The Complete Guide to Making $1-10k+ Per Month Online

OK, so the idea of making thousands of $$ a month got your attention. Let me say a few things about this guide before we dive in.

1. This guide is the real deal. This isn’t how to make a hundred dollars here or there with surveys and coupon sites. It is to help you discover how to make potentially life changing money using the power of the internet.

2. THIS IS NOT a get rich quick scheme. This guide is for people who want to make serious money and are willing to put in the work.

3. The income potential is not a promise. It is for illustrative purposes to give you an idea of what is possible. I can make no promise that you will earn a particular amount. Your income will depend on several factors including the niche you choose, how hard you work, how effective you are… and let’s face it, a little luck.

4. Most will fail… the first time they try. At the very least, success will likely be a slow process. Do not bother reading the rest of this unless you are willing to put in the effort. If you quit, that’s up to you, but total failure is only when you stop trying.

After Thomas Edison tried over 10,000 variations to make the incandescent light bulb with no success, a reporter asked, “What it is like to fail so many times”. He responded, “I have not failed, I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

I included those caveats because I don’t want anyone to foolishly waste their time or money.

The sound of making money is always great, especially online, but I’ve seen other sites that offer guides on making money that simply aren’t honest with what it takes to make it happen. They make it sound a lot easier than it is. As a result, thousands of people buy a domain, purchase hosting, and waste time that could be saved if they were simply told up front the challenges they will face. It’s hard work, but for those willing to put in the effort, the potential is incredible.

With that out of the way, let’s get to the good part!

How do I know it’s possible to make thousands a month online?

The simple answer is, I’ve done it.

I’ve had small sites that made only a few hundred a month, and I’ve had larger sites that made $30,000+ a month.

The shocking thing is, even that $30,000 a month figure is barely enough for some web-developers to get out of bed. Those are the super affiliates and web-developers who pull in $1,000,000+ per month.

To make the larger numbers you usually have to take on staff, large marketing budgets, and other expenses.

While hitting that $1,000,000 a month mark is unlikely for most, making $1,000 – $10,000 a month is a lot more attainable, but again, even hitting those figures depends on what niche you choose, how hard you work, and how effective you are.

The bottom line is, I’ve done it and I will tell you how to get started!

If you want to jump to a specific section of this guide use this menu below:

I. Benefits of making money online

II. Best ways to make money online for beginners

III. How to get started building a website

IV. How to monetize traffic

V. Common questions and helpful tips

I. Benefits of making money online

Potential to reach a massive audience. The US alone has roughly 286 million internet users. If you can broaden your audience globally, you can capture millions more. It doesn’t mean you will reach all of them. In reality, you won’t even come close, but it means that if you reach just 0.5%, you have still reached over 1 million people in the US alone.

Massive income potential. With a massive potential audience means there is massive income potential. While you won’t convert everyone you reach into monetized traffic, the internet provides you with a huge opportunity to get in front of as many people as possible for a relatively small investment.

Make money while you sleep (except for freelancing). I’m not saying this to make it sound easy, but if it takes you a few hours to write a really good post, or 8 hours to produce a helpful video, that content will stay published as long as you keep it hosted. If you market it properly, you can convert that traffic to income even while you sleep. As you build more content, your potential income increases.

Work at your own pace on your own terms. You decide how much effort you put in. You decide what hours you want to work. How many days a week. What your schedule will be. Working on your own terms means you can create a side hustle, or grow it into a full time income. It’s up to you.

I. Benefits of making money online

II. Best ways to make money online for beginners

III. How to get started building a website

IV. How to monetize traffic

V. Common questions and helpful tips

II. Best ways to make money online for beginners

In reality, there are thousands of ways to make money online, but I am going to break it down into a few main ways to do it that don’t require a lot of money upfront. Each one can be broken down into specific niches. I’ll give some examples for each method.

These are not in a particular order, however, some do offer more potential income than others depending on how you scale them. Keep in mind, you don’t have to choose just one of these categories. Many successful online entrepreneurs make money from several or all of these methods.

Affiliate Marketing

To put it as simple as possible, there are companies that have products or services all over the world. Those companies make ZERO money unless they can sell their product or service. Affiliate marketing outsources their marketing efforts to people like you. In return for bringing these companies customers, they pay you a commission. Some sales will only make $1 or less. Other sales can produce commission of $100+.

What you will need:

Domain name
Hosting
Great content
Affiliate product that relates to your target content and audience

Examples:

You might start a blog or website about nutrition, a review site for coffee makers, or a personal finance site (wink) and look to partner with affiliate programs that offer products you think are helpful to people for that category. Each time someone buys a product through your link (which includes a tracker), you earn a commission.

The Numbers:

Let’s say your average commission is $20. If you convert 1 click per 100 visitors to your site (1% CTR – Click Through Rate), and 1 out of every 4 clicks converts to a sale (25% Conversion Rate). You would need about 60,000 visitors per month to earn $3,000 per month ($100 per day).

Google Adsense

If you ever notice ads on blogs or websites, often times they are from the Google Adsense or similar program that pays you based on clicks (CPC – Cost Per Click), or per thousands views (CPM – Cost Per Thousand Impressions, M=Roman numeral for 1000). You need a lot of traffic to make good money with this method, because a business is only paying for a potential sales lead rather than a converted sale as with affiliate marketing.

What you will need:

Domain name
Hosting
Great content
Google Adsense account

Example:

You might start a hobby or interest site that doesn’t lend itself well to affiliate marketing. Generally, you have to generate a lot more traffic with Google Adsense to make a decent income.

The Numbers:

Rankxl.com estimates that 150,000 views per month will earn about $3,000 per month through Google Adsense. That is based on average earnings. Some traffic is worth more, some is worth less.

YouTube

This method is a bit of a subset of Google Adsense. YouTube is owned by Google and the ad revenue is handled similarly. The difference is, instead of generating traffic from a blog or website, you need to produce and publish content to Youtube and enable monetization for your channel. YouTube changed their adsense program for YouTube in 2018 that makes it a little more difficult to get started, but the potential to make money from being a content creator is still worthwhile for those willing to commit to it.

What you will need:

A YouTube account and channel
Google Adsense account*
Great Content

*In order to monetize your channel after the changes made in January 2018, you will need 4,000 viewing hours in the past 12 months and 1,000 subscribers to be considered for the program. This was a disappointing change for many aspiring YouTube content producers because it meant you couldn’t make money from YouTube ads while you ramp up.

However, don’t let that discourage you. While 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 viewing hours sounds like a lot, any channel that would make meaningful money will have no problem achieving that. It would certainly delay monetization, but decent money doesn’t come in from a YouTube ad partners program until you push well past those numbers.

The ThinkMedia YouTube channel is a great resource to learn more about making money on YouTube.

Example: Successful YouTube content is pretty varied, some channels produce comedy sketches, parodies, product reviews, hobby enthusiasts, original music, independent news, educational content, and a lot more.

The Numbers:

ThinkMedia broke down the estimated earnings for the 4,000 minimum viewing hours and it worked out to about 80,000 views which would produce an average YouTube ad income of roughly $160. However, they point out that there are other ways to make money on YouTube. Based on those figures, 1,500,000 monthly video views would earn approximately $3,000 per month.

You can leverage affiliate programs and include the link in the video description. For popular channels or really effective niche channels, you can also earn money for sponsored videos from companies who want to promote their product or service through your channel.

Freelancing

This category covers a lot of ground and is probably the quickest way to make money online. Essentially, you take on side hustle gigs based on the skills you have to offer. There are a lot of opportunities for freelancing at sites like upwork.com, freelancer.com, guru.com, 99designs.com and others. Entrepeneur.com has a list of the 15 best freelance websites. If you have a successful website, blog, or YouTube channel, you can also gather leads for free lance work directly from that traffic. You would somehow need to make the offer known through a link and lead generation page. Some bloggers use their “About Us/Me” page to promote their freelance work.

What you will need:

A marketable skill
An account at a freelancing site or another way to promote yourself

Examples:

Freelancers include writers, editors, coders, graphic designers, digital media producers, consultants and so much more.

The Numbers:

This one is difficult to even give averages for. The amount that a given freelancer can make varies a lot per job and particular skill. However, for general purposes. $3,000 per month is obtainable if you are able to pick up enough work and your rate is strong enough.

I. Benefits of making money online

II. Best ways to make money online for beginners

III. How to get started building a website

IV. How to monetize traffic

V. Common questions and helpful tips

III. How to Get Started Building a Website

Affiliate link disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. This means we will receive a commission if you click them and make a purchase.

If you want to take a path that requires you to build website (affiliate marketing or blogging), this part of the guide will help you get started.

1. Research and decide on a focus or niche

A lot of people hear about the opportunities of blogging or online marketing and want to jump right in. That enthusiasm is great, do everything you can to keep it going, it can help you succeed. However, most jump into buying a domain and web hosting without giving enough thought to what direction they should take.

This direction is important. It isn’t necessarily make or break because many people start a blog and shift directions a bit, but you can avoid wasting a lot time and energy by doing a little planning up front.

Make a list of personal strengths and interests. You are going to need at least average writing capabilities. If the idea of writing is repulsive to you, creating a website or blog might not be for you. You may want to look into a YouTube channel or freelance work exclusively.

Apart from that minimum requirement, ask yourself, “Are you knowledgeable about a subject that will help to set you apart from others”? It is always easier to write and build a blog or brand around something you are interested in, whether it’s photography, dining, travel, bargain hunting, video games, wood working, consumer electronics, nutrition – you name it.

Notice I didn’t ask you to focus on your “passion”. That is often a misleading concept and in reality, passions change over time. Some people are very passionate about things but they don’t have the skill set or knowledge required to produce valuable content around it.

Whatever you choose to focus on doesn’t have to be the #1 thing you are interested in at the moment, it simply needs to be something you have a general interest in and strengths that compliment that interest.

DO NOT focus on a topic that bores you to tears. Don’t simply choose a topic because it seems lucrative. The grind of building a blog or website requires at least some reasonable degree of interest to keep you going. Particularly for the new blogger.

Speaking from Experience: I started a network of sites years ago in a niche that I was initially passionate about. However, over time it became boring and repetitive, but that didn’t matter. By that time (several years in) it was making enough money to keep me interested. There are several lessons here. 1. Like I mentioned before, your passions can change. 2. The money likely won’t come in for a while, so you better be interested in your topic to keep it fun, especially in the beginning.

Keep in mind, this is advice to the beginner. Veteran web-developers can make sites about anything they want. They have the formula and the long term vision to see it through because they’ve done it before. It still helps the experienced web-developer to have interest in what they are building, but for some, it is all just a business, and making money is interest enough.

They also likely have a solid revenue stream from other projects or a payout from selling them so they know the monetary reward is real and not a pipe dream. It is hard to believe that until you experience it.

2. Choose a domain

Now that you have narrowed down the topic you want to focus on, it’s time to purchase a domain. This process can be frustrating because a lot of the “good ones” are already owned by other developers or “domain squatters”. Domain squatters are people who speculate on domain names for nominal prices and re-sell them for a profit.

For the beginner, I don’t recommend investing money in a domain beyond a basic registration fee, which means you will need to find a domain that you like that’s related to your topic, or one that is brandable (easy to remember), AND that no one else currently owns.

Domain Extensions. Domain extensions are the (.) and letters after the domain name (i.e. – .com, .net, .org, .us, .co). The first thing to consider is the domain extension since you might have a great idea for a domain, but it isn’t available for the big 3 (.com, .net, or .org). I recommend using what are referred to as Top Level Domain (TLD) extensions. For US focused sites I recommend .com where at all possible. There are a few reasons why you should use .com above others.

1. Most return visitors will remember it as .com, even if you use a different extension.
2. If you use .net or .org, you will be competing with brand searches and potential brand confusion with other sites using the same name but a different extension.

The only time I recommend using .net or .org is if you find a really strong domain name where the benefits gained from search engines outweighs the brand confusion potential. Affiliate/marketing sites are typically the only sites that make sense for this.

You simply need to ask yourself, are you trying to build a brand? If you are, stick to .com, if not the other two extensions are viable options.

Keyword in domain (KID) and Exact Match Domains (EMD). One strategy for choosing a domain is to look for those that have a keyword or keyword phrase, or the exact match to a popular keyword or phrase. Search engines used to give a lot more weight to sites that had a keyword or phrase in their domain. Example: Rickscoffemakers.com, bestcoffemakers.com, coffeemakerreviews.com.

There is still benefit to using KID and EMD, but there are a few things to note for these.

1. Exact Match Domain names are often already owned by developers or squatters. So either you won’t be able to get them or they will be offered at a premium.
2. Keyword in Domain names offer a lot more variation, so inserting a keyword surrounded by other related or brandable terms is decent alternative to EMD.
3. Don’t force it. Think of the user first. It isn’t worth jamming a keyword in if its awkward. The best KID is one that helps tell the user what the site is about and is brandable.

Brandable Domains. These are domains that are easy to remember. They often sound good/look good.

Those that sound good often use alliteration (using the same starting letter or sound for words).

Those that look good avoid using words next to each other that end and start with the same letter (Ex: buyinggoggles.com)

A few things to avoid are domains that are difficult to read because they are too long, and of course, those that are unintentionally… or maybe intentionally, inappropriate (These examples are real and surprisingly “safe for work”: expertsexchange.com, whorepresents.com, penisland.com).

Brandable domains can be Keyword in Domains or otherwise nonsensical but easy to remember (Ex: Google.com).

Speaking of brandable domains, ThinkRichThinkPoor.com is pretty catchy, don’t you think? 😉

3. Buy a Domain

1. Choose your preferred registrar and search for your preferred domain. We recommend using namecheap.com or bluehost.com to purchase your domain. Since we also recommend bluehost for wordpress hosting, its often best to simply purchase your domain and hosting through the same account.

Bluehost is currently offering a free domain when you purchase webhosting, so that makes the choice a little easier for most.

2. Use their search tool to see if your preferred domain name is available. If it isn’t available, they will often show variations that you might like. Be patient and try to get creative. You might get lucky and find a great domain right away, or it may take some time. Your domain is important so don’t rush it.

3. If .com, .net, and .org are available, I recommend buying all of them. You will only develop one and keep the rest in your account to protect your brand and keyword phrase. Buying all of them isn’t a complete must, but if you are taking the long view, it is nice to have all 3 top level extensions tied down to prevent others from using them.

4. Purchase web-hosting

We recommend using Bluehost. They offer great customer support and earn high marks for their hosting service. They are also specialized in wordpress hosting, which is the free platform we use and recommend to others.

1. Visit bluehost.com by clicking the link or the invitation below.

2. Select “get started” from the bluehost homepage.

3. Choose your hosting plan. I recommend the basic plan for most people starting out. You can upgrade later if you need to.

4. If you don’t already have a domain, you can get a free domain with a hosting account. Use the box to the left to search for a domain. If you already have one, type it into the box to the right.

5. Fill in your account information, confirm hosting package selections. For those starting out, there isn’t a need to go beyond 12 months. You do get an additional discount beyond that, but for those who are more cash strapped, there is no need to go beyond 12 months. As far as add-ons, Codegaurd is a good way to avoid having to do backups on your own. The others aren’t worth spending the money for now.

6. Fill in payment information. You can use a credit card by default, or you can use Paypal by selecting the “More payment options” link.

7. Click “Submit”

You now have a hosted domain! Next we need to make sure to install WordPress.

5. Install WordPress

WordPress is hands down one of the best Content Management System (CMS) especially for simple sites. It’s FREE, open source, and has a ton of user created templates, plug-ins, and helpful resources. Don’t be fooled. WordPress isn’t just for beginners. There are major sites running on WordPress. wpbeginner.com has a list of 40 big name sites that run on the wordpress platform which include techcrunch.com, thenewyorker.com, sonymusic.com, and thewaltdisneycompany.com just to name a few.

As we mentioned before, we recommend bluehost.com because they offer seamless integration with WordPress and they excel when it comes to hosting WordPress sites.

Install a WordPress Theme

A website theme (also known as a template) is the basic design of your site. For most, a free theme is sufficient to get started. This is another area that WordPress shines since there are a lot of developers who create free and premium themes. There are ways to customize most themes, but I would focus on finding a theme that is easy to set up and looks good enough for now to dig into the content development process. Don’t agonize over your theme/template too much. Once you get traffic and start making money you can always build a custom theme, or pay others to tweak it.

Tip: Make sure the theme you choose is mobile friendly. Most mobile friendly themes are going to be labeled “responsive” which means they automatically adjust to the browser.

Resources for wordpress themes:

https://cpothemes.com/themes

https://athemes.com/collections/free-wordpress-themes/

6. Create Content and Get Traffic

Research basic SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

A lot of guides will advise you to start creating content right away, but it is worth your time to spend a day or two learning about basic SEO. This will help set you on a good foundation for when you start to create your content. SEO is extremely important when it comes to getting “free” traffic from Google. If you skip this step, you will find yourself having to go back and fix mistakes you would have made and are very easy to avoid.

I highly recommend the free beginner guide to seo by moz.com. It explains how search engines work, how to do keyword research, the basics of linking and other helpful info to get you started on the right foot. See the link to the guide below.

Resources for SEO:

https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-guide/

Develop a content plan/calendar

A content plan, otherwise known as a content calendar, is a guide that helps you organize and plan out your posts. Initially, come up with 20 article ideas to start with. If you need help, visit other sites that are in your niche for ideas. You will find that as you come up with ideas, new ideas will pop up. Once you get in a good routine with developing your site, it is good to keep adding to this list and scheduling how often you are going to post new content and hit your goals.

Produce content

This is one of the most important steps. This is where you will provide the value to others in order to attract an audience. Be sure to follow these 2 keys of content.

1. Unique. Your content MUST be unique. If you simply copy and paste you will get penalized by search engines. Penalties are often hard to recover from. As a result, it will be very difficult for you to recieve the traffic you need to make money.

2. Provide Value. Your content MUST provide value in some way. Whether it is to entertain, inform, or some combination. You are providing a product, similar to how radio, TV, newspapers, or magazines provide content. In exchange for the value you provide, people will provide you with views, shares, and links to your site. All of this will help you gather more traffic. The more traffic you get, the more you can make from monetization.

Keep in mind, content can be a wide range of things, including interview, quizzes, photos, videos, vlog (video blog), quotes, webinars, infograms, resources, research, etc. The list goes on and on.

Understanding Content Marketing

Content marketing is the marriage of creating engaging content, leverage methods to get that content seen, and ultimately making money. It’s about building an audience along with loyalty and trust. It is a method of marketing to an audience without pushing something on them. Essentially, selling them something without them knowing you are pitching it. Not in a deceitful way, but instead of being a pushy and sleazy sales person, you create value that others will gladly exchange their time and attention for, or even purchase from you or your advertising partners.

It is what ties together an overall strategy of content creation, SEO, viral promotion and optimization for ‘conversion’.

This very post you are reading is an example. I know there are thousands of people who are interested in making money online. I created a free guide for that audience. I also included some recommended highly rated vendors like namecheap.com and bluehost.com. If you click on those links and sign-up, I get a commission. I provided a valuable guide, and in return I can earn money.

The key to any long term content marketing strategy is to be careful of what you “sell”, whether it be your own content, or products and services you recommend. Don’t just look for the highest commission or the quickest way to make a dollar. That may work in the short term, but building a brand around trust is far more effective and rewarding.

Resources for content marketing:

https://neilpatel.com/what-is-content-marketing/

https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/

I. Benefits of making money online

II. Best ways to make money online for beginners

III. How to get started building a website

IV. How to monetize traffic

V. Common questions and helpful tips

IV. How to monetize traffic

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is simply helping connect customers with products or services. You can join an affiliate program with a single brand (Ex: Bluehost), a merchant (Ex: Walmart, Amazon), or affiliate network (Ex: CJ Affiliate – formerly Commission Junction). Traffic is tracked through specialized tracking codes (also known as “Affiliate links”) that are matched to your affiliate account. Every time you generate a lead or sale, you get a commission.

Single Brand: This is where a particular brand operates their own affiliate program. You sign-up, send them customers, and they pay you directly. Of course, not all brands offer direct affiliate programs. Some may only offer direct partnerships with larger sites. If you want to know if a particular brand has an affiliate program, it is usually helpful to google “BRAND NAME affiliate”. Of course, insert the brand name you are looking for. Another way to check is to look at the bottom of a websites in the footer links.

Below is an example of the link to the affiliate program for Bluehost.com in their footer.

Merchant: Some merchant sites like Amazon or Walmart also have affiliate programs. You can find their affiliate programs here: Amazon Affiliate Program, Walmart Affiliate Program. These programs allow you to link to thousands of products from many different brands and receive a commission on the sale. Some merchant programs will credit you with a sale even if someone clicks your link and buys another product.

Affiliate Network: These sites setup relationships with brands and manage affiliate programs on their behalf. This allows you to promote several different single brands through one affiliate program. It also can give you access to brands that may only offer partnerships with larger sites.

Some top affiliate networks include: CJ Affiliate, ShareASale, MaxBounty (CPA), PeerFly (CPA).

How you earn money with affiliate programs:

You can earn money either through Revenue Share/Percentage of Sale, Cost Per Lead (CPL), or Cost Per Acquisition (CPA).

Revenue Share/Percentage of Sale: This is pretty straight forward. You simply earn a percentage of the sales produced by the costumer who uses our link to navigate to buy a product or service. The percentage will vary depending on the program.

Cost Per Lead (CPL): A program will pay you for each lead you provide for a potential sale.

Cost Per Acquisition: This is a set payment per sale. Some CPA’s are only a few dollars but can be over $100 depending on the product or service you are promoting.

How to set up an affiliate account:

1. Find a program that offers a product or service that fits with your niche and customer base.

2. Sign-up for their affiliate program. This typically requires you to provide your name, your company name (if applicable), address, and payment information so you can receive commission. Some programs will also require you to register your “tax payer ID” which is just your Social Security number unless you have a company. This is required so they can prepare your 1099 and properly report your earnings for taxes.

3. Insert affiliate links or banners on your site that promote the product or service from your partner programs.

Google Adsense

This is a fairly simple method of earning money but it requires A LOT of traffic to produce a decent income. As I mentioned earlier, you need about 150,000 views per month will earn about $3,000 per month. Keep in mind, this can be used to supplement other monetization methods. I also do not recommend putting adsense on your site until you start receiving about 10,000 monthly views per month. The reasoning is that you don’t make much money until you hit that mark, and the ads can be distracting. While it is tempting to try to make money as quickly as possible. It is more important to focus on building your audience when you first start.

How you earn money with Google Adsense:

Google will pay based on clicks (Cost Per Click – CPC) or per 1,000 views (Cost Per M – CPM). The rates vary depending on the value of the traffic your site generates. There is no perfect answer to which you should choose between CPC or CPM, it is best to run tests to see which one maximizes your earnings.

How to set up a Google Adsense account:

1. Sign-up for Google Adense.

2. Insert the HTML code for the ads into your site. Some put them only on the side bar, or footers. Some put them throughout the body of the content.

NOTE: These ads will distract your audience and also give them something to click if they are effective, which takes visitors away from your content. DO NOT put these ads on your site until you build a solid audience. Again, I would say nothing less than 10,000 monthly views.

Offer your own product

When most people think of offering your own product, they think of selling homemade candles, jewelry or other crafts. Those are legitimate products to offer online. I would recommend marketing those products through other methods as well, including Etsy, Ebay, etc. However, there are other things you can provide depending on your niche. Some create e-books and online courses that appeal to their core audience. Others offer consulting that relates to their chosen niche. This category is extremely broad, but don’t overlook it.

I. Benefits of making money online

II. Best ways to make money online for beginners

III. How to get started building a website

IV. How to monetize traffic

V. Common questions and helpful tips

V. Common questions and helpful tips for making money online

How long does it take to make good money online?

This depends on a lot. Not the least of which is what you view as “good money”. The best answer here is, it often takes 12 months to see a meaningful reward. You might hit a home run with what you do right away and put out a piece of content that goes viral and build from there.

However, most will not be so lucky. Even if you are putting up valuable content on a regular basis and building an audience, unless you have a good size marketing budget, it will take a while to get the traffic needed to make more than a few hundred a month.

It also depends on the niche you are in and the monetization method you are using. If you get on the front end of a niche, you can ramp up quickly because there is less competition.

Let’s say you created a review site of those mattresses you see for Casper when they first starting gaining traction. You may have been able to build an audience quickly because of low competition and the sudden increase in interest for these products. They also happen to pay decent commission some pay $50 up to $150 per sale. This guy did just that.

However, if you decide to jump into a niche that has a lot competition and your primary source of income is from Google Adsense, you have a really long road ahead.

How much money can I make online as a blogger, YouTuber or affiliate marketer?

I hate to start with the “it depends” answer, but there is no standard figure for any of it. I can tell you the potential is over $1,000,000 a month, but for those who get their online business off the ground most will make less than $100 a month. Some will make $1,000 a month. Fewer will make 5,000 a month, and a very small amount will make over the $10,000 a month mark.

Again, it depends on a lot of factors that I’ve stated before, the niche you choose, how hard you work, and how effective you are.

I want to reiterate here, THIS IS NOT a get rich quick scheme. It’s not a path to guaranteed wealth. However, it is a legitimate route worth giving your best effort if it is something you think you can stick with.

When can I quit my day job?

I do not recommend quitting your day job at all. At least not for most. You will see a lot of “making money” blogs built on the story of the author starting an online business, blog, etc. and quit their job after they started making more than their full time job. That is a very risky move.

The internet is a very fickle animal. There are a lot of risks involved. You can literally see your income go from thousands a month to zero in a matter of weeks (it’s happened to me). Granted, that is worst case scenario and typically only happens if you get penalized by Google, or there are massive changes to the market that make your niche less attractive.

However, past success is not a guarantee of future success. Always keep that in mind and manage your risk accordingly. The only reason to quit your day job is if it is getting in the way of scaling to a bigger level, but I would wait until your online income at least equaled your day job income.

Web-development is something I fell into out of necessity. I lost my job after the 2008 downturn and jumped into web-development and affiliate marketing in an effort to save my house (I didn’t). It took several years and many failed projects before I hit on something that worked.

For those who are on a good career path but are sick of the rat race, I hear you, but focus on one thing at a time.

When you first get started, focus on developing your online business into a lucrative second income. It is a perfect side hustle. Unless you build it into a legitimate form of income and its proven for at least 12 to 24 months, I’d stick with doing both. Worry about quitting your job later.

How much content do I need for a website or YouTube channel?

Be sure to place quality before quantity. Both google and users hate poor quality content. I would rather post 1 solid post a week than post 1 garbage post a day. While the frequency depends on the medium, niche, and your resources (including available time), you will want to post 1 quality post a week or every other week at the minimum to keep your content fresh and users engaged.

Some mediums and niches require less, however, keep in mind that views ultimately equal money, so the more quality content you can generate, the more potential income you can earn.

Tips for building your online business

Keep a positive attitude and growth mindset. This is a good tip for anything you do in life, but it is extremely important when it comes to making money online. It can take a long time and even several tries before you find a formula that works, so staying positive and eager to learn will help you push through the difficult times.

Read, ….then read some more. The fastest way to learn is to leverage the experience of others. The easiest way to do this is by reading forums and blogs. Search for topics like: SEO, affiliate marketing, and content marketing. When you aren’t writing or producing amazing content. Read some more.

Give yourself at least 12 months. After you develop a plan and get started, give yourself 12 months before expecting meaningful. A majority of those who start will quite within the first 3 months, but like most things, this is something that takes time, dedication, and patience. You might not get more than a few visitors a day until 3 months in. However, if you provide good content and are effective with getting that content in front of others, you will notice growth.

Leverage social media. The internet is no longer in the dark ages where the only way to find a site was through directories, random guesses at site names, or poor quality search engines. Social media drives a ton of exposure and engagement. Be sure to use that to your advantage by maintaining a social media presence. It will likely grow very slowly, but it is an essential part of nearly all online business today.

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