Your Income Stream

So, now we come to everybody's favorite topic, how to make money from an online business? 

Unlike an offline business, where usually the only profits will come from the sale of your
products, an online business offers you the possibility of multiple income streams.The following lists the various ways you can earn from your online business:

• Sales. A pretty traditional way of making money is to sell your product. Works as well online as it does offline.

 

• Affiliate Programs. You can join affiliate programs to promote another company's product. When you make the sale, you will be entitled to a commission. This is a good way to start if you don't have your own product,or don't want to keep stock or receive payments.Take your time and shop around for an affiliate program that pays well. It's not easy selling on the net and I would expect to be well compensated for my efforts. I would consider a 20% - 30% commission as fair compensation for my efforts.

 

• Residual Income. Residual income can be defined as income derived not as a direct result of your efforts. For example, you can sell web hosting at $10/month and get a 20% commission, which works out to $2/month. If your customer renews the next month, you will automatically get another $2, without any additional effort on your part. In fact, you will get $2 per month for as long as your customer renews. Another way you can earn residual income is from the efforts of your referrals. Most affiliate programs have at least a 2-tier structure, allowing you to earn some commission from the sales of your referrals.A word of advice if you are planning to build a business from the residual income from your referrals hope for the best but prepare for the worst. A full 90% of your referrals will probably sit on their behind and do absolutely nothing while 9% may bring in a sale or two. Only 1%, if you are lucky, will perform well.

 

•  Advertising. There are many ways you can earn advertising revenue from your site. You can enter into a private deal with another webmaster to display his banner on your site for x dollars per month. Or, you can join a banner exchange and display banners for cash. You can maximize your advertising space by introducing pop ups, plunders or slide in ads, but the general rule of thumb is one is more than enough.Many surfers find these irritating but will probably tolerate one, but not more.However, with ad rates being rather low, advertising revenue will just supplement your income. Unless you have a very popular site, your fortune will not be made in advertising.

 

• Subscription. If you have information that surfers will pay to access, then you can consider a subscription based site. Surfers will pay a one-time fee, or monthly fee, to have access to your site. Or you can have a free site, but a subscription-based newsletter.