As an internet enterpreneur I have always wanted to know the best way I could monetize my website. I started a journey researching the most profitable ways to monetize my website. I've come up with 23 ways to do just that-make money with my website. If you know a method that is not listed below, just
let me know and I’ll update this list.
1.PPC Advertising Networks
Google AdSense is the most popular option under this category, but
there are also others. Basically you need to sign up with the network
and paste some code on your website. The network will then
serve contextual ads (either text or images) relevant to the content on your website,
and you will earn a certain amount of money for every click your visitors make.
The profitability of PPC advertising depends on the traffic
levels of the website and, on the click-through rate
(CTR) and cost per click (CPC). The CTR depends on the design of the
website. Ads placed above the fold or blended with content, for
example, tend to get higher CTRs. The CPC, on the other hand, depends
on the niche of the website. Niches involving mortgages, financial products and college
education are examples of profitable niches (clicks worth a couple of
dollars are not rare in those niches), while tech-related topics tend to receive a
smaller CPC (sometimes as low as a couple of cents per click).
The source of the traffic can also affect the overall CTR rate.
Organic traffic tends to
perform well because these visitors were already looking for something wanted(this called targeted traffic). Social media traffic, on the
other hand, presents terribly low CTRs because these visitors are
web-savvy and they just immune to ads.
Popular CPC Advertising Networks:
-www.google.com/adsense
-publisher.yahoo.com
-www.bidvertiser.com
-chitika.com
-www.clicksor.com
2.CPM Advertising Networks
CPM advertising networks behave pretty much as PPC networks, except
that you get paid according to the number of impressions ( page
views) that the ads displayed on your site will generate. CPM stands
for Cost per Mille or Cost per Thousand, and it refers to the cost for 1,000 impressions or page views.
A website that generates 10,000 page views monthly displaying an
advertising banner with a $1 CPM, therefore, will earn $10 monthly.
CPM rates vary with the network, the position of the ad and the
format. The better the network, the higher the CPM rate (because they
have access to more advertisers). The closer you put the ad to the top
of the page, the higher the CPM. The bigger the format (in terms of
pixels), the higher the CPM.
You can get as low as $0,10 and as high as $10 per 1,000 impressions
(more in some special cases). CPM advertising tends to work well on
websites with a high page views per visitor ratio ( online forums,
magazines,etc)
List of Popular CPM Advertising Networks:
-casalemedia.com
-www.burstmedia.com
-www.valueclickmedia.com
-www.advertising.com
-www.tribalfusion.com
-www.rightmedia.com
3. Direct Banner Advertising
You can sell advertizing space on your website. It enables you to cut
out the middleman commissions and to determine your own rates. The most
popular banner formats on the web are
-728×90 leaderboard,
-120×600 skyscraper,
-300×250 rectangle and the -125×125 button.
The downside of direct banner advertising is that you need to have a
big audience to get qualified advertisers, and you will need to spend
time managing the sales process, the banners and the payments.
You can visit these links to find out more about Direct Banner Advertizing On Your Website
-www.doshdosh.com/direct-advertising-sales-beginners-monetization-strategies
-www.openads.org
-www.oiopublisher.com
4. Text Link Ads(TLA)
After Google declared that sites selling text links without the
nofollow tag would be penalized, this monetization method became less
popular.
Many website owners are still using text links to monetize their sites, though, some using the nofollow tag and some not.
The advantage of this method is that it is not intrusive. One can
sell text links directly through his website or use specialized
networks like Text-Link-Ads and Text-Link-Brokers to automate the
process.
Examples Of Text Link Networks:
-forums.digitalpoint.com
-www.text-link-ads.com
-www.textlinkbrokers.com
-www.tnx.net
-www.linkworth.com
5. Selling or Renting Internal Pages
Some websites sell for a single fee or rent for a recurring fee
internal pages on their domain. Usually they have either high Pagerak
or high traffic, so that people purchasing a page will be able to
benefit in some way.
Examples of website doing this are
-www.milliondollarwiki.com and
-pagerank10.co.uk
6. Donations
Placing a “Donate” link or button on a website can be an efficient
way to make money, especially if your blog is on a niche where readers
learn and gain value from your content.
Personal development and productivity blogs, tend to
perform well with donation based systems see for example
-www.stevepavlina.com and
-www.blogclout.com
7.In-text Adverting
In-text adverting networks like www.kontera.com and www.vibrantmedia.com
will place sponsored links inside your text. These links come with a
double underline to differentiate them from normal links, and once the
user rolls the mouse over the link the advertising will pop. Should the
user click on it the site owner will make some money.
8. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a very popular practice on the Internet used by many people to make money online through their websites.
With Affiliate programs you have merchants willing to let other
people ( called the affiliates) sell directly or indirectly its products and
services, in exchange for a commission . Sometimes this type of
advertising is also called CPA (cost per action) or CPL
Affiliates can send potential customers to the merchant using several tools, from banners to text links and product reviews.
List of Popular Affiliate Networks:
-www.cj.com
-www.clickbank.com
-www.azoogleads.com
-www.linkshare.com
9. Monetization Widgets
There are now widgets that let you monetize your
website. Some of these
services operate under a PPC scheme, others behave like text link ads,
others use affiliate links
List of Companies Providing Monetization widgets:
-www.widgetbucks.com
-www.scratchback.com
-www.adaptiveblue.com
10. Sponsored Reviews
A company called PayPerPost pioneered this model, with much controversy on the
beginning (related to the fact that they did not require disclosure on
paid posts). Soon other companies followed, most notably Sponsored
Reviews and ReviewMe
Joining one of these sponsored reviews will give you
the opportunity to write sponsored posts on a wide range of topics and make money while doing it. Problem is, not
all bloggers are willing to get paid to write about a specific product
or website to get paid because because they think it is unethical, but
the ones who do just do it are lining their wallets with it!.
If your blog has a big audience you could offer sponsored reviews directly, cutting off the middleman.
List of Sponsored Reviews
-payperpost.com
-www.sponsoredreviews.com
-www.reviewme.com
-www.blogsvertise.com
-www.smorty.com
11.RSS Feed Ads
With the quick adoption of the RSS technology by many people on the internet, website are starting to find ways to monetize
this new content distribution channel.
Players in this field include:
-www.feedburner.com
-www.bidvertiser.com
-www.pheedo.com
12. <strong>Selling the Website
Selling your website could be your last resource, but it has the
potential to generate a big sum of money in a short period of time.
Market places on online forums like
forums.digitalpoint.com and www.sitepoint.com are always active with website buyers and sellers. Keep in mind that
they most used parameter to determine the value of a website is the
monthly revenue that it generates, multiplied by a certain number (the
multiplier can be anything from 5 to 30, depending on the expectations
of the seller, on the quality of the site, on the niche and other
factors).
Some people also make money trading and flipping websites. They
either create them from scratch or buy existing ones, and after some
revamping they sell them for a profit.
13. Selling an Ebook
You could either structure the website around the book itself, like www.seobook.com, or launch the ebook based on the success of the website, like FreelanceSwitch did with the book http://freelanceswitch.com/book
14. Selling a Hardcover Book
Many authors sell copies of hardcover books. Examples include blog.guykawasaki.com, sethgodin.typepad.com, gladwell.typepad.com.
List of Self Publishing and Publishing Services:
-www.lulu.com
-www.selfpublishing.com
-www.iuniverse.com
-www.wordclay.com
15. Offering Consulting and Related Services
Depending on your niche, you could make money by offering consulting
and related services. If you are also the author of your blog, the
articles and information that YOU share will build your profile
and possibly certify your expertise on that niche, making it easier to
gain customers.
One example is Chris Garrett at www.chrisg.com
16.Creating an Email List or Newsletter
Email lists and newsletters represent one of the most powerful
marketing and money making tools on the Internet. They offer incredible
conversion rates, and the possibility to call people to action in a
very efficient way.
Creating a big list is a difficult task though, so if you have a
popular website you could leverage it to increase the number of
subscribers on your list.
You must learn to encourage people to subscribe to
your email newsletter.
List of Software to Manage Email Newsletters:
-www.aweber.com
-www.interspire.com
-www.phpautoresponder.com
-cjaffiliate.roving.com
17.Mentoring programs
People are willing to pay for someone or something that will teach
them and give them knowledge (as opposed to mere information).
Education is one of the biggest industries in the world, and the online
landscape behaves in a similar way.
Creating a mentoring program related to the niche of your website
could be very profitable if you manage to structure and promote it
adequately. There is a wide range of media and tools that you can use
to deliver the information, from text articles to audio and video
lessons.
Brian Clark leveraged the success of www.copyblogger.com to launch a mentoring program teaching people how to build membership and how to sell content online. The program is titled teachingsells.com and it costs $97 monthly.
18. Creating a conference around the website
If your website takes off and becomes an authority on its niche, you
could create a conference around it. Depending on the size of your
audience, the event could attract thousands of people, and you could
make money directly from conference passes and sponsors.
searchengineland.com, for
instance, created a series of conferences that visit several cities on
the United States and on other countries as well. The conferences are
called searchmarketingexpo.com, and the tickets and passes cost thousands of dollars.
19. Sponsors for Single Columns or Events
If you website has specific columns or events (e.g., a weekly
podcast, an interview series, a monthly survey, a special project) you
could find companies to sponsor them individually.
This method increases the monetization options for website owners,
while giving advertisers the possibility to target a more specific
audience and with a reduced commitment.
Mashable.com and
Problogger.net are some of the websites I found using this system.
20.Premium Content
Some websites and blogs give away part of their content for free,
and charge for access to the premium content and exclusive tools.
Seomoz.org is one of many examples I know using that strategy.
21.Private Forums
Although the Internet is packed with free forums, there is also the
possibility to create a private forum where members will pay a single
or recurring fee to join.
Seoblackhat.com
charges $100 monthly from its members, and they have thousands of them.
Of course in order to charge such a price for a forum membership you
need to provide real value for the members
List of Popular Forum Software:
-www.vbulletin.com
-www.simplemachines.org
-www.phpbb.com
-www.getvanilla.com
22.Job Boards
Many popular blogs are trying to leverage job boards to make some extra income. Successful examples include
-Jobs.guykawasaki.com, -jobs.readwriteweb.com,
-jobs.problogger.net,etc.
The advantage of this method is that it is passive. Once you have
the structure in place, the job listings will come naturally, and you
can charge anywhere from $10 up to $100 for each.
List of Popular Job Poard Software:
-www.jobthread.com
-www.webscribble.com/
-www.simplyhired.com
-www.jobbex.com
23.Audio Ads
Also called PPP (Pay Per Play), this advertising method was introduce by www.netaudioads.com,
the concept is pretty simple: play a small audio advertising (usually 5
seconds) every time a visitor enters into your website. The user should
not be able to stop it, creating a 100% conversion rate based on unique
visitors.
The company is still rolling tests, but some users are reporting to
get from a $4 to a $6 CPM. Regardless of the pay rate, though, this is
a very intrusive form of advertising, so think twice before using it.