Inspired by Pat Flynn I'm going to share my income from my online business with you. So this is the first post in this monthly series.
I'm doing this not because I'm incredibly successful in my first months, but I want to prove that it is possible for everyone to make money online!
Ok, the income I'm sharing with you in this post was earned in July 2013, though I started taking action in April 2013.
I want to get rid of this myth that you can get rich over night. Surely, there are very few people who have that breakthrough, but that's not the standard case!
Normally it takes months and maybe even years of hard and consistent work, before the money slowly starts coming in.
My story is no exception. The first thing I did was to read Pat Flynns book Let Go, where he shares his journey from being laid off to becoming a successful entrepreneur.
In this book he recommends the Internet Business Mastery Academy, which I joined immediately. Since the academy is full of useful step-by-step guides on how to start a successful internet business and their community is blasting, I became a lifetime member after just two months. This membership takes a huge part in my success, that's for sure.
On March 28th I published my first post on this blog and on April 19th I've cluelessly created my first pillar content about internet business ideas. I just wanted to share different ways to make money online, but that post started to rank in Google and so far it has more than 23,000 views.
I decided that challenging myself would be the best way to learn quickly, so in May I challenged myself to write my very first eBook within one month. What came out was The Entrepreneurial Lifestyle, a book telling my story and including interviews with great entrepreneurs like Jeremy Frandsen, Neil Patel, Spencer Haws and more.
You can get it for free if you sign up to my newsletter! Or you can support me and buy it for the small amount of $2,79. You see that this book isn't meant to make a lot of money, but to inspire people and motivate them to overcome fears and doubts and just take action.
My actions in summary:
Ok, let's be honest. I didn't start my blog just for fun, I need to make a living online and this blog will definitely have to support me with income.
That's why I introduced Google Adsense. Since I get a lot of traffic from organic searches, people tend to be less connected with me.
Usually they read my article, maybe a second one and then they leave my site. Not a good foundation to make money with affiliate sales or promoting my own products.
But Google Adsense IS a good way to make money, even when your bounce rate is high. That doesn't mean I'm ripping people off, instead I'm doing them a favor. When they want to leave my site, they'll do it anyway. With the ads I'm offering them alternatives that might interest them (who clicks on ads that aren't interesting for you?).
So they can open a site that is relevant for them and I'm making a small amount of money. I agree that affiliate sales and selling my own products is far more profitable, though it's very hard for me.
With Google Adsense I was able to make at least some money, whereas I had zero (!) affiliate sales within the first months.
Let's get into it!
I'll keep this in the style from Pat Flynn, because I think it's great how clearly he get's into the details.
MyGreatOnlineBusiness.com
Google Adsense: $159,75
Affiliate Sales: $0
Total: $159,75
eBook - The Entrepreneurial Lifestyle
Total: $0
jkoch.me
Affiliate Sales: $0
Total: $0
TOTAL: $159,75
As I said I'm having a hard time with affiliate sales, though I'm confident that it starts getting better over time. It's just a process I'm new to and I'm still learning. I'm sure that my recommendations are useful for my audience. I don't want to sell stuff to people, I want them to see the value in my recommendations without being pitched. So having zero sales is nothing to feel bad about, I'm sure it grows over time.
I didn't do any promotions for my eBook yet, I just use it as incentive for my opt-in list and link to it from my menu. I've given it away for free in the first two months and the feedback I'm getting is awesome. That's why I'll do some more promotions from now on and maybe we'll see some sales in the next month.
Adsense will be a part of my income strategy. Since I just introduced it in July I was testing all the time. I also had a few days where my site was down, so that revenue will definitely increase for August 2013.
After all I'm happy with the July, because it was the first month I EVER made money online. I didn't expect that I'd make $4.000 within my first month, simply because it's not achievable for most people.
The goal is to make $1,000 monthly, so that I can quit my job and focus on internet business fulltime. I think I'm on a pretty good way to reach this goal within a few months.
Let me know what you think, how has your first month been? Obviously there's a lot to be improved in my strategy, so please bare with me - I'm getting better every single day!
All the best,
Jan
