As most of my die hard readers know, I created this site to help people and to talk about something I’m passionate about. That’s the primary reason, but it has a very close secondary goal and that is to earn enough money to do this full time.
I have been asked if I do this full time a lot recently, probably because I post new content quite often, at least once a day. I aim to be in a position that the site can replace my wages by April 2010. Here’s how I plan to monetize;
- Tutorials
Download-able PDF’s and pod casts which will cover marketing in several areas, Guides and how to type eBooks. These will be aimed at people who want to market themselves or their websites properly. To gain people’s confidence in my products I will release a free tutorial which readers can download it for free which leads me onto….
- Email List
From next month I will concentrate on building my email list. This will be built up by offering the tutorial download in exchange for their email address. An email list is vital to a websites success, it’s where your value is, and by building a loyal email list you can target pre-sold customers your priced content. Be careful with email lists though, Only broadcast once maybe twice a week, any more than this will lead to a bunch of un-subscribes and potential domain black listing.
- Membership site
The final details on this have not be fully thought out yet, but it will be a paid membership site in which members will benefit hugely in terms of boosting traffic to their websites, and improve the quality of their products. Possibly a forum or another social group, in which members will be charge a small fee (Lets say $9.95) on a monthly basis, and as long as they subscribe they will continue to reap the benefits.
- InfoPreneur network
I want to create an all in one solution for InfoPreneur’s (Bloggers). A one stop shop if you like, where they can use unique templates, have access to traffic boosting tools, ad networks, talk to other InfoPreneurs, build their own sites and make money from it, a complete solution which becomes the default option for everyone looking to tell the world what they have to say!
- Advice
Offering advice, or acting as a consultant. I help as many people as I can already, anyone who does ask for help at the minute gets it for free, and I support their sites (If I think it relevant) through my social network. I will eventually, once the site is big enough, start offering a paid service.
So this is my plan, and as I said will start to be rolled out in April 2010. You will notice I haven’t spoke about….
- Banner Ads
Although this site is a newbi, I am not new to running an online business, and I can tell you banner ads will not get you a return unless you’re doing incredible traffic, talking millions of hits a month, and then you’re going to be only bring in a $1,000 if you’re lucky. This is done to the click through rate of banners and the fact the commission on clicks is ridiculously low.
- Google Adsense
Even worse than Banner Ads in terms of money earnt compared to clicks. Honestly don’t waste the time or website space advertising some other product, that’s not your own, and will not even give you a good return.
Think of it this way, your site gets 50,000 hits a month. Of those hits, your banner ads and adsense get maybe 1,500 clicks. Not bad?… Wrong! If all you’re going to get paid is $0.02 a click you’re only going to earn $30!
But…
If you use that space advertising your own product on the same basis, 1,500 clicks onto your product description page which results in 75 sales (5% conversion rate). 75 sales at $19.95 = $1496.25 Much better right? And I’ve not even touched on second hit selling.
I hope this helps and gives you a plan that you could use if you’re struggle where to go.
What does everyone think?
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