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Ways to diversify
your web income include:
1. Having
multiple sites on different topics. You don't need to
have 500 hundred different web sites, but perhaps consider
having at least 5 - 10 sites in different market areas.
That way when the search engines have algorithm changes,
some sites might go down but others may go up. With enough
sites you can ride out the changes easier. On most major
updates these days, I see very little income changes overall
even though each individual site I own may have a significant
rise or fall in earnings.
2. Try to
get traffic from all three major search engines - Google,
Yahoo and MSN. Of my higher income sites, one gets most
of its traffic from Google and on another the main traffic
is split between Yahoo and MSN with very little Google traffic.
If you have enough unique sites all making money, you may
hardly even notice if one of your sites loses traffic in
any one search engine.
3. Give people
a reason to bookmark and return to your sites. I have
some sites that get most of their traffic from return visitors
and not the search engines. While it is possible to rank
well on rather poorly written content if you can manipulate
enough links to your site, but your visitors won't stay
long and they won't come back if you have poor quality content.
Having unique content often pays for itself many times over,
even if you have to take longer to research your topic or
pay more to have someone else write it.
4. Have multiple
ways of making money from each site - Don't rely on
just one form of advertising to make money from each site.
Program terms change, advertisers go out of business or
drop product lines you may have been promoting, etc. Make
sure that each site you own has multiple income sources.
5. Move some
of your web income to offline investments. Once you
start making money from your web sites, invest your gains
in other areas outside the web. Then if your sites lose
traffic you will have another income source. If you are
a stay at home mom turned work at home mom, try keep living
off one income as you may have done in the past. Consider
sheltering some of your income in a small business retirement
fund. (See my section on tax
deductions for more on this topic.) Or perhaps invest
in a 529 college saving program for your kids where your
money can tax grow tax deferred.
6. Don't rely
on income from free search engine traffic to pay your living
expenses. View your web income as a plus, and with
the understanding that your sites could get dropped tomorrow
and your income could go to zero.
7. Get traffic
from sources other than the search engines. Investigate
ways to get visitors from places other than free search
engine traffic such as links from other sites, paid advertisements
on related web sites, ads in print magazines, directory
listings, pay per click ads such as Adwords, signature lines
in forum posts, and classified ads.
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Work at Home
by Developing an Internet Business
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