Online media has low startup costs and that means that barriers to entry are low. Plus, it is highly technology-intensive. The technology literally changes every day. This is both good and bad news for nano-publishers.
So while non-technical people will find that most tools needed for succeeding at online media business are fairly easy to use and do not require a deep understanding of underlying technology, there will be times when you will be frustrated by crooks who are either technologically advanced or simply employ only dishonest business practices.
For instance, your affiliate income may be wiped out or lost because some crooks have planted spyware on millions of computers. So while your visitors may be on your website and click on a link that contains your affiliate ID, the commission will go to a crook (this may not happen if you work with a reputed company like Commission Junction or LinkShare). Similarly, while you might actually believe Google or Yahoo and try to develop a high-quality, content-rich website that will delight your readers, spammers and crooks will use all possible tricks under the sun to make you disappear from search engine results. What people find our crappy websites that have nothing valuable for the visitor. Or in other words, SPAM like nuisance make life difficult for an online publisher.
Search engines, particularly Google, are always trying to do their best but the way criminals are two step ahead of cops, these online crooks are several steps ahead of search engines. And this is particularly true if you end up picking a topic like Vioxx or Celebrex or Social Security privatization or something else that happens to attract lots of advertisers.
What can you do to protect your business?
- Try to teach yourself the basics of underlying technology for online publishing and use it to the best extent possible.
- Never give up on the idea that high-quality, useful-to-reader content pays off. It is not traffic that you want; you want the right readers who will be delighted to read what you wrote, will appreciate it, tell friends about it, and probably click on your very targeted links. These things create a real business that creates wealth. Spammers and crooks are always running around trying to chase money. They will make some quick money sometimes (indeed, this whole thing seems to work and is profitable and that is why so many people do it), but if you are in it to create a real business that you can not only be proud of but also create wealth for your shareholders, always do the right things.
- Finally, do not react immediately if something does not appear right. In the short run, you will see that your ratings have gone crazy or you have lost traffic for weeks/months. The online world is very dynamic and literally changes by the second. So hang in there and you will eventually win. (Related article: How to get high rank in organic Google search results)
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