Dean Robinson

As an online entrepreneur you generally have two choices: sell your own products/services or promote other people goods as an affiliate.

These are both great and profitable options, but what if there was a way to create a scalable business that requires no creation of products or inventory?

Well there is, it’s called a marketplace.

What is a Marketplace?

A marketplace is simply a place where people can buyer from multiple sellers in one location, a town market or malls are perfect real world examples.

Online is no different: a single site that allows sellers to add their products and purchasers to browse said products.

This is defined as a Two Sided Marketplace.

There are lots of already well known marketplaces online:

• Amazon – allows anyone to sell their stuff, and reach a wider audience.
• Etsy – a marketplace for craft and handmade goods.
• Airbnb – connecting private accommodation owners with short term renters
• Themeforest – providing a home for WordPress theme developers
• Fiverr – showcases a wide variety of cheap tasks and services

Why 2 Sided Marketplaces Work

Creating a two sided marketplace has a number of benefits for an entrepreneur.

First off is profit. Depending on the business model you choose, you can skim off the surface of both sides by charging people to list and by adding to the transaction charges for customers.

Obviously you may not want to do one or the other instead of both, but the option is there.

Secondly is that once a marketplace like this is set up, it can become very stable. Sellers have a tendency to stick with the marketplace as moving is difficult and costly.

Take Themeforest for example. If a seller leaves they then need to do their own marketing and if they sell the products on Themeforest and their own site, they get a lower percentage of any sales on Themeforest which could cost them thousands.

This tactic by Themeforest might be heavy handed but it helps keep sellers working with just them.

For buyers

The centralized location makes it much easier for customers to work with: there’s no need for them to go from site to site and waste time on search engines when they can just visit your site and find exactly what they need.

For sellers

A place to list their products with (in theory) no marketing needed to bring in traffic, no need to handle payments and refunds and a targeted audience. It’s perfect for one person or small companies to get their products out there with little work or risk.

It Ain’t Easy

Getting started with an online marketplace is possibly one of the hardest routes to take with ecommerce, but the profits can be incredible.

The Chicken and the Egg

Which came first? It doesn’t really matter of course, but the issue is that if you don’t have sellers, you have no buyers. If you have no buyers, you can’t attract sellers!

This conundrum is the most difficult aspect to overcome.

There are ways though, through what’s called “seeding”. Seeding is effectively jumpstarting a marketplace when you are just starting.

Focus on One Side First

The most common way to start a market place is to build up one side first. For example OpenTable which is a company that handles reservations for restaurants started by just offering restaurants a way to handle reservations electronically.

Only after it got enough restaurants on board did it open up the booking system to customers.

It built up one side, the restaurants, and then let the flood gates open by introducing the customer element.

Offer Something Better

By offering tools or systems that are better than your competitors you can entice sellers/customers over which will bring the other half as well.

Airbnb got traction when they included a tool to post to Airbnb and Craigslist at the same time. With Craigslist’s own posting tool being difficult to use, the easy to use Airbnb system enticed renters with both ease of use and the ability to post to two sites simultaneously.

This allowed them to bring renters over to their platform, while reducing the risk to renters (they still get to post on Craigslist). Having renters posting, meant that customers would actually be interested what they have to offer.

Build Around an Existing Product

This is really only going to work if you’re the owner of said product otherwise you might run into legal issues. The basic idea is to have an extensible product that others can create for; software is great for this. They then sell the products on your site’s marketplace.

The ecommerce systems Woocommerce and Easy Digital Downloads are excellent examples of marketplaces built around a single product.

It’s Slow Going

The thing with marketplaces is that it’s a long haul, there’s no quick buck to be made with them. It takes time to build and seed the marketplace so it’s at a stage where it becomes the de facto place to go for that niche (Etsy for handcrafted stuff, Themeforest for WordPress themes, etc.).

While a lot of marketers expect to get a return within 6 – 12 months for a project, a marketplace can barely even be growing by the time a year has passed.

This makes it difficult to know whether what you’re doing is actually working or not. Pivoting too early means you might lose out on the site blossoming into a marketplace. Hanging onto a dud project may mean an increased financial loss.

Your Niche Matters

Let me be blunt: it’s highly unlikely you will build the next Amazon!

Building a varied marketplace like Amazon takes a lot of time, and money to do. Even Amazon started small and focused on specific products. Even Amazon started off by just selling books.

Instead take a hint from other successful online marketplaces and focus on a niche.

Whatever niche you go with you must make sure it’s a two sided niche that has enough potential or existing sellers to draw from.

Marketplace Platforms

The great thing about building an online marketplace right now is that the costs are much lower than they used to be: no longer do you have to spend thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars on a custom built site.

The get a Minimum Viable Product up and running to test out your idea is as simple as creating a WordPress site, and installing an e-commerce plugin and a marketplace theme such as the awesome Marketify.

As well as WordPress most hosted and self-hosted e-commerce systems have a multi-vendor system that allows you to create a marketplace: Magento, Drupal, X-cart and Shopify all have different options you can use to create a marketplace.

As there are so many options available, there’s something for everyone’s budget.

The Bottom Line

As with any online venture building a marketplace has risks, perhaps more than any other way of making money online.

It will take time and dedication to start seeing a profit, but once built marketplaces are incredibly stable and long term businesses.

Everybody loves to get a deal whether they are buying online or not. In fact people are more willing to open their wallets when they think they are getting a bargain.

This can have a tremendous effect for your e-commerce site, helping you to increase sales, shift stock and create brand awareness.

Coupons are by far the easiest type of discount to use as most e-commerce platforms allow for a discount code to be entered. As well as that they are perhaps the most flexible too.

Coupon Pros and Cons

As with anything there are two sides to the story and while coupons can be very useful, they also can have negative effects.

Pros

• Easy to implement
• Quick injection of cash
• Can help shift stock
• Removes a barrier to entry for first time buyers
• Help increase brand awareness when shared

Cons

• If done wrong, they can be costly
• Not a sustainable method of promotion
• Can have a negative effect on branding
• Customers wait for deals if used too much

Types of Coupons

Coupons generally focus on price, but can also be used in other ways:

Percentage Based Discount

This is probably the most common discount coupon around, and it’s where you offer a percentage (e.g. 10%) off the cart amount. You can also offer a discount on a specific item rather than the cart.

Dollar Amount Discount

Similar to percentage, but this is a flat amount (e.g. $10) off the cart/specific product.

Free Shipping

Put in the code, get free shipping!

Free Gift

By using this code, your customers would have an item added to cart with a 100% discount.

Where Should You Display Your Coupons?

Now you have an idea for the type of coupon to use, how will you let people know?

Popups

Popups appear on your website and are a great “in your face” way of letting people know that you have a coupon available.

Call to Actions

A more static way to display coupons, these can be large images, sidebar images, or highlighted content areas within blog posts and product pages.

Emails

Using emails to notify people about your discounts helps spread the information and get people back to your site.

Coupon Sites

Often people will add items to their cart and then go hunting for a coupon. Adding your coupons to the various coupon sites out there is a great way to share the discount. We have a list of some of the best coupon sites here.

Social Media

Tweet it, Pin it, Share it – social media not only allows you to touch base with your followers, but can help increase the number of people who fins your discount.

Other People’s Sites

Bloggers and niche related websites are also an awesome way to share coupons, especially when tied with an affiliate deal.

Different Ways to Use Coupons

Just offering a flat 10% discount at all times doesn’t really help you or your customers. Instead why not use coupons selectively to help maximize excitement and sales while minimizing the costs to your business.

Daily/Weekly/Monthly

Offering a regular discount code can be used to help even out poor performing periods and help shift under-performing products. Be careful with this though as discounting too often can have negative effects.

Pre-launch

If you haven’t launched yet, or if you’re soon to be launching a new product/product line, then offering up a pre-launch discount can help to create hype and sales, especially if combined with a pre-order system.

Holiday/Seasonal

Valentines, mother’s/father’s day, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas are all popular periods for discounting, and perfect time for offering coupons.

As well as those, you could look to offer coupons for niche related “holidays”, such as National Sci-Fi Day, National Ferret Day and National Leave the Office Early Day (there’s pretty much a national day for everything…!)

First Time Shopper

Offering a discount for first time shopper is an excellent way to sway those that might not be ready to make a purchase yet.

Customer Loyalty

Tracking your customer sales is easy with most e-commerce system, so why not reward a loyal customer by sending them a coupon code just for them after they spend X amount in your store.

Post Purchase

After someone has purchased with you, send them a coupon code for future purchases. This can not only increase customer satisfaction but could help improve the chance of repeat custom.

Exit Intent

If you’ve ever looked into marketing techniques you may have come across Exit Intent. This system detects when a customer moves their mouse outside of the browser window (which usually means they are going to close the window or go to another site.

Offering a discount at that point could sway people to stay and buy.

Email Subscription Lead Magnet

A Lead Magnet, or in plain speak a bribe, is a method of sweetening the deal to get people to sign up to your mailing list. Often these take the form of free e-books, email courses and the like, but as an e-commerce store you can also offer a discount coupon.

Abandoned Carts

One of the main areas where e-commerce sites lose potential money is when a customer adds to cart and then abandons the cart.

There are many reasons for this, but if the customer is logged in and known you can perhaps save the cart by sending them a discount code. It’s a wise idea with this system to also save their cart content so that they can go back to the site with the cart content intact which reduces further barriers to buying.

Volume

If you’re looking to sell as much as possible why not offer a coupon that provides a discount for bulk purchases.

Cash for Credit

This is a type of cash back method, but one that keeps people tied to your store. The idea is that when the coupon is entered, and a purchase made, they receive an amount of store credit that can be used for future purchases.

E.g. if someone spends $100 they may receive $20 in store credit. This effectively turns the coupon into a flat dollar amount coupon that can be spent on anything in store.

Social Sharing

Instead of spending money with a social media company to increase your social presence, another idea is to give your customers a coupon if they share your (pre-written) message/page/etc on social networks.

Exclusive Offers to Social Followers

This method of using a coupon is to reward your social network followers. You can do this as a flat reward to thank them for being there or tie it to social shares.

Retargeting

This method of advertising has been proven to work at keeping your brand in front of people’s noses.

Not only can it work to bring back visitors to your site, but combined with a coupon code just for those visitors it could help entice them to buy too.

Influencer / Partnerships / Affiliates

Giving certain social media influencers, business partners or affiliate coupon codes can help drive new customers to your door.

Referral

Referral marketing is when you ask your existing customer base to refer a friend or family member to your site. You can use coupon codes to help facilitate this, both as an incentive to the new customer and as a reward to the referrer.

A Word of Caution

Using coupons to increase sales and brand awareness is definitely a useful strategy for any e-commerce site. I mentioned the cons earlier but I want to expand on a few things that you really need to be aware of.

Use Expiration Dates

Limiting the time that a coupon is active for not only adds a sense of urgency in the customers mind, but also helps to reduce your own liability.

Imagine a coupon that has no expiration, and suddenly 6 months later it goes viral, just when your own cash flow is perhaps not the best. That could turn into a really bad situation.

Using expiration dates means that you won’t get hit with unexpected surprises down the road.

An alternative to expiration dates is to limit the number of coupon uses, but this is harder to manage and needs to be clearly stated so there’s no customer backlash.

Run the Numbers

Make sure that your business can afford the discount! If your margins are already low, why make them lower? In that case I’d suggest trying an alternative method of generating sales.

Of course, sometimes it’s worth making little or even nothing if it means shifting a slow selling product.

Your use case will always be unique but just make sure you know what sort of financial situation you will be put in if you use coupons.

Generic or Specific

If the numbers look bad for using a coupon that can be applied to any product, try running the numbers with the coupon for just specific products or categories – that way you can generate sales without losing money.

Don’t Get Carried Away

Some business owners think that using coupons is an everyday thing, but it shouldn’t be. Not only can it ruin a brands reputation (especially for higher priced goods), but people can come to expect your discounts and wait for a discount before buying. This can put additional strain on your finances.

Instead, use coupons sparingly and know exactly why you are offering a coupon and what benefits you want to gain from it, before offering it.

Bottom Line

Hopefully this article has provided you with some idea on how to effectively use coupons with your e-commerce site.

Do you use coupons in different ways? Let me know in the comments.

Content marketing is huge right now, but does it work for you?

Just writing and writing and writing can work, eventually. However, it’s much better to apply tested and proven methods to your writing.

In other words don’t just write instead write copy!

I was at a conference recently and I attended a talk by Joost de Valk of Yoast SEO fame.

His talk was all about tuning your content with some very easy tips, to make the writing stand out.

Of course, his aim was to make you use his Yoast SEO plugin which now offers a feature that point out your errors.

I want to teach you these ideas today, with little bit more of an in depth explanation to each, as well as some extra tips for taking your writing to the next level.

The basics of copywriting

What Joost was proposing isn’t rocket science, neither is it anything new. That being said, they are easy to implement and will improve your writing.

Have a structure

The absolute first thing you need to do is have a structure in place. Having a basic outline, just a list of subheadings for example can help you focus your article.

You could also use a list of ideas or topics you want to talk about, so you can see how they flow together.

Use clear paragraphs

Paragraphs should be short, 2 or 3 sentences is a great paragraph length. Any longer and they become a wall of text.

As well, each paragraph should start with an idea. The following sentences should expand upon that idea.

Have clear headings

As an internet marketer you should know that clear headings are important. When done correctly just reading the clear headings can tell some the story, if in brief.

Examine your sentence structure

Wordy sentences that go on and on, without really coming to an end that just keep going and don’t really get to the point, all the while going from idea to idea and maybe even changing topic to dogs and how cool they are becomes really annoying to any reader.

See what I did there?

Keep your sentences short and to the point. If you don’t your readers will quickly become tired of your writing and redo their Google search. Ideally sentences should be 20 words or less.

Use simple words

I am terrible at this as I love using a wide vocabulary.

If you’re writing prose, using interesting and underused words is great. Using those sort of words for copywriting is a bad idea.

Keep your words simple, and ideally with a short syllable count: 3-4 max.

I’m not saying you should dumb down content, that’s possible the worst thing you can do. Instead just use words that convey the point clearly and simply.

Remove fluffy and filler content and words. Examine the sentence and think, do I really need this word? Can the sentence work without it?

The Passive Voice is terrible

This is the hardest thing to remove from your writing, as not everyone even understands what it is.

Wikipedia says:

The passive voice is a grammatical construction (specifically, a “voice”). The noun or noun phrase that would be the object of an active sentence (such as Our troops defeated the enemy) appears as the subject of a sentence with passive voice (e.g. The enemy was defeated by our troops).

Still confused? Yes, me too. It’s difficult to understand let alone realize you are writing in that “voice”.

The best way to understand it is if there is an action then the person (organization, etc.) must do the action.

• Passive: the website was created by the web developer
• Active: the web developer created the website.

While Joost’s plugin can identify the passive voice, it can’t fix it for you, so you need to have a good understanding of it and that will take a little time to learn.

More than the basics

Joost’s talk was really just an advertisement for the new feature with some basic advice to help provide value.

That basic advice however is important and a great stepping stone to improving your writing.

There are some more tips you can use to create writing that is effective copywriting.

#1 Write to the reader, not the audience

Forget that thousands of people can be reading your content. Instead remember that people read your content one at a time. Don’t talk to the audience, talk to that person.

This comes across as much more intimate and personal.

#2 Write a story

I started this article with a story about visiting a conference and seeing a talk by Joost. Perhaps it’s not a great story, but it’s still better than nothing.

Humanity has used story telling since we could string words together, and it is integral in our psyche.

Using a story to get a point across helps to tap into this and makes your content more memorable, because when a story is remembered, so is the moral or point of the story.

#3 Don’t use Weasel words

A weasel word is basically a vague word or turn of phrase. Avoiding Weasel words is essential for sales copy, though in content marketing it can be more of a relaxed.

Here’re some examples, clearly stolen from WikiPedia:

• “A growing body of evidence…” (Where is the raw data for your review?)
• “People say…” (Which people? How do they know?)
• “It has been claimed that…” (By whom, where, when?)
• “Critics claim…” (Which critics?)
• “Clearly…” (As if the premise is undeniably true)
• “It stands to reason that…” (Again, as if the premise is undeniably true—see “Clearly” above)
• “Questions have been raised…” (Implies a fatal flaw has been discovered)

How well did I score?

You might be wondering how well I’ve done with this article. The answer, not too bad:

This is before editing, and as you can see, my Passive Voice score is a bit high (it’s a curse!) but everything else seems good.

Remember that the scores are a guideline, nothing more. If the article or content reads well and more importantly converts, then having 11% of sentences containing the passive voice is just fine.

The Bottom Line

As a content marketer you might be writing pure sales copy or you might be writing a 5,000 word tutorial. Most likely, you will be somewhere in the middle.

These Joost and myself have provided these copy writing tips to help you make whatever you write that much more readable, enjoyable and actionable.

Most internet marketers get started by marketing products via affiliate networks. One of the first that most newbies come across is Amazon’s Associate program.

This is a huge opportunity for most people, as Amazon is a worldwide powerhouse when it comes to selling, well, pretty much anything and everything.

There are a bunch of reason why people love Amazon’s affiliate network, and sadly a bunch of reasons why some people don’t.

Amazon Associates is awesome because…

It’s a Trusted Brand Worldwide

Amazon operates worldwide and has sites in numerous languages and currencies. Its brand recognition is up there with Google and Coca-Cola, and in general most people are positive about Amazon as a company. This means a heck of a lot of people shop with them, like millions, daily.

It Has a Huge Selection of Products

I’m pretty sure that if you can’t find something on Amazon it isn’t sold anywhere… Well not quite, but Amazon has a vast selection of products, some that it sells direct and others sold by third parties.

The sheer number of products listed is so high, some affiliate training advises you to use it to find niches!

Unless you are trying to promote something obscure, it’s very likely Amazon will sell it.

It’s Easy (and Free) to Sign up to

The ease at which you can sign up to the Amazon affiliate program is astounding. Lots of other networks require you to fill out complex forms or have your site audited prior to acceptance.

Not so with Amazon. You can be signed up and promoting in a matter of minutes.

Another plus, is that unlike some affiliate networks, Amazon doesn’t cancel your account for simply not performing well.

It has Tools and Reports

From banners and widgets that you can add to your site, through to monthly reports on your commissions, Amazon has a lot of built in features that can help you to see how you’re doing and where improvements could be made.

The tools aren’t perfect, but they are quite good and free.

Bonus commissions

Regardless of why the visitor went through your link, whatever they buy while in the cookie time you will get commissions for. This means that even if they decide not to buy that 42” Hi Def TV, but instead opt for buying a toilet, you still get commissions on that sale!

Amazon Associates kinda sucks because…

You live in the wrong area

That’s right, if you live in Arkansas, Missouri, Maine or Rhode Island you’re screwed. Due to various legal wrangling, the Amazon associates program doesn’t allow residents of those states to apply.

If you do just one thing wrong

Being an Amazon associate means you have to agree to their terms and conditions.

If you somehow manage to get on the wrong side of these (easily done as they update them regularly), then you will get your account banned.

That’s right, say good bye to your money and your income in one fell swoop.

Its cookies are bad

Most affiliate networks use 30 day cookies or longer. Amazon’s are 24 hours. This is incredibly short, so if your pre-sell didn’t work, you could lose out on commissions if the person decides to buy a few days later instead of right now.

Its commissions are poor

Amazon’s commission rates aren’t bad, but they aren’t great either.

You start out on a flat 4% commission, and depending on your monthly sales, this could peak at 9%. Certain products like electronics are always at a flat rate (e.g. 4%) regardless of sales volume.

Compare that to most digital based products who offer anywhere from 20% to 100% and you can see that really Amazon’s rates could be better. To be fair they do have higher overheads, but from an affiliate’s point of view, it means you need to sell more, in order to make a decent profit.

Alternatives to Amazon

Her are 8 different sites where you can make affiliate commissions. Some of them are very similar to Amazon itself, and others require a different viewpoint, but are none the less still potentially profitable.

#1 Walmart

While not having the worldwide reach of Amazon, Walmart puts up a pretty good fight. They too sell a wide variety of products from books to boats. Their commissions are a little bit lower than Amazons, but they have a 3 day cookie!

#2 ClickBank

One of the bigger marketplaces for digital goods, Clickbank offers a decent selection of products. Of course, the products on offer won’t suit everyone as they are generally information products or software. Their cookie length is 60 days and commissions range from 10% -100%

#3 ShareASale

This marketplace for affiliates has a large selection of different vendors, from digital products through to physical products, each of whom you can apply with to promote their goods. Cookie lengths and commissions vary from vendor to vendor.

#4 CJ Affiliate (Commission Junction)

Another well-known and varied affiliate marketplace, CJ has vendors from hosting to 4 Wheel drives and everything in between. Once again, commissions vary from vendor to vendor, as do cookie lengths.

One thing to note about CJ, is that they are harsh towards inactive accounts and will close them.

#5 Rakuten.com (Buy.com)

One of the “new” kids on the block, Rakuten has been around a while but you simply may never have heard of it.

It’s pushing into Amazons space and sells a wide variety of products from books to clothes to electronics.

Its base commissions are better than Amazons at 6% though it’s not that great for electronics as this is only 1%.

#6 Infolinks / Skimlinks / Viglinks

These three sites are not your standard affiliate network. Instead of promoting a specific product, these services add links into your content that show pop up adverts.

They are very similar to Google Adsense in that you earn money per advert clicks, but as the adverts are shown as popups from within the content, banner blindness is reduced.

#7 eBay

Perhaps the Amazon of second-hand stuff, eBay has a huge market share, and sells virtually anything.

Sadly, the cookie length for eBay is only 24 hours, and their commission structure is a little weird. Instead of earning a flat rate, you earn a percentage of what eBay makes on the auction. You can earn anywhere from 50% to 200% (for new buyers) on their own fee.

This does make working out commissions hard, but with the number of people using eBay there’s still a decent chance of making a profit with this affiliate program.

#8 Direct Affiliation

Lastly, there is also direct affiliation, which is my term for joining individual affiliate programs from smaller merchants.

While this has the advantage of spreading the risk around (one banned account and cancelled affiliate program won’t immediately ruin your business), ti does require a lot more work.

Not only do you have to find the affiliate programs, but you need to monitor each one, often from different logins.  And then there’s monitoring links on your site!

While this option is certainly valid, if you do go down this route, I’d recommend using a link manager like Pretty Links Pro.

Bottom Line

It doesn’t matter if you can’t use Amazon due to living in the wrong place, being banned or just wanting to keep your options open, there are plenty of alternatives out there.

From large scale operations like Walmart, to smaller individual sellers, you can find affiliate programs for virtually anything, and they normally match or improve on Amazons commissions and cookie times.

As such, don’t let not being able to use Amazon stop you from earning money as an affiliate!

Most internet marketers hit a certain phase as they are starting out, one which can quickly spiral out of control: domain hoarding.

This is where you end up buying domain after domain, until you end up with more domains than you know what to do with.

If you manage to get a grip on this potential problem, there are things you can do with your surplus of domains. Often people either try to sell the domains, create a basic site and flip them, or simply let the domains expire.

Another option is domain parking.

How does domain parking work?

According to Wikipedia:

“Domain parking refers to the registration of an internet domain name without that domain being associated with any services such as e-mail or a website.”

In essence there should be nothing there, but most if not all domain registrars will add advertisements to a parked domain.

These adverts when clicked earn you a small fee as a reward for allowing your domain to host said advertising.

Your domain is basically turned into an online billboard.

This might not seem like a big of a deal, but with the right setup and investment, it’s possible to turn a reasonable profit from parked domains. Plus they require little to no work once set up – true passive income.

Quantity over quality

If you’re keen to look into domain parking as a revenue source, the first thing you will need to know is that for this method, quantity is just as important, if not more so, than quality.

This is because like with most advertisements on the internet, the more traffic you have the more chance you have of generating the all-important clicks, so the more domains you have parked, the higher the possibility of getting some that have a high traffic flow.

It’s not uncommon for someone involved in domain parking to have hundreds of domains. In fact some services like Sedo’s Domain Parking for Professionals requires you to have a minimum of 500 domains!

Domain selection

The most important thing about choosing a domain is to find those domains that can generate traffic without input from you.

This is because all the domain parking services have rules that prevent you from sending traffic to the sites via SEO, PPC etc.

In fact they can be quite ruthless when it comes to traffic monitoring and if it looks like you’re trying to game the system they will suspend or close your account.

When choosing domains to use for parking, there are 3 broad types: brand new, misspelled, and expired domains.

Brand new domains

This type of domain refers to new domains that are spelled correctly but may offer potential for traffic. In general these should be avoided or at least examined in detail to make sure they are worth the purchase, though at approx. $10 for a domain, it’s sometimes worth the risk.

Misspelled domains

This type of domain is one where you obtain a domain similar to another in the hopes that people will type in the incorrect domain name and end up on your site instead.

The most common way to do this is to look for plurals, e.g. instead of bluewidget.com, register bluewidgets.com.

There are some legal areas that you may struggle with here, especially if you start abusing brand names and copyrights this way, but it does offer the opportunity to catch traffic from popular sites.

Expired domains

A safer alternative is to pick up domains that have expired. These types of domains usually have had some traffic in the past that you can leverage.

It’s worth running any domain through a site that can provide more info on the domain such as Alexa for estimated traffic and Majestic for a more detailed report.

Basically you’re just trying to make sure you’re not buying a site that only had 3 visitors per year, as you won’t make a cent that way.

If you’ve ever examined a domain to buy or one for a PBN, then it’s basically the same criteria.

What sort of domains should you buy?

This is the difficult question, but in general they should be .coms or .orgs and should focus on a popular niche.

This would be the one time where you should even consider broader niches than you are perhaps used to with affiliate marketing, though as with anything online testing will be required.

Looking to current or potential fads and trends is definitely a decent angle to take, though these have a tendency to not be evergreen and run out of steam after a while.

Domain parking requires a lot of forethought and examination of a niche, from the keywords used to the general market, as well as potential traffic as everything focuses purely on the domain name itself as you have no other way to market the domain.

Exact Match Domains

Google has penalised exact match domains (EMD), but from a domain parking point of view it isn’t a problem. Parked domains won’t appear in an internet search anyway, so if the EMD looks like a good domain then pick it up!

Services you can use

In order to get adverts to appear on your site, you will need to use a domain parking service.

Most domain registrars such as GoDaddy and Sedo offer domain parking services.

There are also companies that solely focus on domain parking such as NameDrive and Redirect.

Redirect is actually quite an interesting one as instead of serving adverts, it geo-locates the visitor and redirects them to a targeted advertiser.

Problems with parking services

The main issue with parking services from your point of view is the inability of sending traffic to the domain.

It’s understandable why they would do this; after all it’s easy to send a ton of untargeted traffic at a domain which will increase any CPM (Cost Per Thousand) earnings.

As well as that the actual earnings per click for most services is mere cents.

How then can you increase earnings?

One option is to do your homework and choose the right service that provides the best rates.

Other than that you could always create a faux parked domain. This involves sticking up a basic web page with related adverts on it.

Of course this is more work to create and maintain, especially if you have hundreds of domains, but it does allow you to have a lot more control and to choose advertisers (or affiliate schemes) that have fewer rules in force.

Bottom line

Domain parking isn’t for everyone. There’s a level of investment required that most people balk at (easily $1,000 – $5,000 or more per year).

As well as that, finding domains that can generate traffic without SEO and therefore income is an ongoing project; especially as fads and trends change over time (how much traffic would Olympics2012.com get right now?).

That being said, if you are skillful in your selection as well as use a scatter shot method (it’s odd to use both of those at the same time but there you go), then there is a potential to make your costs back and then some.

There are numerous ways to make money with a website, from affiliate marketing to selling your own goods.

One way to make money is with an often overlooked style of website: the directory site.

A directory site in its most basic form is a site that lists and links out to other websites and businesses within one or more niche.

Probably the most famous directory site out there is Dmoz, and it’s huge and covers a wide range of niches.

The thing is, not everyone is going to succeed with a directory site, so I’ve compiled some of my tips and ideas to help you get a head start with your directory website.

A Business Not a Blog

Most people who try their hand at directory sites fail. The simple reason is that they think that they can stick up a site and it will just work.

You absolutely must treat any directory site like a business, otherwise you will fail.

You need to make sure you have a plan in hand for how to generate traffic, how to generate listings and how to capitalize both to generate income.

Not being serious about the venture will end up costing you time and money.

Niche Selection

Let’s be frank, you’re not going to build a site like Dmoz easily, so like most things in internet marketing you need to narrow your niche down.

For example, you could focus on:

• Dentists
• Plumbers
• Private Tutors
• Music Teachers
• Specialist stores
• etc.

You could even narrow this down (initially) to just a single state or city if it’s large enough.

Having a specific niche will help with everything else you need to do such as traffic, SEO and listing selection.

As with any niche selection you need to be sure of two things:

• Is there a market that is interested in finding quality sites?
• Will someone pay you for it?

I once made a directory site that failed. It wasn’t because no one was interested; it was simply because the target market had no money to spare: the ones seeking the websites didn’t want to buy from the advertising, and the websites themselves ran such small margins, they didn’t want to pay to list.

Therefore, make sure you vet your niche before proceeding to make sure there’s at least some potential for earnings.

Traffic is Key

One of the most important things you need to realise is that building a directory site from scratch is a tremendous amount of work.

How do you attract people to list on your site when you have zero traffic and zero other listings?

Do you see the problem – without traffic people aren’t interested and without listings there’s no traffic!

How then can you get past this chicken and egg scenario?

Well, there are a few ways:

• Start by hand selecting some sites/businesses and simply list them with basic details. It’s a good idea to contact them and let them know, both for marketing and so they can de-list if they wish.
• Offer free listings. Everybody on the internet loves freebies, and free listings can help build up the site content quite quickly.
• Promote the said free listings via social media and any sites that cater to your target location (remember, start small).

SEO

As well as starting to list sites yourself and reaching out to communities, you should be making sure your SEO is top notch.

A directory site rarely has much in the way of content, so SEO can be a pain to put it mildly, but there are ways to counter this.

Categories & Tags

Using a solid category structure helps both search engine bots and users find what they need quickly and easily.

It’s worth spending time in the early stages planning out your category structure to make sure that it will be efficient, easy to understand and just as importantly, scalable.

The last thing you want to do is to have to change your category structure later down the line as this can cause numerous 404 errors.

Tags also need to be considered as well, more from a user point than anything.

Meta tags

Sometimes called schema, meta tags allow search engines to understand your website content in semantic terms. This means that they should know that a listing for one of your sites, is regarding a particular niche.

If you’re a WordPress user, WordPress doesn’t come with the ability to use meta tags, but some smarts minds out there have created some great plugins such as the All In One Schema.org Rich Snippets, which can enable schema for you.

I’ll be honest, these things are a pain in the ass to get setup and running correctly, but they offer so much potential SEO benefits it would be stupid to set up a directory site without schema.

Content Marketing

Even though directory listing sites have very little content on a per listing basis, it doesn’t stop your from having a side-blog that can have more detailed content and help internally link your directory categories.

For example, you could write a monthly showcase featuring a particular site, talking about the website or business in detail and perhaps interviewing the owner or staff. This can then be linked back to both the website listing and the listing category. It’s a win-win for both the site/business as they get a spotlight, and you get the much needed content.

PPC

Another method of generating traffic is to use PPC or Pay Per Click advertising.

There are two potential routes you can go with this: advertising to get people to list and advertising to get traffic.

To begin with you want to get the traffic, as you can manually add listings. Later on down the line you may want to advertise to promote your money generating listings.

PPC is a risk as it costs money, but if done right you can get some targeted traffic to your site.

Quality Aggregation

Every directory site runs one major risk: having too many BS sites listed. This is why it’s important for your or a your hired help to manually check each listing and to review them every so often.

The manual check weeds out any undesirable listings from the outset (even paid for listings).

Sometimes websites fail, and sometimes their domains are re-purposed for spam, or porn or maybe just another website. This is why regular reviews are worthwhile, because the last thing you need to have are links that send your traffic to malware ridden sites, or even just to the wrong site.

I’d also recommend having strict terms and conditions for both free and paid for listings that gives you enough leverage to reject and remove listings and covers your back legally speaking.

Earning Money

The all-important question every marketer wants to know: how the heck do I make money from a directory site?

Luckily, there are a few ways.

Paid Listings

The most obvious one is for promoted listings. These are just like promoted posts in your Facebook feed: highlighted listings to grab people’s attention.

You can charge anywhere from $50 to $1,000 per promoted listing depending on your niche, and the listing placement and length of stay.

Ultimately it will be down to you and your niche knowledge to figure out the best pricing model, but if you have enough traffic and an affluent niche, higher prices are quite viable.

Adverts

There are two types of adverts in my mind: Networks like Google Adsense, and Private adverts.

Networks

I’m loathe to recommend using network advertisements. This is because they are so poorly paid, that people end up getting carried away in the effort of trying to earn something and plastering the site with ads.

This can become a very negative thing, because it not only looks tacky to your visitors, but you can’t guarantee what adverts will show up.

Private Ads

A better option, though not always easy to implement especially in the beginning, are private adverts. This is where you sell advertising space to sites that list on your directory. These can be pitched differently to the promoted listings as they allow the sites to use visual imagery or even video to promote their sites.

There are several WordPress plugins that can assist with controlling adverts, whatever type you decide on, such as the excellent AdRotate.

The Bottom Line

Directory sites can make money, of that there is no doubt. They do however take some planning and determination to succeed with.

Finding the right niche is only the beginning of your journey and traffic generation is paramount. If you can achieve that, then a directory site can be an excellent way to make money online.