Where's My Billion?

Once your site becomes wildly popular you will be tempted to sell it. This goes against my “build an empire” philosophy which is if you build one successful site you should build more and more to increase your monthly revenue. If you do choose to sell there are several sites that cater to that. Sitepoint.com being one of the main ones. It is hard to turn down a few thousand dollars when you know you have only invested around a $100 in the site. One thing to look at is what you are making monthly plus the future earning potential of the site.

This is another revenue stream but I saved it until now because it isn’t easy like the others and your site will have to be successful for it to happen. When you reach the top of the search engines all sorts of people will come knocking on your door (well knocking on your email I guess you could say). Some of these people will want to advertise on your newly successful site. How much should you charge them? That is a very difficult question. A fair price for a new site is normally $300 to $500 for a year. This would be for a small ad somewhere on the main page. I have heard that some of the very successful sites charge 4 figures a MONTH for ad space!

     Ok, so we have a site. It’s covered in ads and has some nice pictures and articles. We are starting to climb in the search engines so what’s next? Sell, sell, sell! It’s easier than you think. Create accounts on forums and messages boards relevant to your site. Join discussions and post a link to your site at the bottom of every post you do. Email similar sites and ask them to link to your site, search engines LOVE “back links”. The more links there are to your site the higher you will place. Join Yahoo Answers and other answer sites and search for questions relevant to your site. Then answer them and post your link. Add on to “wiki”s and cite your site as the souce. There are a million places on the net to advertise for free, just do a little each day.