Over at Bootstrapper, I have the first of several online business case studies: Bootstrapping an online information business. In that post, I detail how you can set up a video how-to site with little capital – but more from a business perspective, not so much a technical perspective. However, I do list numerous tools you’ll probably need – many of which are free, and others you can purchase when revenue starts to come in. There’s also a reference to Evan Margolin, a dance teacher in San Francisco whose SalsaBootCamp video site membership went up from $9 to $37/month and still pulls in $20,000/m for him. Not bad. Now, if you’re looking for a comfortable living, you need to find something you can present in how-to video and/or article format and then find the right buyers. And you can do it without spending a lot upfront, slowly increasing your toolset as funds allow.

The Potential

In the case of Margolin, he has just over 500 subscribers. Let’s look at some other examples. A number of marketing studies sites offer membership that ranges from $37 and up per month. One, I think, is about $500/yr. Imagine, if you could find just 100 members, that’s $50,000 per year. Several SEO sites offer premium content memberships, one of which is about $39/month. A couple of SEO sites offer access to either private forums or to tools/ scripts at $100/m. Just 50 members generates $5,000/month. However, some of these sites have 100-300 members.

Now, maybe those are out of your skill range, so let’s look at more examples. I’ve come across a few sites that for $97/mth offer access to hundreds of limited-edition, original articles that you can use in any fashion you want. Each release allows only, say, 200 members. If they’re actually selling out membership to the point where they’re offering new phases, then they’re making at least $97 x 200 = $19,400/m. If they’re then selling another round of 200 memberships, well, do the math.

So if you are a skilled writer that can cover a number of topics well, with proper research, and you work fast, you could presumably set up a similar service. You could partner up with other writers, to cover a range of topics. But maybe you want to keep the effort down to keep the quality up, limit the number of memberships and charge $49/month. If your articles are good and cover the topical demands out there, then you can probably find buyers.

However, this still doesn’t address the average person who wants to earn a living online. That brings us back to the how-to. If you can explain how to do something, either in text or video format – preferably the latter, with a bit of text – you can probably find buyers. And if there is enough interest and you can keep producing text and/or video content, you might even gain a few subscribers. If you only want to produce one-time content, then you might consider a single e-book or video set.

Revenue Streams

Or you could mix up your revenue streams:

1. Blog for yourself – earn advertising and affiliate revenue.
2. Blog for others – earn either a flat per post rate or a percentage of their monthly revenues.
3. Write reviews – earn a flat fee per review.
4. Build and flip sites (websites or weblogs).
5. Buy an income-earning site.
6. Buy/ register, hold, and flip domains.
7. Offer free teaser reports as an enticement to visitors to purchase an ebook.
8. Offer free teaser videos for your how-to series.
9. Offer access to tools, reports or reusable content on a monthly subscriber basis.
10. Offer services on a project or monthly retainer basis.

The beauty of working online, besides the obvious, is that you can use tools like PayPal or Google Checkout to handle the payment processing. The integration is relatively easy and allows you to focus on the content or services.

Got a skill or service that can be offered online but not sure how to do that? Feel free to drop me a comment here or use the contact form. With your permission, I’ll try to do a no-cost case study on these pages. If not, then my reponse time increases. I may not always have answers, but I will respond to you as promptly as time permits.

Killer Flagship Content is one of those must-read ebooks. It’s doubly important because it’s written by Chris Garrett, one of the founders of Performancing, who helped it achieve its lofty status in the blogosphere by offering sage blogging advice. Chris is running a cool promo: review his first ebook, Killer Flagship Content, and you not only get a link back to your review but a sneak peak at his next ebook – which reveals how he scored over a thousand feed subscribers in just a month. (It doesn’t hurt that he’s Chris Garrett.)

Having read most of what Chris wrote at Performancing, and some of his musings at other personal sites of his, I was eager to read the ebook. I’ve already browsed it over twice, and reading it now as I write.

At 14 pages plus cover pages, the Killer Flagship Content packs a lot of advice for building authority for your website/ weblog. Chris essentially defines Flagship Content as articles that give value to readers and entices them to return. If you manage to brand your content and build a message, even better. Can you be the go-to resource for your niche? (e.g., as Brian Clark’s Copyblogger is to good blog writing in general – at least for 13,000+ feed subscribers – and Darren Rowse’s Problogger is to blogging best practices for 19,000+ subscribers.)

Now, if you’ve heard of the term link bait, you probably know there are several kinds, including the “Top 10 Reasons To Something Or Other” type. But Chris points out, link bait has a stigma attached to it, and that it’s more about creating buzz. Whereas flagship content consists of compelling resources that are evergreen, that are still useful down the timeline. As a ghostbaiter for paying clients, I know how valuable link bait can be, SEO-wise. But flagship content stands on its own. Chris lists the potential benefits as:

1. fame
2. brand
3. SEO
4. authority
5. visibility
6. value
7. longevity
8. viral appeal
9. marketability
10. expansion into products
11. convert your traffic

That’s eleven – count’em, eleven – benefits for creating flagship content. Chris then delves further into the last benefit, indicating that if you become a trusted resource, you very well stand to be bookmarked and subscribed to in a feed reader. You might even get delicoed (del.icio.us) and dugg (digg.com) regularly.

Quite possibly one of the most important points Chris makes in the Traffic Conversion section is:

Start thinking about your content as small parts of a larger system.

It’s hard work to write good posts everyday (or regularly), but taking some time to plan your content series will go a long way towards helping turn your posts from just a random collection into flagship content.

So how do you come up with flagship content? Chris outlines several steps and ideas. Which ones you pick depend on your knowledge and expertise. Also looking to fill needs. People would sooner ask someone a question than use a search engine to find the answer. Are there questions you can answer? People are clannish [my emphasis, not Chris'] and want to go to a trusted human resource.

So what can types of flagship content can you write? Here are Chris’ 10 instant flagship content ideas:

1. Your biggest tip.
2. Vision.
3. Guides, how-tos, tutorials.
4. FAQs.
5. Message.
6. Research and results.
7. Jargon buster.
8. Product database.
9. Case studies.
10. Resource round-up.

Just be unique, Chris points out. Your content’s success will depend on a number of factors:

1. Being remarkable.
2. Having magnetic headlines.
3. Being easy to grasp.
4. Having friendly URLs.
5. Havng an immediate and obvious benefit.
6. Keeping hype to a minimum.
7. Being placed prominently.
8. Not having any barriers. (i.e., no password protection on content)
9. Applying quality control.
10. Building on the foundation content.
11. Closing the deal (persuading people to subscribe).

Chris then finishes up with a 10-point promotion plan (and closing words), which I’m not listing here because I want you to go read his ebook and check out these great ideas for yourself, even if you’ve been blogging for a while.

In short, Chris practices what he preaches, turning his ebook Killer Flagship Content into flagship content itself, imparting valuable advice on building authority for your website or weblog. And there’s more to come, with another ebook on the way. I can’t wait.