Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I have the ability to do every bit of my websites myself, from writing and graphic design to coding and database design, but I'm about to start a new job (I just can't survive on my online income just yet!) and I guess I'm curious about what sorts of circumstances you guys are in while you are building your online incomes.
There's no way I'll have anywhere enough time to do all the dirty work (coding, design, the larger part of the content writing) myself once I start this new job, so I've been planning to shift into project management mode. That is, I'll be earning enough to budget a good weekly amount towards small advertising campaigns, link building, coders from rentacoder.com, writers from guru.com, etc.
Are you having success from putting yourself in this kind of project management role for your sites? Do you have any words of wisdom you'd like to share? My job starts this coming Monday and with my first pay packet I'll be beginning to invest in getting a few things happening that I don't have time to do myself.
I have read a lot of posts from people advocating doing everything yourself. I can understand that it's cheaper because you're not specifically spending money to produce content and intellectual property, but I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who have to work because they simply can't afford to build their online website portfolios any other way. I read a post recently by IncrediBill who said that it's important to work smart, in other words leveraging other people's time, rather than hard (trying to do everything yourself). How do you guys balance work (employment), work (your websites) and play? How many of you are spending a reasonable periodic budget on building your websites? Any success stories to this effect?
I have read a lot of posts from people advocating doing everything yourself.
Yep. I'm a do-it-yourselfer. I may not be forever but I am still happy with it for now.
I can understand that it's cheaper because you're not specifically spending money to produce content and intellectual property
Well, not only that, but also (I imagine)...
1) Managing other people to do work for you does take up time
2) You don't always get results which meet your standards
3) It is difficult to find people you can rely on and use again and again. Finding a new outsourcee for every new occasion can take both time and effort
4) Outsourcees can hold you up, let you down, go on holiday etc.
5) If you are outsourcing to both a writer and a graphic designer you have more than double the headache because their work needs to co-ordinate
6) Throw in a scripter and you have more than triple the headache
7) Every time an outsourcee does a piece of work you are going to have to pay for it, whether it's good enough to use or not
8) If you are outsourcing a skill which you actually don't have yourself, then you are not in a position to see when your outsourcee has done a botched job or taken shortcuts which might have a long-term detrimental impact on your project
9) Sometimes outsourcees hear what you've asked them to do but decide to do it "their way"
10) If something goes wrong with a piece of code or an article includes factually incorrect statements or a graphic has been ripped off from an original design elsewhere on the web and you only find this out after you have published... you will be responsible for something you didn't do.
Disclaimer: I have never yet outsourced. So the points above are not based on experience, just on my perceived nightmare of what outsourcing could turn into.
I was in the lucky situation, that I had my self developt CMS as I started with AdSense.
Only some small extensions, most of the time, I can spend for writing articles.
How do you guys balance work (employment), work (your websites) and play?
All my sites (180+) are about my bricks and mortar self-employment businesses. I do what I like when I like, if I have felt the necessity to work 100 hours and completey rebuild a site, I have done precisely that, if I feel like taking trade trips to anywhere in the world, except the Arctic and Antartic, I can do so since I get a 100% tax allowance since my trade sources are based on each continent.
If you're wondering why so many domains the reason is for perceived local contact purposes therefore I have example.com, example.co.uk, example.cn, example.in, example.com.br etc. even though I host and run them all.
I think you would be surprised how little effort many of the more successful AdSensers actually make after their initial brainstorming.
How many of you are spending a reasonable periodic budget on building your websites?
All the hard work was done 100% by myself during the 90's and now I spend a couple of hours every Saturday or Sunday afternoon updating trade news and archiving if required.
The real benefit of coding oneself is IF/WHEN anything may go wrong, you know instinctively exactly where to go to resolve the issue however with someone else's coding a lot of time could be wasted searching for the problem.
It's quite amazing how much one can generate in a sustained 100 hour bout of work and then reap the rewards later IF the articles/content/information is genuine/original/relevant and most of all, in reasonable demand to generate a decent income.
ronin makes some valid points about outsourcing, take heed of them.
And one last point:
There's no way I'll have anywhere enough time to do all the dirty work
If you really do want to do it then you will find the time, you'll not go to the pub, you'll forego certain leisure activities since you WANT to do it.
If your heart and enthusiasm is not in it to create that unique content now, will it be in 3-6 months time?
How do you guys balance work (employment), work (your websites) and play?
Very carefully! I'm also a do-it-yourselfer and it becomes difficult to manage life, work, and sites.
How many of you are spending a reasonable periodic budget on building your websites?
I don't have a set budget. I'd like to say "I spend whatever it takes to keep my projects successful.", but I should probably say: "I spend whatever I can to keep my projects successful."
At this point, I would have to say my site is a 3/4 to full time job. : )
But adsense isn't the only thing I am able to do. I also sell and ship products, etc...from the site.
At this point, the site works for itself, but I am definately hopeful for the future. The more I work on it now, the more it will reward me in the future.
I build my sites around my hobbies and interests and I do 100% of the work on them myself. Working on my sites is what I want to do with my spare time most of the time, whether it be adding a few pages of content, making a major site redesign or starting a new site. If I want to take time away from working on my sites I simply do it. I may spend anywhere from 30 minutes a day up to nearly 8 hours a day when I'm working on them - or I may just let them sit for weeks while I do other things. I don't let my sites rule my life, but I get a great deal of enjoyment creating them. In some respects it is like being an artist - only you can paint that picture with your particular style, or make a sculpture with your own hands.
Sure you can have others do work for you, but will you feel like you've accomplished anything? Will you feel like you really own the project? Will you feel that you can take full responsibility for it and call it your own? Can you honestly feel deep down inside yourself that it is truly your creation?
My advice? Do what you can when you can, and do it all yourself. Be proud of what you create and let that pride spur you on. Set aside an hour a day to do nothing but work on your site. That hour might be spent doing research, writing, creating a graphic or coding. You might just be amazed at how fast it can all come together. Do some brainstorming on your lunch hour and write down the flood of ideas that will come to you naturally. Enjoy what you do and soon you'll find yourself with plenty of time to do it. All of it. It will feel like playtime.
Whichever path you take I wish you well.
I wrote most of the content myself, although a few months ago I paid someone to write some articles for me. Now I'm spoiled, because those articles have performed well, and all I had to do was was format them into a page template. I also hired someone to build a nice web header, that looks ten times better than anything I could ever make.
I consider myself very fortunate because I actually like my day job. If I was working for myself, I would be doing the same thing for alot less money. In fact around ten years ago, I was a sole proprietor of my own company. I did that for over 5 years. I worked twice as many hours than I work now, for half as much money. For most people (including myself), a 9-to-5 is a better option than living off of AdSense reveneue.
Even if my AdSense revenue equaled the salary from my regular job, I would still keep working.
There are some out there who don't have jobs, but my guess is that they are a minority. Some of them probably have other incomes in addition to AdSense.
I have some *really* needy clients though (sort of my specialty), and unfortunately a lot more ideas than I have time to develop. And I'm fairly uncomfortable with the idea of farming them out to someone or ones unknown. So they'll just sit in my head till I get around to them; which may be never. I still have an idea in my head for the coolest video game ever that I thought up 15 years ago and never got around to planning out and finding someone to design for me.
> "...full time..."
Well, it's all I do for money, so.........
> "...on the side ..."
I tried laying on my side and doing this, but sitting in a chair at a desk is easier.
For years I've done this on the side, in my free time. My day job pays well, but there is no joy in it. So in two months' time I will be quitting to work on my sites full time. I can't keep doing both; it's too tough to keep up, and it's my sites that suffer.
haha
Ok thanks for the feedback so far guys. I guess I should clarify something. I actually do have a couple of sites that are mine and mine only to work on. One is a fairly unique social networking/dating site. i.e. significantly different to all the standard boring dating script sites you see out there. This one I've spent a TONNE of time on and will continue to do the work myself. I also have another site that is not funded by AdSense (i.e. it's an actual B2B web-based product funded by subscription sales) and I have built that myself. When I finish working on the current overhaul to my social site (in a few weeks at this rate), I will be pouring a whole lot of spare time into building up the other site (it's got a lot of problems and needs improvements and features before I'm happy marketing it again).
So point of the story, I have stuff I do and will continue to work on myself, but I also have all these other ideas, partially begun sites, etc. I could wait until doomsday for the time to work on them myself, but seeing as I'm about to start a new job and will have to try hard as it is to find time to work on my existing sites whilst keeping good mental health by maintaining a social life, I am of the mindset that I need to farm the other stuff out. There are pros and cons to farming stuff out of course, as mentioned by the first reply to my post. I think I have some of them in check though by the fact that I can code, design and write effective content myself, therefore having a decent idea of what to look for. Also any work request would always be clearly detailed to avoid ambiguity. Project management does take time, it is true, but I think I can probably juggle more projects at a time if I take that route rather than the do-it-all-myself route.
I need to be in a writing mood and my hours are based on that. When I'm not feeling creative, I stop for a while.
