Where to start?
I'm sure there's a lot of these threads out there so if you take any time to help me out it is very appreciated.
I've looked into internet marketing a couple years ago, I was younger and not quite as serious about what was actually doable. I made about $600 from a sale of a (now expired) product. But aside from that I looked into SEO, Adwords, making my own site etc.
What I am trying to figure out at this point is... where do I even start again at this point? Is adwords still profitable, should I be looking into getting like a website to make residual income or what is really the best direction to move in.
At this point I feel I have decided to get pretty serious about making money online even if it is in my free time. I would love to make it my job though, and I have set the bar at $1600 a month profit in order to be able to quit and work full time. That's only a bit more than $50 a day, so I definitely think it should be manageable.
Regardless, I remembered that this was a great forum with lots of information, so I was really hoping I could get some tips or sites or any information that will help me get there.
Any assistance much appreciated, thanks for your time.
UPDATE; Added a large follow-up with a lot of information regarding some ideas I've had since getting responses, really interested in responses regarding the idea so going to quote it here, in case no one is reading responses.
Wow, I was not expecting another slew of responses after the first couple! Thank you all so much, you're a bunch of top-notch people! Ok, lots of great information and so since you have all been so helpful so far, I guess I will just throw around what I've been stewing up thinking of your responses. Again any feedback greatly appreciated. I definitely agree that passion drives greatness, and I really want to do something I enjoy and love to do. The hardest part of this is making it all connect in a profitable way I think. But here's the idea/blueprint that I seem to be forming looking towards the future in my online venture(s). (Warning: Incoming story only relevant to my situation, maybe a little bit of a read, sorry!) I love to dance. I've always had low self esteem due to different things in my childhood that I don't need to get into. Regardless, I've always been scared of dancing. I never wanted to look stupid, and after awhile I just decided to live with the fact that I couldn't dance. There's lots of people that can't really dance, it's nothing to be ashamed of I figured. So from then on, I skipped proms, formal dances, anything where I thought I may be asked to dance. I got into my freshman year of college, and one random day I took it upon myself to learn how the moonwalk worked. I didn't really care, it was just one of those situations where curiosity killed the cat . It took me only about 15 minutes to understand the mechanics, but it took 2 weeks to be able to actually do it myself. At least 2 weeks to resemble what it really looked like. Within a couple more weeks I learned every variation of the moonwalk, which is directly called "Gliding" to correlate with the fact that you look like you "Glide" on the ground. Once I knew how to glide, there was no real looking back. I watched videos of everyone on youtube, checked every tutorial out there on anything that I could add to my gliding. I also took a huge step and started uploading videos to youtube for constructive critisicm. I was still not very "good" by any standards at that point, and I was still too shy to really show anyone. (I still have all the original footage on my PC) Then I did a 15 minute speech teaching people how to moonwalk in my entry level speaking class, followed by a quick demonstration that I had to throw in per request. =) Dancing isn't something I practice everyday, or expect to instruct or make a real career out of. But I can't stop doing it, because it's something I love to do. When I hear music I dance, sometimes I want to dance and put on music, but I'll never be able to stop again. And it's also something I never would have been able to do, had I kept my mindset that "some people just can't dance". Because I think that everyone can dance, and a lot of people just don't realize it yet. So, to tie this together, I want to make a website that is dedicated to helping people learn how to dance (Mostly modern dance like hip hop/popping/gliding/breakdancing, as it's hard to learn partnered dancing and such alone.. for obvious reasons) without them being forced to go to classes. This especially helps people at least get their feet wet, and I will recommend real classes too. My big question here is, how can I monetize that site, only with ads? I don't want to have a cheesy site with google ads on it, especially if it's going to be something I am really dedicated to. Is that still something that I can monetize, and honestly, do I have to? I'm deeply into self help, I could easily write blog posts about tons of different things, from dancing to philosophy to really anything, well aside from politics! And at my core I believe we can all do anything we believe in, so hopefully that may something that I can perpetuate and hopefully people will listen or at least try. So, I have a blog [idea], I have a website [idea], I can map and note my path into internet marketing going forward and start creating traffic (or building lists) to push to it once it is something tangible. And in the meantime, possibly review a couple of dance products or offer personal coaching if it ever gets that reputable? And if it doesn't, then at least I've had lots of fun. Although, I feel confident if I put my time and energy and passion into it, that it could become something great. The idea here being, blog and website are going to of course link to eachother, not sure of all the details but of course I am going to want to connect anything I do together, the entire details are still a bit hazy as I have tons to learn. I do need to learn additional HTML skills to create an attractive website,for which I just need to get down to it and learn it. I have some programming knowledge and html basics, but learning more has always interested me. And programming/html/graphic design is also a passion of mine, my long term career goal is to be a video game designer, but that is another story :p. Just saying these are not the usual unrealistic goals, I am passionate about these as well. Perhaps I could make a site about these topics as well, if I feel like I've concluded with what I can add to dancing. Anyways, this took me almost no time to write because it's like all directly from what I am trying to figure out at this point. And that gives me hope because I think I could write TONS more for dancing easily. But even just thinking about it, really shows that with a little passion already I feel like I can do more than I did in everything I studied before about affiliate marketing. So again I want to apologize about the huge read, I wasn't trying to tell my life story here or anything, just trying to give you awesome people a good idea of where I'm at. And for those of you who made it this far, any opinions on what I'm leaning towards doing here? Does it seem like that is the correct thought process and direction to be moving in? Is am I thinking with the right mindset, but not correctly deducing how to apply it? Does it sound like I might have what it takes, creatively or from a knowledge standpoint to pursue these goals? It seems like a great idea to me, just would love some more feedback. Ninja Edit; I have a Youtube created back in 2006-2007 that has some old videos with various comments and about 20-25 subscribers, was thinking that could also help legitimize my dance website. I feel like even though it's a free site that I am marketing to people the value of dance and the possibility of them being able to do it! I'm getting excited! Hope I'm not lost in the woods here, haha. =) Thank you all so much again. |
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