Underground Web Designs Blog

No one denys the wisdom of diversifying your investments. By investing your money in several different ways, in different places, you may not be guaranteed a good return, but your chances of loosing everything suddenly are drastically reduced. 

The same could be said for your website.

Most business owners put up a website because they expect it to help them make money. Unfortunately, many people don’t use (or just don’t know about) all the ways that their website could be making them money. Because of this their website is like a single investment in only one company. It’s great if that investment does well, but if it goes bankrupt you’re going to loose money.

Instead of placing all your eggs in one basket, look at these other options your website might be able to use to bring in some extra money and diversify your web presence:

• Google Adsense and onsite advertising.
• Affiliate programs.
• Online contests
• Forums and community sites (with ads).
• An e-mail mailing list or RSS feed.
• A free give-away with a powerful upsell.
• Social media (youtube, facebook, delicious, etc)

You’ll notice that not everything on that list will make you money by itself. The biggest key to being successful online is not to focus only on money, but to diversify your efforts. Have a strong focus, and then try many things to accomplish your goal and build your brand. By spreading out your efforts to gain traffic, build your brand, and yes, make money you may not become an overnight millionaire, but chances are you’ll slowly build a successful site.

When running a bricks and mortar business your marketing options are limited by time, manpower, and cost. Online you have much more freedom to explore different ways of advertising your business, making passive revenue, and communicating with your market. So do a bit of research and try something new. You may be surprised at the results.

(Watch future articles for more details on setting up an affiliate program, google adsense, and more).