The problem is that we want to chase the dream of making a living online. Most people start with affiliate marketing however it doesn’t take long to realize that it’s not so easy to make things work.

The site has to be able to get traffic and convert traffic.

Building a website that is able to convert the traffic is an art unto itself and we’ve not even gotten into the ranking of the site.

The ranking is nothing more than hands on hard ass work coupled with an understanding of how the search engines work and most importantly how people search. I’ve seen many websites rank for some competitive keywords in the correct niche but want convert because they weren’t close enough to what people were searching for.
Other words, you can rank in the top ten for “website design” but if you are trying to sale templates you want make the sale. And there is no reason to even talk about selling templates and ranking for “custom website design”.

However, you can rank for “website design” and sell search engine optimization.
People are funny sometimes.

Anyway back to my point.

After a couple weeks of working hard and not being able to turn a profit we figure we need to change our business model.
We start charging people to market their site.

We get paid in advance and can either continue to look for new clients while trying to string old clients along or we can actually try and do right and use the client’s site as a learning experimental for our future clients.

Let me rephrase that because we are not doing right by our current clients. They are getting screwed no matter which direction we go in because we don’t have a clue what we are doing.

The current client begins getting upset so we take off to a forum to make a post for help.

Not knowing much about how the search engines work we post the clients address into the post http://www.carhiredalamanairportturkey.com .

Now, one day the client is going to do a search for that name and guess what they are going to find?

Sticky Websites Don’t Work

How much time is needed for your website to deliver its message to a potential client?

When someone lands on your website you’ve got less than 3 seconds to convince them to stay.

Let’s assume for a moment that the visitor that just landed on your website is interested in what you have to say, how much of your site will they remember and how much do they need to remember in order to become a client?

The amount of time your website needs in order to become effective is one of the most overlooked areas in web design and development while at the same time one of the most important.

And I am not talking about making a site sticky, just because a site can keep someone on it for hours does not mean that, that someone is going to ever purchase anything.

Sticky Isn’t So Good

Most sticky sites were developed with the idea of selling advertising space but the problem is that the people on the site become banner blind. In most cases the users on sites like YouTube or FaceBook want click on banners, they are there for a purpose and have no desire to leave the site.

Unless someone comes up with another way of doing it, it’s nothing more than a failed business model.

The idea is to make your website attractive enough to get their attention, engaging enough to get them to stick around, informative so it explains what it is your product or service can do for them and entertaining so they don’t forget you.

You have to be able to turn your advertising into content and your website into an experience.

Your Website Has To Be Like Six Flags

At Six Flags, people will spend hours standing in line waiting for their turn on a ride that last a couple minutes at best, then they will run back around and stand in the same line to do it all over again.

Your website has to show enough to make your site visitor want to wait for the rest of the site to load and be entertaining enough to make the site visitor stick around to read what it is you have to say.

But you only want to entertain for a couple minutes because the end goal is the checkout line.

Your website has to provide quality, and a memorable experience, in a matter of minutes.

How Much Time Do You Have?

You’ve got just enough time to let your site visitor know what’s in it for them.

Making Money Online

I’ve got a friend of mine wanting to make some money online. He’s no different than the millions of others wanting to do the same thing. He’ll be heading this way in about two hours and I’m sitting here thinking about what I’m going to tell him.

There are basically four ways to make money online.

1. Selling your own product
2. Affiliate Marketing
3. Blog flipping
4. Google AdSense

Google AdSense

The people who have been successful with this are few and far between, with the average person making a couple bucks a month at best. Most people never see a dime from their efforts.

I’m one of the ones that have been lucky enough to turn $10,000.00 plus a month using a combination of several different ad programs and building thousands of junk sites. Building, monitoring, ranking and all the other wonderful things that seem to go hand in hand with any website became more than I was willing to do and I got out of the business.

It’s not a good business model however you might be able to make a couple extra bucks per month with it. I believe Google pays out after the first 45 days and you have to make at least $100.00 to get paid.

Blog Flipping

I’ve not tried this yet but hope to get the time to start messing with it this coming month. The cash is a lot faster, you can get the money the same week you sale your blog. You basically build and set up a blog, write some articles and stick on it, as well as point some links at it.

Then sell it for as much as you can. You can use sites like eBay as well as several SEO forums to sell the site. Fast easy money, it all sounds good but like I said, I’ve not tried it yet.

Affiliate Marketing

This is where the big boys play. You’ll notice that most SEO experts want touch this area with a ten foot pole. And most people talking about it aren’t making the first Penney with it. This is where you get paid for the paying customers you can send someone.

We averaged about $5,000.00 per month last year in this area and I hope to get into it a lot more this year. I’d say less than 3% of the people that mess with it are able to make a living with it. It’s for the serious marketers and isn’t for the faint of heart.

Selling Your Own Products

If you’ve got a product or service to sell then this is by far the best option. We’ve made our living online for the last 7 years selling website designs. There are times I want to scream but I’d guess it’s that way with any real business.

You’ve just got to keep your head in the game and keeping moving forward.