I had a conversation with a friend the other day about a Nigerian website he was setting up. We were both excited about the prospect of the scheme. We talked a bit about what the website was about until I asked him the ultimate question.

How are you going to make money from it?

What kind of online business model are you going to use to make money with it?

My friend answered that since he was building a website that that was all he needed for making money online from Nigeria .

He believed that just because he was going to have a website ,he was going to make money online. He also mentioned that he had a friend in the US that was going to help him with how to make money with the website.

I told him ,If he could not explain to me in a simple sentence how he was going to make money with his website then he had not figured it out yet and hence should go back and think about it again.

He had no real idea or plan about how he was going to make money with his site.

By The Way, This Is The Idea He Had For His Website.

His plan was to develop a website that will publish information about his state . Information like stuff on the state government , local government , politics , agriculture ,security, education and other forms of information.

His plan was to launch it on the independence day celebration of citizens the state living in the US .

This prompted me to ask him more questions.

Important Questions That Need Answers When Starting An Online Business

Who will be visiting your website ?

He answered that he was targeting indigenes of his state living in Diaspora (US and Europe).

My next question was, why would they be visiting your site ?

Why would they leave the official website of the state ,that has most of what you will be publishing to visit your own website?

What would you be publishing on your website that will be different from the official website of the state?

Who will be looking for that type of information you plan to publish?

He did not really have convincing answers to the questions.

I immediately broke it to him that if he could not provide answers to those questions he may not have good enough traffic to monetize his site.

He revealed that he was thinking of making money with advertising by creating a kind of directory that people in Nigeria from his state can pay money to submit their businesses locations into the directory.

I revealed to him that people only pay money for advertising when they are sure they will get customers from the advertisement and since he was not likely going to get good traffic because his content will not be unique many businesses were likely not going to advertise with him.

Even Google Adsense ads only make money when you have traffic and is in a high paying niche where people advertise very competitively, I added.

He looked a bit disappointed and confused so I threw some ideas at him.

What can you sell on your website?

Can you sell your local art and crafts made in your locality?

I informed him that people will have to have a demand for it before he can eventually sell it.

I also advised him that instead of just posting the type of information he was proposing for his website ,he could become a publishers of the local news happening in his state or town. He could publish weddings ,ceremonies, coronation and all kinds of local news happening in his town and could make money by getting people to pay him to cover and publish their event on his website.

This would be more unique .

I also told him that even though those ideas looked viable , he was to make his research himself and find out if people really need that type of info.

(by the way that kind of website would be visited by not just people in Diaspora but by people all over his town state and country).

After a while we parted.

What Lessons Can We All Learn Here?

Well, my friend had a idea but had no plan.

Having a website or blog does not mean you will just start making money online . you have to have an offer ,you have to sell something, you have to create something valuable to someone else that you can use to make money with.

I don’t know what you intend to do online ,if it is to make money online you need to answer this same questions too.

You might want to also read a post where I answered questions about making money online with a blogging idea.

Thank you.

If you loved this article, please do something for me.

1.   Share this article or facebook by clicking the like button below it

2.   Tweet and retweet this article on twitter.

3.   Subscribe to our RSS feed, follow @NairaCow twitter and befriend NairaCow on facebook.

If you have not read my free guide that reveals The Truth and Lies about Making Money from Nigeria, you are losing big time.

Click This Link To Download The Truth About Making Money Online From Nigeria