Spending Money Online To Make It
Those three magic words ‘make money online’ appear in more places than Paris Hilton (almost). But to make money, do we need to spend money first?
I am generally reluctant to spend money online because ‘most everything is free: entertainment, information, videos of Paris’s extra-curricular activities, you name it. And there are many ways to make money that don’t cost a dime, such as adding some affiliate ad code onto your site. But sometimes spending can be a form of investment, if you’re expecting a return on your money, and if the cost is low it can be worth a shot.
Pros of spending online to make money:
- If you’re quick, you can secure a good keyword/url/placement and reap future rewards, in the form of money and/or traffic, once the buzz grows.
- If you make a successful investment, you can share your experience with others.
- You can build on your initial success to generate more money with other savvy investments.
Cons of spending online to make money:
- It’s a risk; there is often no guarantee of making money.
- Success can be random. Often it’s 10% idea but then 90% execution. Who would’ve put their money on Million Dollar Homepage working out?
- You may feel a bit silly if you share your ‘find’ with others and it flops.
Below are two recent examples of ideas from fellow bloggers (inspired by the Million Dollar Homepage story) that may help you promote your site and make money, if you are prepared to spend money in the first place.
1. Ryan Shamus (who must drink, like, a thousand Red Bulls to juggle all his projects) has created a new site called Blogging’s Most Wanted, where you can buy a square on the homepage that links to your site for $15, plus go into the draw to win $1,000 (first prize) and $500 (second prize) once all 625 squares are sold.
If you click the link above and direct your gaze to row 2, box 5 (it’s like playing Battleship), you’ll see mini me. I really need a logo, I’m sick of that blue top - so last season. Anyway, read more about BMW here and find out how to get $5 back on your purchase.
2. As part of his quest to make a fulltime living online within a year, Bryan (no relation to Ryan) at OneMansGoal is selling squares on a page of his site for $10 each. And he’s promising a whopping $10K (US$), once they’re all sold, in a random draw to one square owner. AND he’ll donate another $10K to that person’s charity of choice! Read more details here.
Those are just two examples from a growing number of site owners looking to make money by selling ad spaces cheaply on a single page, with a prize giveaway as part of the incentive. What do you think? Would you take part or stick with marketing your site for free?
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Tuesday, August 28th, 2007 at 8:25 pm
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I was thinking about doing a post similar to this and you beat me to it! Darn you to heck, to heck I say!
Once you’re making money online, spending it is really easy. It feels more like reinvestment when you use a portion of your Adsense cheque rather than money you’ve earned in the ‘real world’.
August 28th, 2007 at 8:55 pmDarn me to heck?
*tears at reading such strong language*
You can still write the post, I’m sure you’ll have a different angle.
Yes, that’s how I felt when I spent part of my AdSense check on a Million Dollar Wiki page. It just seemed right to use the money online which I’d earned online. Like Linden Dollars, or perhaps like selling the cow for magic beans. But that turned out well.
August 28th, 2007 at 9:43 pmSee, this is why I won’t be successful. I dismissed both of those ideas because it’s like “They’ve been done before”. Sure enough,they’re both being done! :S
August 28th, 2007 at 10:43 pmMinx - Thanks for the mention!
Kirsty - Exactly right. The way I see it, I’m not spending my own money. I’m re-investing the income that my site generates in order to make more. Would you spend a dollar to make two?
Rhys - I think you will be successful. The thing is, just about everything on the internet HAS been done. The key is to try it again with a new angle. This is why Ryan is going to be a huge success. He always has a way to come up with a new angle.
August 29th, 2007 at 3:33 amWhen I first heard about Ryan’s MWB page, I knew immediately that I wasn’t going to participate. At the time, I was stuck in penny earning mode and it didn’t make sense to spend money on a blog that wasn’t producing four dollars a month.
I asked an affiliate marketing guru for some advice on how to improve the conversions on my blog, and magically started earning whole dollars the same day I implemented some of his suggestions. Amazing.
It’s funny how you get a whole different perspective on paid advertising when the potential for revenue exists.
Who wants to sell me some text links?
August 29th, 2007 at 5:20 amDonovan, do you want to share the SEO suggestions with the class?
August 29th, 2007 at 9:12 amCertainly. I plan to write a post about everything in more detail, but I want to give the site a little more time to perform before I start making assumptions.
Most of his suggestions were related to ad placement, but I did implement a few things to help my SEO.
In a nutshell, these are the things I changed:
Individual Post Pages:
1. Added links to Next and Previous posts at the top of each page.
2. Inserted a 200×200 AdSense block in most posts with the AdSense Deluxe plugin.
3. Inserted an additional banner ad at the bottom of my high traffic posts. (this was my idea)
Home Page:
1. Rearranged my sidebar to move all my affiliate links above the fold and put my highest performing banner at the top.
2. Removed all banner ads that were not specific to my niche (free Nintendo Wii).
3. Installed the Post Teaser plugin to clean-up the home page. (This improved post page click-throughs by 200%)
4. I removed AdSense from the home page.
I still have lots more work to do, but it’s really encouraging to see a marked improvement by making a few simple changes.
August 29th, 2007 at 9:34 amWow, thanks for sharing that. Smart ideas. I’ve been thinking of installing the Post Teaser plugin, although I find the ‘This is a preview of:’ bit slightly redundant when it has ‘Click here to read the full post’ below it.
Why does removing AdSense from the homepage help?
August 29th, 2007 at 9:42 amI agree with you regarding the “preview of…” stuff. I edited that thing so many times it made my head hurt. I still have mixed feelings about it, but for now, I’m going to leave it.
The AdSense on the home page was not performing and made the site look to cluttered. The purpose for all these changes was to drive traffic to the individual post pages, where there are more ads.
It seems to have worked so far, because I’m making money on AdSense every day now too.
August 29th, 2007 at 9:52 amMinx - thanks for the write up! Always appreciated! I will have to put a filter on it for all of the strong language though…I mean, how many bloggers get darned to heck? That’s rough!
Love ya Kirsty!! lol
Bryan - thanks for the compliment, it means a lot. I think we’ll both do very well with a little time. I’d love for us to sell out in a week, but realistically I think it will take some good ol’ fashioned hard work and dedication to get it done - but we will. And if you sell out before me, YOU’RE buying the drinks!!! lol
Donovan - awesome tips! Some great info there!! Thanks!
August 29th, 2007 at 10:11 amRyan: It’s my pleasure. I’m just happy to have something to share.
I’m tied with Minx for clicks on your Blogging’s Most Wanted page.
Minx: wanna race?
August 29th, 2007 at 10:28 amRyan: Yes, WebSense will have a field day filtering my ’sex’ content and strong language. Phwoar.
Donovan: You’re on! No self clicks though
First to 1000 wins an ice cream.
August 29th, 2007 at 10:56 amAgreed. Ice cream works for me.
August 29th, 2007 at 11:05 amI’m rockin’ the contests. I don’t see advertising on another site, at least not until I come up with an angle that says something besides, “Look at me!” I’ve always liked the pixel selling idea, though.
August 29th, 2007 at 3:02 pmYes, you have heaps of contests. How do you decide what to give away? Does the traffic make up for the costs or is it free?
August 29th, 2007 at 3:53 pmHey Donovan, cheers for the tips. Your site looks really good. How to you add that ‘Next/Previous Post’ thing to the top?
Ryan… hurry up get back to me about that link sale or I’ll be darning you to heck as well!!
August 29th, 2007 at 10:17 pmThanks Kristy! I appreciate your feedback.
The Next/Previous thing was simple. I found some php code online and tweaked it to suit my needs.
This is the PHP code I inserted into my ‘Main Index Template’:
August 29th, 2007 at 11:54 pmI should have known I couldn’t post PHP code in a comment.
You can see the code here:
http://wii-contests.com/next-previous-post.html
August 30th, 2007 at 12:03 amThanks mate. I’ll have a look at it later. PHP and me don’t really get along so if I don’t knock my whole blog offline it’ll be a success!
August 30th, 2007 at 12:25 amKirsty - I think crashing the blog as you tweak code is all part of the learning curve. I’ve done it a few times!
August 30th, 2007 at 8:37 amhi!!!!!!
December 31st, 2007 at 5:19 amOn the pretext of making quick money we should not loose our identity in the world of online marketing. i
am very much in support of proper investment rather than spending more.