List of Techniques/Tips that I use to make money

I just thought I'd post a short list of techniques/tips/sites that I use to make money one way or another online. Feel free to add any that you use.

1. Team up with bigger, popular sites in related niches but not in competition with won another. This is perhaps the best strategy that I have ever found, and I've been able to do this on a few sites. Basically, try finding a service, product, or content that you can propose to give away for free to visitors of a larger site. If the offer is good enough and it benefits the other website, you can instantly grow your business overnight. For instance, if you deal in health products, try working out something with an exercise site (not direct competition, but VERY related). Look for others who can help you, but make sure that you can help them too.

2. Look into sub-niches. I know some people might disagree with me here, but I've found that if you're goal to make money is in a niche that is extremely competitive and virtually impossible to get search engine rankings for, why not look into sub-niches that should be related to it that are less competitive? Or perhaps find a niche that will need products in your other target niche in time. This way, you can still market what you wanted from the original niche, but have A LOT less competition.

3. When using Adwords, try the same thing -- look for sub-niches that would like the product/service you want, but that cost a lot less for keywords.

4. Another tip with Adwords -- try to get some VERY specific keywords that others not only might not have, but that might increase your profits as well. If your site is selling LCD TVs and if bidding on similar keywords is too expensive, why not try to find specific models (expensive models) and use those keywords? Or try to add keywords that would suggest that someone is looking to spend more money. For instance, the difference between a search for "boat" and "luxury boat" can suggest that one of them is probably looking to spend more. If you do this well, you can not only decrease your Adwords budget, but you can increase your profits at the same time.

5. Have the profitable part of your site stand out and be VERY easy for them to get to and use. I once made some simple changes on a site of mine to allow visitors to use the profitable parts of my site much easier (and make it much more simple and obvious to them). This simple 5 minute fix doubled my profits for that one site.

6. Look for related forums or message boards for your niches. It really depends on the niche, but some niches might only have one or two forums without many people giving advice in them. If you give some useful advice, you could easily gain a ton of traffic and sales from this. One BIG tip here is that if a forum pops up in the search engines for a keyword that is popular in your niche, you can post a few times there and know that you'll be noticed by tons. It's almost like getting your own site ranked high.

7. Yahoo Answers -- try to use this to look for leads for your sites or businesses. For instance, if you are a website designer and someone asks the question "does anyone know of a cheap website designer for under $300?," you can jump on that and say "hello, I'm Suzzy and here's my site, here are some examples, etc." If they're asking specifically for things like that, they shouldn't consider it spam if you suggest yourself. Or if a question is asked about your niche in general, you can try to give them a helpful answer and maybe say that they can find more information on your site too. The best part is that these questions and answers can stay there for a long time, so you can continue to get traffic from it for a long time.

8. Submit a few select articles to larger sites that wouldn't normally take an article from you unless you submitted it directly to them. For instance, About.com is a good place for this. Many niches will accept articles if you try to get yours posted there, and they can send a ton of traffic your way sometimes.

9. Try to stand out from your competitors by offering something that they don't, or by offering something better. You can do this by offering unique content or by giving away something for free that they charge for. There are plenty of ways to monetize your site -- giving away something for free can be great to get the attention you need.

10. Free or cheap classifieds online or offline. Try Craigslist.com or USFreeAds.com for free postings. You can also look into classifieds in offline newspapers if you think your niche is relevant enough. Some large papers often might only charge $15 or so for a classified.

11. Find multiple ways to monetize your site, but don't lose focus on your most powerful way.

12. Get creative and constantly test -- always try to think of new ways and find ways to improve upon your product, site, service, etc. There's always a way to improve upon your results.

13. Post cheap guides in Ebay if you think they can be used for leads to bigger products of yours. You can even gain traffic to your site this way.

14. Be as nice as possible to your customers -- even if they don't give you a dime -- and overdeliver. Visitors are sometimes afraid to contact you thinking that you could care less about them. Take a few minutes to write back to the ones who contact you and go out of your way to help them. You can mysteriously gain extra customers this way (not only from them but from their friends and others).

15. Don't try to make a quick buck anyway possible. Don't throw affiliate links all over with no other value.

16. Don't ... I repeat DON'T ... use adsense on an important sales page of yours. The last thing you want to do is advertise your competitors next to your "buy now" button. When that happens, you're basically selling your customer for a few pennies and possibly losing out on a much bigger sale. I see people do this ALL the time, especially new people starting out.

17. Think of needs that are out there -- either your own or others -- and look for ways of solving them either via a new product of yours or information. If you need help, try to get others on board who can help and who you can trust. If you're having troubles finding something or solving a problem, I bet others are too. Always be on the lookout for new ideas.

18. Don't be afraid to go in another direction from others. Often times, you might find that the road less traveled is the road to more wealth. Just be creative and put some thought into your site/product.

19. Keep in contact with your customers with mailing lists, but don't bother them to the point that they leave you. Offer them value for staying on your list, as they can be worth a lot to you.

20. Don't view something that isn't a success right away as a failure -- view it as something you need to improve upon. Very few people are a success the first time they try overnight.

21. Get your hands dirty! Start on something, anything! Even if you know nothing, try to start a site, blog, etc. so you can learn at least something even if you don't make a dime. A $5/month hosting plan for a site to play around with probably won't kill your budget, and it can be a great way to get a good start.



#### Well, that about does it for the strategies/techniques that I use on most of my sites. Below are a few things that I've been testing out for the heck of it but haven't played around with enough to say that they are great. ####



1. Look for other products out there that people might do searches for reviews for. Then do blog/website titles that say "product B review" and so forth, and then have an affiliate link built into it. I did this one time unintentionally and started seeing a few affiliate sales after I popped up on the search engine results. Try to think of other ways that people would do research on products that you can be an affiliate for and target those keywords. Again, I haven't done this a lot, but I have gotten a small amount of extra money this way by accident.

2. Submit articles to revenue sharing article directories. I'm not a huge fan of article directories (I prefer to build up content on my own sites, but I know others use directories with success), but I have noticed that revenue sharing directories do pull in a little money. Even if you don't link it up to a website, you can still pull in some money. Just for fun, I'm currently tracking a bunch of articles over the course of a month or two to see how well they do there.



Now this is a long post. I'm sure I maybe left out a few things, but that's most of what I follow and found to work. If you have anything else to add, feel free to do so! If you think a specific strategy might not work for you or others, feel free to post that too -- this is just what I do.

However, I can't stress the #1 post enough -- team up with larger sites that aren't in direct competition. That has perhaps helped me the most.

Brian

 

I think you covered it all Thank you very much

 

That gave me some ideas I never thought of. Thank you for sharing this information. I hope more people will do the same in the future.

 

wow..these are very good tips

 

Rep added

Nice post. I had a lot of time to read something valuable in that subject.

Most important rule for me : #21

 

Great! Thanks for the tips! Rep for you

 

The Ebay tip is a good one I have used that at times and is a great way to market. Thanks for posting your list of tips.

 

..way to give back to the community, Brian.

Couple of comments:

1) Ive tried the ebay thing..my product is a higher price point and rarely converts...for cheaper products , the giveaway idea is worthy though.

2) Your 1st idea I believe is your best one. Many people overlook this..its hard work and many sites will say no, but all it takes often is 1 or two giants to make a killing, and it is always possible.

Green repped you BTW..

Brian

 

good nice tutorial and thank you for sharing this information with all of us

 

good tips and guidelines, thank you

 

definitely a great article

 

wow
This is a big list...

 

thankx for sharing those goods tips with us.

 

Its indeed a good tips pal. Keep it up and keep posting same whenever possible.
Thanks

 

Thanks for sharing.

 

Great! Thanks very much indeed

 

I think I'll try the Yahoo Answers thing, hadn't thought of that!

 

thanks a lot for these tips!

 

nice post rep sent

 

Wow... These are the types of posts that make forums great. Thank you for the great contributions here. It makes starting out a little easier to do with confidence!