The Affiliate Lifestyle Blog

This question came from Kevin:

Josh,

Greetings from Tennessee! My name is Kevin and I am in need of your help/insight/wisdom. I am an “oldschool” programmer. By that, I mean that I’ve spent the last 14 years programming on IBM’s flagship computer, the AS/400. The language that I use is called RPG (Report Program Generator). Anyway, after 14 years of programming in a corporate environment, I’ve reached my wits end. Life isn’t meant to be spent in a cubicle, blocked from the sun unless you’re lucky enough to go outside for a minimal lunch break. I want more out of life for myself and for my family. I’ve decided to become proficient in HTML and XML and learn PHP or Java. My reason for doing this is because I want to be able to take those tools and use them to earn money no matter where I am.

In the meantime, I’ve saved up $1,000 to use to start some kind of web-based recurring income business. But, I’m at a loss on how to go about doing this. Your site mentions using what I am interested in and go from there. I’ve listed below the top five things that I’m interested in, in no particular order:

1. MMORPG games
2. Travel
3. Reading (Sci-fi books, fantasy books, self-help books, programming books, etc)
4. Sci-Fi and Fantasy movies
5. Movie soundtracks/scores

Can you offer any advice on how to turn those interests into something that will make money for me? My ultimate goal is to be able to travel with my family around the world, while my autonomous internet-based business runs flawlessly without me. For someone just starting out in making money on the internet, is there a specific place I should start/research?

Thanks so much for your time and any advice and words of wisdom that you can offer me.

Best regards,

Kevin

Hello Kevin :)

I’m really excited that you are realizing how to use the internet to free yourself from the 9/5. I believe affiliate marketing/internet marketing is the best job in the world, and as a an old-programmer, it shouldn’t take you much time at all to learn the basics of web scripting languages. Before long, you can take those skills and develop internet based tools - which are great for adding value to any website you develop. (Ie. Using API’s or “Mashups” to solve problems or give users a ‘free’ tool. those types of tools often get links quickly, which helps with search engine rankings, but now I’m getting sidetracked!)

1) The first thing that comes to mind is FORUMS. Meaning, you can set up an MMORPG forum/discussion board and offer related articles, reviews of MMORPG products, etc. Forums are good because your users are building the content, but the downside is they often take a long time to build up a big user base, and if the niche is already full of similar forums, it might be difficult to get yours off the ground.

2) Travel- This is an amazing niche. With your particular skill-set, I would again recommend developing online scripts/tools for travel. An example of one of these tools is:

Round the World Trip Builder

This tool allows users to build an ‘around the world trip’.. Now, how do you make money with these tools? Well, since you are offering the tool free of charge that has lots of value, you will get lots of links, and people will begin to find your tool via search engines. Once the person has planned their trip, you can offer them custom around the world tickets based on their trip (you would an affiliate linking to travel websites selling those tickets). If they purchase a ticket, you make a commission, in the travel industry it’s usually around 2-12% of the ticket price.

3) Reading - Book reviews with links to the Amazon affiliate program (Although the commission on Amazon is a bit low I’ve found). You can set up a message board for individual books. Start a ‘book club’ website. Well, the point here is this: before you do anything, you want to sit down with pad and paper and create an online business model for your website:

You might start with basic assumptions. Let’s take the Travel example (#2) that I mentioned above…

First, look at the conversion rate and average order size..

Most industries have a conversion rate of 1%-3% on average. If the average round the world ticket price is $1200, and let’s take a conservative estimate of a 0.5% conversion rate, meaning only 1 out of every 200 people purchase a ticket after using your tool. And your affiliate commission is 3%. That means for every 200 people who buy a $1200 ticket, you are making $36 (Notice, how I always use very conservative estimates when forming my website plan).

Let’s assume you do little advertising for your web based tool, and rely on article marketing and links to gain most search engine traffic. Now, assume you get about 200 visitors per day, which is a conservative estimate. That’s $36×30= $1080/month recurring/passive revenue, or $13,000/year

Now, look at the cost:

How long would it take you to set up the website if you outsourced all the components?

$300 website design (rentacoder or just do it yourself for free)
$50 graphics (good logo to build credibility)
$100 for 10 ‘around the world’ articles from rentacoder.

Total investment is low and the return is moderate. If you can build this site in 1 week, and build a similar site every week, you will do well for yourself.

The major points to keep in mind:

- Build a website that takes little to maintain or does not require your direct contribution. For example, structure your business model in such a way that the tasks to up-keep the website can be outsourced, or take little time on your part. The worst thing is to build a website that requires you to be directly involved. Basically say to yourself, “if I’m in India with my family, can I maintain this website in 10 minutes or less every day, or pay someone a minimal fee to maintain it for me?”

- Structure your business plan first. It’s all about planning everything out before constructing the site. In general, you could say, that the amount of value you add for your visitor is going to be proportional to the income from the site– IF you are able to develop a business model that allows you to monetize your user base.

- Outsource as much as possible.

Hope this helps!

-Joshua

Have a question? Feel free to send me your questions:

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 12th, 2007 at 1:56 pm and is filed under Q and A. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.