http://www.nerdwealth.com/blog/nerdwealth-tools/
I’m going to start adding some PPC, SEO and other random tools I make to this site. The first one is a simple phrase combiner / keyword generator for making big lists out of word sets. Check it out at http://www.nerdwealth.com/tools/keyword-combine.php
Timothy Ferriss talks about making yourself less busy so you have time to do what you want, the importance of passive income and how to automate your involvement in active income projects, and also spends a lot of time talking about travel and all the fun stuff you can do when liberated from your desk. I just read it yesterday and liked it a lot.
Well, right as I’m launching a new site, one of my existing projects that was making good money just took a nosedive. It’s not for sure gone but it’s at least on hiatus. So, to follow the theme of my last post about enjoying work, I’ve decided to challenge myself to see how fast I can get that income back. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it yet in this blog, but I’m huge on goal setting. I hate failing at anything, so putting a goal in writing and sharing it is a great tactic for motivating myself.
So, here’s my self-challenge: Get my new site (launching Monday hopefully) making $275 per day by the end of July. I was going to say two weeks, but I’ll be out of town for a couple days so I added some slack. ($275*365=~$100,000 incase you were wondering about the obscure amount)
I encourage everyone reading this blog to challenge themselves to something in the same time period. It doesn’t have to be a financial goal, it can just be a productivity goal. Finish that new site, start a new site, learn a new programming language. Just pick something that can be done in two weeks time and make sure you do it! For added fun and accountability post a comment here and let me know what it is. I’ll be sure to check up on you and make sure you’re not slacking :-p
P.S. I really would like to see more comments on the blog. Everyone posts back to me on messageboards or IMs me about posts, but it looks like no one reads the blog. thx.
I’ve realized lately just how important it is to keep a positive attitude and outlook regarding your work. Sometimes it can be really hard… maybe you’re knee deep in a project that you know isn’t going to pay off for awhile then you have a financial setback. Maybe you’re learning via trial and error and error seems to be the only result. The key is to remember that you’re spending your time trying to better yourself and your situation and not let setbacks have a negative effect on your attitude.
Right now I’m doing a lot of work in a space that is currently not super stable. I’ve both made and lost a lot of money in it in the past, and even though I know it’s the right thing to put time, money, and effort into, it can be a bit scary. When I combined that with the fact that I’m going to go back to school and still support my wife and (relatively) lavish lifestyle, I ended up feeling very pressured to achieve things and very frustrated when I couldn’t get them all done instantly.
I recently took a step back and realized how stupid that is. I was taking work I enjoyed and making it stressful. I thought about it some more and I realized that it’s never the work itself that makes you happy or sad, it’s the attitude you take in regards to it. If you buy the parts for a new computer, it’s very exciting to put it all together, install your OS, load up and personalize the machine. Chances are you’ll have fun doing it. However, if your hard drive crashes and you’re forced to do the same thing, chances are you won’t like it one bit. The difference is you performed one action out of a feeling of wanting to do it, and the other out of a feeling of obligation.
We’re all obligated to work and make money, but why not do it because we want to do it. I know that when I’m having fun with a project it goes much quicker and does much better than if I feel like it’s something I have to do. I think with the right attitude, you can enjoy any work. Hell, today I am doing some link building and generating keyword lists and I’m having a blast. Here are my tips for enjoying work:
I think any time spent on the internets trying to make money online is time well spent. I think that what we do is more of an art than a job. Art is best when it’s inspired, not forced. Find projects that you want to do, then make a conscious decision that because you are going to be proud of the end result, you will enjoy every part of the building process.
In our fathers’ generation, we would have to build businesses with bricks, mortar, and lots of money. Now we can build them with nothing but thoughts and keystrokes. It is a beatiful thing and should be appreciated as such.
Sometimes I try to be far too practical with my projects and my business. I try to focus on what’s going to make money and spend as little time/effort as possible on the rest. Sometimes this can really rob you of the fun of the project. What we sometimes fail to realize is that enjoyment and productivity are so directly related that we can increase productivity by doing some things that are ‘less productive.’ My personal example is that I am a stats junky, but I always tell myself that spending time or money developing stuff that I’m going to be the only person looking at is stupid. Then I realized that if my fancy stats motivate me just a little more to increase them, any investment I put towards them is sure to pay off. My resolution: a monitor dedicated to stats and some fancy schmancy graphs and flashy stuff to make me feel like I’m daytrading instead of marketing 
This is also easy to overlook. I have both a home office and a real office, and I end up moving back and forth as I burn out on one place. The real office is kind of dreary and doesn’t get a bunch of light, but it’s around people and it gets me out of the house and dressed. My home office is set up perfectly for my tastes — it was an unfinished room in my basement that I finished and furnished to my specification. Sometimes if my sleep/work schedule gets too out of whack I go to the office… then promptly start enjoying my work a lot less.
At home my office has a wood floor, halogen lights, very light colored paint, nice leather furniture and decorations, and I can listen to music as loud as I want and dress however I want. As long as you’re responsible enough to remember that you’re still working, I think this type of environment can be way more conducive to productivity.
I may append this list later as I come up with more things. If you have any tips for enjoying your work, please post them as a comment.
Two of my friends have fairly new sites up that I want to mention.
Mixtape Pass
I have been using this site for awhile and recently started promoting it. It’s probably the best site in its space and should be a real force as hip hop mixtapes become more mainstream. They currently offer over 1,000 downloadable mixtapes and are constantly adding more. Visitors buy tokens and use the tokens to get album downloads. Typical albums cost 5 tokens, which cost between $0.70 and $1 depending on the amount of tokens purchased. The affliate program is in private beta. I’ve sent a little bit of traffic over and its converting ok. The thing that excites me about their program is that it pays 50% of initial sales and re-buys. It should add up to some decent recurring income after a few months of promotion.
Phone Gangster
It’s definitely not the first site in the caller id spoofing space, but I think it will go places. The site is pretty young and somewhat unrefined at this point, but I’m posting it now so you guys can watch it evolve. It’s run by a very good friend of mine so I hope to help out with as much advice as he wants to hear. The affiliate program is already up and running — it pays 20% commission on card sales and features weekly payouts (paypal/epass/boa deposit/check). I spent about 5 minutes setting up a ppc campaign for it last night and hope to spend a couple hours next week generating some traffic to it. I’ll let you guys know how I do.
get money
rmk news: just lined up a really leet ecommerce site gig doing the coding and marketing. has to do with alcohol and celebrities, right up my alley. other than that working on some ppc stuff and slanging some leads. what are you guys doing to get at this paper?
Well, I have a suggestion/questions for a post dude (this is fuckinmetal/jaypeah BTW). I think an overview of affiliate programs would be a good one. The ones that pay the best as opposed to the ones that get the most clicks. The ones that pay the most without conversions (you know, just pay per click or impressions and other stuff).
Another one would be on tools of the trade, best CMS, Statcounter, mailer and crap like that.
Oh and maybe something about gaining traffic whether it’s paying for it or gaining it other ways…
good lookin out…
I stared at this for awhile to figure out what to write about it as a lot of the questions are really broad… I concluded that I could just give really broad answers
As far as affiliate programs go, it really really depends on the nature and volume of traffic you have. I have a bunch of insurance shopper traffic so I deal with affiliate programs that I can XML post leads to and keep the surfer on my site. I have a couple sites that I just run adsense on (I’ve never been a huge fan of adsense sites but the ones I have have retaded eCPMs). On another project we’re working extensively with Azoogle.
If it’s something where I’m going to be doing gigantic volume I often try to partner directly with a program instead of going through a network. Affiliate networks are great though for finding tons of offers and using trial and error to see which work best. If you have any specific sites you’re having trouble monetizing just let me know and I’ll help out.
As far as tools of the trade, all I use consistently are: WordPress for blogs, awstats & google analytics for traffic.
In regards to traffic generation, again it really really depends on the site and what you’re trying to do. My best advice is to try to be comprehensive in your approach. Make sure it is well optimized, spend some time link building, set up some ppc campaigns, try to come up with something viral if you can. You can always join related forums, etc. and try to generate word of mouth (in a non spammy way otherwise you just annoy people).
Anyway I hope that answers some of your questions.
I get asked this all the time, and I always seem to disappoint people when I don’t have a one-size-fits-all solution for them. As a place to earn money, the internet is just as broad and dynamic as the IRL. If you walked up to people face to face and asked them how to make money, chances are they would either tell you to do what they’re doing, or just to get a job and invest.
We all have our unique talents and interests, and we are best served by catering to them when figuring out what we want to do to earn money. I suppose financial goals also need to factor into the decision. If you’re just looking to earn gas + beer money online, just pick your favorite thing in the universe (anime, robots, clothes, whatever) and blog about it. Throw on adsense, maybe some related cpa ads, get some links, and you’re good to go. If you’re trying to make $10,000/mo to support a family, chances are you’re going to have to find something a little more involved that provides more value to the end user.
Here is my personal philosophy about generating wealth: The easiest way to make more money for yourself is to make more money for someone else. I’ve never encountered someone unwilling to give you money if you could make more for them.
I know some of you may be thinking “but rmk, I want to be my own boss… I want to own the biz blahblahblah not provide services for someone else.” Yeah, so do I, but money doesn’t always just come out of nowhere. Every online business I have has some type of client. For some sites, that client might be google or azoogle. I don’t really have to answer them, but if they fired me I would have less money.
Back on topic: Money is created when you solve economic or market inefficiencies. One of the most common inefficiencies that can be solved for a profit is exposure of products to targeted consumers.
Let’s say you love snowboarding, and you frequent several snowboarding message boards, social communities, and maybe run or visit a blog about it. Chances are there are lots of people that want to be in front of the people you are, and would be willing to pay for it. Maybe you could find a shop that sells snowboarding gear or maybe some local mountains wanting to sell more passes (idk much about snowboarding so w/e). If they have an affiliate program, great. Buy or barter for some ad space, put links in your sig, or do whatever you can to send some traffic. Bam, free money. (PS It may not be that easy. In the real world a smart site owner would already have the most relevant ads on the site and not need you to middleman it). The RMK approach would be to find a local shop that doesn’t have a web site (or has a crappy one), sell them an ecommerce site, then handle that promotion for them for a percentage of sales. Now you can make some real money doing something you enjoy.
I know that’s not really anything super creative, but most of the things I make money from are really that simple. The point I’m trying to get across is that money is made when you apply yourself to something you’re interested in, not sit around wondering how in the world other people are earning their money.
If you really are having trouble figuring out what you can do to get started, do this: Write down a few hobbies or interests you have (hint: you don’t have to be any good at them). Then write down a few businesses you know a fair amount about (could be very simple: lawn mowing, whatever your dad does for a living, whatever your roommate does for a living, whereever you had a summer job). Write down a few goals that you have for your online business. Then write down your top business resources (ie: i have money saved up for my business endeavor, i have lots of free time, i’m really good at php, i own a brick & mortar business). Stare at the list and look for overlap. It really should talk to you when you take the time to iterate what you have going for you. If not, send the list over to me and I’ll shoot you back some ideas.
I had the internet in town for like a week for my 25th birthday, then had to file taxes, now I’m up to my ears in a couple of web design projects. I’ll try to start updating again soon.
Sorry I’ve been lousy at updating this. I’ve had a pretty hectic week, but I’ve got some interesting stuff popping off.
Just had a new project go live today. I’m helping a friend monetize some pretty unique traffic. It’s going to be pretty fun to figure out what converts and what doesn’t. Right now the contextual ads are doing surprisingly well, but the CPA offers aren’t doing so hot. It’s still way early though. Once it starts working out I’ll try to post what I learned here.
In other news I’m working on developing a couple new sites for a specific financial vertical and also for a few professional service practictioners that I hope to resell (many many times).
My feelings towards selling web sites fluctuate pretty frequently. Dealing with clients can be really frustrating some times, but I’ve hired someone to deal with that so now all I have to do is sell, which I really enjoy.
If you do any web development business I strongly recommend looking for ways to reuse any code you’ve developed. Just yesterday I was able to take a lead form that I’d had developed for one of my SEO/PPC endeavors and offer a copy of it to one of my clients. It only made me $250 but it took all of 15 minutes to set up. I’d do that all day long if I could