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It’s OK to make an extra $2k per month if you’re a programmer. Here’s how.

markmaunder.com

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Re: It’s OK to make an extra $2k per month if you’re a programmer. Here’s how.

#121

Post by rmc »

reedlaw wrote: post #43
patio11 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thomas is, if anything, undershooting what this is worth if you're capable of pulling it off with a data set adjacent to a liquid affiliate market. I think this specific article sort of underestimates the amount of effort involved ("Now that you have a site, just add marketing"), but if you're totally skeptical about it ever working, a) take a look at BCC's sales and b) think of what they would be in a niche with $50…

What does BCC stand for?

patio11 also has a blog ( http://www.kalzumeus.com/ ) about how he ran this sort of business.

Re: It’s OK to make an extra $2k per month if you’re a programmer. Here’s how.

#122

Post by rmc »

swombat wrote: post #13

So, basically, create a demand-media site but without even paying writers the $3/hour to create crap articles? Just scrape them from the government? :-) I'm all for the lifestyle business thing, but there are more fulfilling ways to make $2k/month, imho... As the cost of creating businesses drops, the number of viable niches literally explodes.

This isn't "scraping government websites", this is using your skills as a programmer to manipulate data, to make graphs and visualizations of the data.

Re: It’s OK to make an extra $2k per month if you’re a programmer. Here’s how.

#124

Post by rmc »

getsat wrote: post #68
tlrobinson wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What resources do you recommend for learning more about SEO?

I'm by no means an expert, though I've worked with experts and picked up some stuff from them. The rest I learned from Google and various forums: http://www.google.com/search?query=on-page+seo http://blogs.sitepoint.com/ultimate-seo-checklist/ http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/search-engine-optimization-3... Basically, SEO comes down to having awesome content, identifying it properly on your site, and getting other peo…

The tech stuff is easy

The tech stuff is easy for us. If us programmers can figure out the non-tech stuff, we can be rich!

Re: It’s OK to make an extra $2k per month if you’re a programmer. Here’s how.

#125

Post by getsat »

jshen wrote: post #94
getsat wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm by no means an expert, though I've worked with experts and picked up some stuff from them. The rest I learned from Google and various forums: http://www.google.com/search?query=on-page+seo http://blogs.sitepoint.com/ultimate-seo-checklist/ http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/search-engine-optimization-3... Basically, SEO comes down to having awesome content, identifying it properly on your site, and getting other peo…

I didn't mean to imply that it's impossible, but that it is a LOT of work. Becoming good at SEO and marketing, then executing a good plan, is a lot of work. My site was intended to be an example of not doing that. Doing that means trading a lot of time that could be spent learning ... I don't know, machine learning or something. Is that worth maybe 2k a month? Depends on the person. But the OP made it sound easy. It'…

As I stated here [1], It's definitely not easy, though I've found the only difficult part to be getting initial traffic and consistently building high quality backlinks. It's not something that can be automated, but it can be outsourced.

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2593650

Re: It’s OK to make an extra $2k per month if you’re a programmer. Here’s how.

#126

Post by getsat »

SwellJoe wrote: post #103
getsat wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that most people would be willing to set up an "unfulfilling" side project to generate an extra $2,000 USD/month.

I wouldn't. I'd rather put that time into my fulfilling business. After a year of such extra effort, it'll probably make more than $2000/month difference in my bottom line; though that assumes I have a real business to invest my time in, and that I can afford to work for a year before seeing that $2k (or more) show up. I have my doubts that yet another generated content spam site would be worth $2k/month, though I'm…

Ah, so you already have an existing business. I believe that most programmers do not.

You have to work to make money from your business (most likely). With an authority site providing data that people want and are linking each other to, you're making money passively.

$2,000/month is only $66/day. That's not a big number. That's a single sale of certain products on Clickbank[1]. If a given product averages one sale for every 1,500 visitors, your goal is 1,500 unique visitors per day. That's not unattainable, either. Making money online is not a complicated process.

I don't see how the OP's idea is anything near a spam site. It's taking data that people could be interested in, making it available, and helping people find it. If people happen to click some ads while they're on the site, great! A spam site IMO would be like those fake torrent sites that come up when you search for a product name.

[1] http://www.clickbank.com/marketplace.htm

Re: It’s OK to make an extra $2k per month if you’re a programmer. Here’s how.

#127

Post by lurker19 »

zitterbewegung wrote: post #44
reedlaw wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does BCC stand for?

Bingo Card Creator his website. See http://www.bingocardcreator.com/

Patio is SEO incarnate. I can't even say he "struck again" with this organic link, because he doesn't strike, he just exudes SEO with every fiber of being and press on his keyboard.

Re: It’s OK to make an extra $2k per month if you’re a programmer. Here’s how.

#128

Post by nl »

augustflanagan wrote: post #32

On 150,000 pageviews a month I make about $50.00 from adsense. "1.6% CTR with 0.85c CPC" seems pretty unrealistic to me.

I make ~$100-$200/month from It's pretty much impossible to claim any CTR or CPC rate is unrealistic because they vary so massively depending on the site, the market and even things like the time of year.

Re: It’s OK to make an extra $2k per month if you’re a programmer. Here’s how.

#129

Post by lurker19 »

jhpriestley wrote: post #41
mmaunder wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say you're doing exactly what Google wants and needs by putting the world's information online and making it indexable by them. It's a symbiotic relationship and searchers are grateful to both you and Google for helping them find what they need (that vet database you bought for example) online. Not only that but Google profits directly through ads that appear in search results showing your data. And indirectly ke…

As a searcher, no I am not grateful to content farms, "directories", and other pseudo-content. In fact I find it quite frustrating that searches for common maintenance problems, housekeeping, medical topics, etc., now turn up page after page of superficial, ad-ridden content. I have the sense that the actual act of finding information on the internet has become quite a bit harder since, say, 2004.

What do you think of sites like DMV.org that wrap 50 godawful state websites and non-websites with nationally uniform easy to navigate content, plus ads mixed in?

It adds a lot of value to me, and Google rewards with huber page rank than government websites, which one assumes get a huge authoritativeness bonus from Google.

A lit of folks get indignant that someone is "just" exposing true information for money. That is 99% of what Google does and why everyone loves them. If you cut the money out, the ride stops. Organized information is more valuable and more costly than scattered hidden information.

Re: It’s OK to make an extra $2k per month if you’re a programmer. Here’s how.

#130

Post by lurker19 »

SwellJoe wrote: post #103
getsat wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that most people would be willing to set up an "unfulfilling" side project to generate an extra $2,000 USD/month.

I wouldn't. I'd rather put that time into my fulfilling business. After a year of such extra effort, it'll probably make more than $2000/month difference in my bottom line; though that assumes I have a real business to invest my time in, and that I can afford to work for a year before seeing that $2k (or more) show up. I have my doubts that yet another generated content spam site would be worth $2k/month, though I'm…

Google Search has an insecurity complex where it will show you a ton of low quality content instead of telling you it did not find anything good.

The problem isn't that a bunch of folks have made lame sites; the problem is that no one has made a good site. Make one, and Google will happily rocket you to the top of the results page.

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