Webdesigner - where to play on the side?

Hi guys

Im a web / graphic designer. Its going well, im just thinking of creating some alternate income streams.

What would you guys suggest is a good arena to get into? maybe selling ebooks, affiliate programs? - Im tempted by drop shipping, but imagine the profit is very small.

Any suggestions most welcome

 

Would advice against dropshipping mate, since the market is very competitive and not the best area to start out.
How about joining some CPA networks? Get yourself into a niche (like dating for example, do some market research for the sub-nice), build up a quality niche site, apply to a CPA network and start promoting their offers. There are sooo many opportunities, just have a look around the forum, I'm sure you'll find something that will strike your fancy!

 

thanks for your quick reply, Im still deciding if its all worth the effort? is anybody making any money of all this? even if just enough for a beer?

 

Oh yeah mate, all that stuff does indeed work. Take me for example (if thats anything to go by), I've got a couple of auto-blogs set up earning me some money. I've got some other stuff going on at the moment (mainly off-line marketing, which is seriously making some bank), but the autoblogs alone make around $40-$50 a day. I know, thats not a whole lot of money, but it feels nice for it being automated. That being said, it took me quite a lot of time to get that machine rolling. And another thing, regarding auto-blogs, don't go by the info presented on this forum, as much as I like this place, the info over here (in regards to auto-blogs) is absolutely outdated...

So my advice to you would be to really get into SEO. I mean its really all about the traffic. If you can drive consistent traffic to your webresource than you won't find it all too difficult to monetize it. Read about linkwheeling, gaining backlinks, all that good stuff. I can't provide you with detailed information, as SEO is obviously a grand topic. Maybe http://seomoz.com would be a great way to start.

Hope this helps,
ask away if you have any other questions.

 

super stuff, Im already doing rather a lot of seo / link building etc. for current clients, so would be too much effort squeezing another site in there. I suppose its just deciding on which product / system to use, or just to blog and stick some adsense on there

 

If I were you I would start with affiliate marketing and then move on from there if you don't find it interesting or if you are unsuccessful. If you do a little bit of research you can make mega dollars doing some affiliate marketing in your spare time.

 

For designers I would suggest:

- build a store of your items or join something like GraphicRiver
- promote Yourself to have more job to do, I recently started advertising my portfolio through Adwords and I got some new clients

maybe try to build up a site about something You like and provide high level graphics with content?

 

I'd say join logo contests - even if you don't win (which is normally the case), you'll have fun participating. And since you're a web designer, you probably have a good eye for color already