A version of this article by John Evans first appeared in Syntagma.

Many small businesses are web-based now. Some use weblog technology as the centrepiece of the enterprise.

However, the outlook is not sunny for these businesses during this recessionary interlude. What, then, does the future hold for small-to-medium internet business?

Another week, another blog network wraps itself up. This time it’s the business network, Know More Media, which was particularly hard hit by Google’s ranking penalties.

Like BlogNation, a UK-based outfit, they simply ran out of money. I can think of many others that suffered the same fate, but will spare you the litany.

Even the few networks that professionalized themselves by raising VC funding and bringing in experienced managers, are finding the going tough right now. Earlier predictions of another dotcom bust are not off the table yet.

I’ve written many pieces here over the past three years on the choices faced by network owners and the chances of success. Most warned of this present crisis. As a result, Syntagma was ahead of the pack in diversifying into specialist information products on subscription terms. We have not yet felt the full force of the U.S. recession-in-progress.

The coming steep downturn in the UK will have minimum effect on us, except if the pound sterling falls relative to the dollar, in which case we will see our income rise on a windfall.

In America, the startup industry is losing momentum fast, although there’s no shortage of brave souls willing to chance more than their arms.

So, what’s to be done if you have invested heavily in an internet business, whether content or blogging-based or not?

The answer is to spot the second bounce of the ball.

As the economies eventually begin to turn around and a slow recovery takes place, most people will be looking out for “little green shoots” to signify a return to economic growth. In the early 1990s those shoots were a long time coming, and when they did, they grew slowly like hardwood trees, not the swift pines we were hoping for. I suspect the little shoots will keep us waiting even longer this time.

Green shoots may be interesting, but watching for the second bounce of the ball is usually more profitable. If the first bounce online for many of us was mass publishing technologies, what could the second be?

Providing content on your own platform as both writer and publisher makes sense because it cuts costs. Hiring other writers to do it for you made sense three years ago, but with advertisers shunning small-to-medium operations it’s probably easier to flip burgers.

Now we need a second bounce to reflate the whole business of working successfully online.

Forget social media. Maggie Jackson’s book Distracted: The Erosion Of Attention And The Coming Dark Age highlights the price we pay — including actual brain damage — for standard multi-tasking and trying to keep abreast of the information space.

As in my own book on the subject, Mediate Yourself, this is now becoming a common theme whose time is about to come. Finding ways not just of sifting and processing information but relating it to people’s essential requirements is a major path forward. Limiting individuals’ needs to interact with screens is probably more relevant still.

Simplifying the lives of knowledge workers is the big leap forward that will take us to the next level.

So far technology and software have complicated human life immeasurably. The constant pressure to upgrade and learn new tricks is mind-mashingly painful for most people — hence the brain damage.

The truth is, there may be no single second bounce this time, but a series of mini-bounces, with no one golden goose presenting itself for carving.

At Syntagma, we have our eyes on a variety of possibilities. To use a rugby term, all it needs is for someone to pick up a ball and run with it. As I write, there are not many runners out there.

A New Series on Business Startups — Part 9

Many people dream of quitting their day job and starting their own business on the internet. It seems simple enough, doesn’t it : working from home, low costs and boss of your own time?

But what about the technical side, the long lead-in to a decent income, and the flakiness of many internet projects?

John Evans, boss of Syntagma Media, has given an interview about the trials of creating an online content business to Gerry Reynolds, business consultant and retail analyst.

Here’s a preview :

Gerry : What are the economics of an online income stream? [...]

John : If you set no upper limits, you’re really at the mercy of events. It’s no good having a $10m business if your costs are $11m. Mr Micawber defined that problem 150 years ago.

The trick is to set an upper boundary that gives you the best split between receipts and obligations, building in the vagaries of the tax system, of course, and depending on the amount of effort you can comfortably provide. Everyone will reach a different conclusion, but it has to be within your comfort zone. You are, after all, in this for the long haul.

Gerry : So you’ll not be selling the business?

John : I’ve personalized the business so much, it’s hard to see who would buy it now. But the idea of creating an empty shell of a company, with no branding, so that anyone can buy it, just isn’t how I do things. I’ve always preferred chocolates to boxes.

Read both posts here : #

It’s reported that few small business owners turn to the internet to find contacts or for networking.

Social networking sites, such as Facebook and LinkedIn, have little attraction for the business bosses.

New research from Barclays Local Business indicates that 60 percent prefer traditional network events when looking for support and advice. Only 8 percent consider going online to discuss their business.

John Davis, Business Marketing Director of the Barclays outfit, says, “Many small businesses are sole traders and organized events allow you to meet others and discuss issues face to face, something a chat room will never do.”

Small Business Booster wonders, though, whether putting effort into the business itself might not be a more productive exercise?

A New Series on Business Startups — Part 7

As well as considering how to start a business in various parts of the world, we will also be inserting in this series ideas for unusual businesses that you may not have thought of. For example, what about a business that runs itself with little input from yourself? Impossible? No, not on the internet.

How to create that online money-spinner that works automatically, even when you sleep, is a question often asked. One solution — rather an oldish one — is affiliate marketing.

Essentially, this is signing up as an affiliate with websites selling products or services off the sites. When anyone clicks over from your site, a “cookie” (a little scrap of software identifying you) registers on their site and persists for a set number of days, often 30. Anytime they go back and buy something within that period, you will be entitled to a percentage of the price paid. This may vary from 4 percent on the Amazon Associates scheme, to a bumper 50pc for selling an eproduct, like an ebook or ecourse.

Quite often you’ll find an “Affiliates” link in the footer on retail and other websites. An alternative is to use a mass affiliation scheme like Commission Junction or Tradedoubler, where you can choose from a large range of schemes from crafts to credit cards.

So long as the product or service matches the subject of your site, you should be able to make a start.

Many of the early Internet marketers started out on affiliate schemes. Some became millionaires quite quickly, by first making a success of what they did, then selling their own ebooks on how they did it.

The secret is to presell the product on your site before the client clicks through to the seller’s site. That way they are much more inclined to buy.

From there, it’s a numbers game. The more traffic your site generates, the more likely you are to get sales. That early lesson made serious affiliate marketers become experts in SEO — search-engine optimization — whereby the site figures prominently in Google and other search results for certain keywords.

An understanding of the keywords searched for for each product is also necessary to do well from this process. There are keyword aids available free on the net.

Affiliate marketing can be tough if you go about it the wrong way. But with hard work and a shrewd eye for a chance, you could do very well at it.

SEO
People make whole careers out of advising on how to get websites to feature prominently on search engines such as Google. The process is called search engine optimization, but it doesn’t need to be complicated.

Duncan Jennings started his first website when he was 17. At 24, now owns www.econversions.com. He says :

“All websites want to appear at the top of the list when someone searches on Google. In response to a search, Google will take all the websites that are relevant and rank them according to the number and quality of other sites that have linked to them. If you can get links to your site on lots of others, you will be ranked higher and you will get more traffic. It builds from there.”

If you want a business that costs next to nothing and will run itself once you put it in place, affiliate marketing is a good one to consider.

You can also combine it with onsite advertising, like Google’s Adsense, to add value to your site’s content.