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Take the recent episode where the two teams were charged by The Donald with makingmoney any way they could selling services to dog owners.
Drama aside, the team that lost was a so called "one trick pony". They pinned theirsuccess on one thing - dog washing. A good idea but not quite good enough. Becausethe winning team not only offered dog washing but dog massage plus nail clippingtoo. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that by offering a variety ofservices they earned three times as much.
Income diversification is also a winning strategy online. One I mention to all whowill listen. That’s because it’s dangerous to depend on oneproduct’s cash flow for your site’s survival.
So here are three ways to avoiding the fate of most one trick ponies.
===== > Promote Your Own Product
I strongly believe you should have your own product to promote.
Ideally something digitally delivered like an eBook or software? This way your"bread and butter" can’t suddenly be taken away from you should the productowner decide to no longer use affiliates. Which happens you know?
Even better it’s smart to develop a higher priced back end product that offerseven more help. Doing so knowing that if you offer a high quality product a certainpercentage will want even more ideas and solutions from you. And these back endsales are the easiest kind.
Oh and don’t think I didn’t hear that groan two paragraphs ago. Butanyone can develop a starter info product in 24 hours.
• Develop a list of 25 pressing questions those in your niche want answered. • Have a friend interview you for an hour over the phone asking you thosequestions. • You provide insightful answers while taping the call. • Transcribe the audio tape and convert the text into a PDF file.
There you go - nearly instant product. If it sells flesh it out further and raisethe price to reflect the added value. If not try again with another topic.
===== > Promote Related Affiliate Products
But what if your visitors don’t want YOUR product? Well, don’t let themslip through your fingers without a fight. In this case affiliate products ARE theperfect solution.
Because a site focusing on weddings can not only sell a wedding planning book it canalso offer one on how to throw a bridal shower. Or another how to get the best dealon your honeymoon.
Now to find such related eBooks available at Clickbank I use Affiliates Alert.It’s time saving software that runs from your desktop. With it you can findtop selling products by keyword or commission payout by searching the entireClickbank Marketplace or just a selected category. Best of all you can download itfor free from www.AffiliatesAlert.com.
===== > Cash in on Waste Traffic
Still not every visitor is going to buy from you no matter how many temptingsolutions you dangle in front of them. In fact the vast majority won’t. Butthat doesn’t mean you still can’t make money off them.
The most common way to cash in on waste traffic is to use Google’s Adsense.That’s where you display Google Adwords ads on your site for some unspecifiedcut of the action.
The nice thing about Adsense is you can be up and running in no time. All I do isincorporate the Adsense code in my page templates using SSI or server side includes.That way every new page added gives me more opportunities to make money.
Now if the mystical and magical nature of Adsense is a turnoff, there are otherservices that offer similar revenue sharing programs. Even better some, unlikeAdsense, let you specify the keywords you wish to target. Here's a short list ofthem.
Searchfeed www.searchfeed.com RevenuePilot www.revenuepilot.com AllPPC www.allppc.com BidClix www.bidclix.com Azoogle Ads www.azoogleads.com
Of course maybe you don’t want to settle for pennies and would rather shootfor dollars? Okay so what if the ads served up were for ClickBank products? Here areseveral ways to do that.
CBAdwords http://cbadwords.com CB Clicks www.cbclicks.com ClickAdWords www.clickadwords.com CB Ad Generator www.procoversdeluxe.com/cbgene rator
The thing to remember about Adsense, or any of the alternatives, is visitorscan’t click on the listings if they can’t see ‘em. So make sureyou display the listings front and center. In the visitor’s face. If at allpossible within the actual page content. For sure not at the bottom or below thefold somewhere lost in the recesses of the web page.
So there you have it. Three ways to diversify your online marketing efforts. Playyour cards right and you won’t end up washing dogs for a living.
