To the people of P2L,

Just curios Faken, should one bother making a website if it cant earn more than 300 US DOllars or more. A good website makes allot of time. U have to pay for the domain name and hosting. and all that stuff. anyway waiting for you opinion.
Regards,
AE WAQAS

This is a great question and I look forward to the debate that follows

My answer would be no, the average person can't. However... if they are willing to actually go that one step further and change their given web field - then yes they can. For example - the average person sees putting together 50 strung together websites as the solution, whilst that would work... they aren't anything special in the end. Sticking to one area of the web, specialising in it and getting to know it is the answer if you ask me. As only when you really know the area can you make the changes that make your site stick above the rest.... and earn that money that allows you to run full time

Jay,
thanks for the reply. I wil take into account that your an expert when we talk about websites. Wouldnt it be better for a new webmaster to start with free webhosting. Like Angelfire or shosting? I myself had website for one year but the ads were.. what can i say click "me not". so I had to get rid of it cause it was getting expensive.

P.S. What softwares were used for the P2L Web design?

It is best to get a 1 or so of experience on a low-level host yes, I wouldn't recommend going for the 2-500 dollar a month dedicated hosts for a first site Unless you've got the money of course!

Pixel2life is built using PHP for the backend (to make the site's information dynamic), HTML/CSS for the frontend (to generate what you see here) and I believe Faken used Photopaint to create the layout (The Corel alternative to Adobe Photoshop)

If you've got anymore questions feel free to ask

Free hosting is great to start out with, but your professional image gets a huge boost once you've moved to your own domain name The way to succeed on the web is to find something that hasn't been done before or to find something that's done adequately but do it better.

Well, hmm. I think it takes a certain level of dedication if you're going to try it as a full time job. It definitely isn't easy in any sense. There are many things you need to learn, new languages, new programs, and how to use them all effectively.

Free hosting is a great place to start, it is how I started. But, I would recommend not using any of the online web builders. Learn all of the languages yourself and write your own code, make your own images and so on.

Most importantly, think of something new. Do things that haven't been seen before. Of course, this is probably the hardest part. That and coming up with a good domain name, that isn't already taken.

So my answer is no, the average person couldn't make a living from doing this. But anyone can be above average with a little knowledge and practice.

I highly doubt you could make a living on Web design without a college cirtificate. But if you put your life to doing it. Just like anything else. Anything is possible. I agree with not using any sitebuilder. I recommend Tripod.com for your first time. I used it. http://purplesmurf4.tripod.com/index.html Good times. If you have any questions with anything just ask.

I think web design is really just like so many other professions. No, the "average" person can't make a living off of it, because they don't know what they need to know. That's not at all saying they're incapable of learning what they need to know though, so on the other hand - yeah the "average" person can make a living out of a website; given they dedicate a lot of time into learning what they need to learn and doing what they need to do

I disagree with the comment of having to have a college certificate.. If you want to work for a web company, yeah go to college - and that way is the easy way, less likely to fail - but you won't be making as much and IMO it'd be boring working for someone else. I tend to feel you're just as good learning on your own and creating for yourself... The main thing I have found is that you need to spend money to make money, and there aren't many exceptions in the world of webdev

If you show someone you have a college certificate. I guarantee you will get 3x the business than without one.

I also disagree with the college requirement... I actually do make enough money to pay my bills doing this and I'm a high school drop out.

Like I said, anyone can be above average if they try. College is great, but not everyone can afford it. Just because you didn't go to college doesn't mean you don't know what you're talking about. So from my personal experience, I don't think college is a requirement for success. Determination plays a much bigger role.

I disagree with the college 'certificate requirement' statement as I've never had anyone ask me my qualifications whilst freelancing on the web... they are simply interested in my skills.

However, college does give you certain advantages over people who don't go to college... hence why for jobs your moved ahead of others in the pecking order. For example I've done a desktop programming course for visual basic/java over 2 years, and around 9 months of that 2 years was based around logic, algorithms, business plans, business methods, time management and organisation - of course you can attempt to teach these yourself, but you'll never beat the opportunity to test the skills out in a college environment and get feedback

You may say - why would I need business knowledge? I was doing desktop programming.... Trust me, you use all the skills taught in these courses, they are always there for a reason

I will have to say that college certificates atleast gives u backup. It kinda puts your employer into confidence. but then again what good would books do if u cant open them? I mean you must have experience. Even experts have to look up things. For me, Practice is the most important factor.

If I was looking for someone to design a site for me I would never employ someone with a degree, you don't need a college qualification to design a website sheesh even an 8yr old can make a web page these days.

As for average people making a living on web design, yes they can and do, the WWW is quite big and not everyone wants what we all consider as web design. Don't look on the web for jobs go around your local community and you'll be quite surprised at what you can actually pick up.

If you put the effort in you can do it, if you just sit on your butt and wait for everything to come to you nothing will ever happen.

So in answer to the original question yes the average user can make enough, if he knows what he's doing and is prepared to put the time in.

Having a college certificate is great in all but really college is just your meal ticket to life.
If you go to a expensive college, your going to meet people who can get you great connections.
But thats all college is. You learn the same stuff you do in High School basically.
So in reality you dont need to go to college unless if you want connections to really good companies.

If your site gets enough hits, you can make a damn lot off ads.
A friend of mine with a rather popular site makes upto $30 a day off ads.
30 * 30 = 900 that's $900/month, not a bad income in my opinion

I may be wrong about that. But It seems that you would have a better shot at getting it.

I kind of disagree with the statements about running multiple projects at once. I think there are ways to manage many sites and still be very successful in the long run. Based on my experience with website management, it is better to stick to 1-3 primary projects at once (similar to what is said above in another post), but running multiple other smaller sites can never hurt so long as you do not spread your main revenue sources too thin. Lets take a look at the following scenario:

You own a website called basketballblog.com, a subject matter that you have a serious passion for and great interest in. You have been running this site for several months, and have developed a pretty good base of traffic for your first REAL attempt at a website (meaning that you are constantly updating it with fresh content, and gaining popularity with incoming links). You are making about $20 a day in revenue on this website for a total of $600 a month, and $7200 a year. It may not be what the big players in Website Management are making, but it is a good start.

You also own another website called tvepisodereview.com, another site that you have a true interest in. You simply post reviews on new television series on a weekly basis, and earn $10 a day for a total of $300 a month, and $3600 a year. You manage your time accordingly to update both of the primary revenue sources on a frequent basis so that you can build them up in SERPS and build up your traffic (and in the long run, potential revenue).

In total, you are making an estimated $10,800 a year off of your first two websites. These figures are purely hypothetical, but should serve the purpose of my argument when I finish.

Using some of the money you have generated off of your websites, you have decided to invest in some new domain names on a hot new topic. Lets pretend that there is a new piece of technology coming out called the "iPod" (yes, I know that this is already a very popular technology, but once again, this is all hypothetical), and you are one of the first people to stumble across it. You immeadiately buy 5 domain names centered around this new technology, and put up some filler content and fresh articles on your domains to put it at the top of the SERPS as no one else has yet to do so.

Using your already built up sites, you start linking to your new domains to get Search Engines to see them. You update these 5 domains with very basic articles maybe once every two weeks, so that you do not spread yourself too thin on your main revenue sources. When the technology becomes more popular, you suddenly have another revenue source. Lets say that all of your new domains in total are generating another $20 a day with minimal traffic (as this technology is just starting to become well known). This is another $7200 a year.

Now you have several options. You can go along with making around $20,000 a year, and keep building up your websites traffic to build more potential revenue, or you can choose to sell one of your websites for some instant cash.

I myself am a fan of keeping a website, and building it up until I have generated a large revenue source, but I know quite a few people who prefer instant gratification.

The General rule of thumb is that you sell your website for 2 years worth of estimated income. That said, you could probably sell all 5 of your new domains for around $15,000 instantly. However, if you knew how big the iPod was going to be in less than a year, chances are that you would hold onto your domain (or kick yourself later for selling it).

There are some upsides to selling a website however. For example, by selling your site, you can get some fast cash to invest in other websites. I have a good friend who has sold several websites in the past year for over $50,000 a pop, but then again, if he had held onto these sites, he would have definately generated more income in the long run. He continues to prove his method effective however, as he always builds up new websites in a matter of days, which he is able to put a market value on in less than a month.

So in short, yes, it is possible to pay the bills if you really are interested in taking up a career in webmastering

As far as going to college, yes, of course it will help in some ways. I think College is very important, although I am still working on High School, but I do not believe that it is necessary to go to college to run a successful website. However, there is nothing about going to college that could hurt you in the long run. It will help you get more people to hire you for services which is always a good way of earning extra income, and probably open your eyes to some new concepts that you will not develop by yourself.

I felt I needed to make a new topic about this because I want people to see this because I have some serious questions. Im a high school student and I love making websites I feel I have alot of potentila with them so i was reading in the other topic that people can make quite a bit of money off website my questions is that with just ads and if so how do you get so many clicks per day? I know my websites arnt exactly up to par but I would honestly like to know how to make a decent income off websites. Thanks Kyle

In my opinion - I prefer to stick to one, possibly two (with a small website being the second) and specialising in that field... then advancing that field on a whole, specialising in doing new things in that community

But some people I see, are deffinatly in it just for the money... and create clone site after clone site (existing easy to build feature set over and over) with no real effort... it'll bring in money if you network enough... and sometimes doesn't require much talent to do, but at the end of the day your just adding to a long list of trailers to the leaders... and won't ever be a leader of the pack

Just my honest opinion...

Nice discussion guys Before I share my viewpoint, I'd like to chime in with the whole college diploma thing. While as a freelancer it makes not difference what your education is as long as you got your skilsl from SOMEWHERE, but if you plan to work for a large company and want a management position, they won't even look at you unless you have a university degree. If you're lucky, you can get up there in terms of salary in a smaller company or in a higher end position, but you won't get upper management or VP status unless it's a small company. I worked as director of IT for the company I worked for, but it was a small place... there's no way I'd get that kind of position over at a larger firm because I have no degree.

A good friend of mine was upper management for Nortel years ago, and he told me how they used to hire. Applicant CVs with no degree listed went straight in the trash. The remaining CVs were then sorted by the level of the insitute where the degree was earned. They would then whittle away the pile by who had the best degrees by the higher institutions.

Now if you have your own business in mind, or don't want to be on the board of directors, then it's no big deal. But if you want to work in a big company and want to climb that corporate ladder, you need the degree. You'll do less clawing and scratching to get where you want to be with one under your belt.

Now, can the average joe run a website and earn a living? No.

Why? Because the average Joe is exactly that... average. Not trying to be offensive or pomous here. You have to be EXTREMELY dedicated for months and years to get your site earning a fulltime income, and even then it might not work out and you'll need to find something else. All these kids today expect to have a site raking in cash within a month or two... That's not how it works. I gave up video games, online chatting on IRC, sports, the gym, my sleep and pretty much all social activities to get P2L to where it's at. The average Joe won't give that up.

And I have a long ways to go yet!

Dan

I am a budding web entrepeneur, and I am finding it difficult to get going. I currently work full time and am trying to get the skills up that are necessary to be a fully fledged legend WEBMASTER. And boy are there a lot of skills to learn. All these great posts of valued info and opinions make u realise a lot about the web world and how tough it is to make it.

I am sorry I am not really adding any opinions of value, just that hard work is tyhe ticket in the end. Sometimes I find it hard teaching myslef stuff and getting motivated to learn, so in that respect a college degree would be good, cos you have to go in and have to study, whereas teaching yourself is all about self discipline, and the drive to succeed.

A question of my own if I may......

What do we think the skill set required to be successful in this business is????

HTML, CSS, PHP, and design skills? would that be a good start?

I am constantly learning new things about building money making websites on the web. And P2L is one of my favourites! But I really need some sort of direction as to what to get into so that I can get into the game.

Any suggestions I am sure would be helpful to all reading this post as well....




OK....... I just found the post Goto last unread

Becoming A Web Designer
By Matt Dwyer


So I guess trhat answers my questions!

Hi,

Really interesting discussion!

I have recently graduated from university with a degree and have a part time job and do freelance work as well. I would like to do full time freelance. I think it is a real problem starting out, once you have made all the websites you can for people you know! I have struggled to get new clients and have been lucky with one who has a few jobs for me. I think making money from the web is about having the technical skills as well as business and communication skills.

I learned most of my skills at university, but when I think that if I spent 3 years learning web design rather than essay writing and all the other stuff that goes with university, I would be much further ahead in my career by now. Having said that, I wouldn't change it, as university was great and I probably learned a lot of things that I wouldn't have otherwise known. Also as Faken said, some companies require a degree for certain jobs.

It takes time to learn new things and get experience and I think you should learn the basics first i.e. XHTML/CSS and make as many contacts as possible, seeing each new person you meet as a potential client. You could also promote your website with SEO and Adwords for example, but I haven't had much joy with the latter yet!

As for making money from websites through ads and affiliation, this is something I am also interested in and have just started to explore. I can't wait for my first $10/£10 day.

Here's one article I found useful about freelancing: Freelancipation

well, i make websites for fun
i started 2 years ago (my high school informatics teacher started teaching us the basics of the html (how to make a link, put an image ......) and the basis of css.
this year we started javascript (the basis). i started learning on my own from diferent sites and from makeing litle scripts for diferent ppl (making experience). i didn't know that colege teaches you webdesigning , i don't hava a diploma, and i am not that old to go there.
i consider webdesigning as a second job (to earn some extra money)

I completely disagree. I have no formal web qualifications and I've had tons of people ask me to do freelance work for them simply based on my websites. I was also employed as an Intranet/web app developer for my local college with no formal web skills. I turn the freelance offers down because I can't stand working with clients, but it shows it's possible. You just need to be able to prove you have the skills.

I don't necessarily think it's easy for the average person to make a living.. I think you have to be able to offer something that somebody else can't, and if you can do that, you're not average - you're smart.

I'm sure it's not my place to say, but my website makes next to nothing at the moment, I still think it's worthwhile. Personally my aim in making a website was to make one to help people with web design, not to gain revenue. Secondly if you make any money you've got to remember taxes as well...

Hi everyone I’m new to the forum but was looking for some information and came across this post.

I agree 100% with Faken, the average person can’t make a living online because he’s not willing to take the time away from his personal life to make it work.

We employee around 20 people right now full time in my office, I don’t worry about any of them ever becoming my competition because none of them have what it takes to make it online.

The people able to make a living online are a rare bread, you have to be hard working and at the same time flexible.

If you were to devote the time and resource I believe you can make a living out of the web. If you do it as more of a hobby as I do then as long as you employ the right SEO stratagies and pick the right affiliates etc, you could easily cover your host costs and make a fair bit of money on the side.

Answer to the topic title is yes. I nearly can with one website

I am able to make a healthy living in web development without a degree (making only slightly less than I did as upper level management). However, this income is a combination of 4 income generating sites which I own plus web development projects for paying clients.

From my estimate of earnings vs. unique visitors looking from my 4 sites, which are all vastly different in design, content, traffic, CPC, and CTR, in order to earn $300 per day, it would take about 40K unique visitors and 450K ad impressions per day. My most successful site gets about 25K unique and 270K ad impressions per day (and, unfortunately, the lowest CTR and CPM). However, you may find that even getting 10K unique visitors and 50K page views is extremely difficult and, by no means, what you should expect. I know lots of people with websites who stuggle to even get 1K or 2K unique visitors per day.

I also don't think the "average" person is willing to take the time, has the patience, or is dedicated enough to make their site work. It takes lots of sleepless nights, constructive action when criticized, and the willingness to change yourself and your habits. And, even after all of that, your site may still not do well. I don't think the "average" person would allow themselves to go through all of that with a high degree of uncertainty on whether or not it will pay off.

ur portfolio is more important than any kind of certificate imo

This discussion has been very interesting to read. Well, o.k. I read most of it. It think one important thing to point out is that you don't actually have to have any web design skills at all to make money at the internet, you have to have good business skills.

There are people who successfully run hundreds of websites at the same time, but they don't make the site, nor actually run them.

I guess my point is that while many of us freelance and have web design projects, and can make a good living doing so. there is another road which is that you have good marketing skills and know what will be successful online and then hire people to make it happen

It is obviously important to hire a couple people and not give them all the pieces of the puzzle because they could go do it behind your back.

I just wanted to point out that really you don't have to learn every new technology, skill and language. Eventually now matter how much you want to know it all, you will have to hire someone who does what you don't. This was my first lesson because while I love design, I wanted my business to be successful. I kept trying to keep up and I finally realized that I needed help. I hate trusting people, because "I know best".

The only thing I have yet to try is outsourcing out of the USA. I get a couple calls a week from who knows where asking for design work (I normally can barely understand them).


"You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today." Abraham Lincoln
Company – Projects (Cheap Stock Photos – New Mexico City Information)

no, this is not true.

I am the Director of Technology for a very successful ecommerce startup in Austin and I hire designers all the time. I could give a damn where they went to school. The only thing that matters to me is their portfolio and their attitude. That's it.

I also have side projects that I work on and I hire designers for those projects as well. My criteria is the same: Portfolio + Attitude

Most of the people on this thread are correct. The "average person" can make it in this industry if they take the time to learn the tools of the trade. The better you get, the more money you can demand for your projects.

I know some VERY talented web designers that make upwards of $5000 per project (they usually work with larger clients and build out full brochure websites). And that's only for static sites. They charge twice that for dynamic sites.

These guys have honed their skills like surgeons wielding a scalpal. They know their tools backwards and forwards and they never stop learning. That's why they can charge the big bucks.

You dont need a school cert to make it in this industry. Just a badass portfolio.

Some of you may be wondering how to build a badass portfolio if you dont have any clients. Easy: Open Source Designs.

There are tons of these sites on the net
www.oswd.org
www.openwebdesign.org

Those are the 2 biggest. This is where you study. Look at the designs that are downloaded the most. See how the designers merge colors and use subtle gradients to trick the eye into thinking there is depth.

Start creating templates for these sites. You can add them your portfolio and you would be surprised at how much business you could get from a really nice free template. I have hired 2 designers from those sites and I'm sure I'm not the only one.



hope that helps

I'm a college freshman, and I'm currently taking a Arts and Multimedia degree. For my experience and knowledge, wheen I finish this degree I will be able to do everything computer and filming wise (webdesign included) but not to its fullest advantages. It has also come to my knowledge and opinion that most people with a college degree either don't know or don't care about what they do. I know people that can code a decent webpage but don't knwo the first thing whereas how to organize it or what to put in it.
So I say (for my sake) that college isn't an escuse to prove we are good at a certain job or not.

Also I believe a person can have a job and have a website. If he can join those two together then "YAY"!

For example... Imagine I'm a cartunist, I do cartoons for a news paper, but on the web I have my own webcomic were I practise techniques and such. I could make a comunity for people that wanna post their comics... And then i add some ads (lol) and make some income (maybe).

I know what I said has already been said sometimes in this thread. but I just wanted to say my opinion.