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My Journey To Making My First $100 Online

A detailed account of a Fastlane process...

A. Rodriguez

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I've created this thread to keep track of my journey to earning my first hundred dollar online. It's part of my goals for the new year. I believe it should be documented to make me accountable and also track my progress.

I'm not entirely new to making money online. I remember making $80 from AdSense in a month but that account got banned for no reason at all.

I've decided to start a website that produces content related to Scholarships, Jobs and Education in my country. I'm starting out on the Blogger platform and maybe i could migrate to WordPress later on.

My monetization strategy will be a combination of sponsored posts and Google AdSense. I'll document my traffic statistics here, the link-building strategies i'm applying and my income monthly.
 
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A. Rodriguez

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I've Registered a Domain Name With Godaddy Today. Lookong forward to making a few post today.
 

Lex DeVille

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I've Registered a Domain Name With Godaddy Today. Lookong forward to making a few post today.

Does that mean you are now on a journey to earn $114.99?

$0 to $100 - $14.99 for domain = negative $14.99

:D

Why $100? Is it because that's the highest you will have earned online?

Just curious why not a bigger number?
 

PersistentlyHungry

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Does that mean you are now on a journey to earn $114.99?

$0 to $100 - $14.99 for domain = negative $14.99

:D

Why $100? Is it because that's the highest you will have earned online?

Just curious why not a bigger number?

I imagine it's a zero to one thing
 
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Chinobey

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Does that mean you are now on a journey to earn $114.99?

$0 to $100 - $14.99 for domain = negative $14.99

:D

Why $100? Is it because that's the highest you will have earned online?

Just curious why not a bigger number?
Don't think his goal is $100 profit just $100 earned online in general, as for the small goal i love to have a big goal that i break down being able to tick off the little goals really keeps you going and makes you want to continue towards that end goal.
 

mrarcher

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Good luck! The feeling of getting that first pay out is hard to beat.
 
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Dunkafelics

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The feeling of making your first dollars online is a pretty amazing one.

You will have done it on your own and are not waiting for that paycheck to come from the standard job.

Just be advised, from what I hear doing a content based website may take awhile to get you sales unless you have a specific product that you are an affiliate of.

My recommendation would be to hit up a freelance site like Upwork.com and if you can make a profile, find yourself a research job or another job that you feel comfortable with and can complete it at a high standard.

You will see the results quicker and probably build up your confidence at a faster rate.

I believe in Unscripted , MJ states that the period of starting a new skill ----> generating your first income can be a trying period. A lot of people quit.

It is because the initial hype and excitement has worn off and the realization that a lot of work will be required to get things going.

If you have any questions, please feel free to send me a message.
 

Lex DeVille

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What are sponsored posts?
 
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A. Rodriguez

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What are sponsored posts?
A Sponsored Post is an advertisement in the form of a blog post with a link(s) back to the advertisers homepage or specific product page. The blogger or site owner is usually compensated with money.
 

Lex DeVille

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A Sponsored Post is an advertisement in the form of a blog post with a link(s) back to the advertisers homepage or specific product page. The blogger or site owner is usually compensated with money.

Got ya. That clears things up a bit.

Okay, so I've been thinking about this and I'm trying to see it from more than one perspective. Maybe this will help you or maybe you'll ignore it. But here are some thoughts:

Google Adsense

• You already made money with this, so that's good, you have proof of concept
• But your account got banned for "no reason" so it proves you also have no control
• You'll need traffic for this which will take somewhere between 3 - 12 months to get profitable at all
• You'll still be at risk of getting banned for no reason if you build this route again
• Since you have no control, and you've already been banned once, it doesn't seem like a sensible business
• On the bright side, it seems like a fair source of passive or at least semi-passive income with enough traffic

Sponsored Posts

• Do people actually pay for posts these days? Sometimes I get paid to post, or I guest post for free. I don't have to pay entrepreneur.com (one of the biggest blogs on the planet) to post on their site. I just have to write a good post. People pay for social media sponsorship though.
• You'll have to be a well established blog before anyone will hand over cash, so that's probably a minimum of 9-12 months (I suspect probably longer)
• You'll have to be a place people want to be featured on, or else they won't have any reason to pay
• If you make a bunch of posts on a blog site like blogger and try switching to Wordpress later, your life might become a living hell!

The kind of website you're describing (scholarships, jobs etc) sounds like it could be helpful for people in your country if you put in the research, time and effort. It's definitely going to take time. If you stick with it long enough you'll probably make some money with this. But is it a real business? I dunno.

Some questions to consider

• Can this actually become a legitimate source of income for you in a reasonable amount of time?
• What are your goals as an entrepreneur, or just in life in general?
• Is this path likely to lead you to achieving those goals?
• Is your goal to earn $100 online or to build a business?
• If your goal is to earn $100 online, wouldn't something like freelancing where you could make that in a day be better?
• If your goal is to build a fastlane business, wouldn't your time be better spent on a business that can't be destroyed by Google at the click of a button?

These are things that came to mind while reading your first post.
 

A. Rodriguez

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Got ya. That clears things up a bit.

Okay, so I've been thinking about this and I'm trying to see it from more than one perspective. Maybe this will help you or maybe you'll ignore it. But here are some thoughts:

Google Adsense

• You already made money with this, so that's good, you have proof of concept
• But your account got banned for "no reason" so it proves you also have no control
• You'll need traffic for this which will take somewhere between 3 - 12 months to get profitable at all
• You'll still be at risk of getting banned for no reason if you build this route again
• Since you have no control, and you've already been banned once, it doesn't seem like a sensible business
• On the bright side, it seems like a fair source of passive or at least semi-passive income with enough traffic

Sponsored Posts

• Do people actually pay for posts these days? Sometimes I get paid to post, or I guest post for free. I don't have to pay entrepreneur.com (one of the biggest blogs on the planet) to post on their site. I just have to write a good post. People pay for social media sponsorship though.
• You'll have to be a well established blog before anyone will hand over cash, so that's probably a minimum of 9-12 months (I suspect probably longer)
• You'll have to be a place people want to be featured on, or else they won't have any reason to pay
• If you make a bunch of posts on a blog site like blogger and try switching to Wordpress later, your life might become a living hell!

The kind of website you're describing (scholarships, jobs etc) sounds like it could be helpful for people in your country if you put in the research, time and effort. It's definitely going to take time. If you stick with it long enough you'll probably make some money with this. But is it a real business? I dunno.

Some questions to consider

• Can this actually become a legitimate source of income for you in a reasonable amount of time?
• What are your goals as an entrepreneur, or just in life in general?
• Is this path likely to lead you to achieving those goals?
• Is your goal to earn $100 online or to build a business?
• If your goal is to earn $100 online, wouldn't something like freelancing where you could make that in a day be better?
• If your goal is to build a fastlane business, wouldn't your time be better spent on a business that can't be destroyed by Google at the click of a button?

These are things that came to mind while reading your first post.

Very Insightful. How can i begin freelancing? I have some skills which i can offer to others. I've always thought freelancing is very competitive and you have to do stuff like buying reviews before you can get any sale at at all. But all the same is there a way to sell my skills with less competition and without having to pay for fake reviews.

Google Adsense can produce some kind of passive income with enough traffic unlike freelancing which is basically a trade of time for money. I love the passivity of it. But it's true it lacks control. I don't mind freelancing to generate some income online provided I can do it succesfully.
 
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Lex DeVille

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Very Insightful. How can i begin freelancing? I have some skills which i can offer to others. I've always thought freelancing is very competitive and you have to do stuff like buying reviews before you can get any sale at at all. But all the same is there a way to sell my skills with less competition and without having to pay for fake reviews.

Google Adsense can produce some kind of passive income with enough traffic unlike freelancing which is basically a trade of time for money. I love the passivity of it. But it's true it lacks control. I don't mind freelancing to generate some income online provided I can do it succesfully.

For freelancing see the GOLD threads in my signature. Also see the Notable thread because it's more recent. Most people can freelance on Upwork.com or any number of other sites such as peopleperhour.com, freelancer.com, guru.com, toptal.com, and more.

I'm not trying to get you to freelance (it's not passive, and you still won't have that much control), just questioning the business model you mentioned. If you need money now, freelancing is good. But for a "fastlane" business neither freelance or adsense is a great long-term plan.
 

A. Rodriguez

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For freelancing see the GOLD threads in my signature. Also see the Notable thread because it's more recent. Most people can freelance on Upwork.com or any number of other sites such as peopleperhour.com, freelancer.com, guru.com, toptal.com, and more.

I'm not trying to get you to freelance (it's not passive, and you still won't have that much control), just questioning the business model you mentioned. If you need money now, freelancing is good. But for a "fastlane" business neither freelance or adsense is a great long-term plan.
I've created an upwork profile. I'm awaiting their approval currently. It's cool although somewhat challenging to craft a killer profile. I'll learn all the same.

I'm not going to abandon my blog just like that. I still have big plans for it. For now it's freelancing.
 

Lex DeVille

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I've created an upwork profile. I'm awaiting their approval currently. It's cool although somewhat challenging to craft a killer profile. I'll learn all the same.

I'm not going to abandon my blog just like that. I still have big plans for it. For now it's freelancing.

With money in your pocket it might be easier to scale your blog.
;)
 
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A. Rodriguez

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Godaddy disabled my domain today. I was required to upload some documents to them before i'm able to get back my domain. How can i figure out a way out of this? Or should i just quit everything?
 

Dunkafelics

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Godaddy disabled my domain today. I was required to upload some documents to them before i'm able to get back my domain. How can i figure out a way out of this? Or should i just quit everything?
Send the documents via customer support. In this day and age it can't be that hard, get ahold of customer support and send via email.

If that is all it takes for you to quit, you need to take a hard look at whether you really want to do this or not...

Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk
 
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Lex DeVille

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Upwork disapproved my application as well. What's the best line of action now @SinisterLex

Try again. Research how to get approved. There's a thread in the hustling section of the forum that talks about how to get approved. You can also try other platforms like PeoplePerHour or Freelancer.com. But you don't have to do freelancing. That was just a suggestion. If you can afford to build your website and carry out your idea, you could just focus on that. What is your goal? What is it you want to accomplish this year?
 

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