WAYS TO MAKE $$$ ON THE INTERNET There are several ways to make money on the Internet World Wide Web. You can make money from the technical end of the business, either as an access provider, a service provider, or a presence provider. On the other hand, you can also make money from the creative end of the business, either as a designer, as a consultant, or as a content provider. The different money-making ideas presented in this book are an excellent mix for those seeking to become presence providers or content providers. They are the most popular and easiest to implement. PRESENCE PROVIDER As a presence provider, your business is helping other businesses establish a presence on the Web. There are 3 specific opportunities discussed under this category. Through any of these services, you will be able to help any business to establish a presence on the World Wide Web, in some cases, even if they do not know anything about programming for the Internet or about the Internet itself. CONTENT PROVIDER As a content provider, you determine the format of the information you place on the Web and make that information accessible to the general public. Since access to information you put on the Web is free, your materials on the Web are available at no cost to the public. Hence, as a content provider, the bulk of your income must come from advertising, from businesses who want to reach the same audience that visit or access your domain or website. As a content provider, you can design your domain and website using any of these three formats: · Singles Dateline · Maps & Hotlinks · School Yearbooks On The Web Rounding up the rest of our book are four money-making ideas that have become commonplace on the Web. Because of their popularity, several domains and websites are already offering these ideas in one form or another. · Discount Coupons · Employment Services · Virtual Malls · Mail Order Needless to say, your ability to implement any of these ideas and transform them into money-making ventures will depend largely on your understanding of the Web, how it works and how well you market your services. It is best to make your selection based upon your skills and talent. The ideas you find here need not be final. This book is designed to inspire, not to instruct. It is not a destination, but a starting point. Instead of using this book as a road map, think of it as a lamp post that can illuminate the road on which you travel. We invite you to explore and become familiar with all these ideas and then measure them against your own experience and what you really want to do. Good luck. (1) WRITING IN HTML MAKING MONEY BY WORDCOUNT & KEYSTROKES There are a lot of businesses with all types of documents, product information, announcements, press releases, etc. that may benefit from making such materials available to their customers, dealers, stockholders, etc. As a venue for making information available online, the World Wide Web offers excellent opportunities for businesses to save a lot of money. Instead of printing multiple copies of these documents and then paying postage to mail them to their target audience, businesses can save a ton of money by making certain documents available via the World Wide Web. However, for a lot of businesses, the lack of in-house expertise to make this into reality often ends as a pipe dream gone bust. Enter, therefore, a new kind of typing service. NOT FOR PRINT... In today's world of digital mass communications, not everything that is typed is destined to be printed on paper. Typesetting has taken a whole new course, and documents are being created no longer for the benefit of the printer or the copying machine but rather for direct posting on an electronic online medium. With the popularity of the World Wide Web, you will now find businesses who have needs for documents to be made accessible online. Regardless of their intended use, these documents can be transformed from their current format into HTML files, enabling them to be viewed on the World Wide Web. $70 PER HOUR... If you can type 40 words per minute, you can type an average of 1,000 words in around 25 to 30 minutes. This means that to type a 1,000-word document would take you roughly half an hour. The going rate for HTML typesetting is around $35 for 1,000 words. This means that if you type a 1,000-word document in half an hour, you can make $35 every half hour, the equivalent of $70 per hour. This is one reason more and more people are learning how to write HTML. It has become a lucrative field that adds a premium to a basic common-place skill (like typing). IT'S NOT PROGRAMMING...The truth is, where basic text is concerned, HTML is NOT computer programming. It is simple typing and a simple memorization of common tags used in HTML. For example, to create a headline, all you have to do is type before the first letter of the headline and after the last letter of the headline. When placed on the web, the word or words you typed between these two tags will be presented in large size (24 points) fonts, distinctly a headline. (2) HOMEPAGE HOSTING PEOPLE PLACE THEIR WEBPAGES ON YOUR DOMAIN If a businessperson wants to have his own 1,000-word document seen on the World Wide Web, he can do two things: Have his document typed by an HTML Typesetter or he can type it himself by using HTML. Once the document has been typed in HTML, it needs to be placed on the World Wide Web. Again, an advertiser has two options: He can either get his own domain or website, or he can have his web-page placed on someone else's domain. If an advertiser does not want to be bothered with learning how to use FTP or how to maintain a domain, it is better for an advertiser to simply pay a domain owner a one-time or an annual fee to "host" the advertiser's homepage. HOMEPAGE HOSTING… As a domain owner, you can provide a service that is extremely simple and easy, yet can offer you the most profit. Page hosting is a simple service wherein you allow people to put their webpages on your domain, and host them there over a predetermined period of time. $50 PER PAGE... As a domain owner, you can offer to host other people's homepages (of 1,000 words or less) for as little as $125 per year. This means that for $125, you will place their webpages (with a maximum of 1,000 words) on your domain and keep it there for a period of 1 year. This rate, although extremely affordable for the advertiser, can be very lucrative for you, the domain owner. 100 WEBPAGES PER MEG…. For every 1 megabyte of server space your domain has, you can place an average of 100 webpages. This means that if your domain is 1 0 megabytes in size, it can hold around 1,000 webpages (based on the example size of 1,000 words per webpage.) If you charge $125 per webpage, your domain can generate rental revenues of $125,000 peryear, with as little as 10 megs in server space, OFFER CATEGORIESYour domain can have multiple categories where Homepages can be placed. For example, see the following: http:yourdomain.com/professionals http://yourdomain.com/business http://yourdomain.com/consumer http://yourdomain.com/entertainment An accountant who wants to put his homepage on your domain can order his homepage to be placed under "professionals". This means that if the accountant wants to use his initials XYZ as his webpage name, his address would be ... http://yourdomain.com/professionals/xyz (3) WEBSITE RENTAL RENT WEBSITE SPACE TO INDIVIDUALS & BUSINESSES If you own your own domain, consider yourself as an owner of a commercial office building where entrepreneurs can rent office space to conduct their business. All you need to do is provide a clean space where people can work. You do not have to get involved in their business, or have any part in their operations. As long as you provide them the workspace they need, all you have to do is sit back and collect the rent. THE COST OF SPACE .... Some people who promote ideas or sell products on the web may not want to maintain or manage their own domains. Regardless of how simple owning a domain really is, for some people, this could be too much work or too time consuming. They would rather concentrate on promoting their ideas or selling their products. Hence, rather than own a domain, they would just rent a website. MULTIPLE WEBSITES... As a domain owner, you can have as many websites as you want. You are limited only by the amount of server space that you have. For example, if your domain leases 100 megabytes of server space, you could be paying around $250 per month. If you subdivide these 100 megs into websites with 2 megs each, your domain will have a total of 50 websites. If you rent out these websites for $20 per month, you can generate $1,000 a month ($20 X 50) in revenues from people who want to lease websites in your domain. Keep in mind that renting out websites within your domain may require you to provide your customers programming services and technical support. You must be able to give your website renters access to upload their own files, or you provide them the service yourself. Of course, you will want to set up a pricing structure for this in advance, Of course, a slight twist in how you package your domain can add value to your product, allowing you to charge more for websites. THEME DOMAINS…. Like commercial office buildings or shopping malls, your domain can actually have a theme and appeal to a target audience group. If you design your domain in this manner, you will be able to attract website owners who would not mind paying a premium to reach the same markets that your domain focuses on. Because the address of a website follows that of the domain, it is critical for website owners to select the right domain under which they operate. If you have a sports-related domain, you can attract website owners in the sporting goods business, memorabilia, etc. A potential website owner seeking to establish a site to market sport-related products or services will find your domain more appealing that one that does not have a theme related to the sports business. With a theme domain, you can set premium rates. If you charge $50 per website per month, your domain with 50 websites can collect rent of $2,500 per month. (4.) SINGLES DATELINE MAKING MONEY WITH PERSONALS ADS Publications and services that cater to single people seeking partners have been served in a variety of styles and applications. From newspaper classified advertising to the use of 1-900 numbers, businesses that capitalize on this concept have been plenty, of which some have been qufte prosperous. The idea here is to provide a listing of men and women who are seeking friendship or companionship. Hence, your goal is to offer these people a way to place their wants and desires in the form of Personal Ads that can be presented in different categories. For example: Men Seeking Women, Women Seeking Men, and Alternative Lifestyles. THE VIEWER IS THE ADVERTISER … People will generally want to place Personals Ads because the viewers who come to your website who will read (and hopefully respond) to the Personals Ads posted. By the same token, people are inclined to view this website because of the Personal Ads other people have placed. This mutually beneficial relationship between advertiser and viewer determines the success of a Singles Dateline website. Needless to say, the most effective way to increase traffic on this service is to enable anyone who visits this website to place a Personals Ad or respond to an existing Personal Ad, absolutely free of charge. GUESTBOOK MODULE… The most efficient method and one that requires low-maintenance is the Guest book Module. The guestbook Module is a cgi-based webpage that allows the public to type their own text-based advertising on the screen, and with a click of a button, post it and make it visible to anyone who visits your website. Whatever that person types becomes a part of your webpages, allowing them to place a new Personals Ad or to respond to an existing one. PROGRAMMING REQUIRED…. Although singles dateline is popular, there are no ready-made programs that you can buy and use on your domain straight off the box. At best, building a domain to provide singles dateline service require a fair amount of programming. REVENUES…. As a web service, Singles Dateline can draw revenues from two potential sources: (1) From advertisers who are seeking to target audiences of these types of services, and willing to pay you based on the traffic your service generates; (2) From products you yourself market to your audience, which you can offer via mail order. From a display advertising standpoint, you can sell banner-size display ads on your main Classified Advertising pages, or on your Guestbook page where people go to type and submit their Personals Ads . An advertising on the Guestbook page promises longer exposure, and can fetch premium rates. (5.) HOTLINKS HELPING OTHER WEBSITES GAIN EXPOSURE For merchants that sell their products on the web, success depends largely on the amount of traffic their website or domain generates, the number of people who see the merchandise they are selling. Afterall, the more people visiting their websites the more people likely to buy their products. These website owners will pay good money if you can deliver customers to their websites. This situation serves as the premise behind the concept of Hotlink Advertising. POINT& CLICK ADVERTISING .. Let us say you have a domain that you advertise regularly in magazines and other traditional publications. As a result, your domain attracts 50,000 people a day. Your domain offers no editorial content or entertainment features. All it contains is a list of websites operated by merchants selling their stuff on the web. You can make money by offering merchants (website owners) advertising hotlinks on your domain homepage. You can offer these advertisers a hotlink to their website. You can sell them a hotlink button, about the size of a postage stamp that, with a click of the mouse, will automatically link the viewer to the advertiser's website. Through your domain, these merchants are able to attract potential customers who, in turn, can be qualified buyers of products being sold by these merchants. There are several design styles by which you can offer hotlinks. In fact, you can make your entire domain into a hotlink directory, an alphabetical list of businesses. Just click on their name and you're automatically linked to their website. $3,000 PER LINK... The San Jose (California) Mercury News maintains a domain on the WWW called Mercury Web Center which charges around $3,000 a month. Advertisers include IBM, Wells Fargo, Coldwell Banker, etc. Although your upside potential for income is unlimited, you do not have to charge $3,000 per advertiser per month in order to be profitable. If your website has a built-in traffic of around 50,000 people a day, a rate of $500 per month per advertiser is a very attractive introductory rate. If you demonstrate a certain level of consistency, you can definitely increase your rates while at the same time you increase your number of advertisers. By design, your domain will be more attractive to viewers if you have more companies listed.