Yesterday I read this great article by Yaro Starak’s blog “Entrepreneurs-Journey”.

I’ve been following Yaro’s blog for a couple of months now… really since I decided I wanted to learn about generating income online and how to develop websites/blogs.

There’s always a wealth of information on his website.

In this article “How Can You Make Passive Income Online?” he shares insight on a few important subjects.

One thing that I always get out of reading some of his articles is the importance on defining what it is that you want to develop. Like a business plan really. I had never thought of blogging that way before. On my personal blog I would often write about anything at all but since trying to do some of the things suggested by Yaro and others… I’ve created a more focused blog.

A big point in this article too is that I believe it to be of the soundest advice!

There’s no “make quick money”, “money for nothing”, “it’s so simple and easy”….

It’s important to be realistic about the internet.

Your audience can be HUGE online
- That doesn’t mean it’s a sure bet
- That doesn’t mean you’re not gonna have to learn
- That doesn’t mean you’re not not gonna have to spend hours working on your project
- That doesn’t mean that you’ll make millions

But at the same time, you very well succeed and make millions. Many do.

It’s important to be realistic

I’ve been self-employed and a small business owner for 3 years out of the last 5 and have had some success, at times it loooked VERY promising, at times it looked totally like it was gonna flop. I’ve had highs and lows both in business and my personal life in this time.

An online venture is no different.

My favorite quote from the article may sound bleak to some, but I take it as realist. And there’s a positive.

“Failure As A Path To Success”

To generate income online is much like creating a business and there’s a pretty high chance that it will require lot’s of time, thought, patience, effort, love, persistence…. and accepting failure or challenges as a learning experience.

Head up. So far in a couple of short months while I haven’t seen any real financial rewards for my efforts some very encouraging doors have opened for me… with the possibility of being a guest writer for a few other reputable blogs in certain “niches” and one of my blogs was recently mentioned on a radio show.

So following the simple steps I’ve learned from Yaro and others, doors have opened for me. This is still a hobby for me but I see that with work, time and effort…. anything is possible.

You can read Yaro Starak’s article “How Can You Make Passive Income Online?” here.
(Well worth the read!)

Today I decided to listen to a couple of podcasts rather then listen to music while working and I discovered that I was already subscribed to a podcast that caught my eye. I found them very helpful to once again state what I’ve been learning that building a passive income online takes some time and effort.

The podcast series I listened to today is “Internet Marketing Secrets Podcast” and the 2 podcasts I listened to were about Traffic Generation.  There is a 3rd in the series and I’ll be listening to that tomorrow.

The 2 first parts of the podcast were quite interesting and I heard over and over again some of the very points I’ve been finding on reputable blogs on building a passive cash flow from websites.

You need good content.

All the websites and scams that preach the good news about making money for nothing. Don’t believe it. At least, I don’t believe it.

When I just think about it a bit… if I go to a website:

What keeps me there and what brings me back?

It’s not the Google AdSense on their page! It’s the content that they’ve published on their site. It really is. If I find a website that has information on it that I find useful in anyway then there is a higher chance that I will return on that website.

The Internet entrepreneur’s interviewed in these podcasts also seemed to write for the viewer first and search engines second. Basically writing their content on their blog in a clear fashion for the viewer while keeping in mind to use certain keywords in their texts and titles.

The subject of link building came up and their general consensus was to stay away from all forms of auto-pilot systems that generate links and instead (once again) focus on the content being presented while trying to build relationships by commenting on other blogs and websites to join and or create conversation. It was mentioned a couple of times that if other bloggers or websites find your content interesting and well written they may eventually link to you creating “organic” linking.

I found it very interesting and did learn a great deal.

The point I see once again by these successful internet marketers and entrepreneurs is that it takes time, effort and persistance just like building any other business.

There are many other business and blogging related podcasts to be found in iTunes.

A couple of days ago I was writing an article for one of my blogs and wanted to put a picture in the article but wondered what was the best place to look. After looking in a couple of places I found a new site I’d never seen before.

At first I searched on Flickr’s Creative Commons website but couldn’t really find what I was looking for. Flickr’s Creative Commons site is a great place to look if you need some stock photo images.

Then I stumble across a site that I had never heard of. A website called PicApp.

What I was looking for was a couple of pictures, both of hockey players. Hadn’t found the guys I was looking for over at the other site but when I searched on PicApp a bunch of pictures were found.

Check out the PicApp website and take a look at PicApp’s advantages page.

They even have a WordPress plugin that you can find here on the PicApp blog.

Ever want to keep up to do with what’s happening on websites or blogs about a certain subject?

I have and while running Google search has and continues to be a big part of what I do in my do to day functions I found that using Google Alerts is a great way to keep an eye on what’s being said or reported about something.

You don’t even need a Google account for this service.

Let’s look at how to set it up:

1. Go over to http://google.com/alerts
2. Enter the words you want to be used in “Search Terms”
3. In “Type” you can choose blogs, videos..etc. Comprehensive being a combination.
4. In “How often” you can the frequency. If once per day is enough, once a week or “as it happens”. The last option meaning you’ll likely receive many emails.
5. Enter your email.

And then you’ll receive updates right in your email. And in these emails you have 3 options at the bottom of each message.

1. Remove this alert
2. Create another alert
3. Manage your alerts

As I have a google account, I suspect number 3 may not be there if you do not. But I’m not %100 sure on that one.

And there you have it. A powerful tool to use if you need to keep informed on certain topics or are conducting market research on a certain subject.

Ever feel like you “can’t” or whatever your gonna try it just might not be good enough? Well, I touched on how a lack of self confidence can block us from opportunities in my other article “Finding what to write about when you don’t know what to write about” and thought I would follow with another blogger’s article who gave me some inspiration.

In John Chow’s article “Top Five Killer Reasons Why Online Businesses Fail” he mentions some reasons why one might find failure. I found that in these reasons for failure I found encouragement.

After reading this article I took away some key points.

As mentioned before on this blog as well as countless other very successful blogs you need to love what you do. Reason being is if you don’t love what you do you’ll stop doing it. It’s pretty much an axiom in and of itself really.

I’ll mention again about one blog I’ve been writing for a bit. I started for fun last winter, back in December. When I started it was just an experiement. I tried to write a little bit but that was it.

In the last month I had decided to write at least 1 article every day if possible. If it was current events in this blog’s topic or if it required me to try and find something through a little research. Just try and try to write something…. a little text.

After the wheels got rolling I gotta say that I just love it. I love reading fellow bloggers who are writing about this same subject and it’s awesome.

Now a couple of years back, I had started a similar blog that was not quite as specific in subject and I gave no real effort to continue writing. Guess what happened? I stopped writing for it.

Something else that I really got out of the article is that you have to stick to your guns.

Whether you’re starting a small business, trying to develop some websites to monetize or even looking for a job there are many ups and downs.

In 2004 I started a small business and was employed full time in it for 2 years. I was very inexperienced in trying to develop a business. I eventually took a “full time job” and continued my small business part time until last year where I decided to try to become independant once again.

I still consider myself somewhat inexperienced but the only way to do it is just to do it.

Perseverance is key to success in any business whether online or not.

If anything I’ve written rings a bell, visit John Chow’s article on why online businesses fail.

I thought I’d write a quick article on Search Engine Optimization which is commonly refered to as SEO. 

Search Engine Optimization is a means of improving the volume of traffic or quality of traffic to your website and/or blog. Quality of traffic simply means that if you’re blog is about contruction then you wouldn’t want someone who’s looking for cars to end up on your site as there is a strong chance they have no interest in construction. You want people who have interest in construction to find your website.

So SEO can be thought of like fine tuning your website or blog to make it easier to find with the search engines.

Click here to read more on SEO.

You can also find Google’s guide to Search Engine Optimization here.

I’ve been reading that guide and while I’ve worked in technology for several years and am familiar with some of the concepts in the guide I did learn some things.

Part of the challenge to starting this blog and starting other blogs/websites is having them indexed by the search engines and then being easily found. There are so many websites out there that every little trick to optimize your website will help.

Here we are!

July 28th, 2009.

Today is the launch of my new blog and my new adventures in learning to make money online.

I’ve been doing a bit of researching and reading many blogs and websites to get a general feel for what people are saying about Internet marketing and different ways to generate income online.

So far I’ve already spent many hours reading, thinking… and searching for Wordpress themes.

At this writing, I’m many hours invested in my journey and the first fruits are this website that I will be adding to on a regular basis.

I’m really excited that the journey begins!