Internet Businesses and Making Money Online

There are many advantages and disadvantages to having an internet business.  Unlike a brick and mortar company, your open 24 hours per day, 7 days a week and have access to a worldwide network of potential customers, rather than just the locals who happen to be passing by your location.  The downside is that gaining visibility online can be tricky but we’ll cover that topic later on in this article.

Your website could either be exclusively an online operation or an adjunct to an offline operation.  One question that many entrepreneurs ask themselves is, “What type of businesses make money online?”  I believe this to be the wrong question.  Some of the biggest revenue-generating websites are porn and gambling sites but those are also 2 of the most saturated industries on the internet.  A better question is, “Where are the best opportunities to make money online and what will be the next big thing?”

There have been some instances when new websites popped up on the internet and went toe-to-toe with the giants.  Google was not the first search engine on the internet and Facebook was not the first social networking site.  However, they offered something unique that differentiated them from similarly situated online businesses which allowed them to rise above their competition.  Some online businesses got in early enough and have been able to stand their ground, such as eBay and Amazon, despite the array of other auction and online retail sites that followed.

Smart phones have widened the spectrum by introducing the app market which is another way to make money online.  Coming up with an original app idea is extremely challenging but internet entrepreneurs keep dreaming up new ways to make money online.  If you have an interest in making the internet your place of business, there are a few things to take into consideration.

A few common business models exist online.  You can either sell a product or a service.  Some websites seemingly don’t sell anything, making us wonder how the owner is generating any revenue.  Some informational websites sell advertising space or participate in a pay-per-click campaign.  Others simply collect data which can, in turn, be sold to parties that value the sort of information the website collects.  These can be some of the most profitable websites because to the masses, they are free and therefore attract big volume, but to certain corporations who have plenty of money to pay, their database could be worth millions.  Facebook is an example of this type of business model.  Some websites never make any money until they are sold, such as YouTube and many other internet businesses that have been gobbled up by Google.

Regardless of the type of business you decide to launch online, marketing has to be part of your plan.  Google is the current dominating force in online searches.  Being found on Google is a bit more complicated than the old days when people just needed to look you up in a phone book by category and then alphabetically.  To further complicate matters, Google continuously changes their rules, making online marketing even more difficult to master.

Online marketing and search engine optimization has become so convoluted that it’s best left to the professionals who know what they’re doing.  There was once a time when website owners could eventually wiggle their way to the top of the search engine result pages but Google has made it so difficult that if you don’t know what you’re doing, your efforts could have an adverse effect on your positioning.  Website development and search engine optimization are two expensive but very necessary aspects of successfully doing business online.

The internet is a vast and prodigious territory with limitless possibilities for making money.  Even though some online markets have become somewhat saturated, there are some areas that are underutilized and untapped.  If you are an entrepreneur and would like more information about starting an internet business, call Ashlar Consulting Corporation at 305-849-9399 or visit

www.AshlarConsultingCorp.com.