Since the new fiscal year just started for us yesterday, there are a lot of tax increases 2009 that are taking place. If you’re in the states, a lot of people will be affected even more during this hard time in the economy. And I can guarantee that every online entrepreneur making money online will be affected by this in some way.

Let’s start with the tax increases in Massachusetts, since that’s where I currently reside. They will be raising sales tax from 5% to 6.25% which is the first time it has increased since I have lived here. (And I’ve been here most of my life).

That will affect a lot of spending I do because anything I purchase will be slightly higher. So, say I purchase a new computer, desk, chair or whatever for my mini office, the extra sales tax accumulates over time.

In addition, they are trying to increase gas taxes as well. That sucks even more with the high gas rates as is, now traveling to business meetings by car will be just a little more expensive than it usually is.

So, outside of my state, almost every other state is being affected in some way with the taxes. I believe Florida is increasing cigarette taxes, Hawaii is increasing hotel taxes, etc.

If you guys have more details on your state, please drop a line by commenting.  I would definitely like to know.

Many of these states have different tax increases but ultimately, all of us are affected. Below is a breakdown in states on who will be increasing taxes and fees. It’s from May so it’s a little old but you’ll get some rough idea for your state.

Now, as an online entrepreneur, we all have to pay taxes. Technically, you’re supposed to report everything you make to the IRS and if you work from home, that basically means you’ll be writing a check out every April. But next year, I believe you will be writing a bigger check.

I read that people making over $250,000 a year will have their taxes increase, but now, even those making less than that will have their taxes increases as well. So, in essence, everyone that pays taxes will be paying just a little more.

In addition, there might be a slight increase in taxes for health insurance which would drastically affect middle-income homes. But nothing has been confirmed about that just yet but as things are slowly having the snowball effect, I wouldn’t be surprised.

The reason why I am posting about the tax increases 2009 is simply the fact that it will affect all of us making money, buying things, or just living in the states during these hard economic times. I’m not a big fan of taxes but unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do about this.

I guess we have to sit here and just watch us get dug into a deeper hole.

Most people that start off, they want to make money with no money and usually it’s a lot harder. But don’t you guys worry, if I can do it, I’m sure everyone else can as well. But its all about hard work, dedication and most importantly, learning.

I was having a discussion with an old friend last night and when I told them that I was an online entrepreneur they expressed lots of interest on what I do. So, when I explained the various things I do to make money (blog, build websites, sell sites, affiliate marketing, design banners/headers, etc) they wanted to do the same, especially for their local company.

Of course, most people that have no idea on how to make money online, they always question how you can actually do so. Remember, a lot of people have no idea and they still won’t. More than likely they are the same ones clicking on your ads, signing up for your products, etc.

But every single person I talk to that is starting from scratch, they want to make money with no money because everyone wants to make money (and who doesn’t?!) but they never want to spend money.

Now it’s definitely doable. I started with basically no money invested and I’m making a decent amount monthly. Of course, the more money you make, the bigger you get, eventually you’re going to spend money to reinvest into your business.

Luckily for us, everything we spend money on for our business is tax deductible expenses. So, don’t be afraid to spend money.

Anyways, you guys are here to learn how to make money with no money. This is how I would start:

• Create a website/blog from any free blogging platform or free webpage company that allows you to display ads. I started off on Blogger.com and when I eventually made some money, I paid for my own domain name(s), hosting, etc. There are plenty of sites that are free and apply you to put your ads on, you just need to know where to look.
• Learn, learn, learn. You can never stop learning because everything changes so frequently. You want to learn how to get ranked in search engines, you want to learn how to build links, you want to learn how to get traffic… I mean, you want to learn how to make money online, right? I would suggest reading anything that may help you, Google topics that you think would benefit you, etc. That’s what I did, it may be a long learning process but it’ll be well worth it.
• Reinvest into your business with the money you make. Technically, anything that you make is a plus. So, if you make $100, I would reinvest that into purchasing domains, hosting, etc. Like I mentioned before, they are all tax deductible so its almost like you’re not even paying for it to begin with. Because next year, you’re just going to write all of that off.
• Focus on what works for you and what doesn’t. Like I mentioned, learning is a large part of it. But just because something worked for someone else, it doesn’t necessarily mean it will work for you exactly the same. Testing is important and that narrows things down for you to focus on. Again, everyone will have different results so its up to you to see what works for you.
• Take action! If you’re a dreamer, your dreams will be just that. If you want to make your dreams your reality, you have to take action. I see so many people that learn and has all the knowledge to make thousands monthly but they just sit there and no absolutely nothing with that information they obtained. So, take action! What’s the worst that can happen? You learn from your mistakes. Exactly.

This is just a quick guideline on how to make money with no money. I can write a detailed step by step but then again, don’t you have to do some work?

It looks like there has been yet another Google Pagerank update in June 2009 and some unfortunate news, this blog remains the same at PR2. But like I said before and I’ll continue to say it, Google Pagerank doesn’t really mean much!

If you live by Google Pagerank, more than likely you’ll die by Google Pagerank. A majority of the times when I talk about Google Pagerank and the updates, I usually emphasize the fact that you can still make money, still get traffic, still be successful with a PR0 or a PR10. Honestly, it doesn’t matter just as long as your site gets ranked in search engines.

And yes, your site can get ranked in search engines without a Pagerank.

But instead of discussing the whole thing about Pagerank doesn’t really matter, I’m going to switch it up a bit. I’m going to tell you the various changes in PR with some of my sites. And I want to hear from you guys to see if your PR has changed at all.

So, DatMoney remains the same at PR2. The main reason is the fact that I haven’t been building links for this site for a while now. Matter of fact, I haven’t been doing much promotion in general for this site because I’ve been focusing on a few other projects.

I was going to do a couple of link exchanges with blogs with similar stats and niche but I’m just not sure if I’m going to do that. I may consider it, though.

If you guys have been following this blog for a while, my Pagerank history went from PR0 to PR4 to PR3 to PR2. It has stayed at PR2 for the last couple of updates, I believe.

Some of my other sites have gone up and down but none have gone back down to a PR0. I think a few of my brand news sites have become PR1. And those are the sites that I’ve probably had for only a month or so.

Others have gone up to PR3 while some have dropped to PR2. Overall, I believe most of my sites have some sort of Pagerank.

Unfortunately for me, it doesn’t really mean much. Because Pagerank or no Pagerank, I can still manage to make money online and get traffic.

So, how did you guys fair with the Google Pagerank Update - June 2009?

The image isn’t my traffic.

See, a lot of people already know how to get spikes of traffic, most people submit to StumbleUpon or try to get on the frontpage of Digg or some other equivalent social media/bookmarking site. But if you notice, the traffic and everything is nice (except if it crashes your server) but you never really see a drastic increase in your earnings to really care for it.

I’ve been doing this online stuff for a couple years now and I tend to the some of the same things that continue to make me money. For instance, someone asked me if I still do what methods in the $100/Day from Adsense post and the simple answer is “yes.”

I may do it less but I still do it when I have a chance. Of course, it’s nice to have another source of income when doing that.

But I tend to check my stats (earnings and traffic) regularly and so should all of you guys. The reason why is the fact that you always need to analyze these stats, improve on different aspects, etc. Some of the stats may even surprise you and work in your benefits.

The reason why I bring analyzing stats up (and this post) is because I noticed a drastic jump in my traffic and earnings for one of my sites. And get this, I haven’t even touched the site for the last 5-6 months.

Without giving away the site, keywords, etc, let’s say its something that people would search for regularly, especially when a specific event or something happens.

I’ll give you guys an example. Say you have a website based on the show American Idol, well, that show takes place every year so you know whenever the show is on, you should expect extra spikes in traffic as well as increased earnings.

And yes, even if it’s not the latest information on that year’s show. You should still see the spikes.

I know that’s not the best example especially compared to my site in which I don’t even have to do anything to the site from now on. But let’s say if you happened to blog about something that happens monthly, annually, whatever, then whenever that “thing” happens, well, you should see spikes.

So, you guys could do this in a few different ways. You could simply build sites based on something you know will happen regularly and just let it sit there and watch spikes happen throughout the year or just continue to blog and eventually it’ll come.

I wish I could give you guys a better example of what I’m talking about, but I hope you guys get the point. If I can think of another one, I’ll try to add it on here.

Hope that helps!

So, remember when I wrote about how I may get $500 for 10 minutes of my time? Well, I swung for the fences and I whiffed and struck out. But it’s okay, I knew the odds were against me. So, here’s the story incase you guys haven’t heard about it or been following it.

Let me go on to say that I would actually like to congratulate Jonathan Volk… so, me damning him in the title, that was to get more attention. Obviously, I’m joking. Okay, now that I got that out of the way, let’s continue with the story.

Well, our buddies Tyler Cruz and Jonathan Volk had a competition/contest against each other on who could lose 10 pounds in 10 weeks. Of course, the loser would have to cough up $500 and if both of them didn’t meet the goal, they would both cough it up.

As you guys know, I voted against Jonathan but I didn’t just randomly pick, I had a theory and points on why I thought he would lose. Plus, I had to pick one person to officially enter the contest for a chance to win $500.

You can read my original post at “Working as an Online Entrepreneur = Weight Gain?”

So, it was going so good and I felt the $500 being sent to my Paypal account. I mean, he was like 4.5 pounds away like two days before the deadline. And of course, he worked out a lot more, starved himself, etc so he would succeed and not have to pay.

I have to give credit to both of them for losing the 10 pounds. Though, they probably worked extra, extra hard in the last week. Tyler made his goal too so he didn’t have to pay anyone.

It wasn’t a loss for me (even though $500 would have been nice) because I got a lot of recognition from simply entering the contest. I got link love from both parties and got my name and site out there in front of 4,500+ subscribers not including daily visitors (Tyler and Jonathan’s total put together).

And this all happened because I took 10 minutes out of my day to write a simple post. If you take initiative, you may or may not win big but you will definitely benefit from it nonetheless. I mean, my name and blog was mentioned quite a few times in front of thousands of readers. If I were to pay for a paid review, I would’ve sent hundreds of dollars… but I didn’t.

Lesson learned. Take initiative… you win some, you lose some but if you can manage to win more than the losses, you should be pretty successful.