What Sort of Website Should I Create In Order to Earn Money?

I've had some visitors writing to me to ask what sort of website they should create in order to earn money. I hate to say it, but this sort of question has got the cart before the horse.

To put it bluntly, if a person were to take this perspective when creating a website, unless he/she is a seasoned webmaster with lots of know-how (in which case he/she won't be asking me this question), chances are that the site won't earn very much, if at all.

The question to ask is not whether people will give you money but whether you have anything original and useful to offer them. In a sense, cyberspace is an reflection of the real physical world. And no wonder, since the same real physical people surf it. Like things in the real world, if you have nothing to offer, others will have nothing to give you in return.

What Makes a Successful Webmaster?

I know that there are a lot of misconceptions going on about what you can earn from a website. Some people read the (very) few success stories of people who have made it big, and think, "Gee, I want to quit my day job, work from home and make a fortune."

To put things in perspective, so that you don't get fooled by others' bragging, here are some things you should know about the people who have succeeded on the Internet:

1. Only a Very Small Percentage of Websites Make It Big

   There are very few people among the millions of websites and webmasters who have actually made it big. The majority of websites on the Internet don't really make their owners any useful money, if at all. I have new webmasters who tell me that they make less than $50 in their good months. I say this not to discourage you, but so that you can be realistic in your expectations.

2. You Must Be Willing to Work Hard Over a Period of Years

   Those who have succeeded have worked very hard and persevered over a period of time, usually years. They may pretend they can relax now, but they have probably slaved away at their sites over the years.

3. You Need Some Talent, Skill, Knowledge or Ability in Your Field

   Those who have succeeded had talent, skills, knowledge and abilities in their areas of specialization. As a result they could create original content, and not a stale rehash of existing information. Their experience in their field also gave them insight into their users' needs and they could adjust and cater to it.

4. You Need a Passion for Your Work

   The successful webmasters love their work. They enjoy the things that their website dealt with, and thus are enthusiastic when working on it. This is one of the reasons why these successful webmasters don't seem to realize that they are working like dogs on their sites. They enjoy the work and so don't define it as work. When you ask them how many hours a day they work, they think hard and say, "oh, maybe one or two hours", because those were the hours they actually spent updating the website. But they forget to count the umpteen hours every day they spent learning, researching, experimenting and planning before it culminated in those "one or two hours" of updating.

A website is not a shortcut to fame and fortune. If you work on one long enough, you'll realize that it's exactly like the real world.

What Makes a Successful Website?

A website that is successful has these characteristics:

1. It has Original or Unique Content

   There are thousands, if not millions, of websites on the web rehashing the same old content or selling the same old things. This is probably even more so today with blogs being so easy to create. Those sites more or less talk about the same old stuff everywhere, or sell the same old things in the same old way. A reputable and successful website is one that creates original and new content, or provides some outstanding service, or sells something unique, and thus stands out from the crowd.

2. It has Useful Content

   Original and unique content in and of itself is pointless if it is of no use to anyone. Note that "use" does not necessarily mean that others need to be able to take direct action based on your content. Even blogs that tell of (say) your struggle with some particular issue in your life (be it office politics or relationship problems) can be considered useful to others because it helps them understand or cope with their own problems. So when I say "useful" I mean it in the broadest possible sense.

What Type of Site Should I Create?

Basically, in order for you to be able to create an original website of value to others, you must know something about the field on which your site will focus. You should also be interested in that area, because you're going to have to slave away at it for a long time before it even begins to show signs of bearing fruit. A site on something you only have a superficial interest in will wither away as your own interest fades.

In other words:

• Create a website in an area you have interest and experience in. A website in the same field as your day job is one possibility.

  Even if you think that you're a hopeless good-for-nothing who only knows how to play games, all is not lost. Create a website about games. If you like games so much, chances are that you will know a lot of stuff about games and what gamers want. In fact, you will be very well poised to create such a site.

  Think about what you do most of the time in your day or free time. No, I don't mean couch-potatoing. What are your professional qualifications? What are the things that interest you? What are the things on which you are an authority among your friends? These are the things that you will be able to create a website about.

• Even if your skills relate only to the real world, for example, you are good at (say) flower arrangement, you can create a website about that. In such cases, you might want to invest in things like a digital camera, if you don't already have one, a webcam or a digicam, so that your site can have pictures or videos about your hobby.

For the Person Who Has Nothing to Offer

• At the very worst, if you really feel that you have absolutely no education, no interests and no talents, consider starting a personal blog.

  I'm sure some experienced webmasters will probably be very annoyed at me for giving such advice, since it means that there will be another pointless blog polluting the web. But I see this way: after blogging for a while, some people are able to discover areas in which they are interested or good at. Look at all your blog entries after a few months. Do the majority of them fall into some particular category? If so, the topics you tend to talk about are an indication of your interest (or obsession). In any case, whether or not you discover your area of expertise this way, you will still have a website in the end, since a blog is a website.

• Or is writing a blog too hard as well? I'm not kidding as I say this, since I know that not everyone is a Shakespeare wannabe just bursting to put their latest sonnet on the web. If you are the visual kind of person, prefering to paint or draw, or the photography-loving sort of person, put your pictures on your site. Or perhaps you speak better than you write. Use a microphone and record your spoken words, and put it on a blog as a sort of audio blog or web radio broadcast. If you have a good on-camera presence, you can use your webcam and create a video blog, which is a blog consisting of videos instead of written words.

Points to Consider When Starting a Website

Generally, if you really want your site to be successful or at least earn you some sort of useful income, consider the following.

1. Don't go for areas with lots of competition.

   Go for some niche where there are fewer websites. If you can create a site in such an area, you will thrive. After all, you will be one of the few sites that deal with that topic. Anyone looking for information on that area will end up on your site sooner or later. You will effectively have a captive audience. More accurately, you will have all the audience.

   How do you figure out where competition is thickest?

   • Look at the spam topics in your mailbox. If possible, don't create sites on topics that spammers love - chances are that the Internet is rife with such websites so any new site you create will not even appear on the radar. There are so many sites on pharmaceuticals, gambling and the like with many seasoned players that getting ahead in the industry is difficult.
   • Avoid making websites for webmasters, if you can, since such sites are also overwhelmingly plentiful. Maintaining a site in this field is a never-ending uphill climb. I speak from painful, first-hand experience on this.

     (Another thing that I can tell you from experience is that webmaster sites tend to have lousy income from advertising. I'm sure you've heard the saying that doctors make the worst patients. Well, webmasters make the worst targets for web ads. They have seen so many banners in their life that they have a tendency not to notice them.)

2. Areas that are only recently developing on the web, are good places to explore.

   Take the music and movie-making industry for example. Not long ago, you needed a recording company to make your own music and get it distributed. Nowadays, you can just use a microphone, and record and edit your own music. You don't need EMI or even American Idol to help you on your way. You can put your music on the web and draw fans without the help of a single recording contract. All your income is your own.

   Similarly, movie-making used to be the provenance of companies with huge budgets. Not any more. Advances in digital technology make capturing and editing videos doable on the average desktop PC. The easy availability of free movie distribution sites and the ease of creating your own site, means that you don't need Hollywood anymore to distribute your own blockbusters. (Search for "fan films" on a search engine if you don't believe me.)

   But of course, while these areas are fast-growing, if you want to get on the bandwagon, you should get on it soon. Although the old gigantic industry players still haven't got their act together (at the time I write this), they will eventually wake up, stop fighting the Internet and start taking advantage of it.

   Note that I'm not saying that you should go into the music or movie-making industry if that's not your area of expertise (unless you plan to put your bathroom-singing onto the web). I'm saying that if you cannot find an area where you are a total monopoly (the dream of every webmaster), you should look for areas that are only just growing but have not yet come into full bloom.

Increasing Your Website Revenue from Affiliate Programs

So you signed up for an affiliate program, and dreamt of untold riches that comes simply with having a website. Until you got your first cheque, that is.

Earning an income from advertising on your website is often proclaimed as The Dream To End All Dreams where you earn even while you sleep (which is true). All you have to do is to set up a website and the money starts flowing in, right? As many new web designers have found out, it doesn't work quite so smoothly. Very often, the reality check comes when you get your first month's cheque.

Here are some tips to help you increase your takings from your advertisements.

1. Time

   Before you jump out of that window, you have to realise that, like many things, these things take time. In general, for many webmasters starting out with their first affiliate program, their first month's income is usually rather pithy. This is normal. The income improves as you fine-tune your site and the advertisements and banners you use.

2. Targeting Your Advertisements

   There's really no short cut to this. Unless you signed up for one of those programs that will rotate ads on your site automatically, you should try to fit the banners and links you display on your site to the audience that you expect your site to attract.

   For example, if your site is about education, put up advertisements and banners that would interest people who come to your site. Think about it - education sites would interest at least three types of people: kids, educators (teachers) and parents. Choose advertisements that would interest them. Note that this does not mean that you exclude all other types of advertisements. Some ads are general enough to appeal to many types of audience.

    

3. Ads About Free Stuff Do Better

   Let's face it. When we go to a physical shop to get something, we expect to pay money for the goods we obtain. But when we go to a website, we bring with us a different mindset. We expect information, goods and services free of charge.

   Because of this, advertisements about things that your visitors can obtain free will usually fare better than those about things that they have to pay money for.

   If your affiliate program has free stuff on offer, try them out on your site to see how it performs.

4. Traffic is Everything

   No visitors, no money. To have people clicking on your banners and taking up the offers given there, you need to work on the traffic going through your site. There's no substitute for this. No amount of fine-tuning of your advertisements is going to help you if you have only a few visitors going to your site each day.

   Remember that not every visitor is going to click on your banner. (When was the last time you clicked on a banner on another site?) So to earn any income at all, you must generate enough traffic.

   If you want to learn more about promoting your site, you can check out my other articles on website promotion for more information.

5. Content is King

   I have seen many sites whose webmasters obviously decided that they'll make a quick buck by loading up their site with affiliate program links. Their site contains nothing but advertising links, along with comments that these are "fantastic offers", "great offers", "best" and what not. I'm sure you've seen those sites too.

   If your site is like this, you should be aware that aggressive promotion may get you many visitors, but those visitors are unlikely to bookmark your site and return for more. There will be some (if not more) that will be so fed up that they won't even look at what you have to say.

   My suggestion - your website must have genuine content. Unending lists of advertising links may fool some people, but not for long.

6. Credibility

   Some advertisers tell you that you should personally recommend their products, and if you do so, the advertising link will do much better. True. But unless you yourself have used their product or service, and also agree that it is what you claim it to be, putting such a link can be counterproductive. There is a relationship of trust between you and your visitors. People start off generally believing what you say until you demonstrate that you're just a salesperson trying to make a quick buck. My recommendation is that if you don't really know much about a product, or have not tried it, do not pretend otherwise. Of course if you're using it yourself and think the world of it, by all means, recommend it.

   Basically, just be honest. Believe it or not, honesty is the best business policy.

7. Text Links Vs Banners

   You'll read on some sites that nowadays, text links fare better than banner links. Other sites claim that banners are coming into vogue again. I think that such blanket claims have to be qualified somewhat.

   My experience is that text links that are part of the content of your site will generally do better than banners or other text links.

   I used to think that text links that are not part of your site content need to be short and sharp in order to do well. However, I have seen some sites that have an elaborate long advertising copy for its link. The webmasters of such sites have apparently found that long stories like these work well for their type of audience. You may wish to do some testing on your own site to see which type of text advertising work for your audience.

   As for banners, whether they work or not depends largely on the type of website you have, your audience and the design of the banners. Like all things, you'll just have to test them out on your site and examine the results after a few months.

8. Rotation and Weeding

   If you don't use an advertising program that automatically puts the most relevant ads on your website, you will need to manually manage the advertisements that appear on your website.

   Do this by monitoring your advertising statistics. If an advertisement does well initially, and its performance slowly drops over time, it is probably time to rotate that banner or button. If it remains too long on the page, people tend to stop seeing it. Sometimes you can prolong the life of the advertisement by simply using a different banner from the same advertiser (assuming they provide more than one banner).

   Likewise, if an advertisement seldom has any takers, remove it. There are at least a couple of common reasons for this: the picture doesn't attract anyone to click on it (banners that are too wordy often have this deterrent effect); or your site's target audience is not interested in this type of service or product. Don't keep it around just because it has a high payout rate - what's the point of a high payout rate if no one ever takes it?

   Above all, be patient. Keep working on improving your traffic and fine-tuning the ads that appear on your pages. After all, Rome was not built in a day.