The 500 Dollar Per Month Comment Thread

You said profit rather than revenue...I spend all my income from Xfep on bloggers and whatnot for other sites I have. My plan is to make $1000/m on xfep, spend 800/m on bloggers building other sites.

Currently, xfep is making $300-500 a month, but it could go as high as $600 in May if everything goes well.

Most of my revenue comes from private ad sales and some AdSense.

I haven't been successful in anything else as of yet.

I think I need to be more aggressive in selling ad space, and contacting relevant businesses to get them to market on my blog.

I have made about $3,000 from my website The Social Millionaire in the last 2 months. I basically started a unique idea and paid some top bloggers to write about it.

I will give one bit of advice and motivation. I made 140k net last year, I made 140k net in Feb of this year. This business is about scale and testing. Make sure you don't just do stuff without any notes. Every website I make or ppc campaign I start gets its own notebook, (yes I write stuff on paper, that was a big big help) I write everything down that way if something happens that I want to copy I know what I did. I also don't sit around waiting for results. I build, document and build some more.
The moral of this story is to not give up because once you get consistent profits they can pile up fast if you do the one thing Joel Comm says you don't have to do a lot of - WORK!

Hi David,

The first thing that I noticed from your comment was that your costs seem way too high. You're only making a 20% profit from revenue which while fine for some industries, seems way too low for online ventures - especially blogs.

I noticed on Xfep.com that you pushed out four lengthy posts in a single day. Maybe you could consider cutting back your own posting schedule and writing posts that encourage more involvement from readers to create more discussion and user-generated content from readers.

You could then devote more time to your other sites and not have to pay so many bloggers, thus reducing costs.

What do you think?

Mark,(not the right place for this comment but who cares)

I thought you were annoying for the longest time but now that I have taken another look at some of the things you have to say, (you can thank Vic), I have to admit that you are better than most other MMO blogs.

I like the fact that you have original things to say and do things your own way no matter what anyone else says. I get tired of reading all the same crap over and over on the other sites.
Congrats.
DayJobNuker

I make a bit more than $500/month - anyways, it is fairly easy (bear with me).

Find a plan, and stick to it. Nothing hard there. An Adsense website making $2/day is worth around $600 - build a few of those and you not just have recurring income, but also the possibility of a lump sum should you want to sell them off.

Kind of generic, but I haven't seen anyone state what they need. Should they do, I'll be more specific :)

Jason,

An interesting point, but from my experience and calculations, a $2 a day Adsense site still needs around 250 visitors per day to get that $2. I for one would appreciate the info on how to get that traffic to an Adsense site :)

Hey Steve,

Depending on your niche and how well your ads are placed, you can make that amount with hundred or even ten visitors.

As for gaining traffic, again - it depends on your niche. For example, for the football website I'll be launching I'll be doing commenting, guest posts and link exchanges, whereas for a credit card tips website you will need to do article marketing and work on SEO for long tail keywords. :)

Hello,
I have been reading 45n5.com for a few months now and I have learned a lot. The blog under my name is really only a personal blog and I don't intend to make much or any money with it. However, I have been doing PPC for a little over a month now and losing some money. I know this is normal for most people starting in the field, but I think I know what I am doing wrong. In my small amount of experience I have learned that PPC has many different steps, and spending too little time on one area can cause a campaign to fail from the get go. So I am now spending more time on each step to make sure that I am completing it fully.

By the way Mark, why don't you setup a forum? It seems like it would be a great place to discuss topics such as this.

How do you make $500+ a month online? Create your own website, add affiliate links and build backlinks. Learn basic search engine optimization! Anyone with a 6th grade education can make this amount per month after 6 months of SEO. Just avoid low quality backlinks and spam email blasting and you should do well. Make sure you offer a useful resource or service to get free backlinks.

Let's take a single site that I have been working on more as an experiment than a business. The challenge was to create a site (not a blog) that converts well on specific keywords. To make this interesting I choose the MMO niche because the competition is massive and success here would yield the highest learning for me. (For example I have already discovered that each PPC works differently and has different levels of fraud (or not as the case may be)).

The site is at how-to-make-money.clue42.com (guess my prime key word(!)) and it uses a script I have been working on to wrap a theme around all requested php or html files as they are requested. I'm hoping that I can develop an information product formula and repeat it for related business niches.

I have created a number of special content items for this niche including a diagram of the making money process for which I intend to write explanatory articles.

Under my own name (rather than the blank anonymity of the domain name) I have been compiling a collection of the better marketing and sales videos. This is in order to add as much value for the visitor as possible and hopefully earn some organic linkage over time. It also helps me to cash in a little on the branding my on-line name has developed.

Once the script system has been proven and I am reasonably happy it is safe and secure I hope to sell it for a small price (no more than $35 I think) along with add ons (such as a secure admin wysiwyg editor).

My traffic seems to mostly come from the US and the UK. I've had two spikes of traffic from social media and I've pulled around $5 or so but have spent $15 so far. I use an adserver and so know that the left hand ad square was hogging all the adsense clicks (without exception) so I put an internal advert in the right hand one which leads to an item I am quite proud of.

What would the readers of 45n5 suggest.

The easiest way to get $500 per month or even $500 per day, is via adsense arbitrage. Yes, you will pay for your visitors, but you will make money, a lot of it.

I founded a web hosting company nearly 10 years ago. It's been wholly virtually based and is my main form of income (let's say more than $500). We have staff, support and affiliates based nationally.
We're likely to be opening a physical office soon though, hopefully. (Tubu.net)
There's a definition between an 'online business' and a 'site'.
I have a site too (TechBurgh.com) which does ok (just under the $500/month) all through paid posts and no traditional advertising.
We have to face it - banners died, adsense is decreasing.
Advertising needs to move with Web 2.0

I used to make about $2,000 profit per month from Adsense plus affiliate marketing using organic traffic to my SEO'd sites, but I didn't move with the times and now I am down to about $250 profit per month affiliate income plus spikes when I do work for clients (which is rare).

So now my strategy is to develop products based on my skills as a programmer and my marketing experience. Being a product producer brings you to the top of the Internet Food Chain where you can recruit affiliates to pay for ppc Ads and avoid the problem of driving traffic to your sales page yourself.

Selling your own products and services can net you quick, relatively large money, but acting as an affiliate can be very labour intensive for little reward.

I think the way forward is to focus on creating valuable, unique products if you want to have long term financial and time-freedom success.

Another method that I came across recently is to build a valuable web asset website and sell it.

@David - I remember cashquests had a image with the adzones, their prices, and their availability that she sent out every month or so

@Pat Hankinson - congrats

@fred - great advice, thanks

@Steve J - I think davids cost's might be ok if he is growing the sites more than the costs he's incurring ;) some people like to reinvest most their money in other sites

@DayJobNuker - thanks for the compliment and hanging around. I'm for sure not perfect.

@Jason -interesting, I used to do adsense but found affiliate products easier to make money with. now I ad adsense to a site if the products don't sell

@jason - I had a forum once upon a time here and no one used it. ppc - it took me the longest to make money that way out of almost everything i tried, but i am making money with ppc now

@Learn Seo "Anyone with a 6th grade education can make this amount per month after 6 months of SEO."

I don't know, for a newbie to making money online it's not that easy imo.

@royal radande - interesting thought, I've never tried arbitrage ever

@lord matt "What would the readers of 45n5 suggest." about what the site itself or selling the script?

@andy - thanks for the comment, however I would never rely on paid posts as google might nuke you with a pr0 then you have no earning potential with paid posts.

@Mr MultiVar - I would so be in the same boat if I didn't keep up with my sites. passive income? NOT

I haven't tried selling my own info product.

Isn't it important to attack this from every angle you can. Sure make your own informational products and software it may net you big if what you have is innovative enough. But also try to attack this game from other angles as well. PPC advertising is tough as I am finding out but each time I create a new campaign I have learned something from the previous campaigns.

One tip is to focus some of your energy on re-bill affiliate offers as this is one way of getting a passive income faster. What are re-bills? They are affiliate programs that pay you each month for every customer you sign up. Say you have a re-bill that will pay you 5 dollars each time a customer signs up. all you have to get then is 100 customers and you have your 500 dollars per month. Sounds easier then it actually is but that is the better way of spending your time as this will continue to pay you over time.

I focus on every aspect that I can so I can learn from all angles. I create niche websites. I am in the process of creating some niche informational products to go with those websites. I also do PPC advertising in my niches. I work on creating Squidoo pages and Hub pages and other ways of getting some unique traffic.

Google adsense is not going away any time soon. Nor is banner advertising or direct advertising. Sure they may be evolving and be more difficult to make money with but that is part of business. You either do it right or you are eliminated.

Also I have this idea for a great social networking site but have not have the time to build it out but who knows that site alone could net me enough to have me retire early if I get it right. If I do not get it right at least I will have learned something in the process and I am not a quitter so I know I will succeed. Just keep plugging away and you will get there.

Steve J - Thanks for your thoughts, and I totally agree. I just haven't been in a position to spend the time on the other sites until recently as my full time job had been blogging for Splashpress Media.

Now that I am no longer going to be doing that, I hope to ramp things up. Part of the reason my costs are so high is because I believe in paying a fair wage for content creation, which might not be the best for business, but I was paid fairly, and am in a much better place in my life than I was three years ago when I started blogging full time. I want to provide others with the same opportunities.

I will be building up those other blogs as quickly as possible through social media promotion, working on generating relationships with bloggers in each niche that I am tackling and through a little bit of linkbait like content over the next three months.

If I can get each of the three other blogs (outside of xfep.com) to generate $200 a month, that almost pays all the writers, thus giving me most of the profit generated by Xfep.com.

I don't expect my own blogging endeavours to ever pay my way, but they should provide some decent part time jobs to some deserving people, and pay off the investment I have put into the sites (which I have calculated to be around $2000 per site to launch it as I have planned, or $6000 for the three)

Great thoughts and ideas by everyone. :) Hope some of my insights help.

What is arbitrage and how do you get into it?

Now regarding me making money online. I honestly feel like I am winding up for the big one. (the big check that is) I have only been online for under a year and I feel what I am learning, I am learning at a very fast pace and am able to apply it well.

I am focusing on PPC right now and with the plans of starting a new website not a blog as an affiliate site. A site I can write, do some SEO on and just leave it but one I can pull off of for years and years.

I am not the type of person to make 100 sites that make a dollar a day, I can't stay focused long enough to do that and would find myself hating what I do.If I can not enjoy my time online making money then I am not going to do it.

Right now I am around the 4 to 5 hundred mark online per month between 2 blogs, but my biggest jump was this last month when I started to really look at PPC and tested a few things out.

My biggest hold back with PPC is the fact it looks like I need a credit card to start most search engine campaigns, which is my problem as I have crappy credit from my devorice a few years ago.(I got the house and all the bills too)so what I am doing to fix that is taking Aprils income (around 500 or so) and dumping it into a prepaid card. Then every month rolling back into my campaigns what I have earned and building it up that way. A good thing about doing it this way is it is safe for my house. No household income will be spent online thus it can never be effected by a loss. Sorry but I can not sacrifice the security of my home to chase my dream of MMO. The bad thing about this method even though it is safer is it will take me a long time to get to where I want to be, unless someone steps up with an idea (hint hint hint)

This was kind of like going to confession.....very cool

Overall I do make a lot more than $500 a month online but I never have any of my sites earning more than $500 a month.

The highest I ever got for one site was around $350.

I believe in a few months I would be getting that much from one site if I'm consistently updating and promoting that site.

How long does a site need before making $500 a month with just minimal updating ? 6 months ? One Year ?

@Roseli A. Bakar - I've never had a site make over $500 with minimal work, the only thing that makes over $500 per month always requires tons of work or the earnings drop

@collin - almost all the ppc engines take a debit card, no credit required ;)

as for blog advertising, I'd do like I mentioned to david, make a grid showing where people can advertise and contact them.

Mark, I think you have to be American for that to work. Canadian debit cards work differently.

I earn about $150 per day profit, really from sales on my sites its about $500 a day that im pulling in, but when you take out expenses and advertising, its

$150 a day revenue... so about 4.5k a month.

Its all about dedication, build on one thing, then the next.

@webdevking - thanks for the comments & congrats ;)

@all - I'm a bit surprised how many readers are doing near or at least $500 per month (some way more).

nobody is struggling to get to $500 per month? It took me over a year to get there.

I earn XXXXXXX just from 2 affiliates.
Thanks to the strong catchy domain names!!

I have just come across your site and have to say that I am truly impressed and thankful for your great work.

I am just getting into Internet Marketing and can say that I am at the zero point.

I started skimming through your site, and got to wonder if you have a section for noobs (like myself)?

Those who have stated that they are earning $$$'s, is that from affilate marketing using PPC, organic search (SEO) or product sales?

Thanks again.

@david - thanks for stopping by and commenting.

I'm not even sure where I would start making a newbs guide, there are so many paths to choose that it's really up to you, find some stuff, test, if it doesn't work move on, make you own process ;) I've yet to find a blueprint.

My money is from seo and natural traffic from links to sites with affiliate products. I'm also finally starting to run profitable campaigns with ppc but it's still slow.

Mark....I think you need to account for the "fudge" factor.

lol @bill - forgot the fudge factor

Wow Mark this post was a great idea! I Started learning about aff marketing about 2months ago. April has been a rewarding as I will be getting my first pay checks :-). That said all my profitable campaigns are running on facebook social ads but I really want to get going with adwords and yahoo. My main problem when using adwords/yahoo is that the keywords I choose either cost to much or do not get enough impressions.

OK I'll stick my hand up - I am hoping to hit the $25/month payout tis month. After 13 months Adsense is sending me a check for $102 ! I guess I have made all the main mistakes: created the webiste I wanted to read myself: unfortunately no one else searchs for the term: I am No1 though! I have learnt to write better on hubpages and they have paid me for articles to the tune of about $200 and most of my Adsense is from them. I have got quite a readership there which is more fun than talking to myself on my blogs!
My current plan is to follow Vic's 100 BANS sites thing: I understand process and scaleability and although having people read what you write it doesn't seem to get me paid so I am going for the direct approach with BANS as I can see that it should work: and if it does work no-one gets hurt in the process (ie sold the crappy EBook!)

Well, i want to get my website out there, and i don't want to buy a domain and hosting yet, just its a waste. Currently I'm doing free graphic design, (banners, etc.). But I'm afraid that if i start making people pay, then I'll get absolutely no one on there. Can you help? And maybe check it out your self ^^. As you'll see there, its currently being re-designed. So nothing there yet, but I'll let you know when its up.
Brad.

@neil - first check is 2000? wow that's good

@lissie -good luck with the bans sites. I'm not a bans expert so someone else will have to offer some advice there.

@Brad - you'll never make any money if you don't charge people. I'd also put something on the site before linking to it or sending people there.

(@45n5) both, either... I'm just interested in where those with a more "targeted" experence might see the simplest road. The site itself is an experiment so I'm willing to try anything that is not too expensive just to see what happens. However, that's lot of choice.

@lord matt - as a script it's ugly and would need a new template

as a site, it's ugly and impersonal and I probably don't see many people linking to it

As an infoproduct, there are already sites like 19pages that are free that basically make minisites

;)

Well I am basically doing a site on earning money online/computer lessons. It started off as a comp lesson site and sort of evolved into a money online site. I have been doing this for about two months and I get from 10-15 hits a day(sucks I know). Hmm, I just chaned the site design yesterday. Now the plan is not to put all my eggs in one basket with adsense, and start looking for affiliates. So far I have HostGator Amazon and Adsense. Any suggestions would really help. I have not had much trial and error. I do know some php and a basic knowledge of html and script. So feel free to get technical if you nust. Thanks.

@Richard - wow "earning money online/computer lessons" pretty odd combination?

I like earning money online but couldn't care less about a pc lesson.

Also your focus should be getting people to read the site before you are asking or caring about monetizing.

Just my 2 cents ;) anyone else?

Yeah, I should of mentioned that my main concern is to get eyes on my site. I not forgeting about affiliates, but for now they are way down in the totem pole of my concerns. I am more concerned with the social network aspect, design, and just getting poeple to come back once they visit. PPC is not an option for me now. So I will have to work on the snail process of SEO and the more attractive Social Networking. Thanks for the Feedback.

"snail process of SEO and the more attractive Social Networking."

??? why not write something really interesting and then tell people about it with an email?

If it's good enough it's instant traffic ;)

I would never rely on seo for anything, that's just icing on the cake.

Its hard to gain that amount $500 for a month, but if you really work hard on it, who knows you might make it. For now, everyone should at least try without giving up, without trying also can mean no chances at all.

I've been working with IM for about 2 years now (very part time) and only average $200-300 per month. I really started getting back into marketing in January building eBay sites with Mony Tree (similar to BANS) and have earned around $600 since January.

I also make a pitfiul $40-60 / month via AdSense.

I am really interested in expanding my affiliate marketing sites and build sites monetized by something other than eBay (as a precaution).

I am curious if an affiliate "mashup" type site would be the right way to go or what? Thoughts?

Chris

hey mark :) pinkdeals makes me over $500 / month. my advice is to make sure you know your target audience, and focus on what's converting and do more of it. at this point, i'm looking to automate parts of the site so i can scale it. i project the results will be huge. i look at it like this, if you can scale a site that's already making money, you're good to go.

(@45n5) - Thanks! I'm gonna get on with it, and get my site out there. Once i start to get a few more people there, I'll start charging ;). If you need any graphics, just ask ^^.
Brad

Interesting post... I run a few sites, among them a news site with articles appearing on Google news and a few other less popular sources, had it for a little over a year, the first 5-6 months made $20-300/mo, the last few months made close to $2,500-3,000/mo all from AdSense
Once every few weeks, there's a day when the site makes over $500 in 24 hrs from a single news article which is listed high, but there are days when I make $20 b/c the articles I write never make it. I post 2-5 articles per day, 6-7days a week.

In general, news niche is a poor quality traffic, visitors drop in by a chance and never come back. I also found that affiliate programs don't work well with news sites.