So are you mostly a web developer/designer... or an internet marketer?

Where does your online revenue come from?

you mean income related to Internet?

I guess he is :)

Well my main income source is from developing sites, but my plan is to change that, as I like more developing my own sites :)

me too, but the last one is tricky... I get obsessed with getting a few dolllars from adsense etc. the last too month I build more websites for myself then for my customers while only one project is much more money then some of my websites :(

Hehe, I think that is a "stage"

When I started with adsense, I was viewing the statistics 4 times per day, and I was earning less than 0.50$ per day.

Now I earn much more than that and I don't care about stats so much.

About the sites that you make and you see that they don't make money, you shouldn't worry as those sites are like lessons.

You must see what happened and they haven't succeed so you will be able to make the next site better, and this goes on and on....

... all my sites are important since they are part of my network ;)

me, i seldom get website projects.

my revenue online primarily comes from adsense and selling digital products i have resell rights to, like ebooks and software. i also offer specialized services to foreigners who need anything done here in my country.

so i guess im primarily an internet marketer.

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The best adsense format ever 
Buy my stupid eBook
An easy way to reduce comment spam
Where does your online revenue comes from?


...

I am hoping to get most of my company's income from sales, and use the ads to offset Google Adwords advertising...

WhiteEagle,

i wish for your success... good luck!

Thanks! To yours as well!


Moderator:
please stop with these ads in your posting, if you have to say something, use your signature or post an ad at the marketplace.

I guess i'd be a marketer, i tend to develop and promote my own sites, monetising them by using Adsense and / or affiliate advertisements.

I've had some moderate success with adsense in the past, but in my opinion affiliate marketing has far higher potential revenue yields if you can pull it off right....

I also do a small amount of freelance SEO work.

hello BFTUK. i agree with you. if you have highly targeted traffic, affiliate programs will earn you more money.

so you guys are saying people come to your site will buy lots a of affiliate products? (of course the content has to be non webmaster related)

not really "lots" but compared to adsense, the monthly income can be much higher if the affiliate product you promote is highly relevant to what your visitors needs. affiliate programs will sometimes pay you just for leads but will pay you more if that lead turns into a sale.

for example, i have this Filipina Penpal site and aside from adsense, i also display a banner for Filipino Friendfinder at the bottom of the page, which pay me a couple of cents per free signup, but when that member upgrades to a paid membership, i get 100% of the initial fee, usually $25, and a small percentage everytime he renews his membership.


yes. others say that selling webmaster related products is difficult since it is a highly competitive market.

vbignacio,

I used diff. affiliate programs, and you're right sometimes I earned more from aff. programs than from Adsense. But I can't say that for a lot of products that these earnings are better.

Example, I think that people buy a hosting via an Ad on my website because they think it's good and I have a unique promo page for this aff. product. Can't say that I have the same success with other products, the result lless clicks and tiny earnings.
Another example is my Template monster affiliate site (a complete website) there are only  a few sales within a month, but not that money that I will say it's amoney maker like adsense.

Webmaster, internet marketing, make money online and ring tones are very tough markets to play as an affiliate, but there are some niches that really pay off.

The real money is when you are doing arbitrage. Buying traffic for your landing page, and then convert that traffic to sales.

If you need some tips on affiliate marketing check here ;)

Nice Tutorial Nick,

I will try a website like them...

what is a minimum % of sales commision for a consumer produtct 8% or more?

That depends. There are programs that pay 2% while others pay 20%.

The important thing is to use some products that convert, not just commissions.

I am more of a designer/developer and trying to learn a bit of marketing/promotion from things I pick up in the forums and from experience

i think its better to start as a developer/designer and then learn internet marketing. almost anyone can be a marketer, but to be a coder is not for everyone.

I guess that's the regular way people get into the web business.

with me its the other way around. internet marketer first before i started dabbling with codes.

I actually learned coding before I started my business, as part of my aborted university courses.
Now, I learn new coding languages as I go, right now I'm struggling to learn PHP and MySQL.

Guys if you don't mind I have some questions to add to the conversation
How many sites are there in your network (your own sites) ?

Are you making more from your sites, or from building sites for others, which one do you prefer?

How long have you been building sites ?

How long have you been earning money online (selling ads, selling products, selling hosting ?) ?

I know some of you already answered theses questions forgive me but I want to put myself in perspective with everyone else here (don't know if that makes sense to anybody else)

Thanks

As for me the answers are
-5-6 sites in my network
-More money comes from building sites but customers sometimes don't know what they want or want things that are impossible (and create so much trouble that sometimes it feels its not worth it) so I would like to be making money from my own sites
-my programming/website history going from present to past
last 3 months I build/ I am still building/was part of building  10 sites
before that and for the 3 years I build only 3-4 sites in total ?!?! (was not working on this field actually - so I have a gap of 3 years)
before that and for 3 years I was working full time as a programmer, with some internet programming but not too much in building sites
3 years before that I started learning programming
-earning money directly from adsense for the last 3 months (still have not received a check ;))

For those questions:
I currently have 3 (will be adding 2 soon, one is being purchased from another forum member).
I am making money from my sites, because I build crappy sites (just ask anyone here...LOL).
I have been building sites ever since I came on the web, back in October 2002.
I haven't earned any money yet(hoping to change this soon), except if you count Google AdSense (but still no direct deposit).

not sure 20, 30?

at the moment I earn at most with the development of custom scripts and applications for customers but making money with my own site is more fun (and for sure the future)

5-6 years

I started very small with adsense and one affiliate websites ~ years before


I'm not sure if your perspective is the same like money, just think about the diff. economy from both countries where we live

I have about 45 domains on my name, about 40 sites. I have started my first site quite a while ago, but only got into building websites seriously about 2 years ago.

For me at the moment most money comes in from my own sites and I'm working hard to get that income up even more, to a point where it can cover all of my expenses with it.

It's exactly the troubles you describe that makes me want to stop building sites for customers. Also when done right the pay from your own sites can be much higher: $50 a month on ad income for 3 years in a row is better than doing a web design job for a client for a one time fee of maybe $800.

Of course you will need to have a lot of sites running, or a lot of visitors on a few sites, to be able to live of the ad income. Both need a lot of time and work to develop and only start paying slowly. Doing web design for clients can be a good way to make ends meet until your own sites start generating a steady cash flow.

about trouble with customers...

I'm happy never had this, of course sometimes I need to push them a little but all bills are paid until now. I think because of one reason that new customers have to prepay 50% before project start and 50% before delivery

Never had troubles with customers not paying, but I often find it frustrating to create what they want, like maybe a site using comic-sans as the font, adding music to the page (of course with no way of turning it off on the site)
Ending up with a happy customer is not what I want if it results in a website that I wouldn't dare to show to prospective new customers...

yeah I know what you mean, I have this customers too but always projects where other webdev people are between me and the customer lol

most of the time my own customer are doing whatever is my advice (they know who is the specialist)

Don't understand quite what you are saying ? (maybe I confused you with my question) but what I was trying to get at was if it takes time to build sites that one can get enough money to live from since I am only in the beggining (I consider myself as just starting out - 4 month and counting)
And your answers tell me that "yes it does need time to build those sites and it needs hard work"

my comment was about the work you can do for customers, I think here in Holland are much more people paying for some website 1500-2000 euro

Ohh I see, I can get 1500 here in Chios (small city 30000 people population) but can probably get more in Athens, or Salonica) but it has to be done with design/development and SEO as a package
otherwise just design/development they don't pay more than 1000 (because they don't know - yet - what the benefits are)

its not about the amount of money but about the number of projects you can do, its different if you waiting for projects or you need to tell people that you don't have enough time ...

Nice questions. Maybe we should also start an "interview yourself" thread :)

Olaf : Your clients do what you advice because now you know your job and because you were a sales person :) Sometimes it is really difficult when you don't know how to "sell". I guess the key is to propose to the client something that they didn't think so they can trust you as a developer then. The result is that you talk with your client only about money and you don't let them tell you how to do your job :)

In Greece that was really difficult before a few years - and now in some cases - because the client thought that you are just a geek and everything is easy to get done.... In addition to that there were many thieves among the web developers and made our job even harder.


I am not sure about that, but I guess about 20-30


I am making much more from developing sites for others, but that's not what I want to do. I started as a webmaster and I want to end this way too :)
Plus when you know some stuff about the internet (marketing, development, etc.) it is easy to make some money without hard work. Of course hard work is required but mostly to learn as in this field you learn only by your mistakes...


I've created my first site in 1996 but I started as a web designer in 98. I was programming since I was kid (my first pc was a commodore 64 which I still own :) ) and I started with web development somewhere after 2000.


A few years. I think no more than 3. I was selling hosting before but only to my web development clients.

yes right Nick, Holland and Greece are different markets, I have to answer only to questions:

"is it possible to do"and then "how much is the fish" ( you guys know the blomd german guy scooter?)

Well, I'm an affiliate manager. Yep.

I can relate to all of you guys, I want my network sites to earn through ads or affiliates too but I can't seem to put much work on them since I am dabbling over maintenance and support for the other sites I built for clients before... Although theres steady cash flow there, it's a lot of work pleasing the customers as well as keeping up with all of them without sacrificing your own projects.

The market where I was before was pretty high, considering businesses would spend loads for getting my services although working for a different named company owned by somebody else that time, that was 2 years ago. When I moved in Asia, theres a lot less market here and people from outer continents think it's cheap labor just because you reside in a certain area, so prices go down depending on the market right?. So anyways, I love reading all of your thoughts on this since I can relate to all of those...

I think automation is the solution to this. Personally I use only cms products for my clients, mostly WP and now I am using a CMS that I've created myself. This way I don't have to provide so much support to my clients. Also I try to get the less projects I can, in order to continue develop my online business.

This plan is not the fastest, but it works. After some time you'll see your online income raise so you will be closer to your goal :)

Yeah maintenance and support take up a lot of time I'm sure.