Introducing The 4 Ways To Make Money On The Internet

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4 Ways To Make Money On The Internet

By Wendy Maki

There are 4 basic ways to make money on the internet (6 for existing off-line businesses).

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To create an internet business plan, start by selecting one or more of these ways to make money:

Sell something directly from a web site ... even if you don't yet have products or services to offer.
Use a web site to capture marketing leads to follow-up with off-line... a powerful small business strategy, especially for those who only intend to have a web site to "advertise" their off-line business.
Sell advertising opportunities to advertisers or advertising networks and make money with just a web site.
Earn commissions by referring visitors to other internet businesses. Affiliate marketing is a simple small business idea popular with solo and home entrepreneurs.

If you have an established off-line business, you have two extra possibilities to consider in planning your internet business strategy. These are ways to make more money by changing existing business practices.

By moving some off-line activities onto the internet, a web site may help you to make more money by spending less.
Improve any aspect of your product, service, or customer support by moving it online, and you may be able to increase sales, even if those sales are completed off-line.

Identifying how your web site will "make money" for your business is an important step, even if you don't plan to have your web site make you money directly. Looking at these options will help you to identify your business objectives by answering these questions:

"Why do you have a web site?"
"What will having a web site do for your business?"

Pick one way to make money on the internet or multiple streams of income?

The strategy of developing "multiple streams of income" has become common among small businesses on the internet. Including more than one way to make money in an internet business plan has two advantages. Multiple streams of income can...

improve ROI (Return On Investment) -- when it multiplies the returns on any particular expense, and
provide stability through diversifying -- an important protection against the rapid pace of change on the internet.

Internet businesses use two approaches to create multiple streams of income:

Build multiple web sites for multiple streams of income.

This is NOT the repetition practiced by chains of off-line businesses. In fact, replicating identical web sites is undesirable and may be penalized.
When an internet business builds multiple web sites, each web site is distinct from the others. Sometimes they are vastly different. Each web site may target a different audience or serve a different function.

Develop multiple ways to make money from the same web site.

This online business approach can also be quite different from off-line business practices, as the following example illustrates:

ACME Internet Stores Inc. sells a line of products directly from its web site. ACME earns a second stream of income from affiliate commissions by referring visitors to another company's products. Third, ACME earns an income from posting rotating advertising banners supplied by an advertising network.

By contrast, ACME's off-line retail stores rely solely on the sales made to customers at the store. They do not earn commissions by referring visitors to other stores. They also do not post advertisements for other stores on their own windows.

An internet business starting with a single source of revenue can add others later, or the plan might include two or three streams of income right from the beginning.

Selecting the way you will make money on the internet is just the start...

There are no real restrictions on which way to make money you can choose. Any of the 4 basic ways to make money on the internet are available to virtually any business

of any size, from the one-person home business to the monster corporation, and
of any geographical scope, from local to regional to global.

The key is how that choice is adapted to the unique circumstances of the business. Narrowing down the choices from among the basic ways to make money will help in weeding through the overwhelming amounts of information and advice you are likely to encounter as you develop the plan for your internet business.

Once you have selected from the basic ways to make money, then you will begin to look at how to implement it. The internet business plan you develop will take into account many factors:

What are your specific circumstances?
What kind of web site can you realistically build?
What kind of internet business costs can you afford?
What would your visitors need to do at your web site for you to make money this way?
What kind of web site do you need for visitors to give you that "most wanted response"? (This is a term 'coined' by Ken Evoy to refer to the response you need most from the visitors to your web site.)

The variety, adaptability, and creativity of doing business on the internet is in the implementation...

NEXT: (#1) Making money on the internet - selling directly from a web site ť

#2 - Using a web site to capture marketing leads.
#3 - Making money from web site advertising.
#4 - Affiliate marketing - earn by referring visitors.
#5 - Using a web site to reduce existing business costs.
#6 - Using a web site to improve existing products or services.

Dig Deeper (into this topic)

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Case Studies, Internet Small Business

"SBI! Small Business Locator." Html page.
Find examples of the kinds of internet businesses that interest you.

"SBI! Case Studies." Html page.
Examples of small online businesses.

"Secrets To Their Success." Membership site.
Profiles successful small online businesses.

"Most Wanted Response"

Evoy, Ken. Make Your Site Sell! 2002. 2nd Edition. Hudson Heights: SiteSell.com Inc. 2001. Pdf.
How to identify your web site's "Most Wanted Response" and build a web site that achieves that response from visitors.
FREE Go To ť DOWNLOAD.

"Multiple Streams Of Income"

Allen, Robert G. Multiple Streams of Internet Income: How Ordinary People Make Extraordinary Money Online. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2001.
Robert Allen popularized the term "multiple streams of income" in his best-selling books.

Picks & Shovels (internet small business tools)

Business Services.

1Automationwiz
Services easily added to a small business web site. Secure shopping carts, databases, auto-responders, etc. Manage products, customers, orders, ad-tracking, newsletters, affiliates, and more from a browser. No download or installation required.
FREE TRIAL Sign Up ť for 30 days to explore these tools.

E-Commerce Hosting Solutions, Small Business.

Store Build It!
E-commerce web site hosting package with tools for small businesses.

Website Wizard Deluxe
Small business web site hosting includes site builder, e-commerce capabilities, email, ad-tracking, and more.

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