I build websites for people occasionally.
My friends and family know me as an Internet geek. When they have questions about websites and making money online they come to me.
I have a few projects in the pipeline now. I didn’t seek them out, they just sort of found me.
These include:
- A local service business needing to take their web marketing up a notch.
- An inventor with a product he wants to market.
- A college kid wanting to make some spare money.
I need a place where I can explain Internet Marketing concepts to them. A place I can send people with questions – where they can get detailed answers.
So, I am beginning a series on doing business online.
I’ll be starting at the beginning, with the basics, and working my way out.
Some of you – maybe most of you – will already know most of this. If so, I hope you’ll help our less experienced readers by sharing your knowledge in the comments.
If you would like to keep up with this series, please subscribe to my blog feed. You’ll get notified when new articles are added.
So let’s start at the very beginning…
The Ultimate Goal
You want to do something online that causes other people to give you money.
Simple concept. It’s in the implimentation where the fly gets in the sugar jar.
So, how do you get people to give you money online?
- Sell your stuff. This can be something you produce or products you buy for resell.
- Sell your brain. Provide information for a fee.
- Sell your services. Use the Internet to promote your service business.
- Sell other people’s stuff. Sell the products and services of others as an affiliate and earn commisions.
- Sell advertising. Provide useful content and sell ads on your site.
These business models will often share common features and needs. All of them will need to generate traffic to the selling websites for instance.
There are differences too. For example, selling as an affiliate doesn’t require you to actually collect the money yourself – the merchant does that and sends you your commission.
You aren’t limited to one of these models. They can be combined to increase your income streams.
We’ll look at each business model – advantages, requirements and resources – in future posts of this series.
