An online business for an offline world
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about just how clueless so many offline businesses are about the web. Its bit of a generalisation I have to admit but when you look a little closer at the way so many companies are trying to adapt their business to net the net it’s a bit scary. Granted most businesses have a website but often they are so bad I want to cry, and it’s not just design mistakes I’m talking about, its factors that directly affect how well the business is going to do online i.e. marketing.
So this has got me thinking about a way to in-directly earn money online by providing services to these “lost” businesses. It’s true there’s a million and one people doing web-design these days but how many companies actually have the promotion and marketing thing working well? I’ve always thought there was money in marketing smaller businesses for two main reasons:
- They are usually competing in a smaller market so it shouldn’t be difficult from a technical point of view to deliver results. Think making them No1 for “Mechanic in Birmingham”, how hard is that gonna be?
- Everyone else is overlooking these smaller businesses in the race to land the big fish. Imagine if you had a load of these small companies paying a monthly fee (£50) for promoting their site online, that can really add up.
I suppose the point I’m making is that while I love affiliate marketing, seo and all that stuff often you can make more leveraging your skills to real world businesses, the key has always been to interpret and adapt to what’s happening, it’s what all great entrepreneurs do.
What it all comes back to though is acquiring as skill that the market demands, whether that’s graphic design, seo or programming its only possible to leverage what people need and what your good at. It’s a common factor they don’t talk about in the get rich quick ebooks, if you wanna make money on the web you need to be bringing value to the table in one way or another.
One very important point that I can’t miss out is how much time your average “business to business” provider spends dealing with people. I can tell you first hand from the web design industry that sometimes you can spend more time dealing with a client and all their “issues” than building the site. The problem is you often don’t know that you have a difficult client until it’s too late. At the other end of the scale though it is possible to get clients that are great to work with and it’s even better when they have regular work, its kinda like hitting the lottery when this happens (for them and you).
Still with all that being said I’m sure the mixture between offline/online business is going to appeal to some people for the reasons listed above. I do like listing all these different ideas I have to admit, when it comes to earning money online there’s a million methods and a million variations on each one. Everyone always puts their own spin on any money making idea (they have to). Until next time…
Making money in 2011 – freelancing for beginners
So I’m feeling at little bored and I suppose that’s never a perfect way to start a post though I have to admit some of my best ideas have come from just messing around on the internet and see what works, and more often than not what doesn’t. Anyway it’s the New Year in a day or so and I got me thinking how people (and me) are planning to make money in 2011. What new ideas are you going to have? What old ideas are you going to finally act on or do even better?
The biggest problem with making money on the internet is the number of options (and scams) there are. How do you pick something stick with it and make it work? So for this post I wanted to focus on ways you can actually work for a living online as opposed to a passive income from websites etc which I have been talking about recently. Now I know creating a passive income does sound very appealing but the thing is its usually only passive once you’ve done a huge amount of work that you get to a point where the revenue looks after itself. What if you just need to make some fast (ish) cash straight away?
So obviously the first thing you need to establish is what skill you have to offer the marketplace. There are a number of skills that are highly sought after on the net if you really can deliver (this is quite important). A few but not all are:
- Writing content
- Graphic design (photoshop etc)
- Programming (php,asp,coldfusion)
- SEO services (link building, on site optimisation)
Ok so you might have noticed all these services are quite “nerdy” and 100% IT related. Well the thing is if you want to work from home and get well paid for it IT really is the only game in town. Also the great thing about IT companies is they are much more open than traditional businesses to working with people overseas. If you can do the job well and on time they don’t really care.
So how to you land these big clients that will want to pay you millions for access to your brain? It’s a big question and it would probably be easier to tell you how NOT to do it but I don’t want to be negative. The key point is you want potential clients coming to you instead of you sending out 100s of unread email requests. Believe me when a client emails you out of the blue asking about your services it’s always a much easier sell. So for clients to notice you and your work you have to stand out above the crowd online (there can be quite a crowd). For example are you selling SEO services? Then rank a site for a popular term, within week’s you’ll be getting other SEO companies emailing about advertising etc, when they do – mention that you know SEO too. If you’re a designer then enter the best online design competitions or even design and amazing site for a charity to get noticed.
The biggest point I have to make about making money by offering services is that repeat business is essential, both for your income and stress levels. You see getting new clients is expensive and time consuming on its own but there’s also the time required just to work out what this person really wants. However if you are lucky enough to find someone who needs repeat work IE on a monthly basis then you can devote all of your time to building the relationship with them and delivering the perfect job.
There’s quite a few places to get started, both to list your services and find clients. Are few are:
There’s actually a lot more than that but there’s no point in going out posting on them all, concentrate on a few and build up a reputation.
I know some of you may be a bit fed up at this point if you don’t actually have any of these skills to offer. The only thing I can say is that webmaster/web-site related activities make up a huge amount of the online working world that you really have to acquire the skills if you want to earn any kind of real money with freelancing. You also have to bear in mind the many advantages you get with working online/freelancing like choosing your own working hours and working from anywhere in the world (this is especially true if you want to move somewhere with low living costs). It might not be as hard as you think though, I remember when I got my first PHP/MYsql book it was like a whole new world had opened up. I couldn’t believe the amount of things you could so with just a few hours reading.
So this post isn’t as “magical” as some you’ll find in the create money on the net world but then again isn’t it better to be realistic than just selling you some get rich quick scheme for 100 easy payments? The point I’m actually making is that with some work is it possible to create a real income from the net even if it’s only a supplementary thing to your main “job”. I know myself how much difference an extra £500 a month would make to most people, it could literally be life changing.
So what am I going to be doing in 2011? Well I really hope to grow all of my internet sites to their full potential which I know is going to take a good bit more work and probably a bit more understanding on my part about how this Internet marketing thing works (I don’t have all the pieces of the puzzle yet). Anyway I also hope to bring you more interesting and hopefully entertaining posts in the New Year too. Here’s to an exciting new year!
