You've Gotta Laugh

[Kieran]

Over Christmas as I was working on some of my blogs and touching a couple of sites that customers had paid for (I do this as a sideline by the way) my younger brother visited my house.

He found this very interesting and about a week later he rang me on my mobile as I was driving and his question was (wait for it) "Can you tell me how I can make money on the Internet like you do...?" I nearly crashed the car as wait for it he doesn't even own a PC at home !!

On a serious note in the next 12-24 months I predict (OK don't have to be too bright to do this) that we will see an influx of people who want to 'make money on the Internet"). To find out how click here (only joking)

By the way my brother hasn't been in contact since on the topic (spending some money on a PC seemed to be a gating factor for him !!)

 

[mneylon]

A lot of people think it's incredibly easy, while others think it's incredibly hard

The truth is somewhere in the middle

 

[Kieran]

Well my brother cant even spell HMTL so he is at the other end of the spectrum. As for PHP, SQL, that would blow his mind !!

I can create a brochure site get it up and live in 2-3 days for anyone but making it work for them takes a a bit longer - SEO, search engine placement, all that good stuff. Again relatively easy but time consuming to do carefully and well.

I am currently answering the inponderable question for a prospect "What will a web site do for me ?"

 

[skbcabey]

my brother wants to get start also

 

[MickyWall]

I'm sure there are easier ways to make a living, unfortunately I just haven't come across them yet.

 

[link8r]

there are lots of people doing that already. on twitter someone has setup 3 blogs and two websites and squidoo lens telling people how make money. for the record this person gets 20 people a day. Unless they are super targeted and ALL click on her ads, chances are good she isn't making money.

There is a big difference between knowing "What makes money/ways to make money" and actually going out and building a business.

think about it. Most people see successful websites. When they see a website, the biggest barrier (to their mind) is the technical capability of designing, constructing and managing such a site. Not the business plan, advertising, costs, market research.

It seems easy because people have made million dollar companies on shoe-string budgets. But these people had vision, brains, advice and learnt a lot too. You can't divide their input by 1,000 and hope to earn what they've earned by a 1000.

Every small web company offering €200 html sites out there now does "SEO" too. Except their SEO may include a few links, 500 keywords, meta-information, and is so crap. SEO sites around a year with a PageRank of 1 or 0 ... come on. It's bordering on false advertising.

If you had to go and build websites for €200 a pop, as a full time job - you've created a race to the bottom. €200 x 4 = €800 per week. x4 =€3,200 from which you have to pay phone bills, hosting, electricity, advertising, AND TAX!!!! VAT and PAYE/PRSI. That's not a lot for doing 16 websites.

And finding 16 clients a month isn't easy. Give out all you want, but going in at €200 to "build yourself up" is short sighted, and creates an impression that all websites are equal and other web companies, who invest in R&D (smalltime maybe) are cowboys for charging €2,000 whereas it may just be the other way around.

 

[neweb]

Has anyone come across the dreaded "I have a great idea for a web site"
This is usually followed by "you build my idea for free and we split the profits"

I used to get these all the time, now when I get a call from a new client I always ask "Is the website for your business in X"
If the answer is no then its most likely " I have a great ...... bla bla bla"