What percentage of your income do you earn from the internet?

**kernel32** · 04-Jul-08, 03:25 PM

Originally Posted by Dave A

Just checked - Roelof, your vote has been correctly recorded. Have you been sleep-clicking again?

These web professionals, really

That's a relief, I thought I broke something.

**Chatmaster** · 04-Jul-08, 03:28 PM

lol, must have been sleep clicking then

**kernel32** · 04-Jul-08, 09:45 PM

Chatmaster: If this is at all too personal, please ignore it or tell me to go to hell. You said earlier that your full income is obtained through the internet. Would you say you earn an average, or above average salary?

I'm asking because I desperately want to break free from my crappy job. Unfortunately I've gotten used to the steady income, and I can't afford not to get it every month. The job however, is dragging me down emotionally.

I'm sure lots of people feel like that, but this place is especially bad. I have two moneymaking possibilities at the moment. The first is my online shop, which finally started to pick up a bit. The second is my blog, which I hope to earn some money from when I can get the traffic flowing a bit more quickly. I know these two probably won't be enough to support me anytime soon, but I'm sure it will be possible someday.

**SilverNodashi** · 05-Jul-08, 01:16 AM

kernel32, regardless of what you do to make a living (and money), you have two options, 1) you try the easy way out and hope to make a few quick bucks, or 2) you work hard for your money, and you could built a good foundation that last a lifetime.

Now, everyone would love to be a Mark Shuttlewort or Bill Gates, but those or 2 out of a few billion who became millionares from the internet. Even then, it didn't happen overnight for them, they had to work hard to get there & persist their dreams.

Where Chatmaster (and many others) are now, took him a while to get to, and he probably made a few mistakes along the line, and had to rethink (and probably re-evaluate) his business goals & dreams a few times. Don't ever think that setting up a website will make you a fortune overnight - it doesn't work like that.

So, plan your business properly, and dream about the success you could have. Put in a lot of effort, and be prepared to learn the hard lessons when they come your way. And most importantly, be prepared to break through tough times, get up when you get knocked over - and you could make your living off the internet as well. Chatmaster found a few niche markets which probably set him apart, and I know many others who have as well.

Running a blog could end up paying off for itself, but don't rely just on the blog. In your case you have the shopping site as well. Unless you spend time with the SEO, SER & reports, it may not work out well. Advertising & marketing (as in any business, even on the internet) is very important. Luckily, a blog attracts new visitors almost automatically, but you need to actively blog, and make sure you ping a lot of high ranked blogs as well

**Dave A** · 05-Jul-08, 07:33 AM

There is another wrinkle in this now that I think about it. When I first looked at the question I just thought online sales. But it isn't as simple as that.

I know that my company does get enquiries that come from people finding us on the internet. But it is not a seperate business stream, so I have no idea what the attached value of that might be.

**kernel32** · 05-Jul-08, 02:25 PM

I've been around for too long to think anything will make you rich overnight. Anybody or anything that promises you that, is taking you for a ride.

I started the shopping site more than a year ago, and I'm very glad it's only picking up now. I had a damn good learning curve. I needed lots of disappointment to push me in the right direction. I was looking in the wrong places all along.

The only thing I really wanted to know is if it could be done, but I don't have any doubts anymore. I've been tracking my sites alexa ranking the past 3 months. It's gone from 6mil to 1,9mil. What really excites me is the fact that the guys who make money from shopping sites, all have a ranking below 600K. So basically I'm just getting started.

I really admire anybody who makes a success. Regardless of online or offline. I think the more creative your thinking, the bigger your chances. You have to distinguish yourself from the rest.

**Chatmaster** · 06-Jul-08, 08:28 PM

I have to agree with Softdux on his great post. The Internet is by far one of the most misleading industries and it takes a lot of time to accomplish success. For some reason it also just happens suddenly, you fight and work day and night for 2 years and suddenly it just happens.

Now. There are two ways to go about your Internet business. You can focus on one site or you can focus on multiple sites. In my case I have just over 40 websites, 47 to be exact. These sites are all well maintained and quite cleverly updated with content daily or at least weekly. My income are generally not to bad. I am earning more than I did when I worked for a salary. I have several friends based in SA and abroad that are earning more than 300k a month from their internet businesses. Two of them are truly worth looking at. Both of them are affiliates within the online gambling industries. One has 3 sites the other has over 130 sites. The one writes his own content together with 2 employed copywriters the other writes some of his own content but pays $1600 a month for a company to provide him with more than a 100 press releases and news articles a week. Both of them are making serious money and both of them are working very hard.

One thing all of us have in common is the SEO. SEO provides us with the means to earn a serious income from our websites, but if you have one single site, you are opening yourself to serious issues when Google kicks your site after an update or some obscure reason. My friend in the UK has experienced this many times with his 3 websites. After each update he is in trouble and it takes us weeks to fix the issues, while he looses valuable income.

Another thing all of us have in common is the fact that we started our online businesses while we were full time employed. We never worried about it working, we simply wanted it to work so we worked hard in accomplishing our goals. It is fantastic to contact your friend one day and say, you know this is the 3rd month I am breaking $5k I think I can resign now. The day that happens and you start to devote your full time attention to your online business, your income explodes.

My main income are made through Google adwords. The industries I work in are diverse and not related to each other. I have only one online gambling site and I do not care for it much. I last updated it 2 years ago and it still brings a good constant income. I just lost interest in the industry and have no passion to update the site anymore.

If I where you, I would utilize the free PHP source code and packages available out there and start more than one sites that you are capable of maintaining. Continuously update them and be patient. I would also read up on online marketing strategies and SEO to ensure that I do things right. Link building should be a daily routine and you need to set a realistic target of incoming links that you get each day. addition of new unique content daily is crucial as well.

I would also build a presence on social media sites such as Facebook, where you can build your circle of friends. This might give you the opportunity to speedup your internet business utilizing their help.

I guess my main message is, the internet can provide you with fantastic success, but it takes time in 99% of all cases, very few people can be like Facebook and hotmail that becomes successes in less than 2 years. Stick to your day job and start your online business slowly and with lots of patience. If you rely on SEO, ensure that you spread your eggs to be able to absorb ranking changes.

**kernel32** · 07-Jul-08, 07:26 AM

Chatmaster, awesome feedback! I will keep you guys updated on my progress. I will definitely consider all the comments carefully. Thanks again for all the help. You have no idea how much this means to me!

**Ryan S** · 28-Jul-08, 10:59 AM

My business is 100% Internet based. Its the way to go! SA is behind in terms of the Internet but we are catching up fast. If you want to start making money online I recommend you read a book called Doing Business Digitally by Godfrey Parkin. It will change the way you think about business. Also check out my blog digi-business.blogspot.com