Teens making money in industry?

[ScaryManInThePark]

How can teens jump into this industry and start making money? I have no job, so I won't have a whole lot of money to start up with. But since I have no life, I have plenty of time. I have minimal web design, and some very minimal graphics skills, so I would be able to do simple things involving those. I tried learning PHP before, and it didn't work out very well (I simply can't understand how MySQL works). So anything that I could do to start making any money would pertain to low quality web development, or simply trading domain names for money, and hoping to make a profit. If you guys know of a simplier way to make more dynamic websites, I could try learning that. Or if there are great opportunities in PHP development, I could try again to learn. So, anything like that?

 

[Sabre]

The easiest way to start is to go down the route of development.
It's low cost and brings healthy rewards.

You can either learn coding and do it yourself, or hire someone else (as I did) and then give them commission (a percentage of the sale price/ revenue). It's the least risky and most profitable route IMO.

 

[ScaryManInThePark]

How do I develop to make money? I am currently making a website, but the way it's set up, it's not going to make money. I don't think I want to bother trying to make money from that one, but if I was to set up a website purely to try to make money from it, what would I do?

 

[Sabre]

The best way to start is to use Google Adsense

www.google.com/adsense

If you start getting a large amount of traffic, you can then begin selling adspace.

 

[ScaryManInThePark]

What's a good way to build a site which attracts a lot of people? What's the most effective way to advirtise (without spending too much)? I have all summer because I have no life and no job.

I've not developed a website before (some plain webpages, but not a full website). I am currently doing one right now, but the way it's set up, I don't think it will make much.

 

[Dan]

You need to make a site that a lot of people will want to go to, obviously. How many people do you think will want to go to Church of the Toxic Monkey? (If that's what you're talking about.)

Also, MySQL is pretty simple. What don't you understand about it?

 

[ScaryManInThePark]

The website I am currently making is just something between me and a few friends for fun. Just sort of something to do, I doubt hardly anyone will visit. But I still want to do it.

What sorts of sites would attract large numbers of people? How do people find out about it?

Anyway, on the subject of MySQL, I figured out how to connect to the database, but retrieving data, editing data, saving data to the database, couldn't figure out what I was doing at all. I had some book, but what it did was give me some stupid program to do those things instead of teaching me how to do it with the code.

 

[angisson]

Hell, I started out on nothing, I had to work for it all.. I just got lucky and won a contest and got 10 domains free and thats how I got started with sites

but before that I started a site called "testyourbrain.asubdomain.com" it was a half ass job that I did and no one went to it... but it didn't stop me, I did it so when the real time comes I would be good at it..


just start out slow.. thats the best thing

 

[peaches017]

Hey

I would think the easiest way to start off is to develop, develop, develop. Apply for Google Adsense to reap rewards from your visitors. Try and be creative, what kind of site would you like but you don't see? Could you build it? Could you hire someone to help you build it?

Don't start registering names unless you are sure it's good; most of the time, if you're starting, you won't be able to get far in trying to sell freshly registered names.

Feel free to continue to ask questions, I'll try to help as much as possible.

 

[ScaryManInThePark]

Okay... Well let me throw a few ideas out there and can you guys tell me if I should go for it.

A forum for card games people made up themselves
A short guide to using P2P networks
A website with a collection of recipees for 1 sort of versatile food (maybe pizza, or Chili?)

Any of those any good?

I couldn't really afford to hire anyone else to help build it, unless I took Sabre's idea and gave them some sort of comission, but someone with no experience probably can't convience someone to do that.

 

[member-33795]

I like the first one but you need to add something else in my oppinion. Something that small wont do to well in my oppinion. If you add a thing saying (once you get some profit), the most popular game will be made into a flash game. (pay a game developer $300 ish).

Thanks

 

[deleted984054565403]

Development will be your best bet starting out -- at least it was for me. It's hard to make money from startup forums, but over time if you do it right, your forum will grow in posts, staff, and members, inevitably earning you revenue on AdSense.

Don't forget the value of resell -- my first sale was a domain a friend bought for me that I developed and sold in nine months for $500. It was a forum arcade that had about 600 members. I didn't make a dime while it was in development, but I made a hefty chunk when selling it.

 

[ScaryManInThePark]

Okay, so say I do the first one (I'll take a loss in the begining and sell it later), how to I advirtise it? I don't have a whole lot to spend, so any low cost, or very effective advirtising ideas would be appriciated. What kind of advirtising did you have to get 600 people to join your arcade?

 

[deleted984054565403]

Okay, so say I do the first one (I'll take a loss in the begining and sell it later), how to I advirtise it? I don't have a whole lot to spend, so any low cost, or very effective advirtising ideas would be appriciated. What kind of advirtising did you have to get 600 people to join your arcade?

I didn't spend a dime advertising. Word-of-mouth was the most effective way to draw visitors, but offering contests, advertising in signatures, and providing content that will give visitors a reason to return will all keep them coming back.

 

[ScaryManInThePark]

Do you think anyone would be influenced by somesort of forum money, like good games or reviews or something are awarded forum money, and I offer some sort of reward for forum money, like here you can get cash or a domain name, there I can give people money in the same way, or decks of cards, or try to think of something better?

 

[Sabre]

It's a good idea, but in practice it's very hard to get right.

You need to ensure that you're pulling in more than you're giving away.

 

[ScaryManInThePark]

What if the value of the forum money was tacked to the profit of the site? Like all the forum's money together is worth all the profit of the site put together. Might give people slight incentive to click on a couple of the ads once in a while, and ensures that I don't loose money. Or is that just too complicated and would drive people away?

 

[deleted984054565403]

What if the value of the forum money was tacked to the profit of the site? Like all the forum's money together is worth all the profit of the site put together. Might give people slight incentive to click on a couple of the ads once in a while, and ensures that I don't loose money. Or is that just too complicated and would drive people away?

You have to be really careful as to not to cross the line between displaying ads and encouraging visitors to click on ads, which is against every PPC programs' Terms of Service -- offering incentives to click ads is click fraud.

 

[ScaryManInThePark]

Well, assuming I only mention that all the forum's money together is worth the total profit made from the site, and not anything else regarding that, and do not ask anyone to click on the ads, would that be okay? Or is that just getting too risky and should be dropped?

Anyway, what are other incentives to get people to come to the site for a site like that?

 

[hotdogs]

You could try making a fansite. You just buy a design for like $10, http://fanatical-designs.com have make good designs. You can get free hosting and sometimes get a free domain then you can find other dedicated fans to work on the site for free. Thats what I did. http://popstory.com is a good fansite host.

 

[ScaryManInThePark]

Where can I get a free domain?

 

[_FLIP_]

Here at NamePros! Check out the NameBucks (NP$) Sales & Auctions section to find various ways to earn NP$. Once you reach 425 NP$ you can get yourself a domain! Then just pay 425 NP$ each year to renew if that price remains the same.

 

[bfluid]

1 Tip... develop a website around a market that is already there. I like the card game forum idea but... you have no idea if anyone is going to be looking around for one.

I have found that selling products online has been easiest for me.

To learn about selling products you might want to read around at the "Warrior Forum" (google it).

 

[ScaryManInThePark]

I joined that warrior forum, I tried downloading and installing the Search Warrior Pro thing, but it didn't work (probably because I have a 64-Bit OS). Just wondering what I'm missing? What exactly is it?

If you're talking about selling physical products, I couldn't find stuff about that there, so I assume you're talking digital products. Do you make your own digital products or get some with resale rights?