Back then I didn’t know the first thing about running a business. I also didn’t have a clue about what kind of businesses could  be run online. I definitely didn’t know how to put a website together, let alone market one.

You Have To Start Somewhere

The seeds that grew into the online business I have now started with thoughts that I began to have a long time ago. I remember having thoughts like, “If I could just make an extra $300 per month somehow, life would be so much easier”. I had a girlfriend in college that I liked a lot, and thoughts of getting married and paying for another person honestly freaked me out. I couldn’t wrap my mind around how that would be possible.

I also saw my parents’ struggle with money, and that didn’t help me to feel super secure about my future.

Somewhere along the way I developed a desire to have a different type of life. I didn’t want to face the difficulties that other people faced. I didn’t want to have to figure out how to put food on the table or wonder how I was going to pay the mortgage next month.

However, the problem at the time was that to me, money was the hardest thing in the world to make. According to my parents it still is. I have since realized that this is only true for people who believe it to be. Sometimes it can be pretty hard to get rid of beliefs that your parents pounded into your head. For me, getting rid of those beliefs was a long and painful process. I can tell you from experience that the only way to overcome that belief is by becoming more conscious and being willing to admit that you are probably holding on to a lot of things that aren’t true.

Making money is a simple matter of perspective. The world will pay you what you believe you are worth.

I discovered that almost everyone I knew who had a lot of money, had their own business. I have an uncle who is a dentist, and some close friends who have made a lot of money with a variety of businesses. They all make way more than my other friends who are highly educated corporate types. Don’t get me wrong, I see the value of education, but my friends with businesses are the ones who make the most money.

Please don’t take offense if you’re the corporate type. You have more connections and potential than the rest of us. However, some of you will rely on your education alone instead of taking action that could produce more wealth in a faster time period.

Why I Chose To Start An Online Business

Choosing an online business was kind of like ‘love at first site’ for me. I had a friend who had a website (it didn’t make much money) and one day he showed it to me. He told me that he was making a little bit of money by promoting eBay. I was blown away by the fact that you could make money that way. The poor guy – I wasted literally half of his day asking incessant questions about it.

What I do now is quite different than what was presented to me that day, but that conversation was enough to get a lot of wheels churning.

The coolest thing to me about starting a business (or multiple businesses) online is that the world is your marketplace. I have seen online revenue because of people in India, Russia, the United States, Canada, Hungary, New Zealand, Japan, England, Ireland, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Mexico, Brazil, and a lot of other countries. Online, you are connected to nearly 2,000,000,000 people who have access to the internet and that opens the doors to the possibility of producing a truly awesome amount of income.

The funny thing is that while I’m pretty good at what I do, there are people who are way better. I have a close friend who has made over $1,000,000 this year (it’s September) from his online business.

The upside to running your business online is huge, and that’s what initially attracted me to it.

What I Do For My Online Business

Essentially, I run a group of sites that provide people with information. If you would like to see an example of a site that has a similar business model, you could take a look at About.com. They provide informational articles about a variety of different topics. The biggest differences between About.com and my sites is that mine are a lot smaller, and are generally built around one specific topic. I would love to have a larger site like About.com someday but frankly, it’s a lot to take on and I’m doing really well with what I have.

So, I choose single topics that I can create sites around. Where About.com has sections for Acne, Business, Cars, Pets, and just about everything else, I choose to create sites about one and only one of those topics. MoneyBlogger.com (the site you’re reading) is one of those sites. I provide information about one topic, money. Money is actually a fairly large topic that can attract a variety of people. I can provide information about increasing income, saving, budgeting, investing, getting loans, finding deals, making smart financial choices, and a lot of other related topics.

How This Business Produces Revenue

Any web page or site that gets traffic is worth something and as long as you know how to produce traffic, you can create online revenue. There are three basic methods that I use to produce revenue:

1. Google Adsense – Adsense is a free program that connects you as a web site owner with hundreds of thousands of advertisers. Google runs the whole thing and allows you to use their ads for free. You get paid when people click on the ads. Google charges the advertisers when this happens and you get a cut of it. Clicks on my websites are usually worth somewhere between $0.25 and $2 each. My sites produce more than 4500 clicks per month that are worth an average of about $1 each.
2. Selling products for other people, otherwise known as affiliate marketing. I basically recommend products and services that the visitors to my web sites need and want. This is usually fairly easy because the visitors are generally already looking for solutions to their problems. I introduce them to products that solve those problems. I then show them where they can buy the products and I get paid a percentage of the sale. My sites produce more than $3000 per month in commissions of this type.
3. Creating my own products and selling them. This method may seem pretty difficult, but it isn’t as hard as it would seem. I usually only design products to substitute for products that I already know are selling. I don’t create any hard products, they are generally informational products that teach concepts to people who are willing to pay to learn. I actually like this option quite a bit because it’s fulfilling to create products that provide better information than the stuff that’s out there. This part of my business produces more than $5000 per month.

Managing three separate methods for making money might seem complicated, but it really isn’t that tough. Usually I start by inserting Google ads first and then work from there. Once a web page starts to produce with Adsense I know that the traffic has value and I can try to make more money through affiliate marketing, or by selling my own products.

How My Web Sites Get Traffic

There are a lot of different methods that can be used for getting traffic, but I haven’t found very many to be useful. Most of the stuff I’ve read about building traffic online has been nothing more than well crafted nonsense.

I personally focus most of my efforts on building true value. In other words, I try to create the best site out there about the topics I cover. To be honest I don’t always succeed (at producing the absolute best site), but usually my sites are good enough to make an impression on the people that read them. Obviously, it takes a while to make that happen. MoneyBlogger.com, for example, is a pretty new project for me. At the time that I’m writing this article I have just started turning it into a useful resource. It will take quite a while to turn it into something that people can use and use well.

Over the next year or so, I will do everything possible to make this site as useful as possible. I’ll provide lessons, articles, and videos about a lot of different topics that help people to earn and save more money.

This approach is really useful in a lot of ways. First, I usually find that a lot of people find out about my sites through word of mouth. This aspect of traffic will only happen if you are truly dedicated to creating something that’s valuable. I find that most online entrepreneurs are looking for gimmicks. They don’t care about providing value and that’s a huge reason why people struggle to create profits from their sites.

Since my web sites are useful, I get linked to from a lot of other sites. That brings a lot of traffic from those sites, and also helps me to get a lot more traffic from search engines like Google, Yahoo, Ask, and Bing.

Google is by far my largest traffic source. My approach fits well with the system that Google uses to determine which sites come up first. Since people generally like my sites, they link to them quite a bit. I get links from personal blogs, company sites, Facebook profiles, and from a lot of other places. Since Google uses links as their primary method for deciding who comes up first, my sites always do well. As more and more time passes, my sites get more and more links from other people so I get more and more traffic from Google (and make more and more money). I think it’s pretty likely that my online business will eventually produce more than seven figures per year.

How I Put Sites Together

I like to take the easy approach to putting sites together – I use a free piece of software called WordPress. It’s very easy to use and you can try it out for free by signing up for a blog on WordPress.com. This setup tends to give you quite a few advantages with Google and also helps you to get people to come back to your site. Blogs generally make it easy for people to find the most recent updates and if there’s one thing I’ve learned from my time as an online entrepreneur, it’s that people LOVE updates.

I use a site called ProudDomains.com to buy my domains (.com, .net, and .org names), and a service called Host Gator for my web hosting. They both have really good customer service and that’s the most important thing when it comes to online business. If I have a problem with one of my sites I can either make a phone call or talk to a customer service rep on live chat.

If any of you have questions about getting a site up, you can shoot me an email at damien[at]moneyblogger[dot]org.

How I Choose Topics For My Web Sites

Choosing the topics is the easy part. I create sites around topics that I’m really interested in. I love the topic of money – I like making it, saving it, investing it, and to a certain degree I like spending it. I find money fascinating and I know without a doubt that 40 years from now I will still find it fascinating. It makes it pretty easy to put together resources that teach people about money when I love learning it myself.

The best technique I know of for knowing what type of web site to start is to look at topics you like to read about. I LOVE to learn about money. I spend half of my day reading about finances and watching Warren Buffett videos on YouTube. In the last few days I’ve ordered four new books about different aspects of finance.

Since I have such a passion for financial topics, starting a site about it is a no brainer for me.

Another thing that I consider when looking at potential topics is whether there is already a profitable site built around that topic. You may think that I would prefer that there isn’t a site, it’s actually the opposite. I want to see at least one successful site that’s built around the topic. That way I know that the market is large enough to work with. If I see a bunch of sites built around a topic, then I know that the topic is probably exceptionally profitable.

There’s no secret that money is a large enough topic to work with, in fact money has several subtopics, each of which are large enough to work with. I know of profitable web sites built around personal finance, business finance, making money, taxes, asset allocation, stocks, macro, and many other topics.

My Overall Strategy

My strategy is simple. Find a topic that I love, make sure that there is already a profitable web site in that space, and work hard to make sure that my web site provides remarkable information. If you can do that, you can make obscene amounts of money.

2. Financial compensation. When you work for someone else, you can bet that the odds of income are stacked against you. If the company you work for has any business sense at all, they make more from your work than you do. There isn’t anything wrong with that – businesses exist to make money for their owners and people who aren’t willing to take on the risk of starting a business will have a much harder time building wealth.

3. You get to be the boss. When I worked for the man, I always believed that I could do things better than my superiors. Now that I’m on my own, I have the chance to prove it. I don’t have anyone telling me what to do and I answer to one person – myself. Honestly, I’m a lot happier this way. I’m not wired to make money for other people and I’m definitely not wired to be told what to do.

4. You can write off more expenses. I have some friends who are very interested in business. We used to get together all the time to bat around ideas, even before we actually started our businesses. Now that we all have our own companies, those lunches are usually a business expense. That means that the business pays for the lunches and I don’t pay income tax on the money used. I get to hear some good ideas, talk my friends into doing more business with me, and pay less taxes than I did before. There are tons of ways to legitimately write off expenses and as a business owner, this is a lot easier.

5. You can benefit from the talents of others. I have some people working for me right now who are incredibly smart – in ways that I’m not. I’m not a dumb person but I definitely know my limits. Just yesterday we had a brainstorming session about some issues that I needed to solve and honestly, I was blown away at some of the ideas that came out. I can tell you that I NEVER would have come up with them on my own and there’s an enormous value in that.

6. In-office political immunity. One of the hardest things about working for the man is when you don’t get paid for your performance. I have always been an high producer. I work hard and always put in a lot of effort to improve my abilities. That makes it really frustrating when people who spend all day on ESPN.com and G-Chat get paid as much as or more than I do. This usually happens because they’ve been at the company for a longer amount of time, or because of political reasons.

7. Recognition. I’m the shy type and I don’t like to tell the people I know how well I do at my job. However, that doesn’t mean that I don’t like it when they find out. When you have a successful business, people will know it. As soon as you start hiring people and leasing office space, people will pick up on the fact that you’re making money. Since most people would love to have their own business, there’s a lot of respect given to people who are able to pull it off.

8. Equity. If you can make $1,000,000 per year for the company you work for, you can expect to be paid between $333,333 and $500,000 per year. If you can produce the same amount for your own company, you can expect to make all of it and have an option to sell the business for between five and ten times that amount.

9. It’s easy, if you have the expertise. The best businesses to start are the ones you come up with because of your current skill set. I learned how to market online at a job that I had and now run a successful web development firm. If you know what you’re doing, it’s honestly pretty hard to mess things up. I had to learn a lot about running a business but looking back, it wasn’t that hard.

10. You can work from home. I pay for office space for my employees, but I work from home. I’m in the office once or twice per week but I honestly LOVE being clear from distraction. If I feel like working around other people, I’ll go to the office. If not, I’ll stay home. This leaves my schedule open for afternoon tennis, movies, or anything else I feel like doing. I work really hard but do it on my time.

As a consequence, I’ve decided to put Money Blogger up for sale. With over 400 subscribers and an income of around $200 per month even when completely dormant, I’m sure that someone with the time to devote to it could make big money.

So if you’re interested in purchasing the site, please get in touch and make me an offer. If you’ve been here for a while, you’ll already know we’ve talked about how much a blog is worth on a number of occasions… but I am open to all serious offers!

Twitter is a great tool for bloggers and can help with a wide range of blogging related issues, but if you want to get the most out of it, it’s important to use it well.

So, in no particular order, here’s a selection of Top Twitter Tips for bloggers:

• Jump right in and get involved. Twitter can be a little overwhelming if you’re new, but in order to get the most out of it, you need to participate actively. It’s very much a 2-way communication tool.
• Don’t be an idiot! It may seem obvious, but if you act like a jerk, it’s not going to help you promote your blog. Treat people with respect and build relationships, just as you would in real life.
• Use a dedicated Twitter client rather than the web site. It’s so much more convenient to have a small app running all day than to remember to visit the web site. Try Twhirl (cross platform) or Twitterific (Mac).
• Don’t think of Twitter as a micro-blogging tool, think of it more as IRC in slow motion. It’s more an extension of instant messaging than a blogging tool. Treat it like a 2-way conversation and ignore Twitter’s “What are you doing…?” line.

• Ask questions. Give advice. Participate in discussions. If what you have to say is too long for a tweet
• Don’t follow thousands of people and expect them to follow you back. They won’t. People tend to follow those who have something interesting to say, and it’s easy to spot uninteresting people. They are the ones following 10,000 people while only having 7 people following them.
• Try to find a balance between original tweets and replies. This is akin to engaging in discussions in the comments on your own blog. It shows interest in your followers and helps build community.
• Analyse what those around you are Twittering about. What’s interesting to you, what gets the most response, and what’s useful to your readers. Use this when trying to come up with new ideas for what to twitter about.
• It is possible to solely use Twitter to post automatic updates every time you post a blog entry. If you have a popular blog, this can be useful, but if you’re not using the Twitter account to participate in discussions, make it clear that this is an “updates only” account. A better solution is to use software like Twitterfeed to send new post notifications to your Twitter account, but to use the same account to actively participate in the Twitter community.
• Other sites like Twitter Karma and Twitter Local can help you find new people to follow, but be aware that these sites often ask for your Twitter username and password. Use them at your own risk.
• If the name you want on Twitter is taken, but isn’t currently in use, it’s worth checking with the Twitter team to see if you can get it anyway. If a name is inactive for 9 months and clearly not being used, they will sometimes free it up for you.
• Remember, that just because Twitter can do phone updates doesn’t mean you need to use them. If you switch this service on for all tweets, you could end up getting a lot of text messages! Personally, I have the service activated for direct (private) messages only. When combined with Twitter’s ability to send updates by text, this means I can communicate directly with my Twitter contacts when I’m out, even if I don’t have their number – and I don’t get inundated

That’s it. I hope you found some of that useful. I’d particularly like to thank @Pewari and @akaSylvia for their help compiling this list. Do feel free to add your own tips in the comments!

And of course, you’re welcome to follow me on Twitter too!

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According to the Wordpress blog, this update contains one important security fix and “over 70 other fixes”. Ouch.

Back at the start of the month when version 2.5 came out, I recommended holding off until at least 2.5.1 for precisely that reason.

I still don’t like the 2.5 admin interface, as it makes it more difficult to get many common tasks done, but if you do want to give it a go, 2.5.1. should be a bit more stable.

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The Ad Review Center does exactly what the name suggests. It lets you review “placement targetted ads” – i.e. those ads that specifically target your site, rather than being contextual – and block those ads you don’t want appearing on your site.

I’ve had a chance to play with the new tool, and while it’s a welcome step in the right direction, it’s not particularly flexible.

For one thing, it doesn’t let you view ads by site. Instead, all targeted ads appear on one long page. You can filter by ad type (text, image, media, etc.), but that’s about the only control you get over the list. I can see that being an issue for people with a lot of sites and one annoying ad they want to find and block.

I’m quite sure we’ll see this feature improved and tweaked over time, and it’s a good start. Even if you’re not blocking ads, it can be a real eye opener to see which advertisers are directly targeting your site.

Personally, I’d really like to see a much more comprehensive tool that also allows you to block contextual ads, and lets you do so by keyword. One of the major issues I’ve always had with AdSense is poor targeting, and it would be incredibly useful to be able to block irrelevant ads to make space for better targeted ones.

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A year ago, I wrote this about Twitter:

“You see, unless all your friends are on twitter the noise-to-signal ratio on the site is enough to make you want to go out and pull the legs off kittens to relieve the boredom.”

But something has happened in the last month that has made me want to glue the legs back onto those kittens… I’ve started using Twitter. More to the point, my friends have started using it, and that has completely changed the dynamic.

In the last few weeks, everyone seems to have started using Twitter. And when people you are genuinely interested in start using it, then it becomes useful. Because people interested in what you have to say can find you. Top bloggers like Darren Rowse and Jeremy Schoemaker have started using it, both to keep in touch with contacts, but also to promote their blogs.

I predict 2008 will be the year Twitter becomes the new Facebook – simply because it’s the service everyone else is using. If you’re not on Twitter yet and want to get the most out of your network of friends, now’s the time to join – and don’t forget to follow me. Because I’m worth it.

Next week, I’ll have some top tips on getting the most from Twitter – without annoying everyone around you in the process.

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Anyway, down to the stats:

Subscribers:
417

Revenue:
Text-Link-Ads: $105
AdSense: $55.98
AdToll: $7.06
Other affiiliate revenue: $15
Kontara: $0.50 (woo!)
(Total: $183.54)

Costs:
Advertising: $15

As with previous months, Text-Link-Ads is my biggest earner, both on Money Blogger and across all my sites. Nothing else has come close to the revenue and simplicity of TLA, so why not give it a try.

Subscribe to Money Blogger to see how I do next month.

I upgraded one of my blogs yesterday and I have to say that I really don’t like it.

There are a couple of potentially great new features like multiple file uploads and galleries, but the biggest changes are in the look and feel of the back end interface.

Unfortunately, the developers seem to have confused “simple design” with “simple to use”. gone are the dark blue colours that clearly define different areas of the interface. Gone is the simple two-level tabbed navigation. In its place is an almost entirely white page, which makes it quite difficult to find the features you want at a glance.

I’ve posted a couple of times with the new interface and have found that doing simple things like quickly inserting images takes longer and involves more clicks.

Annoyingly, the “Save and Continue…” button on the post page has now gone entirely, in favour of automatic saving via Javascript. Unfortunately, this means you have to physically sit and wait until Wordpress decides to save your post before you can preview your latest changes.

I’ve also found several other minor bugs and annoyances – all of which are small, but add up to make Wordpress 2.5 a frustrating experience.

If you’re thinking of upgrading, I’d hold off until at least version 2.5.1. Hopefully some of the bugs will be fixed by then.

After looking into it a bit further, the reason became obvious. Easter was approaching and people were looking to buy Easter eggs online. A lot of the pages on Chocablog have good rankings for chocolate related Google searches, so people were coming in from Google and clicking through to actually buy the chocolates.

I’m very careful not to push affiliate links on Chocablog too hard because I want the site to be fun and keep the reviews we post as honest as possible. The success of the affiliate links to “buy now” on the site was something of a pleasant surprise… so I decided to try taking it a little further.

I set up a small ad campaign on Google Adwords and sent the traffic directly to my affiliate links. I know most people recommend making landing pages, but I didn’t have the time or inclination to do that for this small experiment.

To my surprise, the campaign produced results within 24 hours, so I tweaked it, refined the targeting, increased my spend and set up a campaing on Yahoo too.

By Thursday (when I switched off the campaigns), I’d spent just over $100, but made £550 (about $1100) selling Easter Eggs.

I guess the moral of this story is not to be afraid to explore opportunities when they come up. Many professional bloggers make most of their income through other related activities, rather than directly from their blogs, and this is just one example. If you’re blogging about in a parcticular niche, the chances are you know as much about that subject as anyone, so it makes sense to use that knowledge to the full.

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