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It’s OK to make an extra $2k per month if you’re a programmer. Here’s how.
151–160 of 180 posts
Re: It’s OK to make an extra $2k per month if you’re a programmer. Here’s how.
#152So, 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.
This is what I got from the article. data.gov has LOADS of datasets for the USA, as well as hundreds of other APIs from different departments that can be used to retrieve that data in real time.
The problem comes just after you click "download" and realize you have a 600MB XML file listing the Ph levels of groundwater sites around the country for the past 25 years. How in the hell are you going to make that data an interesting draw that users want to read or learn about?
I have no skill for frontend design, but I've recently begun to learn how to display data in an intelligent manner. If anyone is interested, these books have helped me:
Information Dashboard Design: http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596100162
Visualizing Data: http://www.amazon.com/Visualizing-Data-Explaining-Processing...
Beautiful Data: http://www.amazon.com/Beautiful-Data-Stories-Elegant-Solutio...
Re: It’s OK to make an extra $2k per month if you’re a programmer. Here’s how.
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
The people I've known who were eligible to but refused to use food stamps did not feel it was "beneath them"- I'm pretty sure they felt that they didn't truly need them, and that there was someone worse off who needed them more than they did.
On the other hand, I had a roommate who spent his time criticizing "government handouts" while at the same time using food stamps himself.
Sounds similar to the 65+ year-olds out in the rural US where I grew up that complain about big government while defending their Medicare payments, sometimes in adjacent sentences.
Re: It’s OK to make an extra $2k per month if you’re a programmer. Here’s how.
#154Earlier 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…
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!
We have the advantage that we can automate/rip through most of the tech stuff, but there's people out there doing everything manually that are making more than you and me. :)
Re: It’s OK to make an extra $2k per month if you’re a programmer. Here’s how.
#155I made sites that list British post offices and post boxes: http://edwardbetts.com/postoffices/ and http://edwardbetts.com/postboxes/ I think both these sites went live in 2008. Here are the AdSense figures for this month so far (May 1st to May 27th): * $52.94 earnings * 21,708 Page views * 147 Clicks * 0.68% Page CTR * $0.36 CPC * $2.44 Page RPM
How did you get those sites known?
Re: It’s OK to make an extra $2k per month if you’re a programmer. Here’s how.
#156Earlier 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…
ug, do not waste time on sitepoint, wickedfire, or the like. seobook, seomoz, seroundtable.com, distilled.co.uk, wiep.net, wolf-howl.com, rosshudgeons.com, and citationlabs are all more worthy of your time. Read The Art and Science of SEO and attend to Mozcon in June and you'll be on the right track.
I don't know about Sitepoint for SEO, but I did like that one topic I linked to. I actually learned a substantial amount of my XHTML/CSS knowledge from Sitepoint (back in 2004-2005), so it's not all bad. :)
I like seobook and seomoz, and I'll check out the other sites you mentioned. Thanks!
Re: It’s OK to make an extra $2k per month if you’re a programmer. Here’s how.
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 els…
> Now if someone is going to tell someone else that they should do xyz, what are they basing that on?
Fair question. I would say these things are current, accepted "best practices". I'd liken it to suggesting you use a version control system instead of emailing code back and forth. Your existing system might work, but many other people who were also emailing code back and forth are seeing gains using this new-fangled VCS thing, so it's almost definitely worth doing.
You might try searching for "SEO before and after" or "SEO case study" to see how on-site changes have worked (or haven't worked!) for other sites. At any rate, many of the current "best practices" are trivial, under the hood changes so it doesn't really cost anything to put them into place. Most of them simply help search engines understand how your content is structured and benefit both you and your users.
Re: It’s OK to make an extra $2k per month if you’re a programmer. Here’s how.
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
You do realize the Adsense tos bars you from disclosing this data, right? Not that I care (I think the TOS is b.s. on that point), I'm just saying...
Thanks, I had no idea.
Um, yeah, I would edit those URLs out before the edit window expires. Google will kill your account.
Re: It’s OK to make an extra $2k per month if you’re a programmer. Here’s how.
#159I made sites that list British post offices and post boxes: http://edwardbetts.com/postoffices/ and http://edwardbetts.com/postboxes/ I think both these sites went live in 2008. Here are the AdSense figures for this month so far (May 1st to May 27th): * $52.94 earnings * 21,708 Page views * 147 Clicks * 0.68% Page CTR * $0.36 CPC * $2.44 Page RPM
How did you get those sites known?
Either this program (Market Samurai) is shitting the bed or he has 291,557 backlinks to his domain. That's a pretty serious number of backlinks for a personal site.
Re: It’s OK to make an extra $2k per month if you’re a programmer. Here’s how.
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
>As the cost...drops, the number of viable niches literally explodes My God, thank you for the warning. I will be alert for exploding numbers!
This reply is quite hilarious. I'm bursting with laughter.
Thanks, I had plenty of upvotes until you guys started replying.