Website Business Tips

If you write a blog or articles for your website, you’ve likely had some writer’s block at some point.

Coming up with new ideas or topics to write about can be hard sometimes. I however, have a little trick that I’ll share with you. I do this almost everyday and I’m never stuck on ideas (I typically have 30 things I want to write about each day, which is the opposite problem!)

The first thing I do, is I figure out what my reader wants. It doesn’t matter what I want to write. I write for people like you, so the only thing that matters is what the reader wants to learn.

To find out what your readers want, these are my top secret tips…

1. Go to forums in your niche market and look for common questions that get asked by the users. If you see people asking questions like “where can I find a 10 speed huffy bike with purple stripes?”, all you have to do is search google for whatever the readers are looking for. Then, you can write an article or blog post called “Top 3 places to find a 10 speed huffy with purple stripes”. Your readers will be amazed that you can read their minds, and you’ll have a follower for life!
2. Go to other blogs in your market and read the comments left by their readers. Often times readers will leave specific questions in comments to blog posts, and you can use these questions to come up with new topics for your website (as explained above).
3. Tie major events into an article or blog post. If the Super Bowl is on tv next week, then you can always weave that into something to write about. Maybe you saw the quarterback of one of the teams riding a 10 speed huffy bike with purple stripes? Maybe not that extreme, but you get the point…
4. Contact experts in your market and ask them to chat for a few minutes. This is something you should try to do anyway, but having these conversations with people in your market will bring up topics you never thought about. Maybe there is some new technology coming out or a new product that will help your market, etc.

When you find a couple of good topics to write about, just start writing. Don’t stop until you get all of your thoughts out of your head and on paper (or computer screen). You will notice while you are writing about a certain topic, other topics will pop into your head like magic. Jot those ideas down on a notepad so you can use them the next time you need ideas.

If you are still stumped, you’re probably making it harder than it is. Take a short break and come back to it later…

A very common question, especially from people new to internet marketing is “what business should I start” or “what niche market should I get into” or my favorite “what is the most profitable business topic”.

My answer…

There are NO bad markets! I know, that’s different from what most people will say, but hear me out…

It doesn’t matter if you want to start a business selling shoes online, become a freelance writer, or even give tattoo advice (yes, I made money online doing just that!).

Whatever you want to do, you CAN do it online and you CAN make money doing it. There are however, a few “guidelines” I follow when picking a business topic or niche market.

1. The bigger the market, the more money can be made. This is pretty obvious, but many people overlook the concept. Obviously there are more people who want to lose weight than there are people who want to teach their cat to do back flips. Don’t be scared of getting into big markets though. Just because that’s where the “big boys” (or girls) play doesn’t mean there isn’t room for you to come in and get a piece of the pie. In fact, I prefer large markets over small niche markets any day (for reasons you’ll learn about below)…
2. The group of people you are targeting have to be willing to spend money (or at least do something for you that earns you money - ie click your ads). Again, the more money people have to spend, the more you can make. BUT, just because you want to get into a market that doesn’t have much money, it doesn’t mean you can’t make money from that business idea. Look at all those celebrity gossip blogs and websites. Those site owners have readers who rarely buy products from them, but they are earning millions of dollars by displaying ads to the hundreds of thousands of visitors they who are reading their websites each day.
3. Pick a topic that is interesting to you. If you are not interested in the business, you will not be motivated to work on the business. I fell in that trap a couple times, and the most money I’ve ever made online was with businesses that I was passionate about. It doesn’t feel like work when you do something you love doing.
4. Pick a topic that other companies would be interested in. Like I always say, your business exit strategy should ALWAYS be to sell your website at some point. When I start a business online, one of my first steps is to find a company that I would like to get acquired by one day. I build the business to compliment nicely with this other business right from the start. I try to target their same customer demographic, offer similar but non-competing products, maybe join their affiliate program to begin building a business relationship with that company, etc. Then when I want to sell the business, it’s practically sold before I even list it for sale because it’s such a perfect match for them. Big businesses grow by acquiring smaller businesses like yours, get used to the idea and you might get rich in the process…
   (even if you don’t end up selling your website to this company, there will likely be others like them that will want to buy your business, such as their competitors!)
5. Try to stay away from trends or fads. Things like “specialized diets” (ie Atkins) that fade away a few months after they are released are not good business models. Yes, you can make money from trends and fads, but it’s not a very good long term plan.

It really depends on your goals and how much money you want to make. If you are happy with earning an extra $300 per month from your web business, then you can start almost any kind of website to make that much money. If you want to make at least $75,000 per month, then you need to focus on the bigger markets and be prepared to work a little harder.

I know most of these tips you’ve never heard before, but I guarantee it’s the most valuable advice you’re going to find online.

Until next time…

One question I get asked frequently is “What is your secret to success?”

I like to learn how other people become successful too, so getting asked this question doesn’t bother me. What does bother me is knowing that even though I answer this question, nobody takes my advice

Here’s my secret to getting rich fast..Ready?

Under promise and Over deliver in EVERYTHING you do!

Let me break down what this means exactly…

Right now, people/customers are extremely jaded. There are so many ripoffs, scams, con artists and crappy products being sold today it’s not funny.

Business owners just want to cut corners, cut costs and get more money for doing less work. This results in bad products that fall apart, services that are performed poorly and ultimately the closing of that business when all this nonsense catches up with them.

I’ve always separated myself by making a promise to my customers, then fulfilling that promise AND THEN SOME. Going above and beyond every chance I can.

If I promise a product will be shipped out within 3 business days, I work extra hard to get that product shipped out the same day. Not because I have to, not because the customer expects it, but because THAT’S WHAT I WOULD WANT AS A CUSTOMER MYSELF!

Put yourself in your customers’ shoes. Look at your business from a customer’s perspective and see how you can go above and beyond.

If you can go above and beyond what your customer expects, you will get rich.

Customers will start talking to their friends about their experience with your company. You will get more repeat sales because you treat your customers amazingly well. You get the point.

This doesn’t just work with customers. ALWAYS go above and beyond in everything you do and your life will never be the same.

If your suppliers’ request payments 30 days from now, pay them today (you’ll get better pricing and better service from them later)

There’s my secret to success. It’s so simple, yet few people follow my advice…I guess it’s because it requires them to “do a little more work”, and that takes effort. It’s no strange coincidence that 10% of the people in the world have 90% of the money! Guess who is going above and beyond?

Maybe that’s why most people don’t get rich?

As I stated before, selling your website is always a good idea in my opinion. But, how much is your website worth if you do decide to sell it?

Based on my experience of selling many websites over the last few years, this is what you can expect…

There are a few things that determine the value of your website. These are:

1) Age of the website (the older, the better - also, how long it has been generating revenue vs existing without revenue)

2) Net profits of the website per year (nobody cares if your website grosses $1 million per year if it only profits $5,000 per year after expenses).

3) Any assets the website has including a subscriber list, customer database, organic search rankings, exclusivity of products sold, and brand recognition to name a few.
The MAIN thing buyers look for is the net profits. Buyers are typically looking for a return on investment (ROI). If they spend $100,000 on your website, they want to see how much money they will likely get back from the profits of the business each year (ie - their return).

Since net annual profits are the main pricing criteria most buyers use, I’ll expand on this a bit…

A “rule of thumb” for pricing based on profits is 24 months worth of net profits = selling price for a website. Brick & Mortar businesses typically average 30 months net profits when sold. The difference mostly being the fact that websites typically have few physical assets to them. They are just a bunch of invisible files floating around in cyberspace.

Some people will argue that websites can only be sold for 12 months worth of profits.  This can be true if you don’t know how/where to sell your website, but I almost always get 24 months revenue as a sale price.

A 24 month profit example would be if you have a website that makes $1500 per month in net profit after all expenses. You could likely sell your website for:

$1500 x 24 = $30,000 to $38,000

Now, getting the 24 months net profit price is not always guaranteed. The longer history you have of earning the net profits the better.

For example, if your site has been earning $800 per month every single month for 3 years, you will likely get more than 24 month’s worth of profits by selling it. This is seen as a less risky investment for the buyer of your website.

If your site has been making $800 per month and the site is only 4 months old, you will likely only get 10-14 month’s worth of net profits in a sale. It doesn’t have the history associated with it, and it hasn’t proven itself to be a solid business to buy just yet.

Same goes for a website that makes $100 one month, then $2500 the next, then $800, then $50, etc. It’s harder to sell those types of websites for a premium price because they are so erratic.

Below is a “real life” example of a website business progressing towards being sold. This is a brand new website you can started from scratch. Your “exit strategy” is to sell the website after 18 months. Let’s see how much money you will make after 18 short months.

Month 1 - $50 profit (new site, starting very slowly)
Month 2 - $50 profit
Month 3 - $150 profit
Month 4 - $250 profit
Month 5 - $550 profit
Month 6 - $800 profit (starting to get some traffic and income picking up)
Month 7 - $1000 profit
Month 8 - $1400 profit
Month 9 - $1900 profit
Month 10 - $2000 profit
Month 11 - $3300 profit
Month 12 - $4000 profit
Month 13 - $3100 profit (Slight drop in revenue is very normal)
Month 14 - $4600 profit
Month 15 - $5000 profit
Month 16 - $4800 profit
Month 17 - $6000 profit
Month 18 - $5000 profit

So, after 18 months, your internet business has generated $43,950 in profits for you. That doesn’t seem to difficult to do does it? Not a very scary number to shoot for…

Now, what most people do is hang on to these websites that are now making about $5,000 per month. The income eventually levels out and holds steady for a while until the owner gets tired or bored. Maybe the search engines change an algorithm or there is a trend change and your product is no longer “cool”.  The revenue then starts to dip into a downward spiral until the business is only making $500 per month again. This is when most website owners decide they want to sell their site.

Well guess what, it’s too late!

As a buyer of a business, all they see is the business is steadily declining and they want nothing to do with a failing business. All that time you spent building your business is now worthless.

BUT, IF YOU WERE SMART you would have sold the site after 18 months like you originally planned.

So, by putting the growing, thriving business up for sale on the 18th month, let’s calculate the asking price…

To get an “average net monthly profit figure”, common practice is to use the last 12 month’s worth of profit figures and average them. This is done so a buyer can see if there are any sales are steady year round or if there are seasonal spikes in sales.

In our example, the last 12 months’s profts were $42,100 in profits / 12 months = $3,508 average net profit per month.

Since your business has been around for over a year and is showing steady growth, you can command a premium price. Probably in the range of 24-30 month’s net profits.

Your selling price would be $85,000 - $100,000 as a lump sum cash payment (and your chances of getting that are very good right now).

Assuming you sell the business at a low range of $90,000, plus the $42,100 the business made over the last 12 months, you will have made $132,100 in one year!

Don’t let the numbers throw you off. My point is, you can start a simple website business, have it grow slowly, and have over $130,000 in the bank in less than 2 years from right now!

The example I gave above is very realistic and doable. Depending on how much effort you put into building your web business, you may be able to grow it even faster than the example above.

I’ve had businesses virtually double every month for the first 12 months and hit $50,000 per month within 7 months of starting them (I also had no life and worked 18 hours per day during that time as well!). It simply depends on your motivation…