Do People on Here Have Websites Which Generate Some $$$ ?

[chaseman]

I wanted to see if here some of you programmers have websites which generate some cash for you. Or are you all people who only provide their services? Come out of the corners lol =D

 

I'm building some sites atm.

[spiderwell]

yeah i invented facebook.

 

 

nah sad to say i don't had plenty of ideas but not really put much effort into it, although i am thinking of making a niche system which i have done for a couple of clients in the past that doesnt seem to be 'out there' but its a long way off being a package to sell.

 

tend to suppliment my income with freelance sites.

[chaseman]

What exactly do you mean by niche "SYSTEM" ?

 

I thought about creating a niche website myself, I simply do not want to write all the content about a topic that doesn't even interest me haha. Some people create a niche site about screw drivers create 20-30 articles and make a few hundred dollars a month of that, it's cool, but if I would do that then only by outsourcing the article writing to somebody else.

 

I thought about creating a math quiz website with PHP as well, I even have some cool quiz' created, all I'd need is design up the site for that. I know a sudoku site that according to their own statement has 100k visitors a day = <($_$)>.

 

Ideas are one thing, but making them succeed, the execution is a whole other thing. So I'm reading up more on SEO currently, I want to become an expert on that topic, and then I will get into my next projects.

 

If you're looking to team up on some projects let me know. I love this internet thing, it's about time to make some $$$.

[spiderwell]

i have had 2 people who are photographers, require a system that allows art gallerys to login who have exhibited the works of said photographer, when they make sales.

 

for instance a dude called cedric delsaux has made some amazing star wars images in a series called Dark Lens, but the prints are all limited. so he has exhibited them in paris, dubai, new york, but there is only say 10 copies of each print in 2 formats (sizes). so if paris sold 1, that gallery logs in and marks it as sold, add the details, then if new york sells one, it logs on and see that number 1 is sold and enters for number 2.

 

anyway i'm thinking of expanding it, improving it, making it a very professional setup but still undecided which way to go, which is either sold singularly to each photographer who wants it, or making it one big central site with all users join it and subscribe to it. (think of it having a social networking element to it)

here is a cedric image just cuz i love star wars

 

 

my most commmon point of failure is lack of marketing skills when it comes to dollar making ideas, i made a great site once called positivity pebbles, selling small polished stones, but due to bad SEO and frankly F.A. marketing i only sold about 10 stones in a year. plus its a huge market anyways, i just had a twist on my selling point. I need to re do it since i got 300 odd stones sat in a box doing nothing haha. but it was written in classic asp and i really cant be bothered right now.

[chaseman]

Yes I definitely can understand that, I feel myself I cannot do everything myself, my ultimate goal is to run internet companies which generate a profit (I guess that's what an entrepreneur does =D) obviously I cannot do everything by myself, I know how to design some cool looking sites, but I'm not a real designer, I know a bit about PHP but I'm not a die hard programmer. So I made myself a list in which areas I want to specialize and then it's about creating websites which generate a profit.

 

I want to specialize in SEO and become really good at it. I also want to reach a point where I can call myself a WordPress hacker, just because I really enjoy working with WordPress and the market is booming right now, some people even make a living off of that.

After that it's about orchestrating people together, for example, as of now, instead of creating the whole WordPress theme myself I'm looking to team up with a designer, while he does the designs I'll do the coding, with this same approach I'm looking to collab with people on all other projects as well. I'm slowly building a portfolio, with that it will be easier to convince people and build trust.

 

If you need SEO skills, team up with an SEO crack, we all need each other, and if we work together we'll succeed! It's not easy to inspire people when you have nothing to show of, but once things slowly take off and you have some success, then everybody wants to be a part of you.

[fugix]

if you want to see some cool websites in the making, you should check out the "beta testing" section of the forums.

[spiderwell]

heres another piccy, lol

 

[chaseman]

if you want to see some cool websites in the making, you should check out the "beta testing" section of the forums.

I'm past that. I'm more interested in money making websites now.

[trq]

I'm more interested in money making websites now.

 

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by that but unless you have a pretty original idea that people need / want, I'm not sure there is a great deal of cash to be made. Advertising won't really earn you anything.

[KevinM1]

I'm more interested in money making websites now.

 

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by that but unless you have a pretty original idea that people need / want, I'm not sure there is a great deal of cash to be made. Advertising won't really earn you anything.

 

Very true.  Even if you become a minor internet celebrity, like That Dude With The Glasses/Nostalgia Critic, you're not going to make much.  The sites that make money are services.  Facebook is a service.  Twitter is a service.  YouTube is a service.  That's why a good number of threads in our "Website Critique" sub-forum are about people's half-baked social media sites.  Everyone wants to make the next Facebook/Twitter.

[chaseman]

I don't know what you guys consider under the term "much". But you can earn quite a sum with all other sites as well, I know that you earn the big chunks with the service sites but they're not a must. You can go in the 5 digit sums with others sites as well.

 

And it's really not about the original idea, it's simply about the visitors, the equation is very simple,

 

visitors = $$$

 

Having a blog about a certain topic is surely not an original idea nowadays, but till this day there are many blogs earning 4-5 digit sums a month, simply through advertisement or affiliate links, many even in the same niche.

 

If that is not "much" to you, what then?

 

You don't have to create a million or even billion dollar business like Twitter, Facebook, Youtube to make a living off the internet. A lot of people make a living in different ways. 

[KevinM1]

I don't know what you guys consider under the term "much". But you can earn quite a sum with all other sites as well, I know that you earn the big chunks with the service sites but they're not a must. You can go in the 5 digit sums with others sites as well.

 

And it's really not about the original idea, it's simply about the visitors, the equation is very simple,

 

visitors = $$$

 

Having a blog about a certain topic is surely not an original idea nowadays, but till this day there are many blogs earning 4-5 digit sums a month, simply through advertisement or affiliate links, many even in the same niche.

 

If that is not "much" to you, what then?

 

You don't have to create a million or even billion dollar business like Twitter, Facebook, Youtube to make a living off the internet. A lot of people make a living in different ways. 

 

The problem is that it's not likely that you'll make nearly that much with a content-driven site.  You'd have to have unique content - not just unique in the sense that you created it, but unique as in special and different as well - and you'd have to spend years building up a user base.  It's not that visitors = $$, but repeat visitors = $$.

 

Regardless, for any site you need something to separate yourself from the others, else you're just another site in a sea of similar sites.  This is why I can't help but shake my head at everyone trying to create a new social media site.  Unless they can offer something fundamentally different or superior to Facebook and/or Twitter, they're doomed to fail.

[spiderwell]

yup, look how facebook destroyed myspace!

[chaseman]

You're using words which are very opinionated, what does "likely" mean to you?

 

If you say it's not likely to cash in on installing WordPress and ramble on some posts and install some ads afterwards, then I agree.

 

But I say it is very likely to make money on the internet, if you keep at it and learn the ins and outs. I've read enough entrepreneur biographies to know that almost all of them started out with failing websites.

 

All of you are addressing the holy Facebook, but none of you is mentioning that when Facebook started there were already more than 20 other websites very similar to Facebook, there were even Facebook look alike websites BEFORE Facebook. There was a website of all of them listed with screenshots ordered by date, I don't know the address anymore. So much to original content, I think the right execution does more to your success than innovation, opinions.

[spiderwell]

my latest idea was to, and its a silly one, make an alienbook. and only aliens are allowed to join. otherwise its the same as facebook.

 

its so stupid it might just work

[chaseman]

I actually had the same idea, how about a PrettyBook, only pretty people are allowed? The name is so cool that it's enough of a reason to get started.

 

You get the idea, a social media site specifically suited for a genre. You could do variation of MySpace, offer different features and just be different, but still be in the niche of music.

[spiderwell]

the uglies would hack the site

 

besides beauty is in the eye of the beholder

[KevinM1]

You're using words which are very opinionated, what does "likely" mean to you?

 

'Likely' means exactly that - the probability that a content-driven site will meet your assertion of '4-5 digit sums a month', based on the percentage of content-driven sites that do make that kind of profit compared to the overall pool of content-driven sites in existence.

 

If you say it's not likely to cash in on installing WordPress and ramble on some posts and install some ads afterwards, then I agree.

 

But I say it is very likely to make money on the internet, if you keep at it and learn the ins and outs. I've read enough entrepreneur biographies to know that almost all of them started out with failing websites.

 

And how many simply fail?  If all you're reading are success stories, your frame of reference will be skewed.

 

Also, 'Making money on the internet' does not necessarily equate with 'making money on a content-driven site'.  There are many factors which come into play for those content-driven sites that do generate decent profits, including, but not limited to:

 

The quality of the content itself

The origins of the site - was the site among the first of its kind?

The age of the site - how much time has it had to build an audience?

Celebrity status

etc.

 

All of you are addressing the holy Facebook, but none of you is mentioning that when Facebook started there were already more than 20 other websites very similar to Facebook, there were even Facebook look alike websites BEFORE Facebook. There was a website of all of them listed with screenshots ordered by date, I don't know the address anymore. So much to original content, I think the right execution does more to your success than innovation, opinions.

 

Why can't execution be considered innovative?  Designers and UI specialists exist for a reason.  Also, why are you making a distinction between content and the execution of generating/displaying that content?  Facebook's content is what other people write plus how Facebook presents it.

 

---

 

No one's saying it's impossible to make money on the internet.  What we are saying is that in order to be successful, you need to separate yourself from the rest of the pack, which is true for any business.  With the web, it's even more important since anyone can make a site if they put their mind to it and because there are large incumbent sites swallowing a lot of traffic, depending on the subject matter.

 

You're on a good track with your WordPress themes, since you're actually offering a product to people.  Themes can generate a decent amount of money, especially if they're HTML 5/CSS 3 ready, meet accessibility guidelines, and feature unobtrusive, progressively enhanced JavaScript.

[chaseman]

I think we're on the same page, we're just coming form different perspectives. My ultimate goal is to become an Internet Entrepreneur not a die hard programmer (as many people on this board), that's my perspective.

 

But I think the simple reason why such a vast amount of people do fail is because of everybody and their momma (literally) gives it a shot, back in the day a term like "work from home mom" did not even exist (AFAIK English is not my primary language).

 

Regarding your 3rd paragraph, when I'm speaking of "making money on the net" then I simply mean utilizing every possible income source that you can, one source may not give you much money, but many of them combined could make you a high income earner. I would never rely on a single content driven website, except it's a multi-million dollar business and I'm the CEO. =D

 

Even though I'm going to get some stabs for this one, I personally think that Facebook needs a UI and a UF (User-Friendliness) expert team, it is so weirdly constructed that I do not like to use it. And if you look at "Facebook" search querie on Google, people google on how to do the most basic tasks, something you should take note on as a corporate. Facebook is profiting of it's celebrity status big time. Anyway I'm drifting from the topic.

 

No one's saying it's impossible to make money on the internet.  What we are saying is that in order to be successful, you need to separate yourself from the rest of the pack, which is true for any business.  With the web, it's even more important since anyone can make a site if they put their mind to it and because there are large incumbent sites swallowing a lot of traffic, depending on the subject matter.

I definitely agree to this, though I personally would sum it up in the sentence "Offer something that the others don't and do a better job than them".

 

I dislike it when people put way too much weight on "originality" and "innovation", you CAN enter a niche where people are already eating off, you simply have to analyze the competition and "Offer something that the others don't and do a better job than them".

 

The successful companies are constantly entering niches which are already established and by many even considered as "over-saturated".

 

Speaking of money, I was looking for a few jobs online a minute ago and even got a job and others were interested, I'll just have to close those deals.

 

You're on a good track with your WordPress themes, since you're actually offering a product to people.  Themes can generate a decent amount of money, especially if they're HTML 5/CSS 3 ready, meet accessibility guidelines, and feature unobtrusive, progressively enhanced JavaScript.

You seem to have a knowledge about WordPress themes, have you done something yourself in that area? I've become a WordPress fanatic myself and it's a lot of fun to hack into it. As you said, the market is considered as "booming" right now, some people even make a living off that alone.

 

Though I'm looking for a designer to collab with and split the money, so I can concentrate more on coding and build a killer framework, so projects get done much faster!

 

Finally I'd like to make the statement that the internet is the best invention to me, love it.

[The Little Guy]

The best sites are sites made NOT to make money in the beginning, but to be used for personal use, with content that people want.

 

I have a site that isn't a million dollar site or anything, but it is a site that gets more views than any other site I own. Originally it was made for my personal use, but was still open to the public to view. All it is, is a snippet repository. All you could do was view code, and copy and paste it into your applications. I started it originally because I always needed any array of states, and I had a hard time finding one to copy and paste so I made one and saved it on my site and I kept adding code to the site. Soon I added comments to my main page, and people suggested that they could add their own snippets, so I added that and people started adding code. I added a rating system and people started rating. I have not worked on the site for 2+ years now, and I get 200 - 400 unique visitors per day. I have found tons of links online of people linking into my site, and people offering to translate the site for me.

 

I used Google Adwords to advertise and limited it to $20 per month. Google has almost 800 pages that link to me:

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=link%3A+phpsnips.com

[chaseman]

Finally someone coming out of the corners, very cool tool driven site you have there!

 

200-400 uniques / day are pretty nice!

[trq]

Finally someone coming out of the corners

 

Some (allot) of us help run this site.

[KevinM1]

You seem to have a knowledge about WordPress themes, have you done something yourself in that area? I've become a WordPress fanatic myself and it's a lot of fun to hack into it. As you said, the market is considered as "booming" right now, some people even make a living off that alone.

 

Eh, it's not so much WordPress themes, but themes/templates in general, and what developers are looking for. 

 

Everyone's jumping on HTML5 right now, even though the spec isn't finished.  Why?  Because it's semantic markup (meaning, the tags actually denote meaning themselves... example: instead of <div id="nav">, there's an actual <nav> tag) that all browser developers - even Microsoft - are jumping to support.  It also has added features, like canvas and audio/video markup: http://www.w3.org/TR/html5-diff/#language  YouTube has a straight HTML5 player now.  These additions make it easier to create web apps with just HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, which lowers the bar for entry into the mobile space.  You don't necessarily need to learn Java, Objective-C, or .NET to make a quality app for a mobile device any more.

 

HTML5 is already partially supported by the latest versions of the major browsers.  Tools like HMTL5 Boilerplate help with cross-browser normalization and backwards compatibility: http://html5boilerplate.com/

 

CSS3, like HTML5, is not a finished spec.  That said, it has a ton of improvements coming along with it as well, including easy to make rounded corners, easy to make drop shadows, and even easy to make layout columns: http://www.css3.info/preview/  It's also implemented/supported by HTML5 Boilerplate.

 

Accessibility is, unfortunately, something many developers miss.  It's not hard to make sites accessible: http://webaim.org/intro/#principles  http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/design/web-accessibility-guide-beginners/  http://membership.thinkvitamin.com/library/accessibility

 

Unobtrusive JavaScript simply means no inline JavaScript in the HTML.  Don't let the description fool you - this is a powerful technique in addition to being a smart way to build and maintain a site's UI.  Decoupling JS from the HTML document allows one to treat JS like a web UI programming language.

 

Progressive enhancement means that there's a baseline functionality of the site, and more functionality is added based on what the site can handle in terms of JavaScript.  That way, people still stuck using older browsers get a quality experience, and the people using modern browsers get an even better experience.

 

These are the things professional developers are looking for in a theme/template, in addition to aesthetic quality.  Meeting this criteria will allow you to charge a premium for your work.

[chaseman]

Damn Nightslyr, you got me all excited =D Most of the stuff was not new to me but reading it in a report form was cool! The only thing new to me was the mobile phone part, I never thought of programming apps without having to learn Java and Objective-C. I know you posted a lot of links and I will have a look to all of them, but do you have a link for programming mobile phone apps without having to learn the language as well? I will do a search on that in a minute as well.

 

So only thing which held me from going into that road is because I simply didn't want to invest the amount of time to learn Objective-C or Java, I'm already learning SEO, PHP, WordPress, CSS as good as I can, but I think it'd be cool if I can utilize these areas to program apps as well, definitely something I should look into, thanks for mentioning!

[KevinM1]

Damn Nightslyr, you got me all excited =D Most of the stuff was not new to me but reading it in a report form was cool! The only thing new to me was the mobile phone part, I never thought of programming apps without having to learn Java and Objective-C. I know you posted a lot of links and I will have a look to all of them, but do you have a link for programming mobile phone apps without having to learn the language as well? I will do a search on that in a minute as well.

 

The question is really whether or not you want your app(s) to run native on the mobile device.  To have an icon, to use whatever hardware acceleration there is on the device (which is likely why the latest and future versions of IE have access to the GPU), and to share/use the mobile device's own UI chrome.  If that doesn't matter to you, then you can have fully functional apps using just basic web technology and the back end of your choice.  Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if future iterations of devices would allow you to pin sites as apps, much like one can pin IE tabs to the Windows 7 taskbar to make it look/feel like you're starting a real app.