I know I’m kind of a “goober” and I like to keep it simple but there are only 3 models for 
earning income online.
- Your own product or service
- An affiliate product or service
- The advertising or I’ll send you my traffic for a price
Pretty simple but here’s the challenge:
If you do not structure your website or marketing strategy to match your income model, game over… you lose. Let me show you what I mean.
Your own product or service.
If I am selling my own stuff (e-book, cd, video, membership site), I have to be good at a few things:
- First, to build a list is my top priority. When I get up in the morning and until I go to bed at night, I am thinking about how to build a “responsive” list of fans (please note the word “responsive”).
- Next, I had better get real good at delivering “valuable but incomplete” information so my site visitors want more.
- I must learn to duplicate, or clone, myself with an army of affiliates. Anyone with half a brain knows that you do not get there by yourself. I want the effort of 10,000 people who may sell only one of my products per month or 100?s of affiliates that will sell 10 of my products per month.
- My final challenge is to build the best converting sales page this side of Mars or find someone who can do it for me.
Notice: There is no mention of affiliate products, adsense ads, page building, or lots of content to please the search engines. Why is that? I will tell you in a second.
The affiliate income strategy. If you desire to earn income referring your traffic to other people’s site. No problem if you use the strategy below:
- I need great content to bring traffic.
- I must, need and have to have people subscribe to my list before I send them anywhere else (very few affiliate owners mention this because they don’t want you to know).
- I must be seen as an expert with integrity and pre-sell like crazy.
This means I’m going to do more than just build content for the free search engine traffic. I’m going to be active in forums, guest blogging in blogs and writing articles until my fingers fall off. I need to show my stuff.
Note: There is no need to build an affiliate program because you do not own the product and you are the affiliate. You’ll notice no mention of Adsense or sales pages.
The “I’ll send you my hard earned traffic for a price” model:
I almost feel like a prostitute when I describe this model because I am leaving it up to Google to decide where to send my clicks. I think that strategy is insane, but what do I know. This seems to be the choice of many, but beware when you choose this model since you are limiting your income and security. In fact, you are at the mercy of the market and have no control over your site visitors because there is no need to build a list with this model. (I mean, come on… you create 250 pages of great content and expect me to sign up for your newsletter?… get real.)
If you choose this model, you will have Google Adsense, PPA (pay per actions ads), you can charge for banner advertising, or creatively charge for just about anything to allow people access to your traffic. (However, do not get mad at me when Google bi@#* slaps you like the pimp they are and treats you like the streetwalker you have decided to be.)
Just kidding, I know you will not sell your soul for a click off into “la la” land.
You need to get real good at:
- Hundreds of pages of content to attract thousands of site visitors.
- Ad placement and design for best CTR (click thru ratios)
- Pray you don’t drop off the search engine’s front pages for keywords because your income will take a nose dive into the ground and it won’t be pretty.
Now you can find many vehicles to drive these 3 income models but I challenge you to find the best model that fits your niche and site visitor traffic.
Here’s where webmasters get into trouble:
1.) They’ve designed a website and are using the wrong income models for their traffic.
2.) They try to combine all three models on the same page or pages of their website hoping for some sale or click and thinking the more stuff they can slap up on a page the better chance of selling something.
When someone tries to sell me on their model as being the only one or best, I run in the opposite direction. They don’t know what they are talking about. With 11 websites a blog and membership site, I’ve stumbled my way to learning and here’s the number 1 lesson I’ve learned. Quit listening to other people and look for clues from those who are doing it. Success leaves clues.
So what do you do with your niche? Do you run out and change it? Do you scrap it and move to another shinny object? Do you start list marketing in mid-stream? How do you know where to apply these strategies? I’ll show you in a couple of days (this is the “valuable but incomplete information” strategy that’s a must for list building and marketing… ain’t I a stinker?). I promise… no homework.
Until next time…
Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!