By Kevin M

Last night my wife learned something disturbing—not for herself but for some of her coworkers. She has a part time job with a company that just announced that fulltime employees are losing their benefits and being converted to part time status.

Now the optimist may say, “it could have been worse—at least they didn’t lose their jobs”. And while there may be a grain of truth to that assumption, the bad news outweighs the good here, and I’d say by a wide margin. First of all, part time isn’t full time—it’s part time. That means even if you keep your hourly rate of pay, there’s no guarantee of 40 hours a week, or even of 30 or 20. That looks an awful lot like a pay cut to me.

Second is suddenly going from a job with benefits to one without—that includes health insurance. Charles Hugh Smith has made a strong case that the middle class isn’t middle class without health insurance coverage, and I think that point is beyond debate. What we’re looking at here, in addition to the pay cut, is the loss of socio-economic class status. They’ve been demoted to “the working poor” without ever losing their jobs. That’s pretty radical.

There ain’t no more job security

The example on my wife’s job isn’t isolated either. More employers are moving toward some variation of this all the time. Here’s the bottom line: from day to day, you can never tell what will happen with your job. A full-time job can turn into semi-employment with a single policy decision by people you don’t even know. It isn’t just layoffs anymore; its hours and schedule, pay cuts, job re-classification, job stagnation, loss of benefits—you name it. I’d even argue that the unemployment rate issued by the government is now mostly irrelevant.

Employment Realty #1 is that employers are figuring out ways to eliminate people and payrolls through a relentless shift to cheaper workers offshore, the latest computer technology or a combination of both. Translation: as much as we want to buy into the economy-is-recovering projections, it’s becoming painfully obvious that if that is happening, it’s fully capable of doing so without employees. The stagnant employment picture has less to do with the state of the economy than it does with the progression of options available to employers.

At least since World War II job security and benefits have always been major reasons why most people prefer to work for someone else rather than for themselves. Job security means insulation from the ups and downs of both the economy and the employers business, and benefits provided the safety net protecting against many of life’s uncertainties. Who wouldn’t want that if they could get it?

Now that neither job security nor benefits are guaranteed through employment, has the playing field been leveled, is there now less risk in being self-employed than there has been in the recent past? I think so.

Job security and self-employment

Here’s why I think that the case for self-employment is growing all the time, and why it may be the ultimate solution to the employment meltdown of the 21st Century:

1. As discussed above, jobs no longer carry the promise of stability or benefits
2. Self-employment was the primary income source of most people for thousands of years prior to the 20th Century—it is entirely possible that after nearly 100 years of large scale employment by large organizations, conditions are now returning to the historic norm of the family farm or shop (though it won’t look that way)
3. The same computer technology that’s putting people out of jobs is also making it easier to start your own business—we’ll spend a bit of time on this one in a minute
4. As the number of people who are self-employed expands, so will networking opportunities. The way you used to job network with people at other companies coverts to networking with those in the same or related businesses
5. The same instability that is making the job market less secure also opens up opportunities for part time, seasonal or contract work that can be used to supplement self-employment income—in the start up phase and later on an “as needed” basis
6. Employers who are reducing staff are often subbing out the work once done by employees—that’s an opportunity for a small business
7. Because you’re smaller and have much greater freedom in a small business you may be in a better position to react to changes in the economy, such as the ones we’re seeing now

This really is a “glass half full” situation—if we recognize what’s really happening and learn to use it to our advantage. Reality is going where reality is going; we can either embrace change as an opportunity, or let it roll over us while we look to the past for answers.

How the internet helps the self-employed

Many might curse computers and the internet for the negative affect they’re having on employment, but that’s the wrong approach.

In #3 above we touched on how computers are making it easier to be self-employed and that’s absolutely true. I’m an example of this. Earlier this week, in How Blogging Solved My Mid-Life Career Crisis, I spilled my guts about being disenfranchised at the age of 50. I was a textbook case of an economic casualty. But I chose to embrace the change rather than fight it.

Here’s the thing…people are making money working from home on their computers, and I decided that I needed to join them. Difficult? Most certainly. Impossible? No way!

Yes, there is more than enough get-rich-quick-on-the-internet snake oil being peddled out there, but beneath the phony claims, thousands of people are making a living (or better) on the internet.

I’m not saying that everyone could or should blog like I and many others are doing. But at a minimum you can use the internet to grow a local “bricks and mortar” business, in a way that wasn’t available even ten years ago. One of my best friends is running a very successful trash hauling business here in my neck of the woods and gets nearly all his business from the web. I believe that’s increasingly possible for most businesses.

If you have any idea for a business, fully investigate how you can use the internet to make it work. And if you don’t have any, look closely into ways you can make money on the web. Some ideas include blogging (my favorite!), freelance blog writing for other sites, and providing marketing, technical and administrative support to the many commercial websites and blogs that are out there on the web.

Because of the internet, nearly any skill you have or can acquire can be converted into some form of self-employment, if only as a side business. And these days, that’s looking a lot more secure than the average job.

Have you considered starting some sort of internet business? If not, what’s stopping you?

Monday’s post: Self-employment in the Internet Age

Related Posts:

7 Reasons to be Self-Employed
Why Most New Businesses Fail – And How Not to Become One of Them
5 Tips to Go From a Job to Self-Employment
The Self-Employed Health Insurance Dilemma
7 Ways to Improve the Success of Your New Business
Starting a Side Business – Why Now is the Time

By Kevin M

Picture this: you’re 50 years old, your career is dying on the vine—your entire industry is on life support—and you need to find a new career to carry you through the rest of your life.

Sadly—and gladly—this situation was not hypothetical. It was my reality. I say “sadly” because it was an incredibly stressful situation to go through, especially having a family to support while it was unfolding. But I also say “gladly” because overcoming crisis is an amazingly empowering experience.

Rising out of the pile of economic statistics

I was one of the millions of career casualties of the financial meltdown that you no doubt heard tell of from the news media and assorted talking heads. In fact, I was at the epicenter of the storm, working many years as a loan originator in the mortgage industry. (When I wrote in the first paragraph that “your entire industry is on life support” I’m sure you can appreciate that I wasn’t exaggerating!)

That was my situation at the tail end of 2008/beginning of 2009. Now at the dawn of 2012 I have a career designation unlike any I ever expected to have in my life: professional blogger. Not a common job description, especially for someone over 50, but I blog and I make money doing it.

How much money? Enough to make a living! That’s plenty—for now—for a guy who based on age and career circumstances could have easily been considered to be “washed up”. But there’s something I’ve learned about blogging—something much more encouraging: it’s one of those fields where the farther you go, the farther you can go. Think of it as “success breading success”. It’s very real in blogging.

Oh, and here’s something else I’ve learned from this experience: you’re only washed up if you think you’re washed up. But let’s get back on topic…

Hundreds, maybe thousands of people are making money blogging—but what IS different in my case is my highly unlikely background. I don’t fit the description of the usual professional blogger, who is typically in his or her 20s or 30s, has grown up with computers the way people my age did with TVs, has few inhibitions in regard to “transparency”, navigates the social media with ease and confidence, and generally has at least some professional connection to the IT universe. I can lay claim to none of that.

For me, entering, continuing, and extending my blogging career has been akin to building a brick wall—one brick at a time. But the take away, I hope, is that you’ll see that you can turn something as casual sounding as blogging into a legitimate career. I’m telling my story in the hopes that it might motivate you if you feel trapped by economic or employment circumstances. There is a way out—there always is.

What do you do when all the doors are closing?

A career crisis is a disaster at any age but once you reach the half century mark all of the problems are magnified. You’re too young to retire, but too old to start a new career.

Going back to school to get a new degree costs time and money you don’t have, and the time horizon to use the new skills learned is too short if you could. Employers in new career fields are unwilling to take a chance hiring you into an entry level position when they can easily hire younger people who are uncorrupted by previous experience and generally willing to work for less money. And that jumping-into-a-parallel-field thing is vastly over-rated, especially in the “worst downturn since the Great Depression”.

And there’s one other thing that any refugee from the mortgage business will tell you: we were widely viewed as “damaged goods”. I even saw ads that said something to the effect of “If you’re coming out of the mortgage industry we don’t want you”. I’m not kidding!

When you’re facing a conundrum like that, you can either cave-in, lose your self-esteem and “settle for what ever you can get” to carry you to the day when you’ll be eligible to collect a meager Social Security check—or you can come out fighting.

I chose to come out fighting. It wasn’t even close. But one of the most difficult things for a suddenly disenfranchised person (a description I never thought would apply to me) to do is to find a way to think long term in a world where your economic underpinnings have been virtually annihilated. The only rational course in that situation is to make an end run around the immediate problem—the very real prospect of permanent un- or under-employment—and to take a chance on something completely new.

I chose blogging. In my world, that’s as new as it gets.

The 21st Century equivalent of the Wild West

Blogging doesn’t top the list of places to find career salvation—I’ll be the first to admit that. More typically teaching, government jobs, IT or “something in the medical field” come to mind when people look to re-tool. Then there are the usual mid-life rest stops: real estate, insurance and car sales, or the various assorted “franchise opportunities”—all of which seldom work for people who have no entrepreneurial background. But blogging has one quality that none of those have: it’s the modern equivalent of the Wild West. It’s a world so undefined that even a complete but determined novice like me has a chance make a go of it.

Chaos—that’s where I chose to cast my lot, but not without reason.

I think it was Ted Turner who said something along the lines of “If you want to make money, find the place where the action is, jump in the middle of it, and money will come to you”. That’s a very loose paraphrase and I might not have it completely right, but it actually makes sense when you don’t know what else to do—and I didn’t. Blogging seemed to be that place.

Being an analytical type, I actually sat down and did T-account analyses to determine what my next “gig” would be—positive qualities to the left, negatives to the right. If a given field seemed to have a much higher number of positives than negatives, it was in contention.

Some of the qualities the new field had to have were easy entry, low or no capital investment, abundant room for growth, ready adaptability to self-employment, geographic mobility, and little or no government regulation—I was coming out of the mortgage business and saw it regulated into oblivion, but that’s a story for a different day. Blogging came up better than any other field I could think of, making it the “logical choice”, if you can believe as much.

The new field also needed to fit my skill set, and that wasn’t as apparent. As I’ve already revealed, I didn’t fit within the blogging “demographic”, didn’t have any IT familiarity and came from a generation where bearing our souls (and personal information) to others was considered out of bounds.

But I did have some skills that I thought would help. Though I’d never made money writing at any time in my life, I always thought of myself as a closet writer. I’m also a deep and generally unrestrained thinker—that fits well in a Wild West environment. And I had business and finance related experience from my mortgage career, and an earlier stint in public accounting. Not a whole lot to go on, but it was a start. I figured that if nothing else, I’d get the content part of blogging down quickly.

And here’s one other seemingly unlikely factor I had in my favor: I literally had no place else to go. That can create a level of dedication that those with more options can never muster.

So I mounted my horse, and rode out into the sunrise of the modern equivalent of the Wild West. God help me in my journey—and I know He did!

The path forward isn’t usually a straight line

Blogging has only been around since roughly the early-2000s, so it’s very much a field that’s still in its infancy. Because of this newness, it’s very much a blank canvass, a place where a novice is free to take chances, and quite literally as many as he wants. You can even mess up, and still move on.

This is very unlike the current employment scene where work flows and procedures are becoming increasingly precise and technocratic, even in the simplest of jobs. That’s the whole reason blogging appealed to me. We all have hidden talents, and blogging looked like the place where I could tap mine.

But chaos has its price too. I read as many blogs and published sources on the business of blogging as I could find, and one thing became clear in the early going: blogging is NOT an exact science. What works for one blogger won’t necessarily work for another. Damn—no road map!

You should gather all the information you can, especially from successful bloggers—some of it WILL work for you, just don’t get discouraged if it doesn’t. Blogging is a work-in-progress and much of it will depend on plain, old trial-and-error.

What DID work for me

Finding success is often a matter of creating order out of chaos, and that seems to be the general rule in blogging. This is not the easiest climb in the business world, but here a few pieces of advice if you’d like to make the trip yourself:

Drop any thoughts of “get-rich-quick”. When you’re down and out there can be a tendency to look for quick solutions and you might begin thinking in terms of rages-to-riches scenarios. Don’t waste your time and your money. Get-rich-quick and building a business are not at all the same thing—especially when it comes to blogging. With that thought fresh in mind…

Adopt a LONG-term view. I didn’t start making even a few hundred dollars a month until I was blogging for at least a year. It took me two years to hit the $1,000 monthly level, but it’s grown quickly since. Some people start making money after just six months, but understand that these are exceptional cases. The vast majority of blogs never make any money at all, and most fail within the first year. I didn’t fail because I didn’t quit!

Find a way to support yourself while you’re building your blog. I was done with the mortgage business, but I took all kinds of temporary and contract jobs while I was building my blog. Some of them interfered with my blogging, but I needed the money. There’s a definite “starving artist” quality to building a blog, but if you think of the outside jobs as supporting the building of your business it can actually turn it into an adventure that also provides you with material for writing content. Footnote: I still work side jobs when I can.

Be open to what ever comes your way. I’ve been describing blogging as chaotic and while that can certainly confuse and even sabotage your efforts to succeed, it also presents opportunities. Once your blog begins to get traffic, others in related businesses begin to notice. Advertising and affiliate deals, partnerships, networking arrangements—you name it—will begin showing up in your email. Many of them will be a complete waste of your time, but some will be serious and profitable.

Carefully consider as many as you can. Because the web is wide open, blogging can take you in all kinds of directions that you never expected. For example, about a year after I started my blog, Paul Van Lierop at Fiscal Geek offered me a paid staff writing position for his site. I accepted, and within a few months I had paid writing gigs on several sites and was making a nice side income. I still do this, but now that most of my income is from my own site, I’m doing less of it than before.

Network, network, network. Part of finding success on the road into the unknown is finding people to make the journey with. One of the greatest blessings of the blogging world is that there are so many people you can team up with. I’ve met dozens, and I’m going to say without reservation that this is the greatest group of people I’ve ever had the pleasure to work with. All are succeeding in their own ventures, all are entrepreneurs, and all need one another to make it work. I’m in a networking group now where we think of each other as “co-workers”—with all of the benefits of co-worker support, but none of the burdens. It doesn’t get any better than that.

Be relentless. If I could pick one quality that separates success from failure, it’s definitely this one. You have to become almost single-minded, blocking out and even ignoring distractions. No matter what, keep moving forward! While I was working in contract assignments—and enjoying the money of the moment—I never lost sight of the fact that the assignments were temporary but my blog was permanent! Constant forward motion has a way of getting you to where you want to go, even if it takes longer than you expect.

The Payoff

That may seem like a lot to summon up, especially if you’ve never built your own business in the past. But as difficult as it seems, the payoffs of succeeding are even greater. Here are some of the many benefits I’ve gotten from my blogging venture—you can expect the same if you decide to give it a serious try.

1. I have my own business. An income generating blog is a legitimate business—some are even selling for substantial amounts of money. In today’s economy, being self-employed is more secure than being on someone else’s payroll—especially as you get older.
2. My future is unlimited. I’m making money blogging and I haven’t even ventured into wide areas like affiliate marketing or multiple site ownership. While other people my age are worried about keeping their jobs, I’m working on growing my business. At an age where so many are planning on folding up their tents, I’m contemplating the infinite possibilities…
3. I love what I do. I’ve never been able to say that about any job or career I’ve had in the past. When you love what you do, it doesn’t even feel like work.
4. I don’t have to retire. The whole idea of “putting in your time” to retire at a given point never sat well with me. If I retire I want it to be because I want to, not because I have to.
5. Blogging flows with my life. If another opportunity comes along, I can slow my blogging to a side business—or ramp it back up if the opportunity turns into a bust. I can take time to tend to family or personal matters, and I don’t have to ask HR for permission. All I need to do is pack up my laptop and go.
6. I have geographic mobility. Since I’m no longer job dependent, I can live anywhere in the world that has electricity and an internet connection. No office to report to, no buildings to maintain, no inventory or heavy equipment to keep—my entire business can be “stored” in my head or on a flash drive. And both are portable.

I’m here to tell you that you can make money blogging, even if you don’t have any “prequalifications”. Or even if you think you’re too old. I was 50 when I started and I’m no whiz kid of any kind. But here I am, working through my mid-life career crisis with a plunge into what was—until three years ago—the complete unknown. If I can do this, so can you.

Have you ever thought about blogging as a business? What keeps you from moving forward with it?

Related Posts:

7 Reasons to be Self-Employed
Why Most New Businesses Fail – And How Not to Become One of Them
5 Tips to Go From a Job to Self-Employment
The Perfect Side Hustle: Freelance Blog Writer
7 Ways to Improve the Success of Your New Business
Starting a Side Business – Why Now is the Time

By Kevin M

I’ve never taken part in a blog ”meme”, but Glen at Free From Broke nominated my site in on ongoing meme called “my 7 links.” It was created by a site called TripBase (click through that link to see the specifics).

To participate just match an article you’ve published to each of the 7 categories and then nominate up to five other bloggers to take part and continue the fun. It’s a nice way to feature some great articles people may not have seen in a bit.

Here are the 7 links from OutOfYourRut:

Your Most Beautiful Post

This feels a lot like giving myself my own Oscar Award, but if I have to choose one, hands down it’s Seize This Day – We’re Promised No Others. In a very short space of time I found out that one of my best friends was diagnosed with prostate cancer (he’s only in his 40s) and the husband of a minister at my former church had died suddenly of a heart attack (also in his 40s). At such moments I always stop and assess “the meaning of life”, and this time was no different. What was different though is that since I have a blog, I decided to commit my thoughts to words. I read it often to remind myself what’s truly important in life, and hope that others benefit from it as well.

Your Most Popular Post

What to do if You Absolutely Can’t Afford Health Insurance didn’t draw anything close to the highest number of comments, but it’s been the biggest traffic draw since it was written nearly a year and a half ago.

Your Most Controversial Post

I haven’t had many that would qualify as controversial (unless we can include faith posts) but if I have to choose one it’s Over 50 and No Pension, No 401K—Now What?. This post was inspired by the incredible number of middle aged people who have lost their jobs, businesses, homes and investments due to the bad economy of the past few years. But there were a couple of comments (some I had to delete) who insist that ultimately these people failed by their own hand. I guess there are people out there who live perfect lives.

Your Most Helpful Post

Adjustable Rate Mortgages – You’re Kidding Right?. A lot of people got into deep trouble on some variation of these loans prior to the mortgage meltdown, but they’re now making a comeback. Not everyone agrees, but steering people away from these loans—especially at time of record low fixed rates—strikes me as some form of public service!

A Post Whose Success Surprised You

Restaurant Tipping – How Much and When? was written when I as still only a few months into my blogging career. The post was pretty close to “filler” as far as I was concerned, but there seemed to be more interest in the topic than I expected. Had I known, I might have written a better post!

A Post You Feel Didn’t Get The Attention it Deserved

Tax Benefits of Homeownership – Three Reasons It’s Over-rated didn’t draw anything close to the attention I thought it would. The inspiration for the post came from the tax preparation work I do each spring—I’ve noticed a clear pattern that the purported tax benefits aren’t as generous as they once were. For many , tax benefits are no longer a compelling reason to buy a home. Perhaps I was writing of a development many would prefer was not the case?

The Post You Are Most Proud Of

Picking the post for this category wasn’t hard at all. Charting Your Own Course With a Side Business is the one I’m most proud of. Given the uncertainty of the future job market (due to automation and globalization) we need to prepare ourselves by increasing our income sources. This post addresses that issue.

Blogs I’m Nominating

Here are five sites I’d love to see continue My 7 Links:

1. Couple Money

2. Everyday Tips and Thoughts…

3. Faithful With a Few

4. Money Reasons

5. Redeeming Riches

Any bloggers out there want to join? All you need to do is select posts from your site that fit with the seven categories of the meme (check out TripBase for a list of sites already nominated), and nominate other sites. And if you do decide to participate, please shoot me an email at kevin (at) outofyourrut (dot) net. Thanks!

By Kevin M

What are you doing to make extra money these days? I’ll tell you what I’m doing—and it’s working! Freelance blog writing. I’ve often thought that the best way to make money—from a full time business or a side business—is to find something you’re good at, something you’re already doing, and then monetize it. I’ve been writing on my own blog for over two years, so why not take what I’m doing here and “sell” it somewhere else for extra income? The best ideas are the simplest ones–that’s why this is working.

I’m of the opinion that most everyone could or should have a side business—some type of additional income stream that isn’t dependent on a traditional job. The way the job market has deteriorated in the past few years, having a side hustle (or two) may be the best insurance against a career crash-and-burn. Put another way, multiple income streams are fast becoming the wave of the future. It’s mostly a matter of deciding which ones you’ll use.

Could you be a freelance blog writer?

OK, I’m biased, but I think the answer is a big, fat YES. And I feel that way because a little over two years ago I wasn’t even blogging, let alone making money at it. Not on my site, not on anyone else’s. And now I’m making money on both. I’ve always liked to write, but nothing in my previous careers (accounting and mortgages) prepared me to make a living from a writing career in any direct fashion. That’s why there’s hope for anyone who might want to take a serious shot at it.

What are the qualifications?

Decent writing ability is a given, but don’t get hung up on that. Blog writing is more conversational in tone and presentation, so you don’t need to be able to write high prose or even encyclopedia articles. The ability to make your point concisely is by far the most important mechanical skill.

Passions and areas of expertise. Every one of us is better than most people at one or more things–and that’s the thing you can write about. We all have areas of expertise, passions and interests that make us natural “authorities” on a subject. If you write about what you naturally love, a freelance blog writing business can be your perfect side business.

Why not just get a part time job to make extra money?

I’ll wager that this is what most people think about when they’re looking to make some extra money. After all, once you get a part time job, the money starts coming in almost immediately and when you’ve had enough of it, you can just quit and move on. But here are just a few reasons why a part time job may not fit the bill—you can probably add to this list with very little thought:

• You have to keep hours—which typically means nights, weekends and holidays
• You will almost certainly have to work outside your home, which will really suck if that’s what you already do on your full time job
• You will probably be paid minimum wage or slightly above–and you KNOW you’re worth more than that!
• You will have a boss—I mean in addition to the one you have on your full time job
• The job probably won’t take you anywhere, like to a promotion or a new skill set
• It almost certainly won’t give you a chance to tap your hidden creative talents
• It will be temporary, that is, until you burnout—or they get tired of you

In most situations, a part time job is a pure money play—and not a very good one at that. Rarely will it ever be anything more. If you’re looking to beef up your revenue stream, you’ll almost certainly have to look to do something more substantial.

Why freelance blog writing is the perfect second income source

Freelance blog writing is by far a superior way to earn extra money, and here are 12 reasons why:

1. You don’t have to leave your home

2. You can work as much—or as little—as you like

3. There are no barriers to entry—no specific credentials are needed

4. You don’t have to worry about what you don’t know—it’s all about what you DO know

5. Blog writing has grown through the recession—there are no “job security” issues

6. There are NO geographic restrictions—you can even do it while you’re away on vacation

7. Work around YOUR schedule—there are no hours to keep

8. It’s a business, not a job, and you can take it as far as you’re willing and able

9. You’ll be paid to create—and you can create content that you believe in

10. It pays better than most part time jobs (more on that below)

11. It will cost you nothing to enter

12. It will blend better with your personal and professional life than just about any other side venture you can think of.

And here’s a bonus: if you like, you can even go for that look of the laptop literary legions who populate places like Starbucks during regular business hours, dressed in their who-cares-about-the-business-world khaki’s and sandals, nursing a latte while crafting their latest creation. Yes, that could be you—I’m just sayin’.

You’ll be self-employed, which is to say that you can work when you want, where you want and for whom you want. All of which opens up incredible options.

How much money can you make as a blog writer?

Easily $500 to $1,000 a month or more. Pay for blog posts typically ranges from $15 to $50 per post and you can easily average $25 per post—or more. If you can write five posts per week—20 per month—you’ll earn $500. If you can write 10 per week you’ll be up to $1,000 per month.

If you can write a typical 600-800 word post in about an hour—and many blog writers can—you’ll earn about $25 per hour, working from home in your PJs and furry slippers. As you get better at blog writing you should be able to write one in about an hour.

If you’d like to try blog writing, order a copy of my new e-book, The Freelance Blog Writer Side Hustle. It will show you how to write blog articles quickly and completely, how to find ongoing sources of topics, how to find blogs to write for, and just about everything else you’ll need to make it work. Even if you’ve never written professionally in the past, this book will give you a step by step course to guide you into it.

Take the plunge and see if freelance blog writing can be the perfect side hustle for you!

What do you think about freelance blog writing as a side business?

Related Posts:

Buy a Business OR Build One From the Ground Up?
Why Most New Businesses Fail – And How Not to Become One of Them
A Successful Online Business Requires Realistic Expectations
Multiple Income Streams to replace One Man-One Job?
7 Ways to Improve the Success of Your New Business
Starting a Side Business – Why Now is the Time

This is a guest post by Brian Garvin, a commenter here on OutOfYourRut.com. He runs an online business so I asked him to write a post describing what it is he’s doing to make that happen.

If you’ve worked in the Brick & Mortar world for any length of time, chances are you’ve picked up a skill that could be applied to the internet to start your own blog. Basically an Authority Blog is a large, content based blog lots of other bloggers and the Internet Community at large visit and respect as one of the larger blogs in that particular niche.

Most people think of Authority Blogs as being run by just large companies, but that’s not the truth. In fact many single people are running some of the largest Authority Blogs in some of the most competitive industries, such as Internet Marketing, Real Estate, Forex, Health & Wellness and Dating. So the main question to be asked is if building this type of blog is right for you. We’re gonna go over a list of questions you should answer. Answering the questions below will determine if setting up a blog is right for you.

Do You Enjoy Writing Unique Content?

If you’re considering starting an Authority Blog, you will be writing lots of blog posts and articles. If you are already an expert in a particular area this will make things much easier for you. Blog posts can be any length, usually the longer the better since Search Engines love unique content, but should at least be 150 words when possible. You will want to write articles and use what they call the author biography to point relevant anchor text links back to your blog. You will want to submit articles you write to the major article directories such as Ezine Articles, Go Articles and Articles Base.

However if you don’t like writing, you can outsource all your content but it could end up being pricey. Articles typically run $6.00 to $15.00 each depending on the length and the quality of the article. Blog posts can usually be outsourced for $3.00 to $5.00 each. We’ve used a company called Need An Article for many of our ghost written articles for almost 3 years now and have had major success with them. The beautiful thing about starting a blog is you can do it almost totally broke as long as you write all the content yourself. It will usually take from 500-1000 blog posts before you site receives any decent traffic.

How Do You Monetize Your Blog?

I assume you’ll be spending lots of time and/or money building a massive blog so you can earn an income with it. So you’ll need to decide now how you’ll be monetizing it.

• You can earn money each time someone clicks your ads with companies like Google Adsense or Chitika.
• You should also offer a free PDF download that offers good solid information in return for them subscribing to your email newsletter.
• You can start promoting affiliate programs on the backend and start making sales this way via automated follow-up messages.

What we do on our Total Health At Home blog is write small 300 word reviews on products inside the health niche. Then we send them to affiliate programs related to popular products within the health niche. Many of our terms rank well in the search engines, so when people click through the Google listings to our site and review the product, and they click through and actually buy the product, we earn a commission on each sale we make. Sometimes the commissions can be as low as 25 cents, but we have products we earn over $160.00 per sale for.

How Much You Can Expect to Earn

One common belief when creating a large niche blog is that you’ll throw up 10-20 pages and the income will pour in and you can just take your long vacation that you’ve been planning. Sorry but it doesn’t quite work this way. I’ve been spending 8-12 hours per day on our blog for 2 months and in the last 30 days we made close to $120.00. This doesn’t sound like much, but assuming the same growth rate and assuming I put in the same amount of work each month we could easily be at $1,450 per month within a year at this rate. And to be honest I feel very lucky to earn this much this quick.

As a general rule I wouldn’t expect to see much of anything for 6-9 months as far as monetary returns go. First you need to get your pages up and then you need to get backlinks to those pages. Then you need to get more than your competitors for each page you want to rank on to expect a top 10 search result. So in summary, getting your posts up is only 50% of the battle; the other 50% is getting backlinks to those posts.

How Do I Get Backlinks to My Blog?

The great news is there are plenty of “white-hat”, or ethical ways to get backlinks to your blog posts. You can write articles and submit them to the major article archives as I mentioned earlier. I’ve found that posting comments on blogs is probably the best way to pass on Page Rank and help you rank for your posts. Keep in mind when you write comments on other blogs, that Page Rank is borrowed and not owned by you.

To maximize your chances of your comment staying on the owners blog, write relevant content based on what the blog post is about. This way if the blog owner decides to “clean house” and delete all the spammy posts, yours won’t get trashed right along with them. Another thing you can do is send out an occasional Press Release.

The income strategy for my health blog will be to pick out 3 super competitive keyword terms and try to rank on these over the next 2-3 years, the type that get 30,000 or more visitors per day. Then I’m going to be working on about 30 medium competition keywords, the kind that will make me about $200 per month each when I rank on them. Then the site will have hundreds of other “long-tail” keywords. These won’t make much income per page but will typically be very easy to get top rankings on.

I use a tool called Market Samurai not only for all my keyword research, but to find all the blogs I need to post on. It took me a while to get the hang of this tool, but now it’s working as a godsend and is helping me build my entire business. For my super competitive keyword terms, I plan on sending at least 500-1000 blog posts to each of these. For my medium level keyword terms, I plan on making 200-300 posts each and I’ll randomly choose long tail keywords and make 5-10 blog posts on these for keywords I see that are close to ranking in the top 10 and just need a little push.

So yes building an authority site is hard work, especially the first 1-2 years. But the dream of relaxing and working a few hours per week is a definite possibility once you build one. There’s a bit more to building one of these sites than I explained, but what you just read are the basics and if you follow these rules it’s just a matter of time before you succeed. My biggest word of advice is to start as soon as possible and be patient.
 

Brian Garvin & Jeff West run the Total Health At Home blog, which is a Health & Wellness blog that reviews popular Nutritional Supplements and other Health Related products.

Do you have a blog you’d like to make money on? What are you doing to make that happen? What have you tried that hasn’t worked?

By Kevin M

“Everyone” is one of those absolute words we should generally stay clear of, but I’m violating conventional wisdom, sticking my neck out and saying everyone needs to have a blog!

You can beat me up for violating protocol, but before you do, consider the seven reasons why I’m making such a bold declaration…

 
1. To CONNECT with the rest of the world, 21st Century style

There are nearly seven billion people in the world and most of us connect with a handful who we’ll connect with in any meaningful way. With a blog we can add hundreds or thousands more—do you think there might be some value in that?

A blog is the cornerstone of finding like minded people in a world that seems to be pulling apart socially even as it gets more crowded. Though it often seems that people are the nexus of our troubles, we can’t overlook that they’re usually the source of our solutions as well. After all, who couldn’t use a few more friends, a few more intelligent opinions or a few more business contacts?

Most of the people we’ll meet through blogs will live in another part of the country, or another part of the world, but that’s pretty stinking exciting, wouldn’t you say?

 
2. To have a VOICE and advance your IDEAS in the world

A blog is an opportunity to get your voice and your ideas out on the information superhighway. Express your opinions at work—to the degree you’re even allowed to anymore(!)—and a few people will hear what you have to say. Put it out on a blog and potentially thousands will read it. Some will forward it to others.

We all have good ideas—ideas that could potentially benefit many people. With a blog you have the venue to express those ideas. Unlike the traditional print media, your ideas don’t need to make it past the editing bureau where they may be modified or killed. And you can put your ideas out there in real time, enabling you to weigh in on events as they happen—you become a part of the grass roots media.

 
3. To build a national and global NETWORK for any future purpose

We can’t possibly know what the future holds, but we can prepare for it in a very general way that can payoff big later. By building connections now—with hundreds, thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people—we’re setting up a built in stage for what ever we decide to launch, whenever we’re ready to launch it.

A blog gives you a foothold on the information superhighway, a springboard for all that you might do. Even if you don’t have message or a business idea right now, with a blog you can begin building the contacts that will have the marketing in place from the get go. And best of all, it doesn’t have to cost a thing!

 
4. To MARKET any product, service or business you can conceive of

Do you know with certainty what you’ll be doing to earn a living in five or ten years? With the job market being so unpredictable, it’s best to be prepared for anything. One of the best ways to do this is with some form of self-employment, even if it’s only as a side business right now.

You can test business ideas with a blog and add new ones or drop old ones as circumstances warrant, but you’ll have that all important flexibility that every entrepreneur needs. Even if you’re not thinking in this direction right now, you can be ready for a change of either heart or circumstances.

 
5. To create an additional INCOME STREAM

Even if you don’t know what product or service you might want to market, there are opportunities to start earning some money almost immediately. Google Adsense as well as various affiliate marketing programs can enable you to generate a small revenue stream even without having any business ideas of your own.

Your site doesn’t need to be a business site for these programs to work either. Any site topic that draws in a steady stream of visitors can make ad programs work for you, though certain topics do work better than others. And sometimes a small income stream is all it takes to motivate you to take things to a higher level.

Ultimately the solution to career, income or debt problems may lie not so much in a new, higher paying career as much as in the development of multiple income streams, which not only increase income but also provide diversified sources for greater stability.

 
6. To draw OPPORTUNITIES to you

As you broadcast your ideas and peddle your wares on your weblog, and people begin visiting your site, it will open the doors for others to contact you about what it is they’re working on that might be a good fit with what you’re offering. Business and marketing ideas, job opportunities and advertising arrangements are all possibilities, and they will come about without any special effort on your part.

Create a compelling blog, and people and opportunities will find their way to your email. Think of your blog as your own personal billboard, take it seriously, and put out the best you have to offer. Work into a niche where you have above average knowledge and skills and have at least some passion about. People who are interested in the same things you are will find you, and good things will happen from there.

 
7. To TAKE PART in the democratic process since that voting thing really isn’t working

Whenever we vote, we’re accepting a given platform, a package of ideas we can either vote up or down on based on our vote for or against a candidate. That system usually leaves us with just two choices, and we can’t remove certain items from a platform and replace them with others we feel are more important. Charles Hugh Smith (link also in left column) refers to this as a “simulacrum of democracy”, and it has much to do with why the political system is often so unresponsive to changes in world or national circumstances or even to public will.

The internet is the new place for the exchange of free ideas, for the average citizen to come forward with small ideas that may have no other way of becoming big ideas except that we put them in a public place for others to see. In the absence of the public square or of an objective media, a blog may be the single best place to present those ideas. You could launch ideas and concepts that will start on your blog then crawl their way into national policy. Can you do that with your vote?

How do you create a blog? Since I’m relatively new at this myself, I’ll defer to the opinions of some more seasoned bloggers, and highly recommend that you check out the following:

How to make money with a blog by Bob Lotich at ChristianPF.

Blueprint For How To Make Money With A Blog: Advice From Successful Bloggers from Bible Money Matters. Some free advice, but most is in a paid e-book that’s worth every penny of the $29.95 purchase price.

 
Do you have a blog? Do you agree that having one is well worth the time invested? Can you offer any other advantages to having a blog?