by Alex Christian on March 2, 2010
If you’ve got a website that you’d like to turn into an alternate source of income, Google may be able to help you do it. No matter what your site looks like, or what kind of audience you cater to, you can make money with Google.
One program that’s designed specifically for advertising is Google’s AdWords. AdWords is Google’s way of doing your advertising for you, matching your ads with the target audience that’s most likely to buy from you. By matching your site’s content with often-searched keywords, Google can ensure that your ads appear as often as possible on their search engine result pages, and to people who are already searching for something you’re offering. And, since you only have to pay for the ads that a potential customer clicks on, you aren’t paying Google for ineffective advertising. They only get paid for the ads that work.
Another program that can help your site make money is called AdSense. Although this program is based on the same basic principle as AdWords, it’s much simpler (and cheaper) on your part. It puts you on the other end of the spectrum: instead of paying Google to post ads for you, Google pays you to post ads for them. You see, Google wants to make as much money on these advertising clients as they can, which means posting ads in as many different places as possible. Your site offers a convenient niche that Google can fill, and you won’t have to give over your whole page to irrelevant ads. Google will match the ads it posts to the content of your site, just like on their search engine result pages. All you have to do is let Google in, and they’ll do the advertising for you. You’ll get a check at the end of the week, depending on how click-happy your viewers are. It may be the easiest check you’ve ever made.
by Alex Christian on March 2, 2010
It’s so simple that most people will never figure it out. You make money in rental real estate with the business plan of: best product, best price.
Don’t Focus too Much on Expenses
When I first heard this concept, I was skeptical because I thought you had to be a slumlord to make money in real estate investing. Most people think that way because most people think that businesses make money by cutting costs.
If you were to only focus on cutting costs, you would end up with the worst product because you would never fix anything. To make things worse, you would probably try to charge a lot to boot. The result would be that no one would want to rent your property.
Best Product, Best Price
Start with the best product, meaning fix it up to be the nicest house on the block. You don’t have to go overboard with granite everything and top appliances, but make sure everything works and will last for 5 years or more. If you’ve ever had a chance to look at other landlords’ product, you would find that it’s not hard to do better than what is out there.
Best price means to charge less than your competitors. If the guy down the street is charging $950, you charge $900.
Less Maintenance
A strong benefit of having the best product is that your maintenance expenses will be lower. Since you fixed everything to last 5 years or more, nothing should break down. If it does, your tenant will be responsible.
Less Occupancy Issues
Having the best product and best price also affords you the luxury of having more potential tenants to choose from. The fact that you can rent your unit quickly will save you a lot of money. The guy down the street thinks he’s making more money than you at $950, but it’s taking him an extra month each year to rent it out. That means that he’s losing $950 per year!
Conclusion
Best product, best price is best for everyone. The landlord, the tenant, and the neighborhood.
