Before I explain what I mean by this I will address a very obvious objection to my headline. Why am I telling you not to create webpages, blogs or products about making money online when I blog about making money online?
Very simply, I don’t make my money online through this blog. It currently represents only about 1-2% of my total online income. I assume that this proportion will rise somewhat as it becomes more popular, but I never expect it to be more than about 10% of my total online earnings.
I enjoy writing this blog because it helps me to think through my own ideas about Internet business and because I want to help people improve their lives by starting their own Internet business. Obviously, if I can make money from this blog so much the better, but the earnings from it could disappear tomorrow and I would hardly notice.
OK, enough about me for one post, what does this have to do with you? In fact, I think this point is extremely important, because it is the biggest single mistake I see people online making online.
Why Do People Think Writing or Even Creating Products About Making Money Online Will Make Them Money?
I think the simple answer is that they see other people doing it and decide to copy them and do it themselves. For example, they see supper bloggers like John Chow who report incomes as high as $30,000 a month, writing about making money online and think well that looks like a good idea, so they copy it.
If that sounds like you, you need to read what I am about to write next. John Chow and other Internet marketers and bloggers like him are the exception not the rule. Most people who blog about or even create products about making money online are not nearly as successful as the top people in the field.
The Internet marketing and make money online fields are very good examples of a winner take all market. A few people at the top do really, really well but most people don’t. To illustrate this point think of popular music. Bands and artists like U2, the Rolling Stones, Celine Dion, Jay Z etc. do very well for themselves. However, the vast majority of musicians do not make millions of dollars and most end up struggling for their very livelihood.
The few people at the top make most of the money and everyone below struggles to earn enough just to scrape by on. Contrast this with other fields where there is far less disparity. The best neurosurgeon in the United States, probably earns more than the 500th best one, but the 500th best one still earns a very good living.
You can try if you like to make money in the Internet marketing/make money online field but there is another important reason why I don’t think it is a good idea.
You Need A Huge Volume Of Traffic to Be Successful
The fact is visitors to make money online or Internet marketing sites are actually not that valuable. Again using John Chow as an example in February he earned $29,643.01 from 134,931 visitors, which means his average visitor was worth about 22 cents.
Now, nearly $30,000 in a month (over $1,000 a day) certainly sounds impressive (certainly far better than I am doing) but it was only archived by having an even larger number of visitors. I am not trying to belittle John Chow’s achievements, in fact I suspect the amount he earns per visitor is much higher than the average in this field.
Nevertheless, 22 cents per visitor is still not that much. I have some websites (admittedly with far less traffic) where each visitor earns me roughly $1.50. Moreover, I run some Pay per click campaigns where each visitor is worth $5. Note, none of these campaigns or sites has anything to do with making money online or Internet marketing.
In my experience, Internet marketing and make money online affiliate programs are among the worst performing. This is also, why Internet markets have to create such huge e-mail lists. Selling 600 ebooks at $47 is not that difficult if you have an e-mail list of 60,000 people. It’s creating an e-mail list of 60,000 people that is the difficult part.
It is very hard to generate lots of traffic because of competition. Sure there is a demand for these types of products but there is even more competition. I also think this is why visitor values tend to be so low for make money websites and blogs. Visitors get confused and often give up because everyone just wants to make a quick buck off them.
When you have 10,000 websites all trying to do this people naturally get suspicious and are reluctant to buy. Finally, many people who search for make money online are both cheap and lazy. They want to make money with no effort and no cost. Well I have news for people like that, that is not the way business works.
If you are just starting out why would you want to get into market like that?
Starting An Internet Business Versus Making Money Online
For these reasons I urge you to start and Internet business and not focus so much on just making money online. The two may sounds similar but the mindsets are totally different. If you are looking just to make money online you will always be looking for the next hot trend, product, ebook, etc. On the other hand, if you start an Internet business you want to create real long term value (or you should if you want to be successful).
However, I am sure that there a few cynical people out there who think that I am only saying all this to avoid more competition. Let me assure you that there is more than enough competition out there and you deciding to enter the market will have pretty much zero impact on me.
Save yourself the hassle and create an Internet business in an area other than Internet marketing and/or making money online. You will be able to make more with less competition and less hassle. At least this has been my experience maybe I am just a really bad Internet marketer.
Have your own story to tell about making money online or starting an Internet business? Tell us below in the comments section. (Comments have to be manually approved because I get too much spam)