I Make NO Money http://www.imakenomoney.com Learn from my mistakes Fri, 16 Jan 2009 04:13:17 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 en hourly 1 IMakeNoMoneyhttp://feedburner.google.com Do you suck at making money? (like I used to) http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/IMakeNoMoney/~3/CtgVzomBuGI/do-you-suck-at-making-money-like-i-used-to.html http://www.imakenomoney.com/85/do-you-suck-at-making-money-like-i-used-to.html#comments Fri, 16 Jan 2009 04:13:17 +0000 Papa Bear http://www.imakenomoney.com/?p=85 Ok, so the whole point of this site was to show you things that I’ve done to not make money online. In fact, for a while, you could have even called it my specialty. So when I received this email from Russell Brunson asking me “Do you suck at making money online?” my ears perked up, to say the least. I clicked on the links in the email and it took me to this HILARIOUS video of “Zoobie” the Internet Marketing Newbie. Very funny.

Well Zoobie figured something out, he figured out how to make money by GIVING his products away…that’s right, FREE. Best part: it works–even in today’s economy. But don’t laugh. Because he’ll show you how to forget about selling products and just give them away for FREE! Don’t worry, you’ll STILL get paid! Because this simple 3-step system shows you how to earn even MORE money than if you actually sold the product.

Click on the screenshot below to watch the video for yourself:

]]> http://www.imakenomoney.com/85/do-you-suck-at-making-money-like-i-used-to.html/feed 0 http://www.imakenomoney.com/85/do-you-suck-at-making-money-like-i-used-to.html Too many websites (last post) http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/IMakeNoMoney/~3/gJ72wUA6j2k/too-many-websites-last-post.html http://www.imakenomoney.com/72/too-many-websites-last-post.html#comments Sat, 22 Nov 2008 13:49:23 +0000 Papa Bear http://www.imakenomoney.com/?p=72 The number one reason why I have not made a substatial amount of money online is because:

I HAVE TOO MANY WEBSITES!!!

It is impossible to focus and give each site the attention that it deserves.  One thing that I have learned quite a bit about over the last year, is that making money online with a website is:

1) It is not “easy”.

2) Does not happen overnight

3) And it takes real WORK.

You have to be completely dedicated to a site, the same way that a business owner is dedicated to a business.  And as a site grows in popularity and success, it only becomes more demanding and time consuming.  At some point, you have to decide which ones you want to grow and which sites you need to prune.

As a result of these lessons that I’ve learned, I have decided to retire this blog.  As much fun as it has been sharing my many online mistakes, I just can’t keep up the pace and trying to juggle this many proverbial balls.  I have also decided to sell some of my sites / domains and try and focus on continuing to develop and grow the websites that I am really passionate about and the ones that are actually making me money.

The other reason I have decided to retire this blog is because, to be honest, I have started making some pretty good money online.   In fact,  within the past 30 days, I have had nearly $3200 deposited in my account as a result of my affiliate sites!  Not too bad for a guy who makes no money online.  I am also consistently starting to make some decent Adsense revenue as well, all with ZERO advertising.

I am sorry for those who are disappointed at this decision and appreciate the comments that I’ve received from people who have enjoyed some of my more humorous posts like:

Thanks for your understanding and I wish all of you the best with your online endeavors.

Sincerely,

“Papa Bear” Paul.

]]> http://www.imakenomoney.com/72/too-many-websites-last-post.html/feed 1 http://www.imakenomoney.com/72/too-many-websites-last-post.html People getting rich from the election (not me) http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/IMakeNoMoney/~3/jojpY0bYp00/people-getting-rich-from-the-election-not-me.html http://www.imakenomoney.com/62/people-getting-rich-from-the-election-not-me.html#comments Thu, 16 Oct 2008 14:01:53 +0000 Papa Bear http://www.imakenomoney.com/?p=62 I have been paying very close attention to the 2008 Presidential Election.  Probably too close.  I have watched every keynote convention speech, debate (presidential and VP) and much to my discredit, spent a lot of time reading many of the blogs from both sides.

One of the things that I’ve been able to determine, is a few people are getting VERY rich from this entire process.  Some of them are just plain lucky and others have capitalized on their 15 minutes of fame.  Here is my list of people getting rich from the election:

1) Kazuo Kawasaki:

Who?  Kazuo Kawasaki is the optic designer of the eye glasses that Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin sports.  Kazuo Kawasaki has reported that the style Sarah wears, the MP-704s, has been selling out nationwide.  And it’s not just the manufacturer raking in the cash on this new designer trend.  This is an Internet Marketer’s dream!  Take for instance the BANS site: http://sarahpalinsglasses.com which I am sure is doing quite well.

2) Gwen Ifill:

Gwen Ifill, the PBS newscaster and the moderator of the one-and-only Vice Presidental debate, took some serious flak from conservatives for her upcoming book, The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama, which is scheduled for release on Jan 20, 2009.  Ironically enough, Jan 20, 2009 is the date of inauguration of our next President.  The argument was of course, that Gwen cannot be an impartial moderator in the debate because she stands to make big bucks for her book…IF Obama is elected.  In the end, Gwen ended up doing a pretty good job moderating AND stands to make a bunch of money from all the free publicity (thanks to the Republicans).

3) Joe the Plumber.

A week ago, we had never heard of “Joe the Plumber” the name given to Joe Wurzelbacher, a plumber from Toledo, Ohio.  Joe is getting his 15 minutes of fame after asking Barack Obama a question on the campaign trail this past Sunday October 12.  His questions was about why he would be taxed more under Obama’s plan for working hard and being successful (good question).  Joe, who is thinking about purchasing the plumbing business he works for, has become a central figure in the economic policies of the Presidental candidate and was mentioned some 20+ times in last night’s Presidental debate.  Well Joe, get ready for some taxes because a) you will be successful because you just got a lot of free publicity for your business and b) it looks like Obama will be your next President.

Let’s not also forget the “real” Joe Plumber.   A unrelated plumbing business in Amarillo, Texas has the domain name: http://www.joetheplumber.com I am sure they they not minding the thousand’s of erroneous phone calls, emails and hits on their website.  Hopefully, they won’t have to pay for all the extra bandwidth they are going to use this month.   If you are an IM in Amarillo, you need to talk to these guys quickly about getting some Adsense ads on their website or at least some CafePress items with an affiliate link.  They are sitting on a gold mine.

Lesson: Seize opportunities and capitalize on popular trends.  Find out “what the fish are biting” before going fishing.   You’ll tend to be a more successful fisherman and IM if you know what to put on the hook before you cast.  So how do you find what is popular?

1) Try using Micro Niche Finder. An excellent tool for finding what is being searched for in the search engines

2) Google Trends:  You can use Google Trends as well to help find the most popular searches on Google and capitalize using a website script like BANS (Build a Niche Store) to put some money in your pocket.  You can also visit the Google Zeitgeist to find other hot trends.

]]> http://www.imakenomoney.com/62/people-getting-rich-from-the-election-not-me.html/feed 2 http://www.imakenomoney.com/62/people-getting-rich-from-the-election-not-me.html Wordpress Goggles http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/IMakeNoMoney/~3/aEWK9nNVOEo/wordpress-goggles.html http://www.imakenomoney.com/59/wordpress-goggles.html#comments Fri, 10 Oct 2008 01:45:16 +0000 Papa Bear http://www.imakenomoney.com/?p=59 I was reading tonight on the Official Gmail Blog about a new feature called “Mail Goggles” which when enabled in Gmail, requires you to do some simple math problems before you are allowed to compose a message.  If you take too long or miss too many questions, you are forbidden from sending email.  The inspiration behind the idea is obviously to try and curtail the number of emails that are sent while the sender may not be in the correct mindset to frame a message.  One can only imagine how many emails have been sent to ex-girlfriends, boyfriends, wives, bosses, etc. when really the sender should have just drank a glass of water and gone to bed.

As I read the post, I was also reminded of my previous post about Letting a Drunk Guy publish on your Blog and couldn’t help but wonder, if “Wordpress Goggles” would have prevented these posts from being composed in the first place.

If I had a better handle on PHP, maybe I could compose a admin plugin for Wordpress called “Wordpress Goggles”.  If I get enough responses, I’ll get someone on rent-a-coder to do it for me and I’ll post the plugin here first.

]]> http://www.imakenomoney.com/59/wordpress-goggles.html/feed 0 http://www.imakenomoney.com/59/wordpress-goggles.html I got her good. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/IMakeNoMoney/~3/vWKFeNJ54WQ/i-got-her-good.html http://www.imakenomoney.com/57/i-got-her-good.html#comments Tue, 30 Sep 2008 01:15:05 +0000 Papa Bear http://www.imakenomoney.com/57/i-got-her-good.html A lot of my affiliate checks come through direct deposit.  However my account at Linkshare is still sent as a conventional check via snail mail.

Yesterday I got a letter from Linkshare with my monthly affiliate check.  As my wife handed me the unopened letter she asked, “What’s this?” and then went to sit down in another room.  As she walked away I told her, “Oh, it is one of my affiliate programs. I must have made some money”  As I opened the checked I said, “Oh my gosh!  Wow.  Your not going to believe this!  This is amazing”  She came running in with an excited look on her face and I handed her this check….

Linkshare Affiliate Check

You see a lot of internet marketeers take pictures of themselves with $10,000 checks and stop just short of DEMANDING that you pay them more money to be a part of their exclusive monthly club so they can supposedly teach you how to make that money as well.  But me, I give you nothing but the truth (as sad as that may be).  Now, I do have to give myself a little bit of credit.  I actually did earn about $1500 last month from some other affiliate programs that I belong to but I’ve got a long way to go before I earn that with Linkshare! Maybe one day….

]]> http://www.imakenomoney.com/57/i-got-her-good.html/feed 4 http://www.imakenomoney.com/57/i-got-her-good.html Worry about content and traffic first. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/IMakeNoMoney/~3/e7rXo0Onp_k/worry-about-content-and-traffic-first.html http://www.imakenomoney.com/26/worry-about-content-and-traffic-first.html#comments Mon, 08 Sep 2008 02:22:55 +0000 Papa Bear http://www.imakenomoney.com/26/worry-about-content-and-traffic-first.html When I was young, my parents subscribed me to a magazine called “Highlights”.  On the cover each month they would have a challenge for the kids that challenged them to find “What is wrong with this picture?”  Tonight, I am providing a similar example…what is wrong or missing from this picture?

Advertising in the Desert

Of course the obvious thing missing from this picture is an audience, traffic or people for this advertisement.

Have you noticed (if you are a serial website developer like myself) that the first thing you do after setting up a new website is to look for ways to monetize before actually developing any traffic or content?

I found myself recently spending quite a bit of time on shareasale and clickbank looking for potential partners for a new blog that had zero content and zero traffic.  What a waste of time (and money)  That is just about as effective and pointless as the billboard above.

Lesson:  Focus your development efforts on quality content which provides quality traffic.  Once those two fundamentals are in place, then you can spend time looking for ways to monetize on that traffic.

]]> http://www.imakenomoney.com/26/worry-about-content-and-traffic-first.html/feed 4 http://www.imakenomoney.com/26/worry-about-content-and-traffic-first.html Save money by downloading free alternatives to expensive software http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/IMakeNoMoney/~3/lOR1mJ8Ol1I/save-money-by-downloading-free-alternatives-to-expensive-software.html http://www.imakenomoney.com/56/save-money-by-downloading-free-alternatives-to-expensive-software.html#comments Fri, 15 Aug 2008 13:17:45 +0000 Papa Bear http://www.imakenomoney.com/56/save-money-by-downloading-free-alternatives-to-expensive-software.html I recently bought (another) computer from my dad.  He works at a university which every few years recycles their “old” computers by selling them at a very discounted rate.  I bought a P4, 3 Ghz, 1 GB Ram, 250 GB Hard Drive with a LCD monitor for $230! Not that bad.  Now I am in the lucky position of having two computers.  I have to admit that this is a nice convenience to have.  For instance, when my wife or kids wants to get on one computer, I can still get some work done on the other computer.  One thing that I noticed lately is that the biggest difference between these two computers isn’t their performance difference as much as the difference in the cost of the programs loaded on the computer.  You see, computer #1 has been loaded with the all the brand-name and expensive software packages while on the other hand, I installed open source and free software on the new computer.

I took a few moments this morning to create a very basic table showing you how much money you can save by using free open source software versus expensive commercial packages.

Type of Software Computer #1 Cost Computer #2 Cost
Photo Editing / Graphics Design Adobe Photoshop CS3 $299 Paint .Net Free
FTP Program CuteFTP 8 Professional $90 FileZilla Free
Text Editing EditPad Pro $99 Notepad ++ Free
Photo Organizing ACDsee Pro 2 $129 Picasa Free
Sound Editing (for podcasting) Adobe Audition 3 $349 Audacity Free
Video Editing Sony Vegas Pro 8 $549 Windows Movie Maker Free
HTML / Web Development Microsoft Expression Web $299 KompoZer Free
Email Office and Outlook 2007 $399 Thunderbird Free
Office Productivity Suite Microsoft Office 2007 $399 OpenOffice Free
Operating Software Windows Vista Home Premium $259 Windows XP (OEM) Free
Total Cost $2871 Free

As you can see, you can save yourself a significant amount of money by searching for some free alternatives to expensive software packages like the ones listed above. They may not have all the features of the professional grade, but if you are like me, you don’t need most of the bells and whistles of the commercial programs anyway.  When I am switching back and forth between the two computers I hardly ever catch myself saying, “I can tell that this is a free program”  In fact, many times I find myself wanting to use the free and open-source programs because they don’t take as much memory and run faster when you have a lot of applications open.

Lesson:  Don’t install and purchase bloated expensive commercial grade programs when you can find great alternatives for FREE!

]]> http://www.imakenomoney.com/56/save-money-by-downloading-free-alternatives-to-expensive-software.html/feed 9 http://www.imakenomoney.com/56/save-money-by-downloading-free-alternatives-to-expensive-software.html Not making many money? Check your domain name. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/IMakeNoMoney/~3/p3JdM3tCRYU/not-making-many-money-check-your-domain-name.html http://www.imakenomoney.com/55/not-making-many-money-check-your-domain-name.html#comments Fri, 08 Aug 2008 14:40:06 +0000 Papa Bear http://www.imakenomoney.com/55/not-making-many-money-check-your-domain-name.html I was on the way to work this morning and was scanning the radio when the nationally syndicated radio show “Bob & Tom” came on. They mentioned something about a URL list and I suddenly stopped my scanner. They had a guest comedian, Gunner, on their program discussing some URLs that really weren’t thought out that well.

Those were some of the ones mentioned on this morning’s broadcast of the show. I did a google search and came up with some more.

  • Find the name of the a celebrity agent at: www.whorepresents.com
  • Exchange advice with a expert programmer: www.expertsexchange.com
  • Find a Therapist at: www.therapistfinder.com
  • Need a power generator from Italy? www.powergenitalia.com
  • Mole Station Native Nursery in New South Wales: www.molestationnursery.com
  • Need some IP computer software don’t forget: www.ipanywhere.com
  • Speed of Art Designers await you at : www.speedofart.com

Thanks to http://humour.200ok.com.au for their contribution to this list from their page Bad Domain Names

Lesson: Pick your domain name carefully. I’ll be looking over my list for any misspellings. You should too.

]]> http://www.imakenomoney.com/55/not-making-many-money-check-your-domain-name.html/feed 1 http://www.imakenomoney.com/55/not-making-many-money-check-your-domain-name.html Move your website to a new host but forget to set up your default email address http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/IMakeNoMoney/~3/C-kCapT9F0g/move-your-domain-but-forget-to-set-up-your-old-email-addresses.html http://www.imakenomoney.com/54/move-your-domain-but-forget-to-set-up-your-old-email-addresses.html#comments Mon, 28 Jul 2008 03:45:07 +0000 Papa Bear http://www.imakenomoney.com/54/move-your-domain-but-forget-to-set-up-your-old-email-addresses.html Here’s a good way to lose readers and active participants in your community and blog. When you move your domain to a new hosting provider, you should forget to set up the default email addresses at your new host.  For instance, let’s say your email address for your website is paul [at] imakenomoney [dot] com.  You physically move your domain imakenomoney.com to your new host.  Change the name servers at your domain service provider and check to see if you blog is able to come up at your new host.  If everything is displayed correctly your good to go right?

If you have been wondering why it takes a comment so long to get published around here, that’s why.  Because I am trying to manage too many websites, it is impossible to remember all the email addresses at all the different domains I have.  It was just by chance that I was going through the default inbox at my new host and saw some bounced emails directed to paul [at] imakenomoney [dot] com!  I had completely forgot to set up this address at my new host.  Sorry!

So now you should have no problems making comments and getting them approved rather quickly.

Lesson:  Write down the email addresses you will have to set up at your new host before transferring service.  Even better, set up the email addresses at your new host BEFORE changing your domain name server so you know you won’t lost any email.

]]> http://www.imakenomoney.com/54/move-your-domain-but-forget-to-set-up-your-old-email-addresses.html/feed 0 http://www.imakenomoney.com/54/move-your-domain-but-forget-to-set-up-your-old-email-addresses.html Well, at least I didn’t lost this much! ($3,500) http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/IMakeNoMoney/~3/-99v2JR53sk/well-at-least-i-didnt-lost-this-much-3500.html http://www.imakenomoney.com/53/well-at-least-i-didnt-lost-this-much-3500.html#comments Mon, 21 Jul 2008 14:36:33 +0000 Papa Bear http://www.imakenomoney.com/53/well-at-least-i-didnt-lost-this-much-3500.html I’ve posted before about how I spend a lot of money on a Adwords campaign on irrelevant keywords.  I found a similar story recently from one of my favorite affiliate bloggers, Johnathon Volk, a “super” affiliate.  He posted recently about losing $3,500!  Why?  Because:

1) He was tired

2) He was tired

3) He was in a hurry.

Apparently, while in a hurry to get to bed (because he was tired) he accidentally sent a recent ad campaign to $45.00 per click instead of the $0.45 he was hoping to.

You can read more about his whopping $3,500 mistake here:

 http://www.jonathanvolk.com/affiliate-marketing/my-3500-mistake.html

Lesson: Please don’t rush through your setting up your campaigns (it could cost you) and try not to make big changes when you are boderline unconcsious.

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