1) Can I be successful in [X] niche?
I dropped and shattered my crystal ball when I was about 12 so my ability to look into your future is long gone. 🙂
My philosophy is this. If there is a demand for the kind of information, service, or product you plan to offer then there is always a way to be successful.
The real questions are:
1) Are you prepared and motivated enough to learn how to build and effectively market your website?
2) Have you done enough research to determine if there is enough of a demand for your info/service/product?
3) What sort of unique spin have you developed to set yourself apart from your competition?
Obviously you will never know the real answer unless you try. However, if you address the above questions, you are well on your way to determining if you have any sort of chance with the niche you are considering.
2) How long before I make money online?
Dang it! If I only had that crystal ball. 🙂
Let’s pretend you are trying to start an offline business — we’ll use a a dry cleaning service as the example. Would you ever go up to a successful restaurant owner (a completely different niche) and ask them how long before your cleaning business starts making money?
No, because your know that your success will largely depend on location, pricing, product quality, marketing and more. Online is no different — even for bloggers or content affiliates. How much you will make largely depends upon…
1) How much demand exists for your niche
2) How much targeted traffic you have (people who NEED your info/product/service).
3) How well you convert traffic into paying customers.
4) Quality of your product (Yes, your website/content is your product.)
For some reason people think standard business principles don’t apply to making money online. As soon as you realize the fundamentals are the same (supply, demand, product placement, etc.), you will look at your business in a completely different way.
3) I have [X] clicks with AdSense. How come I’m only earning [$X]?
I guess since the customer support is so poor for AdSense, people just resort to asking me. 🙂 I don’t work for AdSense and the info I share is only based on my experience.
Remember, AdSense doesn’t disclose information about how much you earn per click. Sure, you can figure out an average by taking your total earnings and dividing by how many clicks you have, but that will change from day to day.
Advertisers constantly change their bids, which causes the amount we earn per click to fluctuate on a daily basis. The best way to ensure you are maximizing your earnings with AdSense is to work on building traffic.
I’ve also noticed over the years that I am earning quite a bit more per click. Twenty clicks today seems to be worth way more than it was 5 years ago.
There definitely seems to be a correlation between EPC (earnings per thousand) and how popular/trafficked your site is.  My overall clicks are down for AdSense, but I had a record month in July 2011 simply because of my EPC.
Bottom Line:Â No one can tell you how much you’re going to make with AdSense because there are too many unknown variables.
4) Do I need a blog and a static website?
Before you decide if you NEED anything, you should develop a strategy. What is your blog going to do that your static website does not do (or vice versa)? What will it offer that’s different from your original site?
Don’t just create something because you are feeling the pressure to have what others have. Make sure you have a strategy in mind.
5) What affiliate programs should I join?
If you are basing your monetization strategy off someone else’s niche or success, you are not building your own business. You’re just copying someone else’s business model. While that may work for some, it usually ends up in boredom and/or failure for most.
You can earn a lot of money from almost any affiliate program if you learn how to build a popular website and convert your visitors into customers. Period!
Something in Common
If you notice, most of the questions above are based on the one-size-fits-all strategy, which is the wrong approach to business. Everyone is going to have different experiences online based on their work ethic, motivation, interest, niche and more.
Using stats from successful sites for motivation is fine, but using their exact model as a benchmark for your own site can be very misleading — especially if you haven’t developed your individual strategy.
Hahaha…you should put together an auto-responder email template which points out that one needs to just get out there and try! You don’t have to spend money but try the free options available out there and then maybe put a little money in advertising.
The one important thing I know everyone should take note of is that people should learn how to code to an extent if they want to work on the net, basic html and CSS and maybe even throw in some Photoshop.
Thanks
Aadil
I have been working my online business for the past 4 years and have spent $thousands on advertising, usually with little to no results. I’m no quitter, so I’ve recently been focusing on Call-to-Action psychology and allowing more ‘white-space’ on my sites. I’ve been revising and simplifying my designs to improve conversions, and only seriously began online marketing methods after spending the money on other methods that didn’t prove to work so well. it’s been a hard struggle but all good things come to those who work. Income is definitely relative to traffic, without traffic your online business is simply a website like any other out there. I calculated last night that I’ve worked approximately 20,000 hours on my business in the last 4 years, just to show the dedication one needs to make their business a success. Give up and you’re guaranteed to fail. People have suggested I give up numerous times, but I have always maintained that I’m very close to the tipping point where it all starts to happen. Consistency and a good plan/strategy will get you there as long as the lessons are learned, I think to become successful in online business you have to love learning because nothing ever stays the same. I love doing what I do and you should too. 🙂 Great post Lisa
I believe things happens for a reason especially if you don’t mind the most important one! Like in business, whether be online or not, still you need to be focused and serious. I love reading this post since it gave me new idea about monetizing my works through Adsense. Keep it up!
See Lisa I agree with you in all the points except the Adsense one. 2 years ago the kind of traffic I am getting could feed me for an entire month with adsense money but now for the same traffic I get maybe 2 movie tickets a month.
The fact is you cannot depend on Adsense anymore. The most stable way to earn online realistically is to make your own products in the niche you love…or create a laser targeted E-Commerce Site.
Completely agree that no one should depend on AdSense. Even when the earnings are good, it could go away tomorrow. I am constantly reinforcing this both here and my YouTube channel. I definitely feel more stable with my own products to sell.
If it happens it will happen. sometimes it’s easy to tell people to just try it out and learn through experience. Sometimes you will be successful and sometimes you won’t. How can someone tell you how long it will take to make your campiagn successful, that is very foolish to ask someone.
I would add “how many back links do I need?” Which is an ever-changing question anyway given the constantly shifting rules.
Good question to tackle them back . It happen most of the time in forum while those question keep repeat and repeat.
If you never research , never try , they suppose not to ask this question because no one get better answer then them personally look for their answer.
Thanks for the honest info. I’m planning on starting a few sites and monetizing with adsense. The advice posted here will go a long way in helping a newbie like me.
Some of those questions sounds really silly and those are genuine people completely clueless and really interested in knowing. You summed up perfectly that they have to try and see for themselves in order to get the answer, there’s nothing like being practical and learning from it.
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build a blog into the field of money is not easy, I have a blog that offers online services product is also very difficult and needs a lot to learn knowledge to increase visitor traffic to my blog. I would also like any other income such as pay perklik or adsense. Your post gives the feel and look different for me to develop a blog to get the additional revenue from customers other than the success obtained from the effect of high traffic, could it relevant?
I really love question no. 3 How long before I make money online? Its so funny actually, we cannot really predict when. If it happens it will happen. I believe that patience is a virtue. As long as we are making progress then have faith in it. Don’t you agree? 🙂
Nice one Lisa! I think most of us are guilty of asking such questions when we first start off. More common questions include; I got a new site and I have just started doing some off page SEO. How long will it take before I get to the first page of google? Answer….No one knows mate!
Another common one is; my site is going through the google dance, when will it stop? Answer…..who knows? Ask google algorithms perhaps!
What’s important is for us to adopt a clear strategy, implement it, monitor it and carry out a periodic evaluation of our work on a regular basis. Success online is all about trying and testing new things in order to find out what works for you.
Hi all, it takes a lot of time to take visitors on your web site or blog, as the time you need to build it.
But people doesn’t understand that…
Lisa, you are doing a nice job here.Whether one is going to succeed solely depend on him or her.The world, they say,paves way for him that knows where he is going.
Read the book Good to Great. If you want to be successful online you must first make a commitment to excellence. Than you can set out to achieve your goals. If you are going to go for it and put money in your business go all the way or don’t even bother.
While I certainly agree that these questions can be irritating, I can also understand why some individuals pose these question. It’s incredible how many individuals are clueless about websites, online marketing, and business in general. They are afraid of what they don’t know, as well, which is why they generate these questions in the first place. I liked this post, Lisa. thanks!
I hate to answer the questions that ends like…answer me ASAP. It makes me feel like im on their payroll.