If You Don’t Have Initiative You Are Not Going To Make It
Posted on February 7th, 2008 by Jason under Daily RamblingI write this post mainly to talk about new bloggers worldwide, but the statement applies in any act of business - both online or offline. Weekly, I get dozens of bloggers telling me how they’re going to make it online - talking about making money online with a blog. Now, unless you undergo in activities like Pay Per Post and Smorty (which will only see you Google slapped and suffer in the long run) you are not going to make money with your blog. I’m talking about the first month - sure, you might make enough to pay the hosting bills, or maybe even a little more than that, but if you’re expecting yourself to start off with a bang - you’re wrong. Yes, there are blogs that buck the trend, but let this serve as a fair bit of warning to all newbie bloggers that hope they’ll start great and get disheartened when they don’t.
A bit harsh? Perhaps. Out of all the people that ask me about starting a blog of their own, I’d say 7/10 stop updating their blog after a month and 9/10 stop by the time the second month is up. Unless you have a long term goal, you will not succeed as a blogger. This term relates to nearly any project you start - I’m perhaps even more guilty then most. You see, I’ve always looked for short term profits - the more, the merrier I say - whilst I’ve certainly made some okay money in the short term, you always think (usually after you’ve just sold a website 
) that had you held on to it, you’d be making double, or even treble that in a few months. And after so much profit, the end lump sum you receive when you sell (if you even decide to sell! 
) will only be bigger and thus sweeter.
I will be doing this myself, but I will make it out as a call to action for all of you that read this blog - stop, and wait. Three simple words, but ones that will change your life if you follow through with them.
From this month onwards, I am going to take in projects that will only focus on the long run. Yes, don’t worry - I’ll still partake in activities that create short term profits - like domain flipping, eBook selling and copywriting for others - I will however also be focusing on a few things that will not bear fruit in the beginning, but will eventually start to (hopefully) produce sufficient income to live off.
How will I be doing this? Well, my plan is to create a chain of niche websites. Nothing major - maybe ten or twenty pages, a few articles and of course Adsense code. What I will be doing is creating or buying websites that focus on specific niches, and start building up my empire… four or five sites a month becomes sixty websites a year. If I can get each website up to $1 a day - a miserly amount, but due to that it is certainly possible - I will eventually be looking at websites that bring in $60 a day. $60 a day is decent money, and of course once they start earning $1/day I will work on doubling that - how does $120/day sound for you?
Now, unlike my other plans, I do not expect to start earning from this for a good 5-6 months - developing the websites will take time, and either paying someone to produce content or writing it myself will too. After that, the necessary link building and search engine optimization will also need to be done, and hopefully by the end of five or six months, I will have a chain of websites making $1 a day each.
Are you going to follow me in taking a long term view, and if so what are your plans?
I came across a nifty little way to increase Firefox referrals - open this website in Internet Explorer and see for yourself. Firefox is really the most efficient browser I’ve ever used, and if you’re not using it, you better start. The coding for this (and the idea) was seen on Sizlopedia, and as it works for any website you guys should put it up if possible - why not earn a buck for helping people out?
How I’ll be winning the contest.
You may have heard of the RSS contest going on, and if you haven’t, check out the prizes - there is quite a bit of stuff up for grabs. I’ve just added a message only viewable in RSS, so make sure you subscribe by email (if you want to be in with a chance of winning some money). Something that most of you should be pretty happy with. My eBook website sale is going through in a week, so this is your last chance to get it - and to commemorate this contest, you guys will be getting it free.
I might have goofed up slightly, but I’ll be adding a few more prizes in the feed, so make sure you subscribe.
Oh yeah… how am I doing in the contest? Take a look:
Not bad, eh? Considering I started at 117…
That’s all for today - leave your comments for a chance to win. :razz
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Nice post again Jason. I’ve been reading your blog for a long time. But this is the first time I’m actually commenting.
I agree with what you say. I just read a thread on DP about a guy asking for niches for blogs.
My advice - stick with your blog. You can do this only if you start a blog about something you love and not something that you just want to make money out of.
Troy’s last blog post..Busy day
I don’t think you’re being harsh enough, actually. I think trying to make money through blogging only is a worthless idea.
Blogging takes a lot of effort early on and, like you said, most people flame out before they get a return on their time investment. And the return they will eventually get isn’t that great anyway.
I think blogging is popular with the “make money online” set because, quite frankly, it doesn’t take any talent. If you really want to make a consistent and legitimate income online learn a skill (programming, copy writing, graphic design) and market yourself or develop a project with recurring income (web applications, ebooks, etc.).
And… rant over. I feel better now.
As for your niche site plan: I think it’s a decent strategy but I’m leery of the mindset of “If it works once, it should work 100 times over” because that doesn’t always work out the way you want to in the end.
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I think lack of initiative is a common problem with most people. You can have a great idea but if you don’t put in the work the idea/project won’t be successful. I know its a common problem for me!
And thanks for the Firefox Referral information, that is great code to add to any site, and make a few bucks here and there!
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I have to agree that blogging will not make quick bucks for a new blog unless he/she buys an established one from someone else. It is hard to make others read your writings sometimes.
Congratulations on your progress in the contest. Got the freebies and will look at it if I have the time this coming weekend. Good luck and all the best.
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I guess I’m your latest e-mail subscriber. I have take a glance on your blog from before, but till now I read something more serious. Now count me in as your regular visitor
Blogging can be profitable for some say like yaro starak where spinoff products prove to be moneyspinners.
I am a bit leery of niche websites because they tend to be made for
adsense and content suffers in the long run. Its ok if you are into
affiliate marketing but ultimately content matters and adsense automatically improves once content is unique and useful.
just my 2 cents rant
Nice to see you are updating daily, even if it to tell us to enter your contests
So jason aren’t you gona tell us anymore money making ideas soon
Yeah I think Jason is going to post everyday
Usman’s last blog post..Must correct spelling and grammer
Yes, you need to have determination in order to succeed. There is no point in starting up a blog if you are only in it for the money. Success will come to you if you work hard, have good content, and appeal to viewers. The goal of most people is to become successful, but in order to do that you must start off small. Success is achieved one step at a time.
Your niche idea is a solid idea, but would definitely take a lot of time to implement. DP would be a great place to get content to get those sites underway though, and $1 per day from each site probably wouldn’t be a difficult task. I wish you luck on the potential venture.
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Jason-
You couldn’t have put it better! I’ve struggled to keep up with my blogging goals, that is for sure. It may sound trite, but you are one of the bloggers that keeps me motivated to post my thoughts.
Its funny how some of our goals are so similar. I’ve looked at the $1 a day / $2 a day thing before.
As always, the best of luck to you! I’ll certainly be keeping tabs on you.
Mark’s last blog post..$40 in 40 challenge
Hi Jason
I just want to focus on Firefox. It has been something that I have earned a little from, in the last couple of months, but I felt sure that I had read that the referral program with adsense and ‘Firefox’ had changed so I googled it and this is what I came up with.
“We’d also like to let you know about upcoming changes to the referrals programs for Google Pack and Firefox:
Firefox: We will also be reducing payments for Firefox referrals from China during the third week of February. This specific referral payment change will only affect installations from users in China. As with referrals to AdSense, this is independent of your location as a publisher.
We understand that these changes may decrease revenue for some of you currently participating in these referrals programs. While it is our goal to help publishers earn as much as possible with the AdSense program, like any other referrals advertiser, we are constantly evaluating our campaigns to make them effective and sustainable.
Now on Adsense referrals:
We are writing to give you an important follow-up to the changes we announced earlier this month to the referrals to AdSense program. Since announcing the changes, we’ve received a number of responses about the program being dependent on the location of the referring publisher rather than the referred user. After carefully considering this feedback, we have decided to modify our planned changes.
Specifically, you will have the option to add a referral unit for AdSense within your account when you target any referral unit to Japan and/or any countries in North America and Latin America. To ensure payment for valid conversions, we recommend that you check the targeting settings on your current AdSense referral units.
So sorry guys, if you are in China your referral amount for ‘Firefox’ is going to be less than it used to be
You would think that they could support the punters who are bringing in business, wouldn’t you?
‘Niche’
Whenever I have read articles on making money, the phrase most often used has been ‘find your niche’ and market that and if your anything like me, you are still trying to decide what that ‘niche’ is!
We all have that ‘niche’ we just don’t know it yet, LOL
I enjoyed your post today Jason,
Cheers
Viv
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Patience is a virtue. Hehe.
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Ah fook, long winded replies. I’ll try to look at all of them
@ Troy, i’ll probably outsource the work - it’s a) more effective if I give it to people that know what they’re talking about (if I start up in the health niche, for example) and b) I’ll have more time to sponge around
@ Link, aye true… relative to the words I’ve written for this blog and my standard rate, I’m making zilch… hopefully this will improve in time though. As for the niche sites, I think it will take work - perhaps I’ll develop two hundred websites, but only be able to get one hundred up to $1/day. We’ll see
@ EGK, we’d all be millionaires if we weren’t lazy, eh
@ Wayne L, even buying an established blog doesn’t help sometimes… just look at CashQuests. Enjoy the freebies
@ Chenzen, this blog makes me money, but more indirectly that others… a lot of the writing work I get is because people see what I’m capable of, and thus follow up with hiring me to get the work done.
@ Dan, updating daily is one of the high points of this blog
@ Usman, I’m working on them… primarily a membership website, that I think should do well.
@ DJ, thanks for the psychology lesson.
Some good points!
@ Nutsnack, cheers. I’ll update whether it goes well or flunks completely
@ Mark, everyone aiming to make money online has looked into that at some point. Whether they’re successful or not… that’s a whole difference ball game.
@ Misty, I read about the Firefox (and Adsense removing referrals, that was a big hit <_ <) changes… even if it brings in no money, there’s no worries as now at least I don’t have to get the blog to render properly in IE - there’s a warning saying why it’s messed up
As for the niches, well… will probably start a few of them in niches I know zilch about… outsourcing is the key
@ Gian P, course
Yo Jason I want to something mate.Does Google Adsense still pay you if people download Firefox ? I know that that they pay to download also Picasa but that was in the past.And I am curious if they still pay so I can use this little trick in your post
this is very true article….i believe google cant survive long becoz their is so much fraud clicking over its network….so payperpost and smorty etc are good options but in any case 90 days have to be devoted in promotions of blog
Just came across this post. I question whether just a low goal ($1/day from a website) is really the way to go. Why not shoot higher (e.g., $10/day or $20/day). The higher you shoot, the higher-yielding CPA offers or ads you target, etc. A good example is a BANS site. Why choose products or niches that have a low yield (i.e., staplers or picture frames)? Yea, you can make some money, but why not swing for the fences and choose a high-yield product like, say, paintings or cars (general categories, but you get the idea). The more expensive the product, the higher the yield for you. Anyway, just my thoughts.
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