Thursday, December 27, 2007
Make Money with a Site by Offering Free Services
As I've promoted Bloggertizer in various forums and sites, one question keeps coming up: How are you going to make money with a free site?
Before I answer that, I'll digress into a little history. I started my Internet income journey in 2000 with a simple site containing hard-coded affiliate links in a directory format. Over time and as my programming skills advanced, I moved to dynamic sites pulling from databases stuffed with vendor datafeeds.
These sites were fairly successful, until the big search engine affiliate purge in early 2006. First Google, then Yahoo, then MSN.... my network of sites quickly dropped off the search results pages and my income plummeted by over 90%.
With the advantage of hindsight, I can see the error of my strategy. I was building sites to make money, not to attract users. My sites didn't provide any real, repeatable service. People dropped in via an organic search result, clicked through my site to the product they wanted, and bought at the destination site.
I didn't see them again until they did another search for that product. Once I lost position in the SERPs, I was doomed. I wasn't getting any repeat traffic. One by one, these once profitable 'traffic direction' sites fell out of the search results, leaving me with a network of over 60 sites that went from 3,000 visitors a day to around 50.
Now you're asking: I thought you were going to tell me how I can make money with a free site? What does that story have to do with anything? Here's the lesson:
Don't build a site to make money. Build a site to get traffic. Specifically, build a site to get repeat traffic. Once you get enough traffic, making money is easy.
So what kind of service should you offer? Look for popular sites right now that offer a service for a fee, then build a site that replicates that service for free.
Before I answer that, I'll digress into a little history. I started my Internet income journey in 2000 with a simple site containing hard-coded affiliate links in a directory format. Over time and as my programming skills advanced, I moved to dynamic sites pulling from databases stuffed with vendor datafeeds.
These sites were fairly successful, until the big search engine affiliate purge in early 2006. First Google, then Yahoo, then MSN.... my network of sites quickly dropped off the search results pages and my income plummeted by over 90%.
With the advantage of hindsight, I can see the error of my strategy. I was building sites to make money, not to attract users. My sites didn't provide any real, repeatable service. People dropped in via an organic search result, clicked through my site to the product they wanted, and bought at the destination site.
I didn't see them again until they did another search for that product. Once I lost position in the SERPs, I was doomed. I wasn't getting any repeat traffic. One by one, these once profitable 'traffic direction' sites fell out of the search results, leaving me with a network of over 60 sites that went from 3,000 visitors a day to around 50.
Now you're asking: I thought you were going to tell me how I can make money with a free site? What does that story have to do with anything? Here's the lesson:
Don't build a site to make money. Build a site to get traffic. Specifically, build a site to get repeat traffic. Once you get enough traffic, making money is easy.
So what kind of service should you offer? Look for popular sites right now that offer a service for a fee, then build a site that replicates that service for free.
Labels: Inspiration
Monday, December 10, 2007
How to Come Up with Website Ideas 1
Want to start a website? Can't come up with any ideas? Believe it or not, getting an idea for a web site is the easiest part. Taking that idea, building a working site, and creating a user base is the hard part.
I was at a Holiday party recently (it's that time of year) and part of the compulsory activity is the greeting, you know: grip and grin, nice to meet you, oh you're a Cracker Barrel manager Me? I'm a web developer. A light began to gleam in his eyes.
"Really? A web developer? What kind of web site?"
I shrugged. "Pretty much any kind."
He sidled a little closer. "I have an idea for a web site," he said.
"Really?"
He nodded, lowering his voice. "How about I tell it to you, you can build it, and then we can split the money it makes."
I appeared thoughtful. "How about this," I finally said. "How about you build it and keep all the money."
"Why can't you be more tolerant," my wife said as the guy walked away in a huff.
True story, and it's happened more than once. Ideas are cheap, but if you haven't gotten past the hurdle of how to come up with them, here's one of the best ways to do it.
Start with a web site you already like BUT is missing one thing you wish it had. Now go build that site.
See? I told you it was easy.....
A few real-world examples:
The Digg founder was a SlashDot user, but didn't like the fact that only approved editors could submit links. So he built a site where ANYONE could submit links.
The guy who built PlentyOfFish had used various match-making web sites and had gotten tired of paying for a membership. So he build a dating site that was free.
CraigsList aggregated online services (mainly classifieds) that (at the time) usually charged a fee, and make them free.
Some folks liked the Wish List feature of various sites, but wanted a way to build wish lists from all sites. WishListr was born.
These are a few examples of sites that hit it big by taking an idea that was already firmly entrenched in the landscape and adding or changing one thing. No doubt there are countless websites out there that started by mimicking the functionality of another site with something simple added.
What are some of your favorite sites? What feature do you wish they had that they don't? Now... why aren't you building it?
I was at a Holiday party recently (it's that time of year) and part of the compulsory activity is the greeting, you know: grip and grin, nice to meet you, oh you're a Cracker Barrel manager Me? I'm a web developer. A light began to gleam in his eyes.
"Really? A web developer? What kind of web site?"
I shrugged. "Pretty much any kind."
He sidled a little closer. "I have an idea for a web site," he said.
"Really?"
He nodded, lowering his voice. "How about I tell it to you, you can build it, and then we can split the money it makes."
I appeared thoughtful. "How about this," I finally said. "How about you build it and keep all the money."
"Why can't you be more tolerant," my wife said as the guy walked away in a huff.
True story, and it's happened more than once. Ideas are cheap, but if you haven't gotten past the hurdle of how to come up with them, here's one of the best ways to do it.
Start with a web site you already like BUT is missing one thing you wish it had. Now go build that site.
See? I told you it was easy.....
A few real-world examples:
The Digg founder was a SlashDot user, but didn't like the fact that only approved editors could submit links. So he built a site where ANYONE could submit links.
The guy who built PlentyOfFish had used various match-making web sites and had gotten tired of paying for a membership. So he build a dating site that was free.
CraigsList aggregated online services (mainly classifieds) that (at the time) usually charged a fee, and make them free.
Some folks liked the Wish List feature of various sites, but wanted a way to build wish lists from all sites. WishListr was born.
These are a few examples of sites that hit it big by taking an idea that was already firmly entrenched in the landscape and adding or changing one thing. No doubt there are countless websites out there that started by mimicking the functionality of another site with something simple added.
What are some of your favorite sites? What feature do you wish they had that they don't? Now... why aren't you building it?
Labels: Inspiration
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