The idea is great, but during short “investigation” what niche I should choose and which keywords should I pick out,  the basic question appeared: “what kind of site should I create; the authority site or niche site?”

The answer on that question is very important: I don’t have a lot of time to play around with another thin niche site. On the other hand – authority site needs even more effort…

First part of this year clearly show us that we have to really think about our business model – Google Penguin overturned SERPs, Amazon closed down some affiliate programs and turned off some accounts. What’s more – there was a lot of bans in the most lucrative program for niche sites – Google AdSense. And nobody knows why…

Blogosphere was boiling with anger and site owners were shuddering with fear. Do you remember that? Did you lost some traffic or maybe your AdSense account was also banned?

Okay, no more complaints and hassles – lets go to some news and facts.

Last week there was a debate on AdSense Flippers between Steve Scott and Mike Thomas about pros and cons of niche and authority sites. Both of them have their own arguments for and against, but I have the impression that nobody wins this debate…

In this post I want to share with you my point of view about niche and authority sites and my business model. At the end I will ask you about your opinion and your preferences – niche or authority sites?

Niche Sites

Pros:

• easy to set up
• low money investment
• low time investment
• if you have experience it’s almost automatic for you to earn money from it
• you can outsource the whole process
• faster ROI (Return on Investment) –first earnings appear after 1-2 months

Cons:

• in most cases only one source of traffic: Google (you can lost it in minutes)
• in most cases only one source of making money (you can lost it in minutes)
• probably lower ROI

Authority Site

Pros:

• easy to set up
• a lot of possibilities of earning money
• at least few sources of traffic
• your online effort (authority, brand) may be used in the real world
• probably higher ROI

Cons:

• long-term ROI (real money appear after 1-2 years)
• you can’t outsource a lot of tasks related with your authority site
• huge amount of time is needed to establish your authority, social proof and brand

You may be interested in reading: Online Passive Income – 5 Money Making Ideas for Bloggers

Okay, and how about my business model?

As you know (if you don’t know it, please read section about), I have some websites on Polish market – few dozen niche sites (mostly in financial market) and one vortal (also on financial market). It works very well for me at this moment, but unfortunately a lot of traffic comes from Google. And big brother G. may change some rules in the future and … (uncensored words appeared)

On English market NPI (NoPassiveIncome.com) is my first, hopefully not last website. And I plan to make some things different than I did on Polish market.

That means:

I want to create at least two authority sites (including NPI) and around them having about 5-10 related niche sites.

I want to diversify income sources as well as traffic sources also for niche sites.

Traffic for my niche site will come from:

• SEO (organic traffic)
• Mailing list (from my authority site and from separate lists)
• Social Media (Twitter, Facebook, other if appropriate)
• CPC Ads (Google AdWords, Facebook Ads)
• Authority site (posts)

The same will be with income– below you can see main sources of income for my future niche sites

Each niche site will earn money on:

• 2—5 related affiliates programs
• My own e-product (probably ebooks or training programs)
• Ads in CPC model (Google AdSense or something similar)
• Ads in CPM model (only for niche sites with more than 10k page views per month)

I know that this model is very time-consuming and may take about one or even two years to see a results. But it should work. I hope…

And what do you think about it? Please share your business models or all of your opinions about niche, authority sites or my business model in comments below.

Basing on my almost five years of experience as an online entrepreneur, I’ll show you 10 ways to make money online – 9 established and very useful and one very “hot” and new – Google Affiliate Ads for bloggers.

Each of these points may be implemented successfully by you – it’s not black magic or something for “selected”.  Of course there is a lot of work with all of them, and at these days your online activities needs a lot of time and consistency (for example my first website about financial products needed almost 2 years to become profitable).

So, read carefully

10 points, how to make money online:

1. Showing Ads On Your Site

The easiest way for monetizing your blog or site is by advertising. There are a lot of possibilities of it, in almost every possible category and topic.

There is a lot of types of online advertisement. Some of them are mixture or different types.

Below you can find most common types of advertisement:

1. PPC (Pay Per Click) advertisement

This method is very simple – you earn money, when someone click on ads on your site. Firstly of course you must sign in into one or more of ads networks. Most popular service provider for this type of ads is Google AdSense. It’s accessible for everyone, it’s easy to set up and start earning a lot of money. But in some business areas, there is to less of advertisers, and your earnings may be very little. In this case, you may choose, for example, Chitika instead.

2. CPM, CPT (Cost Per Mille, Cost Per Thousand) advertisement

This type of advertisement is paid per impression. That means that the advert is paid pro thousand of impressions. Simplifying it – when CPM for ads on your site is 2$, and this ad will be shown on your website 50 000 times, you will earn 100$ (because 2$*50=100$)

3. Banners (graphical) ads, text (or intext) links, video ads

Some ads networks are specialized in one type of medium. For example Google Adsense is contextual network, with almost all types of ads (at this time without intext ads). If you want to use intext ads on your side, Kontera is for you.

4. Selling ad space directly to advertisers

When your site or blog has a big traffic, is in specific niche, or has great content, you may try to sell ad space by your own. Of course looking for someone, who want to advert directly on your site isn’t easy and quick job. It’s more engaging and time consuming. But on the other hand – it’s more profitable than participating in ads networks. See my advertising page here.

 2. Participating In Affiliate Marketing

This type of making money is accounted in CPA (Cost per Action) model. And action, in most cases, is defined as a sell.

That means you will earn money, when someone will buy product or order a service via your referral link or recommendation

Commissions may be very various, but most common is a percentage of the sale price. Standard is 5-10%, but for some products, commission is as high as 20-50%

Most profitable online niches are:

1. Financial products (mortgages, loans, bank accounts, bank deposits, Forex accounts)
2. Products related with making money online. It’s very wide niche. We can find here hosting providers (for example Hostgator or  Bluehost), tools for keyword research, like Market Samurai or Traffic Travis, or other plugins and tools related with this topic
3. Products and services for health and beauty (tutorials, diets, exercises, pills etc.)
4. Products and services in tourism branch (hotel and fly reservations, trips, car rental services)
5. XXX branch

Below you can find 4 services, with a lot of affiliates programs for you:

ShareASale

Clickbank

Commision Junction

Amazon Associates

3. Selling Online Your Own Product

Instead of marketing someone else’s products, services or websites, you can earn money selling your own product. In most cases it’s more profitable for you, than showing advertises or even selling someone’s products. But of course there is also the other side of the coin – you must spend time not only on promoting, but also on preparing, updating and supporting your product or service.

If you have no ideas, what could be your product, below you can find some most popular “self-made” product ideas:

1. Books and ebooks
2. Photos, graphics and videos (you can sell them for example on Fotolia or on Istockphoto)
3. Tutorials and guides about specific topics
4. Applications for PCs, iPhones, tablets, etc.
5. Tools, plugins and themes for WordPress

4. Mini Sites (also called Niche Sites)

For some money makers this is the most important stream of their incomes. They set up tens or hundreds of mini sites, advertise them, and are earning a lot of money from them. Earnings from single site are very small – it may be for example one dollar a day. But if you have for example 200 of minisites, you earn about 200 $ a day. Monthly it’s 6 000$ – it’s not to be sneezed at!

And some of niche sites may grow big and earn alone hundreds of dollars. If you are interested in this topic, please visit this site (owned by Pat Flynn) about Niche Site Duel

 5. Making Paid Reviews Of Other Products Or Websites

If you are a good writer and like preparing reviews of products or other things, you may try to make it for money!

In most cases, amount of money you will get in exchange for your review, depends on 4 factors:

-areas of interest of your blog

-reviewed product or service

-traffic on your blog (more the better)

-your possibility to write interesting and reliable reviews

There is a lot of websites, where you can find as well advertisers as bloggers, some of them you can find below:

SeedingUp

SponsoredReviews

LinkVehicle

PayPerPost.com

 6. Be Online Consultant

If you have an established opinion as an Expert in your field, you can stay Online Consultant. Of course you must have very good reputation in your area, and have some teaching skills. You will be paid for consultation, which means people will pay you for your extraordinary knowledge and creative ideas. Most often online consultants are paid per hours (between 10$ and 100$), but most recognized experts will charge you even 1 000$ pro one hour!

I don’t recommend this method, if you are a beginner blogger, specialist or entrepreneur. But if you want to try it, you must start building your credibility and reputation as soon as possible!

7. Preparing Paid Membership Site

It’s very similar way of earning money online to being online consultant – it’s basing on your (or someone else, who prepaid excellent material for your site) reputation and knowledge.

But as opposed to be online consultant, you share your knowledge and experience with more than one man at one time. What’s more, you produce almost all material for your members before starting this type of website.

Of course there are a lot of other differences – most important of them is price! Fees for accessing membership site are almost always fewer, than fees for hiring online consultant. And for this reason, membership sites must have many more customers, than online consultants

8. Selling Websites Or Domains

Some online entrepreneurs make a lot of money only by buying and selling websites or domains. They are looking for expired domains or underestimated websites, they are buying them, looking for someone who needs it, and they are selling it with profit. Most popular marketplace for doing it for existing websites is Flippa. For expired domains you can visit for example GoDaddy.com or Domains.com

9. Monetizing Your Email List

If you have thousands (or well-targeted hundreds) of subscribers on your email list, you can try to monetize it. Lot of companies, small businesses and even bloggers live basing on their email list.

How you can make money with it? You can for example:

1. send sponsored email or newsletter
2. send paid review of some products or websites to your subscribers
3. prepare your own article with affiliate links and send it to your readers
4. send info about your new, hot product

There is a lot of other ways of monetizing your email list, but there is also one, and only one thing, you should never send to your subscribers – SPAM!

 10. Google Affiliate Ads for bloggers

Some days ago appeared new way of earning money for bloggers – it’s Google Affiliate ads for bloggers. This possibility at this time is only for US bloggers, which are blogging on Blogger.com

To get started earning money with this program, you need only active AdSense account, and active blog on Blogger. If your blog category is adequate for advertisers, a new widget “Advertiser Products” will appear on your Earning Tab, where you can choose proper affiliate ad.

It can be text link, banner or even product image. More about it you can read here.

Unfortunatelly I’m not US blogger, so I couldn’t tell you, if it’s profitable or not.

There is only one more thing, which you must know before putting some points from the list into live – there is no passive income at all, and earning money without a lot of work is, in most cases, impossible. So, don’t be lazy and go blogging!

And what are your favorite ways to make money online? Please share them with us!

Disclosure – please note, that some of the links above are affiliate links and I earn a commission, when you buy something via them.