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An Awesome Business Idea: Link Building for Websites

Author Cameron Martel | 17.09.2007 | Category Business Overviews, Online Business Ideas

Part One: Business Overview

Here’s an idea that will appeal to anyone who loves catching trends and milking every dollar out of them while they can. The internet, and it’s multi-trillion dollar economy, is the place to be right now. Hundreds of millions of dollars are exchanged over the course of a matter of hours, and it’s no secret that you want a part of that. Here’s a business that can be launched for under $100, expanded quite quickly, and marketed for free.

It will take approximately eight hours a day of solid work once you’ve got it up and running, so don’t think that this will become a cash grab. However, a bit of research into it has shown income projections exceeding $200 per day in profit- who’s going to complain about that?

The Business Overview:

There are a few ways that a website can make money. Affiliate programs, AdSense (or some other type of PPC service), PayPal donations, merchandise… the list goes on. None of that matters to you, however, as your focus is going to be on targeting those people who are actively seeking to earn an income via their website. You are going to try to sell your services to these people, and not only will they buy it, they will throw heaps of money at you as the service that you will be offering them will be invaluable.

This business is all about valid, legitimate link building. A big part of a websites SEO strategy (for SEO help check out SimplifiedSEO.com) is link building: having as many targeted, relevant, viable back links as possible. This business will focus on offering websites the outsources creation of those links (for a fee, of course).

This business is a guaranteed money maker for the following reasons:

1. Webmasters need backlinks - With Google running the show these days there is no webmaster who will turn down this service. Google demands back links, and you’re going to offer them.
2. Generating backlinks is a pain in the behind - For a webmaster, generating qualified backlinks is a pain in the butt. Finding the websites and getting the links up is about as much fun as being punched in the face. I would gladly pay someone else to do it for me.

The Product:

The product is quite simple, and you could actually break it down into different packages if you wanted. At the core, you are offering qualified back links with anchor text that reflects the customers SEO strategy. The more links you sell, the more money you can make. What will take you time is the actual creation of the links- inputting them into websites. This can be automated to an extent, streamlining your process a little bit. However, you’ll still have to do it manually.

A big portion of this type of business is directory submissions, where you will be submitting websites to directories with chosen anchor text and descriptions. This type of information will be gathered from the customer before you commit to any work, ensuring that you won’t be on the chopping block to come up with something yourself.

Advertising and Promotion:

You will have to actively find and generate your customers. However, the service itself is in high demand for qualified and reliable people/businesses that can provide back links for a reasonable price. Since this business has a definite prospect for longevity, you want to be that business.

You will be able to advertise for free via:

• Forums - Webmaster and affiliate marketing forums will not only allow you to advertise your services, but they will likely be where most of your initial business comes from.
• Social networking - Promoting yourself via Digg/Stumbleupon/del.ici.ous/etc. will generate traffic and revenue without costing you a dime.
• Classified ads - Offline businesses still have websites that need to be SEO’d, and you’re offering an essential element of the SEO strategy.

Revenue/Profit Potential:

Your revenue is going to come from volume.  An individual client may only be worth $10-$20 to you, so the more you have the better off you are.  The trick to developing massive amounts of profit is keeping your operating costs low and your income high.  You’ll want to generate at least 10 clients a day in order to make the business worthwhile.

We have not yet done the research to determine what the median price will be, but generating 10 clients a day will be a minimum of $150 a day in revenue.  This will all be profit.

Have something to say about this idea? Leave a comment- we’d love to hear it!

A Great Business Idea: Outsourced Blog Updating

Author Cameron Martel | 10.09.2007 | Category Business Overviews, Online Business Ideas

Part One: Business Overview

Blogging is big business. In fact, I can list over over 50 people that I know personally that are making six figures or more per year from their network of blogs, and almost all of them started from nothing. The beauty of the internet is that it doesn’t always take money to make money, and that’s why this business idea is laser-targeted towards the online market: you can start up for no cost and keep all revenue that you bring in.

The Business Overview:

As the blogging community continues to expand there are going to be a core group of people - probably around 1% or so - who are going to become moderately to significantly successful at developing an income from their blog. Websites such as AffiliateWeb (www.affiliateweb.org), Shoemoney (www.shoemoney.com), and John Chow (www.johnchow.com) are all examples of blogs that are making money.

You can take advantage of this in a couple of different ways:

1. Make money with your own blog - This seems to be the most obvious route to take, but it’s also the most difficult. Unless you have SEO experience you will probably never be able to generate any income that’s worth mentioning.
2. Market a product to successful blog owners - Those that can’t do teach, remember? If you are unable to make your own blog make money that doesn’t mean that it can’t be done. Start marketing a product to blog owners who are making money and in turn reap the rewards of their success.The only product that I can see maintaining any value to a blog owner is an updating service.

The Product:

An updating service does exactly what the name implies: you update the blog according to a predetermined schedule. If you have negotiated daily updates, for example, you will go in and update the blog once daily. The actual specifics of the updates would also be determined between you and the client.

This product is feasible so long as you have half-decent grammatical sense and are able to write fluently in whatever language the blog is being written in. Writing the updates yourself also provides an immediate income as you simply pay yourself whatever you negotiated with the client, and it has the ability to be scaled up by the inclusion of a third-party content provider (such as www.communicatebetter.org).

Advertising and Promotion:

The first few clients would likely have to be self-generated, meaning that you’re going to have to hard-sell a few successful bloggers into trying out your new service. You are going to have to market yourself in order to generate these clients. Inexpensive and effective marketing can be done via:

• Forum postings - On related forums that allow advertising you will be able to promote your services. A quality introduction and sales copy, along with low initial prices, will bring a few clients your way.
• Website - You will need a website (if you don’t have one now, spend the $10.99 a month at Crucial Web Hosting (affiliate link) and get all the hosting you’ll ever need). Having a website set up that displays your products, prices, and a bit of well-written content will surely convert prospective clients into paid clients. If you sign up for Crucial Web Hosting under my affiliate link I’ll even offer my assistance with the website design and content*.
• PPC/Paid traffic - This will only work if you have a website set up. Sending targeted traffic to your website is like sending people looking to buy a car into a car dealership- it just makes money. You’d be surprised at how many successful people there are out there trying to find reliable outsourced solutions.
• Kijiji/Craigslist - There’s nothing better for immediate profits than free advertising, and both Kijiji (www.kijiji.com) and Craigslist (www.craigslist.com) are free classified ad websites that receive tons of traffic. Offer your services in the appropriate section and you’re sure to pick up a few clients.

Revenue/Profit Potential:

Ahh, this is what you’ve been waiting for isn’t it? The potential revenue for this type of business is actually quite high, and since your operating costs are effectively zero you’re really setting yourself up to score big on the profit side of things.

Revenue is dependent entirely on how much you charge, and there’s no set pricing in place for this kind of business as of yet. Experience has shown that charging around $200 for 20 updates a month (one every business day) seems to be the most appealing to bloggers from both a price and function perspective. 10 clients like this equates to $2,000 a month, and every cent of that is profit.

Your income simply lies on your ability to generate clients at higher prices and your ability to scale. If things go well enough you may need to hire an employee or two of your own.

Doing some basic number math:

• 10 clients at $200 a month - $2,000 in total revenue. The price is probably low enough that many people will be attracted to it, yet it is high enough that there is value for you to attract clients.
• 10 clients at $300 a month - $3,000 in total revenue. Offering the same package but being able to charge more will offer an immediate increase in income without increasing your workload.
• 25 clients at $200 a month - $5,000 in total revenue. This sounds like a very reasonable and achievable goal, and it’s only around 6-7 hours a day of work (assuming you don’t mess around).

*please e-mail me at cmartel@greatbizideas.org with the date/time that you signed up for a new web hosting account so I may verify it’s legitimacy.

Have something to say about this idea? Leave a comment- we’d love to hear it!