Community & Networking

Where are your Eggs? Hopefully NOT all in One Basket

Last week I was speaking to an online friend whose site was recently dropped from the search engines. It's a really difficult time for my friend because she depends on this site fully for her income... and no traffic means of course no money.

It's an unfortunate situation but one that could easily be avoided. I know it's difficult to think ahead and worry about these things when you're trying to build a business, but it's important that you add

other marketing strategies and ways to earn money to your biz because depending on the search engines along is a pretty risky situation.

So how do you do that?

Start by selling your own products. When you have your own products it's easier to control your income because you'll start thinking of ways to promote this product actively. You may start a pay per click campaign, an affiliate program or write articles to drive traffic to your site. 

Information is easy to sell online. Simply find a niche that is looking for solutions to a problem and put together a great product. Once you do that...

Take control of your income.  Don't sit around relying on free search engine traffic to sell your product. Instead write articles and distribute them online and offline. This way you'll still drive traffic to your site even if you're dropped from the top SE listings.

To sell a product you'll also need to actively promote it. That means advertising. Try different methods, one at a time, to see what works for you. I've used pay per click campaigns, banner advertisement and also offline advertisement all with great results. 

If you're starting out, get your feet wet with a Google Adwords campaign and then move on from there.

You can also contact joint venture partners to help you promote your product. Hand pick a few affiliate/joint venture partners to send an email to this subscribers in return for a nice cut of your earnings. If you take your time and choose the right people to contact, this can be very lucrative for all parties involved.

There are other good methods to make money online such as affiliate marketing, and being a website information publisher... these are perfectly fine but to have full control of your business and future you'll want to sell your own products or services online.

Mila Sidman is the owner and editor of the popular website Internet Based Moms. She's a copywriter, marketer and mom with a passion for helping women succeed in business. Get personal business advice and daily job leads over at the Internet Based Moms Forums - http://www.Internetbasedmoms.com/bb