There Absolutely Is A Secret Formula To Making Money Online
Met John Chow at Blogworld. Nice guy. He does his “making money online” thing very well. But he’s wrong. There absolutely is a secret formula to making money online. I don’t understand why he posted this.
Every once in a while I’ll come across a comment or an email asking me to stop writing about my personal ramblings and stick to making money online posts because that’s what I’m good at and that is what the readers want to learn. They want me to reveal to them the secret formula that will unleash all the Internet riches. They don’t want to know what I had for lunch or dinner.
There Is No Secret Formula
I can think of about 10 “secret formulas” to being successful online. In fact, I gave at least three of them away in my packed room presentation at Blogworld where John was sitting in the front row. You must have been sleeping John? :)
Seriously, making money online is all about formulas. In my presentation I called this one the “secret sauce”. Here you go, free of charge, straight outta my presentation.
Targeted Niche + High Quality Content That Solves Problems + Good Ad Placement = Online Profit!
I went on to show three specific ways to monetize in this model.
Now to be fair, I think John was being a big tongue and cheek. Later in his post he did say.
Making money online can summed up in four words as well: Get traffic, optimize ads. There. I’ve just given you the secret formula to getting rich on the internet.
John’s statement is true in part, but has flaws.
1. You can’t “get traffic” without a “formula”, and that formula needs to be what I showed you above.
2. For someone who is making a living off of “making money online”, to say that there is no formula seems a bit disingenuous to me.
I won’t even get into my thoughts on how traffic is b.s.
Filed Under Online Marketing
Want more great content? Visit my archives for years of blog posts.
Ok Jim…… you got my attention…..haha. What are the other 9 secret formulas? Seriously, I think we all have our formulas, but no one really wants to let loose of them. I think the biggest formula is one no one likes:
Hard work and patience equals income.
Sounds kind of trivial doesn’t it? But it is true. Too many people are looking for that quick fix. If there was one, we would all be rich eh.
I’m going to hopefully get a video copy of my Blogworld presentation that I can put up here on my blog. That outlines in specifics some of the methods I talked about that are helpful.
Hard work is great, you’re right, but you have to do it the right way if you want to be successful.
I think that both of your formula’s are right. Get traffic, optimize ads is correct in my opinion but as you said, it doesn’t tell you how you get that traffic.
Solving problems is a fantastic way to get traffic. Of course there are other ways of getting traffic to a site and many different kind of sites which do well (entertainment for example).
The main problem that new web developers have is skipping steps. eg. they spend more time marketing a website which has no content, time they could be spending writing the content the site needs. They also check stats more than they have to. I know this because for a long time I did this myself, I had no long term goals and too many times I would look for the quick fix or the quick way of making money. I sold dozens of good sites too early because I could get a good price.
Like most things in life, there is a learning curve and I definately learned from making so many mistakes when I first started.
I’ve been using this formula for years. My first speaking presentation at Affiliate Force in 2002 was called “Riches in Niches”… as you shown, this is the secret formula… but the secret sauce is dedication and creativity!
Listen to Zac people. He knows what he’s talking about. I mean, how do you get a cool jacket like this if you aren’t smart and rich?
http://zacjohnson.com/mark-cuban-keynote-at-blogworld-expo/
Great post Jim. It seems like a targeted niche is a main point bloggers need to focus on.
-Mike
I don’t think John meant to say there wasn’t a formula involved, only that there was no secret to it. Success always boils down to the same basic ingredients: hard work, common sense… and maybe just a little bit of luck. :-D
you got yourself a new RSS reader. wheres the other formulas?
Sometimes John says things just to make a filler post. He knows very well about the secret formula you are referring to. Writer’s block can create such thoughts.
I disagree.
Making money online is a “business”.
Business is an art and NOT a science and therefore you
CAN’T put in a formula.
Know what a formula is?
A formula must be mathematically justified or proven.
But your so-called formula, at best , you can call it a strategy.
See that :
Targeted Niche + High Quality Content That Solves Problems + Good Ad Placement = Online Profit!====A Strategy and not a formula.
It can’t make any sense numerically.
Therefore—There is no such thing as a formula for making money.
John Chow is right.
Ask Bill Gates or Warren B. or any Wealthy guys out there they’ll give
the same answer as I’ve explained.
Hi,
I can agree only partially. Actually, yes, you need to find out the ‘formula’ to be successful online and make money, but I would call that ‘formula’ as the hard work, persistence and the motivation to keep on the things going… You need to be persistent in order to try out new things, ways to get traffic, sales.
No one is going to tell you that formula, I think each person must find it out itself.
Just my 2 cents.
Egidijus
Click2Sell affiliate network