One of the membership sites I’m a part of (Earn1KaDay) has a really cool conversation going on in the forum. Someone asked the question, “If you had to start over, and only had $100, what would you do?”
It’s funny that I have no problem posting on my blogs, but I’ll admit I’m a bit shy and didn’t post my reply in the thread…but I gave it some thought, and wanted to share what I’d do if I had to completely start over and had only $100 to do so.
Now I’m assuming that I still have all of the knowledge that I’ve built up over the years, so while not just anyone might be easily able to do what I’m going to suggest, I don’t think it would take too much research or learning to be able to do so.
The first thing I would do was to start an affiliate website. I’d do some research using Google and other free tools (such as Wordtracker or Market Samurai), and find a few good long tail keywords and a niche that I was at least somewhat interested in.
I’d then create an affiliate site around them, meaning that I would post about products that people could buy in that niche. I’d post at least once a day (at least at first) talking about the different products available, and doing reviews of them. Even if you don’t have any personal experience, you can still read other reviews and product information so that you learn enough about the products that you can give your opinions on them. I’d write comparisons of different products, etc…helping people decide which product they wanted to buy in that niche.
(Think about it. When you want to buy something you don’t know that much about, don’t you go to the web to check the different products and see which is the best for you, and which products have good reviews?)
Now, in order to put the site up, it would take a little bit of money. All you would need would be a hosting account and a domain name (you can get started with less than $7 from Bluehost and you’ll get a free domain with it as well with this link) leaving me most of the $100 still in my hands.
I would create a WordPress blog, and would definitely use a free theme so that I didn’t have to spend any more money. While this one uses Genesis, many of my sites still use free themes, so I’d have no problem doing that with these new sites as well.
Assuming that I had more than an hour or so a day to work on my business, I would probably spend another $9 or so and get a second domain, and do the exact same thing but with a different niche.
That way I’d have more of a chance of making money since there are no guarantees that the first one would bring in money. Plus, 2 websites earning an income for me would be better than just one!
Why would I use this method?
- It’s a very low cost to start up. Except for needing hosting and domain names, you don’t have to spend money on anything else. Don’t get me wrong, once I had the sites up and started seeing affiliate sales come in, I would probably get an Aweber account so that I could start creating a list and would then be able to promote products to my list. I would also then consider creating my own products, but I wouldn’t even consider any of that until the sites were already doing well.
- It’s something that almost anyone can do, and since there are practically unlimited niches, it doesn’t matter how many other people out there have affiliate sites, you can still be unique and find something that thousands of other people aren’t already doing.
- It doesn’t take a lot of time. Once you get the WordPress site up (which shouldn’t take very long), it shouldn’t take you very long to write a post. Granted, if you know about the products you’re writing about it will go quicker, but most of the time I can easily write a post in an hour or less. So it doesn’t matter if you still have a full time job, or are watching your children all day, or are busy for plenty of other reasons. If you have just an hour a day to spare, you can still do this method and make money.
- I know that it works. People are always looking for reviews and comparisons and want help in deciding what to purchase. If you can give them the help they are looking for, they’ll end up buying through your link and you’ll make money. If you look around the Internet Marketing space, you’ll see plenty of people who talk (and show proof) of how much they’re making each month on niche sites as an affiliate.
Of course there is no guarantee that it will work in every niche that you try, but that’s part of the great thing about this method. Since it doesn’t take a lot of time (or money) to start up, you still have most of your $100 (and most of your day) to come up with other ways to make money online as well.
So that’s definitely what I would do if I was starting over and only had $100.
I feel like I should be completely transparent with you. Not only would this be the method I would use if I was starting over…this is also what I currently do when I’m looking to add in another income stream to my business.
