1. Start now. The temptation for anyone who’s making money on the internet is to read, read, and read some more. You may believe that you have to wrap your mind around every possible technique before you get started and if you follow that path, you’ll still be reading 2 years from now. You have to get started and get started now. Most of the people that I talk to feel like they can’t handle another failure in their life and that makes them freeze up.
I have had TONS of sites fail and honestly that’s one of the biggest reasons I do as well as I do. You might think you’re different – you hope that you can hit a winner every single time. I’m getting a lot better at that because I’ve had lots of losers. At this point I’m pretty dang good at knowing what will work and what won’t.
Honestly I get a little tired of people who try to piggyback off of what I have learned through my failures. I try to impart all of the knowledge that I can and one of the most fulfilling things in my life is getting emails from all of the people who have found successes through what I have given them. That said, there is no substitution for trying things for yourself, even if that means failing a few times and no matter how many times I tell you what works and what doesn’t, you won’t have a firm belief until you have done it yourself.
The funny thing to me is that there really isn’t any risk for failure here. The total start-up cost for a niche website is under $20. If $20 makes you freeze up I would honestly take a hard look at what you’re spending money on. I sometimes have people email me saying that the cost of hosting is a huge risk for them. Are you freaking kidding me? $8 per month is a huge risk?
I guess what people are telling me is that they can’t afford to have cable television or a cell phone because obviously those should be lower on the priority list than investing $8 in your future. What you’re really telling me is that you’re afraid of failing. You have to get over yourself. Sorry for the extreme bluntness but that’s the honest truth.
If you asked me, the people that are really failing are the ones who are still researching. You’re afraid to put effort and money into ‘yourself’ but are perfectly fine wasting loads of time ‘researching’. To me that is the epitome of failure. Moving forward is the only way to get things shaking.
2. Focus on building search traffic, primarily from Google. There are thousands of traffic sources that you’re going to read about. I’ve seen course after course promising 10,000,000,000,000 visitors in less than 6 seconds using Digg, StumbleUpon, and other sites like these. I can tell you that with these traffic sources you will need a lot more traffic to make money, and that’s honestly no exaggeration. Making money online is a lot easier if you have a steady stream of traffic that you don’t have to work for anymore, and that’s how it is with Google traffic.
There’s no substitute for grabbing a visitor that actually has a need. People go to Google because they want to find something specific. They want to learn something, or they want to buy something. There you are to provide them with advice on what they’re looking for.
On the other hand, StumbleUpon and Digg users are trying to pass the time. They’re trying to feed their information addictions. If you think their traffic has a lot of value, I know for a fact that you’ve never tried to sell anything to them. These people also don’t provide much value to the people that are advertising on your site because they don’t buy much and will move on just as quickly as they found you. Twenty seconds after they hit your site they’ll be four sites away reading about the newest tech gadget.
My honest opinion (based on thousands of hours of trial and error) is that you will have to get over 100 times the social traffic to make the same money you can make from search visitors.
The first thing you have to convince yourself of is that traffic is not created equally. You might spend months chasing a big Digg only to find that it doesn’t do that much for you in terms of monetary return once it finally comes. On the other hand, relatively small amounts of search traffic can lead to a lot. We get probably 1/10th the traffic of John Chow and make just as much as he does. Why? Because almost all of our traffic is from Google and we monetize that traffic really well.
3. Focus on small niches. It’s about 100 times easier to bring in profits when you aren’t competing with the big dogs that have large budgets and SEO teams.
This month I found some crazy niches by looking around Sitepoint and honestly they are by far the easiest niches I’ve ever come across. I’m not going to tell you exactly what they are but I will tell you that they are related to the food industry. Trust me, it’s a lot easier to do well with stuff that isn’t related to marketing.
Mark and I talk all the time about how well we could do in a less competitive industry, in fact we’re working on entering some other markets. It’s beyond me why a person with no experience would want to start a site that competes with all of the marketing giants that are out there.
Honestly I’m having a ton of fun lately taking a look at funny little niches that I would never think would be money makers. Watching the sites that go up for sale on Sitepoint is probably the highlight of my day because I get to see very unique and interesting methods and niches for making money online.
I personally don’t care at all about what topics I make money from. Some people will actually do better if they build sites based around passion. Honestly, that isn’t the case for me. My passion is the chase and making money online for me is what keeps me driven. If that money comes from marketing information or online recipes, it feels the same to me. If you can develop a passion for the chase, you will open yourself up to nearly endless possibility.
4. Improve your keyword research ability. I have done a lot of experiments lately where I have been able to produce a LOT of income, within a really short period of time. This only happens because I know exactly how to pick the right keywords. I don’t mess around with keywords that are too difficult and I don’t waste time using keywords that don’t pay. I know that my keywords pay before I use them and I know that I can rank for them, too.
Our membership program teaches you how to do world class keyword research. I can promise you that after you become a member you will understand exactly how to pick winners while getting rid of the losers. Once you can do that, your ability to produce income will grow to the moon – you won’t waste time going after keywords that won’t pay you down the road.
5. Stop reading blogs. Lately I’ve had a few people ask me what sites I actually read and the honest truth right now is that I only read two sites: Grizzly’s How To Make Money Online For Beginners and Vic’s Make Money Online with the BloggerUnleashed. Almost all of you are learning too much technique without enough implementation. You might feel like you don’t understand enough yet to get going. That’s because of all of the contradicting information you allow yourself to consume. Every time I write stuff like this people email me in a panic asking how I stay on top of everything if I don’t read other people’s sites. I didn’t learn by reading other sites in the first place – you shouldn’t either. I have tested literally every idea I’ve ever written about and that’s how I learned this business. Why the @#$% would I read a bunch of people every day that have done less testing than I have?
The honest truth is that I don’t trust what most of bloggers say because my experience tells me otherwise. Most of what the big bloggers will tell you worked for them – because they have a lot of talent with the written word and because they work relentless hours. Most of you worship these guys without realizing that they have to continue to work 20 hour days to maintain their incomes. My good friend Griz on the other hand will probably make $35000+ next month, even if he’s on the moon or in a coma. He’ll work a lot because he enjoys it, but he won’t have to. His work will get him even more growth in his niche website business.
People that are successful in making money with the internet aren’t reading freaking MMO blogs all day long. They are doing keyword research, starting new sites, and having fun doing it. If you think the ‘high’ you get from reading good content is great, wait until you have a $100 day with a site. Better yet, wait until you have a $1000 day on a site.
I read Vic and Griz because they are true practitioners of a style that most people can execute and my style has a lot of similarities to them. I’ve learned from both of them and honestly I can’t say that about most other sites. I’m a full timer and honestly I average less than 10 minutes per day reading other blogs. If the thrill of chasing money isn’t enough to overpower your info addition, you might want to consider walking away.
For me the fun is in actually getting what I’m chasing and to me, theory is mostly worthless. I could honestly answer over 90% of the questions I get with ‘it doesn’t matter’. Most of the theory you guys are trying to learn is worthless, in fact in all actuality it’s a chasm that costs you money because it costs you time. I was born with a practical mind and theory only appeals to me when I can see a way to benefit. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I don’t give a rats about what’s written on other sites – 90% of it doesn’t matter. If you can pick keywords, write content, and link build with efficiency, you’re going to make truckloads of money in your lifetime.
To many of you, the theory matters much more than the implementation. Interestingly, these personality traits are ingrained into some people and those of you that are built this way have some life-advantage over the rest of us. You are more likely to be highly educated, for one. However, you also have some distinct weaknesses that you need to be aware of. In order to produce maximum entrepreneurial progress, you have to suppress your theorist itch long enough to act. Since the action isn’t natural to you, you need to set specific goals and make sure to complete them. There’s nothing at all wrong with this but I’m not going to act like things that don’t matter do. What matters most in this business is the action and if that offends some people, so be it.
6. Learn to target keywords with post pages. If you can pick solid keywords and write about them effectively with posts, you will be well on your way towards success online. Creating money on the internet might seem hard at first, but the truth is that if you can target keywords well with posts and sites, it becomes very easy.
Most of you have probably read a lot about blogging so you post simply to post. You’re supposed to right?
Sorry ya’all but most of these bloggers are leading you astray and they’re doing it in a big way. There’s no need to post to just post. It doesn’t do a dang thing unless you’re targeting a new keyword, or supporting a keyword targeting page you already have.
Almost every day I get emails from people wanting to know how often to post on their sites. I usually respond asking why they’re posting in the first place. They usually say that they’re supposed to. I usually say ‘according to who?’. Then they tell me. I then say ‘who’s that?’.
Guys do you really want to be a blogger in the traditional sense? Do you want to be tied to posting, posting, and then posting some more? This honestly makes no sense whatsoever to me. I post on The Keyword Academy because I know that I can make a difference for people, and because I have a system that makes me money. Trust me, every post I write has a purpose – I do not post to post. Most of my sites sit there for months at a time with no updates. They are already doing a good job providing solid content so why would they need to be updated? If I think of a way to make the site better I’ll update the site, but I don’t update to just update.
Now is when the theorists come in to tell me that Google LOVES updates and if I don’t update I can’t get ranked. Oh really? Have you tested that little theory of yours? Maybe you should explain to me why I have multiple sites that are sitting at #1 in Google even though they haven’t been updated in like two years…
The honest truth is that Google likes the sites that they determine are of the highest quality. The sites that are linked to the most are the sites they will see as being the highest quality. The easiest way to prove that your site is a quality site is by getting good links. Some people send me relentless questions about SEO and the honest truth is that links account for at least 75% of the game. You theorists should know that ‘updating’ accounts for a small part of Google’s ranking algorithm and most of the other things you obsess over are probably in the same boat. Sites that sit in super competitive niches probably need to be updated periodically but sites in non-competitive niches can often go for years with no updates.
Getting ranked in Google is actually REALLY easy. You have to write a post or create a site homepage about the topic/keyword you want to rank for, and get anchored links from relevant sites/pages – done.
The people who belong to our paid program don’t struggle to get links nearly as much as most people do. We have tools in our system that help people to connect with each other and we also have many members who have article directories where you can post articles (and your links). The bottom line here is that most people make this game a lot harder than it really is, because they don’t have any solid tools that they can use.
7. Start a bunch of sites. You’re going to have sites that work better than you had hoped, but you’re also going to have sites that don’t work as well as you had hoped. People sometimes email me wondering what’s going wrong with their site. I almost always ask how many sites they have – they say that they have one.
Guys you aren’t going to learn anything by having one freaking site. In the last four years I have built a few hundred sites. I’m sure that some of you are thinking that you couldn’t possibly create that many sites but honestly that’s ridiculous. If you build one niche site each week for the next four years you’ll have over 200 sites and long before you get there you’ll be killing it.
Yesterday Mark and I were talking about people we’ve met and how terrifying failure is to some people. People totally freeze up at the thought of losing. If you want to hedge your risk, start a bunch of sites. If you have 20 sites that go after easy niches, I can all but guarantee that some of them are going to work. Each one will cost you $10 for the domain and the total hosting cost will be $8 per month if you use Host Gator.
Guys I could tell you that it’s ok to use Blogger for making money online. Griz does this and does it well. I don’t do that myself because I see my sites as real estate investments and I can’t really sell them if I don’t own them. My best three sites together could be sold for about $500,000 right now and selling for that price within about two weeks is pretty realistic. I have no problem with Blogger at all but the sale wouldn’t be an option if I had started those three sites on Blogger. To me it’s a little easier to run things with a business-like perspective if I own all of the properties and it’s that simple to me. With $8 per month hosting that you can run unlimited domains on, I find it hard to believe that anyone can’t find a way to make that investment. I spend at least $20 per month on Mountain Dew and I would be shocked if a single one of you couldn’t free up $8 per month.
8. Work with persistence. I’ve met a lot of people that are making money online and the ones that are making big money could never be forced to quit no matter what. They work until they win. The problem with most of the people that I’ve met is that they seem to believe for some reason that reading/researching is working. It most certainly isn’t.
People make it because they enjoy the chase and are willing to pay the price. I can admit that for me it wasn’t always as easy as it is now, but in all honestly I love trying to find topics/niches/keywords that I can make money with. I’ll spend all freaking day doing it, and I’ll like it.
For a long time I thought that what I wanted was to hit it big and stop working but I’ve realized that for me that isn’t at all the case. As it turns out, this work is really fulfilling and exciting for me and I don’t think I could walk away from it if I tried. Sure it will be nice to have some big payoffs at some point but I can almost guarantee that two days after I sold every site I had I would be plotting to set up some new ones.
At this point I know with a certainty that I can make sites work. Sure, sometimes they don’t work out how I planned but for every 10 sites I set up, at least a few will do quite well. I’ll persist until some start to take off better than others and I’ll then focus on the ones that are doing well. I repeat this again and again and have lately started to shortcut the process somewhat by buying sites that are already producing. Please keep in mind that for me this is a recent development and that most of by business has been built up the hard way – from scratch. I owe almost all of my very healthy income to working with persistence, often WAY before the payoffs came.
When I started CourtneyTuttle.com I had a blind belief that I could make it work. I honestly didn’t know how it would happen but I continued to work believing that I could do it somehow. The story is pretty funny because I started out with a solid knowledge of SEO and for a while I got enticed by some of the other social sources that are out there. I chased those for a while and found out that even when that traffic comes, it’s very hard to make money from. About a year later I figured out that I had to go right back to my roots, which is getting ranked in Google. As soon as I did that I started to make legit money with the site. There are two morals to that story, first that Google traffic is king and second that if you have supreme persistence, you will eventually win the day.
Making money with the internet isn’t the easiest thing ever to learn, but it isn’t rocket science either. Chances are, many of you know enough now to be able to do really well. My offline friends are a lot more willing to follow my advice because they have seen what I have done and they haven’t been corrupted by thousands of blog posts. Since they act instead of wasting all of their time, most of them do a lot better than most people that read my sites. Interesting, isn’t it?
I find it interesting that brand new people can read our keyword crash course ebook and make a lot of money with it while so-called experienced people don’t. Obviously this is 100% mental – the more you learn, the more you think you don’t know. This paralyzes you and unless you can recognize it you’ll become an indefinite lurker. Don’t continue down that path.
You know what to do. It’s time to stop reading and start acting.
Tags: making money, making money on the internet, making money online
Court,
If you wanted to talk to me you could have emailed me and kept it private.
I totally have been exactly where you are talking about. Now I am finally starting to make blogs totally away from the Make Money Online blogs. It is hard though because this is all I have been consumed with for the past three years.
I have all the knowledge I need for now to make money but I have so lacked the ability to figure out finding the right keywords. Now it doesn’t matter. As Griz says “through some mud at the wall and see what sticks”. Now I am doing exactly that and tracking my results to see what people are really looking for.
I now have a ton of domains I know will never make me money on the internet no matter how long I work at them.
It has been over a year since I found you “three musketeers” and you will never know how grateful I am.
I can’t wait for the day to announce that I can fully support myself from my internet business. You can bet I will be shouting. “IT CAN BE DONE!!!!!!”
Lol Denise that’s great! It means a lot that I have helped you in some way and I hope sincerely that you find success with everything you do.
thanks a lot for this fast and easy way of getting info especially for a starter like me. Great help..www.sabetsu.com
Damn, I hate you Court. I hate you because you’re so brutal honest – and you’re right. I am in a situation like Denise and currently trying to empty my head with all the negative “you learnt so much but can’t make money from it” mindset.
It can get quite frustrating if you can’t see even a small bit of success (and no I am not trying to whine here) as I take action more then I actually could affort. So what I am looking for is something like a mentor. Someone who drills my mind into the right attitude (as I mean I really has this passion for this kind of market). So if you ever, ever should offer something like mentoring let me know, please.
Don’t worry Manuel I hate me too.
I really think that you can get things turned around, you’re probably a lot closer than you think you are to making some good money.
Taking a few minutes out of my day of “acting” just to let you know that coming across your site last year was pivotal in my journey to actually make money from my online activity. I actually read your emails and genuinely respect the quality of information you have provided to your readers.
Thank you again for another really pointed and relevant post.
Wow thanks Kathy that really means a lot to me. I honestly try to do the best I can and I hope that I’m helping somehow.
This post was so good Court that I decided to name my new cat after you. His name is Tuttle.
Not to creep you out or anything. LOL Anyway, he was a stray cat that appeared on our back porch a couple weeks ago. Couple days later he showed up again with his brother and now they both won’t leave. The day he showed up was also the same day that I signed up for your Keyword Crash Course. Haven’t decided on a name for the second cat yet. Maybe we should call him Butler? 
Thanks again for the great post–I’m off to work on some content for my KCC blogs now . . .
Nice Amanda that’s definitely a first for me! Lol I’m speechless.
While I agree that social media traffic is basically useless if you’re trying to sell products or get ad clicks, it can have excellent value for link building. My website and blog are in a very competitive niche that I would never be able to attract significant search engine to by just simply putting up a portfolio site like many designers. But with a blog and social media I’ve been able to build decent links and now I get what I consider to be a very good amount of search traffic (which is where most of my clients come from). Social media marketing can have huge benefits if it’s used properly.
Steven I definitely agree with that. The problem is that you are also exceptionally talented and not everyone is. You’ll do better with almost everything and yes, for you social media will generate some extra links and if you use proper titles you’ll get some that benefit you a lot.
What would be interesting Steven is seeing what would happen if you used the blog without all of the social stuff. I definitely get a lot of benefit from Social media but am quite anti-social. I don’t spend 5 minutes per month doing social media related activities. Just a thought.
I’m not very active on social media sites anymore. I still use them for a few minutes a day, but that’s it. At this point I have an audience that includes a lot of social media users so I get the benefit of traffic (like you do). That said, I do take social media users into consideration when developing content.
I do agree that social media marketing is a waste of time for many people that attempt it, because their efforts are scattered or inconsistent.
Well, I could get to work if Griz would stop posting on his adsense blog
On the serious side, I think if anyone took griz’ last post on his new adsense blog, your 5 posts on how to do your method of websites, and your linking webinar they could make a successful go of it. So 6 posts and learning to link. So simple it defies belief. I think that is why people, including myself, think there just has to be more to it.
I am an example of one of those book smart people who knows too much that they become dangerous for their own good, so I simply need to take more action and build sites. I have done the keyword research, just gotta put the content out and then link build.
I did do an experiment on the “one” site I have adsense on. I find that you are right about updating. Outside of a small amount of linkbuilding, i’ve done absolutely nothing to the site, and my adsense is poised for my biggest month ever. So, it seems to me thanks to you, Mark, and Griz I have it mostly figured out, I just gotta get off my rear end and duplicate it.
Court/Mark,
One last thing. I hereby publicly set myself to task. Outside of figuring out how to work Unique Article Wizard through your video after I buy through your affiliate link, (I promise I will buy with my next paycheck, I had to put $2000 into my car in the past 3 weeks, arrggh), I hereby promise not to comment on either your site or griz’ until I have at least 10 money sites up and running, indexed, and the linking process started. My goal is to do this in the next 4-6 weeks.
Okay, I know I’m an addict now. I can feel the withdrawal symptoms already
Do it Medic! That’s what I want to hear.
Nice timing. I get a little lazy sometimes. Anyway, I’m about half way through getting my first couple of niche sites running. I just need to write and submit a few articles. So what have I been doing for the past few days? Nothing really, chilling around the house watching movies with my son. LOL
You know Christy almost everyone gets a little lazy. We just have to make sure that we’re keeping up with our goals. There’s definitely nothing wrong with watching movies with your son. That’s more important than anything.
Hey Court and Mark,
For the record I wouldn’t be reading any blogs if not for yours. Amen to everything you just said and funny that you have the same answer as me when asked “who did you learn from?”. Nobody – I learned like you did – trial and error. Since I can’t steal your post I’ll just have to send a few people over to read this.
Griz as always, it’s great to have your thoughts. As you know, trial and error is the only way to learn anything like this with true conviction. I honestly don’t care what other people write and I get the feeling that you’re the same way. What you do obviously works so why would you take the word of guys that have all the leverage in the world and no rankings.
Honestly Griz some of those guys are unbelievable. I took a look at some of the big blogs in the last few weeks and it’s seriously embarrassing when you look at the rankings they have. Lol there are PR6 sites that can’t rank for anything and I just feel bad that there are so many people listening to their every word.
You on the other hand rule and I have nothing but respect for what you do.
Ha! I was just thinking the same thing the other day about people asking the right way to do things. The only right way is to do it all and see what happens.
Once you’ve seen what happens, you KNOW and there’s no theory any more. Well said Fiar.
One of the best make money online posts I have ever read! This sucker is made of pure gold and lined with diamonds! Between you and Griz there really is no need to look anywhere else for MMO information and definitely no need to ever pay for it.
Thanks Trent that means a lot!!
wow, Court, right on!
I have 25 money sites now and most are cashing in because I am just lucky or smart or both, but it ain’t cuz I researched. I just focused on crap in my own life figuring other people had the same crap in their lives, and it worked.
I also feed off the competition. If I am attacking a niche and there are 5 sites above me, I focus on beating them and get a thrill when I overtake them. THAT is a rush!
I started a social site too just for the hell of it, but it will never make money. It’s just an ego thing.
Great stuff man, you rock!
AL
Allyn that’s great – so smart to have 25 money sites and they’ll just keep getting better the more you put into them.
Dude, this is awesome. I can’t say I’ve been over here, but Allyn pointed it out to me and I loved everything you said. I just recommended one of my friends to Griz sites a month ago and he was blown away.
You’re right, you just have to do it…you don’t have to get it right, most times you won’t…but as long as you’re moving forward and not just reading all the time, you’ll start seeing some success.
Great list, great points…and keep it going.
Hey Joe! Happy you have you stop in! Let us know if there’s anything that we can do to help you out.
Best post of 2009. You said it all.
Well… I don’t know about that but I hope that it helped some people!
Hi Court/Mark and Griz where ever you are.
I started blogging 15 months ago. I only read you three guys. I have 10 blogs so far and a regular website. I work at it seven days a week and thoroughly enjoy it. My first blog (music related, Griz knows of it) is in a niche that I have been fighting to move up in the serp’s with key words that brought 90,000 searches last month according to Google key word tool. I’m at #14 right now but still only get 100+- visits per day. 90,000 per month seems like a pretty good number to me and I wonder why I don’t get more traffic than 100 per day being on top of page two for the time being at Google. Any thoughts on the gap? I’m chasing that elusive 1000 per day and hope that I’m almost there. Thanks, Ben
That gap actually sounds about right Ben. Page 2 is WAY different than page 1 and the top of page 1 is way different than the bottom. Keep working up and it sounds like you’ll have something pretty close to what you’ve planned on.
great post court! i agree with trent. there are only two blogs that i need to read, griz and court. didn’t realize that griz made 35k a month. or that you could sell off three of ur sites for 500k. can’t prove it, but pretty amazing if it’s true. keep the quality posts coming!
Griz actually made over $36000 in profit last month from his network and the coolest thing about it is that his success can be duplicated by a lot of people.
In all honesty I think we could get more for those sites because of their income but like you said – it’s pretty hard to prove that until you’ve done it.
I have been reading your posts via RSS. I was skeptical the first time I read I needed to stop reading other blogs on MMO. With this post, you’ve convinced me. I got your free The Keyword Crash Course, went through it quickly… I can implement everything you said. Let’s see how it goes. Thanks Court!
Vinh thanks for your thoughts. It’s funny but I honestly believe that most MMO sites will do more harm than good for most people.
Court, that was a truly righteous rant. I’ve been a teacher for 20 years and I can’t get my students to learn anything by reading unless it’s shorter than one paragraph. They want me to spoon feed them the magic five steps and abracadabra, they get an A. They remind me of the people here and at Griz’s blogs who sail in, read a few paragraphs, ask questions that were already answered in yesterday’s post (that they didn’t bother to read), and buzz on to some other experts’ blog and do the same thing. Hellooo? You need to READ. How do you expect to make a living writing if you don’t read (or spend the money to hire someone to write for you)?
Others have analysis paralysis, and I was stuck there for six months before I found Griz’s MMOB blog on December 24 2008. To be fair, I had good reason to be paralyzed while I was stuck in social blogger mode: I instinctively knew that what I was doing wasn’t going to work, no matter what the social gurus were telling me. When I found your style of making money online, something clicked and I couldn’t wait to get started. I don’t have any problem spending money to make money, which has helped.
Since my free phone consult with Mark in early January, I’ve found 25 niches, registered 12 of them as domains, built three of them into Wordpress sites, built three supporting Blogger blogs, signed up for Connect Content and Unique Article Wizard, submitted one article, bought SEO Elite to check my competitors’ backlinks, and dug up a nine-year-old domain I hadn’t touched in years that’s still indexed and has a PR2. I also spent two nights building a simple one-product affiliate site and ran an AdWords campaign on it. I’ve grossed $55 in sales for $15 in CPC expenses this month and I now see exactly how AdSense works.
Total expenses for my SEO sites project so far are running around $300, and I’ll spend more before I get my first AdSense check. I can’t get enough of this stuff–I’m like a crazy woman. I get home from work, sit down at the computer, and go at it till 1 or 2 a.m. I’m neglecting sleep, exercise, and my social life right now but once I get my sites built I’ll catch up. My job ends sometime this summer and I live in Michigan, so I have some extra motivation there.
Back to work. Thanks for all that you and Mark have done to help me. When this pays off, I’ll you guys and Griz to thank.
Hey Lorecee–I live in Michigan too! Would love to chat with you sometime about our obsession with building SEO sites. I’m in the process of setting up 10 sites right now based on Mark and Court’s Keyword Crash Course. I have a contact page setup on my blog if you’d like to get in touch.
Wow Lorecee is sounds like you’re well on your way to doing great with this. Honestly that’s what it takes to get things going and I would be shocked if you didn’t get to exactly where you want to be. I love it!
Wow, powerful post.
This has got to be the most brutal and straightforward tips that I have read, Vic notwithstanding, because he makes it even more brutal. LOL.
Totally agree and more with your tips, though I am still addicted to reading blogs. Maybe I should also take the brutal way out by deleting all my other feed subscriptions. Buthen I sometimes gets a kick out of reading all their “theories”.
Good Post Court. Thanks.
Yeah Costa Vic has a gift for laying things out in the most brutal fashion imaginable lol. You gotta love that guy!
Thanks Amanda: I’ll give your contact a try soon. Can’t beat that 10%+ unemployment can we?
Court and Mark,
I am smiling at this post. I am one of the lucky ones, I suppose. I am 60 years old and didn’t know my butt from third base about making money online. I signed up for the course you guys offer immediately after talking to Mark (January 22 sign up date).
My first site went up January 26th. I now have ten new sites. That was my goal through February. I also have a couple of older sites that I enjoyed keeping up, but was not making any money to speak of with them. (Mark can vouch for that.)
I can honestly tell you that if March equals February in AdSense income I will have paid for the course in full. I know that may not be all that impressive, with all these $1000 – $35000 monthly incomes. But, I will get there.
Perhaps, I just hate reading hype and BS online so I don’t read blogs, etc. A friend originally sent me a link to Court’s site. I bookmarked it on my homepage and one of your titles interested me. I would read occasionally. I didn’t even know what a keyword was! And, I still get a little lost from time to time.
But, I follow the videos to the “T” and do exactly what Mark told me to do each of the two times we have talked on the phone. After reading some of these posts, I have to smile.
You see, I am too ignorant to fail! I don’t have to think at all. I just follow the steps each time I set up a site. Sometimes ignorance is bliss, I suppose. But, if a 60 year old who didn’t know what a keyword was in December can earn $300 dollars in February…
You guys are the greatest. Thanks for the KISS (keep it simple stupid), Mark.
SinDe
Hey SinDe!!! Wow I’m so happy to hear that things are going well for you. You’re doing the right thing in just digging in and getting stuff done. Bravo.
Ouch!
You certainly kicked me in the %utt with this post, Court.
In many instances, just a pat in the back will not be enough to get people moving from the top of the fence.
This post is by far the best motivating force I had for myself to get my mindset steered into the right direction. I believe it will be for many others who are just or are already in this game called make money online.
Thanks Court.
Hi Court,
Just wanted to say a few things. One, nice to meet (sort of) a like minded individual. Seems you and I both learn best the same way – by doing things. You fall but get back up and make sure you learn from it so you hopefully don’t do it again.
You’re on with social media kind of being a waste of time, but I have found it to be useful. The important thing is learning when to turn it on and off. It can be a major time sucking distraction. But I also agree with some comments that the back-links and credibility you can build across your niche with other sites, etc can sometimes be just as valuable as, if not more than, organic search traffic.
Unfortunately, I am an information addict. It’s in my personality, but I can’t allow that to be an excuse. The biggest battle I am going through right now with personal and business life is the need for better time management. Although, I can say that info addiction sometimes works in my favor because keyword research and all that “fun” stuff kind of feeds that monster
But definitely need to better manage when to turn the info magnet on and off.
I just found your blog very recently and had been taking action prior to (although not as much lately). I’ve been distracted lately with reading too many blogs, something I never did, and you hit right on with not needing to. Most aren’t making me money – action was, the one thing I slowed down doing. Total no brainer, thanks for helping me to realize that. One thing I have discovered is publishing online/blogging and making money online is a lot more time consuming than I originally anticipated. But I see the income growing daily, weekly, monthly, so it keeps me motivated and feels like it pays off. I want to find a way to measure hours and dollars made (you know, per hour) just for the fun of it on one site. I figure, even if it takes me 5, 10, 15 years to create a “supplemental” income from home (although, I highly doubt it will), it’s better than working for someone else.
It’s also great to see someone else that agrees with me that you don’t have to always post. I have content that’s been online for over a year that still gets organic search traffic (varies monthly) and I haven’t touched since publishing it.
Thanks for sharing.
What is the rule of thumb to create a blogspot blog in 2 weeks. I want to do article submission, directory submission, social bookmarking and commenting on other blogs in 2 weeks. I plan of having only 3 post on the blog.
I am asking this because I am scared Uncle Google would ban my blog because it is new and it is having many backlinks in 2 weeks.
Damilik, wy are you scared? You have a blogspot site that cost you zero dollars to establish. You plan on only having 3 posts on it. What’s that? An hour of your time?
Screw the damn site. That’s exactly what Court is talking about. Just build. Spam the hell out of it and see what happens. Otherwise, 12 weeks from now, you will be groaning about how careful you were and Big Mama G still put your blogger blog in the no fun zone, and you’re not getting anywhere when you could have built 17 more site in the meantime.
If you’re building a flagship with a great domain, then you do the same thing I just said, but point all those links at less valuable supporting sites. Then you are pointing “good” links at the flagship.
But you’re talking about a 3 freaking post blogger blog. Get on with it already.
You know what I just did? I made a blog at uberjournal.com. I set it up to accept articles through AMA and then I’m going to use UAW to go full distribution to point at the domain? Why? To see what happens.
At this point the site has cost me $0 and 10 minutes of time. Why would it even matter if it gets slapped? I don’t even care. So the downside is I may have wasted the same amount of time I wasted commenting here, and the upside is a valuable linking resource for a flagship I built.
Everyone. This is what Griz, Vic, Mark, and Court are trying to get across to you. Just do things. See what happens. Learn. Stop trying to do it all perfect and do it. Your sites are not that important. You are not the owners of some major corporate entity that if it goes down, you will lose your house, business, and everything. You lose a few bucks and a few hours. SO F-ing WHAT?
But you don’t have unique content. I want to have unique contents and backlinks. I want only 3 blog post because i would spend my time building links to the blog. I would put an affiliate program on the site. After 2 weeks, I would abandon the blog and go to the next one.
If I can rank the 2 week blog for a keyword and it has a PR that would be great in linking to my main blog than having a blogspot with duplicated contents and no PR.
Freakin-A.
Best post I’ve read in a year, hands down.
Thank you for not pulling any punches. Now it’s back to work for me.
Speechless. But I’m going to find some words beyond “thank you!” anyway…
It’s been said by many already, but I have to add to it; what a fantastic post, and thank you for speaking directly to what I needed to hear. Apparently I’m not alone. I am, however, very new at this and have gotten completely hung up in the reading, learning, researching and trying to understand phase. I know I still have a *LOT* of questions, and I know there is a LOT of good content to read between you and Griz (who led me here), but I NEED to take some action, take my lumps, and own this knowledge rather than just borrowing it from you all.
Man, I wish I had found you a few months ago when I had a lot of time on my hands. Now, I have a ‘job’ and I have to struggle to get a bit of time here and there to dig in to this new world. I am not complaining really, as I realize that having a job today is a rather fortunate position to be in in a lot of ways. Still, I see ‘this’ (MMO) as a lifeline and a ray of hope to hold on to so as not to feel too indebted or reliant on my employer.
I believe you Court when you say, even if you cashed out of everything and had a FAT bank account, you’d be back at this because it here, it’s do-able, and it’s fun.
I’m rambling… (I told you I would find some words!) In short, thank you. I WILL take action, but… I know I will be back here and to visit Griz too, I’ll just cut out all the other crap to free up some more productive time.
You guys rock. Keep it up.
)
the MexiKen
its like a wake up call, and yes i do read alot of feed, MMO related, im so doomed. lol
thx
I can’t decide whether to frame this post, or have it tattooed on my butt. I think I’ll go with the framing, now I think about it.
Fantastic post, speaking directly to me.
My adsense account now shows:
Page impressions (mostly me) = 629
Earnings = $1.66
I started my site in August 2008.
I really still have no idea what I’m doing.
After reading your post, I now know that I have to stop feeling sorry for myself and I need to stop reading and start working.
Procrastination is the worst enemy of the serious blogger. I have had to ‘kick out’ a lot of blogs that were appearing in my google reader because I would spend all day looking at them. Tons of useful info of course but simply not enough hours in the day to read them and try and make a living as well.
Great post, Court!
One thing I always get stuck on is how to monetize some wacky little niche (yes, I have the analysis paralysis!) To use your example of the tiny food niche, how are you planning to make money with that? I know that each niche is different, but anything that helps point in the right direction for monetizing oddball subjects is great.
For example, say you find a niche of “ramen noodles” that is under-served. How in the world do you monetize that? Some of these really strange things seem like I can only find Amazon type links, and as you know, those don’t pay much at all.
I’ll monetize with Adsense Mike. I get a little unsure why people always want eight thousands monetization methods. If you do the testing you’ll find that as long as your traffic is search traffic, Adsense will do better than almost anything.
If there aren’t people paying for ads in Adsense, I won’t have the site in the first place.
Hey Court!
Great Article!
$8.00 a month is a low price to pay for freedom.
It’s really easy for new people trying to make money online to read, read, and read some more. Fear of failure is so real because most people have been taught that failure is a bad thing. Well it is not a bad thing, it’s actually a good thing. Failure teaches the lessons that impact a person the most due to the fact that your failure is connected to an action. Bingo… oops… I won’t do that again!
Also, information without action is entertainment. Action is a mindset that a person must develop if any type of goal is to be reached.
A multi-millionaire once told me that he had 8 business failures until he finally got it right. I was in my early 20s and was blown-away by that fact. This millionaire also said the average for successful millionaires is 5.
Who knows!
But you are right. Start doing something NOW.
Action is the starting point and failure is the education.
Test, Test, and Test some more.
Again Great Post.
Well Court,
I only read two blogs yours and Grizz and typically comment on only one blog. Your post pretty much described me. However, I had already planned to take action for 2009. Maybe afer I “throw some mud” I will jump into your keyword academy. I also support buying domains. Now if I could learn a little more about wordpress for my hosting.
Michigan,
I am the old lady in the group… age 60. I’m sure you are much more knowledgable about all this than I was. I didn’t know what a “keyword” was, at least not how to take advantage of them. I have a couple of self-hosted WP blogs, one with over 3,000 backlinks but I was not making money and had no page rank to speak of. (Mark can attest to this.)
After talking to Mark… free consultation… I bought into the course, something I never thought I would do. I had been “throwing mud” as you say, and had spent hundreds of dollars doing so with no results, trying to re-invent the wheel because I didn’t trust all these “get rich quick” guru schemes that fill my spam box. A friend turned me onto Mark and Court. I don’t read blogs, etc. usually. But, once I talked to Mark I took the plunge. If my trends continue, I will have earned back all the money I have invested in the course by next month, and if the trend line continues I will have recouped all my investments in domains, hosting, etc. by the end of April. I can never recover my wasted time.
If you are stumbling along as I was, and I know this is an old lady giving advice that is unsolicited, join the course first… then throw the mud. It will save time and frustration, and make you some money. All I can say is that my first $20 day with AdSemse excited the hell out of me!
SinDe
Join the course first…then throw the mud. I will wholeheartedly second that opinion!! I also agree that we can never recover the time we wasted spinning our wheels. I’m looking forward to my first $20 Adsense day. Heck–$2 got me giddy!
Ha!
Almost all of my online time is spent on my own sites: 10 so far, each with 1-2 articles, each with a squidoo lens pointing to it, and 1 article waiting to go to EZA. I read your posts when I first see them and forget to come back to read comments (I DO need to make time for this). On to blogger for more manual backlinks. Once I have at least 5 posts for each site I’ll grab UAW for tons of backlinks.
Buddy
I’ve been reading Grizz and his new blog over at today.com. I have three sites on domains I own, a blogger blog, working on my first HubPage, and my first today.com blog.
The info you guys give is great and motivating. I’ve been doing this for myself since June. So far the Adsense pays for my hosting and then some Starbuc mochas. Not too bad.
I have another site for a company that work for that does quite well, so I know I can do it.
People, you can too. Just start.
Well, I’m glad to see you gave *some* credit for your success to that $20/month worth of Mountain Dew. Never underestimate the power of caffeine!
Seriously, the points you make here are SPOT ON. I don’t even want to know how much time I’ve spent over the past couple of years reading info, saving info, organizing info, watching videos, taking notes, organizing the notes, etc. While I’ve enjoyed and benefited from learning about persuasion, design and various other online marketing considerations, a good amount of time was also wasted wading through hype, ego and 32 flavors of snake oil.
The info you (and Mark and Griz) share provides a MUCH easier path to MMO. While I don’t often take the time to express it, your (collective) intelligence, eloquence, humor, honesty and generosity are very much appreciated. Mahalo ihi (respectful thanks)!
Why Court, I do believe your BRUTALITY here has qualified you for The 2009 Humanitarian Award!
The amount of human pain and suffering these 7-Tips can prevent is unquantifiable. This is one of your best posts ever; distilling the essence and articulating the sum total of your wisdom-to-date quite eloquently.
I often think of Russell Crowe in ‘A BEAUTIFUL MIND’ – and how we all too often drown in our (and others) permutations, variables, theories, stats… And madness.
Here, in this post you simply nailed it: 1 x 7 = Infinite Potential Earnings
Court
Hey I have recently started building niche sites. In fact I currently have 13 blogs all set up with 60 posts to post twice a week on 10. I am working on the other 3 blogs to set them up with 60 posts as well.
I have a blogger, free wordpress blog, squidoo and hubpage all pointing back to my main wordpress blog.
The oldest blog is around 4 months old. My income goal is to earn $3000 per month; so that I can pay all my bills and work at this full time.
I do some marketing; with UAW and some article marketing; my question is should I keep building blogs or focus more on marketing. I am not really that great at marketing a blog; and not sure of other methods to use for marketing.
I have also commented on some other blogs and yahoo answers and submitted to web directories.
I was setting up a new blog each and every week; however I have slowed down because I tend to believe that I should be making more money and was wondering if I was doing something wrong?
How long does it take for a site to begin taking off and begin making real money?
Court:
I was referred here through Griz’s site.
yet, ironically through my own trial and error.
Funny how you both learned through trial and error; yet ironically learn from each other too… (reciprocation)That’s what I am learning from both of you…
I’ve employed some key word techniques and actually got some real good results — held the top of the page in Google for a few days with “how to make money in home pet care”. My shortcoming is finding [t]he niche that captivates people’s attention and gets some traffic! I’m going to employ your advise and check out Sitepoint to see what I can conjure up there.
Oh! By the way, I thought I’d share a helpful tip — “if” your not already aware of it? I used a craigslist ad to promote my business services and the ad is actually second on the list in my Google search for the specific, yet very general term…
Thanks for the great post! Because of all the time consuming things I got in the habit of doing like reading other people’s blogs and participating in forums, I downloaded a project manager type software to schedule everything! So all the reading and other things I normally do I’ll have to squeeze in once a week for an hour. The rest would be spent on creating sites and getting backlinks for them.
Okay, time’s up – I’ll stop reading now! Until next time…
Was not expecting to be hooked because I was Stumbling, but you really hit the nail on the head about what WORK is, because it truly isn’t research. I am an artist, and never actually expected to make money off my website–it’s a simple portfolio right now, though you have made me think about it being more than that. The important thing, however is to create the WORK and not just write about it, or think about it or talk about it. Your attitude is a great reality check, because most of my peers are dreamers like me. The successful ones make inventory! I intend to go back into my code and do some serious WORK on my keywords and finish something today in tribute!
Great article.. i am building a website catering to website owners and would like to know if i may repost this article.
Hey court/mark,
This post is so DARN good I made it a PDF and print it out.
I will read it each time I get distracted. Time to get down and dirty.
Thank you,
Ryan Tiong
I did something similar. I printed it out. The post is a whooping 6pages on how to quit reading theory and get working Making Money Online
Lets just say that i’m commenting on this article because i can particularly relate to what you’ve said about getting obsessed with reading theory, but just about everything ive read on this site over several months now is good sense. what i’ve read here has pre-empted me from reading up elsewhere on making money online.
thanks for all the free advice, and keep it coming!
Hi Cort,
I am trying the $1 trial and so far am blown away with the quality of the information.
The URL above is a site I created with Ken Evoy’s SBI! a couple of years ago. I add stuff to it once in a while and this month I had my biggest month so far – a whopping $8.97, all from Adsense.
I also have 51 Wordpress blogs in a variety of micro niches, like http://www.gettingridofwoodpeckers.com/ which is on the first page of Google for the keyword getting rid of woodpeckrs. I have no adsense on this site yet, just Amazon product ads for products to get rid of woodpeckers. It has one main page and 5 posts. It is number 6 on page 1 of Google for the keyword “getting rid of woodpeckers”.
The avg CPC for the woodpeckers keyword is only $1.16.
According to cPanel, it got over 1,000 uniques in March 2009 with over 20K hits.
I now must read about how to build links. I have no links. Is SEO Elite any good for building links?
I have a copy of Website Content Wizard which I think is a better choice for building content than most of the article spinners which incur monthly charges. I have tried the one you mention, but I didn’t like it.
Thanks for the awesome info – keep it coming.
Man, you’re too blunt! But I guess that is the language too many need to get off the wrong path.
For over a year, I labored running around the social networks trying to hit it big. But I recently realized that it is all a mirage.
If at all you make it big (burning the candle at both end) you will need to keep up spending the same amount of energy and effort (or more) to maintain the social traffic.
Unfortunately, like you rightly pointed out, it is all a big WASTE! Social Traffic does not make anyone rich online! You really brought it home in this post.
I had reduced the number of blogs that I read already, but I guess I need to reduce it further. I have started a new blog beside the main blog I had all this while.
thanks for talking some sense into me through this post. Cheers.
Mountain dew? That stuff is killing me too. I am addicted to mt dew. I drink it every day and I think that I have to stop drinking it or reduce the amount I consume..waay to much caffeine..and teeth!! kidney problems!
Hi all – literally just ordered this kit for Adsense for about $1 and change. I’m REALLY hoping this works. I work in the IT industry – software integration – and I always thought this stuff was a scam……trying to convince myself its not. But I thought it was worth a try. I got married 6 months ago and took out a 2nd on my house to help pay for the wedding………and now they have cut everyone’s pay at my firm due to the economy. Times are tough – and I would like to do something to get my debt down. My goal is to deal in cash only and increase my savings for retirement. Sounds like there is hope.
Hello everyone,
I am here on Griz’s recommendation, on the $1 for the first month scholarship.
I have been reading Griz’s blog for months and months now, and luckily for me…didn’t venture out and get confused by the other blogs/sites on MMO. However, I also didn’t do anything that Griz said either…until recently. I just read and read and dreamed about what I would do with all that money if I ever actually made it.
The funny thing is…I have been making the majority of my income from writing content for other websites for quite a while now. I was telling one of my clients about my blog recently and he advised me to use social traffic to get my sites making money. I thought about that, and thought about what Griz has been telling me for the past few months and kind of laughed to myself. I wonder if one day, I’ll be making more money than my client does.
So I started my first blog a few weeks ago. I joined this site, and I just signed up for hostgator and plan to spend some money on domains soon. Being able to sell domains if I want later on makes perfect sense. My blog has a few entries and a few backlinks from Griz’s network and I plan to join connect content soon as well.
I also plan on watching the video series soon. I can’t atm, because my stupid piece of crap computer won’t play video, and I haven’t been able to win a fairly priced bid on ebay to get a decent one yet lol. Anyway, I think I am following the right steps for my goals of making money online, which currently are to figure out how to get a site to make $30 a month…then $300…then build lots of sites. When I am making around $1500mo I will stop writing for others and work on my sites full time.
The one thing that I have been unable to figure out is how to see where my sites rank for a certain group of keywords on ggl, so that I can see how my backlink efforts are advancing my site up the SERPs. I initially tried WP Gold (hey! I didn’t know!) and Ggl cracked me on the head for it, making me type in a word verification for every search for a few days. Now I am scared of everything that promises to show me my ranking..maybe someone can help.
I hope that no one minds the this noob (me) wrote such a long post but I thought I would introduce myself to the community and tell a little bit about my beginning efforts. Who knows…maybe one day they will tell stories about my success….with some kind of introduction like “I remember when Jonas posted his first comment.” Okay, probably not..but a guy can dream can’t he? Anyway, thanks Courtney, Mark and especially Griz for this opportunity to learn from you guys and eventually make money.
A Whoo hoo update!
I just won a computer on Ebay! I will be able to watch the videos soon. Yay!
Court,
I am interested in taking the crash course. Can you make money on these niche sites exceeding what you spend on the domain and web hosting which you said is $18?
I was woundering how much time and investment $$ required to make a
full-time income of lets say $2000/month? Thanks.
Court, my man,
This is easily the best post ever written on how to become successful in internet marketing.
Like you said, I “know” a lot of stuff, and it’s going to serve me well…. but if I was just doing everything explained in this post… it already would be.
Killer post.
LOVE the brutal honesty. I’ve been working in SEO for years and was recently laid off. It’s time to get my sites going, I’ve already got about 10 and your post is exactly what I needed to hear to get my butt in gear….!
Tired of all of the over-obsessive crap about how Google works, reading blogs, forums, and useless information and Top 10 lists… it’s easy to fall into that trap when you’re doing it full-time. What works is implementation!
Look forward to reading your keyword crash course…Best regards.
I think you’re the best! your book keyword crash course, is the best ebook on internet marketing i’ve ever read. THANK YOU for all of your motivational posts. God bless you.
Court, as far a links, even though digg and these social sites traffic is not good for this purpose, doesn’t the link have value?
Thanks..
I agree with you totally. I have noticed that grizzly at rarely updates his blog but it still continues to rank high in the search engines. It’s obvious you guys know what you are talking about. Keep up the good work.
Quite an eye opening article – for sure I will read other posts!
Hello Court!
Right On! I have yet to make much money online… a little here a little there…AND I think I picked the HARD way every time.
Once, in 2007 I started a website that was geared to the Make Money Online For Beginners market. Heck..I didn’t know anything! Except for what I was learning along the way.
I had a website, I had an opt in page, I had a list, I had 30 or 40 autoresponder messages, I had several affiliate products, and I wrote about fifty articles!
I had interaction with my list and customers and I learned a TON about the mechanics and nature of things online.
But I didn’t know how to make money! So I was really incapable of helping anybody unless it was limited to “how to set up an opt-in page” or “what to consider when picking a domain name”.
Not to be deterred I had what has turned out to be a fairly good idea. I would start a Wordpress blog, and I would blog about LEARNING about Internet Marketing, build a list, and offer a few products for sale.
It’s been a REAL learning experience for both me and some of my readers…AND I sold a few things but never any great traffic, I grind along at about 20 per day avg.
So, I was always wondering why I had so little traffic.
Now…I KNOW why I had so little traffic! I wasn’t targeting worthwhile keywords!
Now, since I know how to find keywords I can rank for, I think I’m finally going to be able to put offers into niches where I can make some money.
Last night I found a keyword that has everything. CPC $2. Searches over 7000/mo (exact match), in the Weight Loss market and three ZERO’S in the top 4 positions for that keyword…man..I’m ON it!
Thanks for showing me the missing piece to my puzzle.
Now, if you’d tell me how to contact you, I’d appreciate it.
I haven’t been able to access the forums because I keep running into ERROR>>>DATABASE type stoppages.
And I have questions about the affiliate program.
Thank you,
Riley West – An Internet Marketer In The Making.
riley@rwestdotcom.com or rwestpnw@comcast.net
Hello!
I just wrote a lengthy comment, full of pithy observations.
I hit add comment and it DISAPPEARED!
Does this happen to you guys?
Thank you,
Riley West
Hey guys
Got a quick question. A lot of the info on here is very relevant and making me think this is exactly what i need to get into internet marketing…knowledgeable people/mentors to be able to rely on for help and guidance.
My question is can pay the $1 and monthly payments with an unverified paypal account? Waiting for an answer,for the moment that will dictate whether i can sign up or not.
Thanks
court: tried to subscribe/paypal rejects/something it doesn’t like.
please reply.
charlie cashion
I know you wrote one should not read too many blogs – but I had to add this one as this post is just great.
Just one thing – how long did it take you to write this post? I mean this is really some large piece of work.
Br,
Andreas
Hello Court,
Hmmm… this is the first time i’m reading a post as blunt and different as this. I had to read it twice, the second time concentrating more than the first.
You are very right about a lot of things. I for one procrastinated alot before creating my blog, i felt i needed more knowledge, and the more knowledge i got the more confused i became. Even up till date i still seek knowledge whereas i have bought some materials that explained some good ways to make money.But i havent really acted on them.
However,i find what you said about google traffic very interesting and i should be jubilating that i do not have to update my blog everytime (really puts me on edge), but can one really depend on google traffic alone? No matter how good we all are in SEO, truth is everyone can’t appear on the first page of google search and the farther most google visitors go is second page after that they are out. So no matter how we try, some of our blogs might never appear on google’s first page and if it doesnt, what then? how do we get traffic to our blogs? I’m a very realistic person and i look at things from different angles
Also if we stop reading blogs how do we see interesting posts as this to read? I have come to realise that when you are in the online money making business,you remain a student who keeps learning new things/ideas and most of the ideas only come from experienced people’s post like this one.So i do not think it is right to ask people to stop reading blogs rather we should limit the amount of time we spend doing it and when we find a blog that always contain interesting post, we should bookmark it, so it is easy to visit it regularly for new information.
What we should do is balancing, knowing what we should spend most time and less time on. Like social traffic has its benefit which is that it influence advertisers decisions to advertiser on your blog which is a good purpose not forgetting to concentrate on google traffic for sales benefit. The truth is every visitor to a blog is a potential customer whether from google or social media but they can’t all be customers even if they are all from google search.
My blog surround a large and very competitive niche which is make money online, i have some great contents on it but i’m still fighting to get exposure. The blog is just a month old. I was thinking of selling it so i can go into a smaller niche but how can i sell a blog without traffic?And if i can how much will it be worth?
About building many sites, i used to think it is better to concentrate on one and see it running successfully before building another but i’ll follow your advice and look for smaller niches i can build blogs on and see how it goes.
This is really an educative post Court, please keep it up.I’ll pass it on, on twitter and refer to it when possible.
I agree with everything I have read in 1 -7 and I am going to change my approach and follow your advice and tips for sure. I have bought and read enough Bull Crap on the net to last me a lifetime and its really refreshing to find an article written by someone who doesn’t just want to write what they want you to read – well done and thanks for your honesty, I shall now take my head out of my own arse and start making money with your advice.
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Court, I just understand what’s your position now. You repeatedly described about reading others blogs and blindly follow is not a good practice. Yeah, I do agree that. But I assure one thing. Today onwards, I promise that I will stop reading a chunk of blogs daily and following them. But What about reading your blog? (hhehe).
Yes, I read only yours. I like it. I like your style, your approach, etc. You succeed in one thing also. You just express exactly what you want to tell us through your posts.
Now, I am out of the category of those persons who just read lots of blogs. Ok.
Please wait. I will join your “keyword crash course” in the end on this week, as I am really buzy with my college days.
Waiting for your great posts.
In the meantime, I would read the existing ones.
court: I”m a subscriber…clicking on the video feed cancels me out. I’d love to do the program. you can contact me via e-mail…maybe you’ve seen this before and know what’s going on. what you write is really great. I’d like to see it, too.
thanks
This post is a huge turning point for me in my incredibly early blogging career. I’m on a mission to make money online in one niche or another but like most people I have a tendency to project how something will fail rather than try to make it succeed. I’ve been looking at different blogs and subscribing to dozens of email lists to try and extract whatever useful information may be contained in their freebie ebooks and the like, and it’s just overwhelming. I’m overwhelmed and failure wants to consume me, however, I am determined to succeed, I can’t wait for my first profitable day. In order to do this I need to stay positive and motivated, and this post is doing just that for me. Thank you for the honest truth.
Absolutely the best post I’ve seen on making money online. And yes, it’s something we’re all guilty of in the beginning I guess. Only recently started to realised that it’s not enough to do something once. You have to keep doing it over and over and over.
Who cares if its not perfect? Probably only me. But practise makes perfect so let’s get to practising.
Once again, awesome post and hopefully some of my readers will come on over and realise the simplicity of it.
I 100% agree with you
This is a very good post. Number one resonates with me because it’s true that you want to get your sites up and running today as opposed to a few months down the line. By the time you actually get to them to do some work you may already have accrued a few links, some age, and maybe even a few daily visitors.
thank a lot for the share
Hey Court,
I got referred to this blog through a contact who visted one of my blogs and I am glad that I took the time to come and visit your site. As you know great fresh content is always hard to find on the internet but my friend you have got it hear. Great read and I will pass this site along as I go. Thanks for the imput to the community.
Dennis
This is the second time I’ve read this post, and yet I can’t seem to get this sound advise into my thick head! Sheesh! Like your point about not wasting time reading other Blogs. I know it, and yet I end up doing it. I’m going make that as one of my 2010 resolutions.
follow and reading other blog isn’t good, so what should i do as a beginner in this field, to starts making money online?
Great advice. I’m still building and learning as I go. The information you are providing is definitely better than most that I’ve come across. Thanks for the education.
As I was reading that post I felt like Court was literally talking about me. I even glanced at my wife and said “This guy posted about me and what I’m doing wrong!” I’ve been in IM for about a year and a half and have actually made a little bit of money (about $500 on clickbank and $80 in adsense) so I’m not a complete noob but I feel like I’m constantly fighting ADD at times. I’ve bought a few courses and programs and own about 15 websites that are currently making no money, lol.
Last month I decided to stop hanging out at forums when I’m supposed to be working as I wasn’t making any money by READING about how other IMers make money. I stumbled accross Griz’s blog a few days ago by googling make money and his and yours style fit me perfectly.
Thanks!
I couldn’t agree more. It reminds me of a post I made on my blog to try and talk people out of paying an extortionate of amount of money to a motivational guru who is only going to tell them to get off their butt and do something already! It’s the best advice possible “Leave the procrastinating till tomorrow and let’s see you act today”. Also, Court, thanks for taking all the BS out of keyword analysis and just telling people about it plain terms. Your ebook is indispensible.
COURT/MARK!
I am having some serious issued accessing my account and I have no other way to contact you beside this way.
I entered the information for retrieving my account password…
A email was then sent to my email at ashleyrenacheek@gmail.com…
I followed the directions and it is giving me the run around. It doesn’t give me a new password. All it says is my user name which is Cheekgooglegirl
and then it says I have a Premium Membership.
Then it says that the system can’t retreive my password but if I click on the link it will reset it. But when I click on the link it takes me through the same circle again. Please help. I need to access my account.
If I could add one thing to you list, it’d be to have patience. Be persistent, add content and links and value to your sites, but don’t give up and junk your sites if you only make $1 that first month – or those first 3 months.
you probably learnt more writing about this stuff and analyzing the traffic than reading other “authority” sites, rights?
You are an inspiration! Thanks!