David Fiske A subtle blend of affiliate marketing and web development

Not quite scantily clad models, more business models.

I'm looking to make more in 2008 than in 2007, which incidentally made more than 2006. For this, I'm going to have to change my business model.

Here's what I'm thinking of doing.
 
1) One Or Two Main Sites

I've tried out buying loads of domain names and setting up small, niche websites. It's good in the sense that I have a wide range of topics I can concentrate on each day. The downside is there is an awful lot of sites to update and inevitably some get neglected.

I would estimate too that I need over 100 niche sites to make a decent return but that seems like too much hard work to me. So instead, I'm going to stop expanding my portfolio so fast and concentrate on a handful of sites. And by concentrate, I mean add new content on a regular basis, send out newsletters, building links, etc.

2) Sell My Own Stuff

I'm a huge fan of eBay and I love selling stuff on there. But I'm not looking to become a full time eBay seller. I've certainly considered it but my spreadsheet shows eBay taking a huge slice of my profits and that's something I'm not keen on. I'll still sell casually though :-)

I'm looking to create a physical product or an ebook or something along those sorts of lines to supplement affiliate income. My focus will still be affiliate marketing but in order to push this project further, I am now looking to see whether selling my own product is a smart move. I sold a niche ebook a while ago and that was OK, generating around £100 a month less costs.

3) Memberships

I'm considering a membership based website perhaps as an alternative to the ebook type product mentioned above. This would generate recurring monthly revenue or a fixed one time revenue, depending upon the subscription model chosen.

4) Subscribers

These are people who offer their email address in exchange for regular news updates via email or RSS subscribers. In order to maximise the potential revenue possibilities of a site, I need to maximise the number of repeat visitors (which is where the membership site would come in handy).