Many of us turn to internet marketing in the hopes of earning a few extra bucks doing something we’d likely do for free anyway. While there is a general misconception surrounding internet marketing and the work required to build an online business that is capable of generating income of any level, there are still people willing to invest the time and effort involved to either subsidize, or in some cases even replace their offline income all together. (The misconception is that making money online is easy, and requires no more than the push or at most 6 buttons on a keyboard, the truth is an online business is still a business requiring work!)

I was recently discussing my blog with an old colleague who had expressed interest in the direction I planned to take when I left my corporate position for something less stable in the internet marketing industry. He liked the thought of building a website that would continue working for him 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and that could be marketed to a global audience.

The part he didn’t relish, or at least failed to attempt was taking the time to research, and register a domain, and then building up a website with a product or service. He opted instead to take a “wait and see” approach, and chose to watch my blog grow and develop.

I’ve been blogging full time now for two years, and have loved every minute of it. Some weeks have involved more work than most of us would like to invest, and less pay than we can hope to live on, while other weeks have been relatively relaxing, and way more profitable than I could have hoped. (My best week of earning took place while I was on holidays).

Now while I won’t be the next internet millionaire for quite some time I’m sure, I’ve still enjoyed the challenge of building an online business, and growing a community around my blog. I’ve managed to almost completely replace my old “offline” income, and the viewpoint I took while doing so was perhaps a little different than what most people would be used to.

While we were discussing my business, my old friend and colleague asked how I was able to replace the salary I used to make. In the beginning I simply wrote down an amount that I needed to make in order to survive and struggled to match it with offline earnings. This technique turned out harder for me to achieve than I’d hoped. Income growth was coming in not only slowly and sporadically but from almost more directions and durations than I could keep track of.

I had advertising income that paid within three days, and I had affiliate programs that took as long as ninety days, and many in between sources. This sporadic income caused me to reevaluate my earnings, and more accurately my bill paying options.

I started out looking at my smallest bills which were things like gym memberships, and internet service provider bills, and then chose two income sources that matched up relatively close, both in terms of dollar amounts, and payment frequency. I used the income from a PayPal Donation Script that I was selling and then brought in about fifty dollars each month and tied that income to the two bills.

For larger bills such as car payments I used the revenue derived from my Twitter account and website advertising sold through my ad manager at BuySell Ads. Clickbank income went towards food and toiletries, and so on.

By utilizing various income streams to pay individual bills it was never a huge stretch trying to grow my income. Tackling a revenue stream and working at it until it is capable of earning a hundred dollars or so each month is much easier than looking at the overall picture and saying I need to grow my income by four thousand dollars monthly.

Not only did this method encourage me to develop several revenue streams, it also kept them at a manageable size. Chances are if you have the skill to grow a stream of income to twenty-five dollars a month, you can redouble your marketing efforts and double that figure. If your Twitter account earns fifty dollars a month, then it stands to reason that you can either double your follower count, or sell twice as many ads to bring in double the income!

I should probably mention that in the beginning an approach like this might be harder to work with as you are likely investing most (if not all) of your income back into your business. Once things start gaining momentum however it can become both fun and challenging to work and develop ten or twelve revenue streams to a point profitable enough to pay your bills, and grow your savings!

So don’t despair if the dollar amount you’ve chosen as your blogging or business goal seems to be eluding you, or taking longer to achieve. Focus instead on the smaller successes that make up the sum total of that goal, and you’ll likely not only find yourself achieving more, but having more opportunities to celebrate those small yet meaningful successes along the way!