Can You Afford To Outsource?

How Much You Should Be Spending On Outsourcing

After writing my first outsourcing article, I have come to realize that there are just simply too many people looking for information on outsourcing. Look on the top right, for instance. You see, the number one all time popular article on ADJ is on outsourcing—and looks like it will stay there for awhile. To answer the many other outsourcing questions you may have, I have decided to write more posts on this subject. Today, I will give you my opinion on how much you should be spending on outsourcing.

If you are willing to spend any amount on outsourcing, you could go ahead and do it but it would not be a good personal financial decision. When I outsource something, monetary value is very important to me and I would not outsource anything unless I am totally satisfied with the money I am spending.

But how do I know I can afford to outsource? I use a very simple formula. First, I look at the whole project in terms of how much time I would spend to do the same thing. Let’s say I would like to outsource the chore of replying to all my emails. I spend 2 hours daily replying to my email. If, for example, my salary is $10 per hour, I would therefore be spending $20 of my time daily replying to email. Now, what’s a reasonable amount for me to spend if someone else is doing it for me? Simple—it has to be lesser than 1/3 of my own cost doing the same thing. In the above email example, I would only outsource if I could find someone willing to look after my email for less than $7 a day.

This is just how I do things and you don’t have to follow my formula step-by-step. Come up with your own figures that make sense for you. One thing you need to keep in mind: there are some projects on which you will not be able to put monetary value by comparing it with your own hourly rate. These projects are those which need to be done regardless of costs, such as redesigning your website, producing a professional-looking eBook from your word document, etc. For these types of projects, I recommend that you post your projects on more than one outsourcing site and pick the one with lowest cost. Read my previous outsource article to obtain a list of outsourcing websites.

I hope today’s article will help you figure out if outsourcing is for you and what you can afford to spend on it. I’ll be writing more on this topic in the future, so keep checking back. Don’t forget to bookmark this site for later use.

The Main Problem Making Money With Google AdSense

Making Money Online With Google AdSense

First Published: May 22, 2011 EntrepreneurJourney.com

AdSense makes money; there is no doubt about it. However, it’s not a perfectly flawless system you should rely on to make your only source of income. Today, I am going to touch base on this a little bit based on my AdSense experience.

The main problem I am having with Adsense is the tremendous level of fluctuation. There are days when I make good money from Adsense, and there are days when I make not so good money. You may say that proper AdSense optimization should solve this problem. Yes, I thought the same way and experimented optimization only to figure out that this heavy fluctuation is out of my hand. It’s kind of like the Internet has its slow traffic days and high traffic days and we have no control over it.

If I have a situation in which I have no control, I try to resolve it working on something in which I have full control. In the above scenario, instead of wasting too much time on fixing Adsense, I worked to diversify my ad revenues. Besides Adsense, I am running Infolinks, Chitika, and some private ads (mainly on A Dawn Journal). My least expected ad system Infolinks is actually making me the most unexpected money. There are days when my Infolinks revenues beat Google Adsense. I know it is hard to believe, but it has happened a few times in the past.

Just like about anything else in life, online money making sources need to be diversified as well. The century old Adage “don’t put all your eggs in one basket” applies to Internet entrepreneurship as well and you should never bet all your sites on one income source.

Identify Today's Trends to Make Better Future Decisions

Internet Shopping Is On The Rise – Entrepreneurs Take Note

Statistics Canada says in a report that Canadians are shopping more online these days than ever before. Let’s look at some important highlights of the report:

- Canadians ordered $15.1 billion worth goods and services in 2009 (was 12.8 billion in 2007)

-39 per cent of Canadians (aged 16 and over) placed 95 million orders (was 32 per cent and 70 million orders in 2007)

- Average value per order stands at $158 (was $183 in 2007)

- Most common types of orders are: travel services and entertainment products such as books, clothing, magazines, accessories etc.

- 52 per cent Canadians went to research their products before buying at stores (43 per cent in 2007)

Now, here is what these highlights translate into in a broader sense:

- Although these stats represent Canada, the world’s one if the top developed countries – situations are no different in other developed countries and developing countries will soon follow.

- More and more people will be accessing the Internet.

- Online retailers will be seeing increased demand for their products and services

- Advertisement opportunities (for blogs and websites) will increase representing online retailers and stores.

- As people are spending more time on the Internet, researching before buying at physical stores and shopping online, content base websites or blogs will see a huge spike in traffic.

So, if you are an Internet entrepreneur, you should pay attention to these trends – people’s changing habits. The Internet will always provide money making opportunities for those who are able to identify, analyze, and utilize today’s trends to make better strategic decisions in the future.

First Published on: Sep 27, 2010 EntrepreneurJourney.com

The Internet Habits of Personal Finance Bloggers - Get Rich Slowly

J.D. Roth - Get Rich Slowly

On April 30, 2007, I wrote an article on Web 2.0. The web has evolved so much that it is an indispensable part of our life, and we don't use the web the same way it used to be. Professional Internet users, such as bloggers, or any others who depend on the Web for a living, use the Internet differently than average users. I thought it would be helpful for my readers to know how a professional, such as Get Rich Slowly's author J. D., uses the Internet on a daily basis. Here is what J. D. provided for A D Journal readers.

A Day in the Life of a Blogger

I am an internet junkie. I have been addicted to the net since 1994 - and earlier if you count USENET newsgroups and the bulletin boards of the 1980s. I've always craved a connection with other people, the mad exchange of ideas that interconnectivity allows.

Since I began blogging full-time this March, it's become painfully apparent just how much time I spend online.

The first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is roll to the edge of the bed and grab my MacBook Pro from the floor. While I grog awake, I make a quick pass to verify that Get Rich Slowly hasn't imploded. (It never has!) I also tabulate statistics from the day before, entering them into an Excel spreadsheet.

After I get out of bed, I spend half an hour in Apple Mail, processing the most urgent messages. I used to reply to every piece of mail I received, but that's physically impossible now. It bothers me that I have so many unanswered messages in my mailbox, but there's nothing I can do about it.

After breakfast and after exercise, I spend time gathering information in my web browser (Safari) and composing articles in my text editor (BBEdit). This generally takes several hours of my day, during which I'm also on iChat with other bloggers and friends.

I also try to make time to visit other personal finance sites, especially blogs. I used to read everything via RSS feed, but like my e-mail, this has become unmanageable. I've abandoned my feed reader (NetNewsWire) and now read blogs the old-fashioned way: via the web. But this means I don't catch new stories as soon as I once did. Sometimes I miss great stories completely.

I try to wind down my heavy internet use by about mid-afternoon so that I can spend time with my wife when she gets home. Still, I check in on the site every hour or two to make sure things are okay. And then before bed, I show Kris the preliminary numbers for the day.

All told, I spend about 70 hours a week online. According to the marvelous utility RescueTime, I spend about three hours on my computer every Saturday, about five hours each on Friday and Sunday, and then about 14 hours a day Monday through Thursday.

Of this, about 12 hours a week is spent in BBEdit, performing that physical act of writing. About ten hours is spent at Get Rich Slowly performing a variety of blog-related tasks. I spend nearly eight hours a week processing e-mail — and remember, that's just handling the barest essentials. Finally, I spend about three hours every week fussing with Excel. Those four tasks take 33 hours of my time every week, and that doesn't include research for various articles.

I'm not happy with how much time I spend online. Tracking my habits with RescueTime is the first step in determining methods to reduce the madness. My goal is to become more efficient, to become less wired. My goal is to spend more time in real life again!

First Published: ADawnJournal.com Jun 13, 2008

What You Need To Become A Successful Blogger?

Dot Com Lifestyle

First Published: June 6, 2008 ADawnJournal.com

The post you are about to read is the last in a four-part series. Let me give you the subtitles of these four posts:

1. Do Not Quit Your Job Right After Reading This Article
2. Can Anyone Make A Living Blogging?
3. What Is A Dot Com Lifestyle?
4. What You Need To Become A Successful Blogger?

Part Four is where it gets very interesting. I asked some celebrity bloggers (including Darren Rowse and Steve Pavlina) to answer the following question: What You Need to Become a Successful Blogger? I will be presenting the perspectives these bloggers provided for A Dawn Journal readers. If this is your first time here, you might want to Subscribe to the RSS Feed. Thank you for reading.

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Can Anyone Make A Living Blogging?

Part 4 - What You Need To Become A Successful Blogger?

Warning: Do not quit you job right after reading this article. Do quit once your entrepreneurship starts making more money than your 9 – 5 paycheque .

This section has two parts. In the first, I will describe what I think you need to become a successful Blogger/Internet entrepreneur. In the second, I will describe what celebrity-bloggers/Internet entrepreneurs think you need to become successful.

Part One

I think these are the most important things you need to become a successful person in this line of work (or in any line of work).

A. Passion - Pick something you love to write about. Pick something you can do year after year enthusiastically and passionately. Don’t give yourself another job. This should not feel like a job. It should feel like you are not working at all. But how you can tell you love doing this? Your topic and/or
subject should be your true goal in life. This should be something you can't possibly live without and you would do for free. Yes, that is correct. Imagine there is no money involved here and then ask yourself, "Do I love my subject enough that if there was no monetary reward involved and I would still
do it for free?” If your answer is yes, than you have found your true passion. When I started www.adawn.net, I had no idea that a website can make money. I did not start it for money; in addition, I enjoyed it so much that I launched my 2nd site www.adawnjournal.com. I was not making money at that time and even now, if I were not making money – I would still be working on these sites. You cannot and will not fail if you do something you love and it is your true passion in life.

B. Perseverance - Stick to it like your life depended on it. Success does not come easy. There will always be ups and downs. You may not make money for the 1st year, 2nd year, or even 3rd year, but you will make money one day. Not everyone is John Chow. He monetized his blog in September 2006 and made $352.94. In September 2007, he made $20,512.17. Not everyone can make money that fast but you will make money if you are patient and keep working hard. Think of this as a one-way journey. If you started it, you must end this with success. There is not going back.

C. Believe in Yourself - This is a simple but very powerful strategy. Get rid of self-imposed limitations and start living a life full of confidence. When you are able to truly believe in yourself, you will start achieving your goals.

Part Two

I asked some celebrity bloggers to answer the same above question for A Dawn Journal readers who
might not be that tech-savvy; after all, personal finance blog readers are not expected to be tech-savvy. The perspectives I provided in Part One are somewhat general. The perspectives these high-profile bloggers provided are based on their ocean full of practical knowledge and hands-on experience in their professional work.

Darren Rowse - Darren wrote: “It's just such a big question that I feel I'd be doing a disservice to your readers to try to sum it up in just a few words!” He then added, “Probably the best way for me to answer this is to point to a post I wrote on the topic a few days back which has 12 traits of successful bloggers.” Darren also recommended another post. Here are those two posts Darren recommended for A Dawn Journal readers:

12 Traits of Successful Bloggers http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/05/20/11-traits-of-successful-bloggers/

Blogging Tips for Beginners http://www.problogger.net/archives/2006/02/14/blogging-for-beginners-2/

Steve Pavlina – Steve asked A Dawn Journal readers to read the two following posts:

How to Make Money from Your Blog http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/05/how-to-make-money-from-your-blog/

How to Build a High-Traffic Web Site or blog http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/01/how-to-build-a-high-traffic-web-site-or-blog/

Nick Ramsay – Nick wanted to share the following with A Dawn Journal readers:
“Like most people, I was working a day job and desperately in search of the time freedom that working from home on the internet provides. One of the most important realizations I came to in order to achieve that goal was that you really don't need to make a lot of money at all. If you can cut expenses and sacrifice some of the luxuries you enjoy in your current lifestyle, you might find that working from home is a realistic possibility. Then, of course, you'll have more time to build up your home business and earn back those lifestyle choices you previously gave up.
Blogging is not my specialty, but I have outsourced an entire blog's worth of content before, and that site provides a steady stream of income that is most welcome. It's interesting to compare that particular blog with my own, much bigger yet considerably less profitable, personal blog. The outsourced blog is very much focused on one theme, as opposed to my personal blog, which is a mish-mash of topics. That means that it ranks consistently higher in search engine results for terms related to that topic. Another possible reason for its success is that the articles are, at around 750 words each, content rich and most importantly, useful for the reader.”

Bob Buskirk – Bob had the following message for A Dawn Journal readers:
“I think to become a successful blogger you need to write about what you love, write QUALITY posts, have a good posting schedule, and most importantly connect with your readers.”

. . . If you are still reading, congratulations on making it this far. This post is one of my longest and will hopefully be generating heavy traffic. Making a living blogging is not easy; but it is not difficult either. For the first few years, you have to sacrifice a lot. You have to give up all the little (and some big) indulgences and bury yourself in work. You have to think outside the box. You have to transform yourself from a traditional mindset to a very non-traditional mindset. Doing all of these can be quite a daunting task, but it is not impossible. If you can do it, a very rewarding dot com lifestyle awaits you.

NB: After reading this article, if you are inspired enough to become a successful entrepreneur, please share your story with A Dawn Journal readers. It will be appreciated.