As I was writing my last post about expenses and investing back into my business, I found myself thinking a lot about how attempting to start an online business these days is so different from when I started out in 2001.
I owe a lot to timing. I started my first site solely as a hobby and grew it because I wanted to share what little knowledge I had at the time about budget travel while teaching myself HTML and web design at the same time. I didn’t feel like the budget travel websites that were around in 2001 were good enough and I had ambitious plans to fill the gap in the market for hostel reviews (at that point, sites were listing hostels but nobody was reviewing them). The internet was crammed with non-commercial individual sites (Geocities and the gang) and commercial sites from big companies, but it didn’t seem like small site owners were making money… or even really trying to. As far as I knew, the only people making money online were Amazon and I doubted a regular Joe like me would ever be able to make more than a few bucks from the occasional hostel booking. But I plodded along more out of a love for what I was doing than the pursuit of money.
I certainly didn’t see the potential of the internet back then but I continued because I loved what I was doing. By 2005 it all finally clicked and I started to get serious but, by this point, I already had an established website to piggyback off of and had learned what I needed to know about HTML. People starting out now are at a huge disadvantage. First because there’s an arseload of competition out there. Second, because many people have dollar signs in their eyes and will give up if they don’t earn anything in the first few months. And third, (and this one is something I’ve only been thinking about for a short while and is debatable) because these days a business mentality is needed from the start (not a hobby mentality) and that means investing money from the beginning, something that few people are willing to do(?).
I still feel like there’s plenty of room to earn online and I also believe that, with a great idea, hard (and smart) work and patience, you will eventually make it work. But I also think that, with increased competition, internet marketing is becoming more and more like a regular business and the days of having $10 for a domain name and $100 a year for hosting as your only expenses are gone. I wonder if all of the people who are just starting out with their online businesses (travel blogs or whatever) are likely to want to invest in them before making a cent. The barriers to entry in this business are very low but I get the impression that while many people are willing to invest loads of time, few are putting money in from the start.
I think this puts those who are willing and able to invest into their online business in a great position to get way ahead. People like me who are able to work on their sites full time already have a huge advantage over those who can only dedicate evenings and weekends to it. Plus it’s a lot easier to invest in something that you’re already making money on, from both from a financial and psychological standpoint. Then if you end up outsourcing, having people doing work for you suddenly allows you to grow things at a much faster rate. With major companies and internet marketers pumping money into their business, will new arrivals find themselves having to fork out money just to get into the game?
All of these ideas just came to me as I was writing the previous post about my expenses and I’m really curious to hear your thoughts. Are you already investing back into your online business if you have one? Do you feel like a great idea is enough to get things going or are things becoming too crowded? Do you feel like web development is moving towards traditional type businesses where you need to maintain monthly marketing budgets and other expenses? Will the cost of running a portfolio of websites keep rising as the competition heats up? Are the days of a hobby evolving into a business gone?
I’m curious to know what you think!
The competition is really in the marketing techniques – so it’s harder than ever to capitalise on dross. But provided you’re producing something quality, the market is wide open. It’s a cliche but true. This is where you’ve done well, your sites are informative and genuinely useful.
I am one of the new ones trying to enter the game that you speak about. So this is my perspective…. It’s gonna be freakin’ hard! I have had blogs off and on for years but never looked to make money off of them. Now I am venturing out into other areas to see if it can be profitable. In the long run I think it can, but you are right when you say you won’t make money from the start. I have a budge I want to stick to as far as marketing, purchasing sites, etc… goes but I have a feeling I will go over (and I feel my budget is adequate). I do treat it like a business now, but I am at a disadvantage in that I have a full-time job as well. So I can only dedicate so much time to the cause, but I do spend a lot of time on it all. I am looking forward to having a few months off coming up to see what I can do full-time with the sites before returning to work. It will give me a chance to see if I can stay focused with a lot more distractions around me. I don’t think you can have the view of invest only when I start making money because to me if you want to make money you have to spend money. Then again I think you have to find your niche. I am not going after the same crowd as many others, although I do have some competition. But I am confident with a lot of hard work, I can overcome the competition and be the brand name everyone looks to.
I’ll say it isn’t is easy as it used to be or as easy as some think it is. I talk to people all the time trying to get involved and think it is as easy as setting up a site with some product or going the affiliate route. There is a great deal you should know if you’re going to try because if you’re not prepared, you’ll just be spinning your wheels.
I see something of a dichotomy here in the IM world. On the one hand there are more and more great tools that make setting up your online business cheaper and easier than ever before. The Google Keyword Tool is free. WordPress is free. Joomla is free. There are tonnes of free plugins and themes available so really anyone can set up a website quickly and on a tight budget.
On the other hand I think this means there are so many people doing just that, that there is a massive amount of competition online which makes life more difficult.
When you consider the number of links that some websites have, and that the search engines seem to give a preference for older domains, setting up the site is the easy part but getting traffic is harder.
This is especially so with content sites like blogs where it simply wouldn’t be cost effective to use paid traffic but instead we need to rely on free traffic sources like Google, YouTube and social networking/bookmarking.
In addition, all these “free” techniques take time to learn and master. I have been doing SEO for a decade so to me it’s quite simple but for a newbie there is a lot to learn and the knowledge of the average marketer is going up all the time. This makes it harder to get into the game. When I started out most people’s knowledge of SEO was so basic I could literally get top rankings for virtually any keyword I wanted. Now the bar has been raised so much that I have to put in some effort.
Also, people are always looking for short-cuts because of this effort. Tools that will build you hundreds of links at the push of a button, software that will automatically follow thousands of people on Twitter for you and so on. They may work short-term but there are always risks involved.
This means either you need to go down the evergreen “white hat” route and appreciate that sooner or later you’re going to get beaten (if only temporarily) by someone using automated tools or you need to be that person and appreciate you’ll probably have to start from scratch on a regular basis as your black hat techniques are outlawed.
Personally, like you Kirsty, I am building white-hat authority sites that I hope will survive over the long term. I have tried so many things over the years and high quality authority content sites have always won for me so that’s where I’m putting all my focus rather than chasing after the latest gimmicks.
On another note in relation to Eric’s comment above, I find that even when I *can* work full time online I am not particularly productive. I find shorter bursts of work – for a few hours at a time – allow me to achieve just as much as trying to focus for a full day and actually spending half of it wasting time as I’m getting bored sitting at my computer
And of course if you can build a successful online business on only a few hours a day, then when you quit your job you’re in a perfect “Four Hour Work Week” situation where you’ve simply *had* to build a business that requires minimal time from you.
Interesting post Kirsty – let’s hope for lots more comments on this one
Interesting post, I have many times thought how lucky I am that I started this back in 2006 today the bar is higher… A little luck is also part of the recipe for success in my opinion, my first website was a crap shoot and is still performing insanely well 4 years on “pays my rent” with 4 years of data I will echo what has already been said good content and basic marketing will reward you in the long run.. I have never found a way to make quick money in this business and gave up a long time ago looking..
Hey Kirsty,
Did you say you taught yourself HTML and web design? Cos all I know know is HTML and CSS and I sometimes think I’m really crazy trying out Drupal. Oh wait, actually I’m not the only one who thinks I am crazy.
What you said about your success being partly because of timing echoes what I read in Malcolm Gladwell’s book – that while hard work and practice do leads to success – being at the right place at the right time shouldn’t be understated either.
And again, we all have blinkers – we all think it is possible because we’ve seen other people (like you!) succeed when the truth is, its confirmation bias since all we see are the winners and we don’t see those who didn’t make it because they are lost in cyberspace and not seen or heard. Besides, you said it yourself, when you started out, it was a hobby and you only got into the IM thing later when it seemed like you were well-positioned to. And I think you also did something new that draws in readers like me – being totally transparent about what you are doing, when everyone else was maybe pulling out impressive-looking numbers from their umm, orifice.
@ swirly people failing suceeding is still probably proportinate
Thanks for the thoughtful comments!
@nigel I agree but I also think there are lots of ways to earn online without producing quality. It’s not my thing, but there are people out there making it happen.
@eric If you’re willing to treat it like a business from the start then you’re probably already ahead of lots of people just starting out.
@tony Agreed. There are so many resources out there that sometimes even the research part can see you spinning your wheels!
@richard I’ve never really been interested in the black hat techniques and don’t know much about them. It seems to me, though, that you’d always be playing catchup as sites get shut down.
@neale Ya the bar is pretty high now but I think it’ll get higher still.
@swirly Yep, I taught myself after zillions of hours spent on trial and error. I’m still not very good with CSS and waste a lot of time trying to figure things out. I looked at Drupal once and got scared!
Hi Kirsty, I think it’s becoming harder to game the system, in that you can’t just throw up a niche site with specific keywords and hope to make a few dollars from it. I’m sure it can still be done in some cases, but I just don’t think it’s as easy as it used to be. I see far too many posts on the forums that I frequent where someone has gotten angry when Google changed an algorithm or Yahoo sold their soul to Bing, and all of that causes their “set it and forget it” niche sites to virtually stop sending traffic.
However, it still seems that if you can write quality, useful, and original content, traffic will come to you. If you spend a little money on marketing, you’ll get more traffic (more targeted hopefully). So maybe the “it’s so easy make money online” days are over, but like you said, if you are willing to work, and have some patience, you can still make a go at it.
Thanks for the thought provoking post, Kirsty!
Fully agree with your points here. All the posts are fully informative and having very good themes. I love to visit your blog again and again its really increase my knowledge. Thanks for the awesome post.
Things may have been easier 4, 7 or even 10 years ago. However, I look at it this way: If I start today and keep at it, then in 4, 7 or 10 years I can say that it was easier when I started. I truly believe the trick is to stick with what you enjoy and keep pounding away at it. Learn all you can about where the online world is going next so you will be ready to make changes.
Kirsty is right when she says that continuing to build sites wasn’t due to the need for money. She does it because it suits her. She likes it and she wants to keep doing it. And she is rewarded for all her efforts. That’s going to be my approach and I plan to stick with it for the long term. Don’t look back with regret. Look ahead, make plans and execute.
Good luck to everyone. I hope you will find the success you seek.
The key to me always seems to be perseverance and learning. Those who tend not to reach the level of success they were aiming for, are often those who are looking for a quick way to earn money and are unwilling to put in the necessary time to learn the system of whatever they’re trying to accomplish. I think many people begin today under the false idea that internet marketing is easy and of course, once they discover the amount of effort required or that they aren’t earning any money immediately, they give up.
However, I don’t think that one needs to invest a great deal of money these days to stay ahead. Investing a great deal of time in keeping up with important internet changes, marketing strategies and the needs of your potential market seem more important.
This was a great post. And it’s forced me to do some good thinking about my own projects!
Those who had a good timing back then, they were lucky. These days it’s 10 times more harder SEO and SEM. Even Adwords is getting more exepnsive and competitive. All internet businesses are just like traditional businesses. You have to work hard to succeed.
I think it’s still possible to succeed online with a minimum financial investment (hosting & domain name). However, the game has gotten more complicated, there is a higher learning curve and it will take more time and effort to start making money online.
When I launched my first websites 5 or 6 years ago, all that was required to get Google top 3 positions (in low- & medium competitive markets) was good on-page optimization and a handful of “quick and easy” backlinks.
More or less the same was true for Google AdWords: Clicks were much cheaper and simple direct linking campaigns worked pretty well.
But I fully agree with Earl: I think the keys to success (in any area) is perseverance, learning… and surely a few other ingredients.
It’s tough to answer, over all though yes it is harder now in terms of competition. But as far as the knowledge that is out there, it’s more available now than ever! Theres so much available out there for those who are interested in making money online, in terms of the knowledge that is.
Still though the hard aspect would come from the fact that now there is alot more competition, and the search engines are even harder to get the desired ranking you want, so those who started early have a huge advantage of that.
Like I said though overall it is harder to get into, but certainly the knowledge about making money online is as high as it’s ever been so someone with the right inspiration could really take advantage of that. Sorry for the mixed reply, lol.
Till then,
Jean
I think a lot of the competition comes from people talking about it too. You do it here, I hold my hands up I’ve started talking about it too.
When I started my blog I had no intention of making money from it, but when I started finding other people (not make money blogs, but travel blogs) talk about it, naturally the thought train is ‘hey I can do that too!’ And thus the competition rises.
It’s very difficult and who ever works out an alternative way first will be able to cash in on that technique too, as I wouldn’t be surprised if this trend eventually settles as so many people are doing it and looking for ‘their niche’ that the niches really are running out. This is also a business of if you’re not #1 then you are nowhere.
It’s not ‘hard’ as such, but is it mentally difficult when you read other people doing it and you’re not. A bit like talking about sex in school, seemingly everyone is at it and talking about it, but in reality they are all raising the pressure to do it whilst struggling with it themselves.
I believe it is harder to get into these days. you were smart to see a need and fill it, that is probably why your blog succeeded. the key to any good business is to find a need and fulfill it.
@seomanipulator, I have to agree with you.
These days you need to have different business ideas and hard work to get it going.
I was just thinking along these same lines, Kirsty. My travel blog has been establishing itself firmly in the blog world, I’m getting more streamlined with the type of content I want to post, and I think the blog itself is improving at a much faster rate than it ever has been. I am on the road now, but I was thinking about making some investments and creating new partnerships to see if that would propel the site further ahead, faster.
We’ll see once I’m home for more than a few days and can put a plan together… I love the timing on your post- thanks!
Yes I agree that the internet will get more and more competitive making it tougher for the little guy to make a buck. There’s new people getting into internet marketing all the time and the guys at the top continue to expand. Paid traffic prices will likely rise and organic rankings will become more difficult to attain. For the smart marketer, there will always be openings though. As one strategy or traffic source gets diluted, there are often new ones sprouting up to take advantage of. It will just become more important to stay one step ahead of competitors.
With the present time, I think, its much practical to say that, investing with our online business is a must. We must treat this online business of ours like any traditional business around. We invest, we promote and if we do good about those two, we profit. Just my 2 cents.
@Laptop, you hit the nail on the head there with your last sentence, it’s gonna be all about staying one step ahead of the competition, it always is no matter what business you are in, and it certainly applies to internet marketing!
Till then,
Jean
I think the saving grace will be two-fold. To begin with, 90% of all people who attempt to venture into internet marketing will fail from not being persistent enough to copy the so-called success of the shady get-rich-quick packages that underestimate the work involved and gloss over essential details. Secondly, many IM newbies suffer from the ADD effect of being bombarded by so many of these slick packages because I know I did until I stuck to one strategy.
I’ll say it isn’t is easy as it used to be or as easy as some think it is.
If your starting, yes its hard but time pass by it will get easy but still there a re times that it’s still hard but you just have to deal with it..