I have spent the past 10 performing in rock and roll bands. I have learned how to create a business, optimize it and make it run like a well-oiled machine. This also occurred while sleeping on dressers, in bathtubs, on floors, in vans and well, basically any other place a human can possibly sleep. We achieved our goals with limited resources, even more limited money, and non-stop dedication.

I have spent the last year using those same skills in creating my web business. To this point, it has proven to be a challenging yet exciting endeavor. It hasn’t been easy to learn how to make money online.

Over the next 30 days, I will be posting my personal 15 steps on creating a successful monetized website or blog. I will post one lesson every other day. I will be comparing the two lifestyles, the work ethic needed to be successful in each, and how I related my experiences in the music industry to the web. It should be entertaining and hopefully enlightening to you, the reader.

What are my credentials? From the music end I have been in the music industry 10 years in two rock and roll bands. Those bands placed over 30,000 CD’s in to circulation. I have taken part in over 400 concerts and have played with some of America’s best talent, including Plain White T’s, Treaty of Paris, and Fall Out Boy, among others. My credentials from the monetized website end include two content heavy websites in the top 100,000 for Alexa rankings and three more nearing that level. I also maintain and manage 7 blogs including this one. This has earned me a decent, but not yet self-sufficient income. I continue to work hard to make money blogging.

I do not make any promises. It takes a lot of work to build a successful web business. These are the steps I took while relying heavily on my former career as a full-time musician. These steps will focus more on the business end and putting yourself in line to make money and less on the actual specific monetization techniques. There are millions of blogs (including mine) that has information like that. This is more or less a rundown on how I started my business.

Step one. Finding the correct vision.

Every ‘how to’ blog will tell you that finding that niche to make money is the most important thing you could do. I disagree. What is the point to finding a ‘money making’ niche if it doesn’t agree with your overall vision? When I started my first band, I wanted to artistically convey the emotions that I was feeling. That was the vision. I had no idea on how to make money in music, I didn’t know the rigors of touring, nor the importance of promotion. All I knew was I wanted to make people happy with my music. You should be telling yourself the same thing about your blog. Personally, you shouldn’t be thinking monetization right away. It should be all about the quality of the writing and the desire of the blogger.

Some bloggers set out right away with the vision to make money. They devise their plan, put it into action, and they are making money faster than you can blink.

That is really rare. It is about as rare as a band forming, writing a record, and become extremely popular within a few months. It does happen however. A perfect example of that within the music industry would be Pearl Jam.

What a lot of people don’t know about the Pearl Jam back story is the members of that band came from an already established and popular band. It occurs this way with bloggers. Some of the bloggers that explode on to the scene may already have a readership based on their previous career or experience. You cannot just expect to have built in readers and start making money.

You should look in to your reasons for creating your online presence. Are you doing it for the right reasons? Do you feel you have the time to convey your vision? Is it strictly a ‘money making’ endeavor or are there personal reasons for blogging?

When I first got in to the whole blog game, I spent quite a bit of time reading and reviewing other blogs. Right away, I knew if the person was a talented writer, if they had a good vision for their blog, or if their blog was going to disappear in a few months because it lacked vision and structure.

When you find that vision, you will notice the rest will start to fall in to place.

Step two will be about creating the proper plan. I will be comparing finding the right musicians to finding the right resources. Until next time!