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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.

#141

Post by getsat »

jshen wrote: post #136
getsat wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's difficult to say exactly since SEO isn't really an exact science. Some of them will definitely be an improvement. For example, it's not really valuable for someone to land on one of your tag pages. Putting all your links to your content pages inside H2 tags tells search engines that they're more important that other links on the page. The /title one is big. Google likes short URLs without a lot of extra cruft. Y…

You didn't really answer the question. I can do all of that work, how much do you think it will increase organic google traffic? 10%? 20%? This is an experiment I'm trying to do ;) My hypothesis is that these things won't make a significant difference.

I did answer it:

> It's difficult to say exactly since SEO isn't really an exact science.

The answer is that there is no definite answer. :)

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

#142

Post by jshen »

slouch wrote: post #140
jshen wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You didn't really answer the question. I can do all of that work, how much do you think it will increase organic google traffic? 10%? 20%? This is an experiment I'm trying to do ;) My hypothesis is that these things won't make a significant difference.

Your question wasn't very good. The changes suggested need to be made one time in order to affect your site's traffic many times. The changes might make the site more attractive in search results based on improved snippets. The H tags change could help google better understand the content and rank it for more appropriate searches. If you want hard numbers, it might take years of data collection and analysis to find t…

First, let me reiterate that my site is for fun, and nothing more.

But let's assume that it were a business, and I'll explain how my question is not only good, but the most important question a you should ask. We have finite resources and time, and we have to decide what to use those resources and time for. How do we do that? I could implement all of these changes in a 2 days let's say, or I could use that same time and money to add some feature my users have been asking for. Which should I do?

To answer that we have to estimate in some way the impact of each. Saying it "might make the site more attractive", "could help google", etc isn't a good answer.

"If you want hard numbers, it might take years of data collection and analysis to find them."

No it wouldn't, and what I'm offering here is to do the changes and measure the change.

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

#143

Post by nerfhammer »

patio11 wrote: post #31
tptacek wrote: post #16

How to make an extra $10,000 per month: Find 12 people who conduct significant business online, tell them this story, and set your bill rate accordingly.

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…

How do you find liquid affiliate markets?

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

#144

Post by jshen »

getsat wrote: post #141
jshen wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You didn't really answer the question. I can do all of that work, how much do you think it will increase organic google traffic? 10%? 20%? This is an experiment I'm trying to do ;) My hypothesis is that these things won't make a significant difference.

I did answer it: > It's difficult to say exactly since SEO isn't really an exact science. The answer is that there is no definite answer. :)

Well you'd want something more to go on to prioritize a roadmap ;)

Like I said, I'm happy to do this as an experiment and see what impact it has if you're interested. email me at yakkstr at yakkstr.com

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

#145

Post by augustflanagan »

melvinram wrote: post #45
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've seen client sites that get 10-30% CTR w/ $4 CPC and I've seen 1% at $0.20-$0.80 CPC. It really depends on a number of factors including the audience, their intent, how they find your site, the site layout, etc. It may not be common but I wouldn't say it's unrealistic. PS: If you're making $50 from 150,000 page views per month, are you open to selling the site?

You're right, unrealistic is not the right way to describe it. I don't doubt that quite a few people are able to make a couple thousand off adsense and 150,000 pageviews or less per month.

However, the article is saying it is incredibly easy to do this. On that point I disagree. I think if you spend a lot of time working on finding the right niche and developing the site that you can definitely pull it off, but I don't think it's easy. And, as someone else pointed out there are a lot more interesting ways to make $2000/mo building a niche web app.

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

#146

Post by hugh3 »

slouch wrote: post #138
bobbywilson0 wrote: post #46

This to me is classic linkbait, how it is on the front page is beyond me. The "made for google adwords" sites are the bottom of the barrel when it comes to online income. I am surprised this guy doesn't have a bunch of ads on his blog so he can make $2,000 a month telling other people how to make $2,000 a month.

There is much less work involved in maintenance if you setup sites in a way such that users create the content

Theoretically, perhaps, though the initial uphill battle for traffic is harder, and if you're not careful there's always the chance you're going to get stuck policing and removing your users' content.

It strikes me that there must be huge and quiet money in some forums. One forum in particular I use a lot is Better Bidding, where people discuss how to get cheap rates on hotwire and priceline and share information on what the unnamed mystery hotels are (so far I've had a 100% success rate in finding out the name of a hotwire hotel before booking it). But every time the words "priceline" or "hotwire" show up on the site they're converted into a (presumably) affiliate link, so the owners of the site must be making one metric shirtload from those. If you can find a way to combine user-generated content with affiliate links to stuff that the users were about to buy anyway, that's gotta be some great passive income.

Oh well. If this story did nothing else it at least inspired me to dust off a blog project I've had in the back of my mind for a while (http://projectomniscience.blogspot.com) and experiment with adsense. I doubt it'll be a big money-spinner, but at least now I know how to use adsense (and besides, I got to learn interesting facts about zebras, pants, and governors of North Dakota).

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

#147

Post by slouch »

jshen wrote: post #142
slouch wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your question wasn't very good. The changes suggested need to be made one time in order to affect your site's traffic many times. The changes might make the site more attractive in search results based on improved snippets. The H tags change could help google better understand the content and rank it for more appropriate searches. If you want hard numbers, it might take years of data collection and analysis to find t…

First, let me reiterate that my site is for fun, and nothing more. But let's assume that it were a business, and I'll explain how my question is not only good, but the most important question a you should ask. We have finite resources and time, and we have to decide what to use those resources and time for. How do we do that? I could implement all of these changes in a 2 days let's say, or I could use that same time…

I would love to know how you intend to isolate variables during your measurement so that your tests are accurate.

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

#148

Post by matthewcieplak »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #104
ck2 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you are saying (and that link) sounds exactly like a person that has never been poor without a support network of family and friends. It's just a mental exercise with no basis in reality and no "hands-on" experience. The modern welfare system does not allow non-disabled people to draw an infinite amount of assistance - it's very restricted and for a finite amount of time. They must constantly show real proof the…

Could you tell me the flaw in my analysis? Or are you merely asserting that because I lack a certain experience, I am therefore incapable of analyzing the problem using statistics and logical inference? They must constantly show real proof they are looking for work and even with part-time jobs their assistance is immediately scaled back. This is simply false. The vast majority of the poor are not looking for work, no…

The flaw in your analysis, and your linked article, is following the fallacy of Homo Economicus, which is "an arbitrary definition of man, as a being who inevitably does that by which he may obtain the greatest amount of necessaries, conveniences, and luxuries, with the smallest quantity of labour and physical self-denial with which they can be obtained." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_economicus

In reality, humans rich and poor alike have many considerations of equal or greater importance than their utility function. For example, people not work full-time because they are in school, because they are practicing an art or craft, because they are taking care of family, because they have a wealthy benefactor, because they are employed in an illegal trade like drugs or prostitution, or because they are trying to break into a difficult industry like film.

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

#149

Post by jshen »

slouch wrote: post #147
jshen wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, let me reiterate that my site is for fun, and nothing more. But let's assume that it were a business, and I'll explain how my question is not only good, but the most important question a you should ask. We have finite resources and time, and we have to decide what to use those resources and time for. How do we do that? I could implement all of these changes in a 2 days let's say, or I could use that same time…

I would love to know how you intend to isolate variables during your measurement so that your tests are accurate.

You could never isolate it completely with only a single site, but that doesn't mean you conclude that you can't measure anything, or estimate at all. If I made all the changes in a few days, gave it a few weeks for google to notice the changes, and organic search traffic didn't increase in any noticeable way ... that's strong evidence that it didn't have much of an effect.

Now if someone is going to tell someone else that they should do xyz, what are they basing that on? Their gut? Or did they do these things in the past, and measure an improvement, even when they didn't isolate all the variables as you are demanding of me! Why not demand the same from the person making the suggestion?

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

#150

Post by antirez »

Dudes I lived two years out of this, with the Italian adsense market that is for sure poorer than US market (and has possibly more relative competition, as free-money here is something people pay really a lot attention to...).

I was just using NNTP to fetch news and publish them on the web (now this does not work anymore, but there are tons of other stuff you can do).

So in short, yes, that works very well in my experience, and is ideal to fund your work for your startup without external help.

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