The following post was inspired by a conversation I had with Matt Cutts at Pubcon a few weeks ago, discussing the controversial link selling strategy that is a hot topic these days.  Bottom line... selling links is no longer search marketing best practice.  So here is how we are going to change our tune and adjust our business plan for adherence to best practice.  We've been making adjustments like this for 8 years now.... to survive in the Internet world, you need business plan flexibility.

LifeTips Revenue Plan for 2008
 
Our mission at LifeTips.com, Inc. has been, and will always be, to make the world a better place, one tip at a time. Over the years, our mission has been funded by a variety of revenue models, directed by client needs and search engine marketing best practice standards.  

We will no longer offer the Exclusive Sponsorship program to clients-- Link strategy was too much of a standalone feature to that program, and selling links is now a thing of the past.  Instead, we've upgraded the program considerably.  It's now called the Exclusive Program-- still exclusive to one client in each niche topic ; - ) helping them get the SEO edge they need to get ahead of the pack. Take a look and you'll notice the program is now focused more on content development services-- our specialty historically-- that we create for the client's website.  We feel the new program is best of best practice and will be recieved very well with Matt when I speak with him at the upcoming shows.

History of LIfeTips 

Before you dive into our revenue plan for 2008, take a look at this snapshot of how our revenue model had changed over the years-- it's quite interesting and representative of dot com survival:
 
2000
Content Source: User Generated Content
Full Time Employees:  10
Revenue:  Sell Exclusive Sponsorships
Comment:  All employees went to the library with rented laptops to find tips that would make life better and be used to jump start the site.

2001
Content Source:  Screened Hobby Writers
Full Time Employees:   10
Revenue: Sell Exclusive Sponsorship with PPC Bonus Throughout LifeTips
Comment:  We built our own PPC Ad Engine to fit with the times and client needs.

2002
Content Source:  Screened Hobby Writers
Full Time Employees:   2 ( The year of the Dot Bomb)
Revenue:  Sell Exclusive Sponsorship + PPC Bonus + Email Promotions
Comment:  Client needs lead us to  email promotions, and the launch of weekly TipLetters to opt-in subscribers.
 
2003
Content Source:  Client Writers
Full Time Employees:   4
Revenue:  Sell Exclusive Sponsorships where clients can “plug” their products/services.
Comments:  Clients wanted to create their own self promotional tips, and for a brief time(very brief), we let them do just that.  Yikes-- this was a disaster.
 
2004
Content Source:  Screened Expert Writers
Full Time Employees:  8
Revenue:  Sell Exclusive Sponsorship featuring Banner Ads, Text Ads and Newsletter Promotion
Comments:  This was our first profitable year,  with a simple sales pitch and revenue plan focused on our roots of exclusive sponsorships.
 
2005
Content Source:  Screened Expert Writers
Full Time Employees:  12
Revenue:  Sell Exclusive Sponsorships featuring Ads and 50 Links to Sponsor’s Product/Services Pages
Comments:  With link popularity the key for achieving top listing in the search engines, we introduced direct links from LifeTips which met the needs of our clients.

2006
Content Source:  Screened Expert Writers Plus Published Authors
Full Time Employees:  14
Revenue:  Sell Exclusive Sponsorships featuring 30 Links plus Content Development Services including creationg Tip and Advice Centers and Article featuring the SEO Edge.
Comments:  In a meeting with a Google Meet the Engineers event in New Orleans at PubCon, Google gave us a thumbs up on the link program, but advised us to decrease the links from 50 to 30, and fine tune the contextual relevancy of the links.  The link program worked like a charm with measured success by our engines.  And best of all, our clients started asking our team for content development solutions for their own website-- changing our business model considerably.

2007
Content Source:  Screened Expert Writers ad Published Authors
Full Time Employees: 16
Revenue:
> Sell Exclusive Sponsorships featuring Ads and Links
> Sell Tip and Advice Centers Solutions
> Sell Articles Writing Services
> Sell Ebook Solutions
> Sell Private Label Books Services
> Sell Books Published by LifeTips (101 Tips on Particular Topics)
Comments:  Content development services really dominated our business in 2007.  Our exclusive sponsor program was harder for the reps to sell, particularly as the year went along and Google freaked out the industry announceing that selling links was bad practice.  By December, I cornered Matt Cutts at PubCon and had an open discussion about the choices for LifeTips.  The conclusion:  focus on content development services for the brightest future.

THE PLAN FOR 2008
 
2008 Best Practice Search Marketing Standards  
Google latest best practice standards confirms that selling links for the sake of link popularity is no longer best practice, particularly if the links are not contextually related.  Creating engaging content on the other hand is the right service to be in.  The Exclusive Program will offer clients the 4 essential for online marketing.  And the program once again comes with an unconditional guarantee.

Expected Full Time Employees:  20
Content Source:  Screened Expert Writers and Published Authors
Revenue Source:
> Exclusive Program
> Writing Services ( But this will change in the fall of 2008-- as we are launching a new brand for Writing Services-- see ideaLaunch for a teaser)

Conclusion

I've been saying this for years:  It's not about how much content you have on your website, or how many links you have on to your website.  Instead, it's all about the quality of content on your website, who wrote the content, and the engagement quality of that content.  By 2009, we hope most of our writers are also published writers of a 101 Tip Books at LifeTips.com.  And we hope to create some of the web's most entertaining, enjoyable content that makes the world, and our clients websites, a better place.

Comments?
Look forward to your thoughts on our past, present and future plans.