Patience Pays Off ($5 to be Exact)

One of the biggest things that I have been saying on this blog (as much to remind myself as to benefit you) is that patience is important. Keep writing and linking, writing and linking and eventually it will all pay off. It did yesterday for me. OK, so it only paid $5, but who's complaining. Allow me to explain.

I awoke yesterday morning and logged on to my Life123 account. I noticed that I had made another $5. Cool! This made sense since I had 2 articles with view counts in the 40's and were close to the 50 view payout level. But as I looked, those two articles still had stayed below that level.

Then, I noticed that the article that paid out had 110 views! And it had been in the 30's the day before! How did this happen? Actually, I have no idea. When I looked at the source of views, 75 had come from Google. I must have somehow gotten on to the front page of Google for a brief time and had gotten tons of search engine traffic. It was like hitting the Google lottery!

The point of the story is that you just need to keep writing and publishing and linking. Eventually, you never know which article may get seen by the right individual and posted on a blog or make it to the top of a search query. Even if only briefly, the benefits could be huge. Plus, I made $4.52 on AdSense the same day. That makes yesterday my best earning day ever at $9.52! Eventually, I will make double digits in one day. Then twice in a month. Then triple digits. Patience, patience. That's all it takes.

PS--These are the 2 articles in the 40's:
Leveraged ETF's: Not for Long Term Investing
Inflation Hurts the Poor Most

Making Goals for the New Year

If you have been reading this blog for awhile, you know that I like to establish and record my goals on this blog for several reasons.

1. First, it forces me to sit down and figure out what I would like to accomplish within the given time frame.


2. Second, it enables me to go back and look at my goals to see what I have been able to do and what I need to focus on. I usually review what I have written about half way through the month (for monthly goals).


3. Finally, the fact that I have written and published these goals holds me accountable to my readers and offers motivation to complete the task.

My readers will also know that I prefer to set goals and then establish tasks that will ultimately lead to those results. While I have traffic and income goals, I can't make anyone visit or read my blog or articles. Nor can I force anyone to click on any ads.

Instead, I will focus my efforts on content and networking. Keep this in mind when I make my goals for 2010 and publish them in my next post.

How do you make goals? Do you write them down? Do you make them easy or try to stretch yourself?

Online Income Inspiration

It can, at times, be discouraging to do several hours of research for an article only to have few visitors and no earnings. Multiply that times tens of articles, and it is easy to see why many people quit writing for online income within a month or two of starting out. I also get discouraged at times when I look back and realize that no one is clicking on any of my ads for several days in a row. So, what do I do during those times?


First, I remember what my college football weight coach would tell us. The times that you don't feel like doing something is the time that you get the most out of it. Why? Because lesser people won't do it (in our case it was lifting weights), and that's when you will start to close the gap on your goals. So when I don't feel like writing because I am discouraged, I write anyway.


Second, I remind myself that everybody has to start somewhere. We all start with that first article or that first blog post when we have absolutely no readers. I try to look at sites and posts that show me the possibilities and remind myself to keep going. Some examples:

• Felicia at nojobformom is closing in on $2000 per month passive income.
• Lissie, whom I met at HubPages, recently made $2000 in one month and is striving to make that consistently.
• Maria makes well over $1000 per month on eHow.
• Of course, Griz makes thousands per month with an ugly blogger blog.
• Livingoffdividends is one of my most favorite passive income sites. In fact, it was the inspiration for me to try my hand at internet income.
• Pat, from smartpassiveincome.com gives this annual report after being laid off. Granted, he was at it full time and wrote an ebook, but he pulled in over $200,000.
• Bob at ChristianPF.com writes this post on making money from a blog. He also got laid off, but pay attention to the graph of earnings and how it takes off after the first year. Gotta stick with it.
• Finally, this is my favorite post for inspiration. I have it bookmarked and have read it 4 times now. If you link to nothing else, link to this one. $100,000 from AdSense in a year is huge, but you have to stick with it.

As you can see, those that are making the most are those that stick with it. If you are able to make money online full time, then great! You will make it to that level that much quicker. If you are like me and can't work full time, at least try to do a little something each day. It may take longer to reach your goals, but don't be discouraged. It will happen. Slowly and surely, one day at a time. Just stick with it.


Odds and Ends


First, I want to thank DeAnna at WriteMoms for linking to my last post on an online income strategy for WAHM. You can see the link to her blog on the right. Be sure to visit her blog. I do several times each week. I am sure she is responsible for my 2 new followers. Welcome to you both.


Second, I would like everyone to notice the new RSS feed to my articles at Life123. You can read about my becoming a contributor at Life123.


Finally, I would like to feature several of my eHow articles which have not yet earned anything. There are 6 of them out of 42 total articles. Maybe the links will help them out in the search engines:

• How to Define Medical Malpractice
• How to Find Cash for Investing in Gold
• How to Buy Stocks at a Discount
• How to Take Advantage of Gold Price Seasonality
• How to Make Money When Stocks Fall by Owning Puts
• How to Figure Cap Rate on Your Real Estate Investment

That is all for today. Thanks for reading.

Thanks to Felicia

Here is a great post from Felicia. I'm pretty sure I have heard this type of story before, but it was nice to hear it yesterday. I know that it will help me gear up going into November, and I think it will help motivate you as well.


Making money online can seem like a long and arduous task. OK, not seem like it, it IS, without a doubt, an arduous task. It requires a lot of effort and a lot more commitment. I suspect it is not uncommon to get discouraged and burned out. That is why I find it so refreshing to read other blogs from people trying to make money online. At times, they can offer a much needed word of encouragement.

Some writers and marketers depend upon it for their sole source of income. As I have mentioned before, that would drive me nuts. I have a hard enough time watching traffic fluctuate, let alone worry about being able to pay my bills. The one downside to reading all these other blogs is that they are the successful ones. They have stuck with it and show up in the internet searches. They are the professionals making $1000, $2000, $5000 per month in online income. You really don't get a complete sense of everything they had to go through to get where they are. You don't realize the time involved or the uncertainty or struggles with the emotions that inevitably occur.

That is why I want to write this blog and maintain it so regularly. I want to share that sense of starting out and record it for all the world to see. I want to learn and teach along the way. It is actually turning out to be fairly therapeutic as well. There is a lot of uncertainty. Can I really do this? Can I make money online? Can I meet my goal of $3000 per month in 8 years and 7 months? Will I be able to stick it out for that long? Will I just simply go nuts? Am I nuts now?

Again, thanks Felicia. I think I now have the drive to continue for one more month. Even though I still don't feel as if I have a complete plan or direction and seem to still be searching for what is right for me, I think I can go on. I think I can. I think I can! Alright, enough of this, I am going to write some more and do some more links to get started early on the November linking extravaganza. I will likely have some interesting news in the next post in a few days, so be sure to look out for it. Until then, keep your head up.

One Task Per Day

So, what one task will you do today to enhance your online income? Being persistent and consistent is the best way to achieve long term success. In Malcolm Gladwell's book, Outliers, he talks about the 10,000 hour rule for achieve spectacular success. He gives several examples including the Beatles. The Beatles played live in Hamburg, Germany's red-light district for several hours at a time. With all this practice, they couldn't help but get good.

Imagine how good you would be and how much knowledge about earning online income you would have after 10,000 articles. But most people aren't going to have the persistence necessary to accomplish such a task. You would know what works and what doesn't. You would know what keywords earn a lot. You would have so many articles on the internet, you couldn't help but have traffic out the wazoo! Backlinks--you would have thousands.

So, what one task will you do today to enhance your online income? Ideas:

• Write an article and publish
• Write a blog post
• Create a few links
• Visit forums and comment
• Keyword research
• Read other articles and blogs about making money online

I have listed some of these ideas from most active to less active. Some days I just don't feel like writing, but I can at least post a link or two to help with traffic. The key is just doing something each and every day. Persistent and consistent in your quest toward 10,000 publications.

I currently have 85 Hubs, 38 eHows, 22 blog posts, 5 lenses, 3 InfoBarrels, and 1 ezine article. That is 154 publications total. I am probably safe to say that if I quit now, I could earn a steady $40 per month passively. But, if I get to 10,000 posts over the course of 9 years or so (3 per day) and only earn at a similar pace, that is still $2600 per month. I would dare say that I could do even better with improving traffic and links.

So, keep at it! What are you going to do today? I posted this to my blog. Now I have 23.

Til next time and keep writing. Please comment on other things that you do to enhance your online income. I would love to hear your ideas.

An Inspiring E-Mail

I signed up for a free e-book about making money online and have been getting some emails as well. Yesterday's email was actually quite good and inspiring. They are all pretty good especially if you are just starting out. But yesterday's was about the amount of time it takes to make money online. The answer was interesting to say the least and boils down to the fundamental heart of the issue. Basically, it takes longer than the vast majority of people are willing to spend and stay focused, but less time than you might suspect.

They also provide an interesting scenario assuming that you can get to $1,000 per month online after 1 year of hard work. Then, by increasing your monthly income by 5% monthly, at the end of three more years, you will be making $6,000 per month. That is truly inspiring.

Getting to $1,000 per month

Now for me, the trick becomes getting to $1,000 per month first. I have been doing this for almost 3 full months now and am starting to see results but even $1,000 per month seems like a daunting task. Writing for HubPages and eHow, I might be able to pull down $1 per article per month which means that I would have to have 1,000 articles between the two sites. Granted I am almost to 100, but 900 more seems impossible at this point. Earnings are picking up, and I can see the potential there. It will certainly be tough to get to that first stepping stone in the next 9 months, but it is worth a try.

I suspect that writing for content will not be the only way to go. However, I don't feel as if I am ready to move on to the next level until I get a little more experience. Since I am doing this part time, it may take a little longer for me to get going. I will just have to see. The next step for me is to get to $100 per month and go from there. That certainly seems feasible and breaking up the larger goals into smaller ones can keep one moving forward instead of giving up.

So, take your larger longer term goals and break them up into smaller chunks that seem feasible. You will ultimately get where you want to go.