About five years ago, on my birthday in 2005, I started this blog (formerly known as “The Internet Income Blog”). It was at a time when “make money online” blogs weren’t as easily found as they are nowadays.

I began writing the blog because I was trying to help some of my online friends and colleagues find different ways to make money online. So, instead of giving advice to individual people, I decided to put stuff on the web for folks to find.

Back then, I was hosting it under another URL. I believe the domain name “Just Make Money Online” was actually bought and used about 8 to 9 months later (or a year?), when it became part of the blog network I co-owned.

Then, late in 2008, I decided to get this blog to fly solo. Partly because I was considering selling it at the time.

While managing it on my own again, I realised that I couldn’t bear to part with it. So, I stopped the selling process. And, now I’m still here. Still writing/editing/managing this blog.

To all of you who have been supporting this blog as a reader / subscriber / sponsor, I just want to say a very big, warm, and heartfelt THANK YOU. You’re definitely the reason why I’m still here blogging about making money online.

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

Blogging About Making Money Online for 5 Years Now

An anonymous JMMO reader recently sent me an email with the subject line “Help Me” and it contains this message -

I have had a blog for 4 years and am FINALLY now looking to make some money off it. I am going to have a web designer recreate it, but can you help me out to make some money off it? Do you make money off yours?

I receive a lot of this type of messages. As in, A LOT.

And, no matter how many times I receive and try to respond to such emails, I always find it a bit difficult to come up with the right answer.

It’s not because I don’t know what to say. In fact, I pretty much have the same answer each time.

I just find it difficult because it makes me feel that these people want a “magic answer”. A simple solution on how to rake in the riches from blogging.

The problem is: There’s no easy solution. No magic answer.

Yes, I make money off my blogs. I run a few, you see. Not as a full time job, mind you. So, I don’t get to spend much time on them. But, that’s just how I like to run my online life at the moment. Much as I love it all, I’m keeping a bit of a distance, as I explore my other interests and live the rest of my life.

I know other people have decided to make this as their full-time gig. I know I have in the past. That’s why I know it’s possible to do it.

So now, how can I help others make money off their blogs? Well, that’s one of the biggest reasons I maintain this site, JMMO. It’s a way for me to write down different ideas on how to make money online. It’s how I try to guide those who are starting out and experimenting in finding ways to make some money from the web. That was the reason I started in this MMO niche in the first place some 4+ years ago. I don’t see myself as a “business” or “marketing” blogger. I mainly do this because I receive so many questions and find a number of leads and ideas in this field. That’s why I keep going with this blog.

But, I digress.

Now, back to the main question: How do I help this person to make money off his/her blog? There really are so many factors with making money from one’s blog.

The longevity of the blog is one important aspect – although not the most important one. A new blog will always have a bit of an uphill battle, as it tries to build content and readership. A four-year-old blog, hopefully, will have enough readers, PR, content, and pageviews to attract monetisation.

So, my next suggestion is to learn as much as you can about making money from blogs. There are so many things written out there, of course. And, JMMO alone has several ideas that I shared over the years. Since there are a number of posts to go through here, perhaps, checking the “Best of JMMO” page might be a useful start. For bloggers, the “Making Money in the first 6 Months” might be a good place to gather some ideas.

Don’t go overboard with the research! Just get enough information to help you gain some confidence about implementing ‘best practices’ — then get in to the action. Make some choices when it comes to revenue models. Then, try to implement them bit by bit. Experiment, take notes, then try some new things. Rinse and repeat – until you find the right formula for your particular circumstance.

If you set some realistic goals, then hopefully, you will begin to see the results of your labour. I wish you all the best with it!

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

Money Chat: Finally Jumping in to Making Money from Blogging

Over the last year or so, I’ve started working with guest/temporary bloggers. One of the first people I’ve worked with here at Just Make Money Online is Alfa Mercado. She started guest blogging for JMMO when I went on maternity leave about 15 months ago. It was meant to be a month-long gig originally. However, I enjoyed her work so much that I decided to keep her on as regular guest blogger. Unfortunately, a few days ago, Alfa said that she can no longer carry on with her guest blogging post here at JMMO due to some technical issues and her other work commitments.

While I’m sad to bid Alfa farewell, I do wish her well with her endeavours. She is a talented web writer and a good worker. I hope she continues to find success in life and at work.

So now, I’m open to any guest/temp bloggers who might want to write for JMMO on a regular basis. If you’re interested, please email me at samcoggins [at] gmail [dot] com with the following information:

• Name & Contact Details
• Your blog/s URL (if you have one)
• Your experience with making money online/specialty areas
• Links to 1 – 3 sample writing on the subject (making money online)
• Number of times you can blog for JMMO (per week)
• How would you like to get paid (per post, per week, monthly, etc)? And, how much do you charge?
• Any other relevant info that might help

I look forward to hearing from you.

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

On Guest/Temporary Bloggers

Just realised that I haven’t managed to share with you this interview with me over at Blogging in Boxers. Minic Rivera published it in his blog about blogging a couple of weeks ago. And, while you’re there, you might want to read other interesting interviews with various bloggers like Chris Brogan and Aaron Brazell, among others. There’s also this feature on alternatives to Google Adsense. When you do go and visit, tell Minic I sent ‘ya.

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

Interview at Blogging in Boxers

Blogging either on your own blog, with blog networks or doing corporate blogging, is a proven way to earn money online. However, the earnings can differ considerably depending on various factors such as:

- popularity of the niche

- how the blog is monetized

- payment arrangements, etc.

But if you’d like to get a good view of how much blogging can earn you, Jennifer Chait, a well-known network blogger has a good round-up of probable blogging wages and her tips on what it may require for you to earn per income bracket are very informative as well. If you’re planning to get into network blogging, it’s definitely a good read.

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

How Much Money Bloggers Can Make

Since publishing Top WordPress Plugins to Help You To Make Money Online, I found four more interesting WordPress plugins for folks looking to monetize their blogs:

Quick Shop – A sidebar widget that enables you to add a Paypal button, either for donations or for selling an item or two. Has a mini shopping cart feature.

All in One AdSense and YPN – Enables you to add Adsense or Yahoo Publishing Network ads in to your posts.

Ad-minister – Helps you to manage your blog’s ads, including ad rotation.

AdServe – A plugin that helps you to manage direct advertising on your blog. It comes various options (how many impressions available, types of banners, etc.)

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

More WP Plugins to Help You to Make Money with Blogging

Whenever my boyfriend (nope that image on the left is not him, guess who that guy is) sees me taking a photo of myself and cropping it mugshot-style, he’d quickly ask me if it’s a slow season. He means that are there not enough projects that I’m looking for new clients.

He got this idea when he saw me the first time cropping one of my headshots and placing it on my blog. His eyebrows met while asking why the heck do I have to parade my picture online. You see he’s not the Internet marketing savvy type.

I appeased him by saying that putting a picture on my blog gives it a professional touch, thus helps in finding new clients. Even before I’ve read from so many blogs of professional bloggers, freelancers, and consultants that putting an image of yourself on your blog gives a warmer face to your blog, I’ve already been doing this and I don’t know whether it’s just a coincidence or not but new clients do find their way to my blog and email me enquiries whenever I change my headshot.

Although the title of this post suggests it, I’m not trying to finally inform you that I’m such a conceited being (though I can be oftentimes ), but it’s just that back then whenever I post a new image, I notice that new clients find me or that I get more inquiries when I have pic on my blog. Weird, don’t you think?

Now how about you? Do you have your picture on your blog? If you are a service provider, do you think an image on your blog might in some way influence the decision of a potential client to whether hire you or not?

This reminds me of the reason behind why images beside AdSense ads can help generate more clicks. Do you think it’s the same thing with us service providers with blogs?

The recent oDesk blog post entitled The Best Portraits on oDesk inspired me to write about this topic.

image from crunchgear.com

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

Can Face Value Help You Make Money Online?

If you’re not one of the e-tailers laughing all the way to the bank during the Holidays, nor one of those virtual assistants who actually consider the holidays as one of the busiest times of the year, how do you make money online before wrapping Christmas gifts for everyone?

Do you have a blog? Optimize it.

It’s a no-brainer if you have been in the online publishing industry for quite some time. But if you’ve just started with your niche blogging, tweak, tweak and tweak to make it useful for people looking for some gift ideas and you’ll see your ad earnings shoot up in no time. Or if you dislike AdSense, how about affiliate products? Any blog or website with a theme will most probably have an affiliate product match.

Got gadgets you no longer use? Auction them off on eBay.

I find myself collecting stuff that I don’t really use these past few months. And I’m sure this bit of advice from Chris Pirillo might work for me, too, if only eBay Philippines has the same enthusiastic buyers as that of eBay US.

Are you blog savvy? Be a part of the Problogger Community Consulting 2.0 project.

This is Darren Rowse’s version of paid blog review. Darren will charge $250 and part of it will go to one of those people who add his or her two cents worth of advice. I don’t think someone’s going to get just two cents though. Here’s one of the reasons why Darren’s charging $250:

It will enable us to offer the wider ProBlogger community an incentive to participate (there will be a prize for one person who gives advice).

Who knows that one person might be you, right?

image from sxc.hu

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

How to Make Money Online During the Holidays

To the delight of online job seekers, SomeUselessInfo featured a few more sources of blogging jobs that are new to me such as:

• BloggerJobs – a blog that features blogging jobs from various sources such as Problogger’s job board and also those blogging job leads the blogger receives through email.
• Guru – an online marketplace for service buyers and providers, which means not only blogging projects are posted there but just about anything that can be done by freelancers – web designers, SEO, data entry, business consulting, etc. It offers a paid account option.
• Project4Hire – another online marketplace where freelancers can bid. I’ve noticed that there are not too many support services projects here.

I’m trying out Guru.com today. Do you have any comments about this freelance site? Are there any other freelance marketplaces I wasn’t able to include here?

Update: Misti Wolanski suggested iFreelance. I remember that it’s one of the freelancing sites that’s being indexed by Indeed.com, a job search engine.

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

More Freelance and Blogging Job Sources