Welcome

What Is So Great About This Blog?

The only chance this blog has of succeeding is to be different then the 100's of other 'How To Make Money Online' blogs.

What makes this blog different:

• This blog is about a website. It discusses and analyzes the creation, maintenance, and performance of howthiswebsitemakesmoney.com.
• All claims are backed up by actual data. You will not see claims like: 'post comments because it increases traffic'. This blog will show, by using actual data, how much traffic posting comments has brought to howthiswebsitemakesmoney.com.
• There are no false claims of how I made 1000's of dollars a day using a secret system. With this blog, lies and exaggerated claims are impossible because howthiswebsitemakesmoney.com reveals all of its stats.
• Being a webmaster is not always a sunny day. This blog discusses the real trials and tribulations of being a webmaster. If this blog/website are doing poorly then you will see traces of tears in the posts.
• This blog has no advertising or selling of any kind. It is simply information and entertainment. The website howthiswebsitemakesmoney.com does all the money making, not this blog.
• Most blogs expect you to follow their advice on the assumption that they are an authority on the subject. This blog expects you to look at the data and decide for yourself.

All Posts Are Written With The Following in Mind:

• Honesty.
• Mix information with entertainment.
• The visitors time is valuable. Provide clear and original content.
• No claims without data to support it.
• One day this blog and the website it discusses will be successful.

Enjoy!

Before you begin creating your website you need to know who will be visiting it.  Knowing your audience enables you to build the website to suit their specific needs and tastes.  What writing style should you use?  Should you have videos, pictures, flash movies?  The only way to know the answers to these questions is to know who will be visiting your site.  And what they will be looking for.

Knowing your audience also helps determine whether they are likely to clicks on ads.

When I  was thinking about my website’s visitors I quickly realized that I might have a problem.  I do most of the adverting for the website through forums for webmasters.  The problem with webmasters is that they are ‘non-clickers’.

My Ad Non-Clickers

My website is most useful to a new webmaster, or someone considering becoming one.  Someone looking to start a website but does not know what to expect.  By looking at some of the data a aspiring webmaster can get an idea of what the future holds for them.  That is why the forums I visit are motley for webmasters. 

The forums are a great way to advertise my site.  I have the URL of the website as a signature so every post I make my website is displayed.  This is good because the people on these forums are mostly webmasters and therefore will find the website relevant. 

The problem is that webmasters will not click on my advertisements.  The advertisements on my website are mostly about making money online.  “Make 100 in 1 day”, “Work from home and make money”, “Easy money”.  For most webmasters these advertisements are useless – the webmasters are already working online.  And most importantly they have seen these advertisements hundreds of times before.  They have clicked on them in the past and will not click on them again.

So it looks like I have a problem.  My target audience.  The audience that the website is specifically built to serve will not click on my ads.  Of course there will be a few clicks here and there, but definitely not what it should be.  My CPM (clicks per thousand views) should be very low.

But my CPM is not low.  Why?  Because the purpose of the webmasters visiting my site is not to click on the ads.  Their purpose is to forward the website to their friends.  Friends who are not webmasters.  Friends who are thinking of becoming webmasters.  These are the visitors that will make me money.

My Ad Clickers

My revenue generating visitors are not webmasters.  Instead, they are people who just passively use the Internet.  Non-webmasters.   True window shoppers of the web.  They bounce from website to website.  No real direction.  Just going where their friends send them.  Passing the time between dinner and bedtime.

Like most people, they are not happy with their current financial situation.  Like me, they go to work with their heads down.  Their days at work are unsatisfying.  One of their reliefs is to come home, fire up the computer and be entertained by the Internet.  Amusing themselves with the wacky and wild online world.

Then one day they receive an email from their friend the webmaster.  “Here your go buddy, check this link out.  Now you can quit your hellish day job and work online”.  Well…something like that.   It does not matter how non-webmasters end up on my site.  But once there, here is what should happen. 

1. They see the number on the homepage clearly stating how much the website has made.
2. They look at a few information/data pages and see what is involved in making money online.
3. They think to themselves, “Hey, I can do this”.
4. But then while reading about the countless hours I have spent creating the website they suddenly notice, on the left panel, the statement “Easily Earn 100’s of dollars from home”.
5. They click on it.

If your reading this post you are probably a webmaster, or at least planning to be one.  You know what to do…(hint: )

After 22 days online a milestone has been reached.  100 people have stumbled onto the website.  That is a lot of people.

If I had to make dinner for 100 people then I would have to start cooking at dawn – it is a lot of people to feed.  If I was at the supermarket buying supplies for the dinner and the line up at the cashier was 100 people – that is a big lineup.  If I had to wash the dishes after everybody has gone home – that would be a lot of dirty dishes.

But in terms of website visitors 100 is pitiful.  Like 100 people going to a Rolling Stones concert.  I need thousands, not hundreds.  According to my Google AdSense account these 100 visitors have earned me $4.34 by clicking on ads 8 times.  I serve dinner to 100 people and all I get is $4.34.

So far 157 hours have been spent creating this website.  This past month has been completely devoted to the website’s creation and maintenance.  Had I spent the time as a employee for a website design company paying $25/hour then I would now have $25 x 157hrs = $3925. 

This means that I have sacrificed $3925 dollars to please my visitors.  In return they have given me $4.35.  100 visitors came to my house, have a delicious dinner, and then pay me $0.04 cents each.

I should not complain.  I knew this would happen before I started.  The beginning is hard.  Lots of work with no reward.  100 visitors come, they look at 2.53 pages, and then leave.  Almost all of them not paying a single penny. 

But that is how the website business works. It is very ‘front heavy’. You must do lots of work at the beginning with little return. After many hours (I do not know how many hours yet) of being a slave it begins to turn around. Once there is a big visitor base and the visitors keep coming back and inviting their friends. Then you will be receiving lots of money for little work. You will be making money while you are sleeping, walking the dog, growing your chia pet. Your website will become the slave. Working for you 24/7.

Unfortunately I am not there yet. Maybe far from it.

So for now, still at the beginning, it is nothing but blood, sweat and tears.  Only the hope, that one day 100,000 visitors will come and leave a big tip on the table, drives me to continue.  Because then I can take the money and buy a dishwasher.

The Vision

You decide that you want to be a Web Master.  All you have to do if figure out what your website will be about.  For days you think of ideas.  Every time an idea pops in your head you think it might work.  Then after a few minutes of contemplation you decide that it is not a good idea.  Back to the drawing board.

Then one day while walking the dog, just as his leg lifts, you have a great idea.  You do not know where it came from but you really like it.  The more you think about it the better it gets.  From a little pea the idea grows into a melon.  The website begins to form in your head.  By the time the dog is back digging in the yard the idea has become golden.  You imagine millions of people visiting your site – why wouldn’t they?

My story is similar (except for the dog part).  Once I got the basic idea of the website, all the other things fell into place.  The money counter on the home page, the data page, the ‘did you know…’ section..  Millions of people visiting the website.  Returning again and again to see the number rise  Why wouldn’t they?  If I found a website like mine I would visit it all the time.  I had dollar bills flying in front of my eyeballs.

The Reality

The site has been up for 3 weeks.  And what a crash down to earth these 3 weeks have been. 

For the first week it was only one or two people visiting.  Then I joined forums and the traffic increased.  A little.  Week two and three have averaged about 25 visitors.  Far from millions.  How can it be only 25?  When I envisioned a typical visitor to the website I saw them reading the content while slowly putting a hand over their mouth to cover a wide WOW!  Then, all excited,  forwarding the address to all 200 of their Facebook friends.

The plan was for the few initial visitors to begin the traffic tsunami.  I thought I would need just a couple visitors and they would do the rest.  That is not happening.  To my surprise they are not forwarding the website to their friends.

Not only are they not forwarding it, the average page views per visitor is two.  TWO!  They land on the website, quickly look around the home page, click to another page and then leave.  How can they leave?  If I were to find a website like mine I would spend all morning reading everything – just absorbing all the great content.

And what I do not understand at all.  What has no explanation except that there must be some mistake with my statistics is that 63% of the visitors stay on the site for less then 30 seconds.  What can they possibly read in less then 30 seconds?  Nothing.  They are not even giving it a chance.  Just a quick look around, “I don’t like the background color”, and then they leave.  Only 5% of the visitors are do what they should do – stay for at least 30min.

After all these kicks in the balls.  When I think that the indecency is finally over.  And I am completely covered with tomatoes and eggs.  They go for the final blow.  So far, 0 RSS subscriptions.

The Lesson

At the beginning, when you have your vision.  Hold on to it..  Take it with you everywhere.  Imagin yourself explaining to Opera  how you came up with the idea.   Imagine yourself accepting a honorary writing degree from Yale.  Your family and friends envious of your success.  Cherish the vision because it will be a happy time.  Do it as long as you can because after you build your website all you will be doing is crying into your pillow.

Your Thinking of Building a Website

Your browsing the Internet looking for information about creating a website. You have read a few blogs about it. Maybe skimmed a few forums. You think you understand the concept: Create a website, write some content for it, slap some advertisements on it, and that is it.

That is what I thought when I came across the concept for the first time too. I stumbled on a web page describing the concept of creating a revenue generating website. Three hours later I decided that I was going to create a website.

How Long Does it Take?

What I did not know was how much time it takes to create a website design. And how much time it takes to write the initial content. I read somewhere that you need at least 10 pages of content before you go live. Otherwise the website looks bare. So I made quick calculations in my head. 2 hours per page * 10 hours = 20 hours. Plus 3 days to create the website: the layout, logo, choose some colors etc. Total estimated time 20 hours + ( 3 x 8 ) hours = 44 hours. Just over one 40 hour work week.

I had an advantage because I was familiar with HTML. A website was not a black box to me. I knew the basics. The only problem was that I never used Dreamweaver (website creation software) before and I new nothing about CSS. After reading a few articles I figured that Dreamweaver and CSS are a must to create a proper website. So I added another day to my estimate to get familiar with Dreamweaver and CSS. My final estimate was 44 hours + 8 hours = 52 hours from nothing to a website.

That is a lot of time. Since I have a full time job I could only work on weekends. If I were to work for 10 hours a week then my website would take over 5 weeks to complete. I did not want to wait that long. So around Christmas I took a week off work and forced myself to work everyday until it is done.

Building the website

The first 2 days were slow with little progress. Getting familiar with Dreamweaver, CSS was tedious. But after a 10 hours of messing around I got the hang of it. After that I could begin to concentrate on creating instead of learning. For a week straight I built the website. First the general layout, then the logo, and finally the individual content filled pages.

The content pages are the worst part. Especially since I was forced to write them regardless of what mood I was in. I needed to be done before work started again. Days passed and I sat at the computer creating and writing.

50 Hours Later

As you can see on my spreadsheet it took me 50 hours to complete. After 50 hours I had a website with content. Something I could throw on the website host. Almost bang on with my estimate of 52 hours.

But then came the little tweaks. The touch ups. Change the colors, a little rewriting of the text. Move a image over a few pixels to the right, change the font size. Just tweaking and adjusting. No big steps, just little shuffles. There was always more to do, always some little change. Some little adjustment before going to bed. Let me warn you that these adjustments take forever, literally. Still doing them today.

I was finding to my horror that I was not really done the website. I would leave the computer and then I would get an idea to change something. This kept happening over and over again.

26 Hours Later

According to the spreadsheet it was another 26 hours of this pesky tweaking. Only after a total of 76 hours was I happy enough to state that the website is ‘complete’.

Of course I was not done-done. Never will be really done. A website is a growing entity. It always requires attention. There is always more to do. But I was at the stage that I could upload it to host and make it live. From then on it would only be a matter of keeping it up to date.

How Long Will Your Website Take?

How long will it take you to create website from scratch? If you are building a content based website with around 10 pages. And your abilities are like mine (a little HTML) then I would guess 50 hours of initial creation and then 25 hours of touch ups. In 75 hours you will have a completed website. Then all that is left is infinite hours maintaining it.

If you are a webmaster you probably do not have a balance sheet. You do not need one. What would you put on it? What would you put as your assets and liabilities?

Of course it is possible to start being a webmaster with absolutely no assets. OK, actually you do need one asset. A public library card. Go the library, use one of the computers and sign up for a free online blog (like Blogger). Everyday you go to the library and write your blog. Completely free and no big assets.

Assets

I am sure that there are a few blogs out there created from a free access computer at the library, but most web masters use their own computer, at their own desk, and on their own chair. There you go – three assets right there. Computer, table, chair.

Next you probably do not want to use a free online hosting service. They look unprofessional and your domain name will be tom.freehosting.com. So you register a domain name for 1 year. And because you are not sure you really want to be a webmaster, you sign up for a six month hosting service. There you go again – more assets. You have prepaid a years worth for a domain name and six months for a hosting service. These are assets that you now own.

Liabilities

Now for the liabilities. For a month straight you slave away long into the night punching away at your keyboard spewing out Hemingway quality content. Nobody is paying you. You are doing it for free. But it is still work and you expect to be paid back one day. It is like you are giving your website a loan. One day when the website is making money it will have to pay you back. This is a liability to the website as wages owed to you. After a few months the website will start making lots of money. As soon as it does it will have to pay its debts. Namely the one to you. Your salary.

Equity

You own the website.

After it has paid you and if there is still some money left over that will be your equity. Equity=assets-liabilities. The amount the website is worth to you. If you could sell all the assets and pay off all the liabilities the amount left over would go into your pocket.

Most businesses when they start the equity is not a pretty sight. This is especially the case for all webmasters. You put a little bit of money into the required tools (computer, desk, chair) and then a lot of time into building the website. Once it is built you still have nothing. You have spent money and you have spent time. But you still have nothing. Just a whole bunch of megabytes sitting on some server’s hard drive.

Only after the visitors start coming and click on ads and buy your products do you recoup your initial investment. Only then does your negative equity begin to slowly turn around and begin its climb into the positives.

As I write this my equity is still deep in the negative.