Can money be made online? Is it easy? Can you make a living from your online activities? Can you do it without doing any work?
The short answer to these questions is: yes, no, yes, no. For the longer answer, keep reading.
I see the questions above asked over and over again in forums and on blogs by work-at-home moms and by would-be work-at-home moms. These questions are fueled by the hype and publicity surrounding some who have successfuly earned A LOT of money online (and failed to mention that they did it by working at it full-time) and also by the unrealistic claims of scammers.
These questions can only truly be answered by exposing the truth about the myths surrounding the hype about earning money online.
Myth Number 1: Money Made Online is Passive Income
All you need to do is set up a website, put a few ads on it and wait for the money to come rolling in.
The Truth: Yes, you can make money by operating a website, but it is far from a passive activity.
First of all, designing a truly effective website takes hours of planning and design work. You will also need content for the website. Secondly, most advertising revenue is based on traffic to your site and guess what, building traffic to your website takes hours of networking. You might even have to advertise your site on a more popular site.
Remember that advertising servers such as Adsense, or similar advertising services, nearly always have a minimum payout such as $50.00 or $100.00. Until that minimum is reached, the website owner doesn't receive a single dime of the advertising income. I suspect that many website owners give up before they ever reach the minimum payout.
My personal experience with my personal blogs (not Work From Home Momma) is that I have accrued about $28.00 after owning the sites a year. Maybe I will meet the $100 minimum for payout in about three years.
Myth Number 2: Blogging is an Easy Way to Make Money Online
You spend ten or fifteen minutes a day posting one or two paragraphs about your life and wait for the dollars to flow in.
The Truth: Yes, you can earn money through blogging, but blogging for money is hard work. There are three main ways to earn money through blogging: advertisements on your blog, paid posts, and blogging for someone else.
If you choose advertising on your blog as your moneymaker, see Myth Number 1. Besides, trust me, your life isn't all that interesting (neither is mine). If you want to earn money through your own blog, you'll have to write informative or entertaining posts. Those can't always be written in fifteen minutes.
If you choose paid posting as your way of earning money through blogging, then be prepared to write a lot of paid posts. The average payment for a paid post at most blogs is about $10. If you need to earn $1500 a month that means you'll need to write about 150 paid posts every month. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, most companies that pay for posts require that your blog contain nonpaid posts also. (Besides, the paid posting business has been severely impacted by Google's recent decision about paid text links.)
It is possible to earn good money blogging for someone else, but first you will have to find someone who wants to pay you to blog. This usually requires that you have some expert level knowledge on a subject. There's a lot of competition out there for paid blogging jobs. Once get the paid blogging job, you will need to follow the guidelines and instructions of whoever you blogging for.
My experience with blogging for money is that it requires at least two or three hours of writing a day (and I only earn a part-time income from my blogging).
Myth Number 3: All You Need to Do to Make Money Online is Set Up A Storefront
If you sell something online you can get rich quickly and with very little effort on your part. Better yet, sell your ideas online. (That way, there's nothing to ship.)
The Truth: Yes, you can earn money through an online store, but online sales (like offline sales) is hard work. Having an online store is no guarantee that you will have any customers.
Even if you generate a lot of traffic to your online store, there is no guarantee that anyone will buy your product. You will have to advertise and promote your online store just as you would promote a brick and mortar store.
Selling ideas is known as consulting and it's hard work. Yes, people earn a lot of money as consultants, but they work hard at it.
What about you? Are you earning money online? Do you think it's easier or harder than earning money offline? Why, or why not?
Leave a comment and let us know.
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I agree...I make about $50-100 a month blogging. In a way, I consider it passive, because it is for stuff I'd be doing anyway. If I were to put it in terms of dollar per hour, I'd be far better off at McDonald's. In fact, I joked to a friend that "I can totally make half what a waitress makes before tips" when she asked about ads on her blog.
That isn't to say it can't be done. I don't have the time or interest in doing what it takes to really break beyond the income level I am at, but I think people who are need to realize the reality of the work involved.
Posted by: Dana | December 18, 2007 9:41 AM | Permalink to Comment