In school, college students don’t have a lot of options to make money. We have to spend time doing academic work and social activities, making it hard to make money on the side. Part-time jobs are helpful, but there is even another alternative that students are doing to make some good money: starting a student business.
Starting your own business takes a lot of hard work. But if you follow our guide, you will be on your way having your own very successful money-making machine on the side.
1. Your Skills, Your Niche. What are They?
Are you good at talking about politics? You can start a political blog. Are you athletic? Maybe you could make a website about products to deal with sports injuries.
Write down a list of 20-30 things you are good at. It doesn’t have to make sense, and it could be as cool or stupid as possible. The only criteria is that you are good at it, and you enjoy it. Here is a fake list for example:
- Know a lot about sports
- Good blogger
- Can drink anyone under the table
- Fix appliances
- Worked with landscaping
- Studying Spanish
What ideas can we get from this list. Maybe I could make a blog about sports and drinking! Or maybe I could make a website about Spanish study groups.
Look over your list. Ask yourself: what ideas can I create that would make money? Maybe you can set-up a t-shirt business in your dorm, or start a magazine. The focus of this post is specifically how you can make money with your own website. So, you will want to create a website around the idea with which you can make money.
If you stick to multiple ideas ( ie: more than one website ), make sure that you have one idea you are really focused on. If you tie yourself up with too many business ideas, you won’t be able put enough work to run your website successfully.
Time to take to have an idea: 1-2 days/5-10 hours
2. Planning, Understanding Websites
Web Terms
Do you know what HTML is? CSS? Javascript? PHP? If you don’t know what these are, then you have to read up on them just so you know how websites work. If you know about this stuff, you can skip the bullets.
It will be 3x harder to make a website and make money if you don’t understand how websites work. Find a computer geek friend who can give you some help on different terms. If you do well on this college student website quiz, you are ready to make your own site.
Time to understand web terms: 1 week/20-25 hours ( you can do this while making your business)
Your Idea & Business Plan
Now that you have some understanding of websites, let’s think about your idea.
- What is your plan?
- How will you make money?
- What would your daily operations be like?
- How much time will you have to spend on it weekly?
- How will you advertise/market? Would you have competition?
- How much will it cost to start-up?
- Any partners, friends who can help or invest?
Make a business plan. It doesn’t have to be the business plan that you will show to investors. You need a plan so you can manage how you will run your company. These questions above and many more need to be answered so you know your idea will work. Get a college friend/roommate/dorm-mate to ask tough questions as well. The tougher the questions, the more prepared you will be.
Most people build websites around the content/ad-space process. Essentially, people will make blogs or sites with information, and make money by putting ads on the side. We will go through the next three steps with this process in mind.
Funding
How are you going to pay for the business? Are you selling products, and have to buy the materials first? Are you selling ad-space for your site? In case your site needs professional help (in the event of a hacked site), do you have money to hire someone to fix it?
- Start off with at least $500 if you are going to make money off ads.
- Start off with a lot more if you have to buy materials to create your product.
- If you are dead broke, you can still make it, but try to save at least 15% of your income every week specifically for your business.
- Don’t be afraid to let your family and friends know you might need money. If you show dedication to your website, they will be more likely to lend you money for your cause.
- Don’t be afraid to use credit cards, excess money from student loans/grants and other credit sources. But remember that you have to pay this money back. Plan carefully if you use any credit.
Time to make business plan/ seek funding: 3-5 days/ 15-20 hours
3. Hosting, CMS, Design, Testing
Hosting
You need a domain name and you need a host. It is better to have your domain name and host as one company. These are the two I recommend since they have received good reviews, and I have used Hostgator in the past:
You can check Hostjury.com for hosting reviews for these companies.
Conent Management System vs. Site Builder
Pick your host and choose your domain name. Once you sign up the host will have a Control Panel that has a lot of features. One vital part of the Cpanel is the ability to create a website with a website builder, or use a CMS. A website builder seems easier to use, but we would recommend going with Wordpress to start out. Both of these features don’t require you to know about making websites.
We recommend Wordpress over the site builder and the other programs. Why?
- Templates: They have a lot of them. Your site can look like this, this, or even this.
- Plugins: They have a ton of them. You can do things like create a mailing list, create a forum, or even sell Amazon Products.
- Wordpress MU: This platform (if you can handle it) can create blogs on the fly. Why have one blog, when you can create your own blog network!
- You can transfer your website to a different host if you don’t like the current one. It is hard, if not impossible, to do this with website builders/template wizards.
- Everyone uses it. So there is a lot of documentation and help that you can find on the web.
Design it, and Test it!
Find the right design and plugins, and test how your site looks. Have your friends look at it. Have an advisor or professor give you criticism. Before you showcase the site, make sure the website and the business operations are sound. The worst thing you can do is not test your site and put it out in the open. If your site sucks on the first impression, people will not return to see it again.
Time to get host, domain name, and set up site: 1-2 days/ 2-8 hours. Testing how the site looks, feedback is ongoing.
4. Audience first, Business second
SEO Tips
If you are making a website about hot products, you have to work on writing consistently and often about the subject. Even if your business is selling cookies, always make sure to have new content on your site as much as possible. This is a search engine optimization (SEO) tip.
When you write a lot, Google adds your new articles into the search engine. The more you write, the more Google returns, and the more likely you will get some people searching on Google and finding your business.
Also, when you write a lot, you keep your audience interested. If I come to your site, and it hasn’t had any new information for over a month, I probably won’t stay on the site for long. Another tip; write about current events. You can get more people coming to your site since people will search for breaking news.
Alternative Tips
SEO isn’t the only thing you should be using to showcase your site. Send press releases to local papers and bloggers. Cross-promote with local establishments (Put an ad on your site in exchange a local business leaves your flyer on their tables ), try to get interviewed by the student newspaper or student radio station. Sponsor/throw a party to showcase your new website. The sky is the limit when advertising your site; be creative, and utilize multiple avenues.
Other sites you can use to advertise your website:
Operations & Management
If you are selling something that you have to manage (ie: you sell t-shirts), make sure your site and operations are clean. If someone orders a shirt, and you don’t mail it for a week, you can end up with a bad review, and a bad review on the web can kill your website if it is new. College sloth (aka the “Facebook lazies”) won’t help your student business. Spend your time wisely, and keep your work ethic high.
This is the most important thing you have to do that will help your business/website: a journal. Your journal(s) should focus on four things:
- Daily journal: Talk about the things you have done with your website, ideas, etc.
- Accounting: Sounds tough, but it isn’t. Just keep track of how much money your are making, and subtract how much money you are using. Even the slightest details will count.
- People/resources: Making connections with other people can help your website, but you have to keep track of people you meet. Every time you meet someone, write down how you met them, and how they can help your business/website in the future.
- Tasks/To Do List: Make a list, do the most important things first, and keep up with your daily routines. You will then know how much time you are spending on your website, and how you can manage your time better.
Time to do SEO/Advertising: 2-3 hours per day first 21 days of your website. 2-3 per week after.
5. Setting up the Money Train
When you create a website, always make sure you have a big enough audience that you can make money from it. If your website is about the product itself (ie: you made a website about selling your own book), be sure to do a lot more work in advertising and marketing. You have to get people to want to buy your product.
But most of you reading will have an idea around adspace. You will make a website, and you will add advertising to the website. You will make money off advertising when someone clicks on the ad (cost-per-click, CPC), buys or signs up for something thru the ad (cost-per-action, CPA), or every time the ad is shown (cost-per-thousand, CPM).
Ad-space moneymakers for your website
There are automated systems ( like Google Adsense & Adbrite ) that you can add to your site in minutes. There are network directories where you choose the advertiser you want to have on your site. There are singular affiliate programs (like Amazon) where you showcase products from an indvidual site. Then there are ad-space plugins where people come to your site and pay for adspace.
Automated systems are great because you don’t have to put any work into them, but the pay isn’t great unless you have a BIG audience coming to your site. Network directories aren’t easy; you have to put in the work of which advertisers would be suitable for your site (if your site is about pet care, and you have an ad for Captain Morgan’s, you won’t make money). Ad-space plugins are the hardest way to make money out of all three, but if people buy ads from you, you keep 100% of the profits!
Work with all three types, and over time you will figure out which style works best for making money on your student blog.
Automated Ad Services:
Network Directories:
Affiliate Programs
Ad Plugins
- OpenX ( you will need to learn some php, or have someone install it for you )
- OIO Publisher ( this ad platform isn’t free, but you can use it along with the ad rotator plugin for Wordpress ) to rotate ads from different places. $10 off if you use the coupon SAXON-OIOSALE.
Time to take to organize/manage ad-space: 2 hours per day first 7 days, 1-5 hours per week after.
Recap
The process is simple, but in order for you to make money during college, you have to work hard at setting up and managing your website. Make a list, check off the best, write a plan for your best idea, get a cool domain name and host like Hostgator Hosting, set-up your website and showcase it as much as you can. Don’t be afraid to fail, and learn as much as you can about making your website better.
Soon, you will find yourself with a website, a legitimate business, and some extra money. If you have any thoughts or questions, please leave a comment below.
