I might get castrated here by about 5,000 men and women attempting to profit from what I am about to neg down, but I don’t care. There comes a time when the internet needs to know the truth, and this is definitly that time.

Making money on the internet is much harder than you would think. Granted, I have not been in the business much at all, but I was lured by the “lol easy to make teh monies in 5 easy steps” type of games and decided to give it a try. It’s not do simple as they would like you to believe.

Here are a couple of things to beware of before you embark on a journey towards web monetization.

No easy way in or out

The internet is, undoubtedly, a monetary money pit. Hundreds of millions of people are searching it all day, everyday, with tons of money to spend. They want everything from ringtones to belly-rings. They have tons of cash and they need to spend it today. This is where you, the hopeful entrepreneur comes in. You may not have ringtones or belly-rings to sell, but you have a bit of ability to direct people to the ringtones and belly-rings. You, my e-hopeful, can make web pages.

This is where you get trapped though. All of those “get e-rich e-quick” guides lead you to believe that all you really need is a webpage and “BAM” the money will flow to your bank account like a New Orleans flood. The problem with this is that you, and a hundred million other e-hopefuls, are trying to do the same thing. You are battling for high SERPs and targeted niches. All the good niches are over-used and all the weird ones are shots in the dark at best.

The truth of the matter is this: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. And, what is worse, is that the guys giving away the free “get uber rich on the webnet” guides are usually going to end up trying to sell you something else. That guide either only covered basic things you knew, was filled with lies, or was just a ploy to farm up your email address. Thankfully, you signed up with a spam account or with a Google account. If you didn’t, this is where the “no easy way out” part comes in. Expect spam…. lots of spam.

Targeted niches & my experience

A lot of “get rich” schemes seem to ask you to target a high-paying niche and try to drive traffic to your site. In return for the traffic, you will get clicks on your AdSense ads which will turn around money for you. The result is money with almost no work except a basic website, a couple of quick articles, and the rest takes care of itself.

However, there are a couple of basic holes in this idea. The first hole being that the most common and well-known niches are largely taken. They were the ones paying the buku dollars and they are now stiffly battled for. Relatively unknown niches, the ones you might be able to corner, are largely low-paying and will return almost nothing.

Secondly, AdSense is all well and good if people actually see the ads. Ad-blockers are neigh commonplace in today’s web browser world. While people want to shop for the things they want most, they generally don’t want to click on ads to get there. They just want Google to return the “Belly-ring Warehouse” result first up. So, the chances of a user visiting your niche blog on belly-rings AND seeing the ads before their browser blocks them AND actually clicking on an ad are very low. Lets just say, they are odds only a crazy person would bet on.

However, In my (albeit, limited) experience, I can generate (return) traffic more reliably with random content. This blog is a perfect example of such. I get more hits per day than the niche blog I attempted to work out and actually enjoy writing for this site. While yes, neither site is generating HPD that would make you cream your drawers, its at least something.

Do what you like, not what makes you money!

Actually, that little sub-headline isn’t true. Do what you like, cause it might eventually make you money. The important part is to choose something that you actually want to do on the web or the Internet and do it and just try to monetize it. The ads on this site are a perfect example. I display ads on a personal blog not because I think someone will click on them, but because I might as well serve them and if no one clicks on them, oh well.

The important part stands: I like to write about my life. I like to let people know the crazy things that go on day-to-day or let people in on certain aspects. I took that like, and turned it into a site that I am, up to this point, quite proud of. I slapped a few ads on it and if no one ever clicks on in the history of the site then that’s fine, cause that’s not why I do it.

Its undeniable people have made money on the Internet. People like Shoemoney love to share tails of their success on the net and how it continues. However, of the millions of people trying it each and every day only a handful have succeeded. The rest of the guys claiming that they made millions and have a giant house and a hundred cars and a hot wife are likely just lying to get you to buy their e-book. Don’t buy into it. Here is my million-dollar piece of advice absolutely free of charge: do what you like and are interested in and money will likely come to you. And if it doesn’t, hey… at least you had some fun along the way.