So weary. Does anyone actually make money on the internet, or are they all scammers?

I am looking to supplement my income by doing an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay on the internet. My parents have had to declare bankruptcy and move in with me and my fiance. I got them both jobs, but it is still financially hard. Now my sister is being shipped to Iraq and my 2 year old nephew is coming to live with us as well. I am planning a wedding for December 31, 2005 and need to save money for that. We lent my sister $2,000 out of our honeymoon fund to get divorced and fight for custody and now that she is being shipped out, she won’t be able to repay it before we get married. To top it all off, my parents had no one to give their dog to, and he has taken to tearing up our carpet.

I say all this so you know I am not just some greedy person looking to make a thousand dollars for sitting on my butt. I would like to make some extra money to support my family and have a nice wedding and honeymoon (especially for my fiance…he has been such a saint through all of this.)

If any honest person has a great idea for me, I would be very appreciative.

Thank you!

huh 20 posts and only one advice?Ble ble hard work ble ble difficulties …and so on;/
Like some lame marketing says: just do it;)

Are you starting from scratch? If so, my advice to you is to not put too much hope into it. Most people in this forum do make some money from their sites, but for most of them, it’s been a slow and steady road to profitability. My sites have been a drain on my finances for close to two years before I started breaking even.

I’m sure a dedicated person with a great idea and a lot of time can do it a lot quicker, but you obviously don’t have a great idea, and I really doubt anyone here would give one away freely.

It is possible. I make comfortable earnings on the side from my sites. Granted, my main one is now something like three years old and the work I’ve done on it has compounded over time to what I’m getting from it now. It takes a lot of investment of time and effort (as does anything in life). I know you’re not looking for any get rich quick schemes (because there’re not really out there). As levik said, there is money to be made, but it takes time and patience to make it. One of the best things I can tell you is that it’s a lot easier to make money doing something you love rather than just doing it to make money- in other words, don’t go for the quick buck but put your time and attention into something you love- that will pay off more in the end, both in money and in happiness.

Yup, forget about that dream of using the net as a miracle way of getting quick money. Takes very hard work

Yeah, it took me about three sites [each with at least a year of involvement, sometimes overlapping] to get an idea for a site I can do [with my newly gained skills in design, php, etc] and make some money with. I used to make about fifty cents a month from ad networks. I have had my new site, Movie Trailers, four about five months now and am starting to make about three bucks a day [this should easily double when I rollover some adverts]. However, I am still growing and expect to double about every month.

However, I put tons of hours in to get the site up and running… now I put in about five hours a day for writing, designing, and promotion.

Ryan

With minimal investment you can make a couple of thousand per year if you are willing to work hard. I would not recommend quitting your day job though!

Selecting a subject you are interested in is probably the best idea. Your site needs to be constantly kept fresh, or have unique information you can’t find in many other places. Look at the following thread for ideas on how to make money off it: http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?t=230663

The internet is the entrepeures best friend and because it is so new it isn’t strange for someone or some company to make a great profit. These are the stories we all hear about: Joe made 2 million, Geocities sold for 4 billion, Google turned all their employees into millionaires, etc… While many of these stories are true (Geocities did sell for over 4b to yahoo and Google did make many people into millionaires) you are only hearing a small piece of the puzzle. Most startups online fail, probably more than fail offline because it requires less investment to make an online “company” and a less serious attitude which you constantly see from new owners. If you intend to make a steady revenue from a website that is your own production then you need to approach it like you would any startup business. To turn a profit you’re talking about investing time and money and hopefully, if all goes well, seeing a return after months or more likely, years. If you want a more sure solution skip trying to make your own business or do your own thing and find someone else to work for. Being an employee, even a part time one who telecommutes is much safer than running a business. You don’t pay startup costs, you don’t take the risk, and you just do work when work is available. Of course every day the major fields like design and development get more and more flooded with new talent so if you want to find something good find a way to stand out atop the rest.

I know people on these forums making 20k+ monthly, but they will all tell you it is a hard long road… nothing is easy in life.

Also, about the title- the vast majority (I’d say 99.5%) of people making money on the net are not scammers. They are honest, hardworking people. It’s the other 0.5% that are not honest, and give all internet workers a bad name (they always seem to get all the notority)

Really if you are looking at making this money in a year you are better off working whatever hours you have left at your local McDonalds joint.

To get a succesful site up requires two things:
a) time (your time, designing, writing, seoing,…)
b) time (the real one, the one that has to pass by till search engines start giving you some love)

After 2 years your time spent the first year is paid off but since you need money now I would suggest you invest your time in something that pays from day one (and McDonalds does)

A lot of people make money on the internet and it could be a great supplement or even for some a replacement for their income. However, I’d advice you not just to see it as something you do just to make more money.
Put some time in it, see it as a hobby and eventually you MIGHT be able to withdraw some money from it.

get a desk job. making money online is hardwork and it takes a lot of time to learn the ins and outs of the trade. it sounds like you don’t have that kind of time to spend messing around online making next to nothing.

I’ll echo what others have said. I make good money off of the Internet, but I wasn’t an overnight success. I invested thousands of hours of effort over many years to get my site to generate a significant amount of income. That is time that I highly doubt revenues will ever fully repay me for as my site will always require my time and efforts. It does pay for my time I invest today, it just won’t cover the time I spent yesterday.

The Internet is a modern day gold rush. Throughout history, in every gold rush for every person who struck it rich, there were thousands who made nothing and many who lost everything.

If you want to make a go of it on the Internet, you had best start it as a sideline “hobby” and make sure you have real job(s) that actually pay the bills.

I think everybody here has fully summed up the concept of making money on the internet, especially the post that apastor made. If you are looking for immediate income, you’re better off finding a supplimentary or second job rather than relying on the internet. Good luck!

I think the posts here so far have taken a pretty pesermistic outlook to be honest.

Starting a site based around a hobby is quite often not the best thing to do if you’re primarily looking to make money. This is simply because many hobbies are just not suited to generating revenue from the net. Perhaps that’s why it’s taken so many people here so much time and effort to make good money from their sites.

My biggest piece of advice is to put your business cap on and put all your efforts into a site that is likely to generate large amounts of money, rather than slogging your guts out on something where it’s always going to be a struggle and may even never work out.

I do agree that it will take some time getting to know the industry, what works and what doesn’t. You should spend at least a couple of months reading and learning as much as you can before you even begin. There’s way too much to discuss everything here. But I really recommend taking a look at this article:

http://www.websitepublisher.net/successful_website/

I know a few people that have built websites that generate $1k+ a month in a shorter time scale than you’ve specified. They all worked hard AND smart. It is possible, but don’t pin all your hopes on it. Not everyone has the business sense to be able to do it.

I just got back from some affiliate marketing meetings in Canada. Met a woman who had been the top affiliate for zZounds a year ago in Dec. That month she made over 9,000 from that program. What I didn’t know until we met in person last weekend, is that she had only started affiliate marketing 5 months earlier.
So to make over 9K a month after only 5 months in the biz is a pretty good success story.

HOWEVER, she had been a web designer for years and knew SEO, which are 2 of the biggest learning curves.

I agree if you are starting from scratch though with no online marketing or design background its extremely difficult to get to the point where you make any money at all. Its a long hard road filled with pot holes and by no means get rich quick.

There is also no magic bullet or magic formula. Although if you want to get off to a good fast start, I highly recommend the Affiliate Marketers Handbook, by James Martell. http://www.jamesmartell.com

We went to his party in Canada last weekend and met lots of his student who just follow his teachings to a T and without much experience went on to make great livings online.

Just about everyone in this particular forum is making some money.

[b]Here’s an idea:

[/b]I have a buddy that was out of work for almost a year due to an injury that required surgery. I came up with the idea that I would create a couple of content sites, have him manage some of the content and promotion (with my guidance) and we would split the $$. He made a couple G’s doing that.

He’s better and working again so we aren’t pursuing that arrangement anymore. Since I also benefited from that arrangement, I am now thinking that I want to get more people involved and do it again (local peeps). For the sake of conversation I will call these people “franchisees”.

Some people here have 10, 20, 50 sites. Most of us don’t have the time to create so many sites. But what if we could just lend our expertise, research a good niche, throw together a decent SE friendly site with basic content management, and then let our franchisees do data entry to build content and link building? Split the revenue with them on each site.

I plan on requiring a modest buy in to cover the cost of developing the site. Afterall I am supplying the expertise and the network of sites that produces intitial PR and traffic. It’s low risk for everyone involved.

What do y’all think?

I hate to be harsh, but you’re going to have your hands full launching an online business if you have half as much things going on in your life as you say you do. One of web publishers’ biggest complaints is loneliness; it’s simply hard to find time for a social life. It sounds to me like you already have three times as much social life as the average three webmasters combined.

That doesn’t mean you can’t succeed, but you should factor that into the equation.

I think if I were in your shoes I would elope. I never understood spending all that $$ to throw a big party for a bunch of people. I wouldn’t spend the money even if I had it, and certainly not if I had fallen on some hard times like you seem to be going through. Maybe the answer is simple: you just can’t afford it this year.