One of the most accessible ways for anyone to build a solid income, regardless of their technical expertise or limited start-up budget, is through the Internet. According to veteran e-tailer Sydney Johnston, creator of Auction-Genius-Course.com, anyone with a computer and the ability to read and write can start a profitable online business – if they have the self-discipline to follow through.
Johnston’s popular wealth-building plan advocates creating many small, niche-oriented web sites, each with a modest monetary target. Though individually, these sites may not generate substantial earnings, they each contribute to a notable overall income. “It’s like fishing,” explains Johnston. “The more lines you put out there, the more you catch, and the better your chances of meeting your financial goal.”
Step by Step
How do you begin turning out web sites, especially if you have no online experience? You can start by taking four specific steps:
• Research Your Market
Research absolutely must be your first step. There are many keyword tools you can use to determine the demand for your niche and whether or not you can compete in a given market. As long as you’re doing your homework and making educated decisions, you won’t see too many of your sites failing.
• Build Your Site
Your next step is the actual web site creation. You can use a free web-building tool like Nvu.com to design your sites. It’s extremely user-friendly, even if you have no programming or HTML skills. The most effective length for these narrow niche sites is around thirty pages, or thirty articles of about 350-600 words each, centered around a highly specific topic. Such articles aren’t hard to create; once you get started, it becomes second nature.
• Cash In
Once your site is up, it’s time to monetize it. There multiple strategies you can employ to convert your web site into revenue. Programs like Google’s AdSense or AuctionAds.com, for instance, match relevant sponsored ads to your site’s content and display them on the appropriate pages. Anytime a visitor clicks through one of your pages to a site or auction advertised there, you get paid.
Drop shipping is another easy monetization model: you can offer products that are suitable to your site subject and would appeal to your target audience. This kind of low-risk model is especially advisable if you’re new to eCommerce – you’re not investing in inventory or shipping supplies, and you don’t pay the supplier until your customers pay you.
• Go Public
When your site is consumer-ready, all that’s left is to bring in the consumers. Rather than spending a fortune on pay-per-click ads, try implementing simple strategies to pull traffic from eBay and the organic search results:
o Use eBay to direct traffic to your stand-alone sites.
o Get your sites indexed with the major search engines.
o Put up a blog – they weigh heavily in the ranking algorithms – and post stories or articles there.
o Reword the articles you’ve written for your sites’ content and submit them to the free directories.
“People come to me all the time and say ‘Help me – I don’t know where to start,’” explains Johnston. “This is a straightforward, systematic process of building a site, getting the information out there, and then going on to the next one, and the next one, and the next one. Anyone can do this. For not much more than the cost of a domain name and a few dollars a month for hosting, you’re investing in a solid plan of action to reach your business goals.” |