What do a movie buff, couch potato, car lover, and jokers all have in common?
There is still a big misconception that circulates the Internet. Many people believe that in order to earn an income with their web site, they have to first have their own product and then become some technical guru in order to build their site.
People become so bogged down and intimidated by the technical aspects of building their web sites, and most are not aware that making money with a web site is only 10% site building. The other 90% of the work comes from spreading the word.
Thanks to all of the HTML editors on the web, building a web site is the easy part these days. Getting people to flock to your site and open their wallets is where the challenges lie.
That is why I cannot stress how important is for you to build your site on a topic you TRULY have a passion for and know enough about to continue to update it. Fresh, unique content is what keeps people returning to your site day after day.
Below you’ll see a few web sites owned by people who have done just that. Instead of trying to become the next Amazon.com, they’ve found their own niche and created a passion-oriented, knowledge-based web site of their own. And not one of these people have their own product to sell. All of their income comes from affiliate programs.
(Affiliate programs are normally free to join and the company pays you for any order that is generated as a result of your referral.)
You’ll also notice that these web sites will not blow you away with their designs or technical presentation, but the one thing they all have in common is that the owners have a PASSION about the topic of their site. And that’s the reason they are collecting pay checks month after month.
An impressive movie review site run by long-time film buff, Mary Ann Johanson. She reviews movies and then earns revenue by referring her visitors to purchase DVDs, CD soundtracks and more. A great example of how a casual hobby can turn into cold cash on the Internet.
http://www.FlickFilosopher.com
TVTalksShows.com won’t knock you down with its design or layout, but it must be doing something right. According to PC Data Online, Trevor Rieger’s site, TVTalkShows.com gets more traffic than the heavily promoted Ricki Lake and Jerry Springer sites. It has also gotten the attention of the New York Times. What’s Trevor’s secret? It’s simple. He built a web site on his passion and continues to develop it daily.
His revenue comes from banner networks that pay him for the traffic he brings to them.
http://www.TVTalkShows.com
Here’s another successful site built on the owner’s experience. If you have never been involved in a car buying scam, you probably know someone who has. Jeff Ostroff took his own car-buying experience to the web and is now helping people avoid many of the scams people may run into when searching for that perfect vehicle. As you may have guessed, he has made quite a few enemies with some car dealerships but that number means very little when you think about the consumers he’s helped.
http://www.CarBuyingTips.com
Ray Owens cashes in on people’s laughter. He runs JokeaDay.com, a site full of jokes, puns, riddles, and knee-slappers. You can even find the “joke of the day” on his homepage. This is a brilliant concept for getting people to return to his site regularly. To bring in additional revenue, Ray offers a “Premium Subscriptions” section where visitors can obtain access to more jokes for a small fee.
http://www.JokeADay.com
It’s truly amazing what can come of a web site when you have a passion about the subject matter. As you can see, all of these web sites have great return-traffic potential, which is so very important.
1) Mary Ann’s loyal visitors anxiously await her reviews on the latest movies.
2) Talk shows air almost everyday so you can always find Trevor’s message boards flooded with new conversations on anything from Jenny Jones’ out-of-control teens to Oprah’s latest book club.
3) Used car buying is a task that will never grow old. As long as there are cars to buy, there will always be scams for Jeff to review.
4) Ray’s domain name, JokeADay.com, is a huge marketing gain in itself. Who can forget to return for a laugh with a name like that?
It’s simple, folks. Always remember to build your site on your passion. If you continue to update it daily with fresh, unique content that your target audience can use, there’s little room for error.
RSS feed for comments on this post · TrackBack URI
Leave a reply