Make Money Online by Shutting Your Mouth
In the past two weeks I have made more money by staying OFF this blog and doing the things that I know best. I have a real good friend who I met online over a year ago, I am not going to mention any names, but you know who you are. At any rate, I owe a lot of thanks to this individual who over this year has been persistent with me and trying to get me to see the light on this business of making money online.
In the past two weeks I have made over $4000 dollars and not a single penny of that has come from GCDC. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoy my personal blog and I know that it helps a lot of people and I am pleased with knowing that. However, make no mistake, this blog does NOT make me money. For a long time I have thought that one day maybe it would. Granted, I have met a lot of great friends because of this blog and indeed I have helped a lot of people learn. However, once again though… this blog DOES NOT and NEVER WILL support me or my family. If you run a blog just like mine and you think differently, you’re stupid. Seriously…
How do you make money online? Simple… you work in the dark, you tell no one nothing and you shut the hell up. I have known this for a long time, but denied it, or tried to force it to be something it is not. I am not a Joel Comm type of guy, nor am I a ShoeMoney or a John Chow. You will NEVER see me at a social convention, you will never see me mingling at Affiliate Summit. I am simply not that type of person and finally realized that my blog somewhat catered to that type of environment. I am seriously a very QUIET person and I keep to myself. With that said, I am totally done with how I have been running this blog.
So what can you expect from this blog? Will you still be providing tips and tricks that can help me learn how to make money online?
Sure! However, I am not going to be as out spoken as I was before. I now know — once again after a long battle within myself — that there is absolutely ZERO future in trying to be the #1 make money online blog. That is stupid… and very stupid of me to have wasted all this time in thinking it would do something for me. If I was the #1 Make Money Online blog, then what??? It won’t make me any money. The money I make is in all the work I do outside from this blog. This blog is nothing more than a big time waster financially. Granted I don’t mind helping people; however, the element that has changed with this blog is that I will NO LONGER write on this blog with the intention towards trying to be #1 in the niche.
As you can now see — or soon will see — I have completely removed my RSS Subscriber stats from FeedBurner. People are more than welcome to subscribe to my RSS Feed; however, I am no longer going to advertise my subscription numbers. The number of RSS subscribers I have is none of your business. I am no longer going to use my RSS subscriber numbers to influence the perception of how “Popular My Blog Is”. If you like what I write, then you’ll subscribe. If you don’t like what I write, then I don’t want you to subscribe nor, do I want you to waste my bandwidth on freeloading and trolling around on my site.
What about social networks….
Social networks are stupid. I can honestly say, that social networks have provided absolutely ZERO help towards the growth of this blog. I may be wrong, and that may be a bold statement, so let’s just say this: For the amount of time, energy and effort — not to mention free advertising on my sidebar towards making these places more popular — I have not had a very productive return on my investment. In fact, on the occassion that I do get a lot of traffic from social networks it does only one thing… it causes my server to crash and then I am really screwed because the sites that do make me money are now OFFLINE because of the bullshit traffic that is coming into this blog.
What Crawled Up Your Ass Garry?
Nothing. I just finally came to the realization of what I have been doing is stupid. My focus will be on doing what is most important for my family as well as myself. I waste more time on this blog, checking email, chatting with people in the instant messenger and submitting content into the social networks all for the purpose of trying to do what, “Grow My Brand…. Grow My Name”, screw all that. I am sorry, but my brand and my name isn’t what pays the bills. The work that I do that you don’t SEE ME do is what pays the bills.
Why Don’t You Tell Us What You Do To Make Money?
I do actually. You just haven’t invested time into reading my archives. This blog contains over 800 articles over the last two years that pretty much takes you from start to finish on my advancements in this business. What I know today, I did not know two years ago. Following my blog from start to finish will show you pretty much every trial and error I have made and every single breakthrough. All the information is there, you just need to invest the time into reading it.
What is in store for the future of GCDC?
I am going to have fun! I am going to chill and write posts that I enjoy writing, many of which will indeed help you. Really, my content isn’t going to change much; however and once again, the element that will change is the “Kiss Your Ass” factor. If there is one person who has learned from reading GCDC, that would be myself.
That might sounds silly, but because I have invested the time into writing on this blog and reading what I wrote, that helps me learn. In other words, it’s not much different than being in school and taking notes. It’s the act of writing down the information that allows you to comprehend what you are learning. So, with that said, not much will change with the content you read on the blog, the only thing that is changing is how I go about presenting the content. You can read it and learn, or you can choose not to and read a different blog. Today marks the day that I am totally separating this blog from my day to day business. And it should have been this way a long time ago.
Oh, by the way… I have a links page that I have been working on. If you are on it, please send me an email to garryconn@gmail.com with your site title, site description and URL so that I can fill that in. Also, if you have a blog that you think SHOULD be on it, fire off an email to me.
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36 comments
Nice post Garry.
When it all comes down to it, especially having to support a family and provide for them, the only thing that matters is doing what makes you money. $4000 is a nice chunk of change over 2 weeks and I know that you have been working hard on your other sites along with your new site
I am not sure on the new layout though right now, it isn’t that it is bad, just something different. It is a lot cleaner so reading will be easier.
I think I may have to agree with you on the social networks. I have them listed on my blog (if I ever get any visitors) for people to find me around on the net, but I really don’t think that anything will come of it. Why? Because of the facts that you stated, you haven’t received any quality traffic from the sites. The only thing you have gotten is a crashed server. Plus, I am a very quiet individual like yourself, I rarely ever branch out to others so I am not really the perfect candidate for using social networking.
I’m glad to hear that you finally got your priorities straight and that you realize now what is truly important. I know you’ll keep sticking around here and keep providing your readers with great content. From the little bit of information that I know, you work extremely hard and you do very well at what you do. Good to hear that your hard work is really starting to pay off.
As you know, I think your new site is going to be a great money maker. Keep up the great work on it!
When I first started my blog, I was obsessed with growing its number of RSS subscribers. However, after many months and hours in social media sites, I realized that (i) RSS subscribers is so not important and (ii) social media is not really social.
The worst example of a worthless social media site is Twitter. It is not a discussion. It is not social. People there are narcissists. They want people to listen to them, but do they really want to listen to their followers? Not really. It is just a mouthpiece.
Check out Fred @ Newest on the Net’s last blog post..Free RSS Feed Submission Service
Garry, I took a snapshot of the site today, and dated it. I will put it away and see how long this change lasts, lol. And thanks again for making me spit coffee this morning. The cleaning and repair bills will be mailed out shortly.
Fred, this is what I like about blogging and working the Internet. The opinions and differences. Twitter has been better for me than any other Social site (not including my Real Estate stuff). I have had some excellent experiences with Twitter. I think the key is Twitter is NOT meant to be a discussion, it is “What are you doing right now”, with responses. No more, no less. IMHO
Well, I’m sure looking forward to seeing what you bring from now on! You actually used the word “ass” in this post… Awesome! LOL
I think it’s cool that you are letting go and just letting it fly, so to speak.
You should have fun with this blog since it bares your name… make it all about you Garry. Your fans await the future.
Al
Check out Allyn Paul’s last blog post..Tulips, Are They Perennial or Not?
I almost used the F word but omitted it.
LOL!!!
It would probably be a good idea to just have someone else be the admin and they could assign my account with editor or author level WordPress privileges.
RSS Subscribers can indeed be very important, same with email list subscribers. However, in this niche — the make money online niche — I feel at times I am trying to sell products to a rock rather than people. When I pitch a product to people who follow my blog because they want to learn how to make money online and don’t buy… then sorry, I’ll focus my efforts on more effective sales else where.
That is the ONLY way this blog will make money. Here is another thing… I have been trolling around quite a bit and learning a lot about email list building and marketing. It is amazing to discover the numbers you have to have in your email list in order to make money with it. People say that a 1% conversion is the NORM for email list marketing. That is crazy… I don’t have time for that crap.
Give me 100 sites that each get 100 visits per day and I am totally happy with that. I have my niche, I have discovered the things that work and the ones that simply don’t. I am seriously done with all this MMO bullshit.
People sit there on their blogs busting their ass towards trying to be the biggest and baddest MMO blogger… people flood 45n5’s Top 100 list like it was the bible… whatever… It’s nothing but a game and nothing but a joke and reminds me of how kids act in high school.
How hard is the MMO niche going to work towards landing that ONE sale for the day, while I sit back doing nothing collecting money for free using AdSense and other programs. It’s over… I am done. LOL!!!
A few minutes ago, someone sent me an instant message and told me, “wow, you rank #23 on 45n5 Top 100! Congrats!!!”
I was like… OMG, and let me tell you how freaking rich that spot has got me… it’s like winning the lotto two fold. My life is sooo much better now that I rank 23rd on some stupid ass piece of crap, RIGGED list.
… the default theme would be better than the last one I had. The last theme absolutely does not reflect the message I want. Not anymore… I was going to say screw it and put Default up… I mean, I really don’t care! But a friend had suggested that I at least find something decent. So BAM… there you go.
Social networks are lame… I am done with them. For anyone reading this, please don’t ask me to vote on stuff, I am not going to ask you to do it for my stuff either. It’s pointless… it doesn’t do anything for you but waste your server resources.
A well written post Garry.
I think you have finally come to your senses ….. while I appreciate all the advice you have written on your blog I’ll be the first to admit that I ‘Paddy Bloggit’ wasn’t worth one single cent to you or yours.
The only difference between me and others is that I wouldn’t be so bold as the IM you looking for additional ‘free advice’ …. (which … by the way wasn’t free …. you were paying for it with your time.
I am slowly learning the principles of making money from the net:
Bloggers like yourself
Caroline Middlebrook
Mark Mason
30DC
Yaro et al ….
I see the value of adsense, residual income etc. I also see the need for total secrecy in what you do … cos the minute you open your mouth your idea is stolen and some other guy/gal is making money at your expense.
I will stay subscribed …. cos I like your style Garry …. you are straight, you pull no punches and you pander to no one.
What you write about is your choice … it’s your blog … there is ample here (archived) to keep me going for years …. and I also follow you on Hostgator now.
Well done Garry! Your family have got you back …
(As an aside … you ever consider taking on students? …. there are always guys like me out there who will pay for basic net business tutoring)
Roll on the dosh Garry!!
Check out Paddy Bloggit’s last blog post..My alphabet life
I think that an email list is helpful, but I don’t think that MMO RSS subscribers are.
Check out Fred @ Newest on the Net’s last blog post..Monnitter Makes Twitter Useful
David,
But who really cares what each other is doing? I mean, I care about what my family members are doing. I care about know what my friends are doing. But, how many of your followers do you care about?
Check out Fred @ Newest on the Net’s last blog post..Monnitter Makes Twitter Useful
Agreed.
My best email and RSS list is my list on my deal blogs. I never interact with these subscribers directly. I never get asked any questions. I just write content about things I find deals on… they visit they click, some buy and we are all happy. MMO is a nutcase of a niche. Everyone wants to be the best and everyone will cut everyone else’s throat in order to achieve that position. So for me to say that I am no longer associated with all that, it feels great.
I think David more or less monitors the Twitter channels for keeping up with events taking place from the authors of the blogs he follows. Also, I know that he has done something pretty cool with roping together all his feeds into one “mega feed” if you want to call it that and part of the branch he has is having the ability to pump out his updates into Twitter automatically.
For me, Twitter isn’t too bad because I get these little pop up’s on the bottom right side of my screen when people I follow are twitt’ing (is that how you call it?) so for me, its more or less just being nosy. It doesn’t matter though, I don’t think I’ll be twitt’ing (is that how you call it? LOL) anymore… I’ll leave my WP plugin installed so that when I write a new post it’ll TWIT.
It is amazing what the results are when your wife hits you in the back of a head with a frying pan… indeed, it makes you smarter. If I could just figure out which blog I am writing on though (I see two of everything now).
David,
I think that came off as if I was attacking you or your opinion. I did not mean it to sound that way at all. Just having some debating fun!!
Check out Fred @ Newest on the Net’s last blog post..Monnitter Makes Twitter Useful
Good old digital sarcasm… don’t worry Fred, it gets me in trouble all the time too.
Ol’ Dave has pretty thick skin anyway… I don’t think you phased him one bit.
I am pretty much the only one who knows how to get under his skin.
You should try writing a comment after a night of being on the beer.
It’s 2.23 a.m. here and inebriation is a wonderful thing.
Always remember Garry …. family number one … fuck everything else … you have got the right focus now … I wish you well.
Take it from a guy me (a single guy … no family) you have a focus …. earn it for them.
Adieu for awhile ………….. *hic* by alot
(Thank God for spell check or my comment would have made no sense at all)
Check out Paddy Bloggit’s last blog post..I’m drunk
You know what? Ask Christine Senter… her and I have talked about this a million times…
What would it be like to blog drunk (although she has been pretty buzzed while doing professional writing for me many times… lol … joking… well, maybe not… lol). I have never done it, honestly! In fact, I don’t drink all that often at all. I think the last time I drank was close to a year ago. Man… what a classic. GCDC just had its first official DRUNK commenter. That is awesome.
gone now …………………….bed calls …. good night
Check out Paddy Bloggit’s last blog post..I’m drunk
Don’t forget to hang a leg over the edge of the bed as an anchor.
I guess I’m somewhat surprised the products you affiliated for didn’t bring much income from this site. But, I guess I’m naive. This is only my second site. I’ve worked on another one for a long, long time. But it wasn’t for me.
My dream was to build up a few niche sites with Adsense and then do a help site like you. Now, I have to rethink that. I still want to help people, but I want to feel like in the end the time is well spent; profitable and helpful. Now it appears it may only be helpful.
What does Mark and Joe have to say?
I do thank you for your site.
As you get other sites up and running, you can count me in to do what I can do help with those.
A comment on the social stuff. Before this post, you did one on social networking? Does the social networking help with your other niche sites or is primarily SE traffic that earns you money.
Check out Top CD Rates’s last blog post..Zopa Loans – Person-to-Person lending
No worries, I have just been working on home projects since this afternoon.
Garry hit it pretty good. I get more out of following Twitter than I do out of my RSS Reader in general. Most the quality bloggers I know have some sort of auto post from their blog along with their normal Twitter posts. As Garry mentioned, I feed all my blogs (well most) into a feed that is then piped straight into Twitter, so if I make any post, there is a Tweat about it. That has brought me Quality traffic unlike the “fly by” stuff you get from SU & Digg.
Personally I don’t think most people get the real strength of the technology we have. Either they under value it, or they over play it. But, if you mix blogging, micro blogging and social media just right you get a very good flow and a dynamic that is hard to match any other way.
Oh, one more thing. I quit using the WP Plugin for Twitter, it has some real bad habits. It leaks edits to Twitter which can make you look very spammy!
Hey bud,
The post you just read and commented on, I actually wrote a few months ago and bumped back to the home page for a second life.
However, this ultimately, has been a very strange yet “breakthrough” of a day for me. I am seeing more light on “The Big Picture” of things more so than I ever have. As I am writing this comment, I am starting to totally question the effectiveness of social networks.
Rarely do I sit down and just look and study my Google Analytics account. However, in doing so, I am starting to really question why I have invested so much time with StumbleUpon.com, Digg.com, MyBlogLog.com and many others.
According to my records, the only traffic that has been received is me sending them free traffic from my blog and potentially lost SERP traffic.
I am sorry for the confusion I may be causing you. But, as you know, this is a very confusing challenge we all engage in.
As far as Mark, Joe and many others, including yourself, I know that you guys really appreciate my blog and my help.
As far as income generated from GCDC goes, sure… it does make money, but let’s not fool anyone here. The money that this blog generates does not support a family of five. My other blogs that require only a fraction of the energy, time and effort do.
I did not know that David.. thanks for sharing that part.
Let me touch on this again real quick. Here are my thoughts:
So far in my experience, I have been most successful with search engine traffic. Most all of my blogs are monetized using Google AdSense. This by far has been the most successful program I have used.
I have spent a lot of time getting into list building, product marketing, and doing the whole MMO thing… it just doesn’t work for me. I am an AdSense Guru and there is nothing I can do to change it.
I wanted more, but I don’t think I am cut out for any of this. It’s silly to reflect back on how hard I have been working on this blog when I can invest only a fraction of the time on 10 blogs and make 10x the money this blog makes.
The way I see it… I have wasted a TON of time over the last few months. Totally have wasted a lot of time. Trying to monetize traffic delivered from social networking sites is for the birds. Can it be done? Sure… many people do. But I am not looking for that.
My goal is to make as much money as I can while doing the least amount of work. I hate work. I am lazy. I can’t stand responsibility and I am extremely jumpy and flighty. The only thing that works for me (PROVEN) is content publication on researched and targeted keyword phrases monetized with Google AdSense.
I never really liked social sites. I would only use social site to keep in touch with my friends and not to market my blog. Since my blog is new, I will do what you advised me to do, I should be commenting on blogs.
Check out Ekini’s last blog post..Use laptop Alarm to Secure your Laptop
Ok… I remember you. You emailed me the other day and I told you to start commenting on other blogs.
Nice work man…
visit http://www.gravatar.com and spruce up your comments and make them more personal by uploading your avatar.
Be sure to visit these other blogs too:
http://www.masonworld.com
http://www.meandmydrum.com
http://www.thepromptwriter.com
http://www.cybercoded.net
Respect! I feel like i’m reading Jerry Maguire’s “mission statement” I think most of the MMO garbage is created by chow’s ass kissers. Money isn’t made by blogging. It’s actually one of the worst ways to make money online. I recommend it to noobies because it’s an easy and fast way to have a web presence. But, if you want to make a living, you have to look else where. It was a nice breath of fresh air, reading this post. I will be reading your blog more often.
Check out bloggernoob’s last blog post..Make Money Online by setting up sites for known advertisers
I think has had a delayed religious experience !!!
)and you have a dead simple business model, screw the fooling around in MMO grab Microniche finder grab garrys theme and start USING IT.
Come over to the dark side garry !!!
You know what funny is that vic franqui said almost exactly this verbatim, get out of the IM niche you’ll starve. Anyone else who is reading this needs to troll Garrys archives. I spend a good deal of time in his “backyard” too bad there’s no BBQ or a beer fridge there, anyways.
Read garrys archives, LOL Garry your blog should be read like one of the magazines that you flip backwards through. Good stuff in there and its proven and works.
I kinda thought this post was on a short list of posts after the last few posts about the link theivery and what not. My personal thoughts by and large in the MMO niche are that there are loads of freeloaders and freebie seekers. You spend good time and effort into writing and building trust and then it isnt reciprocated in the form of monetization. Window shoppers basically. Lack of support as well. I help out plenty where and when I can and I find it isnt returned, you know the all about me syndrome. WHich is just crazy because there is this poverty mindset that there isnt enough to go around and the cut throat competition for the MMO vanity ranking on google. But really go look at it how many searches aside from the vanity seekers are there for that term , not many man. That phrase and similar are watered down by those checking their rankings. Go check your top ten phrase hits in AW stats the proof is in the pudding. Then check where you rank for those phrases. The smart ones will be getting more anchors for those phrases and monetizing those than trying to continually get a new post ranked for MMO like terms. But if you have been reading Garry for any length of time you’ve been doing that.
That and using Microniche finder which I bought from garry is a killer tool. I mean absolutely home run out of the park tool. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel. Good for us lazy writers. Then add that to Garry’s SEO Ad max theme which is Free (dumbass garry
Oh and btw way G, when is the launch date for your new theme set?
Check out shane’s last blog post..styling the new blog theme mockup with css
[...] Filed Under (Personal) by shaners on 23-08-2008 Here is something that has been nagging at me in the back in of my head for quite sometime. It might be today because well Im a bit hung over from Darts night with the boys, but here goes. Funny thing is garry has been on the war path about something very similar. And I do believe he is right. Read this post for an idea of where I am at with this. make money by shutting your mouth [...]
You know how happy I am for you dude? Lol, seriously, I had a similar “change of pace” myself, and this is something I continue to try and tell people. My blog is NOT the money maker, it’s just my home base.
I know how you work, I know how you help, and I am happy that gcdc will be that much less of a headache for you now!
Great move dude, really great! I love it! Though I’ve always loved the content, what I really love is the direction you’re going in, and the stress it will remove from your life!
Check out JK Swopes’s last blog post..24 Hour Site Flipping Contest. Crackhead Style.
I was also pondering taking the rss feed of off my on blog just yesterday, and I still may…like you said..does it really matter?
People who want to know can find out how many are there. Either way, reading this today just reaffirms that my decisions for my blog are in the right direction, as I never wanted to be the number one mmo blog lol…but, dude, I am so amped for you right now!
Plus, I know that this will allow you to devote much more effort to what makes you money, and I KNOW what that will mean for your bottom line
Check out JK Swopes’s last blog post..24 Hour Site Flipping Contest. Crackhead Style.
Excellent, someone that’s going to speak their mind and not follow the herd. Clearly, being a little controversial helps readership as well. Any publicity is good publicity, right ?
Check out money saving tips’s last blog post..Let your out of town friends call you for free
I think I have my path. I just read through your post on are the Social’s taking your traffic. I haven’t focused in those areas and I have so little time at this point that for now, I’m going to focus on the Adsense, which frankly is what I know also.
I’ve got another site that gets good traffic. Has some targeted affiliate stuff, but frankly the affiliate stuff is hear and there. I think I may try to change some of those affiliate spaces with adsense and see if the figures go up.
The hard thing with the other site is there is also a service that we do sell. The fine line is making sure the Adsense doesn’t cause a loss of a sale.
You made the right choise Garry, you told it many times on this blog that GCDC and every blog about MMO isn’t a money maker. I only subscribe David’s thought: hope this time your decisions lasts
…and I guess this time you will: in a few weeks you’ll have something better to do with your spare time !
Cheers to you and your wife Angie
ciao
alexander
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