Using money to make money
So you’ve received your first Google check and you ponder .. what to do, what to do.
My first reaction was to go buy an iPod, because iPods are cool. Then it was a new laptop, even though I have a new laptop. Then it hit me; why not use money to make more money?!?
Below are just a few ideas’ I came up with.
1 - Purchasing a website
There are various websites and forums available that allow buyers and sellers to come together to trade and bargin. You can buy groovy domains or entire websites simply by bidding. One popular method is the SitePoint forums. I’ve been keeping my eye on new topics recently, ready to pounce upon anything that looks remotely interesting. Keep in mind though that most sites aren’t worth it. They are generally websites that have been whacked up in a matter of minutes and have no traffic, regardless of what the author promotes.
2 – Running a competition
If you’ve got a few hundred dollars from advertising, why not run some sort of competition in a bid to generate more traffic, you could use cash as a prize. This could range from puzzles to quizs or simply a referrer fest (person who referees the most people to your website wins, etc), be creative! Once you’ve developed your competition, promoting it is the next major step. You could put aside money for adwords to promote your competition, submit your competition to the big name blog networks (hoping you get an article and link back) and spread the word to family and friends. Word of mouth is a very strong marketing method.
A few other ideas’ I had include buying shares and investing in companies. I wouldn’t know where to start and assume it would take big bucks to do this type of thing; so I won’t bother covering this.
What ideas have worked for you?
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POSTED IN: Online Money
7 opinions for Using money to make money
misterchris
Nov 30, 2005 at 8:28 am
With regards to the shares idea, you could invest the money in “investment trusts” these are a bit like shares for dummies. An organisation chooses the shares for you and wraps them up in a tidy bundle. All you need to do is find one that suites (ethical investing, risk investing, overseas investing etc.) and give ‘em your money. You could find more info at fool.com or fool.co.uk .
I like the idea of buying a site though … neat.
Miha
Nov 30, 2005 at 10:03 am
If there were 9rules shares I would spend all my hard earned money on them. ;-)
Kyle
Nov 30, 2005 at 12:56 pm
Here’s two others that have worked well for me:
1. Hire writers/updaters to write an article/moderate a form/etc.
2. Invest in advertising. It may seem stupid to take earned advertising dollars and spend it on advertising, but it works well a lot of the time. Buy some adwords, get more returning visitors. Make more cash.
Investing back into your site is a key part of making a successful online presence.
Scrivs
Nov 30, 2005 at 2:32 pm
I think it would be a good idea to ask Nick Wilson over at Performancing how is Adwords advertising has been doing for his site. I see those damn ads everywhere now.
Brian Breslin
Nov 30, 2005 at 2:46 pm
i think a contest is a great idea. take Mike Davidson’s ipod shuffle giveaway contests. a $100 ipod Shuffle might attract more interest than just $100. Or the uber-intelligent contest TUAW.com did with their nano giveaway. They had people create blog posts with their favorite posts at TUAW (instant page rank). Then submit in the comments their entry. Random entry was chosen, voila!
Lyndoman
Dec 2, 2005 at 6:01 am
Just don’t go out and by a tablet making machine, get a load of asprin and then churn out a bunch of happy tabs and go an sell them for £10 a pop down at the local youth club.
I think I read it in Googles TOS. Don’t use your Google cheque to get into the fake drug business!
TrentC
Dec 9, 2005 at 8:16 pm
We’ve always put the profits right back into more advertising.. Hopefully drive more traffic to the site, rank better in the SERPs, and bring some more business our way, causing the cycle to start all over again. For us, it was always static text links we were buying.. I suppose you could do the same with AdWords, but it wouldn’t have that multiplying effect.
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