RachelWondering how to make money in 2020? Let’s start at the beginning…
Flashback to 1986: Women in Tech
I was an early adopter of women in tech. Like, really early. Specifically, January 1986.
Take a look at page 80 from the January 1986 issue of the long-defunct magazine, Family Computing.
See the article cleverly titled, “Girls Just Wanna Compute!”? Yep, that’s 15-year old me as proud author. I am happy to report that I’ve been on the case of gender inequity in tech for the long haul.
The worst part of seeing that 1986 me?
Realizing that all these years later, women are still lagging behind when it comes to making money online.
Websites and Women: Never the Two Shall Meet?
Don’t just take my word for it when I say there aren’t enough women making money online.
If you are a woman who wants to do more than just punch a time clock, sit in a cube, or otherwise let someone else control your financial destiny, I know these numbers will not be news to you.
In short, when it comes to web equity, we women need to GET SOME.
So, What is Web Equity?
Web equity is an online asset that has the potential to generate income. It could be a website dedicated to affiliate marketing, a Shopify store, or a site monetized solely by ads.
The point of this site is to help women learn about web equity and create wealth by using web equity. Who’s with me?
Advantages of Investing in Websites
So, why invest your time and money in web equity? The better question is, why wouldn’t you?
One huge plus–there is virtually no barrier to entry. Take a look at the barriers that are removed when you work online:
- Inherent sexism
- Inherent racism
- Inherent ageism: Women of any age can do this
- Those who face physical mobility challenges can do this
- Moms can do this even with kids at home (no promises that it will be an easy process–but at least you have the flexibility of working from home on your own schedule)
- College degree is not required
In addition to being a barrier-buster, generating income through your own websites has several amazing pluses.
Creating an Affiliate Website is a Low-Cost Way to Make Money from Anywhere
What do you really need to get started?
Not much.
Reliable internet access and a hosting platform are the bare minimums. You likely already have internet access so that’s not a new cost. Hosting is very reasonable. I use BigScoots for web hosting and it’s only $7.95 per month.
I’ll spare you the cliched “Just give us your latte and you can do anything” trope. But, just know that if you really want to give this a shot, cost is not a barrier.
This is soooo not the case in many other traditional income generation strategies.
Should You Invest in Real Estate or Affiliate Sites?
Take real estate, for example. About a year ago I was looking at investment opportunities. I spotted a great-looking property in my town’s quaint historic downtown area. It was zoned for commercial with nice curb appeal and in a perfect location. “This could be an awesome little coffee shop or cafe,” I thought. I was already visualizing rents flowing in to my real estate empire.
Then reality came crashing in.
- Did I want to screw around with leaky toilets in the middle of the night?
- Did I want to deal with landlord-tenant issues?
- Did I want to sink a huge portion of investment capital into one investment?
NO WAY.
Should You Invest in Franchises or Affiliate Sites?
I had also spent some time researching franchise opportunities. I went so far as to consult calls with two potential moneymakers (or so I thought)–a pizzeria and one of those paint and drink wine places.
Then I got my head on straight. There are a LOT of downsides of running a franchise. To name a few:
- Huge initial investment
- Portion of your revenue goes straight to the parent company
- Requires a ton of time and often on-site supervision
- Although less risky than a non-tested business concept, still a crap-shoot
- You need to be spot-on with not only your selection of a franchise, but placement in the correct location and demographic market
End result: a hard pass.
[memecrunch.com]
Affiliate Sites Offer Downside Protection
Let’s say, worst-case scenario, your affiliate site does not succeed. You aren’t making the money you had hoped and you’re not interesting in continuing. Unlike real estate, franchises or many other investment opportunities, you can simply walk away from your website.
- You can try to sell it, but you don’t have to.
- You can shut it down and eliminate all costs associated with the project.
- You can try again because you didn’t spend six figures trying to make it happen.
That’s saying something. While we believe you can absolutely make your web equity a success, it’s comforting to know that your downside risk and exposure to loss if it isn’t is more than manageable.
Creating an Affiliate Website Provides the Opportunity for Scaling
Scaling is huge.
Simply put, scaling means your business has the capacity to grow and grow. It’s easiest understood in terms of what is not scalable:
If I am a freelance writer and advertise content written by me, my business is not scalable. Even if i am a fast writer with amazing productivity, I am still just one person with a finite number of hours in the date. in other words, I am limited in how big my business can become because it is not scalable.
Affiliate sites, on the other hand, are massively scalable.
To make real money, you need to be able to grow.
How Do You Make Money With Affiliate Websites?
We are going to walk you through these steps but the basic formula that we will start with is:
How MUCH Money Do You Make with Affiliate Websites?
This is the obvious follow-up question, right?
I hate to give you one of my lawyer answers, but….it depends.
[memegenerator.com]
Will I Be Able to Follow my Passion?
Yes, if your passion is making money online with your affiliate website.
I belong to a lot of Facebook groups for women entrepreneurs and I see a lot of self-affirmation langauge around following one’s passion. I am all for that.
But….
We need to be realistic. Not many passions are going to translate easily or well to making money online.
What’s my passion? My family and travel.
To feed my passion, I need two things, money and time.
I chose to commit to web equity because I see it as an amazing way to generate money and free up my time. I hope you feel the same!
Do I Need to Code to Build a Website?
Nope.
That’s the beauty of it. You can create a gorgeous, smoking-fast, money-making website without knowing a single ounce of code. I am living proof of that.
So, how do you build a website with no tech skills? We will show you!
- WordPress
- Plug-Ins
- Hosting
How to Build an Affiliate Site Fast
We can show you how to build an affiliate site fast, but fair warning: there is no such thing as instant money from an affiliate site. Not only does it need to age for Google’s approval, you need great content and some powerful links.
One reason I started this site was to provide a safe, non-scammy place where women can learn how to make money from affiliate websites. There are so many “get rich quick” scams out there. I don’t want any of you to get suckered in!
So, where do you start? Luckily, the steps to getting up and running are pretty straightforward and here at Web Equity Women, we will be working through the details of each and every step.
- Research
- Identify Your Affiliate Site Niche
- Choose a Domain Name
- Prepare Logo and Branding
- Set Up Hosting
- Site Layout
- Choose Your Tools (WordPress, Plugins, Logos)
- Set Up Your Business
- Keyword Research
- Create Content (Post Titles, Post Lengths & Styles, Amazon Associates Post Layout, Content Post Layout)
- Fine Tune Your Site (Site Speed, SEO Audits
- Monetize (Amazon Associates, Other Affiliate Programs, Display Ads)
- Make Google Your BFF
- Leverage Social Media (FaceBook, Pinterest, YouTube)
- Outsource Work
- Build and Leverage Email List
- Link Building
- Monitor Stats
- Handle Website Upkeep
- Scale
Are you ready? Let’s do this!
