Smart Money Making

Creativity and a willingness to experiment are qualities of a successful online entrepreneur. If your website isn’t making you the money that you expect, try operating in a new niche or adopting a fresh business model and monetization strategy that works. After all, your personal experience and skill sets are transferable. What you are already applying to a specific website or business can be easily implemented in another industry with great success. So just how do you discover new websites and business models that are profitable? The web is your answer. The internet is a marvelous place, teeming with interesting websites that can inspire any gutsy entrepreneur. Just today, PC Mag came up with a list of Top 100 Undiscovered websites: I went through the list and found a few which were unknown to me. Not all on the list were really ‘undiscovered’ and PC Mag’s bait-y title is an exaggeration. The list did however allow me to take notes on various sites/ideas, especially when they were new to me or well executed.How to Discover New Business Models and Websites There is nothing original on the internet. Most of what can be done already exists in one form or another. Don’t look for original ideas. Look for what is unique to you and your niche market. Your aim is not to browse websites for fun and leisure. You should seek to find ideas or schemes which may be new or interesting for your target audience. Apart from the use of search engines, here are some ways you can use to discover new websites. Use Ranking Lists. Alexa’s Top 500 gives a good indication of websites that tend to receive more web traffic. Technorati’s Top 100 gives examples of content that gets links. Do a search for ranking lists within your niche as well. Ranking lists often display the same websites, so spend some time to go through them once. You won’t have to revisit the list in the near future because it’s not likely to change very much. Try StumbleUpon. StumbleUpon is an excellent way to discover new websites. In fact, it’s entire business model is built on helping its users to do just that. Choose a topic to explore whenever you have time. I like how SU doesn’t require any premeditation. Try it when you need a break from concentrated research and you will be surprised with what you can find. Visit Social Communities. Social news and bookmarking websites like Digg or Reddit allow you to discover fresh and interesting content on a daily basis. Using them gives you the additional advantage of knowing what ‘works’ with the social media crowd. Include forums and networking sites within your list and you’ll have a good idea of what websites or business models appeal to what audience and why. Use Webmaster Forums are full of webmasters who are out to make some money with their website and often you will discover interesting sites through forum signatures and forum threads with questions or public case studies. Focus especially on the site sales section and Site Point’s marketplace as these give you a good idea of how sites generate income. Most of these site models are repetitive so hit the forums once a week for a quick overview. Read News Aggregators. Social news aggregators and meme trackers offer access to content categorized under a specific topic. They not only allow you to discover relevant websites but also examine the relationships between each website. Who links to who and how or why do they link? Information is current for aggregators so you can monitor them a daily basis, particularly if you are interested in breaking into a specific niche. Here is a list of news aggregators you can use. Do a Survey. Feedback from end-users is particularly valuable because it can be targeted towards any specific topic you want. Structure your questions to generate responses on parts of your existing business model. These will provide you with an indication of what to evolve towards when you plan to transpose your current site model across another niche. TAGS: Top 100 Undiscovered websites Alexa’s Top 500