So, just how do people really
make money on the Internet? I think you'll be surprised by the variety of
money-making opportunities at your digital doorstep.
During the tech boom of the late 90's, thousands of websites sprung up that were based solely on monetizing content (e.g., articles and news) with advertising.
And, yes, many of those businesses failed because they tried to grow into Fortune 500 sized companies overnight, riding on the back of
advertising profits and the 'virtual' equity of their stock options.
Of course, the market corrected itself, and these companies crashed and burned. The major lesson learned there is that profitable Internet businesses need to offer a mix of products and services.
Also, there some products and services which are exclusively
Internet-based, and arise from the unique needs of
Internet users (for example, e-books, website graphics, Internet service providers, e-mail providers, etc).
Just what types of products are offered online? The possibilities are endless and they can take a number of forms:
Type One: Physical Products
Again, anything you can sell offline can sold online, too. This includes things like books, cds, clothing, jewelry, houses, cars, kitchen appliances, plane tickets, toys and so on.
Other types of digital products include membership-based services. For example, you can charge a monthly fee for access to a website, newsletter, consulting service and so on.
A really good example of this is the dating-related, “matchmaker” sites that charge members a fee for full-access to their match-making services.
A good example of this is
Google Adsense. In the Google Adsense program, website publishers can place Google ads on their websites and get paid each time a visitor clicks on one of the advertisements.
It’s just a matter of finding creative ways to extract
advertising profit from the content that pulls traffic to your website.
