Is it harder to make a full time living on the internet now than 5 years ago

It's harder maybe because it's much more competition but it's all about creativity and problem solving.

Creating multiple streams of income will ensure that you keep going as well as keep money to invest in scaling your campaigns or investing in new ones and new education when old strategies lose there steam.

The ability to quickly find new niches to enter will help.

Its a lot harder in some ways, but in another its a lot easier.

5 years ago there wasn't the competition there is now, yet nowadays there are the tools out there to automate much of what we used to take hours and hours to do manually.

I think we need to just keep up with the times more than anything
Kim

I don't think it is harder to make a living online than it was 5 years ago - I agree with Kim that the new technologies make some things a lot easier. But I do think the IM niche has got a lot more competitive than it was and people in that niche are getting more jaded. But if you are in another niche, or sell a service, rather than a product like I do, then I think if anything it is easier now to make a living online - and a good one at that.

Have a great day
Ellen

Turn Challenges into Opportunities

The internet is still growing a lot, and with that growth comes new opportunities. So, if you're going to be competitive, you've got to be willing to learn all you can about how to stand out and be unique, while offering information and products that people actually want.

Hi Mick,

I think they are right to a certain extent, but likely only because they just learned how to make money in a specific manner. I've been making a full-time living online for over 15 years now and I can tell you that a big key to success is the ability to adapt. It also helps to diversify your assets, so you don't crumble if one thing takes a big hit.

As far as freelance work goes, India is getting a lot of it, but this was happening five years ago too. The truth is that you generally get sub-par work for the cheap price and there are always people willing to pay more for professional work.

I do believe that Google is pretty much impossible to predict. Most people try to predict Google and do particular things just to influence their rankings. However, there is one thing you can do that Google will ALWAYS like, no matter what changes take place: unique, useful content.

I have hundreds of sites in a ton of different niches. Some promote my own products/services while others promote affiliate products/services. I hear about the Google algorithm changes and all of these people that lose rankings as a result. 99% of the time, I get better rankings or no change with algorithm changes. There are some exceptions, but usually if Google makes an algorithm change and your site gets dropped then you were probably doing what Google was targeting with the change. I have NEVER had a site get ranked #1 and then lose it's position long-term. There are times when sites will bounce down or out of the rankings, but quality sites always come back.

So, to sum things up. For most people, it is harder to make a full-time living on the internet than it was five years ago. However, if you put the time into building quality properties instead of just trying to trick the search engine or find the easiest way possible to accomplish something, then I find it to be about the same. The competition is a bit worse in particular areas, but I can always find a new niche to build a site for with an hour of research.

Ryan

A lot has changed online in the last 5 years so you need to constantly refine your methods and stay up to date with what is working and what is not. Internet Marketing has grown a lot to where we are today and it is true that there are a lot more people trying to make money online.

The competition is higher however there is still a great demand for products and services which you can market online. You just need to run your online business with a point of differentiation from the rest of the crowd and you will succeed.

Was RAP Invented 5 years ago?

Was $7 Dollar Secret Script invented 5 years ago ?

Mabey that will give you part of the solution.

It is harder?

In fact it is almost impossible!

If you work nonstop 20 hours per day every day of the week,
from online now it is hard to make over 400 clean dollars...

Harder ya... because of this key right here....
(make a bigger better deal)

What made it harder lets say this before PLR it was easy to make a ton of cash.

10 years ago
Brandable resell rights ... Add your name and link in my .exe ebook only 249.00

8 years ago
Brand my master resell rights book .exe ebook 197.00

PDF ebooks MRR 97.00

PDF Brandable MRR 67.00

6 years ago
WSO Warrior forum Free to post ads

Nothing sold for less than about 27.00 My average was about 67.00 to 97.00 per WSO
offer average sale for a few days 2 to 3 thousand and growing each day.

Brandable PLR ebooks 47.00 37.00

We need something better lets put 20 books in one package called a fire sale.

Fire sale only 500 available 197.00 sold out in days

after a few of these people started to buy the package then turn around and sell it for
47.00 which cut the 500 sales down to 300...

4 years ago or so
7.00 script

Do i have to keep going? We have killed our selfs we made it harder on ourself to make money by lowering prices by making bigger better deals by giving stuff away for free... By crossing my list with yours everyone is on everyones list who can get the deal off in emails first, but you don't want to be first because you want to offer more than that deal so you wait.... so you make your deal 100.00 back and all my products I sell for free if you buy from me... One guy gave away 4 wheelers if you bought from his link and all his products... I know because I ended up buying the package from him, it was better than my deal... besides I already have my products....

See even I got the bigger better deal.... I'm part of the cause why it is harder than ever.

fast forward ......

You can buy 100,000 articles for 7.00 or a free sign up to get them.

WSO cost 40.00 and people sell things for nothing....

My last WSO it was 20.00 to post sold ZERO because it was not a make $20,000.00 in 20 min...

We are going to have so many articles spun this way that way so many PLR books they just ain't worth anything any more.

Who says you have to give away 10 bonus items to sell 1 item.... We did ... what were we thinking... we shot ourself in the foot. You don't need to do that.... Sell the item on it's own merit.

I do graphics so I'm still in the game, but at one time i could make 10 header package and sell it for 47.00 and make 2 or 3 thousand dollars...

I made 1200 headers can't even give them away now a days.

I still sell some download stuff but tangible items is far better. I can sell one tangible item for 12.00 my cost is 3.50 don't need any bonus items and it is a reorder item about ever 6 weeks for my customers. don't have to worry about download not working, refunders or someone selling my ebook on ebay... which to this day I have people kicked off ebay for selling my ebooks or programs...

sorry got off track...

We are the cause it is like it is.... How do we change it.... Stop selling stuff for 7.00 stop making that bigger better deal...

From now on spread the word no ebook will be sold for less than 27.00

Stop PLR stuff we don't need more
Stop Spinning articles we don't need more
Stop selling 100,000 article packs for 7.00 we don't need them
Stop with the bonus items we don't need bonuses
Stop lowering prices we don't need lower prices

Sell your product on it's own merit, let it be worth 27.00 if it is a ebook

No ebook less than 27.00
No software program less than 47.00

Hope that helps

Richard

I find that the IM side is really competitive and if you are new its hard to catch up to people that have done it for a long time.

That being said, there are TONS of niches on the consumer side of things. You just have to branch out and try new markets out.

Since I speak spanish, I find that a LOT of hispanic markets are virtually untapped. Even the IM side of the hispanic market is almost non-existence.

I think the way to really make it and keep making it, is to diversify your offerings, and check out other markets and other languages. The internet is NOT just in the USA, there are tons and tons of niches out there.

I don't think that it is harder.

Sure, the strategies and tools have changed, but there's been so much innovation over the last few years... all designed to help us optimize our businesses efforts.

Not everyone is selling MMO products - never forget this. Diversify your business efforts, and you won't have to rely on selling "$249 reports" to IM newbies to pay your bills.

There are some methods that are not nearly as viable and easy as they were 5 years ago.

But there is more opportunity today to make money online than any year previous in the history of the internet.

More options for free advertising and exposure and far more consumers ripe and ready to buy quality products and services that deliver real value for the money.

I watched Julie and Julia the other night...

If a woman can create a career and get book and movie deals from blogging about cooking dinner in her apartment from an old french cookbook then that says something.

Do it now go change all your order links that are blow 27.00 to 27.00 min....

Everyone on the WF if you sell ebook or software download below 27.00 go now and change your order buttons no lower than 27.00

Spread the word no to your list tweet it facebook it nothing in IM will be sold for less than 27.00 from now on lets change IM forever...

WF WSO went from free to 40. why do we go from posting for free selling at 67.00 to paying posting 40.00 and selling for 7.00 don't you get it.

We went in the wrong direction

Go now tell everyone there is a big movement in IM today 2/17/2011

No ebooks are to be sold for less than 27.00 kill all bonus items

Richard

In some ways yes because the competition is more stiff. So one needs to be more flexible and innovative. On the other hand, there are more tools out there that automate stuff and makes things easier & quicker. A lot has change online and we just need to keep up with the times and continue learning.

It's easier if you know what your doing.

It's HARDER if you don't what you are doing.

Well I hope not, because I just got laid off today.

I think it is roughly the same. There is a lot more competition today, but there are also more revenue streams and an incredible amount of people who feel comfortable purchasing online unlike there was even just five years ago.

Sorry, not trying to hijack this thread. Moving on.

There's certainly a lot more entrants (competition), and traffic sources have become a lot better at not getting taken advantage of...

For example, Brad Callen made his first small fortune doing nothing but reciprocal links back in the day and was ranked #1 for "weight loss" getting 20K visitors / mo to his long form salesletters - yeah those days are gone, lol.

Also, marketers have learned how to extract the most $/customer with upsells, downsells, continuity, etc. so they can afford to bid a lot higher on PPC advertising, for example.

HOWEVER, there's plenty to go around and if you get involved with PEOPLE you'll actually find making money online a whole lot easier. There are now more marketers with bigger lists than ever before. For some people, as time goes on marketing just gets easier - it's all how you approach it and structure your business. Find ways to make people money who send you traffic and you'll just make more... and more... and more as the pool continues to fill.

There is a truth on it because not all clients today are good. There are also lots of scammers in the internet today.

IM and India no way, not for next 20 years. The country has poor basic infrastructure, power outages are rampant. Most towns face sever power cuts up to 8 hours a day and 12 to 14 hours during summer months. Internet connectivity is far from satisfactory. Yes what they have is large middle class which is gaining in buying power. Brick & Mortar stores would do better, American brands specially. Real estate is another damper. Real estate in Bombay now Mumbai, the major business city of India has commercial space as expensive as Manhattan if not more. Most times businesses have to buy the space as very limited leasing options are available. Last but not the least large part of business transactions are carried out under the table. I believe Indian's are smart people but opportunities in tech areas are far far less in that country.

IMO we out here need to be more aggressive in making right choices be it a business, politics or girl friend. Laser focus attention to education and education in Science and Math so that we can maintain our status in the world as a leader.

Remember way back when, when all you needed to do was "keyword stuffing" & a few other tweaks & voila! I'd never even heard of "backlinking" until I got back into web design a few years ago. Times have certainly changed...

Things are improving for me, although a part of that is improving my focus and setting clearer goals. It's still possible to earn a living online, but if you expect to do it without working it's probably not going to happen.

Yes, It is harder to make money because we have a lot of competitors. And we will face with them everyday, who had more budget and skills, s/he will win. With few years ago, if you have small knowledge about web, you can make 1k or 10k from Google AdSense easily, now it may harder because a lot of blog, contents, publishers. We must work harder and find other alternative ways to make more money.

I think because of the saturation of the market as more and more people are getting online and wanting to make money online, there is stiffer competition which makes it a little more difficult. I just keep working and eventually I figure I will make it.

It's easier these days because there are a lot more people out there who don't have a clue what they are doing. It's easier to stand tall above the rest. There's a lot more traffic. There's a bigger audience. There are a lot more opportunities. Yes a lot of the services are being outsourced to India but that is not where you are going to make the big money anyway. You should be the one taking advantage of the cheap services from India.

And as for not knowing what Google are going to do next, I don't think Google has really changed in the last ten years. They still rank sites with good high quality content and lots of relevant incoming links above those that do not have them. It's not rocket science. The only thing they have changed over the years is the ways in which they gid rid of sites that are trying to manipulate their rankings.

I think, just like another business, if you are looking for a need in the market, there is always money to be made. And also, creativity is the factor that most of us (yes, I include myself) are missing. We need to be more creative and find , white hat ways, to make money, we just got to keep trying. As far as I am concerned, success, for me, is always around the corner...

All you have to do is look at history. Opportunities have opened up for the masses multiple times throughout history. Those same doors have also been slammed shut since then.

I think a lot of verticals are much harder to compete in, with big business now into the online realm with very deep pockets. However, new verticals open up all the time.

It's about how you position yourself and the execution.

Things have change but it's not harder. Just like with any off line business, new businesses going to open up in your area, so you have to always find new ways of getting customers coming to you instead of your competitor.

It's harder because many forums teaches IM. We create our own competition

Plain put: it's 1000x Easier than it ever was.

Most people think it's harder because they
believe that amount of money to be made online
is limited.

As if it's a zero sum game.

It's not. There's plenty of money and clients
for everybody. The reason it seems harder
is because of posts like these where
people ask stupid questions...

I say, forget about the gurus, get a plan,
follow the plan, tweak and adapt that plan
to your niche and make some F'ing money!

Igor

Internet is a dynamic field...Be flexible to change or perish!

Competition is the main engine of any progress, so I'm sure that new opportunities and ways of earning money online will be discovered and developed!

This is hard question. From one point there is huge competition. But from the other point competition means MORE MONEY!

And if you know what to do - it's great!

Of course, some specific methods will be harder to pull off today, but on the other hand, we have so many more opportunities available to us today.

Don't pay any attention to these negative people, as many people are typically just looking for a job, but a business. As a result, they are looking for methods and systems that pay off instantly, but unfortunately they won't get very far with this sort of a mindset.

Paul

The easy cash of the early days was only easy because people discovered it. They had to be actively looking for something in the first place. If ten years ago you weren't looking for "Google cash" and arbitrage or easy links, it was just as hard then as it is now.

If you still aren't looking for something that you don't yet know exists, or if no-one's giving you their hot secrets that aren't yet played out, nothing has actually changed at all.

Hello,
when one thing ends another thing begins,
I have had many failures and I have come up with something better each time,
I think there are more ways to make money then ever before.

I believe that, due to increased numbers of people doing it, IM is a bit more difficult to profit from than it was 5 years ago. However, I think "competitive" is a better word than "difficult".

I wasn't in the game 5 years ago, but I know there are more people online than there were 5 years ago, and people are definitely a lot more willing to pull out their credit cards and buy online.

Also, from what I've seen, there are relatively few knowledgeable people doing serious internet marketing online if you step outside of the "make money online/weight loss/etc" niches.

We can say that the money making niche has been more crowded than before but there are ways to over come the sudden increase of people in this niche by finding out new ways of getting grasp of other streams of income.

Andrea

its harder for beginners and easier for experts so it will definitely take time to be fully lived on internet. but, it will no more be harder in due course of time