About Me

My name is Paul.  I have been earning money online for the past three years.  I am certainly not a millionaire.  But I have earned over $40,000 over the past two years, not quite enough to live off my online earnings full time, but that’s my aim and I’m getting closer all the time. 

Earning online definitely isn’t quick or easy.  But so far I have never woken up and regretted my decision to begin my journey.  Making money via the internet is liberating, enabling me to spend more time with friends and family and doing the stuff that I really want to.

My Story: Introduction

I’m an ordinary middle-aged guy, originally from the North of England, who moved to the USA three years ago in order to marry my American wife and live with her and her daughter. I had previously spent 12 years working in libraries, but the libraries are closing down everywhere and I fancied trying something different.

When I am not working on my laptop, I can normally be found with a raquet in my hand, playing tennis on the courts, or socializing in Gainesville, Florida.

Amazon Mechanical Turk

The first earning site I found that worked for me was Amazon Mechanical Turk, I still remember how amazing it seemed at first that I could earn real money by just clicking and typing on my home computer.  The concept now seems more normal to me.

I played around with some other earning sites too (Bubblews is another one worth trying if you are new to earning online), and although I found MTurk fun and the money useful, it soon became clear that there were limitations with how much I could earn with MTurk alone.  It was then that I discovered the concept of “passive income”.

Passive Income

Me on the Tennis Court

Passive income at its most simple is the idea that you create articles, webpages, websites etc. and then make money from various forms of advertising. It’s called passive because once you’ve set up your pages/sites etc., all you have to do is sit back and wait for the money to come rolling in.  That’s the idea anyway.

The expression “passive income” is deceptive, however, as in practice you have to upkeep your pages and sites and keep updating in order to adapt to the ever-evolving internet.  You also have to keep creating new content a lot of the time.  The field is also very competitive nowadays.

The first passive income site that I signed up for was Hubpages. I must confess that I’ve had a rocky ride there, with earnings going up and down, but overall it has been rewarding financially.  I also learned a lot from more experienced people via the forums about concepts such as driving traffic, advertising, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), social networking, writing etc.  

Another passive income site that I had some success with was Squidoo.  Using the knowledge that I’d learned at HubPages, I quickly began making money there, and watched my earnings climb from hundreds of dollars/month to over a thousand.

Google

Although you can do well from platforms like Hubpages and Squidoo (and also Blogger, the site that this blog is written on) the problem is that you don’t own them and so you have very little control over them.  

A lot of your traffic comes from people searching for things online with search engines like Google and if Google decides that it doesn’t like what Hubpages and Squidoo are doing, your traffic and earnings can drop drastically, literally overnight sometimes.  That has happened to me numerous times.

With my Nephew

Wordpress and Web Hosting

The only way to have full control over a website/blog is to own and run it yourself, I realized.  It’s nowhere near as difficult or expensive as you might think.  After trying out the different options, I’ve settled with using Hostgator and Wordpress software, which works well – you can buy your domain, purchase your hosting from Hostgator, and download Wordpress in less than 5 minutes, which makes things very easy.  

Wordpress is a free software package that gives you a lot flexibility with regard to picking a template and layout, but writes all the code for you.  It is massively popular, takes less than 5 minutes to set up and it's easy to use.  (Note: This is Wordpress.org I'm talking about, not to be confused Wordpress.com!)

There are plenty of advertising options out there: Google Adsense, Amazon Associates, and Clickbank being three of the biggest.

Although I’ve branched out into my own Wordpress sites, I still maintain my old blogs and sites too (at least the better performing ones!). I have been focused on “passive income” in recent times, although I still use quick and easy earning sites like MTurk and Bubblews. occasionally.

Diversification and the Future

My experience of getting my HubPages and Squidoo traffic and earnings hit has taught me the importance of diversification. Consequently, I am always on the lookout for new earning ideas and opportunities, as well as maximizing the earnings of existing products.

This blog documents my experiences, the good and the bad, as I continue my efforts to secure a reliable full time income from working online.  Hopefully I can share what I’ve learned along the way and help others too, as I progress.