Self Employed or Bust

Self Employed: More on blogs and websites

July 14, 2008 – 7:00 am

In my previous post I mentioned that I’d be focusing on blogs and websites as the initial means by which I hope to find financial independence, cut my ties with my day job and eventually be completely self employed. I noted one blogger’s earnings to illustrate that blogging and websites can be legitimate money making vehicles but can’t help feeling you (like me) would like more than a single example to make the case.

At the end of this post I’ll provide a link so you can visit Paula Mooney’s site and read her post on webmaster salaries. The information contained there was featured in Forbes and supports my claims. You’ll be shocked at some of the earnings you see listed and probably think, as I did, that there must be a catch.

Perhaps these people have teams of employees working for them. Or you may believe that they have some truly high-end, knock your socks off websites you could never create. While there certainly will be cases like that, there are also plenty examples that run contrary to those assumptions.

Markus Frind’s Plenty of Fish is operated by only Markus and his wife and reported an estimated $5-$10 million for 2007, dispelling the belief that it requires a tremendous staff to really hit pay dirt. Their venture into self employment is so successful because it provides a desired service.

Sharon Macguire of Dog Breed Info Center has what can only be described as a humble looking site but, as Paula reports in her list, Sharon earned about $237,250 or more in 2007 from her site! How? She has useful content and is definitely capitalizing on keyword optimization. Her site nullifies the belief that a site must be fabulously designed, feature astounding flash content or be built by a team of expensive web designers to be successful.

Remember two things when you check out these sites and others in the list. 1) the list is over 1 year old. Earnings are likely higher for most of these folks today. 2) this isn’t a complete list of successful webmasters, just an example of earnings potential online.

I just wanted to write this post to further emphasize what I said previously – this is a viable medium for making money online. Whether it’s the right choice for you is your own decision. Just remember that there are subtle differences and methods for generating online profit and that lends itself well to diverse tastes. But if you want the inspiration, go ahead and visit Paula Mooney’s internet earnings list and prepare to be wowed by the figures you see for some of these people.

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