Aside from some pure e-commerce sites, most online businesses owners are actively monetizing their own credibility. This is true whether you promote your own products or you engage in affiliate marketing.

Let’s say you market affiliate products via either an email list or a blog. Every time you make a recommendation you are risking your reputation to some degree.

The degree of risk involved depends on several factors. For instance, one factor is the quality of the product that you are promoting. A list of loyal readers that is bombarded with several bad recommendations in a row may soon begin to question their loyalties. Another factor to consider is the frequency with which recommendations are made.

Do you wish to be perceived as an expert in your field, who shares quality information, and promotes an occasional product when you feel it is in your reader’s best interest? Or are you alright with the possibility of being viewed as someone trying to milk their readership.

Believe it or not there are successes out there in the world of online business that seem to represent both ends of this spectrum.

Some business owners are wisely cautious about the quality of the products they promote. They feel that betraying the trust which they have developed with their followers would compromise the growth of their email list, blog, or online brand. Even worse than potentially limiting growth, these owners worry that a sever enough betrayal of trust with cause followers to jump ship.

There are some who seem to be able to produce product after product of dubious quality and still get customers to buy each new offering. This usually works for online business owners who are masters of buzz. No matter how much they have annoyed their customers with lame products in the past, these entrepreneurs create a pipeline of amazing accomplishments which they perform to create buzz for their next promotion.

The two strategies mentioned above represent two strategies at extreme opposites of a spectrum. As we have mentioned there are large successes in the world of online business that can be found at both of these extremes. Ultimately the choice, as to what type of online business owner you wish to be, is yours.