Making money on the Web...

In a day and age when everyone could use a little extra coming in, I thought I’d share some of the research I’ve done into making money on the Web. There are obviously thousands of different ways of making money using the Internet but, for simplicity’s sake, I’m going to split them into two main streams, and then focus primarily on the one.

The first type of money-making avenue would be having an e-commerce site of some sort. This is where you offer a product or service, and you use the Web as a sales channel. Here, your customers would find your site, use it to make their selections and purchases, and often process their payment as well, all in one. This could be an extension of a business that has a physical presence in one or more countries (think of an online shopping site for your local supermarket); or it could be a stand-alone business, based solely on the Web (think Amazon or Yahoo!). I would refer to these as ‘active’ Web businesses – where the revenue is generated from the sales process, and is actively worked for.

The second type of income stream would be more of a ‘passive’ Web business – where income comes in, even without physical sales being processed or services rendered. This is the type that I’d like to focus on in this blog post. One of the most common (and easiest) ways to generate an income in this manner is through advertising on your site or blog. In my mind, the easiest program to use to do this is Google Adsense. Basically, what happens is that you would sign up with Google to have ads placed on your site (you get to choose what types, how many, where they’re placed, etc.) and they would provide you with the HTML code to embed into your pages. These ads will then come up and show on your site when others are accessing it. If a reader or customer clicks on one of these ads, you can then be paid for it. How much you are paid depends on how much the advertiser paid for the click, and sometimes whether the person who clicks through takes another step (such as signs up as a user, buys a product, etc.) Generally, you would make a few US cents per click, but this can add up if you have enough traffic on your site, clicking on ads.

You’ll notice that I have a few such ads floating around on this blog. To be completely honest, the reason for me starting a blog was two-fold. First and foremost, it was to give me a channel to share some of the hundreds of thoughts flowing through my mind at any one point in time, and to share some of what I have been fortunate enough to learn in my life so far. The second aim, tied to the first, was to try and generate an income stream from the Web. I thought that, if I can make the content of my site interesting enough so that it appeals to a wide audience, I could leverage off of that audience and make a little bit of extra cash. Hence the ads around the site. If I write an interesting post that attracts you to read it, and you then click on an ad, I should (in theory) make a little bit off of that.

To date, it has been a mild success. I have made a little bit of change here and there, but I’ll be the first to admit that I have not been the most dedictated of writers – I have tried to put up at least a couple of posts a week, but if I was seriously serious about building an audience, I should be posting nearly every day. Having spoken to some very experienced bloggers (notably Chris Mills of Imod – www.imod.co.za), they have all said the same thing: If you want to grow a successful blog, it’s all about content, content, content! Make sure that you always have something fresh and new on you site, and your readers will respond with their loyalty. Now I realise that it’s not completely ‘passive’ – if you don’t write anything, you have no readers, and thus no income from ads – but I hope you understand what I’m getting at.

What I can say is that I’ve realised that certain types of blog-posts definitely have a broader appeal. I’ve generally had people clicking on and reading every post that I’ve put up, but I had a tremendous response on the last one (“How to draw up a budget”). Nearly 5 times as many people clicked on it compared to the next most popular! Thus, as a blogger, you have to walk the fine line between posting what you want to write, and what people want to read. It’s not easy, and the Web is littered with stories of blogs that just never took off…

So, I’ve decided to re-frame my approach to this whole blogging thing. I’m going to make an effort to put up at least two to three posts a week (and keep them interesting, not just doing them for the sake of doing them). I’ve also added another weapon to my arsenal. You’ll notice that there is now a Google search-function at the top of the page. This is another product of the Adsense program, and acts as a conduit for readers to be able to access the full power of Google search without leaving the page. If one of you performs a search using the strip above, and clicks on a link in the search results page, I should – in theory – get paid (I think if the link had originally been paid for). It’s only been up for a day or two, so I’ll see how it goes!

Now, this has been an extremely simplistic summary of the way I see it. I am definitely no IT-whiz, and am ready to stand corrected on anything I’ve mentioned here. But, if I can do it, anyone can!