So Begins The Quest

The dream of making loads of money on the internet is not unique to me, nor hundreds of people, but more likely common to thousands of people. Of course, there are some who actually achieve this goal through various methods. I don’t know about you but people like the guy who started milliondollarhomepage.com, or people like Shoe Money come to mind for me when I think about online money making. They come to mind not because they’re making a little money, a good amount or even a decent amount; no, they are making a crap-load of money. That gives me a zing of inspiration in my heart every time I think about it. It also leaves me wondering “Why can’t I do that?”

I’m a smart guy, sure. I have good ideas every once in a while. I even have a highly coveted skill– the ability to plan out a piece of online software (website) and create it from A to Z. What I lack is the right knowledge. Trust me, if I could see the light at the end of the tunnel that is success, I would run balls-out to reach it. The problem is that I’m very much in the dark when it comes to the secret of attracting people and keeping them interested.

Despite having created a successful community of bloggers with my own software called Sitdiary back in 2001 at the age of 18, I could not figure out what drove people to the site for the longest time. That was until recently when I suddenly had a very enlightening and yet, humbling moment. Much like any similar moment, it left me wondering “why didn’t I think of this sooner?”

The answer to the question is very simple. I created a piece of software that people could actually use and easily. My aim was toward a small community and that’s exactly what I had. It appealed to people because they weren’t interested in the big guys, like LiveJournal. My design was basic, if not antiquated, and therefore lacked a great number of features. But what it lacked in features, it made up for in usability. A user could go from visiting the site to having a “diary” and writing their first post in a matter of a few minutes. It was brilliant and yet, at that point, there were absolutely no ads on the entire site. I was running it for free (outside of a few donations every now and then.)

It stayed free until July 31st, 2004. That was the day a friend of mine (Marin) urged me to put advertising on my website and I added Google Adsense to the website. On that day, I made a decent $19.29 from 57,138 impressions. Unless you’ve been in a similar situation, you don’t know the grin that spread across my face. I thought I had figured out the secret and that I was going to be a millionaire within months. I can assure you that, over two years later, I am no millionaire; however, I have learned something extremely valuable: don’t build your websites for advertising, build your websites for people and then add in advertising later.

Sitdiary was churning out income not because I made a pretty product that everyone would love, but more so because I made something I love and therefore, other people fell in love with it too.

So there it is. The big fat secret was staring me in the face all along. Create something people love and out of that love, money will flow. (Yeah, it’s almost too cheesy for me too but it makes sense). Now, for the quest, I came up with a grand idea.

Suppose I were to come up with something I would love to use, something that works the way I would feel most comfortable and secure, yet costs nothing. Now suppose I centered this something around its community and kept the community involved with things like polls, newsletters and even allowed them to make money from the advertising. Just the idea has me salivating.

Ever since I found out about Adsense Sharing, it has been like a whole new lane has been opened in my mind’s freeway of thought. How can you not love the idea of allowing your users to make money for contributing to your website? Shawn Hogan over at Digitalpoint.com does this and people love it.

My mindset as of late has been what I imagine to be the mindset of many people trying to use the Internet as a source of income: build a decent site with ads, advertise it as much as possible, add better features later. In my experience, this is the wrong way to go. For my quest, I plan to create something with valuable features now, build a community and add value features as I go. IF, and only if, the website has an Adsense Sharing feature will I add ads at the beginning. Here’s the kicker: I will keep the community informed of my intent the entire time. If I plan to add advertising in later, they will know. If there are any updates they should know about, I won’t just create a “news” page; I will create a news letter that they can actually benefit from.

From this process, I plan to develop a method for building a quality product and properly marketing it. I realize I must be careful when throwing around terms like “quality product” and “marketing,” as they are overused and can lead to a misunderstanding of intent. People like to throw the terms around loosely, but I would like to use better words. I plan to build an excellent product and properly network its existence.

As I create this product, I will keep you informed of my progress. Hopefully, this will be a fantastic learning experience for myself and those with similar interests.

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