Are you gambling or making money?
You might not be aware but as I write this the US government is seizing some of the top online poker domains because they were illegally trading in the US. I think you’re not allowed to gamble in America unless it’s in Vegas (probably because they can’t tax it online). The reason I’m mentioning this is that for a long time many people saw playing poker on the internet as a realistic way to earn money online. I never did I have to mention, and not just because I’m terrible at poker but because 99% of people will never be good enough to make a living from it. The problem was that many people were selling poker playing as a legit way to make money from home, almost like it was a job lol. Again I’m not saying it doesn’t work for some people but if it does its because:
- Often these players have to play 100s of games to carve out a profit, even if you’re a great poker player you still only have a slight advantage. You have to maximise that advantage over 1000s of hands.
- They practice for years to actually get good at the game. All those eBooks that say you can beat the pros with 2 weeks training are lying.
You see to me given the above a much better investment of my time would be to create something worthwhile that attracts visitors and customers. Also I don’t want a living that can be wiped out by some government at the drop of a hat, what would you do if your main income source disappeared overnight?
But how do you create something that has value, especially on the internet where everything seems to have been done before? As I’ve mentioned a few times the online world has never been about being completely original as some of the best businesses just made better versions of existing ideas. What I’m talking about most though in terms of value is content, because ultimately content is what decides how successful a website is (and how rich you get). I forget how many times I’ve arrived at some ecommerce site that has technical stats on their products but no opinions/reviews/insights on why I should buy their product, its lazy marketing and it makes my head hurt.
So what content does actually “sell” online? Well for a start people really love product videos because they illustrate what you’re selling in a dynamic way. If a picture tells a thousand words then a video is probably a million. But what if your selling a service instead, I.e. yourself? Ok so if you’re trying to explain some business process then put it into an info-graphic with lots of nice colours/arrows/cartoon characters to explain what it is you do. The attention span of people online is about half of other types of media, get to the point of what you do and give them a chance to buy it. Webmasters seem to get stuck in this rut of overselling things, people just want the basics of what it does and trust that you’re going to get it to them.
As you can tell I’m still on the creating websites bandwagon because I think it’s one of the easiest ways for someone new to create an income online. But not only that, to me owning a website is like owning a property, it’s an actual assent and not some scheme like filling out surveys or trying to learn poker. The problem occurs when you ask people to make an investment of time and money into something like building a site, trying to win against a casino is more appealing! Still I know a lot of people who are getting into internet marketing these days with various rates of success, I’ve never said that it was easy.
So back to my original point about creating content that sells, there are 4 points that you want to stick too:
- All content on your site must be original and created by yourself, don’t outsource unless you really know what you’re doing.
- Different markets need different types of information, for instance my blog is mostly about information so it makes sense I have a lot of text. But if you’re selling RC helicopters then you need some videos up there.
- Find the right tone for your content, yes if you’re a solicitor then you can’t be too jokey but for most other general sites a casual tone is better.
- Give people some way to talk about your content and even make content for you. Allowing comments and reviews is great for involving people or take it a step further and create a forum. It does need managing as you have to delete any spam that gets though (which is inevitable) but the value you get in interaction with your customers is invaluable.
Ok so this post is getting a little long, I know some of you are just thinking when is this guy going to shut up and tell me an easy way to create and income fast! I suppose I could make something up and sell you some concept that’s never going to work, but what’s the point in that? There’s enough junk online already without me adding to it, then again did I mention I’ve just worked out a way to beat the roulette wheel?
Make money online by blogging?
One of the most general questions i get from day to day is if it is possible to earn money online by blogging. The reason i say this is a general question is that there is more than one way to make money from your blog and it will also depend on the type of blog you have. The first thing that you have to realise is that your earnings depend very much on the content of your blog. If you are just going to create a blog about yourself and what type of cereal you had for breakfast then its pretty unlikely many advertisers are going to want to pay for traffic coming from your site. The key is to consider weather your traffic is “buying traffic” or not, what i mean by this is does the person who hits your blog for the first time weather from search engines or social media have the intention of making a purchase? If the answer is no then you are going to find it hard to convert any of these visitors to your blog into real cash. Consider as well that many of todays advertisers work on a commisson basis and if your traffic isnt making them money then you can bet they wont keep you around for long. So supposing you do have traffic to your blog that is worth money, how can you monotise it?
- The first i will mention is probably the most well known from google called adsense. Its very simple to use as all you have to do is put the code on your site and google works out what your site/blog is about and displays the relevant ads. You can do some configuring as far as colours etc go but its pretty much what you see is what you get.
- Another way to earn money from your blog is allow other people who have blogs or sites to place their links on your site. For this you do need to have a reasonable popularity level for your blog and also some authority to go with it as this is what people are paying for. The main way to get these jobs is just to become and authority in your niche and wait for people to contact you.
- The last way i will mention is a little more work but can sometimes yield alot more money. This is direct affiliate marketing whcih involves you linking directly to another website or blog who sells the product or service that you are talking about. This will envlove a little looking around to find the best place that sells the product and not everyone has an affiliate scheme but most of the bigger sites will.
So there you have a short run down on quick ways to make money from your blog. As i said at the start these are not the only ways to earn money from your website but they are a start!
Earn money by writing content
So its time for some practical advice here on earning money online as i want to give you guys some ideas that can get you making money on the internet straight away. One of the first im going to show you is a new market that has opened up on the internet where people get paid to write content for other people’s blogs and websites. While not necessarily a new idea the industry has really exploded over the last year or so. The main reason is that more and more people are creating websites but they don’t have the time to write all the content that is required to set it up. Also google has really changed the game as far as what is required on a website is concerned. Having lots of good quality content is very conducive to ranking highly in the search engines results. Why do you want to rank highly in the first place? Well for a start you may not realise that many of the things you search for on a daily basis on the internet are worth quite a lot of money to the right people. Yes everything from car insurance to home loans is monetized in one way or another buy the people trying to sell it to you.
So as we have established that everyone who is trying to get people to their website is in great needs lots of content to put on it. So where there is demand there is opportunity as it is possible for people like you and me who want to work from home to write this content on a daily basis. Now there are many ways to write content and people who require it but for the purposes of this review i am going to focus on just one to stop it getting confusing. TextBroker.com is a site that connects website owners and other people who need text content to writers who are willing to create content for them. Now one of the first things you are going to ask is how much money can i make doing this? Well there is no simple answer as there are obviously different levels of content that can be created and people with different skills. However don’t worry, you don’t need to be the next Shakespeare in order to get a job writing on the internet. Here is an overview of the rates below:
2 stars: legible £2.10
3 stars: good quality £3.10
4 stars: excellent quality £4.30
5 stars: professional quality £15.00
Ok so as you can see there is quite a scale here depending on the level of content you are writing. This is good on the one hand as it means there could be a job for practically anyone who is capable of writing English. Its also worth noting that even if you do grade yourself as a professional content writer you will still need to build up a reputation through working for different people in order to get the highest payouts. The way Textbrokers work out these payments is as you can guess a manual process as they review all of your content by hand. The rating is decided by their team as an overall review of your work (usually the last 5 articles you submitted)
If you do complete alot of quality work for someone either on TextBrokers or another service then it is more than likely they will ask you to work outside of the service just for them. This can work out good for both parties as TextBrokers take 30% commission on the total amount of the project and you can the split this between you can your employer. However even with the 30% commission that they take i think this is a really good service that links both buyers and sellers together. Also you have to realise that any system like this that involves random people all over the internet is going to be open to abuse from both buyers and sellers. Having everything from the quality of the content to the payment process being managed by a third party is reassuring and sometimes necessary.
So back to your original question which was how much money you can earn by doing this. So obviously this is going to depend primarily on two things.
- The quality of your content
- How much you are going to write
Its worth noting that it is going to take longer to write 5 star content compared to 2 star but im not sure if it is going to be a massive amount. I mean you are probably going to have to do a bit more research for your higher quality content (especially if it is a subject you are not familiar with) but how much will depend on the specific requirements of the article. For instance many people are just looking for general content for their site and are not looking for incredibly technical documents on how something works. Often people are just looking to convey a simple message about what their website or blog does and to do it in a natural language that people will understand. Its also worth noting that many people who do start up their own site don’t know how to create good natural content that is going to appeal to their website vistors. Its these people who you can help and also earn money for yourself in the process.
So there you have a quick review of the whys and wheres of writing content online for money. As you can see its not an overnight path to riches but very few things are and i am always very sceptical of such claims. On this blog im hoping to promote practical ways that anyone can earn a living from the internet and i do believe that writing content is one of these ways. I think this method could appeal to stay at home moms or other people who may be at home all day and want to choose their own hours and workload. So check them out if you get a chance and let me know how you get on. P
