April 7, 2008
By Khalid
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Can You Succeed without Skill?
I received a e-mail not so long ago from a faithful reader Nathan, asking me whether it people were able to succeed at something without the necessary skills? The answer could be yes or no, depending on the person and how hard they are willing to try.
Specifically, Nathan was asking whether an internet entrepreneur could succeed without a vast amount of knowledge of the net or working online: “I suppose I’m asking whether it’s possible for someone to make money online without much skill, and if it is possible, even the slightest amount of money, maybe you could post it?“
My answer would be yes, and here’s why – To succeed at anything you need to start somewhere. You need to learn to crawl before you can walk and walk before you can run. In a world where the internet is now our dictionary, encyclopedia, library and communications hub, learning to crawl isn’t as hard as it used to be.
You can Google almost any question and guaranteed you’ll find a discussion or answer about it. Whether the answer is correct or now is another issue entirely, but in business you have to try in order to fail, you can’t just read an opinion and know you would fail if you tried.
Providing an answer specific to making money online is a lot easier. You see, thousands if not millions of people are doing it, or at least trying, using many different ways. And many of them blog about it too! So you can easily Google a question relating to a “making money online” subject and get an answer or advice. I do it when I am comparing ad networks or looking for a service or product review.
It all comes down to how willing you are to work your fingers to the bone and try, fail and try again repeatadly until you succeed. Many people don’t want to waste their time doing that and so look for a quick buck – something that doesn’t happen online unless you are duping people and selling them an eBook full of false promises.
The beauty of the internet is that you can experiment and learn without wasting a lot of money. Take for example my Adengage Experiment, the costs were about $50 excluding my time and effort, but I am learning a lot. What other business domain could you create a possible recurring revenue stream and test it for less than the price of a pair of shoes?
This is why I love making money online – you can test, learn, fail (or succeed!) without declaring yourself bankrupt or losing your house! And there are so many opportunities without you having to be a master of html or seo. Take Off Beat Ink, my tattoo designs website. I use WordPress, a free blogging platform, to write about an interest of mine that has turned into a profitable website. Here’s an approximate breakdown of my costs:
- Domain $9 - Hosting $5 per month (on a shared plan, I now have a VPS for all my sites) - Content $0 (just my time) - Marketing and SEO $300 (including backlink building, social media marketing etc) Total: $314
…and this site now generates most of the $12 a day I am currently earning and received over 90,000 unique visitors last month. If I was to begin paying back the $314 I invested from today, it would only take me 26 days. Off Beat Ink is only 8 months old and already I have earned back probably double my investment.
This was the first time I ever monetized a blog, generated traffic to it, pushed it’s popularity online and really worked hard at making it succeed. My time and effort was the biggest cost, but if you are doing something because you are passionate about it, you should be willing to work at it all the time without wanting paid.
I remember when I first began making money online, I built small content sites for keywords that were searched under 3,000 times per month (as nobody else really did). These sites were usually 5 pages with keyword rich, related content and used a free web template. When ranked in the search engines, usually 2-4 months later, the sites started earning $0.50 – $1.00 per day each. Make 100 sites like that and you’d generate between $1500 and $3,000 per month.
The only issue you have these days is that everyone is doing something similar. You are better focusing on a maximum of 10 sites and ensuring you post fresh, unique content daily or weekly. The search engines will love this and so will your visitors. Remember if you are passionate about something chances are thousands of other people will be and will want to read about it. You don’t need to invent the next You Tube or Facebook to become an internet entrepreneur.
To sum up – you can succeed online by taking your time and learning each part of building a popular website. Remember to always aim for the long term and not for short gains. Focus on unique, well written content and then begin to push our site out into the world wide web. Slowly but surely people will come, it just takes time. You may not have the skill at the beginning, but by spending time learning, you will pick it up.
I hope I have answered you question Nathan and provided my other blog readers with some useful information. If anyone else has questions they would like answered please do not hesitate to get in contact with me.
Good luck with your persuits,
Khalid.
p.s I’m in London with work Monday-Friday this week so I’ll reply to comments when I get back!
