Old guy & total newbie - pointers, please ??

Firstly, please don't think it's going to be easy or that you will even succeed... There are too many people with vested interests who proclaim that MMO is easy peasy and anyone can do it, NOT SO...
Just wanted to be honest with you because too many people fall into the trap and end up spending their last penny on "get rich quick" schemes...

Now, if i had to punt a free course that is totally legit it's Affilorama:
https://www.affilorama.com/
Good Luck...

Welcome smithnowt,

There's a whole stack of information on the Warrior Forum already about how to make money online and how to make it sustainable.

Given your experience with making money in the real world (non-virtually that is ), I'd say you probably already have a high density of knowledge in a specific field / niche / industry. Most of that knowledge would be rather valuable to those starting in those fields / niche / industries.

With this assumption, we now transgress to the latter of what you can do with it online and some of the deeper questions are:

- How do I monetise this knowledge
- Where do I start
- What's important now for me to make money online?
- How do I make it sustainable over time

I'd make some recommendations here, but self-research always has a greater influence. Feel free to open into the discussion more with what you've been working on (progress so far) and what you're working with (the aforementioned knowledge).

Hi smithnowt,

Looks like you're on a good track, it's just a matter of finding what works for you now.

Here's some quick suggestions based on what you've told me so far as you've been a PC tech for the duration of your professional career. Don't treat them as gospel but do keep them for consideration.

If you've branded the wordpress site as your personal authority site (this is going to sound counter-intuitive) = but consider selling / marketing less products. Only go for quality products that you've genuinely found value in and sell based on your value added experience. It's far better than quickly throwing up 100 wordpress sites with 100 slightly different reviews of the same product and affiliated link. It also ensures that you're building something sustainable and 'growing'.

I'm not sure what you're affiliating or reviewing, but - given your PC tech background, have you considered building a Udemy course on basic computation skills and hyper target the course for a specific audience? Udemy courses are online courses composed of text, audio and/or video components. Really easy to make the courses and they don't take too dramatic of a cut of sales.

Here's a couple of courses you could try making:

- Computing 101 For Dummies
- Building a PC From Scratch

Would be two really simple examples and you could sell them for pretty cheap on Udemy. You've just got to make sure you're sending traffic to the course

(and by traffic, I mean a targeted audience of a specific dynamic of your focus: demographic, age, industry, etc...). It's up to you how you want to send traffic to the courses, whether you're going down the route of paid ads, SEO with content on your website, or my personal favourite: local marketing (offline and online). There's nothing wrong with doing a little outreach to the local community, in fact I endorse that for most who are starting out and not able to connect to the next step of sustainability.

At the end of the Udemy courses, give out the link to your website so that the 'learner' has the opportunity to contact you for your direct premium advice or consultancy.

You'd be surprised, in the programming world, I've had fun trying to find some .NET developers with a very specific skill - that was a challenge already. I sure this applies to most if not - all industries.




I can totally relate to information overload. It happens to everyone so you're not alone there. I invested in a whiteboard and drew out my plan as a lifeline to when I started to get information overload. There's a point where you need to stop digging into information and come back to the surface of your business to see how it can be applied or if it's even relevant at times.



lol it's always going to be the case

If anything, they're both right and wrong.. it really depends on the other 90% of their marketing as a whole whether or not something like:

or


Whilst SEO isn't my primary forte, I can say it does matter but it's also constantly changing. It's hard to keep up with the changes which is why I've always focused on good quality content. That's what the Google overlords want and always have wanted for Googlers.

The next question here is: what are you trying to achieve that will bring you money? Are you trying to help the Internet Marketing world, are you providing a community with a dropship t-shirt business?

Once you've identified who you're trying to help, it's a matter of finding them.

Discovering who you're looking to help most and where your expertise lies. Then applying 'how to monetise it' after.

Originally Posted by smithnowt I am an almost retirement aged man with no extra money, barely able to live on what little I have - and with zero experience in selling and/or internet money-making. I want to find something I can do using the internet that is pretty simple, doesn't have me going round in circles with all that social media stuff - and will somehow bring in several hundred every so often. (I am not looking to go after millions here, just need to be able to keep a roof over my head !!) I am not seeking advice as such, just pointers, please ?? I have been looking, and as an example see that there are a bazillion products on offer from Warrior+; all are presented as exciting & wonderful too, BUT: I have already bought some stuff, and haven't found any that fit my situation. (Being careful to ONLY buy stuff that comes with a good refund policy too...) I think it is silly and a waste of time & energy to buy things over & over just to s

Hi Smith,

Sorry if I am blunt about what I am about to say.

Before you start thinking about how to earn money from people, you need to start thinking about what you can GIVE to people.

In order for them to give the money you want badly.

People don't just buy from people.

People buy from people they KNOW, LIKE and TRUST.

Having been in this game for 7 years now, I realized that most people - including myself when I got started - only want to make money for themselves.

Without considering what they can GIVE and how they can HELP one another -

In order to earn the money they think they deserved.

With that said, sales and marketing is not just about selling things.

It is about connecting and understanding people before offering your products or services as solutions to their problems.

In short, giving value to others as in treating them the way you like to be treated.

There is one girl I know on this forum who is charging people $25 to set up an authority blog in their chosen niche.

That is what I call giving value while earning at the same time.

There is another guy who is giving away his free mini-course in the War Room section before offering his coaching service.

That is also what I call giving value while earning at the same time.

Hope this makes sense and answers your question.

What I will suggest is try and get to know more like-minded people like yourself in the internet marketing community.

Forums like here and blog commenting are the best ways for you to get started.

You can also do classified ads or Facebook ads - if you have $5 to spare per day - to promote Amazon and Clickbank products.

That was what I do when I got started.

Build an Email List around something you know, and it's also searched by people (just look at semrush and put keyword of the niche, see if it's at least more than 5000 volume) and has product to sell (see in clickbank, jvzoo).

Give something valuable in exchange of the mail: even an audio of yourself explaining something important in that niche, or a pdf.

Then build a list and market the products you found in markeplaces like clickbank, or jvzoo, while continuing giving infos.

I suggest u jump in survival niche: if u are enough old you probably know something valuable to survive, and there are lot of products you may see and test or understand if they worth, that u can market to your list.

You can also build your product (PDF, audio, video, or a membership), where u give that valuable infos.

Thanks for the replies folks.
It is good to see some helpful thoughts arriving in reply & well appreciated by this old man.

I will give these replies more attention tomorrow after recovering a bit from shoveling away the snow that blizzard Stella gifted us with.

Between shoveling trips tonight I rested while wasting about an hour of my life listening to a 'life changing free webinar' made by a man who claimed to have made millions already.
I wish I could have counted how many times the word 'dollars' was used in it - but I'm just not good at that.
Ultimately (of course) it was just a hot air filled, long sales pitch aimed at folks who need money but do not wish to learn how to do internet stuff - yet another 'do it for you' thing for a mere $1000, but ACT NOW & we'll generously let you have it (indeed !!) for 1/2 price !!

Yep. He's made a fortune already - but needs $500 chunks of chump change...meh.
Better off with a shovel in me olde hands !!

Personal twist to all this:
I grew up with a very close view of salesmen & what always struck me most was their lack of any conscience & truthfulness and I even got to see with mine own eyes as 2 of them openly stole from their own mother - who was a living angel if ever there was one.

My mantra as a young adult became the title of the Alan Parson's song=>
'I don't care what you do, I wouldn't want to be like you.'...
And as a result I am truthful, have a conscience and did not become like those horrid men.

Now that I'm LOTS older:
I will not relinquish my chosen values to make a buck either - have not 'till now and will not.

When I look at all the hustles I am seeing with their bloated claims I ask all the time how & why these sellers could have gotten such HUGE results as they claim and STILL be selling stuff - unless:
Perhaps compulsive selling is such a powerful drive that they simply are unable to stop after making their gigantic fortunes ?!?

Nah, I'm not buying that even if I did say it !!

Best Wishes to ALL and Good Night.

Everyone's an expert at something. What do people always ask you about because they know you'll have the answer? Start a website about that or even a YouTube channel (which is easy).

And then don't get sucked into every offer that comes by. That leads people nowhere except for buying the next offer that comes around. Pick a course and then stay on it until it's working for you. Don't abandon it too early. Keep working even though no money is coming in. It most likely will later.

If you want to earn money without a huge learning curve - without buying a bunch of 'make money online' products....may I suggest....

Sign up on freelance sites such as Upwork or Freelancer - fill out the profile in as detailed a manner as possible, highlight work experience, world experience, maturity, etc. (maturity counts a lot on those freelance sites - it means deadlines kept, work completed, etc to buyers).

Spend some time with Mr Google - reading some of the great free blogs by freelance writers...loads of info there that doesn't cost a cent and will get you started. There are also several very inexpensive and very good ebooks on Amazon Kindle that will help (if you don't have kindle reader there's a free app so you can read on your computer.

Start bidding on work by submitting individually written bids - and make submitting bids your JOB. You can write fairly well - and if you submit 50-100 bids a day on job offers you will have paying work within 2-3 weeks.

It is work - you have to spend time doing it - people can occasionally be frustrating to work with but many are super nice and generous.

You can transition that into writing for yourself - producing kindle books that focus on your personal experience in various fields or fiction from your imagination.

Offering a service is the quickest way to earning some income. You won't make millions - but when I first started freelancing I had as much work as I could handle within 2 weeks and was earning into four figures the first month. In less than a year, I had left the freelance sites and was working directly with clients for twice the pay.

I think it's a perfect path for a retired person - you can decide how much you want to work - and work enough to earn the extra money you need. Very flexible.

No affiliation:
https://realwaystoearnmoneyonline.co...-paid-experts/

Look over the site. Maybe you could answer questions about your illness to those recently diagnosed (for example) on what to expect. Or find an idea or two there.

GordonJ

Here's a simple way to start:

Setup one landing page. On this page put some presell info. for an affiliate product (provided affiliate tools are your friend) that visitors to this forum may need, like web hosting, autoresponders, analytics, etc. Something that doesn't require you to pretend to be an "expert."

Setup your landing page and put a link to it in your signature. Be sure to read the rules on signatures first.

You seem like the kind of guy who will be asking questions and participating in discussions. You will get some clicks to your page and probably about 30% will click-through to your affiliate site.

You certainly won't get rich but you will have your hook in the water.

Be sure to put some good analytics on your site so you can see what's going on. It's a whole lot easier to keep going if you are at least getting a little action.

Analytics I use:

http://clicky.com

https://www.smartlook.com

They both offer free options.

Have Fun!

Brent

Hi:
You can go to clickbank and a product the you like and start promoting it in Pinterest and Youtube , stick to that product and do not be over whealmed and keep focusd to you biz only

Cryptocurrency like bitcoin, eurethrem, etc are hot right now. If you can scrape together a few bucks to get started with a share or two and reinvest, it adds up quick.

There is a lot of contradictory information out there. One person says that solo ads are gem, another says they are now too expensive, and facebook ads are the way to go, and then another person says that youtube is next in line, etc.

My advice is be consistent. Choose a certain method and stick to it. Learn the basics, and be prepared to adapt, as the ways things are done on the internet changes on a daily basis.

If you've already bought some stuff, then you should go to Clickbank.
Keep in mind that there's no shortcut to success. If you want to earn, you need to waste some time and energy with whatever it is that you are selling/promoting. Also, stick to one niche for starters. Good luck!

The simplest thing you could do on the Internet to get a few hundred dollars a month coming in with no experience and without buying anything else is to sell your skills on a site like "Upwork".

You could write articles for other internet marketers(if you're a native English speaker, you'd be in high demand here), do transcription work, editing & proof reading, voice over work and a few other tasks.

There are a number of other websites where you can offer your writing skills for cash other than this as well such as "iWriter" and "Textbroker".

You could also set up some gigs on "Fiverr".

-Mike

Mike -
Your sig is flagging as an 'attack page' for me (Firefox)....AVG is blocking the site.

Kay King - Ya thanks, its been a problem for some time for me, my site got hacked.....I removed the malware according to Google Webmaster tools, and requested a re-review, but its still on Google's flagged listing for some reason. Not sure what else to do about it...

-Mike

I am delighted to see the wealth of info shared with me here.
Thank you ALL for replying !!

I am rather obviously in the learning phase of this process, and my 1st learning is that exaggeration is king and many of his subjects use a siren's call to hypnotize folks with pretty shiny things that do little or nothing, so covering one's ears is a very good thing.

Yes:
Like the rest of this life, I would say.
I have visited & made note of that site, thank you.

Very interesting, thanks:
That is A LOT of info to digest !!
Specifically with regards to the PC realm - it has become a minor player in a world now dominated by handheld devices - and it seems to mostly be a minority of hangers-on like myself who use their PCs as their main conduit anymore.
What I know best - learned out of necessity is how to live very, very cheaply - and how I can make that into something others would buy is yet to be seen...

OK:
Frankly I've never given the survivalist stuff much thought given my age & that if there is some sort of massive falling apart of this world I hope to be at ground zero, as I do not wish to witness the aftermath !!

I know this'll sound terrible, but:
Nobody asks me about anything anymore, really - my occupation faded away when I became terribly ill and since then the PC world itself has faded away, mostly.
There only remain to me a couple of old clients who need a little help only quite seldom.
As to determination - no problem there for me - picking the direction is what I aim to get done right now, as spending funds that I do not possess is not an option.

Kay King you have shared some amazing pointers here, and I thank you most sincerely:
As one who enjoys reading, but cannot hold a book for very long - the ebook reader idea has been a real lifesaver for me - and I did try a 2nd hand Kindle, but found its limitations to be rather grating for me & got a generic model instead.
I do see how there must be a huge market for ebooks.

The other ideas you've suggested are also quite attractive for me, thanks.
I cannot type for very long and that is one reason it took me so long to reply to all the wonderful info here - it is very slow & painful for me.
BUT=> I did manage to get Dragon Naturallyspeaking to run on my old PC and hope to get past that limitation ASAP.

Hi GordonJ, and Thanks:
I'll take another look there too.

Wow - my old head is already swimming !!:
More great pointers - Thanks !!

I know this is against the way this world is working right now, but...:
I must confess that I find social media quite repulsive and using forums is as close as I've gotten to that whole idea.

Thanks, I am unfamiliar with that:
When the day comes that I quit breathing - that is when I give up !!!

Indeed this is what I have seen already too:
No trouble with consistency here...once I ever get started !!

Thanks:
Concisely said.

I'll have a look, thanks:
I started looking at sites like that a while back - had no ideas of what to do, and got sort of sidetracked with other directions to choose from, so now I really must pick what to do from here and just DO IT !!!

Thanks Folks - I really do very much appreciate all the helpful input you've so generously given me here.

If your "brain" can write - but your hands can't....DNS is definitely a good product to use.

Remember to train Dragon by taking the time to properly correct mistakes made rather than simply changing errors quickly yourself. It pays off as the program learns what you want and doesn't make the same mistakes....

Good luck to you - let us know how it goes.

kay

Hi Smith
I am an older guy and relative newbie too.
While my health is great my wife's health is another story and I am looking at online marketing in some fashion in an attempt to replace some or all of the income I earn in real world with online and hopefully have a bit more time to look after her.
I can relate to your position and also to the kind replies you have received. Definitely some good info in there.

Easy and free way to start is begin with Blogger. Blogger is owned by Google and it is always good to be good with Google. Start by looking at other peoples (Make Money) blogs and go from there. Good luck on your journey!

Thanks for replying Ro R !!
I will look around there along with the many other helpful things suggested by helpful folks.

Given that I did grab a domain that I could afford a month or so ago and have a little hosting with WP already installed in it - my main hudle is getting familiar enough with what to do to make things work to bring in a little so that that will buy me some time to learn more & do better...

Thanks, and Best Wishes.

With due respect to your attempts...Couple of things that I could think off ...

1. You can try out different types of Gigs on Fiverr (Sending video greetings, Wishing some one on their birthdays,etc.,). Not that you would get a ton of money, but something to get started.
2. You can try to focus only 1 thing (out of the many you have got) & partner with some others & promote a completed product. Create a post on 'Warriors Looking for/to Hire'. Share the profit based on the effort.
3. You can pick one easy thing from the content you've got & try to promote them to other warriors (E.g., Killer Headlines to increase your Email Open Rates) You can contact any warrior who is promoting an Email marketing related offer & give this as an offer for upgrade or as a giveaway. This can help you build list with less work & using some of the material you have handy.

You may have challenge with funds, but if you can try any of the above, you can choose to look for outsourced methods.

Since you said you have learnt, how to live well with very little, You may try using that experience & create a blog. You may need to do more if you get there though( SEO, traffic, content management, etc.,) I saw a similar website recently So just sharing the thought ...

These types of questions are very difficult to really give good responses to without knowing what your skills and assets are.


For example, do you know any small business owners in your area like plumbers, roofers, painters, lawyers, etc? If so, can you sell them leads/appointments? Basically, get a phone number/service dedicated to this, then run ads in Craigslist. You can also run ads for your own PC repair.

Thanks for the post, i think there's a lot of people out there who are looking for the same thing.

Yep, I will second Miss Kay and say that you can easily find a service type business to make a few hundred bucks a month.

Heck you can go to Book Cover Maker - Create Your Own 3D eBook Cover Online and buy the premium package for like $15 a month and offer an ecover service for Ebooks to fellow Warriors here or at Fiverr.

I would try to find a mentor who has already made it and learn from them.

I would concentrate on a high demand or needed service versus a product. As you said there are a bazilion products out there that promise to be the "home run". Due your due diligence and research and bear in mind that making money on line will take time and effort. Stay away from programs that are recruitment based, member to member cash-gifting programs, pyramid schemes and all of those quick cash and illegal biz opps. Good luck on whatever you decide to try

This got really long, so adding a too long didn't read at the top for quick skimmers...

TL: DR:

I make my income full time online, by:

• making daily vlogs on YouTube
• writing daily articles for SBI
• Google AdSence
• LinkShare
• Share-A-Sale
• Amazon Associates
• painting art for Zazzle
• writing books for Kindle
• and promoting all of the above on my SBI hosted website (eelkat.com)

On their own any one of those things is not enough to be a full time income (yet, though I can see them each becoming that over time), overall, combined together, they bring in enough to pay the bills and live off of. Far from rich by online income, but certainly able to live off of it and not have to worry about working a "regular" job anymore.

It was not quick. It was not easy. It required money up front. It required living off his income alone for the first couple of years while I was getting started, but sticking with it and continuing on even when there was no money early on, has resulted in seeing results over time.

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FULL POST BELOW
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When I see questions like yours, people looking for low cost, low marketing start up... my first thought is to recommend YouTube. You can make videos on a $100 digital camera, or even a smartphone.

If you don't know what to make videos about, just start off filming daily 15 minute vlogs. A vlog is literally just you talking about your life. What did you eat today? What made you happy? What upset you? How is your health? What's the weather like? etc. You can record while you jog. Record while you clean the house. Whatever. No need for set ups. Just you, your camera, and your daily life.

It takes you 15 minutes to record, an hour or so for YouTube to upload and process. BOOM. Done!

It's not instant money. You'll need 100 or so daily videos uploaded before you start seeing any real traction, but, it's so simple, cheap, quick, and easy to do, that literally anyone can do it and it does bring in at least some income.

Me, I started out YouTube by recording my daily walks with my dog through local cemeteries and talking about the interesting carvings on the old stones from the 1600s and 1700s.I actually had no intention of uploading them to youtube either. I had discovered one day that my phone had a camera on it and wanted to test it out. Next thing I knew I was uploading 3 dog walk vlogs every single day. Never had a planned topic, I just talked about whatever popped into my head at the moment.

After about 6 months of this I started realizing I was gaining quite a few followers (well about 200 subscribers), I started researching more about YouTube and found out you could do it as a career and full-time income.

I ha not considered it as my job then, but in July 2016 I hurt my back, ended up unable to go back to work, and was forced into unemployment unexpectedly. Well, I could keep on filming vlogs, except, I couldn't walk! I was bedridden for about 12 weeks. I started reading novels to pass the time and thought: "Why don't I make audio books on youtube? I'll just record myself reading novels. Make one video per chapter." So I did. Ended up doing that for a few months.

Then I started writing a novel. And I recorded myself, typing, and talked about how I was creating characters and world building and stuff.

Then I started playing the Witcher video game and recorded myself doing that.

None of my videos are planned out or have any theme or topic. It's literally just me recording my daily life, recording whatever it is, I happen to be doing that day. That's it.

I uploaded that first dog walk vlog, March 31, 2016. Now a year later, I have 2,000 subscribers, and some of my videos are getting 20,000+ views.

It's not a full time income yet, it's just pocket change; but it's definitely a good way to bring in some income with very little cost or effort upfront. It's definitely something you can do in your spare time while looking for something more stable and reliable. And my income steadily increases every month. So a year from now, I should be making a few hundred dollars or more every month, just from these videos.

YouTube can become a full time income - there are a few dozen YouTubers who make million dollars a year. Check out PewDiePie for example - he makes 7 to 15 million a year on YouTube by playing video games and making daily vlogs. He's the top paid youtuber.

---------

Not sure how god you are at writing articles. But the other thing I personal do, is I write daily articles on various topics. In order for it to work, you need to have a super passionate interest in a topic, one that you can write daily/weekly articles about and post to a website you create based on that topic. If it's something you are interested in doing, then you might want to look into a program called Solo Build It! (aka SBI or Site Built It! by Ken Evoy). A lot of Warriors don't like SBI and say it's too hard to do and they are correct. It's certainly not easy. You really have to like writing a LOT of articles for it to work. You have to be totally obsessed with one topic and be able to obsessively write lots and lots and lots of articles. It's not easy. It is hard. But if you like writing and you enjoy writing about a single topic, it does work. But it's certainly not the best fit for everyone and I don't recommend it if you don't like writing or do not have a topic you are fully obsessed with, because you'll get bored with the SBI method fast otherwise.

It's not free. It costs $300 upfront to set up the website, and then it's $300 a year after that. And it's not "super easy" or going to give you "over night income", but it will bring in a minimal income over time, and if you stick with it, it can ad up to quite a substantial income. (The top SBIer, makes $14,000 a month. She does it by selling ad space to real estate agents, and then keeping a commission if the house sell, while the ad is on her sites. Her site is a travel site for a specific town and the real estate agents she works with are local to her.)

What is my niche? What do I write daily articles about?

• self-publishing
• authorship
• character creation
• fantasy world building
• writing medieval high fantasy
• writing yaoi
• writing Elves
• writing wizards
• building magic systems for your world
• minimalist living
• building art cars
• costume making
• CosPlay
• Maine history
• Gypsy culture
• alien abductions
• the world's most haunted car

Am I an expert of my niche?

Yes. I write what I know. I write from personal experience. I wouldn't write it otherwise.

And I used to write for other people (magazines, Upwork, Freelancer Squidoo, HubPages, etc), but now I write for myself (http://www.eelkat.com/SpellCastingSideEffects.html <---link to today's article, so you can see an example of what I mean, by - write for myself- I own the website.)

When I got started in freelance work, I thought you had to write for other. And back then, places like Squidoo & HubPages were a dime a dozen, each paying 50% cuts of Google AdSence incomes off the articles. It took Google closing down Squidoo and 100s of Squidoo like styles, for me to realize what worked and what didn't. I worked for Squidoo (was one of the "Squid Angels") so I got to see the demise of Squidoo from the inside and had a better knowledge of WHY they were shutting down, then most Squidoo authors did, and what I saw was, WAY too many short spammy articles... Google was striping them out, blacklisting certain pages, then certain authors, then certain sections, and finally the entire of Squdoo domain completely.

But Google NEVER blacklisted Squidoo's "Top 100" Not one of us got hit when Panda and Penguin came slashing through. Why? Because we few specialized. We wrote a lot of high quality articles on a few topics we knew inside out.

When the Panda death blow came down on Squidoo, Google targeted the writers who were spitting out new topics every day and not focusing on anything, to lash out at first.

The 2012 downward spiral of Squidoo, into it's 2013 death, taught me a lot about REAL SEO - writing for the HUMAN reader, not writing to satisfy a computer. Those of us who survived Google's attack on Squidoo, did so, because we had been writing for the HUMAN reader and NOT mad dash writing as much as we could an everything and anything, just to make money off Google AdSence.

And that's when I realized: "Hey! I don't need to write for ANY ONE!" I can write for ME. Why take a 50% cut of AdSence profits from ANY site, when I can start my own website, a place just like Squidoo, but a place where I am the ONLY author and I make 100% of the AdSence profits off my articles? I ended up buying a website through SBI and taking their training program, and now today 4 years later, my articles are reaching people everywhere. I have full control over my copyrights, I never have to worry about "finding work", and at the moment my site is getting 44,000 visits a month. Not huge, but also not the 100 a month most blogs struggle to reach either.

Like I did on Squidoo, I'm still putting out 1 to 5 new articles each week.

Like I did on Squidoo, I still narrow focus on just the few things I'm "expert" in.

Do you have to be an expert to write effectively?

Yes and No. I think it depends on the topic and the person in question.

For example, someone with Obsessive Personality Disorder, can hone in sharply on a single topic, learn it from every angle, become and expert on it, and MAY be able to START writing about it effectively, IF they can stick with it long enough. However, in most cases, they also have a Capricious Personality, and change their topic of obsession the way most people change clothes. They end up focusing 100% on football this month. Aim to become a pro player, and you think, because they are SOOOO driven, you think to yourself: "THIS TIME they are going to stick with it. THIS time, all the money spent in buying supplies won't be wasted...." Nope. Within 2 weeks, they have lost interest in football and are buying $2,000 cameras and $5,000 lenses and blowing an entire years income on tripods and throwing themselves full force into becoming a pro photographer. And you sit there sadly watching them, knowing that in spite of spending $20k on equipment, next week, that equipment will be sitting as unused as the football equipment. When this same person made an attempt at writing (as he has done a couple times now.)

He always throws himself into it with gusto and saying "I'm an expert on football, I did....BLAH..."

A week later I'll ask him, "Where's that article on football? Wasn't it due today?"

He says: "THAT? Who cares about THAT. I'm a photographer now."

*sigh*

He reads, he researches, he studies... and what good does it do him? Nothing. Not one damned thing. By the end of the year, he's completely forgotten everything he read, because he never stuck with any one topic long enough.

He calls himself an expert at almost everything, and really does think he is, when in fact, he's really an expert at nothing and doesn't really even know as much as he thinks he does.

I use him as an example, because I live with him and watch him do this change of "expertise" every single week/month/year. Now he's a great person, and his gung ho toss it and grab something new habit takes some getting used to, but, it also makes him a shitty writer. He spreads himself too thin. He can write a BASIC article on a different topic every single week, BUT, he can't write fully fleshed article on ANY topic at all. He's not able to write any article on any topic at all, because he knows too much about everything and not enough about nothing. He doesn't have enough knowledge in any one thing to write anything substantial about it. He's a great guy, but he's not a great writer and it's his complete and total lack of focus that is the reason.

Now, if he were doing the 1990s style content farm article writing of has out a shitty 400 word paragraph on anything and everything, stick if in eHow and call that an article, sure, maybe that expert-less skill of mad dash, new topic every week, article writing will work. It works on Squidoo and HubPages and Helium back in the early days, but that kind of writing didn't succeed long and was quickly killed by Google Panda, then squashed by Google Penguin, then obliterated by Google Hummingbird. And just in case any of those missed any small local business, Google next sent out Pigeon. Google Phantom swooped in the prey on whatever was left, and now Google RankBrain is sending out it's Terminator style AI searching deep into our articles for anything the others might of missed.

But the fact remains, when you look at the success or failure of places like Squidoo: the people who earned the most money, where the ones who honed in on one or two topics and then wrote article, after article, after article on JUST that one topic. Squidoo writers who reached the top, did so by uploading DAILY articles on a single topic. I was Squidoo's 3rd highest paid member, and what did I do? I wrote 600 articles covering self-publishing, authorship, character creation, fantasy world building, etc. I focused. I'm an author. I write fantasy novels. I create fantasy characters and fantasy worlds for them to live in. And so when I added non-fiction freelance writing to my career, what did I write about? I wrote articles on how to teach new comers the art of writing and publishing fantasy novels.

On the side I also wrote articles on minimalist living, building art cars, Maine history, Gypsy culture, and alien abductions. These being the other "lesser" topics that I am also "expert" in, due to my lifestyle.

So, for my husband (the guy mentioned above), SBI, DOES NOT work. He just can not stick with one topic long enough to do it.

Other the other hand, for me, SBI is a perfect match, because I have narrow focus on a few topics and can write daily articles about them.

I started SBI in 2013, my site has 800+ public pages and currently gets 44,000 visits a month. (Not super huge when considering the web site as a whole, but considering my topics, it's way higher then other sites of the same topics.)

I monetize with Google AdSence, LinkShare banner affiliate ads, Share-A-Sale affilate banner ads, Amazon Associates affialte links to products.

Also, I am an author (fantasy novels about Elf wizards) and artist (painter, acrylics & watercolor) and and art car designer/builder. I use my SBI site to promote those things as well, and so, likes to my books (for sale on Amazon - print & ebooks) and are art on Zazzle (again product links) also brings in more income for me as well.

TL: DR:

I make my income full time online, by:

• making daily vlogs on YouTube
• writing daily articles for SBI
• Google AdSence
• LinkShare
• Share-A-Sale
• Amazon Associates
• painting art for Zazzle
• writing books for Kindle
• and promoting all of the above on my SBI hosted website (eelkat.com)

On their own any one of those things is not enough to be a full time income (yet, though I can see them each becoming that over time), overall, combined together, they bring in enough to pay the bills and live off of. Far from rich by online income, but certainly able to live off of it and not have to worry about working a "regular" job anymore.

It was not quick. It was not easy. It required money up front. It required living off his income alone for the first couple of years while I was getting started, but sticking with it and continuing on even when there was no money early on, has resulted in seeing results over time.

If you did try to do something like I'm doing, I would say plan on doing it for 3 years before seeing any income big enough to live off of coming in from it.

And what I'm doing is certainly not right for everyone.

Not sure if any of this is something that is right for you, but hopefully, there is something here that'll spark some helpful ideas your way.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do!

Wow.
That is all that comes to mind without delay - just...wow.
Such amazing folks here & so incredibly willing to lend a hand.

My sincerest thanks for all the wonderful replies here.

What I need to do at this point is re-compile my own list of all the things suggested here that I am & will be looking into.

Just a couple of things to add from my own POV:
- Having passed 60 with all the 'goodies' that accompany that - I know all too well that there are no really quick fixes in this life, and;
- My needs in this matter will be satisfied in a smaller way than most, given that I'm already quite used to living on nothing - no welfare, SS or anything like that these past 30+ years.

Again I say:
Thanks Folks !!!

I think that either droppshipping through Ebay/Amazon would be the easiest way to start off as a beginner.

Hope that helps.