Hello all,
I'm a web developer, and have been working on eLance for about 6 months. I've done a variety of jobs, from company identity websites to inventory control, simple CRM sites for small businesses, etc.
From the last 6 months, I've learned to pick out the easy and most rewarding jobs. Custom websites pay more per job, but I always invariably spent many more hours than originally budgeted. What are the most profitable jobs? Screen-scraping. Link-building. Landing pages. These are all small jobs with a very clear set of requirements, and highly reusable code. Every day, there are hundreds of jobs posted asking for these same things.
My last job paid me $250 to reproduce a list of babysitters from a merchant's site into his own, with the checkout process finally redirecting to the merchant's site (through commission junction). All in all, it was about 5 hours worth of work. $50/hr... not too bad for a code monkey.
So, after doing a lot of jobs like these, I've finally forced myself to attempt to discover what it is that all these people are making money on. Which brings me to why I'm here.
I've briefly scanned through the forums, and read a bit about the world of affiliate marketing. A word often used here is passion. Find a hobby in a niche and write about it (generate content). Start a blog, a forum, etc. After that, sign up with an affiliate and try to monetize your content.
You see, I'm a bit tapped out when it comes to active income. Between my full-time job and my contract work, I can barely find time to be with the family. I'm not sure that I have the time to generate weekly content (articles, blogs, reviews, etc) -- even if I were already knowledgeable or passionate about the topic.
What I'm looking for, is what many of my clients appear to be doing. Make a website (or a network of inter-related, linked websites) with static content (often simply bought/paid for); sign up with an affiliate; and earn a little side cash. A little up-front investment in time, and small diminishing payouts over time. Then, massively copy & clone, making a small $50-100/month over hundreds if not thousands of similar websites, each covering a different niche.
So. This brings me to my real question(s).
Are my clients that are setting up these fake/empty/dumb websites (remember, they're not very actively adding content) making money? Or, are they pouring money into a pipe dream that will never yield true results?
If not, then is there a form affiliate marketing that can be profitable to me? That is, someone with the technical know-how to do just about anything there is to do on the web, but not the time to actually generate content. Is paying for content an option?
Is there any way to generate passive income from this business? I understand there will always be up-front time, and then maintenance; but, what I'm looking for is something that doesn't directly follow the equation: (# of hours worked) x (hourly rate) = (revenue).
Thanks,
Foo
I'm a web developer, and have been working on eLance for about 6 months. I've done a variety of jobs, from company identity websites to inventory control, simple CRM sites for small businesses, etc.
From the last 6 months, I've learned to pick out the easy and most rewarding jobs. Custom websites pay more per job, but I always invariably spent many more hours than originally budgeted. What are the most profitable jobs? Screen-scraping. Link-building. Landing pages. These are all small jobs with a very clear set of requirements, and highly reusable code. Every day, there are hundreds of jobs posted asking for these same things.
My last job paid me $250 to reproduce a list of babysitters from a merchant's site into his own, with the checkout process finally redirecting to the merchant's site (through commission junction). All in all, it was about 5 hours worth of work. $50/hr... not too bad for a code monkey.
So, after doing a lot of jobs like these, I've finally forced myself to attempt to discover what it is that all these people are making money on. Which brings me to why I'm here.
I've briefly scanned through the forums, and read a bit about the world of affiliate marketing. A word often used here is passion. Find a hobby in a niche and write about it (generate content). Start a blog, a forum, etc. After that, sign up with an affiliate and try to monetize your content.
You see, I'm a bit tapped out when it comes to active income. Between my full-time job and my contract work, I can barely find time to be with the family. I'm not sure that I have the time to generate weekly content (articles, blogs, reviews, etc) -- even if I were already knowledgeable or passionate about the topic.
What I'm looking for, is what many of my clients appear to be doing. Make a website (or a network of inter-related, linked websites) with static content (often simply bought/paid for); sign up with an affiliate; and earn a little side cash. A little up-front investment in time, and small diminishing payouts over time. Then, massively copy & clone, making a small $50-100/month over hundreds if not thousands of similar websites, each covering a different niche.
So. This brings me to my real question(s).
Are my clients that are setting up these fake/empty/dumb websites (remember, they're not very actively adding content) making money? Or, are they pouring money into a pipe dream that will never yield true results?
If not, then is there a form affiliate marketing that can be profitable to me? That is, someone with the technical know-how to do just about anything there is to do on the web, but not the time to actually generate content. Is paying for content an option?
Is there any way to generate passive income from this business? I understand there will always be up-front time, and then maintenance; but, what I'm looking for is something that doesn't directly follow the equation: (# of hours worked) x (hourly rate) = (revenue).
Thanks,
Foo
