» March 19, 2008 in
Sam podcasted today on How to Own Your Niche. It was a good podcast and worth a listen. In it he mentioned follow his advice and in 5-6 months you should be doing well. I have no idea the audience that was geared towards, however I don't think it's true for newbies. My opinion only and no slight towards Sam or the podcast, it was great, and I used it for the inspiration to ask:
How Long Working At Making Money Online Before I Can Pay My Monthly Mortgage?
Certainly this has to be a huge goal for people that have an interest in making money online. It's one of people's largest bill and would be great to have paid for every month from online earnings.
However, if you are telling someone about making money online, and they asked how long it would take to achieve this goal, what would you tell them?
Every Situation Is Unique
I know, there is no real answer. Haters move along ;)
However if you want to take a guess it would be interesting to see what most people's opinion is. Just a guess on the "average" time it would take.
Let's assume the mortgage is in a developed country on an economy house.
What Do I Think?
My guess is 1-2 years for busting your but and treating making money online as a part time job.
Certainly there are exceptions, I could probably name a dozen, but out of the tens of thousands that try, only being able to name a dozen or so that achieved it in their first year is a small number.
The Veterans Advantage
Earlier today I made $2.10 in adsense from a page I wrote in August of 2004. 2004 was the year I started writing online but it wasn't until later that I started trying to directly monetize the writing.
I may not have any better articles or marketing than you, however having a large quantity of content out there already gives old timers a leg up that newbies don't have.
lol, and I'm reminded everyday that I'm still a newbie. (I joked about something from 1997 today when I wasn't even thinking about affiliate marketing and Shawn Collins mentioned how it really was. Man some of these folks have been doing this a LONG time already)
Not only the fact that veterans have a large volume of content and experience to draw upon, they also have nicely aged links/domains/networking/reputation to use to their advantage. And honestly probably even more than I know about.
There is almost no way a newbie can get the Veterans advantage without putting in the years.
I'm not saying you need an "advantage" to make money online, just saying it's not usually mentioned that productive time is a huge factor in making money online.
Underestimating Making Money Online
I captioned in the video "the concept of making money online is easy, the reality isn't"
It's so easy to explain how to make money online. Send a merchant a sale, you get paid. However the implementation of that is where 154000 blogs and tutorials come from.
I hardly ever see people saying it might take 2-5 years to make the small amount of paying your mortgage, however that is a much more realistic expectation than 6 months in my opinion.
The beauty is though, if you stick it out and work smart, you eventually start making some ok money in your sleep ;)
Of Course Just Cause Your Are Around Awhile Doesn't Mean You Will Earn A Dime
I reiterate that I know just putting in the time isn't worth anything, you need to be smart and work hard and have a pinch of luck. However,
If you were to guess at the average time it takes someone to work online to pay their monthly mortgage, how long would you say? Is there a "rule of thumb?"
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Juanito says on March 19, 2008
Juanito has been on this Internet Marketing game for over 2 years now, yes I make around 2k a month but that is not enough to stop working full time for me (I live in the USA), now we are talking 2 solid years reading books, making html sites, LOTS OF WRITING, spending LOTS OF MONEY ON PPC (And losing a lot also) etc etc etc.
Making money online from Juanitos experience I can say that it will take you at least 2 years to make enough extra cash, now if you want to stop working and do this full time it could take a bit more.
My tip......
Do not rely on ADSENSE to pay for your mortgage, try to provide a service, sell an items online and try affiliate marketing.
If you plan to pay your mortage using Adsense it will take you a LONG LONG time (this is what happend to Juanito) I spend my first year building a unique content site with lots and lots of pages, never got to more than $20 a day with Adsense.
Today Juanito makes more money online by providing different services and from affiliate sites....
Adsense is just Juanitos weekend money for beer and strippers.
Good luck Mark!
CDFnetworks () says on March 20, 2008:
It took me about 1 year to be able to quit my job, so I think your estimate of 1-2 years is spot on. Anything less than that is unrealistic for most people. Caroline Middlebrook says on March 20, 2008
Interesting question - I've been working online now for 6 months and I am just about at the stage where I could pay my mortgage but there are two things I want to note. Firstly, I do this full time so if I was part time I would extract that out to at least a year.
Secondly, the first few months were a disaster, I didn't make any money at all, everything I tried failed and I moved around from one thing to another. Most newbies never get past this stage. However, now that money is starting to come in I feel as though I have the ability to keep it coming, its getting easier. I'm sure I'll a lot more in my next 6 months than I did in the first.
Magazine Subscriptions says on March 20, 2008
This is possibly the most sensible blog post about making money online I've read in a while. I've been working at it part time for 2 years, and probably started earning enough to pay the monthly mortgage about 6 months ago - so 18 months in total for me. The next goal, to quit the day job still seems a long way off.
Richard callaby says on March 20, 2008
Mark,
You are right about taking about 1-2 years to make a decent money online. The reason is that there is just so much bad information out there that the truth is buried under a heap of krap. If you do get the best guidance from an established name that will not give out false or misleading advice then yes i can see the time taken shortened to six months. The difference as a "veteran" to a newbie is to know the difference between the krap and truth out there. That is the real differnece. But the important part is to work everyday on your goals and never give up. Just my thoughts from someone who has been at this for about 2 years.
Thanks
Collin - Feed Flare says on March 20, 2008
I am thinking around the same lines as well Mark. 1 year you should be close, but it depends really on how many fake sites lure you in as a reader with the promises of showing you big bucks you will never get to make.You got to watch those sites.
Marcus says on March 20, 2008
For me it wasn't a question of time, it was a question of the size of the "nest egg". Once my affiliate salary doubled my regular salary with a healthy nest egg built up, I knew it was time. You'd be surprised just how much the volume gets turned down from your day gig boss when you know you can leave any time without blinking. Even during the "build-up" phase to quitting the day gig, you'll find that your confidence increases dramatically. The other important factor to consider is how your family feels about it. Make sure you have their full consent and understanding before taking the full affiliate plunge. You'll need their support down the road when you have to start working 16-20 hour stints building out campaigns. On the other side, make sure working from home is an ideal working environment for you personally. Set aside some "work" hours in which you can work without distraction.
Lernen says on March 20, 2008
First I was reading about making money online and started my Blog about personal development (in German - so the Target group ist not as HUGE as in Englisch) after a Year I was thinking - what the Heck I was doing wrong. People who earned money online was making tons of dollars an i was making about 1 $ per day.
Than i realised, that they allready head huge other sites, and Projects so it was easyer for them. (I hink so) any way,
Cool thing on make money online is:
- If you are doing it propetly and full time, you will earn $ for sure - more that in a normal job.
Not cool is:
- Everything depends on you and only you. So if you have 8-16 Office Job, it es easyer to wake up every morninig , beacuse you HAVE TO.
If you are running a Blog or WEbsites, and you know, that you can sleep little bit longer , you won't get up. And than you feal like Sh***t, beacuse you've just waisted your time.
But hey, aint noting realy free. right?
Making money online ist nothing for wimps ans impatient people.
I was Studying and washing dishes for living. Now I am studying and writing - sounds better to me :)
digitalnomad says on March 20, 2008
I think you are a righteous dude, and you may dispel some of the myths being marketed via the dub dub dub by the "making money online and GRQ" crowd.
Dan Cruz says on March 20, 2008
I don't know about 1-2 years but maybe it's because of where I live and the size of the mortgages down here (I live in Los Angeles, CA).
I started in 2004 and I'm probably barely getting to the point where I can cover my mortgage. I started an offline biz at the same time and that really forced me to put making money online on the back burner on several occasions and I think that really slowed me down... so learn from me and commit yourself to one thing at a time;-)
I think if you're aggressive and you (and this is the key) find the right information you can probably do it in a couple of years.
Unfortunately though the wrong information could just leave you bankrupt or back in the cubicle for good.
Simonne says on March 21, 2008
I spent my first year learning and trying different things: some of them worked, some others didn't. I wasn't earning enough to make a living. It was probably my fault, because when I saw something was working, I should have multiplied it.
I would say that for somebody who has absolutely no clue about anything online, it takes at least one year, if not more, until being able to cover the mortgage from online earnings.
Let's take this example: if I never heard about plugins in my life, how long would it take until it crosses my mind to search for them? This is funny: in my first three months of blogging I was putting the Related Posts by hand at the end of each post, because I thought it was a good idea to link pages internally.
Doing that several times a day, lead me to the idea that people must use something to automate that, because it was a lot of work to select all those posts and put the links in the new post.
A couple of years ago, learning was easier. Today there are a lot of "information sources" which are misleading, so it would be very hard to decide right from wrong.
45n5 says on March 21, 2008
amazing thoughts, what's interesting so far is nobody is defending that making money online can be done quickly or less than a year?
great comments all ;) thanks.
Andrew says on March 21, 2008
The formula for time you need to making money online
(((Time*Luck)^Passion and Love)/Time-Stat-checking)*Good-Strategy
Mark Hansen says on March 21, 2008
Interesting post for sure - that will prompt me to write a post of my own later today!
In all, I was earning my morgage payment within the first 3 months ($1300/Mo) but it was a combination of affiliate content sites, my niche blog, and adsense.
I am at the 8 month point now and earning considerably more, but it has taken quite the effort to get there that quickly.
I was already working from home before starting and estimate 1-2 hours a day on the affiliate sites, 4 hours a day on the blog, and random hours on research, reading blogs like this (And Carolines) for bits of info.
Great post!
Mark
Cath Lawson says on March 23, 2008
This would depend on an awful lot of variables - eg. how much cash you had to put in initially, whether you were doing it part-time or full-time and a whole heap of other things.
The answer would be different for different people.
Sapphire says on March 24, 2008
Oy, I must be an idiot. I've been at this since 2004, and I'm only making a few hundred a month.
Where did I go wrong? Well, I was totally self-educated, and I just plain missed some stuff and got some other stuff wrong. But also, I kept trying to build sites that will make money longterm, rather than sites that makes it short-term but may later fold.
Now I'm doing a little of both - using the short-term money to pay for content and other improvements on my long-term sites.
Sapphire says on March 24, 2008
BTW, I didn't mean to sound petulant when I said "I must be an idiot" - I meant to put a wink after it. I just meant that I think most people start out trying anything and everything so that some of it's bound to work, and I mostly avoided tactics I didn't think would last. Which may or may not be the right approach - I may still suddenly catch up and be earning the same as other people who've been at this as long as I have.
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