Archive - MacAllen's Internet Rockstar Guide

Earning Your First Million

I've been playing the Mega Millions—New Jersey's answer to the PowerBall for seven months. I still haven't won a dime. Your chances of turning a random dotcom into a multi-million dollar publicly traded company are about as likely.

There are several ways of at least earning back some of the money you have put into developing your site. But unlike the Power Ball, you will work hard for the money.

Back in the day when everyone was dotcom crazy, online advertisements were billed as the best bet solution to turning a profit. That worked only as long as people were crazy enough to try promoting their own websites through these advertisements—sort of like a giant pyramid scheme the whole online world got caught up in. The few survivors have left over programs from this era.

For example, today you have probably heard of Amazon.com, the giant online merchant. One of their innovative schemes for becoming a household name was the affiliates program they started. By simply having a link to their site, web operators could earn a percentage off the sales from each visit from each person who visited Amazon.com through the link.

Now of course, Amazon has the market recognition. However, they still offer an affiliates program where web publishers can collect a small[er] percentage of the sales of specifically linked merchandise. For example, a recipe website might recommend and link directly to a cookbook. When readers visit Amazon through the link and buy the book, a percentage of the sale goes to the site operator. These sales are small and Amazon has minimum account balances before sending a check. For more information, visit the Amazon Amazon Affiliate program website. Other merchants may offer similar programs or incentives.

The trick to making affiliate programs successful is to offer something more than a direct link to the product hoping a reader will click on it. In some cases this might include a recommendation about a specific book—say you offer book reviews on your site. Or another way is to recommend a product to be used. No user is going to buy products that are merely listed on a webpage—after all, the user can do that simply by visiting Amazon.com. However, encouraging the reader to buy the product through an endorsement or a review might be the compelling reason the reader otherwise didn't have.

Internet Advertisements are of course one standard for generating revenue. However, most major ad campaigns today revolve around popup windows are glitzy flash animation. This will detract from the value of your site, and offend many readers.

One potential solution is text based content targeted ads. Content targeted ads are advertisements that are placed based on the keywords on a website. In most cases, the web publisher will not get revenue unless the link is clicked through. However, since the ads are targeted for the content of the page, in many cases the merchants are offering products and services that the reader / consumer is already interested in. Text based ads therefor, are as much a supplement to the content of the page as they are a method for generating revenue. The primary marketer of these is Google. The AdSense Program is specifically designed for small to medium sized web publishers.

Don't expect the cash to start flowing in just because you have a webpage with some ads. Context based ads work best when there is some useful content associated with them. Simply putting a page with the ads and a picture of Grandma’s cookies is not going inspire a lot visitors to click through the ads and generate you money. On the other hand, a comprehensive story about baking grandma’s cookies, her cookie recipe, and some tips on working in the kitchen, might be enough to inspire your reader to visit the link to CuisinArt and buy a cookie tray.

Merchandising your brand name is yet another way to profit from your website. For instance, Modern Humorist sells bits of their humor based content site printed professional on various items. From mugs to t-shirts to thongs, Modern Humorist is collecting profits from their content.

Merchandising products in the old economy first required a large financial investment acquiring and storing the products, then distributing it as orders came in; not anymore. CafePress.com offers things like clothing, apparel, mugs, stickers, and other kitch items at a print on demand system. You first set up a 'store' with them, submitting artwork and selecting products you wish to sell. The products have a base price that goes directly to CafePress. Then the user sets the retail price at a higher level. The difference between the base price and the retail price is profit for the store operator.

Non of the methods described here are going to make you a millionaire. They also all require a great deal of work. However, they can offset the cost and time spent building and maintaining a website. The bottom line is though, that many sites will bankrupt themselves before they reach the critical mass needed to maintain steady profits. The spiraling costs of doing business—buying server space and bandwidth—continually increases as more visitors come even though more visitors might mean more generated revenue.

Also be cautious with any of the programs suggested here. While for the most part Amazon, Google, and CafePress are legitimate businesses, there is no way to keep track of the actual revenue they generate. Similar programs by less reputable companies may offer greater incentives—but at the same time might be less honest. Always choose your business partners carefully.