Forum Moderators: phranque
I know that I can improve my skills and approach things more professionally but I am not really sure if one can make living for ever with web sites. I don't have any day time job that I can trust. I just work in a restaurant in the evenings and try to develop my web sites. But I know I need some proper life to manage the things.
I would really appreciate any experiences and advice on this manner. Also I wonder if being a webmaster is your side job what is your full time job.
Thanks in advance...
If you have a web site that you really can be proud of - one with a life of its own, then the challenge - as well as the money - may justify going full time.
But where you seem to be NOW, I'd suggest getting the best job you can, and do the website in yor spare time until it shouts at you "I need you full time". may be tomorrow, may be next year ... keep your options as open as you can.
NO, Unfortunately I don't have a web site that I can be proud of. I never thought professionally about my web site. As you said I did a mistake and thought about money only that I didn't even bother improving my coding skills (html, css, php, etc.) And even before I establish this web site I started to make another one just for money. Now, I don't even know when google's free traffic will end and the income I have will decrease. One thing for sure is it will not end forever.
Pretty much impossible if you ask me. Especially with Adsense, that is about as unstable as things get online, who knows Google might not even exist in 5 years...nothing is forever online.
However...if you start a website that caters to real services or products it can work with word of mouth and repeat business.
Get the customer from the site now and keep him for years with or without a website. I think that is the key.
And do spend a lot more time learning and KEEP learning, that will aslo help.
I've been a writer for longer than I've had websites, and there are two pieces of advice always given to beginning writers that IMVHO fit pretty well for most beginning webmasters, too:
1. Don't quit your day job.
2. Think like a professional webmaster.
They might sound contradictory, but they're not. If you need the income from a regular job, you'll be less stressed if you have it (another thing often said by writers is that the most useful thing for a writer to have is a wife [or husband] with a steady job). If you hate your regular job, or know of one you'd enjoy more, change - a job you hate can be more stressful than no job at all.
I have a full-time job because I desperately need the health insurance, but it's as an editor so I feel as if I'm honing my skills while I'm at it. It's sometimes frustrating because if it weren't for the insurance, I could make a living from my websites. I try to engage in long-term thinking, and have plans so that by the time Medicare kicks in I'll be selling my own products instead of running affiliate ads. At the moment, this plan is running ahead of schedule, and I'm not quite sure how to handle that! Decide what you want to be doing a year from now, or five years from now, and aim at it now.
But think of yourself as a professional webmaster who works in a restaurant to pay the rent, not as a restaurant worker who'd like to build websites. Keep track of your time, expenses, and income, so you can file a Schedule C (or equivalent if you're not in the U.S.) should it figure to save you some taxes. Keep learning and keep up with what's happening in the field; don't be afraid to attend meetings, classes, etc., because you think everyone will know more than you do - if they do, so what? Build sites that are professional and that will keep going over time. Cultivate supportive friendships and network with other professionals.
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In all of the above, I'm certainly projecting myself into your situation, because I don't know you. There are some people who need the "rush" of being broke and unemployed to get anything done, and there are some who continuously build new websites that ride the wave of what's happening today and just figure they'll build a new one tomorrow to catch the next fad. But IMVHO, it's a very small minority who actually operate better that way.
I am 54, I earn my living from the internet. I need to earn that living for the next 10 years and I believe I can. Maybe technology will slowly overtake me but not by much.
You are 27, technology will overtake you if you dont change. But your age means that you are much more capable of keeping up with those changes. Nowadays nothing is forever, but suprisingly, the cost of new technology menas that you have a 10 year lease on your current knowledge.
Bleeding edge technology is the death of so, so many businesses.
Things change and evolve. Technology and economics, the Internet, population
trends, political climate and obsolence. Whats true to day might not hold for tomorrow.
Can you make a living today? yes! How about two years from today? Probably.
How about five years? The crystal ball suddenly has become cloudy.
If things stay static we can make a living. If things change, who knows.
Personally I feel that down the road big changes will happen.As the Internet morphs into a main stream media instrument, it might no longer need the middle
man ( Adsense, Adwords )to provide it with advertising revenue.
Does the big three media outlets need middle men for advertising,not at all. TV, radio, newspapers go direct to the advertisers. Why not the Internet?
I am not referring to the Internet in its present form, I see large companies
like Google, Yahoo and MSN moving towards being media conglomerate encompassing
a wide spread of media styles.
While search will remain and important part of this package it will not be the
only part.
If and when this happens we will all be looking for something else to do.
Until then I am going to ride this pony until it drops!...KF
(Don't be alarmed, Ive been wrong before, I think the last time was 1998! :o)
Unless perhaps that you build a brand now, and don't think about an income for the next five years, and you have something really, really, out of this world to throw at people - and then you might get a shot at what the internet will become with time. If the internet exists by then.
Sincerely, and have fun,
Adsense is good if you like easy money, but it is easy to lose. I started to change my web site, where my visitors will come back again and again to check fresh content. So that, I can get direct advertisers and offer memberships that will create a long term customer base for me.
