Since I last created a post to this site, I’ve been busy developing strategies on how to make more money from the ‘net.  I’ve tried a few different approaches with varying degrees of success and have come to the realization that only 2 things really matter when it comes to making money.  One of the variables is easier to manipulate (and should be!) and the other has more to do with how much money you want to spend to see things through.  Sure, it is possible for the 2nd variable to occur naturally but it will take time.  If you’re like me, you like to see results quickly.  So, here are the two variables:

1- A captive audience – This is your target audience.  You design your website and fill it with content so that these people find your site and make a decision to spend money through it.  I say “through” it because you’re most likely building an affiliate site so you’re not selling anything.  Your website visitors see your content, and decide you are trustworthy enough to click on a link and go spend money at the target site.

The ‘captive’ part of having an audience is the bit that’s really interesting.  You are able to almost completely manipulate your audience so that they are captive.  If you are anything like me, this part stinks.  I have no artistic ability and really struggle to make a website design look good.  I spent a lot of time going through design iterations and end up settling for something that I know is less than optimal…but then I spend a lot of other time creating good content on my website so I think that things balance out.

2- Traffic.  This has been my mantra: “Traffic is the new gold”.  I believe that if you have enough visitors to ANY site, you’ll end up making money.  If you’re selling something desirable (like a Nintendo Wii) and get average traffic, you’ll make money.  If you’re selling crap and get a bazillion visitors, you’ll make money.  It all comes down to traffic.  If you have a budget of $100-$500, you can create a lot of traffic rather quickly (Google adwords, paid ads on relative websites, etc…) and hopefully build from there.  However, if you are a cheapskate and don’t want to spend any money, you have to earn your stripes and do hard-core work that will take months to give you any results.

Right now I’m still working on factor #1.  I am getting organic traffic to my websites and need to create a more captivating environment for these folks to decide to spend money.  In the future, I plan to grow the number of websites that I have and will also have a budget for marketing.  This is all still trial and error for me but I believe that I’m on the right track.

Another month has gone by and I have learned more about internet marketing.
While I am still formulating methods, best practices, and ideas, I have picked up on the fact that internet marketing is really an everyday task.  You shouldn’t do it once and forget about it, not even for a few weeks.
For starters, I decided to spend about $40 in SEM this month and it gave me some interesting data to analyze.  Firstly, I need to congratulate myself on my advertisement writing ability.  I feel that I got pretty good CTR’s for an amateur.  These $40 brought in roughly 200 new visitors meaning I paid about 20 cents per visitors.  In all, this particular site had approximately 850 visitors for the month of October and it brought in a paltry $35 this month.  In comparison, this same site brought in $105 last month without any SEM efforts which leads me to my conclusion: SEM is not the “end-all, be-all” of advertising.  I do think that the additional visitors will turn in to a few long term customers, but my money could have been better spent doing link and website development.

For November, I am going to work on placing better in the search engines and try my best to learn how things work around these Internets.  Hopefully I can write in a month stating that my $35 has grown and multiplied!

To all of you that have kept coming back to check my site once in a while: a great and many thanks!

To those of you who may be here for the first time – welcome!

Since my last post in April, I’ve been on the move both litteraly and figuratively.  I’ve finished school, moved to another state, got a house, a new job, and a lot of other things. One thing has not changed though, and that is that I am still trying to find the best ways to make money online.

While I’m still not rich and probably won’t be for a long time, I have created a new realistic goal for myself: to make $1,000 per month in passive online income.  I think that if I can set up shop and make $1,000 a month while doing nothing, I can use that money to grow and set my sights higher.

Where am I now?

I am still far from my goal.  I am currently averagining about $125 per month in completely passive income.  I’ve built a few websites and haven’t really touched them since building them and I’m earning $125 per month from them with very minimal upkeep.

What can you learn here?

No, I am not going to promise you great wealth.  I am not even necessarily going to share with you any of my websites.  However, I will talk to you about strategies that you can use to make money online.  The web is a big place.  There is a LOT of money out there.  All you have to do is reach up and grab your share.  I’m still learning to reach out and I hope you keep coming back to learn how to reach with me.

It seems to me that when I learned about affiliate marketing, one of the more important details hammered into my head was that of protecting my affiliate links. I thought long and hard about the problem and didn’t quite figure out what that meant right away. It wasn’t until after weeks of Googling and reading the webmaster forums that I discovered what was meant by “hiding” my links and it took me even longer to figure out how to implement such a thing.

After a long time of playing, and fiddling I now have a jump script that works well and one that helps me keep all of my links organized and in one place. My script is super easy to use and I’m confident that anyone who can edit a text file can work with my jump script. This script is written PHP, but don’t be afraid! Down deep, it’s only text!

It is with great pleasure and delight that I want to offer you my script, FREE OF CHARGE, for you to use and redistribute as you wish…as long as you promise to never charge anyone any money for it. That’s just bad karma.

[I had to remove the code from here because it wasn't playing nice with Wordpress...you can download it at the end of the post.]

Code explanation

This is just one big PHP “case” statement. A case statement is likened in human language to “if this is the case, then do some action”. For this example, we are taking the case “01″ and assigning a URL to the the variable $site. Once outside the case statement, we set our page to redirect to the variable we put inside the case statement.

How to Use the Jump Script

The first thing you have to do is edit the $site variable. This is where you put your affiliate URL. Make sure to encapsulate the address in quotes. After adding your URL, save the file and upload it to your server.

Now all that you have to do is create a page that uses the script! This is the easy part. All you have to do is create a normal link, but instead of having the “a href” point to some long affiliate site, you point it to the script so a link to “case 01″ would look like a href=”go.php?id=01″.

Take a look at my advertisers on the side of this page. Those links all use my jump script.

There you have it…a free, full featured jump script that protects your affiliate link codes for you to use and share!

Download My Free Jump Script Here:
Free Jump Script

Happy Halloween!  Today is the day where kids come knocking at your door asking for candy.  Be prepared and have some good candy to give out!  Don’t be the cheapskate that people always “snicker” at (get it? Snicker? Snickers? Bueller?).  Take some pictures of your well dressed visitors and post them here on the site!  I’ll do the same and we can compare trick or treaters!

Here are 5 reasons to give good candy:

1. Kids won’t make fun of you!
2. Kinds won’t think you’re cheap (even though good candy is cheap )!
3. Your house won’t get egged!
4. Your neighbors will envy you!
5. You can take leftovers to work and be the office hero!

Remember, it’s better to give than to receive!

Have a safe and spooky Halloween!