Infopreneur, Infopreneuring, Infopreneurship - irrespective of the name used to call this profession, has offered an opportunity for even the tamest spirit to become an entrepreneur using the reach of the World Wide Web, also known as the Internet. Much has been written about this subject and about the phenomenon of providing useful information to an interested audience easily and conveniently and converting that interest into dollars. However, before you invest a significant amount of time into this area, it is worthwhile understanding the risks and rewards, and the many pitfalls on this potential road to wealth.

The Opportunity
Skills Needed
Risks and Pitfalls
Resources

Using your expertise in a subject matter and developing a taste for writing are all that you need to develop a great website filled with useful information about your subject. Add to that some Web-savvy around using keywords in your articles that your potential audience will search on, and you will have a steady traffic streaming to your site sooner than you thought possible.

Many web-site owners today are monetizing this traffic through

1. Google Adsense or other advertisement providers
2. Advertisement Brokers bringing advertisers to their sites
3. Sales of Links

Extremely successful sites generating north of $10,000/month are in operation today.

The web today continues to favor quantity and freshness, with quality of content coming in third. Thus if you were seeking to make a name for yourself and be quoted in major publications, quality should be your focus. However, if you are aiming to build traffic and get ongoing traffic, focus on quantity and freshness. Of course, you have to have at least minimally useful information for folks to revisit your site - otherwise it will be considered a junk site. Freshness is important - that is, you should try and write new content yourself - or have a ghost writer. Do not publish content from other sites onto your own site. And publish at least once or twice every week.

A second opportunity is around creating a reference site that does not have to be constantly updated, but instead to be updated with the information it is referencing changes. For example, a site on the "History of Literature in America" can be built upfront, complete with indexing and search facilities, references to books, book reviews, and a message board for enthusiasts to exchange views would make for a great reference site.

Such a site could monetize traffic through affiliateships with Amazon.com and other bookstore sites. It could also sell links, host eBay pages (which may be selling used, rare books), and even feature specific sites as a preferred partner.

The chief appeal of such a site is quality. The site will be heavily dependent on backlinks and word of mouth appeal for its traffic. As a reference site, it will depend on repeat traffic, and thus needs to create some stickiness through its webboards. Such a site, if it attracts registered members in the range of five to six thousand, becomes a target for acquiring companies as larger firms seek pockets of devoted followers.

Paid membership sites is the way to go if the subject matter of your area of expertise is one that helps your target audience make or save money. Tax expertise, stock or currency expertise, site on getting government grants are all solid candidates for membership sites - inspire of the heavy competition in these subjects. Obviously, you must have something unique to offer to your audience for them to become paying members. Alternatively, you can target a passionate audience - passionate about a hobby that you share in - for example, Harley-Davidson owners, those into serious knitting and sewing - are possible candidates for a membership site. In these latter sites, it is the community that the audience craves for and that creates the stickiness for your site.

Creating affiliate sites is not quite the same as being an infopreneur. In this case you are the extension of the marketing arm of the merchant whose products you are selling, and thus does not require subject matter expertise on your part.

In general, taking your audience to a happy place or putting them out of misery are the two keys to creating a great information site. Good keywords on your web-pages, maintaining freshness and frequency of publication, and maintaining a certain quality within your publications will ensure that you have a good site that will attract long term traffic.

Skills Needed

The most important skill required to be an infopreneur is an interest in a subject. Without interest, you will lose your ability to respond with passion to your audience's needs and requests. This will show in your work and your site will soon lose its vigor.

The second skill is to know enough about your subject matter to write about it. This may require three to four years of reading and understanding, and even experience in the subject matter you are writing about. If you plan to write about investing, then you should have some hands on experience on this subject, as well as thoroughly understanding the many different techniques for making money in the market. If you wish to write about literature, you should have lived through the process of understanding literature, taking in its nuances such that the subject comes alive when you write about it.

And that brings us to the third requirement - you should write reasonably well and easily. Or hire a ghost writer to do it for you. You have to be publishing once or twice every week, and thus it is important that you have the ability to expand on one or two points and build a 300-500 word article fairly easily.

A research library is important to have access to. This could be online - say by subscribing to the New York Times Archives, or Wall Street Journal archives, or in the print world through subscription to trade journals, or via e-mail through e-zines and so forth. You need to have your hands on the pulse of the marketplace of your subject matter, have sources of new ideas and have places to research your ideas.

Risks and Pitfalls

The single biggest risk for an infopreneur is loss of interest in the subject matter. This will signal the death of the website. Developing techniques to maintain interest (perhaps by reducing frequency of publication, taking a vacation, reading new material, joining discussions groups are all reasonable techniques to keep and revive interest). If you can find a partner who shares your interest, it can ensure that the site is not subject to the waxing and waning interests of one person.

To kick start your site's traffic, you need some initial backlinks and good articles with keywords targeted to your target audience. Over time, this will kick start your traffic. If however, you stop optimizing your site before you have a hit upon the right formula for your site - the site is doomed to failure. Do not give up optimization until you are getting 50-75 visitors every day for the site.

Monetizing the site is not easy if your target audience does not click on ads. Selling links and affiliateship links to Amazon.com can offer other means to make money. You may need to additionally develop an e-zine and sell ads within it, as well as sell banner ads on your site to make some money. In general, develop an advertisement inventory, and as your site develops, requests for advertisements will follow.

Resources

Here are some useful resources for an infopreneur:

1. For developing membership sites, Membergate has proven to be an excellent platform.
2. For tips on developing a good membership site, join Bill Myer's site.
3. For examples on the best ways of setting up your Google AdSense on your site, visit this top grossing site.
4. For excellent information on how to generate traffic for your site, join the webmasterworld discussion forums.
5. For your research library, link to NYTimes archive