Before you read on… this isn’t really a post about my journey to earning $9,000+ online. It’s a post about how I’m going to start writing posts about that journey. But this one isn’t it
I’m going to write some posts about me slowly creeping towards earning $9,000 through my websites. It’s not full of any secrets (because I don’t have the answers to those secrets!) but it’s, instead, a look at these sorts of things…
- what I was doing when I was earning X amount
- what sorts of things I was working on at the time
- new websites I created, ideas I had but ditched
- where I was living and what I was doing
- whether I was working or travelling
- what sorts of new things I was trying out at the time
- mistakes I feel like I made or any moments of sheer genius
- surprises that saw an increase/decrease in my earnings
- any tools I was using or websites I found helpful
- feelings about working on the road (good places, not so good places)
- …or anything else you want to know! Just leave a comment before the end of the week with any questions you want answering.
Because I’ve been at this since December 2006 (actually before that, but that’s when I started keeping track of things), I’ve decided to divide this little idea of mine into several posts spanning several months, mostly divided by year. This first post will look at December to December 2007, the next one will look at 2008, then 2009, 2010, and lastly January 2011 to now.
I sometimes find myself forgetting the path I’ve taken to get to this point and I think it’ll be interesting for me to recount my journey and hopefully for you to read. There are plenty of ‘make zillions of dollars overnight on the internet’ type websites and scams out there and I think it’ll make a nice reminder that it’s possible to earn online (and I believe that’s true, even if you’re just starting out now) but it will probably be a long road involving a lot of hard work (and lucky breaks) along the way.
Because my memory is basically mush, I’m trolling through my old posts to see what was happening in my life back in the day. I’ll whack in a few travel photos for good measure and actually make some decent blog posts for a change! Ya, I know I’m pretty lazy with posting anything besides earnings updates, so hopefully this little collection of posts will get things back on track.
So… I’ll write the first post this week, all about December 2006 to December 2007. I’d love to know if there are any other things not on my list above that you’d like me to address? Anything you’re specifically curious about? Give me some ideas or questions and I’ll do my best to include them in the first post.
Looking forward to this series, Kirsty! Will make sure to give mention to this in my March 2012 online earnings report, coming out soon!
I’m very excited to read about your journey! In addition to the list you have, I’m curious, since you’ve been traveling for so long, how’ve you maintained relationships with your family and friends back home? Close family ties are a big reason why I haven’t ventured into long-term travel, and I’m interested in hearing from a from a ‘full-time traveler’ how/if you do it.
In addition to good/bad places you’ve found for working on the road, I’d be interested to hear your take on how you keep a balance between working and exploring while you’re traveling.
Hi Kirsty, what a great idea!
There is something I’d like to hear more about and that has to do with background and training and skills and things… How much and what kind of specialized knowledge do you need to do what you do, and where do you get it? Also you’ve done some outsourcing – perhaps an understanding of what you looked for and how you found it?
Super looking forward to reading the ongoing Adventures of Kirsty!
Hey! I’ll mention my training (as in lack of) in the first series but won’t talk about outsourcing until later on as it’s more of a recent discovery.
Really looking forward to this series of posts! Would you mind sharing how you deal with tax implications? Are you registered in your home country or do you pay taxes where you live at the time?
OK – this may be a little early in this series to ask, but here it goes anyways: “Do you worry at all about SEO and Keywords and Phrases and such, or do you just go for interesting stuff, over the long term, building an audience.”
Hey Doug… besides doing on site SEO (titles, some keywords in the content, URL names etc) I really don’t worry about keywords. I don’t do any keyword research. My strategy is to build sites with useful information and so far it’s worked. I feel like keyword research is something that’s more for people who want to earn using Adsense and this isn’t my strategy.
Thanks for the questions! This is developing into an epic series… not sure yet if it’s better to organise things by year or by topic. Time to get writing… !
I’m really excited to hear about your journey! I’ve been following you since the beginning. To me, you really seem very nonchalant about it, but I think it’s actually a pretty big deal.
Overall, I’m interested in how you even learned to negotiate and how you initially figured out how to find advertisers and what you do differently now.
Thanks Jerri… I agree that I’m pretty nonchalant about it all but I think that’s because it was a hobby that turned into a business so the road was a lot easier for me than most, I think. My timing was great. Sure, it was combined with a lot of hard work, but I doubt I’ve worked any harder than many people who are starting out now and not finding much success. I probably shouldn’t be so blase about things…
Negotiating prices at this stage wasn’t something I really did… I basically looked at what others were charging and copied. I’ll touch on it a bit in my first post and will try to also tell people how my pricing strategy has evolved since then. Thanks for the question!
Great idea it will make for a good read.. If i ever get up to your standard I might do likewise
“your goldfish care guy” is now on youtube also 
I’m interested in learning more about targeting keyword, finding out about Adsense higher dollar words, etc. I have a few sites, made a bunch of mistakes…but would like to learn more.
Hey Mike… this is something I never really got into at all. I might have dabbled a bit with using the Adwords tool that helps find decent keywords to target but my strategy has always just been to provide sites with good content. I don’t spend any time at all on keyword research and I barely look at my stats. If things start to suck for me then I might start to pay more attention but, for the moment, I’m not that interested in the nitty gritty stuff.
This will be great stuff. It’s all the details of the struggle which really lend a realistic viewpoint to how this type of monthly income is attained.
Seeing how much work, time, trial and error is always inspiring!
I hope it’s inspiring! I’m working on the first entry now for 2007. It’s getting longer and longer! Hope to have it up in the coming days.
I’d love to know how you set up the sites to optimize ranking, i.e. if certain types of sites worked out better than others, how much a sitemap helps, how you utilized Google webmaster. I’m just starting out by using a WordPress blog, but I’m thinking a static site might be better.
Thanks so much for sharing. Your success is truly inspiring.
Should be a good series of articles. Its always to good to hear how others have progressed. Might give me a bit of a kick up the jacksy as I’m in a bit of a rut at the moment.
Hi Kirsty,
You talk about hiring others to write articles and content for your sites – where do you find your people? Is Elance a good place for that? Also, it looks to me like much of your revenue comes from advertising. How do you and your advertisers connect in the first place? How do you go about selling ad space?
Susan
Hi. I’m a beginner, just started a website http://www.mybusi.webs.com. I want to do an at home on line business, but I want to start one without pocket cost to me. I’m not sure how to go about it or who offers no out of pocket cost to me. Do anyone know how i can get started making money on line. I’m unemployed at the time. My website is making me a little money but not much and not fast enough. I just need a website to start making money without cost to me. To many scams, so u can’t trust to many websites. Please someone help me. send me a website.