Sitepoint - make me money!

This is a study into the many and varied ways that enterprising individuals are currently making money on Sitepoint. It's going to be comprehensive so prepare that flask and strap yourself in. You may need a packed lunch.

I've broken down this subject into sections that will be briefly summarised here, and that will contain links to a more detailed analysis on other pages. Sounds complicated, but it's much more simple than my convoluted explanation suggests.

Tout For Business - The Subtle Way

Many people who visit the Sitepoint forums are making money on the internet with an established business that is independent of Sitepoint. They are experts in their fields and contribute their knowledge free of charge to those in need. The majority do this altruistically and with a genuine desire to help those in a bit of a fix. But there is also a benefit to demonstrating their skill and talent for free. Some of these experts display signature links that take visitors to their business websites.

Contributing good and useful information is an effective way to advertise your services and the way that you conduct yourself on Sitepoint gives a good indication of your professional business manner. If people are impressed with your level of expertise and need someone to do just what you do, they may click on your signature link and head directly to your price list page. Untold riches await. Of course the disadvantage of this method is that you actually have to be good at something. What a pain. So, this isn't for the how to make easy money crowd as there is hard work involved.

Tout For Business - The More Direct Way

Fortunately, for those who don't have time to build up a reputation as a guru in their chosen field, there is a quicker and more direct way to advertise their services. You could create a listing in the Advertise Your Services forum.

Tout For Business - The Clumsy Way

And if you don't have the time or money, you could always barge into an irrelevant thread and proposition anyone who'll listen with improper suggestions to buy your cheap SEO services. My sneaking suspicion is that this technique doesn't win much business.

Sell Websites

Yes, the Sitepoint Marketplace is Website Flipping Mecca! You can sell startups, established and premium sites and also domains. This is a subject that warrants a whole new post (to come shortly).

Win A Contest

99 Designs is a forum that allows project holders to post contests for artwork. If you are a designer of some sort, and can create stylish website designs or logos, this is the place for you.

Spam Your Link

Many people like to show off their shiny new adsense site by dropping links to it at every opportunity. The desperate hope of the link dropper is that people will visit their site and go on an ad-clicking rampage. Come on. How likely is that to happen? This is not a recommended way of making money on Sitepoint and may lead to you being sent to Coventry and then being banned.

Entice People To Your Site Through Useful Posting

Alternatively, you have the option of becoming a valuable member of the Sitepoint community, dispensing useful information left right and centre. If you display a signature link to your site and the site is related to the topic being discussed, you may benefit from visits from people who are curious about you and your obvious talent.

This method differs from the "Touting Your Business" methods in that you aren't selling a product or service. Instead you are on your knees (metaphorically) praying that visitors click your adsense once they land on your site.

Advertise Your Site Through The Proper Channels

Sitepoint provides a way for you to buy advertising space from them. They boast traffic figures of 3 million / month so if your products and services are in the internet sector, that's a lot of targeted eyeballs.

Sell Text Links

When we say 'Text Links', our assumption is that they are sold on the basis of transferring PageRank and link juice. Buyers buy text links in the hope that they will accumulate enough PR/link juice to enable their site to rank higher in the search engines. If you have a site whose pages have got some PR, you could sell links from them in the Advertising Space for Sale. Keep in mind the following points if you wish to travel this road:

• It's the PR of the page on which the link will appear that matters - not the homepage. Some link buyers may not know this, but you should.
• The higher the PR of the page, the higher the price you can charge for the link.
• The more outgoing links on the page, the lower the price. You have to weigh up the projected revenue from selling a small number of expensive links against a larger number of less expensive links. Choices.
• Secrecy is your watchword. With Google taking a strong stance against buying and selling links for SEO purposes, many existing link sellers only disclose their URLs via personal messaging. They don't parade them around the forums for all to see (and report!).

Note that selling links to manipulate rankings is a bannable offence in Google World. But that only matters if you get caught.

Sell Banner Adverts

Selling banner ads is similar to selling text links. The main difference is that whereas the motivation for buying text links is to gain higher rankings, the motivation for buying banner ads is to gain an increase in traffic. So if your site receives 5,000 / day, you are well placed to sell banner ads. Obviously, if your banner ad gives the buyer more traffic and more link juice, they won't complain.

If you don't want to risk the Google Gestapo finding the banner ads you sold and then punishing you in some vile way, be sure to put the rel="nofollow" attribute on those links. Doing this will deter some would-be buyers, but you'll be able to sleep better at night.

Your success in selling text links and banner adverts all depends on the qualities of your site. The greater its PR and traffic, the better you will do.

Link Building

The staple of the SEO consultant, link building is something that anybody with a quarter of a brain can do. Generally speaking, the more links a site (ok, page) has, the higher it will rank in the search engines and this is why website owners embark on link building campaigns. Or pay you to do it for them.

Copy Existing Businesses

Many people who make lots of money running successful businesses frequent the Sitepoint forums. Whilst this demonstrates to you that 'it can be done' and that if someone else can make a success then you can too, these people also unwittingly provide you with a blueprint for their success. In effect, they are yelling "please copy my make money business" without even knowing it.

In other words, look at what's going down in the marketplace and copy the success that you find. Much more on this later.

Copywriting

If you can write (or even write well, though that isn't a mandatory requirement) you will find people who are willing to pay you for your time. Many web publishers just don't have the time to produce content for their websites themselves. If you can take this burden off them, they will pay you for it.

Sell Your Templates

If you know what "XHTML 1.0 Valid using a strict doctype" means and you can create widget ready sidebars, then this is the place for you. If you can create stunning templates, you can get a good price for them in the Template Auctions forum.

Greatest demand seems to be for custom coding and design, but there is also a market for Wordpress and Joomla themes. Prices paid range from $25 for very basic designs to $250 for the more professional looking ones. It just might be time to fire up your dusty old version of Photoshop 7.

Pure Skullduggery

Here are some of the tricks I've seen the more devious members use:

• Placing affiliate links in threads where they recommended a product. Naive readers click on the link and if they proceed to buy the product, the dirty link dropper gets paid.
• Displaying signature links advertising something, that lead only to a parked page with adverts. The page looks convincing so the interested clicker... clicks. Where is that article on making money with my webcam the sig link promised - clicky, clicky, clicky.