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10 Steps to a 7 Figure Income From Your Site
Posted by Scott on 12th October, 2007 | 69 commentsLearn to code
If you want to make it on the web, especially if you’re just starting out, you need to know how to code. I suppose there are exceptions to this rule, like if you intend to just blog within an app like Wordpress and never venture outside of that, but I think most successful Internet entrepreneurs know how to code. The reason for this is that the web lends itself so well to automation. When people don’t know how to code and automate, they either become button pushing monkeys spending their day hitting essentially the same keystrokes as they did the day before, or they hire automatons to do those tasks manually which costs money, which inflates expenses, which causes businesses to fail. Coding accomplishes repetitive tasks elegantly, efficiently, and cheaply, and is your key to building a great web business.
If you don’t know how to code or where to start, I would recommend learning PHP and MySQL first. Get some books, take some classes, start coding some basic scripts for fun. I started out coding in 1994 or so in Perl and I hated it for years but eventually warmed up to it, added MySQL knowledge, and grew from there. Today, I do have some gaps in my coding knowledge (like AJAX), but I am competent enough to write good apps, modify apps, and fix bugs, and I don’t have to always rely on anyone else to do those things even though I do have great developers on my team.
I know how to write Perl and PHP applications that work with MySQL and write and optimize SQL queries, how to compile PHP & Apache from source, configure MySQL and Apache, tweak my.cnf, php.ini, httpd.conf, install Perl modules, setup new dedicated servers, migrate data from one server to another, manage DNS/domains, how to load balance and mirror web servers and do round robin w/ fail over DNS in place of a hardware load balancer, and do any server administration task that has been needed on our 5+ dedicated servers in the past decade. I know how to design in Photoshop and turn that design into a working web page in HTML/CSS, and I edit HTML like I’m editing any text paragraph in a Word document. I know how to work with XML based API’s, etc etc. You don’t necessarily have to know all of this, but as you can imagine, this knowledge has saved me a lot of time, money, and hassle over the years.
Make friends
It’s true, it’s not always what you know, it’s often who you know. People can get you in the door by promoting your site, setting you up with great partnerships that can grow your business and revenue, and people can give you great tips and advice. Make friends wherever you can and NEVER burn bridges, you never know when you’ll need someone some day and nothing good will ever come from bashing someone publicly or privately. Phone calls and face to face dinners/lunches will go a long way towards making you “stick” in a person’s mind and to solidify your relationship much better than an email, so don’t be shy to have real world communications with people.
Automate & Delegate
This goes hand in hand with knowing how to code, but not every process can be solved via code. Not everything can be automated from the get go. Some processes are complex and have to be done manually until you’re able to sort everything out. In those cases, I will run a process manually until I’ve got my head around it and the repetitiveness has started to drive me crazy, then I will either hire someone for $ or I will code an automated solution, and bingo, no more manual labor and I can move on to creating something new. Trying to do everything yourself, manually, will put a cap on how successful you can be and how far you can scale your business. If you don’t automate and/or delegate to others, you will never grow. That said, my whole company is made up of a whopping 7 people, so you don’t necessarily have to have a bloated company to run a complex and successful business.
Build, move on, then build something new
Building an Internet business is unique because once you’ve built and automated a process, that process can usually continue indefinitely without a whole lot of work. This is especially true for user generated content sites like forums or review sites where the users do all the work once you build the infrastructure, or pure marketing businesses where you’re setting up a positive ROI traffic source to a landing page to earn affiliate income for instance, and is less true for blogs where you have to continually churn out a work product, or for an ecommerce site that has to continually move a physical product. But for those sites where this applies, you can act like a bricklayer, laying one layer, making sure it’s solid, then moving onto the next. Don’t get discouraged if you’re new to the game and are still on your first layer of bricks. Over time your efforts will build up and you’ll wonder how you got to where you are. Focus on building each level and make sure that it is stable (and won’t crumble under you) as you add more levels to your business.
Make small changes and test everything
The web is a beautiful thing. When you have 100,000 people looking at your site, you can make a small change and see that change multiplied across 100,000 pairs of eyes instantly. That means that small changes can have a big impact on your business (good or bad). There are a number of tools out there to help you measure and test changes that you make to your site (such as changes to the layout of a specific page, like a landing page). Google offers an A/B and multivariate testing tool that lets you test zillions of different changes to a page without actually testing each change individually, as does Vertster.com. When you want to make a change to a page, don’t become super paranoid and paralyzed by the fear that your change, though intuitively good, could backfire, but do test wherever you can. And as always, record any major changes in a log with the date and time of the change, so that if there’s a problem later, you can look back and figure out when it began.
Love what you do
You hear this one all the time but it’s true. If you hate what you do, you might be successful at it for a while if you’re strapped for cash because survival is the ultimate motivator. Eventually though, you’ll burn out. Try to work on things that you’re excited about, and genuinely give a rip about.
Stay hungry
If you start to become successful (whatever that means to you), you may find yourself becoming complacent, and your work will suffer. If you do a good job at building your Internet business, it will run itself, and you will find yourself with more free time. For me, I have setup my business very well with automation and delegation, so most of my work time is spent growing the business rather than maintaining it. As a result, the time I spend working is usually “optional”, and that can make me complacent sometimes where I have to find ways to motivate myself. I find that I am very motivated by criticism, complaints, and competition. I can’t stand it when another business is beating me at my own game, or when I read customers recommending a competitor over my business. Then, the goal becomes to stomp on my competitor and make my customer as happy as possible. So when I need a kick in the pants, I’ll do some research, look at forum posts about our services, look at competitors, and it usually doesn’t take long before the competitive juices start flowing again.
The customer IS always right
Have an unreasonable customer? Who doesn’t. The web offers you a unique gift in this case: the ability to hide and disguise your anger and frustration. If you talk to a customer on the phone or in person, you could come across as pissed, which will only serve to turn that customer into a vigilante against you, spreading rumors and ill will about you throughout the Internet land. But when you deal with customers by email, you have the choice to either bite your “tongue”, be nice, courteous, and professional, or you can vent and really let the customer have it. Vent enough times and I assure you, you’ll only need a two second Google search to find negative feedback about your business scattered throughout the web. It is much, much easier to take a deep breath, maybe take some time and sleep on it, and deal with a customer via email in a courteous/humble way, than it is to salvage your business when you’ve created 50 vocal opponents to your business that you cannot win back no matter what you do. Have I always practiced what I preach? No, that’s why I can safely tell you how important this is.
Finish what you start
For most people, the rush that comes with the completion of a tough project is enough of a high that it can be very motivating the next time you’re faced with a challenging task. If you never finish anything you start, though, then you haven’t experienced that high of a successfully completed task and you will always be trudging through projects, struggling to find the motivation to get them done. It’s much easier to finish what you start if you stay focused on a very narrow project or set of tasks. Try not to get distracted by several projects at once, and if you aren’t accustomed to finishing what you start, then start with short, small projects at first. You’ll start to feel that “yes, I did it!” feeling even with small projects, which you can carry over to the more daunting tasks which you will accomplish too, and so on. After all, everyone has ideas. What separates you from them is always in the implementation. Don’t think it, do it.
I used to dislike conferences but now I think they’re a lot of fun. They’re sort of a mini-vacation for me, and I enjoy the break in my daily routine. Before a conference, try to book at least a few meetings with companies that you already work with – this is part of the “make friends” mantra, where a face to face meeting can work wonders for you. While at a conference, I always attend as many sessions as I can. Sometimes I zone out during the session and just brainstorm, but very often a speaker will say something that jogs my brain in a new direction which helps me think of great ideas. I’ve also been in sessions where attendees will speak during a Q&A (at the end) and either turn me on to something great that they’re doing (that I can “borrow”), or possibly turn me on to a business that I can partner with.
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Friday, October 12th, 2007 at 7:20 am and is filed under Web Business. If you like this post why not subscribe to my full text RSS feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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Thank you for sharing. Very helpful to me.
Learn to code? My blog is about helping people learn (and enjoy) what you can do if you know how to program.
Apparently there isn’t a lot of peole agreeing with me :/
ps. you don’t have the option to follow up the comments via email
very good article.. would definitely like to share your ideas in our forum http://www.cafedenepal.com Make Money Online section.
Sure, will give you backlink !
Hi Scott,
Great article! Any personal recommendations on any books about coding for beginners?
Ideally I’d like to look into training courses but a good book or two to get my feet wet would be a start.
I look forward to reading more useful tips on WRevenue.com soon!
Andrew
p.s. I’m subcribing to this RSS feed
I have to agree with you, knowing how to code gives you so much space to be able to place your practice in act.
But just one question to this coder, why in the heck you have a Home buttn and Work button pointing to the homepage?
(just a teaser).
it’s not as easy as you picture it, learn php and mysql. You need to practise, read up on internet security, as you’re project being defaced or hacked would harm it too. Doing things from scratch right now is like reinventing the wheel. There are so many opensource projects going on so you can basically pick functionality form different ones and create your own, this requires minimal coding and time.
thx you scott for your nice post
i have agood forum too and i learnt few tips from here
its
http://www.investorsbay.com/
Maybe, but great stuff just doesn’t come in a nice pre-packaged box. Except for its forum, ResellerRatings is 100% custom code. So is Dealighted.com. The backend shopping engine that monetizes those sites is custom code running off the Shopping.com API - that doesn’t come in a box. The code that we use to display shopping.com products on the right side of our homepage and elsewhere is custom. Point being - if all you want to do is write content and put it on the web, then yes there is lots of stuff to let you do that. But if you want to do really unique things that no one else is doing, or implement your own ideas that you know will generate a ton of revenue, you need to know how to code them. I write mini-applications almost every day and there is no open source software out there that does what I do.
And yes I know it’s not easy to learn to code - it took me years. This isn’t a get rich quick blog. It takes months and years of challenging hard work to be successful at anything.
I am enjoying reading your articles. There is some very useful information, thanks.
I like to see what someone who has been there and back has to say about their web based businesses.
WRITE MORE POSTS LIKE THIS.
I found this exceptionally motivating…I wanted to take a half day from work to begin coding one of the sites that I’ve been meaning to work on.
I agree whole heartedly with what you’re saying. In this day and age the Internet can be compared to the airline industry. There’s a ton of people using it, but only a few people know how to actually pilot the thing.
If you can code a site to fill a niche then do it. It greatly increases your chances of turning a profit, and your chances are even better at making a livable profit. If you don’t know how to code then consider outsourcing. Read this book (http://www.truebluetitan.com/books/the-4-hour-workweek) for ideas on how to make this approach successful.
What a fantastic and insightful article. Thank you for the information.
I agree 100% with staying hungry. Some people (myself included) need some drive, if we’re hungry for success, then it will come.
Great post Scott! I’m pretty fluent in coding and have a ton of ideas for the web. My only problem is I start the projects but never finish them. What I end up with is a bunch of great sites that are half baked.
Your paragraph about “Finish what your start” applies to me!
Hi Scott,
Nice shot! I liked the article very much except “learn to code” part. I think the most valuable asset in today’s world is time, and as a blogger we all should accept that we should spend our time as efficient as possible. When we look at the problem from this angle, i believe if we have enough funding we can hire a coder to do the necessary customization for us. There are really great coders in Vietnam who are making great jobs with an affordable prices. I agree, it would be better if we are good at coding like you, but it is not the end of the world if we are not. There will always be some good coders we can hire. For cheaper options anyone can try the freelance sites www.elance.com, www.guru.com, www.rentacoder and www.scriptlance.com.
Cheers,
Mert
Thanks for the excellent advice!
Nice post!
I agree that people should stay hungry! .
Like Mert’s comment about outsourcing work to someone else is so much easier. I struggle to find the time to learn how to “code” and these days there are so many different softwares out of the box you can use. I wish I took the time to learn how to code but I took a different path in college.
In your other post, I think it’s amazing to see that mingle2.com was coded in ~66 hours.
What made you go with shopping.com API? over others like pricegrabber, pricerunner?
I heard shopping.com is more customizable and payout is higher than other competitors?
I hope to see your review on implementing these API’s over people using WidgetBucks or Chitika’s widgets?
Perhaps your future blog post? =)
Wow, that was one of the best blog posts I have ever read. It has inspired me to keep pursuing my online ventures, but just to implement a few of your points!
Very helpful information, thanks a lot!
A very good post. You have provided a very detail information.
Hi, Just stumbled across your blog via John Chow. Great post, it’s great to hear insightful well thought out tips from people who have been there done that.
I love the section for the customer is always right… I think a better title would be
“the customer is not always right but you have to make them believe the customer is always right”
but that wouldn’t fit in to many title spaces. I agree with the comments though. Sell anything on the internet long enough and you will probably “not” bite your tongue at some point, but you can learn from that as well, hopefully you will just learn faster than the customer
Very true…unless you know to code your blog/site you never feel like being in control of it…unless your feel so…you can never be comfortable in making money online…and wur Revenue will always be a distant dream…
Hi Indyank,
I don’t agree with this. To be a good Formula 1 pilot do you need to be an engine expert? This is more or less the same thing.
Tending to be more “right-brained” has indeed made it tougher for me to achieve more. The hard languages are pretty much out of my league, so I outsource hard language dev work when needed. Proficiency in design, graphics and illustration (PS, AI), HTML, CSS, etc., are pretty much my forté, with some PHP, AJAX, JS (and even those get painful sometimes).
Building and troubleshooting computers has definitely been a time and money-saving skill for me.
Keeping a lid on with difficult customers is good important advice - one of my best clients for many years can be extremely difficult at times but has also been worth it. But those who will try to get me to compromise your standards and ethics I have no problem cutting if they don’t want to come around.
All good advice, though. I need to attend more conferences!.
Keep the advice and insight coming, Scott.
[…] I would probably have refunded the guy twice what he paid for the book. In a recent blog post, 10 Steps to a 7 Figure Income From Your Site, number 5 on the list is of course, The customer IS always right. If you are in business for any […]
“I don’t agree with this. To be a good Formula 1 pilot do you need to be an engine expert? This is more or less the same thing.”
Formula 1 drivers have multi million dollar sponsors to pay their pit crew - if you don’t, then yes, you’d need to know how to work on the engine to maximize your potential or you’ll be parked at the side of the race track when your engine breaks down. Again though, this post wasn’t so much targeted at bloggers but site owners. There’s so much that can be done (tools for users, features, API/XML mashups, automation) where programming knowledge is invaluable.
Hi Scott,
Excellent !
Any personal recommendation on Which approach do you think, whether creating user generated sites like forums or, blog sites will flourish in the long run and be successful in making money online?
“whether creating user generated sites like forums or,”
Forums have the advantage of being hands-off, but they’re tough to start and to build a critical mass. I prefer them over blogs though because they are so low maintaince and just churn out the $$$ via adsense, Kontera etc. Blogs have the advantage of RSS: get subscribers to your RSS and people know when you have new stuff and visit when you do, but blogs require daily effort. I prefer user generated, forums, etc.
great post.
ths for sharing.
[…] 10 Steps to a 7 Figure Income From Your Site - Who could resist a headline like that? This post is from Scott Wainner of WRevenue.com. […]
Thanks Scott for the clarification. Now i understand your point.
[…] 10 Steps To A 7 Figure Income From Your Site […]
Great article!
I just subscribed to your RSS feed.
I know I need to learn to code, but I just don’t know where to start. I bought a php/mysql book a year or so ago and it just didn’t work out well. I didn’t understand anything in the book. Maybe I should give it another try.
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Scott,
I can code, for years I have created genealogy websites but made very little money (even less lately as everyone and their dog seem to be making websites). Now, belatedly I have decided to design websites just for myself to monitize and hopefully earn some cash for my old age. This website & your entreprenerial ethos are just what I need to help me move forward (I am a bit of a procrastinator)
Thanks, Vic
[…] any further. Just stop now and find an article on how to run a successful online business like, 10 Steps to a 7 Figure Income From Your Site, and then come back and read how to compete with the competition. If you can compete, you have work […]
i should get on it :d
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I think finishing what you start is crucial. People always get into something, and they’re excited about it, but then they lose interest. And the project never gets done. Focus is so important, and finishing whatever we start is essential for success.
[…] I would probably have refunded the guy twice what he paid for the book. In a recent blog post, 10 Steps to a 7 Figure Income From Your Site, number 5 on the list is of course, The customer IS always right. If you are in business for any […]
Scott, you interested in a joint venture??
Nice info, i am learning html currently, need to learn PHP and CSS too.
Cheers
http://thecarsandmore.blogspot.com/
this is a great article. I printed this one out and studied it in detail . Thanks for the advice
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Your blog makes for very interesting reading. Im sure others will think so too I look forward to reading their comments…
This is a good idea, but some things to ponder on this topic. I own several well known websites and have ventured into using coders from India and other 3rd world countries. why? cost…im in business to make money not spend it and countries like India produce 1000s of coders, take a look at rentacoder.com for example many coders with top ratings on there, so my question is why would someone pay you lets say $1000 to build an app when another coder can do it for $100 who is just as qualified.
If you want to make decent money online then study and follow trends, they are ever changing and the internet is still a baby.
Just something to think about.
Great post tons of useful tips. I am motivated now and ready to go
Not bad post, I guess only thing I would say you really don’t need to “know” how to code in order to make money
thanks, very nice tips.
Really enjoy reading it.
I’ll try to implement the tips
Great post! You really hit the nail on the head with this one.
The two biggest things to making any money online are dedication and desire. Without those two, it literally can be impossible to go any further and make any sort of income online.
Great post. TONS of useful tips
place as many ads as you can
lol just playing
wanting something is great… striving for it can keep you going… i think networking can increase your chances of success tremendously
ads and traffic, they are together!
I’m currently in the learning stage of coding, I’m competent with XHTML/CSS and am working on PHP/MYSQL at the moment, how far would you say one has to go in learning programming languages, would php/mysql suffice or should I aim to learn all languages possible?
PHP/MySQL +XHTML/CSS will definitely suffice. Then, it wouldn’t hurt to start learning Javascript/AJAX. I started out with Perl - back before PHP was around, and even though it’s very similar to PHP, I’m much more proficient at Perl than PHP. It takes me less time to do what I want in Perl than in PHP. But PHP has lots of shortcuts and is an easier language to learn if you’re starting out. Best way to learn is to start out installing and modifying other people’s scripts, do some fun projects, and you’ll pick it up.
coding does seem too daunting a task at the beginning.
I use ASP.NET and SQL Server in my job and this helps me run my online business :-). I agree its very useful to be able to code…..
Sounds right for me…
Very good article. You have to finish what you start, have a plan and stick to it.
Creating good quality sits and content takes time.
Such a great post, thanks for the tips, hope work for mine, cheers!
Unlike a lot of you who’ve commented, I agree with the importance of learning to code.
I’m a young entrepreneur. I’ve been working for the past 3 months straight on a few different business ventures. I started out with zero knowledge of any code whatsoever. I thought I could find a friend or someone to just do the coding for me. I was wrong.
In reality, nobody will ever be as dedicated to your business as you will. So when it comes to developing the backbone of your business, you can’t so much rely on someone on the other side of the world to do it for you. Knowing code yourself essentially enables you to build your foundation, is what I’ve come to find out.
So, starting from scratch I’ve built this for my wife who’s a hair stylist. And really what’s helped me to learn the most is just building off of other people’s scripts.
Loved the post!
Hey Scott,
I found your site from hacker news and the content is just great.
One nit picky point: I think your comment about user generated content sites is false. Getting a forum or review site to take off requires a lot of work. Most never hit that all important tipping point.
Creating online tools that other want to use is a better way to build ’set & forget it’ sites.
Adam
Great post. I think its something every web developer should try to learn, to some degree or another. It gives you far more scope for writing more exciting websites. AJAX stuff is really cool.
I do really enjoy reading both old and new posts. You bring to light a lot of questions that needs indepth thoughts. I have tried various ways to increase my sites income from adsense - user generated engagement strategies like blogs,forums..Thanks
Some more excellent points there I especially like your example of using a Bricklayer as a term or act of building up a portfolio of websites.
[…] I would probably have refunded the guy twice what he paid for the book. In a recent blog post, 10 Steps to a 7 Figure Income From Your Site, number 5 on the list is of course, The customer IS always right. If you are in business for any […]
I agree that it is very important to learn to code many good sites are good mainly becouse they have added some extra features to their websites , ideas only can be turned in to products if you know how to code it.