Question from a reader:”I am starting up a web based business and plan on having do-it-yourself information and possibly advertising to make money. What’s been your experience with this? Thank you.”
My answer is that free on the Internet isn’t always free when it comes to information. There have been tons of articles on free educations, free computer language training and of course free software that people can get to help them learn how to raise a barn, milk a cow, program an iPhone, perform open heart surgery and pretty much most of the things you and I can think about. The problem is that it is unclear as to how to make money or monetize the information. Somebody ends up paying for the info and free isn’t always free if it ends up costing you money.
Let me give you a couple of clear examples and you then can make your own decision as to what business model will work for you. For sites that deal in adult content, it use to be that the clicking through business use to make money for some of them. Problem was that they were not profitable anymore once everybody and his brother started knocking together their own sites and amateurs started posting their own videos. Information like that is freely available.
To be sure, you will find that there is a lot of cool info that you can watch in video form, download pdf instructions on a lot of things and in most cases you will get what you paid for. Sometimes the intructions or advice (hopefully like mine) is worth it’s weight in gold and getting it for free is a steal. Most of the time you are the one who is having his or her time stolen from them trying to find answers to some of your questions.
If you are setting yourself up as the portal or the one stop shopping place for a certain place for a certain bit of info, let’s say repairing Volkswagen car engines, you may develop into a nice niche but I don’t know if you will make enough money to cover your rent, utilities or even a can of soda.
Most surfers have very short term attention spans – oh look, kittens-where were we? – ah – and they move on from once they get their information and answer. Unless it is something that is hobby related or an item that causes them to dig deeper into your site, they will find what they are looking for and skeedaddle off to wherever it was that they were beaming in from.
Stir into the mix that we are in a financial Depression and you will add a harder factor to try and monetize something that you are giving away for free, unless you use the site to generate some interest for free and get them to buy a book or movie that you are hawking. I favor that approach because I can always have people find and order my books no matter what.
How much revenue do you want to make a month with your gig? Have you crunched the numbers to see if you can make enough to support yourself for a month? If not, what numbers are you realistically talking about?
I will go along with the recipe that states that during a Depression you can make money and start up businesses that can last. You can also burn yourself with the recipe as in recipe for disaster by pouring time and money into something that people aren’t going to pay for.
Ask yourself if you would click through an ad if it were on a web site and see if you would go and try stuff that you are asking your visitors to do. Most of the time I am lucky that people sit around and even read the entire entry to my site when I post and for that I am grateful. If they tend to buy something because they like my style, like one of my books, then the site has done the job.
Am I spending inhuman amounts of cash to keep the site up and running. Not at all. You can say that the site supports the book sales and is a driver for people who are interested in my non-fiction and fiction or my business, gaming or creative skills.
Or maybe they were bored waiting for videos to load and they just clicked through to enjoy themselves.
Remember that statistics of themselves will only show you indicators of what is working and who and when people are seeking you out. The rest is up to you and you better start off with the right attitude or you can lose a lot of time and money weeding out things that don’t work right.
You also are allowed to give some information and not all of what you are selling and charge for it if the market is willing to pay for it. Some people will pay you on the honor system. Most do not.
How many times have you also been directed to a site, looked for an answer and then been disillusioned? Did you ever offer financial renumeration or even post a “thanks dude”? You will want to avoid also any bait and switch tactics otherwise the word will get out.
That being said a better approach would be a niche self help site with ads possibly or something that you sell where it is related to the topic that you are covering on the site. You asked a good question.
Good luck. To all of us!
Aug 14 2009
August 13 2009
Also, please don’t quite go anywhere yet. Having some tax issues or tax questions? Any problems with trying to make it through the financial Depression we are in that is making you depressed? Please read on.
I am expanding my practice and taking on new tax clients. If you are interested in having somebody who is a successful businessman and tax professional with integrity review your returns discretely and see if your tax guy or gal is doing a good or goofy job, please drop me an email or post a comment with your contact information and time.
I have experience in international business, small businesses, partnerships, multi-state tax returns (they can get complicated) and anything else you can probably think of.
I also do business consulting and have ran several businesses (still running a few) myself so you are in good hands.
If you are looking for a day job, part time work, suggestions for saving money or investing, please check out my book, Practical Money Making, that is listed right after his paragraph in this very post. There are some great suggestions and ways to survive the Depression we are in.
Interested in any of my books? You may want to make a stop over here. Please click through to purchase my books and some other interesting items that actually ARE on sale.
Have you read my book, “Bad Tax Idea, Good Tax Idea“? Please order it today. The tips inside can save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars! Tax planning should be done year round and not just two weeks into January or later.
Part of all the proceeds from the sales of that book go to Rett Syndrome research. One girl is born with Rett Syndrome worldwide every fifteen minutes. My daughter Arianna has Rett. Thanks for your support.
Kim Isaac Greenblatt
Free Isn’t Always Free