BecomeSelf-Employed Through Adsense

Adsense

[Truegho]

My paranormal website has finally started to generate some good Adsense money, and I was wondering if I should take the step of becoming self-employed and building more Adsense sites to increase my earnings. At the moment, I am earning around $12 per day, which is much better than the $1 or so I was making when the site was in its infancy.

However, I must admit that my enthusiasm to become self-employed has been dampened a little, as some experts say that the web market is very volatile, and you can never tell when a company will suddenly drop its money-making programs. Therefore, do you think I should pursue other means of generating an income from the web?

The thing is, though, I have tried LOADS of affiliate programs - mainly dating ones - but only make peanuts from them!

Thanks.

[edited by: engine at 11:52 am (utc) on Oct. 30, 2006]
[edit reason] See TOS [webmasterworld.com] [/edit]

[trannack]

I would say it is better not to have all your eggs in one basket. Try to deversify your internet revenues, so that if one takes a down-turn or stops making money, you have other sources of income coming in. You will have read here, no doubt, how adsense income can go faster than the blink of an eye. It is best not to rely solely upon this as a revenue stream. But best of luck with your endeavours. ;)

[Truegho]

Cheers, thanks for the advice.

Yes, I will certainly look at other potential avenues of home income. The problem is, though, finding a good, suitable niche market, as so much seems to have been done already.

Dating sites are one of the WORST methods as regards trying to make money. I have tried not only dating affiliate programs but also putting up a dating site of my own. Unfortunately, I have seen only peanuts from my affiliate sites, and NOTHING at all from my own, even though I now have over 500 new members! It gets very frustrating!

[inerte]

That question should be in the FAQ :)

My rules to depend on websites for living:

1) Diversify: If you're banned from program A, what will you do? You've mentioned AdSense, have you tried Yahoo? Other affiliate programs? Consider yourself in a safe position when one program doesn't exceed 50% of your income, or you have a long "relationship" with Google, meaning that there's a very low probability of you getting banned;

2) Can you take a 25% hit loss? Web ads, depending on your niche, can be sazonal, suffer from an "advertiser oligopoly" (few paying a lot), or you can be smart-priced;

3) How's the market and your ability to keep your technology and content up to date? Do you think you're an unique player, but anyone, anywhere can steal your audience? Does the rise of any observable recent internet trend worries you? It's a good idea to have 2 or 3 unrelated websites, so even if one dies, there're other income streams;

4) Will you find a new job if the self employement doesn't work? For most people that rely on AdSense, this answer is yes. You probably have at least one of these characteristics: You're a good programmer, designer, content producer, niche researcher, advertisement manager and/or search engine specialist. Even if the self-employment fails, you've managed to gain enough experience to get a new job somewhere, hopefully quickly.

And above all, do you WANT? Self-employment is not as easy as it sounds. We know the good part: You're your own boss. But there're problems... no health/dental/401k plan, steady/secure income, etc... Can you deal with it?

[trannack]

I think dating is a very saturated market - as is finance and some of the obvious high earners. Best to find an area that less competition and that you have some knowledge about. As everyone keeps saying - content is king. Write the content - get about 100 really good pages with unique information - after you have these, then look at ways to monetise.

[drakke]

You know it is the season for Haloween and stuff related so why not wait to see if this will last.