How long until you reached $1500 a month?

[Cutter]

How long did it take you before your sites reached $1500 a month in profit? Or, how long do you believe it would take you to reach $1500 with content based sites using advertising and affiliate programs (given the knowledge you now have today)? No limitations, 100 hours a week if it is must. I'm not including freelance webdesign or programming in this number.

I can't recall anyone raising this question on any webmaster boards before. It got me wondering and now I can't sleep.

I'm sure everybody will have a different answer. Right now I feel like I need some sort of general "mile marker" to aim for. I don't like to admit this, but I need help reaching this mark. Or, maybe I am on the right path and I just need time to get there.

I seem to have very little difficulty in getting initial traffic to my sites. Currently I am writing an article for a print magazine concerning one of my sites. Additionally I will be writing reviews for a large commercial website (hint: the domain name sold for 7 figures.) Somehow I have mastered this aspect of marketing sites (see my sig for a few ideas.)

I understand the mistakes that I've made in the beginning (actually hardly more than 6 months ago.) I have adjusted my strategy and am confident that I will be able to make a living off of my sites in the long run. Right now I am just wondering "when?" I know it takes time to build up traffic. I know I can get instant traffic with Adwords.

If anyone can work with me directly and help me boost my earnings quicker I'd be willing to produce a few content articles for you. The site on my sig has some examples of my writing (not this 4 am stuff.)

[incka]

1 year from starting to learn about SEO.

[chromate]

About 8 months. Though knowing this is probably no use to you as it will vary massively from person to person depending on the site. There are so many variables to consider and it takes a while to build up the experience in order to know how to handle things.

Google seems extremely slow on the uptake these days, at least for new sites. So that will also slow you down.

[Chris]

Around 14 months, but I didn't have this site to help me.

[The New Guy]

when did you start chris? (what year?)

[s2kinteg916]

I would say a year as well.. Takes a while to get concept of how it really works and to run into mistakes...

[incka]

www.whois.sc/online-literature.com will tell you when Chris started. I started a long time before as a hobby though, like for 4 years before I considered making money from it...

[Xander]

Its semi related so I'll post it: Were you earning it part time or full time? If part time when did you decide to go full time?

[incka]

I only do this full time in the holidays... I'm still in education...

[MarkB]

I have this site to help me, and I'm nowhere even CLOSE to $1,500 a month ;)

Mind you, my laziness does hinder me somewhat!

[incka]

I think it's more your choice of site to make rather than your laziness... I'm quite lazy after school (not in the hols though) but I still get a lot done... Stop creating forums and datafeed sites and make a large content site... How about a politics from around the world news/current affairs site?

[moonshield]

incka... amen
i totally agree with you. No 'real' people visit datafeeds on a normal basis and forums dont really receive good click throughs on ads. I believe the dedicated, hardworker, who knows what they are doing could make a killing.

[thebillionaire]

where do you publish ur articles Incka?

[Emancipator]

haha 1500 a month? My site is 4months old, and i only wish it was $1500. It would help with my nasty hosting fees I just picked up by getting my own server.

I am a strong believer in good content sites. I was just talking to Tess about all the empty forum sites I see, and how pointless they are to me. I am working on 1 site, and a second one on the go, but my goal is a good site not profits

This would be a great question to revisit in 4months :)

[incka]

Thepoorman - Nice of you to agree with me, but your amen breaks website publisher rules of no religious stuff :p Just kidding you on that one...

I really need to be developing my large content sites I've been making more, but I'm bogged down in link exchanges... Thanks linkmarket.net... I wanted about 50, not 250..

[incka]

where do you publish ur articles Incka?


I don't understand.

[Cutter]

This would be a great question to revisit in 4months :)

For sure, I'll be bookmarking this thread.

[davesplace1]

Took me about two years, but then I'm a slow learner :)

[James]

Gimme a while and I'll be able to tell you how long it took me to get that high.

Here's a tip: over 8 years.

[Chris]

www.whois.sc/online-literature.com will tell you when Chris started. I started a long time before as a hobby though, like for 4 years before I considered making money from it...
Not entirely accurate, since I started with literature-web.net, but close enough.

[thebillionaire]

How long did it take you before your sites reached $1500 a month in profit? Or, how long do you believe it would take you to reach $1500 with content based sites using advertising and affiliate programs (given the knowledge you now have today)? No limitations, 100 hours a week if it is must. I'm not including freelance webdesign or programming in this number.

I can't recall anyone raising this question on any webmaster boards before. It got me wondering and now I can't sleep.

I'm sure everybody will have a different answer. Right now I feel like I need some sort of general "mile marker" to aim for. I don't like to admit this, but I need help reaching this mark. Or, maybe I am on the right path and I just need time to get there.

I seem to have very little difficulty in getting initial traffic to my sites. Currently I am writing an article for a print magazine concerning one of my sites. Additionally I will be writing reviews for a large commercial website (hint: the domain name sold for 7 figures.) Somehow I have mastered this aspect of marketing sites (see my sig for a few ideas.)

I understand the mistakes that I've made in the beginning (actually hardly more than 6 months ago.) I have adjusted my strategy and am confident that I will be able to make a living off of my sites in the long run. Right now I am just wondering "when?" I know it takes time to build up traffic. I know I can get instant traffic with Adwords.

If anyone can work with me directly and help me boost my earnings quicker I'd be willing to produce a few content articles for you. The site on my sig has some examples of my writing (not this 4 am stuff.)


where do you post your articles?

[thebillionaire]

For me, I think maby four-five months. Thats because last year I made every mistake possible(except legal issues), so Im an expert at what to do; the opposite.

[paulfitz]

Even though I've been designing sites for a long time, I've only gotten into ideas of selling advertising and affiliates in the last 3 months. Currently making around $20 a month but if I keep the work rate up, creating content sites hopefully that will improve.

Thanks for posting times - interesting!

[Cutter]

where do you post your articles?

Just on different sites. I have an uncanny ability to almost effortlessly type pages of content (unless I have to do research.) A few reviews on CounterFrag.com are mine (thats my gaming site.) I'm moving away from the gaming stuff now as I realise I can leverage my knowledge in other areas to far greater effect. The whole supply and demand thing.

This (http://www.counterfrag.com/x-counterstrike-source-beta-review.htm) review of the Counter-Strike Source was posted on the front page of Slashdot. Very amusing since I was having trouble getting small CounterStrike-specific web sites to post it.

Once again, the site in my sig also has a few articles. I'll be adding more on that site regularly -- I just launched it a couple of days ago.

[SWD]

the key is UNIQUE content.... invest some on unique content and you will have somewhere from where to start making big bucks

[James]

Unique content, luck, and the right category.

[AndyH]

Knowing what I do now and working 100 hours a week ... 1 month.

Oh I would need a couple of hundred in startup money.

[Nick]

Knowing what I do now and working 100 hours a week ... 1 month.

Oh I would need a couple of hundred in startup money.

You should write an article, Andy.

[AndyH]

You should write an article, Andy.

I don't make money (not much) off content sites so anything would write wouldn't be useful. That and I am really busy. :p

[MarkB]

incka... amen
i totally agree with you. No 'real' people visit datafeeds on a normal basis and forums dont really receive good click throughs on ads. I believe the dedicated, hardworker, who knows what they are doing could make a killing.

No 'real' people visit them? So who are the non-real people who buy from datafeed sites every day?

[incka]

Kraftwerk and googlebot.

[MarkB]

Oh - they buy from sites now? :rolleyes:

[incka]

Well kraftwerk do, I haven't listened to googlebot... We're charging our battery And now we're full of energy We are the robots We're functioning automatik And we are dancing mechanik We are the robots Ja tvoi sluga Ja tvoi Rabotnik robotnik...

[Nintendo]

No 'real' people visit datafeeds on a normal basis.

er the visitor has no idea it's a datafeed site, and if they like the site, they just might come back over and over to order products. :D Who cares if they don't visit daily. If you get just 10 people a day to order something off your site, you'll make money. Make 50 datafeed sites and average 10 items per day per domain and average $1.00 in earnings per item and you got $500 a day!!!!

[Cutter]

And how long would that take?

[Nintendo]

Oh, six months, if it's June, you make all the sites at once, are fully indexed in Google by November, and get enough visitors to each of the sites to get 10 sales a day per site. (Having THOUSANDS of files per domain helps. For example, I've had up to half a million Amazon URLs indexed in Google at once) Of course you have to have very good luck in the SERPS, since there is a ton of competition now!

It's not as easy now as it was back in the 90s! Not even close! I made my first site in 1996, put my first banner up in 1997, ComonwealthNetwork, and my the end of the year was up to around $800 a month, and passed $1,500 for a month the next year, then made a killing in 1999 and 2000, with 2000 making about $100,000 from just two Nintendo sites!!! Now those two sites make less than $500 a month! CPM baners were king back in the old days! Now you have to actually work to make money. :D:D:D

[incka]

Nintendo, do you have an AWS4 script yet, and I'm interested in buying your datafeed script... PM me here, on sitepoint or on your public domain content site.