How long did it take you to get a stable income??

First time when I actually tried? About 3 months, then was making more than I imagined, especially when I was landscaping for $8/hour prior to that. Lasted 5 years.

Second time? We'll see. :)
 


First I read Shoemoney and JohnChow
Then I went to BHW saw some shady stuff that was short term (think craigslist)
Made okay money from yt and gateways. Felt done with that.
Tried some paid marketing, didn't have enough spend and got banned (I think) from facebook. Will come back to this when SEO gives me spending money...

Which moves me on to SEO.... I also pretended I know what was going on. A while ago me and my friends started a blog with a domain name that was random, didn't match a niche, and the posts didn't target any keywords. Completely all over the place, the site got some Pagerank and reached like 20 visitors a day but made nothing for adwords and other ads.

Realized niche research, started understanding backlinking, and have in the last 2-3 weeks just started working on a well targeted EMD project where I'm experimenting with buying services and doing my own backlinking, as well as learning how to get better and on-page seo.

This first legit seo site is ranking decently, but it needs to be number 1 for my kw's to make me like $30 daily. Hopefully I'm almost there. I won't talk about my monetization methods. Has a bunch of blog posts, I'm posting more. First real "smart" experience with SEO.

Chose a niche for the second site, did some of the banner design, got a theme I like... Now I just need to write content, do some bookmarking and some other associated work. Will work on these two simultaneously for now. Hoping for about $30 a day from each (maybe a little more from the second one.) Just going to keep on fixing the on-page seo, adding backlinks, writing new posts throughuot the next few months.

Eventually, I'll setup some automation with some macros once I realize what works and I'll see how I can have sites rank better. Working on my own process. Testing, experimenting. When SEO gives me some money, I'll get SB and Sick sub. Also, I don't quite get social bookmarking. Trying to find a list of do follow social bookmarks, that I can potentially ping, and then I can automate the pinging of all my backlinks to my money site. I'm just trying to figure out how the frick to get those web 2.0s(pointing to money site) their own backlinks (more specifically, how to automate this - which brings me back to my lack of understanding on the effectiveness of social bookmarks)

For now, that is all. Doing a lot of shit manual. Have 1k in the bank (only cause I just built a rediculous comp and bought a dual screen setup), but I'm young and well, nahh, rather do it manual at first then have that pay for it. I was never one of those idiots who bought products.
 
It took me 3 and half years to make more than $10 in domain sale. I was hoping my newly registered domains will make me rich but most were barely reaching the $0.25 threshold before it was time for renewal. I am now focusing on adsense and hoping that it will bring me more income.
 
Wow, it seems like there are many who are really struggling with making a stable income.. I have only started out in this IM game just over a month ago and still in the "learning" process. However I have been finding some good quality content here that will keep motivating me to finally achieve a stable income.

All the best and thanks for sharing.
 
I read this quote yesterday:

“There are three types of people in this world: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen and those who say, ‘what happened?’”~ Sam @ Neverblue
 
I turned a profit my first month, back before the ringtone slapping had started, plus I already had a lot of money to throw at it to test. At one point I was doing 6 figures a month thinking "hell yeah I'll be able to sustain this for the rest of my life and I can buy a yacht next year!" - then a little while later I had dropped to 4. There's no such thing as stability. If you want stability, apply for a job working for someone else, but in return for that stability you have to sacrifice a lot of money.
 
I've been in AM for 10 years now and still can't get some stable income :angryfire:
2 years ago made 1 mil, last year 5 mil and this year should be something like 2 mil...stable my ass. Might as well get a real job...
 
the key to my success has been purchasing ebooks, buying webinars, paying for people to video chat with me about their traffic sources, traffic programs, shareware, and of course the DPM forums!!! all of this has enabled me to generate over $100 (yes you've read it right, ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS) per week!
 
the key to my success has been purchasing ebooks, buying webinars, paying for people to video chat with me about their traffic sources, traffic programs, shareware, and of course the DPM forums!!! all of this has enabled me to generate over $100 (yes you've read it right, ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS) per week!

I never payed for a single e-book, webinar, training etc and I still was able top generate a significant income. I think you're better off finding out what works on your own (think trial/error) instead of blowing a bunch of money on stuff that probably isn't going to help in the long run.
 
I never payed for a single e-book, webinar, training etc and I still was able top generate a significant income. I think you're better off finding out what works on your own (think trial/error) instead of blowing a bunch of money on stuff that probably isn't going to help in the long run.

you seriously didn't realize he was trolling? i dont even know what a "webinar" is but it sounds fuckin stupid
 
^ LOLOL

That was jokes, Dre this is wickedfire the trollin' be thick, sarcasm be par.

Echoing the others there is no stability, it happens in spikes, and those that have had a spike or two, know exactly what to do when it spikes this time (scale like a motherfucker, because you've been around long enough to know that sustainability in internet marketing/marketing in general is a trial&error game just as much as it is re skills and tactics, and you don't see spikes/big profits too often so milk it while you can - the rest is just testing/spending/floating). Staying profitable for years at a time isn't all that hard, but there's a difference between evening out at net 50k/year and 500k/year for x years.
 
"You're born, you take shit. You get out in the world, you take more shit. You climb a little higher, you take less shit. Till one day you're up in the rarefied atmosphere and you've forgotten what shit even looks like. Welcome to the layer cake son."

^ just because it sounds cool and it's from a movie. Truth is that some people are just better at making money online and reach the million mark before they turn 16. Others, like the OP, might fail for decades and just begin to break even at 61.

sad but true:(
 
The instability of this industry is part of the fun! You just gotta NOT give in to being a fool who is easily parted with his money... Save the spoils for peace of mind and living off the interest if possible :)