Make Money Online

I’ve been debating how much work I should be doing prior to my April 1 launch (Only 1 month away now… Yikes!). The reality, however, is that I need to hit the ground running, so I’ll be including this month’s activities in a "Pre-launch" section.

So what am I doing this week? Call it laying the groundwork for the basics of building an online blogging business. In otherwords, I spent the day creating accounts with the companies that I will use in this venture, including:

1. PayPal
   I’ve never had a PayPal account before today. I have never bought or sold anything on eBay, and have always counted on credit cards to take care of me everywhere else. I have found today, though, that most online services will take credit cards for payments, but online make payments via PayPal without charging an egregious processing charge.
2. Amazon Associates Program
   I plan on doing a lot of reading over the upcoming months to learn everything I can about social networks, blogging, motivation, sales and a multitude of other products. But the key reason here is to be able to promote specific products through my other network blogs. It should prove interesting to see what my readers purchase through Amazon…
3. Google AdSense
   Seems like AdSense needs to be the first stop for anyone wanting to make money online. Contextual advertising is their forte, but their recently added video advertising may prove to be an engaging medium for the readers.
4. Google Analytics
   Still need to set this up in my blogging platform, but having good Analytics is a must for knowing where your readers are coming from, and what they are reading. This will help you prioritize new content as you move forward.
5. PayPerPost.com
   This new company has received a lot of flak in the online community (read TechCrunch coverage), but I believe it pays a critical link in hooking up advertisers with promoters, provided that appropriate disclosure is provided in all paid posts. We’ll see how it works from an income-generating standpoint.

Since making the decision to take a break and use existing online tools and programs to make money online, I’ve gotten a lot of questions from family members who just can’t understand my motives. Have I prepared for this? Are our savings sufficient? How can you possibly support yourself? What will you do when this fails?

I’ve realized that these same questions (and undoubtedly many more) may arise from potential readers of this blog as well. While future posts will detail a bit more of my background and my current financial position, I want to give you more of an idea of what this journey is and is not.

1. This is a part-time effort.
   I will be approaching this journey as a part-time effort. I want to show that you can earn good money online without dedicating every waking moment to your effort.  I will be dedicating a maximum of 10 hours each week to Lugnut as I build out this model, and hope to demonstrate that with focused effort, you can achieve success in short order.
2. I will not just be creating a blog about how to create a blog.
   I will be using this blog to chronicle my online activities, and certainly hope that I will be able to generate some income from it. However, I will be building out other blogs/sites around certain areas of interest that will take up the majority of my efforts. I will detail these more as I get closer to launch.
3. This is not a short-term experiment.
   My intention is to make this a life-changing event. After having spent the last 10 years building 3 businesses, I’ve realized that I’ve missed much (most?) of my family’s development. My marriage has certainly taken it’s hits as well. While I certainly expect much of the first three months to be a whirlwind of activity (starting new businesses usually are), my hope is that my kids will shortly be able to experience their father without a laptop on his lap during most moments of the day!
4. I don’t have a huge nest egg or savings to support the start of this journey.
   I would not wish my current financial position on anyone. Credit Cards all maxed out, and collecting 34% to 39% on over $10,000. Over $100K in friends & family loans from the last 7 years of building businesses. To top it off, I’m sure my credit score is in the tank (This will be another post), so any traditional business loans are pretty much out of the question.Make no mistake, I need to start generating income from Day 1 in order to make this work. I estimate my current monthly "nut" to be in the neighborhood of $5,000 to $6,000 (our house payment is roughly half of that at $2,500/mo).
5. This will be a learning experience.
   Yes, I have a background in PR and Marketing. Yes, I have owned and operated an Internet consulting firm that has built and deployed large e-commerce solutions for large corporations. However, I will be learning much as I move forward, and getting dirty in the areas of Search Engine Optimization, Affiliate Marketing and Social Networking. I will document it all through this blog in the hopes that I can show others a path to success.