KaChing: How to Run an Online Business that Pays and Pays

Chapter 4. Information Products—Selling Your Knowledge

All of the methods that I've described so far have been based on the idea that the knowledge you possess has value. Whether you've picked up that knowledge from years of practicing your profession or learned it by indulging in your passion, if other people want to know what you know, you have an opportunity to make money.

Everyone has knowledge like that. Everyone can now build a web site to display that knowledge. As we saw in Chapter 3, there are now plenty of different ways to surround that knowledge with advertisements, giving you a steady stream of revenue. You don't even have to go out and track down the advertisers yourself. Google and other services will serve them up automatically, matching their inventory to your topic.

As long as you're adding content, bringing in readers, and tweaking those ads until they're working at full power, you'll be hearing KaChing.

An ad-supported content site gives your knowledge away for free. You can make a lot of money with it, but that money doesn't come from the value of your knowledge. It comes from the value your readers have for your advertisers. If your users like to buy lots of things from your advertisers, you'll make lots of money. If they prefer to read and click away without touching an ad—and some traffic sources have lots of users like that—then you'll struggle.

In the meantime, you'll have given away something valuable of your own for little reward.

You might think that there's ...