10 Easy ways NOT to make money online

I’m really sick of all these “How to make money online”, “10 steps to make money online”, “How to monetize your blog” stuff because it’s always the same story over and over again. There’s no science to make money online: Write QUALITY content, update regularly and get involved in your niche/social networks! Crap = No traffic & Quality = traffic. I’m amazed there’s not much articles about what NOT to do in order to make money online. That’s what really matters, you can do a lot of stuff right, but are you doing a lot of wrong stuff? So here’s my list of 10 easy ways NOT to make money online:

1. Blog for money if you are not an experienced webmaster: You’ll spend more time thinking how to monetize your website than to add quality content. It’s a sure fail.
2. Write because you’ve fixed yourself a X post a day quota: Trust me, you’ll loose more readers by writing a crappy article than you’ll loose just by waiting one more day to write a quality article. Don’t write if you don’t know what to write about, it’s a bad article guaranteed.
3. Spend the entire day watching your Adsense Account: Stop refreshing your Adsense account every 2 minutes in the hope of earning a couple more cents! Spend that 1 hour you loose on Adsense everyday to write.
4. Assuming your blog design is not important:Your blog design is important! Not more than content, but that is what will give your blog a unique touch and will help people to remember you. Make it look professional.
5. Spend your day on Digital Point for tips: 95% of users on Digital Point don’t make a single dollar per day and are there because they think making money online is easy. You’ll mostly get as an answer to your tips requests: “Get in the finance/medical to make money”, “Get involved in a more paying niche”, “Fill your site with Ads”, etc. False, just be the best at what you do and the rest will come.
6. Not getting involved in social networks: Social networks are full of webmasters and making friends in your niche is what will make your website earn credibility and a good reputation. Contributing to the community will ensure you a strong position and people will want to link to your website. Don’t underestimate the power of social networks.
7. Build links to build links: Stop thinking only about backlinks! It’s true it is important to get good rankings in Google, but write quality content, get involved in social networks and backlinks will come.
8. Steal content: If you have to steal content to write your articles then you will never get a top player in your niche. You can quotes other websites, get article ideas from other websites but write your own content. That’s the only way to be a top player: Having something unique to offer.
9. Fill your page with Ads: Until you can earn really decent money from your website, don’t fill it with ads. What’s the point of ruining the user experience for 1$ per day instead of 0.50$. You’ll have trouble earning credibility with that kind of approach.
10. Don’t talk about your website: You have to think your blog/website is the best in your niche. With that approach you’ll feel confident to talk about it, refer people to your articles and spread the word about how your blog is the best thing since sliced bread. Talk about your website, that’s the only way to get traffic!

I hope this helped and that it sounded a little bit different that what’s available on every “Make money online” website. These are really honest tips from a honest blogger. I’ve made some of these mistakes and it doesn’t pay off.

Be clean, play fair, be a leader in your niche.