Want to know how to start making money from a website? You’re in the right place.
There are many proven business models that website owners use to monetize their sites and turn them into money making machines. The most successful websites make anywhere from thousands to tens of thousands of dollars every month.
And in this comprehensive guide, we’re going to show you exactly how you can do the same by outlining the most popular website monetization strategies used today.
Overview of Website Monetization Methods
But first, let’s do a quick rundown of the main options website owners have for making money from their sites:
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Affiliate Marketing: Promote other companies’ products and get paid commissions when site visitors purchase through your links.
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Display Advertising: Get paid by ad networks to place their ads on your site. Google AdSense is the most popular program.
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Sponsored Posts: Get directly paid by brands to create content that promotes their products/services on your site.
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Digital Products: Sell your own digital products like ebooks, online courses, subscriptions, software, etc.
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Ecommerce: Sell physical products by dropshipping products or buying inventory to resell at a markup.
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Donations: Add donation buttons to your site allow visitors to donate money to support your work.
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Consulting Services: Offer paid consulting/freelancing services to site visitors.
Now let’s explore each of these in more detail, including tips for getting started…
1. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular ways bloggers and website owners make money online.
With affiliate marketing, you sign up to promote products from various companies. When one of your website visitors clicks your affiliate link and makes a purchase, you earn a commission.
Getting Started:
The easiest way to find products to promote is to join an affiliate network like ShareASale or FlexOffers. These sites allow you to browse products from hundreds of advertisers and quickly get approved to promote them.
Some of the top verticals for affiliate earnings include:
- Software/SaaS
- Online courses & educational products
- VPN services
- Web hosting & related services
- Dating & relationships offers
Amazon also has an extremely popular affiliate program that lets you earn commissions promoting any of the millions of products in their marketplace.
Once you’ve picked a product to promote, share your affiliate links within relevant content on your site. For example, if you have a website about graphic design, you could link to Affinity Photo and other useful software tools.
Focus on providing value first in your content, not just promoting products. The more you’re able to establish trust and authority around your recommendations, the more commissions you’ll earn.
Ambitious affiliate marketers also build email lists and promote offers through email newsletters as well as social media channels.
2. Display Advertising
Display advertising is another relatively passive way to monetize a website. This simply involves putting ad spaces on your site that get filled by ads from an advertising network.
The most popular display ad network is Google AdSense, which serves text, image, and video ads optimized for your site content and audience. But there are many alternatives to explore as well.
Getting Started
- Sign up for an ad network like Google AdSense
- Place ad units within your website content
- Continue producing high-quality content to drive more site traffic
As your site traffic grows over time, the ad revenue you earn will increase. And it can add up to a nice chunk of passive earnings each month.
Just keep in mind that ad revenue highly depends on your site’s niche and audience demographics. Finance and technology sites tend to earn the highest RPMs (revenue per thousand impressions).
3. Sponsored Content
Sponsored posts involve being paid directly by a brand to create blog content that promotes their product or service on your site.
This is best suited for sites that already drive decent traffic and have an engaged, targeted audience that would appeal to potential sponsors.
The average price for a sponsored post is around $250-$500 for sites getting 5k-50k monthly visitors. Popular sites can charge over $1000 per post.
Getting Started
First, make sure your site presents you as an expert and builds authority. This increases perceived value.
Next create an Advertise page clearly showing your traffic stats, audience demographics, and pricing plans for sponsored posts.
Finally, actively reach out to brands that would resonate with your audience and pitch sponsored content partnerships. Or list your site on marketplaces like BuySellAds to connect with brands looking to sponsor blogs in your niche.
4. Digital Products
Creating and selling your own digital products is one of the most lucrative ways to earn from a website. These can include ebooks, online courses, premium newsletter subscriptions, software/SaaS, and more.
Because there’s no manufacturing or shipping costs, profit margins on digital products can be exceptionally high.
You can easily sell these right from your website by leveraging platforms like Gumroad, SendOwl, or Sellfy to handle payment collection/delivery.
Ideally, base the product topics around your existing site niche and market to your current audience. This allows you to leverage your positioning rather than starting from scratch building a new audience.
For example, if you have a popular blog around woodworking, you could create online woodworking courses or sell plan packs as premium digital downloads.
Getting Started
Determine what digital product ideas would be a good fit for your existing audience and website niche.
Choose a platform to handle payments, delivery, and promotion tools for selling your digital products seamlessly from your site.
Create lead magnets like free reports or email courses to grow your site audience. These leads become potential buyers for your paid products.
Send promotional emails when you launch new products announcements and always include product links prominently on your site and social channels.
5. Ecommerce Sales
Building an online store to sell physical products is another excellent way to leverage website traffic into sales and revenue.
Popular options here include:
Print-on-Demand (POD): Upload your designs onto products like t-shirts, mugs, phone cases and get paid when someone buys one. The order is automatically sent to the printer & shipped directly to the customer.
Dropshipping: Sell trending products shipped directly from the wholesaler so you don’t have to handle fulfillment or inventory. When an order comes in, you place the order with your supplier and keep the profit.
Handmade Goods: Crafty online store owners have built thriving businesses selling their homemade jewelry, paper goods, fashion items and more on platforms like Etsy.
Getting Started
Choose which ecommerce model fits your niche, interests and lifestyle best: POD, dropshipping, handmade goods, etc.
Set up an online storefront on platforms like Shopify, Etsy or WooCommerce + printful/Oberlo for POD/dropshipping.
Drive traffic to your online shop from your website, social promotions, paid ads, etc. Offer promotions, sales and email subscribers special deals/coupons to increase sales.
6. Donations
Adding donation options to your site allows loyal visitors to offer financial support for the content and value you provide for free.
While donations likely won’t become a primary revenue stream, they can provide nice supplemental income over time.
Getting Started
Choose a simple, recognizable donation platform like Buy Me a Coffee.
Add branded donation buttons/links prominent locations: header, footer, sidebar widgets, pop-ups, etc.
On your About page, clearly explain your mission and how reader donations help support your operating costs and time spent publishing helpful free content.
Give donors shoutouts and recognition on social media, private newsletter editions, etc. depending on contribution levels.
7. Paid Webinars & Live Video
Hosting paid online events like webinars or live video trainings is an impactful way to monetize your audience without needing any physical or digital products.
People are often willing to pay to attend exclusive live sessions in order to access powerful training and your expertise in real-time.
Getting Started
Determine relevant, compelling workshop topics that would provide tremendous value based on your niche, audience and credentials.
Choose webinar software like Demio or tools like Streamyard for broadcasting live video over Facebook or YouTube.
Set up registration pages and sales pages that persuasively market the unique value of your paid online events.
Promote events across your website, email lists, and social channels. Consider giving away some free workshop content to entice signups.
Continue nurturing email subscribers to sell seats at your next events. Develop a workshop series on a topic for greater long term value.
8. Consulting & Freelancing Services
Offering paid consulting or freelancing services can be extremely lucrative if you have in-demand skills, expertise and credentials in your field.
This leverages your website to showcase credentials, past work samples, client testimonials, etc. to attract ideal prospects.
Service-based offerings might include:
- One-on-one consulting calls
- Completed freelance services (eg. writing services, web design)
- Ongoing retainer services (eg. digital marketing management)
Getting Started
Determine the freelancing or professional services you want to offer based on your skills, credentials, capacity.
Add persuasive service descriptions and pricing plans to your site along with strong calls to action to contact you for inquiries.
Publish blog content showcasing your expertise and share strong past work examples to establish authority and trust to attract clients.
Network actively online and offline to find ideal prospects for your services and secure some initial clients.
Deliver incredible value and results to these early clients and ask to use their feedback/testimonials on your site to build credibility for attracting more high-paying clients.
Choosing the Right Methods For You
As outlined above, you have many options for monetizing websites across all types of niches and traffic levels.
The best earnings mix for any given website depends on factors like:
- Available Time Commitment
- Content Type & Site Niche
- Existing Audience & Traffic Levels
- Skill Sets & Interests
Most website owners start out using lower-effort options like display ads and affiliate promotions while focusing on building traffic and authority.
Then as you grow an engaged audience and understand reader demand, introducing digital products, specialty services, events or ecommerce ventures with higher earning potential becomes more viable.
Conclusion
I hope this guide gave you plenty of ideas and actionable advice on how to start earning money from your website using proven business models.
The key is matching the right methods to your niche, traffic and capabilities then executing marketing and monetization extremely well.
Start small by enabling ads or affiliate links at first. Then explore adding more advanced direct monetization products tailored specifically to what your audience wants over time.
Consistently provide high value free content to grow your audience. Then introduce monetized offerings in ways where readers still feel they’re getting great value, just at various pricing levels suitable to their needs.
What website monetization models seem most appealing to try on your site first? Let me know in the comments if you have any other questions!
