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!)

There’s a ton of web hosts out there. Some have huge data centers and some are the mom and pop type. I personally lease a server for various projects but when I was thinking about webhosting for the blogs I wanted to start in my trek to learn how to develop blogs and income online… I decided to go with another hosting solution. And found a great deal.

A few days ago I started looking at hosting packages suggested on various sites and from the Wordpress site. Since I was going to use Wordpress as my blogging platform I thought looking over there made sense.

I happened to stumble upon another hosting company that wasn’t mentioned on the Wordpress site (at least I don’t recall that they were) and saw a deal I couldn’t pass up.

1&1 have quite a package. It’s called the 1&1 Home package, 2 domains and 1 year free hosting for $4.99 per month. You pay for the first month and have the year free. This package comes with a 2 year term, so the second year you’re paying the monthly fees. But with the storage, the domains and the extras that are included in the package… it’s well worth it!

I’ve transfered a blogger.com site over to my new 1&1 account and I have to say that Wordpress runs very well on that account. I have no complaint at all.

If anyone is currently looking for a hosting package for a Wordpress blog check it out. There’s only 6 days left on this deal.

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.

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!