Here are just a few ways to make money with your website. Just like in my post Ways to Make Money Online the only limitation is your imagination. When determining how best to monetize your website consider using a combination of these different methods. Your sites audience can be broken down into various groups or segments. Each of these methods will have differing levels of affect on each of these groups. So its always a good idea to use multiple monetization methods to better reach your various audience segments.
PPC Advertising - PPC stands for Pay-Per-Click. This is also known as CPC (Cost-Per-Click) advertising. You place a small piece of code provided by the PPC network on your website. When people view your site they’ll see contextual ads relevant to your website. Every time someone clicks on one of these ads you get paid an advertising fee The fee paid can vary by a large amount depending on the advertising network used, the type of item advertised, and many other factors. Advertisers set the maximum amount paid when they create their ads. For an advertiser’s ad to be displayed through the PPC network they need to set a competitive rate for their ads.
The source of your traffic can affect how well PPC advertising will work on your website. PPC can work well with organic traffic. This is traffic coming from search engines. These people are searching for something - some information or product. They happily click on any link that look relevant to what they are seeking. On the other hand, PPC may not work well on websites with a lot of repeat traffic. Repeat traffic comes back to your site for a specific purpose and ignore any displayed ads. Once that purpose has been met they head off to other places frequently ignoring your ads once again.
Where the ad is placed on your website can affect how frequently it is clicked. Ads placed above the fold (the area shown with a web page is firt displayed) tend to have a higher CTR (click through rate) than ads below the fold (rest of the web page displayed by scrolling your browser window).
Here are a few PPC advertising networks:
CPM Advertising - CPM stands for Cost per Mille, and refers to the cost for 1,000 impressions. Ads are placed on your website in the same fashion as PPC advertising. But with CPM you are paid for every 1,000 times the ad is displayed.
CPM rates vary with depending on the advertising network, placement of the ad, and the format of the ad. Larger advertising networks have access to more advertisers so may pay higher CPM rates. Ads displayed above the fold will usually be paid higher CPM rates. CPM rates are also usually higher for larger ads.
CPM advertising may work good for websites with a lot of traffic. But doesn’t work for low traffic sites.
Here are a few CPM advertising networks:
Direct Banner Advertising - Directly selling ad space on your site can be a good way to create a steady cash flow from your website or blog. This is especially true if your site has a large number of daily visitors. Once you hit 100 visitors a days it’s good idea to consider selling your own banner space. Some of the most popular ad sizes are 728×90 leaderboard, 120×600 skyscraper, 300×250 rectangle, and 125×125 button. Using was well structured advertise page will help to attract advertisers.
Here’s a few links to help you get started:
Text Link Ads - Text link ads is just what it sounds like. You sell space on your website in the form of a text link to someone else’s website. You can sell the text link ads directly or through an ad network.
The use of text link ads has decreased significantly since Google decide to penalize any site selling text ads without the nofollow tag. If you care about your PageRank or Google search position it is recommended that you use nofollow tags. If you sell text link ads then make it clear whether you use the nofollow tag or not.
Here are a few text link networks:
Affiliate Marketing - Affiliate marketing is also known as CPL (Cost Per Lead) and CPA (Cost Per Action) marketing. There are many merchants on the web that are willing to let other people (the affiliates) sell their products and service either directly or indirectly in exchange for a commission. Affiliate products or services can be sold through a variety of methods such as banner ads, text link ads, widgets, in-text ads, and reviews.
Affiliate programs are offered by many individual companies and publishers. There are affiliate networks you can join to gain access to hundreds of affiliate programs in one place.
Here’s a few places to look for affiliate programs:
Monetization Widgets - There are several online services that offer webmasters a way to monetize websites through the use of widgets. Using these widgets is as simple as doing some simple setup on the service providers site then placing a bit of java script on your website. You can usually control the format and layout of the ads. The ads can be in the form of PPC ads, text link ads, or affiliate links. The number of ads displayed varies with the display format and size selected. The ads may be static (not moving) or they may auto scroll.
Here’s a few companies that provide monetization widgets:
Sponsored Reviews - Some companies and publishers are willing to pay others to post a review of their product or service on the reviewers blog or website. Joining a sponsored review network will help you get connected with companies and publishers looking for reviews. If your site has a large audience then you could try selling reviews directly.
Here’s a few sponsored review and paid blogging networks:
RSS Feed Ads - RSS feeds is one of the fastest growing methods of distributing web content allowing you to reach thousands of subscribers very quickly and without waiting for them to come to you site. Some feed services provide a way for webmasters to add advertisement to the bottom of every post delivered through their RSS feed. Some bloggers are even offering to sell banners and sponsored content on their feeds.
Here’s a few RSS feed providers offering add on ads:
Marketplaces - A marketplace is a site that allows visitors to buy, sell or trade products. Marketplaces earn money by charging a small fee for each transaction.
Paid Surveys and Polls - Some web services will pay you to run a small poll or survey on your site. One such service is Vizu Answers.
Selling or Renting Internal Pages - Selling or renting an internal page on your website is another way to earn some money. This method works best for site with a large amount of traffic. You sell or rent an internal page on you site letting the buyer/renter place the content they want on that page. The buyer/renter and the seller/rentee should agree ahead of time on pricing and allowed content.
Donations - Placing a PayPal link for donations on yor site can be another way to make some money. Careful consideration should be made before placing a donation link. Many web users dislike the use of donation links. Donations can work well for some site especially those with high personal interest content.
In-text Adverting - Some web services will place sponsored links in your sites text content. These links usually standout with a double underline instead of the typical single under for links. When the viewers mouse passes over the link an ads pop up. If the viewer clicks on the link or the ad you earn a small commission.
A couple in-text adverters are Kontera and Vibrant Media.
Audio Ads - Audio ads are also known as Pay Per Play (PPP) advertising. Every time a visitor enters your site a short audio advertisement play. The ads are 5 - 10 seconds long and cannot be stopped. Audio ads use the CPM model for earning money. These types of ads are high intrusive so you need to consider carefully if this type of ad is right for your site. Audio ads were pioneered by Net Audio Ads.
Buy and Sell Websites - Build a website then selling it. This method has been used by many people to raise a few dollars to several thousand dollars. The value of a site depends a lot on the amount of the site’s daily traffic and sustained average monthly revenue. DigitalPoint and Sitepoint are a couple of good places to buy and sell your website.
Also check out these links for additional info on selling websites:
Selling an Ebook - Create a site around an eBook or base an eBook on the success of a site can be a great way to earn money from your site. Put simply people love eBooks. Whether the eBook costs a few dollars or a few hundred dollars buyers will want your book. If your eBook is well written and informative even more will want it as word of your works gets around. If you eBook is successful enough you might even be able to offer your own affiliate program based on you eBook. SEOBook.com is an example of a very successful eBook.
For more info on writing your own eBooks check out these links:
The info for most of this post came from 28 Ways to Make Money with Your Website at Daily Blog Tips and Dissecting 28 Ways to Make Money with Your Website at Entrepreneurs Journey. Check out these post for more ways to make money with your website and for more details on each of the idea listed in this post.
