Making money off websites.

[loik]

hey guys. I find this to be an interesting subject and would like to start my own website. I have a few question to start:

1) What are the different ways a website can make profit?

2) How did you learn how to make a website?

3) How should I start off?

thanks ahead!

[exgeek]

Basically I think it splits up into product retail/wholesale, paid service and advertiser supported free content.

As for how to start, a lot of people will tell you to think about what you're interested in. This can lead to a romantic impractical business. Two approaches that I think make more sense.

1. Find an under-served niche. Figure out what people are searching on Google that has high volume and low competition (you can do this on Google's keyword tool). Find out what companies are in the space now and what they're doing wrong. How will you do a better job?

2. Find an accessible audience. This is less conventional but it's definitely a valid way to go about choosing a business. One of the biggest challenges in starting a business is marketing. It can be expensive and hard to reach your audience. If you can find inexpensive marketing opportunities for a specific niche think about what you could try to sell them. For example, you might find car enthusiast forums have dirt cheap advertising (I don't know if they do, this is just an example). It may wind up costing you a penny per click because it's so insanely cheap. With that in mind, you'd want to look into an online auto parts supply business maybe or a t-shirt company that makes car enthusiast tees.

Hope that helps.