The Redundant Scientist tries to make money online with adsense and geckos.

 I’m sure you’ve come across this ad on the internet: housewife makes a lot of money

“I can now provide for my family by working 15 hours/a week from home, no sophisticated computer skills required, look here’s my fantastic paycheck”

I have of course always ignored them but, given the quickly approaching redundancy and my sudden need to make money, I feel I should leave no stone unturned.   It know it is a scam, I am after all the arch-cynic and negativity-beamer, but sometimes it is interesting to see how scams are presented.  Also just to distance myself a bit further I click on a Polish site where it is some guy who’s making the unbelievable amount of money. The Polish ad is actually more informative, the English version just sends you to fill a form  (which strangely is always going to expire the day after, and it’s all “hurry places are limited”).  So our newly rich Lucky Polish Man was earning money from google adsense, but it was rather disappointing, then he comes up with this Super Special Scheme and it’s all rags-to-riches.  And now you too can have the lovely villa, and the swimming pool, all for a few hours a week on the internet. Generously he offers to share his secret with you, just fill this form (but hurry, places are limited, the offer expires the next day).  But…..making money from Google, I didn’t know it was possible if you weren’t a super hot computer programmer.  I do some more research on adsense.

The premise is simple.  Make a website, put ads from google on it, google pays you every time somebody clicks the adsense link.  The first thought that springs to mind is: what’s there to stop me from just multi-clicking on my own ads?  I could ask Mother (retired), Sister (unemployed), Brother (recently unemployed), French Sister (on maternity leave), to help outl (for a percentage of the proceeds).  I have images of us all in lovely villas with private swimming pools thanks to adsense.  The image fads quickly, I am sure they have ways of detecting forced clicking.  Even I can see how you could tell something funny was going on, if repeat clicks to a page kept coming from one IP address, and I suspect Google knows a bit more about these things than I do.  Still the standard format of adsense to make money sitting at home is quite attractive.  Advantages:

• It’s free (almost) to set up
• Anybody can do it (well not anybody in a Calcutta slum obviously, you need computer, internet etc.)
• You just set it up, then sit back and watch the money roll in.

Disadvantages:

• A lot of comments online that they are not earning from adsense or that the amount of money is disappointing.

But: There is no limit to the number of websites that you can make.  They will add up, and maybe one of them will be successful.  Dear internet: brace yourself, you are about to be swamped by my websites.

So what is my first website going to be about?  The trick apparently is to choose a “niche” topic that you know a lot about and find interesting.   A subject that is not so popular that the internet is already saturated with information about it; why would somebody read your thoughts about the causes of the credit crunch, when economics Nobel Laureates extensively discuss it (unless you are a Nobel Laureate in which case: Wellcome to my blog )

But never mind the theory, I knew what my website would be about even before I knew I would be making a website.  Geckos!  I love geckos, I keep 2 species, breed them, spend a lot of money on them, it is time they started paying their way.   I do further googling,  There is so much to learn, SEO (search engine optimization), keywords, google ranking.  I think I need some help with this and impulsively  buy online resources that promise to make your site successful.  Yes I know I am supposed to be making money not spending it, but hey this is “investing”.  I have the programs analyze my keywords.  It appears that “geckos” might not be the best topic to choose, there are already so many websites out there.  Although keeping reptiles is a niche hobby, a lot of herpatologists are very passionate about it, which is reflected online.  How much income adsense will generate for me is highly dependent on how many visitors will come to my website, and if a search for “geckos” generates many pages of results, with my site tucked away on page 21, I can’t see many people coming.  Still I am determined to write about  them.

The gecko money-making machine is still not finished, there is so much to write about! SEO is still in progress (SEO was originally going to be the main topic of this blog, but I will write about it next).  I haven’t “monetized” it yet.  My (quite expensive) site building software recommends that one should get the content right first.  So I haven’t yet made a penny from my efforts (and I spent quite a few) but, this is definitely doing wonders to my mental wellbeing.  I haven’t felt this good for years.