Website Marketing Pioneer Jim Daniels shares his ongoing website promotion experiences.

In today's Website Marketing Newsletter...

Here's the secret resource being used by many of the gurus you know...

(They won't admit it, but more than likely, they use this.)

Get Serious. Get Your Own Products.

Most of the "The End Is Near" headlines are used by marketers to "scare" people into listening to them, and yes... even to scare them into buying their recommended solutions.

So should you listen?

Well, yes and no.

What you should be hearing is one thing, and one thing only...

Change is happening.

But change is always happening. And it's not always bad. Change is inevitable. It's been happening online ever since the birth of the Internet and will continue forever.

I remember when spam legislation was introduced many years ago. The headlines pronounced the "death of email marketing". Yet email marketing is alive and well. Sure, it's not as easy or profitable as it once was, but it's certainly not dead.

The thing is, change is not in itself bad. Change signifies a need to adapt. That is all. And adapting is what keeps people moving forward.

So let's take a quick look at online business, where it has been and where's it's going...

Back in 1996 when I got started, it was like the wild, wild west. You could literally buy email lists, send thousands of messages with sales pitches and get subscribers and sales every time. It was legal and it worked. Heck, marketers didn't even have web pages and didn't need them. Money flowed in and there wasn't even a way to pay securely.

Then the world wide web started to come into its own. Marketers had to adapt and get a website. As technology developed, websites changed with it. Opt-in forms and squeeze pages became mainstream. The list of "adaptations" was nearly endless. If you've been around a long time online, you may remember when things like these were mainstream for marketers...

• Checks by fax, phone and email

• BBS's (Bulletin Board Systems)

• Usenet Newsgroups (and flaming)

• Email Discussion Groups

• FFA (free for all) links

• Safe lists

• Popups and popunders (still kicking by the way)

I could go on and on. The point is, change will always be happening online. Even affiliate marketing is adapting rapidly as new tax laws are introduced. Merchants like Amazon.com are dropping affiliates completely, based on the state they do business in. (My state was on the list by the way.)

So what's a small business person to do about all this.

Well, one thing you should NOT do is give up. Or quit before you get started. Sure, that's the easiest solution. But a better solution is to adapt. Constantly adapt.

The best way to do that with a small business online, is to try new technologies, use multiple technologies, multiple marketing strategies and have multiple income streams.

I know, many people are thinking, jeez Jim, I've had enough trouble opening ONE income stream, never mind multiple steams. That's because most people need persistent efforts and more than one attempt before they hit on something that works. But once they do it can be exhilarating.

So the rest of today's gazette will give you some different income strategies that work for me and many other small businesses. Pick one and run with it. And drop me a line to let me know which one you choose. I'm happy to help you with it.

Income Models I'm Currently Using...

Info Products: Selling info products will always be a great way to make money online. People have always been willing to pay a little money to save time researching things themselves, and to learn something new. This will always be a viable business model.

Affiliate Marketing: Selling products and services and earning a commission from each sale is profitable as long as you offer the right stuff to the right audiences. Affiliate marketing will survive and thrive online for a long, long time.

Membership Sites: This is a great way to offer your help to people who need your expertise, and you can generate a steady income stream in the process. As long as there is a need for help in the niche you choose, you can grow a membership base.

Adsense: This is Google's program for publishers. Google shows ads on your intellectual properties and you earn a percentage of what the advertisers pay each time an ad is clicked on. It's a great way to earn passive income from your sites and blogs, and I've been using it more and more lately.

Private Label Rights: There are two ways to earn money with private label rights. The first way is by acquiring rights to content and using it in your own products and services. The second way is by selling the rights to content. I've used both strategies and they are both quite profitable when done correctly.

Selling Advertising: Advertising services will always be in demand. Over the years I've sold classified ads, sponsorship ads, banner ads and even solo emailings. Once you have a small following or some traffic to a website or blog, you can offer advertising to companies in niches related to your web property.

Blogging: Bloggers can generate income using all the methods described above. You can use one strategy such as adsense, or a combination of strategies. You can also have multiple blogs across a variety of topics that interest you. Blogs are like websites but make it easier to publish information on your chosen topic. If you're new to blogging, grab this WordPress training series from my backdoor link.

Helping Local Businesses: Every town near you has businesses that are lacking with their Internet presence. Help them and you can earn money. Put up a site or blog for them. Set up an email marketing campaign. Get them ranked better on Google or into Google Places. Set up a Facebook page for them. Heck, I spent an hour helping my HVAC guy get better ranking by tweaking his site and it gave him so much more business he told me to forget about my last service bill. Local business marketing is a gold mine of opportunity and will be for at least another 10 years.

These are just the income models I use. There are many more available to you including mobile phone related strategies such as apps, webinars, network marketing, and the list keeps growing every year.

In closing...

The Internet isn't going away. Sure, it's changing all the time. And if you're going into business for yourself, you have to be prepared to adapt. This is true in the offline world as well as the online world.

As I write today's gazette from a Barnes and Noble 20 miles from my blacked out town (thanks Hurricane Irene)... I'm reminded of just how important embracing change is...

Directly in front of me is a sign for their new color Nook e-reader -- clear evidence that Barnes and Noble adapted to changes in their marketplace and survived. Last year when my power went out I was sitting at Borders. They're closing their doors.

The lesson is simple:

As an entrepreneur, your own long term results will be determined by many factors. Among them is the ability to adapt. If you start by finding a niche you love, and becoming a go-to resource in that arena, you'll find it much easier to make adjustments on the fly.

See ya in a few weeks...
Jim Daniels
Jim at bizweb2000.com
make-a-living-online.com - Free web based guide, no opt-in required.

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