I think I am developing square eyes! If it isn't busy enough I decided to make it even busier and start a garden network attached to my Landscape Juice garden site.
The aim is to build a professional and amateur gardening community who can return time and time again and glean valuable snippets of information and put it to good use.
The idea is, once a critical mass has evolved, the membership will fuel the content from within leaving me with a more administrative role.
However, I do feel I have a fair bit of experience, not only at being a professional gardener and landscaper but, after learning the hard way over twenty one years or running a landscape and garden maintenance company, some valuable business experience.
It is hard for anyone who may be starting out to understand how to set up an hourly rate or perhaps approach a new contract so I have written spreadsheets and explanations of the processes involved which may help a little getting started.
The site is open to anyone so being a member could be of great benefit and you never know where the opportunities will come from.
Landscape Juice itself is going great guns! - I always wanted to make the internet work for me and try and develop a business here in France that was not reliant on going out and doing a manual task.
The last two years have been hard work but extremely good fun.
I remember, discussing opportunities with Craig McGinty when he said to me, you ought to start a garden site, after all that is what you do best and one day, it could provide you with a living.
After a year, and only getting about 1,000 visitors a month I was disillusioned and one the brink of throwing in the towel but Craig urged me to keep at it and just write good articles on subjects that would be topical and helpful for any gardener in search of answers.
Craid said that the visitors will come and wow was he right! I now enjoy six thousand readers a week who scan over 34,000 pages.
I am also visited regularly by industry sites who I know keep a close eye on me because of some of the critical things I have to say about a few organisations that take and never give back.
I am also selling advertising on the main page and make money through affiliate links and Google adsense.
I still cannot afford to support a family but I am now at a stage where I could do just a few hours a week of writing and maintain an income. In another two years, I expect to be fully self sufficient with earnings rising substantially from here.
I have registered as a micro enterprise - with the tag of Internet Trader and Donna too is a seperate enterprise of Internet Consultant. We both pay separate cotistations and also have a third registered business as a Gite business.
The woodwork is on hold for now but I have plenty of my own to do around the house - more news to come there soon.
I hope that there are a few of you here in France that will find my experience of setting up a business over the internet of some use and I would be glad to discuss it with you if you care to give me a call or send an email.
If you have a special skill or experience that can be shared then in time, after an initial set up period, you could earn a supplementary or full time income from the web - however, I can tell you, that unless you are lucky, this is NO get rich quick scheme.
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