Earning Money Online is Like Playing Video Games

My kids have recently gotten me hooked on this app called "Ninja Fishing". You have a Ninja sitting in a boat who drops a line into the ocean which sinks toward the bottom. The object of the game is to miss the fish on the way down. Once you hook a fish and start to reel it in, you want to catch as many as you can on the way up in order to make as much sushi as possible. Once the fish are out of the water, you slash at them with your sword (finger swipe on the screen) in order to slice up the fish and collect coins. You just need to make sure you don't hit the dynamite or the round is over.

This got me to thinking about how much writing and trying to earn money online is a lot like video games. How do I think this?

Initially, I had no clue how to play the game and had to learn what the objective was. I had my son right there to teach me how to play. When trying to earn money online for the first time, I again had to learn a new skill and had no idea what I was doing. I didn't know what a backlink was or anything about search engine optimization. It took me about 3 months to understand the concept of backlinking. Fortunately, I had resources on the internet that I could read and begin to understand, but I definitely had to learn a totally new skill set in order to make money.

When I first starting catching fish, I stunk at it. I would catch 10 or 12 at a time and get only a few coins. I often hit the dynamite because I was inpatient and swiping my finger at random. When I first started writing online, I also started out slowly. I was lucky to be able to put together 300 words together to make an article. I also started out slowly in the earnings department, going weeks at a time before earning a few cents. I was able to earn online a few dollars with AdSense that very first month in 2009.

As I got a little more patient, I was able to slice and dice the fish without hitting the dynamite. I started to get to about 100 coins per round. Again, with writing, it took a while to really learn what I was doing, but as I gained experience, I was able to write longer articles and get more readers to each article. Slowly I was building a readership and following, but it does take time.

Those improvements in ability to gather coins eventually allowed me to purchase upgrades such as larger hooks, weights, and a longer line allowing me access to larger fish. Now I can get 1000 coins during each round allowing me to purchase further upgrades.

The same thing has happened with my own Hubs here and with my personal blogs. Increased readership fed on itself so that each time I publish an article, I am getting more and more visitors. For example, during the first full month of my blog, I had 375 visits. This month, I have had over 3200. I have had over 1900 visitors during the first full month of my newest blog. I suspect that any new blogs will see even larger traffic as I improve my skills.

This has translated itself directly into earnings and given me access to private advertisers (bigger fish). For the third month in a row, I have managed to earn just over $1000 gross with my online activities. Imagine where I can be in another year.

The bottom line is that writing and earning money online is a skill that must be developed over time. Just like it is impossible to pick up a video game for the first time and earn the high score, it is impossible to begin an online venture without any experience and expect to earn big money right away.