut to internet millions. You also never know when you might get raked into a scam. The latest money making opportunity I'm testing is called Paid2YouTube, which is basically a website where you're paid to watch YouTube (and other) videos online. It doesn't take a whole lot of work, but then again it doesn't make a whole lot of money at once.
Before you get too excited, let me explain how it works. First off, I hurried over to the YouTube site and started watching cool little 1 minute videos. But that's not what you're paid for. I hurried back to my stats at the pay to site, and saw a balance of $0 still. That's because the Paid2YouTube site has its own list of video links (under the "Surf Videos" tab) that you are paid to watch. The list I was provided was about 6 videos, with only 1 on YouTube. It just happened to be someone's 6 minute make money online video to pitch a product. The other 5 or so were more interesting and entertaining to me. They included a radio control car with a camcorder attached on top (not good for those succeptible to motion-sickness), comedian Jeff Dunham's hiliarious ventriloquism act
Now a few notes - So far it seems as if they only have the same six videos posted each day. So you'll be limited to those options until the site gives more choices of material. They have several categories listed, but only 2 have videos listed.
And a BIG NOTE: When you watch the "Videos From Other Websites", it will take you a site Megavideo site. In my past experience, if you aren't careful this site can have you install a toolbar which leads to some spyware. It took me a while back then to figure out how to clean my computer up. So the trick is, when it pops up the second website, close that one down. Stick with the red and green play arrow button you see on the Megavideo site, don't install anything!
Now about the payment from Paid2Youtube. Simply watching the video gets you a whopping 1 cent each! Comments bank you 10 cents and subscribing to a YouTube user's channel gets you 35 cents. Not the big money you were expecting, but the minimum payout is $10. With a referral program in place it is possible to generate some extra cash for gas money, groceries, or whatever else you may need it for. And if you like making money, getting that $10 can be seed money for starting a moneymaking website, with domain registration as low as $7.
It's took early for me to give this any sort of resounding nomination as a top moneymaker, because my account is still below $1, and I can't say I've been paid to YouTube just yet. Give it a try though for some additional seed money, but make sure you are cautious. I'll be back with an update on my moneymaking activities from the 2009 holidays and more! Best wishes!
Check out more about Paid2YouTube here.
11/8/09
The Top 10 Distinctions Between Millionaires & Middle Class
I recently purchased an audiobook from iTunes called "The Top 10 Distinctions Between Millionaires and the Middle Class
Scott provides his 10 distinctions as mini-lessons which illustrate what makes the rich wealthy, while the middle class struggles. The middle class seems to get a bad rep, but they often have financial dreams which they allow to dwindle because they go for comfort instead of freedom. Meanwhile the wealthy are busy working on ways to create more sources of income so they can enjoy that freedom that eludes many.
Overall, I found the 10 distinctions book to be well presented, and it won't overwhelm you. It's inspirational, and if listened to enough you can begin to adopt the mindsets needed for financial success. You'll be training yourself to think more like a successful millionaire, while discarding small-minded thinking. This is not to say "poor and middle class people are stupid", but that millionaires tend to have a different though process when it comes to money and how it's made.
Some of the things you'll learn about in Scott's book include the concepts of being generous, focusing on multiple sources of income (especially passive), working for profits vs wages, and focusing on the long term rather than the short term. If you read or listen to this work, you'll find yourself realizing just how many times you might have engaged in middle class thinking, which can be quite small minded at times. One of the best examples is when he points out that poor people talk about other people, middle class talks about things, and the rich talk about ideas. How many times have you found yourself gossiping about others? You've engaged in a poor-financial mindset at least a few times. He goes on to point out that the rich are the ones who have developed the ideas, which ultimately are the "things" middle class enjoy or talk about. These include vacation resorts, sports teams and movies, many of which are funded by and created from a rich person.
If you've read Robert Kiyosaki's "Rich Dad, Poor Dad", you'll notice some familiar concepts in this book, such as the idea of owning your own company to become rich. If you're like me and engage in online moneymaking as your main profession, you're already partly on your way. You're focused more on creating profits, multiple sources of revenue and passive income. For me the next steps involve finding more passive income streams to start building my net worth. I currently receive at least 4 or 5 different payments a month based on my online work. To me that's a good start, but I know much more can be done. Also, I realize I may need to branch out into some real world income streams including the always popular, yet speculative real estate sector. I dabble in stocks, but after listening to this audiobook it makes me want to increase my knowledge in that area as well. The book's worth its price just in terms of its motivational and inspirational factors.
One of the greatest ideas Keith Cameron Scott gives in his book is the concept of rich people continuously read and invest in their personal finance/success libraries. He notes that the middle class believes learning ends with school, while millionaires are always learning more. This concept alone is priceless and actually gives you an excuse to buy Scott's book, "The 10 Distinctions" as it will provide a great basis for your successful path towards financial freedom.
Purchase The Top 10 Distinctions Between Millionaires and the Middle Class
10/13/09
Make Money with Halloween & Christmas Holidays
Hello fellow moneymakers, it's been a while! I've been busy working on a batch of mini sites lately in anticipation of online shopping season. Mainly I'm tinkering with Squidoo, Hubpages, Blogger blogs and some self-hosted websites. Two of the biggest moneymaker holidays are quickly approaching us with Halloween and Christmas 2009. Preparing for these can be fun (or burdensome) depending on how you choose to go about making money with them. I'm here to drop some food for thought and let you know what I've been working on lately.
With Halloween the main thing people will buy online is their costumes, masks or accessories to go with them. You could create Hubpages or Squidoo lenses, or even infobarrels related to this, to make money off Adsense, or by selling Amazon products. I would have recommended eBay products as well, but with their new pricing system, I'll take Amazon (more on that later). Anyhow, Halloween is one potential way to profit online, if you get cracking and create sites. I found through a few of my blogs where I talked about some Halloween related topics, that I received traffic for unrelated topics that involved costumes. So from there, those costumes were made into full blog posts, have seen some sales. You don't really need a Halloween site per se, as you can find many ways to tie the holiday in with your blog theme. Cooking, photography, entertainment, etc etc, all have some sort of relation to the holiday. Mixed bag blogs, fashion, music...the list continues...be creative and keep checking Google Hot Trends for some ideas on upcoming Halloween stuff.
Christmas is really your big time to profit. Some people start their shopping months ahead of time, while most wait until around mid-November, and particulary for Black Friday / Cyber Monday. It's key to have some product-oriented sites set up for these holidays, and even afterward. I downloaded Jackie Lee's Squidoo Christmas Cash Blueprint here, which is a nice little e-book to get you started. She prefers Squidoo, and there's some pros and cons to using them. The best is the fact that Squidoo shares the sales with you through their Amazon modules at the commission rate of 4%. Compared to Hubpages you might not always get that, because of their revenue split of 60% / %40 impressions. Of course there are ways around that..
With Hubpages you can stick your Amazon Associates link into the hub you write up, as long as you don't go spam crazy. I'd recommend two total Amazon links, perhaps one in the top and one at bottom. I learned that too much Amazon on a Hub will make Ezine articles not accept an article linking to that Hub. So tread carefully when you create your Amazon hubs or lenses. Squidoo is more lenient on allowing more affiliate links, but to a limit. The advantage to Hubpages over Squidoo is they seem to rank better in some cases with Google and other sites. I've found Squidoo always brought me a lot of Yahoo search traffic. It really depends on which keywords or product you're targeting.
Blogger blogs are another option for Amazon Associates products. Consider creating a Christmas holiday style blog as recommended by Jackie Lee from Internet Marketing Strategy for Moms. She suggests a blogger blog as a way to build links to your Squidoo lenses (or Hubpages) to get them ranked for the terms. Of course you could also just make the Blogger blog full of Christmas gift products with Amazon Associates links to the items.
Of course all of this got me thinking, why not have both a Christmas and Halloween website, self-hosted. Netfirms sells domains for just $7 for the first year, and Hostgator is my preferred hosting service, with GoDaddy probably second. Yes, these one-time holiday sites would exist year round, but they would make you bigtime profits if done properly. By that I mean, finding the right keywords for your URL that aren't too competitive. Otherwise, your self-hosted sites might just get lost in a sea of millions of Google results for Halloween and Christmas. But having these two huge holiday sites could prove valuable in terms of link power down the road, as well as in making money off the shopping done for these holidays.
If you want more insight on how a guy is making tons of money with Adsense via Amazon sites, check out 6 Months Later: $300 Daily w/Adsense (Lessons Learned) by XFactor over at Warrior Forums. Just don't get too caught up in reading all of the posts, as it's a HUGE forum thread, but contains very valuable insights.
Also, your holiday or Christmas site could really be a product review site, which if you think about it could make you money year round, as people are interested in all sorts of products that Amazon sells. You'll start to realize you might own a lot of stuff that other people are looking up online. Furthermore, eBay Partner Networks allows you to use code on self-hosted Wordpress or static websites. So you've got more options to make money - even though Amazon seems the better of the options. Chitika, Widgetbucks and other affiliate programs are even more creative ways to cash in.
That said, I'm not feeling the new EPN Quality click deal so much. To date my clicks have been worth 1 cent on several days, then 3 cents on several days. Would I prefer 3 cent clicks over someone buying an Amazon associates product to give me a 4% or 6% commission...I think you know the answer to that my friends..
So get started on making your way towards Christmas profits. It's not too late to start finding a way to profit from the 2009 season, and even preparing a website for the 2010 season and beyond!
Here's to your success,
The Monetizer
