To monetize a website isn’t the game it once was. It used to be that if you were one of the relatively few people who understood how websites worked and how to make them, there was plenty of money to be made. These days, just about anyone can build a website.
In fact, if you build a good website, you may well be able to attract a reasonable volume of traffic. However, if you want to make money from your website, you have your work cut out. Before you can think about monetizing your site, you need to be able to reliably bring in the viewing numbers.
Some methods are easier than others and you might find that what works for other people won’t necessarily work for you. All of these methods assume that you already have a sizeable audience. if you don’t, check out this guide.
Affiliate Marketing
This is one of, if not the most popular method of monetizing a website or blog. The first step of affiliate marketing is identifying a suitable product, one that you can recommend to your audience and that you think they will be receptive to. The person or business selling the product will provide you with an affiliate link to place on your site. This link will take your readers to the seller’s page.
Every time someone arrives on the product page from your affiliate link and goes on to buy the product, you get a cut of the sale. This cut can be anywhere from 30% to 70%, so it can be a real earner if you pick the right products for your readership.
Pay Per Click Advertising
We’re all used to seeing adverts when we browse the internet. When you search on Google, you might have noticed that promoted websites appear at the top of search results pages. These adverts are served up by Google’s AdWords. Meanwhile, their AdSense service enables bloggers and website owners to take advantage of Google’s extensive advertising network so that web owners essentially sell space on their webpage.
Google then chooses which ads to show on those websites, so website owners can sit back and let the ad revenue roll in. Google will provide the code that needs to be placed on your website in order to enable AdSense. This code will identify what ads are suitable based on the content of your website. For example, if your website is about fitness, Google will advertise links to fitness products.
If your website is more varied, like a site that curates real user reviews, the ads placed on your site will also be more varied, potentially meaning more money.
Every time someone clicks on an ad on your site, you get paid some money. That’s all there is to it! There’s no requirement for them to go on and buy the product. The amount of money you receive for each click will vary from $0.50 up to $5 if you’re lucky.
Sell Ad Space Directly
Using the same principle as AdSense, you can sell advertising space on your website directly to businesses that need it. This allows you to negotiate your own pricing structure. You could charge them per pixel of space they use on your site, or you could use a special link to set up an affiliate marketing-style deal.
The good thing about selling space yourself, rather than relying on Google or another advertising platform, is that you get total control over the entire process. If your website is receiving a significant amount of traffic, then you can charge a much higher rate.
There are an endless number of ways to monetize your website. The above three methods are probably the most straightforward and profitable, but there’s a whole world of possibilities out there.