Earning Money

On the web and in life in general, when you are trying to make money, it doesn’t hurt to have a name for yourself.  Whether you’re a blogger like I am or you are a rock star like Eric Clapton, if you have a name, you can naturally make more money for yourself.  By being the leader of whatever market you are in, people are going to be willing to pay more for whatever service you provide. 

The inspiration behind this post came from the fact Eric Clapton is going on tour.  My idol when it comes to music is going on tour and naturally, I want to get tickets.  So, I was beginning to look at ticket prices and I noticed that the minimum cost was $100.  I remember going to a John Mayer concert a few years ago and the ticket was barely $50.  It made me realize that if you are more famous, you can demand more and people will STILL pay it. 

But what the hell does this have to do with earning online?  Let’s just say that you found out something new and interesting about making money online.  For instance, you found a cool way to get more people to your blog.  But, let’s also say that someone else also found the exact same secret, so naturally, you’re not the only one who has the secret. 

But, you’re the leader in ‘building traffic to blogs.’  People trust you more than the other person.  Because of this trust, you can sell the secret for more than the other person because there is that ‘guarantee’ that what you are saying is going to work simply because your name says so.  That’s what having a good name for yourself allows.  People trust you and that trust allows for you to make more money. 

The essence behind it is that your name is a guarantee.  You are guaranteeing your name (a name you earned) that the secret works, so people are willing to spend more to ensure that the secret is going to work.  If I took John Chow’s e-book (and let’s assume he was selling it for $50) and I copied it and sold it for $25, people would still pay the $50 because they KNOW what he says is true and they are not sure if what I say is true.  The name “John Chow” means success and that is why people would pay for it. 

Having a name for yourself means that you can increase the price of things.  If you write an e-book, you can sell it for more.  If you are selling advertising, you can sell it for more simply because the advertiser can say, “such and such likes the site, they let me advertise, cool!”  Whatever it may be, by having a name for yourself means you can increase the price.  So, if you want to help me go see Eric Clapton in concert, feel free to donate to my nameless self.  Thanks! 

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It’s argued that you never want to put all your eggs in one basket when it comes to monetization of your website. Why? There’s just not as much money to be made when you rely on ONE program. But, if you spread out and try many different things, there’s no denying that you can make more. It’s how John Chow went from making $350 his first month earning on his blog to a little over $30K last month, a MASSIVE difference in a year and a few months.

The same can be said about the social bookmarking sites that we use to try and push traffic to our sites. There are many different of these and they all provide different things. Some are better for some things and some are better for others, but they are as big as they are because they provide us a service. But, the thing to remember is never to rely on one alone. Why? They don’t provide you with ALL the traffic there is to potentially get alone.

That’s why you want to take time to become friends with all the different social bookmarking sites. What one offers is different than the other, but they all offer what we, as webmasters, want: traffic. Because of that, we need to become friends with each of them. To do that, I recommend taking the time to find what articles work best on each one and then submitting one of your articles to it. If you use multiple methods to gain traffic, you’re going to get more.

But, one of the hardest parts is knowing which one to try and which ones are stupid. A lot on the web are not worth the time of day, but there are a few that I really recommend and I have found that I am getting more and more interested in submitting to these. The four that I recommend for people for the great increase in traffic are:

• StumbleUpon.
• Del.icio.us.
• Digg.
• Reddit.

Each one looks different and each one provides something a little different. Some are better for bringing traffic very fast and some are better for bringing smaller amounts of traffic over a consistent period of time. Overall, though, they are all wonderful for bringing traffic. Get to know them and learn to rely on them for traffic. But, the same statement of ‘not relying on any one thing’ can be said about this; never stop building your links for search engine purposes and do blog comments to gain traffic. Do everything you can. But, get to know the social bookmarking sites. It really can benefit you.

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