What’s Your Business Model?
Posted on February 16, 2008 by
Adie 
Advertising, Promotion, Websites for Sale 
5 Comments
What’s your business model?
This post was guest blogged by Alan Johnson, the author of The Online Business Handbook.
So you’re ready to spend a fortune on advertising your website? Can you just picture those profits rolling in? But wait a second, is the foundation upon which you plan on building solid to begin with?
A lot of webmasters make the mistake of concentrating on all sorts of aspects related to their future website promotion or monetization efforts and end up neglecting the most important part of any project:the business model. No matter how hard you try, a structure built on a shaky foundation has no chances of lasting.
Without a sound business model, every online entrepreneur will be in for a serious reality check. Let’s take blogging as an example andanalyze things for a moment. What is your business model as a blogger?
What exactly makes you stand out compared to the millions of similar resources out there? Why would a person want to visit your website in the first place? What would he or she have to gain and, most importantly, why would they want to return?
Most people underestimate the importance of these questions and, instead, devote their entire attention to planning their marketing campaign and/or monetizing their website. They don’t realize that they are actually trying to figure out how to market and make money with a
poor product, and that the chances at long-term success are, sadly, slim to none. Wouldn’t working on developing a product which is actually worth promoting be a wiser approach?
When asked why people should visit their website, most bloggers come up with answers such as so that I make money?. But in order to makemoney, your blog needs to provide value to the Web, that’s just the way things stand. Making money as a blogger is definitely possible, but that doesn’t mean that you can succeed without offering anything in return. Why not dedicate a part of the time you spend promoting the blog to creating quality content actually worth linking to and spreading the word about?
If your article is bad, you have to literally beg other people to mention it, you would have to spend hours and hours trying to generate exposure for that article. Couldn’t that time be put to better use?
Wouldn’t investing time in order to create better articles, resources which actually provide value to readers, articles people will gladly link to be a better decision?
You need to take things one step at a time. Don’t fall into the trap of seeing everything in figures, always understand that people, not numbers will be visiting and judging your website. In the end, your ability to provide value to each visitor will make or break you as a webmaster. Think about it this way: what do you do when you come across a useless website?
That’s right, you leave and never look back. Well, guess what, that?s exactly what others will do after visiting your website if the content you provide isn?t worth it. Are you willing to take that chance?
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Nice guest post Alan — you are all over the web w/ great guest posts! I agree that it is definitely important to provide valuable content to readers before hoping to make any money.
He does doesn’t he…must be doing something right I guess.
Glad you’ve found my guest posts useful and indeed, as far as I’m concerned, providing value to the Web is definitely the most important aspect of my business model :)
Best wishes,
Alan Johnson
Yeah, you’re very right. Most people just barge into marketing their blog without even thinking whether or not their blog is unique in any way. Blogging is just like any other business. Marketing doesn’t get you anywhere unless you offer a unique thing…In blogging, that unique thing can be content, style, design, resources etc…
Nice to see more from you Alan.
Business models can be as simple of complex as we like but it is important to have one. You do not have to stick to the original model forever, you can modify them at any time. It is just a method of structuring your efforts in order to achieve set goals.