KhalidsLife.com

I decided to share a little bit of my success with you to shoe you that making money online, no matter how little, is a worthwhile investment. I’ve just hit the $1000 mark with Media Jump, the UK pay per click ad network that hosts Ask.com ads. A total of 43,579 clicks were made on my ads since 29/10/07, averaging at $0.02 per click.

I’ve worked hard to achieve this amount and it is a fraction of what some webmasters earn online, but $1k is still $1k…except its in my pocket. As my network grows, my earnings will also, and those little trickles of income will become rivers in due course.

Work hard, work harder and keep working - it will become worthwhile eventually.

Good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.

I received a e-mail not so long ago from a faithful reader Nathan, asking me whether it people were able to succeed at something without the necessary skills? The answer could be yes or no, depending on the person and how hard they are willing to try.

Specifically, Nathan was asking whether an internet entrepreneur could succeed without a vast amount of knowledge of the net or working online: “I suppose I’m asking whether it’s possible for someone to make money online without much skill, and if it is possible, even the slightest amount of money, maybe you could post it?“

My answer would be yes, and here’s why - To succeed at anything you need to start somewhere. You need to learn to crawl before you can walk and walk before you can run. In a world where the internet is now our dictionary, encyclopedia, library and communications hub, learning to crawl isn’t as hard as it used to be.

You can Google almost any question and guaranteed you’ll find a discussion or answer about it. Whether the answer is correct or now is another issue entirely, but in business you have to try in order to fail, you can’t just read an opinion and know you would fail if you tried.

Providing an answer specific to making money online is a lot easier. You see, thousands if not millions of people are doing it, or at least trying, using many different ways. And many of them blog about it too! So you can easily Google a question relating to a “making money online” subject and get an answer or advice. I do it when I am comparing ad networks or looking for a service or product review.

It all comes down to how willing you are to work your fingers to the bone and try, fail and try again repeatadly until you succeed. Many people don’t want to waste their time doing that and so look for a quick buck - something that doesn’t happen online unless you are duping people and selling them an eBook full of false promises.

The beauty of the internet is that you can experiment and learn without wasting a lot of money. Take for example my Adengage Experiment, the costs were about $50 excluding my time and effort, but I am learning a lot. What other business domain could you create a possible recurring revenue stream and test it for less than the price of a pair of shoes?

This is why I love making money online - you can test, learn, fail (or succeed!) without declaring yourself bankrupt or losing your house! And there are so many opportunities without you having to be a master of html or seo. Take Off Beat Ink, my tattoo designs website. I use Wordpress, a free blogging platform, to write about an interest of mine that has turned into a profitable website. Here’s an approximate breakdown of my costs:

- Domain $9
- Hosting $5 per month (on a shared plan, I now have a VPS for all my sites)
- Content $0 (just my time)
- Marketing and SEO $300 (including backlink building, social media marketing etc)
Total: $314

…and this site now generates most of the $12 a day I am currently earning and received over 90,000 unique visitors last month. If I was to begin paying back the $314 I invested from today, it would only take me 26 days. Off Beat Ink is only 8 months old and already I have earned back probably double my investment.

This was the first time I ever monetized a blog, generated traffic to it, pushed it’s popularity online and really worked hard at making it succeed. My time and effort was the biggest cost, but if you are doing something because you are passionate about it, you should be willing to work at it all the time without wanting paid.

I remember when I first began making money online, I built small content sites for keywords that were searched under 3,000 times per month (as nobody else really did). These sites were usually 5 pages with keyword rich, related content and used a free web template. When ranked in the search engines, usually 2-4 months later, the sites started earning $0.50 - $1.00 per day each. Make 100 sites like that and you’d generate between $1500 and $3,000 per month.

The only issue you have these days is that everyone is doing something similar. You are better focusing on a maximum of 10 sites and ensuring you post fresh, unique content daily or weekly. The search engines will love this and so will your visitors. Remember if you are passionate about something chances are thousands of other people will be and will want to read about it. You don’t need to invent the next You Tube or Facebook to become an internet entrepreneur.

To sum up - you can succeed online by taking your time and learning each part of building a popular website. Remember to always aim for the long term and not for short gains. Focus on unique, well written content and then begin to push our site out into the world wide web. Slowly but surely people will come, it just takes time. You may not have the skill at the beginning, but by spending time learning, you will pick it up.

I hope I have answered you question Nathan and provided my other blog readers with some useful information. If anyone else has questions they would like answered please do not hesitate to get in contact with me.

Good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.

p.s I’m in London with work Monday-Friday this week so I’ll reply to comments when I get back!

The challenge I face to become debt free is one that is more of a mountain than a molehill. I have 4 credit cards, 1 overdraft, 1 student loan and a graduate endowment (which I may not have to pay, it is dependant on your circumstances). I am not going to state the exact amount I owe, but its probably closer to £10,000 than it is to £5,000!

A lot of money I know, and now something that anyone likes to have hanging over their head. Breaking it down reveals where the debt lies and how it is repayable…

• 4 credit cards -Payable month, I’ll have cleared two with the sale of Kortaz.com.
• 1 overdraft - High interest rates charged monthly so this is a priority.
• 1 student loan - Payable when you earn £15,000 a year or more (which I do).
• 1 graduate endowment - A one off fee of £2,000 payable once you graduate.

My first debt attack will be on the credit cards. Selling Kortaz.com and raising $2,000 will clear two of these and leave me with some cash to spend on new projects. I may end up selling my entire network and starting afresh, I need to think of a new idea first before I commit to losing everything!

When the credit cards are clear I intend to then build up some savings and get out of the red and into the black. Finally, the debt associated with gaining a degree is the last on my list as the interest is minimal and can be removed from my monthly salary automatically.

I suggest you subscribe to my RSS feed if you want to learn how I am going to do this. I intend to clear my debt by the end of 2008 and build up some savings, probably generating overall between £5,000 - £10,000 in addition to my salary.

Good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.

EliteKit.com was a project I started over a year ago in a bid to increase my online earnings. Originally, I ran a small webstore, EarphonesDirect.com, which sold brand named headphones such as Sony and Sennheiser. As time progressed, more people at my work (I worked in nightclub security back then) asked me for two-way radio headsets.

Realising there was more money and less competition in the security products and two-way radio accessories markets, EliteKit.com was born. A year on and the doors are closed. Why?

Well, aside from being unable to dedicated a lot of time to the site, the market I was competing in was a nice and hardly anyone worked in it full time unless they sold/rented two way radios (at £200 each wholesale, that was a no-go for me) or were a bodyarmour supplier (at £400 each wholesa,e that was a no-go too!).

I am slightly relieved the site has closed its door. I am attempting to earn money using Auction Ads by placing eBay auction adverts on the site alongside useful information regarding two-way radio headsets. I suppose this is a new project into affiliate marketing…we’ll see how it goes!

I do have some stock left I’ll probably shift on eBay myself…anyone want a hand-held metal detector lol?

Good luck with your persuits,

Khalid.