How long does it take to see decent money?

[waffles]

You can make money without spending it. You just end up spending more time and labor. Money isn't everything, it just takes the place of the stuff we don't want to do.

[Dustin07]

risk vs rewards?

[waffles]

I'll admit, not much of either. But you need something to start with, and I have almost nothing after going out and buying a Canon Rebel XT.

[Owen]

Originally Posted by engadven

I read once that if your site is ranked in the to 100000 in Alexa then you can make a living from it from Google adds. Obviously the type of site and cost of keywords in that area make a big difference but it seemed reasonable to me.
I've a site ranked reguarly around 500000 that makes me half a living from product sales.

*grin* .. that's the best one I've heard all day. Dunno if it's because Alexa is so easily manipulated or because of the assumption that you can just build a great site one day and retire for the rest of your life.

btw: http://www.alexa.com/data/details/tr....com&x=48&y=11

I suppose that means I can retire now ...

[Dustin07]

Originally Posted by waffles

I'll admit, not much of either. But you need something to start with, and I have almost nothing after going out and buying a Canon Rebel XT.

ohhh, awwwww. I almost bought that one for my wife but she really wanted to stay film (seems odd, but she takes amazing pictures).

I started a year ago with the web stuff as mostly a hobby. the $12/month or so I spent in hosting seemed frivolous. I'm not rich yet, but now whenever I launch a new site the first thing I do is go spend money on text links and what not.

*grin* .. that's the best one I've heard all day. Dunno if it's because Alexa is so easily manipulated or because of the assumption that you can just build a great site one day and retire for the rest of your life.

btw: http://www.alexa.com/data/details/tr....com&x=48&y=11

I suppose that means I can retire now .

nice work Owen. Is that opening a lot of PPP doors yet?

[waffles]

Body, kit lens, and a 28-200 for under $450. Had to go get a CF card myself, but I think I came out on top.

[Owen]

Originally Posted by Dustin07

nice work Owen. Is that opening a lot of PPP doors yet?

It would have, had my PR not dropped from 5 to 4

[Dustin07]

thats a bummer, I've been hearing that a lot. While I didn't see any drops, I didn't see the raises I expected.

If PPP doesn't make it's changes, I'm thinking it may not last 'forever'. It's already getting less opps on average (monthly... IMO) then it did just 6 months ago. I think the segmentation is making it too difficult and not really worth the time.

[Joaquin Maldonado]

The traffic that you get depends on how popular and in-demand your niche selection is. If select sex, porn or something popular but ordinary as that and get it to the top of the search engine results(top 10) getting 500 unique might be simple, but it will take some time with popular niches if you have an offline part-time or full-time job.

However, if you get a small niche and bring up a descent survey and go "BINGO" on demand and readers needs, you might want to keep that niche hidden and start investing in such niche in any of the numerous ways available to turn a profit.

The options are open and very wide for newcomers. That's definitely good for many!

[ShadowMarketer]

If you want to start making money online, the first thing you should be doing is building your own personal opt-in e-mail list. Don't go for the 50million dollar product launches, because it's not as easy as you think. Start with a simple squeeze page that captures the e-mail addreses of your visitors, and start promoting products related to your niche to them.

The mistake too many newbies make is that to make money you have to sell something, or you have to spend a lot of money. In fact, I would recommend AGAINST spending any money (except for your domain/hosting) on your first website, because it will be a wasted investment. You will likely have no idea how to correctly write a proper Adwords advertisement, so don't spend cash on worthless advertisement.

So there you have it; build a list. Why? Because a list will not only earn you some cash in the short term, but it will help you greatly in your Internet Marketing projects later on. Trust me when I say that it is much easier to launch a product when you already have a group of people to market it to.

Of course, if you build a list, you will not receive instant cash. However, it won't take long before you successfully promote a product to that list, and you can start making money soon after.

[droplister]

about as long as it takes you to realize the only way to answer this question is to actually give it a go. We can toss numbers at you all day, but what does that amount to? not much. Decide how much money you are willing to lose, read a bit and decide how you think it is best spent, see if you make anything.

[skyBlue]

First thing you'll need is an idea, something you can start with. I'm not telling this because i'm very smart and already earned thousands of dollars (btw i'm on this level of $500-1000 a month), but because i noticed that main part of every success in this job is good idea. That is the reason why this job is so interesting to me. Creativity is power.

[cldnails]

Originally Posted by John Scott

How much more would be made if you had invested some money?

Sorry took so long to see this question... doh!?

At any rate, it would have been cutting into my profits, nothing more. I'm terrible at spending money on the net for advertising, no matter what channel. I was always told to stick with what I'm good at and it's not shelling money out to others making promises.

And really John, it does matter what niche your in, which I'm sure your aware of. But no matter what, there is always more than one way from A to B.

[MrCat]

You can opt for a free sub-domain and free hosting and put up a site and make money! - Not necessarily IMO. This would depend on the niche of your choosing.

If you are out to make a decent revenue, you would need knowledge, experience, patience, dedication, creativity and MONEY!

Money to put up a decent site, to spend for advertising, to maintain your site, etc.

Sure there are free ways you could do to promote your site, but it does not mean you will be successful at this especially at getting the right visitors for your site to make the conversion.

Good content + SEO + PPC, Paid back links, Forum posts to similar niche, banners, etc. = Great traffic and more targeted traffic!

IMO, opting for paid ways contribute well to a good marketing mix especially at getting targetted traffic. In reality, getting 10 targetted traffic is better that 100 random traffic. Getting just mere random traffic doesn't constitutes your site's success - it's the conversion you get from your traffic. Getting traffic is just the first step, offering the right stuff to your visitors and conversion and the satisfaction your customers get from your product or service should be utmostly considered as this will define your site's success.

[ninlive]

Great advice, thanks to almost everyone!