Not Making Money? 7 Things to Do When Your Online Income Is Down
Are there days when you don’t make any money at all from your online business? You might be thinking that this is going to be some type of online income motivational post where I tell you to go read something that inspires you or make a Vision Board.
But today, I actually have some real, practical advice for you that will actually help you to start making money online.
Since you’re reading this post, you’ve already probably wasted several hours thinking about why there’s no cash (or not enough cash) coming in. So without further ado, here are 7 things to do when your online income is down.
1. Write New Blog Posts
If you’re not posting to your blog today because you’re fed up with your low earnings, you’re making a big mistake. You already understand that the more blog posts you write, the more visitors you will attract to your website.
Don’t let not earning any money keep you from posting when you know you should have created some new content. The money will come. The time to post is now!
2. Find New Ways to Earn Passive Income
Ok, so whatever you’re currently doing isn’t working so well. Why not take this opportunity to find some new ways to earn passive income online?
Just click the links below to read my blog posts about each suggestion:
3. Search for New Traffic Sources
As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I highly recommend that you set aside a day just to search for new traffic sources. That will give you something to do when you have one of these days when you feel down about not making money.
The easiest way to search for new traffic sources is to simply type some keyword ideas for getting traffic into Google and start reading reviews and tutorials. Once you have something that sounds like a viable idea for getting traffic, write it down, and set a date to test it out.
4. Start Using Paid Traffic
The other thing that you can also do is start a paid traffic campaign. You might have been considering a paid traffic source for a while but haven’t really gotten around to it. Even if you don’t have the funds yet to start the paid traffic campaign (because you didn’t make money today), take all of the steps required to set up the campaign.
You can apply for a new account with the paid traffic source, set up your account and payment method, and write your ad copies or design your banners. That way, once you have some money coming in again, you can just click a button to turn on the campaign.
5. Check Your Links (Seriously…)
We’ve all been there. You’re wondering why you aren’t getting any conversions on that affiliate program you joined three months ago only to find out that the affiliate link on your website is broken!
If you don’t have a plugin installed on your website that will search for broken links, get one ASAP! Checking for broken links regularly is literally the difference between making money and losing it to a competitor.
Even if all of your links are working, you must also make sure that there have been no changes on the affiliate company’s end either. Most affiliate campaigns are regularly updated with new links for affiliates to use and if you are still using the old ones then you’re not going to make any sales.
6. Check ALL of You Income Sources
It’s easy to become overly fixated on that program that was supposed to be making you $1000 per week, but what about all of those programs you signed up for to get paid $30 on a sale or 10% of every referral’s earnings? Check those programs right now!
To your surprise, you might have some money waiting for you. It’s easy to forget about all of the programs that you signed up for if you don’t make a point of bookmarking your earnings page in each program.
So from now on, every time you sign up for a new affiliate or money-making program, set a aside a folder in your bookmarks with the links to all of those earnings pages so that you can reference them at any time.
7. Take Care of Some Routine Tasks
Staring at the computer screen for hours isn’t going to make money magically show up (unless you have super powers!). Instead of wasting hours feeling like you’re being punished, take care of some routine tasks instead.
Here are some things that you probably still haven’t done today:
- Laundry / cleaning the house
- Grocery shopping
- Give your website an SEO audit
- Search for low competition keywords to target
- Make a list of tasks that you should be doing at times like these
- Create a weekly schedule for working on your business
- Go to the gym
- Fix something that’s broken (like your website)
- Schedule your doctor’s appointment
- Go over your business/personal expenses and get rid of the unnecessary stuff or switch providers
- Look for a business mastermind group in your area on meetup.com
Above all, you need to stay motivated! A few days without any online earnings doesn’t mean that your business is failing.
By doing these things instead of simply wasting time griping about being low on funds, you’ll be positioning your online business to bring in even more money. We’ve all been there and at the end of the day, procrastination doesn’t make problems go away, it simply makes them worse!
So stop worrying and get focused. What things do you like to do to grow your online earnings when you’re not making money?
Share your thoughts in the comments below!
This article reminds me of the law of attraction. However, at the same time you need to quit thinking about what you want so hard because you create resistance. Resistance is bad it keeps what you want from coming or coming as soon as it could. All you really can do is to focus on what you need do to in your daily life. The money will be in your account before you know it.
Interesting comment. I’d just like to add that taking action is key to getting what you want. Just sitting back and wishing for money isn’t going to change your financial situation.
One thing this article left out is getting a good offline job to help fund your offline biz. I mean this article is speaking about paid traffic, but affording paid traffic can be tough on someone with a low income. On top of that, you want good paid traffic, it’s not going to be cheap. Anyway, the good news, is that even a simple part-time or gig job might be all that’s needed to fund your dreams.
Hey JY, thanks for your comment. While I agree with your thinking, I don’t think that anyone who isn’t financially stable is in a good position to start an online business. Just like any other type of business, it could be successful or it could fail. Instead, think of these tips as what you could be doing to take your mind off of the fact that business is slow.
I am just a newbie on online business. In fact, I’m just starting to be a re-seller on almost anything most people need, either in fashion, in household materials and hopefully jewelry. I haven’t had a website exclusively for my business, but I already find this helpful especially at times when I’m not making money. A strategy that you have mentioned here which I’m glad I have done, is joining paid surveys. I’m interested to read more articles like this so that I can improve my way of earning and how to deal times when there really is low income. I find this very informative.
Hi Ryan, I’m glad that you’re finding these tips to be helpful! Another site that I just found this week that you might want to consider for paid surveys is PayMeDollar. It’s a new site but it has the same offer walls as the top survey sites. So far, I’ve found that I’m able to qualify for a lot more surveys there under YourSurveys. You can find it on the Dashboard of the site. I made about $7 with 2 hours of taking surveys while watching TV yesterday.
Your final comment about staying motivated is the key to any online business. If my earnings dip these days, I’ve already learned not to panic. Online income, especially when you’ve just started, can be very fickle. A great day of earnings can be followed by a string of days when your earnings are low or non-existent. To make things easier, I like to think of my earnings as an average per day over the course of a week or month. So, if I earned $84 in one day, but nothing else for 3 more days – then I’ve earned $15 a day for that week. It just feels better to look at things like that.
Great advice. I definitely think that this is healthy approach to this situation. Online earnings can be fickle when you first start out. Good luck with your business!
Wow! That’s great Shane, I’ll give it a try. Thank you.
I agree with all of your tips but writing new blog post is not an easy task if you really want to make money blogging. Anyway I really find your article useful because it’s really gonna help those who want to start blogging.
Hi,
Great article! It is very true that at times it appears as though nothing seems to be working and the income not coming in. I was just wondering though whether there is a way of ensuring that the traffic source is legit because I have had bad experiences where I have bought traffic and it has barely given me any leads.
Hi Lilly, unfortunately there is no way to absolutely guarantee that a traffic source is legit unless it is one of the most well-known traffic sources like Google AdWords or Facebook Ads. What I usually do before investing in a new traffic source is check online reviews. If you can’t find too many people reviewing the traffic source (that aren’t paid reviewers) then, then I would be cautious and not spend more to test it out than you’re willing to lose.
It’s kind of a catch 22 when it comes to traffic because people who are a lot of making money from certain traffic sources don’t always share their best resources. So that is why you might not find too much information online even if the traffic source is a good one.
If you do try unproven traffic sources, you absolutely need to have conversion tracking set up. If you don’t you really run a high risk of getting scammed by bot traffic. Check out my article here on how to set up conversion tracking: Getting Started With Conversion Tracking for Affiliate Marketing.
Perhaps I will publish a new article about how to vet traffic sources soon. Thanks for your comments!
Hello, I’m a newbie in making money online and your article helps me a lot today. I just want to know how to avoid scam sites across the internet. This is the reason why I’m afraid to try some of online business to earn money online. However, I’ll do my best to follow your guide. Nice tips by the way and very helpful.
I recommend that you do your research. Check for reviews of the opportunity in Google and even contact people who claim they’ve earned money with the program before. It’s always best to be cautious, but there are no guarantees in life. If you don’t have a good feeling about something after doing your homework, I’d say just go with your gut.
I have question on Paymedollar. I know it is new and such but, is it available worldwide or it’s just for western countries? I am living in Asia right now and, just like any other third world country students, want to help my parents with some online surveys. I am really interested with the site and I’ve seen good reviews. I just want to know if it’s applicable enough here in the Philippines. Thank you
Hello, you will probably be able to do some of the tasks on the website. However, a lot of people have reported being rejected from the surveys if they were outside of the US, Canada, Australia or the UK. Just give it a try and report back so others will know whether you’re able to make money or not.