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How To Create Multiple Income Streams
By MaryAnn
Shank Copyright © 2008
Many people are content, once they have set up an income-oriented website, just
to use that site for generating one source of revenue. If they only do this,
they could be missing out big time!
For example, let's take a basic online
store. Perhaps a book store specializing in romance novels. Doesn't sound too
profitable, does it. Let's see what this store can do:
- AdSense
- Charge for editing books,
perhaps even for reviewing them and featuring them on the site
- Put Amazon ads on site
- eBay ads for all things bookish
- Write
your own ebook on how to get published and sell it
- Affiliate with a company that will print hard copies of the books
- Feature art pertaining to your books or the writers
- Find other affiliates who have
bookish things, perhaps even bells, books and candles
- Locate affiliate
for the "romance" of the website. Perhaps flowers or chocolates or
diamonds
- Sell the books themselves!
Now,
instead of just one possible income stream, there are ten! Now THIS
is a real business.
In building your
multiple income stream business, there are two things you need to keep
in mind, no matter what your product area:
- Find the right niche
- Diversify
your streams of income.
If you can accomplish those two
things, you can have a successful online business.
Here's a quick summary of some of the income streams
that you might consider for your website:
EBOOKS. Write your own, or see
what others have written. "Jiffy books" do pretty well. These are short,
10-20 page ebooks, that sell for under $5. Also check ClickBank. ClickBank
authors tend to be pretty generous with commissions, so if there is
a good ebook there, promote it. You can also do both: write your own
AND feature ebooks that others have written.
PUT ADS ON YOUR SITE. AdSense is the biggest company doing
this, but there are others. You place blocks of ads on your site. They
are easy to set up. All you do is decide how you want the ads to look,
and place the code in the right spot. Easy peasy. Whenever anyone clicks
on these, you get paid. The rate of pay is determined by your topic,
and the page the ad is on.
AFFILIATE MARKETING. Another company has a product you like. You see
they have an affiliate program. That means that you can show it and
sell it on your site. Every time you make a sale, you get a commission.
The money transaction is handled by the merchant, so you don't need a
shopping cart. Check out Commission Junction for a slew of affiliate
based products. You will need to sign up, but it is free. Linkshare is
another big company. Also check out Affiliate Programs and the Direct
Selling Association.
CREATE A
MEMBERSHIP SITE. Do you have special knowledge in a unique field? Let
members pay to join and offer them premium knowledge, products and networking.
BRING EBAY INTO YOUR WEBSITE. You can set up your own eBay store,
featuring the types of products that your visitors would like. A cake
decorating site could sell molds for devils on the page about devils
food cakes! eBay has so much to offer that they sky is the limit.
CREATE AND SELL YOUR OWN TRAINING PROGRAM
DVDs.
Sometimes visual works better than written material. If that is the case for
you, create your own training program. You can sell them as a download, or in
hard case DVD, or both.
CREATE YOUR OWN SHOPPING MALL. Thousands of
different kinds of products lurk in different shopping malls, from teddy bears
to samurai swords. Track down your vendors and create your own very unique
shopping. Once you start looking, you will be amazed at the variety of product
you can offer.
JOIN A TRAVEL COMPANY. For all travel sites and
geographically oriented sites, this is a must. And it's a nice source of income.
A travel site is a natural for network marketing, and would include many of the
other streams of income that we note here as well.
PROMOTE YOUR SERVICE
BUSINESS ONLINE OR SELL YOUR OWN PRODUCT ONLINE. From massage parlors
(the legit kind) to dentists to attorneys, there just isn't a corner
of the business world that couldn't benefit from a good website. Have
online coupons for your customers, both from your business and from
affiliated businesses. Or do you create jewelry? Write children's books?
Design stained glass doors? The internet is made for you. Nowhere else
can you reach such a wide audience, at such a low price. And it's not
just for "creative" folks. One of the most successful
webmasters I know sells kits for people to set up their own concrete
driveway contractor business. Honest.
GENERATE FINDERS FEES. Real estate finders
fees may or may not be an option in your area. But if you bring an artist a new
client, that should certainly generate a finder's fee. Look for companies in the
same general area of interest as your website and cut your own deal.
ACT
AS AN AGENT FOR OTHERS. A very successful lady books rooms in local inns in a
remote island, and earns very nice commissions doing it. Her site attracts the
guests, and she forwards the requests for rooms to her clients. Another
webmaster books trips to Australia. He doesn't actually do the booking himself;
he just forwards the request to other agents, and collects his commission. Both
are great network marketing options.
SELL ADVERTISING ON YOUR SITE.
Unlike a newspaper, you've got all the space you want. So sell some of it.
CREATE YOUR OWN AUCTION. When you've got a specialized product, let
others bid on it. Setting up a whole auction site like eBay is very
expensive, but you can do "blind bidding", i.e., let people submit
bids without knowing what others are bidding. Results can be quite
nice with this approach.
You want one more way to make money with your Network Marketing online
business? Okay ...
MLM. Multi level marketing is not always the best
option. But once you find a good company to work with, it cannot be duplicated
anywhere.
This is truly the beginning of making money in your multiple income stream
online business. I am continually amazed at the creativity of entrepreneurs
who earn money in this way. Everything I
mentioned above has at least a dozen variations on it. And there are
dozens and dozens more ways to make money.
Remember, too, that none
of these will do you any good at all without traffic to your site. First build
your traffic. Then you can sell. Statistically, only about 2% to 5% of visitors
will buy anything. So, based on your product mix, figure out how much traffic
you need to generate to be successful.
Build your monetization slowly.
And don't be afraid to fire companies that don't work out. There are lots and
lots of choices. Find your best matches.
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