10 Ways to Web Mastery

Become a webmaster doesn't happen overnight. It took me 12 years to learn the ways of the Internet. I had my first website in 1996 but I let other people create and maintain the sites. I didn't understand the basic principles of how the web works.

After hiring a bunch of people, paying a lot of payoll taxes, and losing money, I ended up with nothin . . . except a few websites that continue to this very day. In taking the ashes of my burnout and building these sits into profitable enterprises I learned some principles. This Hub features some of the best.

1) Provide Free Information and Build a Big list

These two things methods go together. Look at the most successful business online and almost without fail they are the same businesses which are building the Opt-In Email Lists. One key that you have to remember though is that you MUST provide high quality information to your list and not just a bunch of ads. If your newsletter is just an ad sheet, you can be assured that it will almost NEVER grow! Then, learn how to write effective offers which ride right along with each of your mailings to the list. Once your list begins to grow, you will find out just how easy it is to build a Guaranteed Monthly income on the Internet. Advantages: You can build your list up each month and watch your guaranteed monthly income go up right along beside it. It can be an easy way to create a Residual Income no matter what products or services you are selling. Disadvantages: You have to like to write. If you hate writing and only want to send out pure advertising without value, you will find that this is a very hard road to travel.

2) Free Services and Paid Advertising

If you find a service people need such as autoresponders, forms on their site, search engine listings, traffic tools, etc., you may find that this is the model for you. Sites which provide something extremely valuable for free can often take their traffic counters into the thousands literally overnight...then they can start charging people for placing banners and other types of advertising on their site. You may think it is hard to come up with a Free service to drive traffic to your site, but it really isn't that difficult. Spend some time over at http://www.cgi-resources.com which contains thousands of CGI programs, many of which are low or NO cost. Some of them would also make great traffic generators if you would position them on your site in a unique way. Advantages: You never have to pay to advertise this site. If your Free Service is extremely valuable and unique, word of mouth and press releases will be all of the marketing you need for it. Disadvantages: The hard part is coming up with the winning idea.

3) One Product Page and Paying for Advertising

People don't talk about this technique as much as some of the others, but I have found it to be one of the easiest ways of making a good income online. When you find a hot product that you know a certain market is interested in, then focus on putting up the best sales letter possible with just one or two pages about the product. Then, focus all of your marketing towards bringing people to that page. By presenting people with only one choice at your site, you eliminate any of the possible confusion or distraction which come with multiple page sites. From studying all of the different models, this one will usually have the highest response rate per visitor. After someone buys your first product, you can then introduce them to all of your other products and services on the backend to create multiple income streams. Advantages: This type of site has the highest sales rates of web sites because it eliminates the confusion and distractions. Disadvantages: The biggest disadvantage is that you can't expect too much free traffic. You will have to pay for all of your traffic in most cases.

4) Create a Catalog Sites and Use Affiliate Programs Affiliate Program

Lots of sites have 100s of products and services so choosing a lead product like the above model just doesn't make sense for them. Usually in these cases, I recommend going with creating a catalog site and building a network of affiliates. Look at the size of Amazon.com's affiliate program. It is quickly establishing itself as the number one bookseller in the world. No one else is even close. Much of this is due to one factor...their affiliate program. Every day new affiliate programs spring up...and go down. If you have a selection of products which have a strong USP and are good sellers online you have the makings of a good affiliate program. Make sure to allow your affiliates to link to specific products also, not just to your main site. This will allow them to earn maximum commissions. Advantages: This is the way to take over a large market share on the Internet...expect to see in the coming years that probably as many as 40% of the top profiting sites will be affiliate programs. Disadvantages: You have to support your affiliates better than the average site AND you have to be able to handle the amount of orders that will be coming in. Neglect either one and your affiliate program won't last long.

5)Create a Cummunity and Build Traffic Even If You Don't Have a Product to Sell.

The other side of the affiliate program are those who sign up as your affiliates...the most successful of which will usually be those who have built an online community around a certain subject or hobby. By putting up a discussion group, providing links to interesting content, publishing an ezine, and more you can build an online community around a specific subject that interests you and others. Then, as your traffic grows, you can join affiliate programs or set up joint ventures to offer your audience products or services which are of great interest to them. Advantages: You can start this type of business without even having a product or service to sell. You can build a traffic base and then ask your visitors what it is that they want. Then, you can find the exact products or services they want and need! Disadvantages: You will have to go without much income for a while until your traffic begins to grow to a high level. Each of these models presents a possible online business for you. Which one interests you the most? Which one do you understand the best? Which one would your enjoy? Pick one or more of these above business models for your Internet business and you will have taken the first step to Internet success...