On Sale
Have you recently created a site, and ran into wondering how to make money with it? With over 86% of content creators using blogging as a strategy, you may want to jump on the bandwagon too. The Internet has so many options for a website owner, and in this article, you’ll learn how to monetize a website.
Prepping your site for Monetizing
Before you dive into monetizing your website, there’s a few things you should prepare on your site:
Add a Disclosure Policy page
Gather your website’s traffic and social media stats
Gather your email newsletter’s stats
Make sure you’ve got enough content on your site before applying for any ad networks
Add a Disclosure Policy page
A disclosure policy page is super important and not to be confused with Privacy policy pages. This page is strictly for your site’s disclosure on your sponsored content. You can even generate your own free disclosure policy. Make sure to copy and paste it to a page, and then link it in the area of your site, where you display your Legal and Privacy Policy page links.
Gather your website’s traffic and social media stats
Your ad networks, advertiser’s, and sponsored guest writers will want to know your website’s traffic and social media stats. It’s best to share your Google Analytics stats, as they are trusted over other analytics services.
Gather your email newsletter’s stats
If you’re offering sponsored content or ad placement within your email newsletter, make sure to share your list’s total subscriber count, and a couple examples of the recent campaign stats.
Make sure you’ve got enough content on your site before applying for any ad networks
Your site isn’t going to be accepted into any ad network or even Google Adsense right away. You need a good amount of content. A good rule of thumbs is to publish over 20 posts within a 90-day period. Make sure you’ve hooked up Google Analytics to your website, so you can share your stats when you’re ready to sign up for any ad program.
12 Ways on How to Monetize a Website
Below are some of the many ways you can monetize a website:
1. Sell in-house ad spaces
2. Join ad networks and get paid by the click
3. Write sponsored posts
4. Accept sponsored guest posts
5. Affiliate marketing
6. Sell your own merchandise
7. Launch your own e-course
8. Accept sponsored content for your email newsletter
9. Launch paid membership section
10. Accept donations
11. Sell your knowledge
12. Create and flip websites
1. Sell in-house ad spaces
What better to make money than to directly sell ads on your site. The beauty of this method is that you’re not paying a cut to an ad network, and you get to list your own price. You can choose spots in your site to sell ads, whether it’s above your content, after your content, in your site’s sidebar, or anywhere.
2. Join ad networks and get paid by the click
Ad networks like Google Adsense and Infolinks allow you to create ad spots and use their network to help you display those advertisements on your site. When a visitor clicks on them, you get a small amount of money. However, every little bit does add up! Once you sign up for an ad network, you create some ad spots, and then add their network code on your website.
3. Write sponsored posts
There are companies looking for people to write about their products and services. Some of them might be related to what you blog about, so why not put a price on what it would take to write a sponsored article. Just make sure that if your country’s government requires you to disclose sponsored content, that you add a disclaimer somewhere on the post.
4. Accept sponsored guest posts
If you don’t have time to write sponsored posts, you can always accept sponsored guest posts. Some businesses have people who will write and submit content to sites. Some of them may require you to give them an author mention, or may prefer that you publish the post under your own name, also known as ghost blogging.
With this method, make sure you have boundaries on what links and topics are acceptable. Additionally, make sure that the company is aware that because it is your site, that you reserve the right to edit and modify the article to fit your site’s tone.
5. Affiliate Marketing
Don’t have any products to sell? Well, there are plenty of other people out there that do, and that’s where affiliate marketing could make you some dough. With affiliate marketing, you’re promoting someone else’s stuff, and with each successful sale, you get a percentage of it.
There are so many different affiliate programs, that you can find something that will fit with your website. Here’s some affiliate marketing sites:
Conversant (formerly Commission Junction)
6. Sell your own merchandise
Love creating your own products? You can sell them on your website too. If you’re a WordPress user, WooCommerce is great for selling your own stuff, and even for drop shipping too. If you only sell digital downloads, then WordPress user’s can benefit from using Easy Digital Downloads.
7. Launch your own e-course
Love to teach, then you can create your own e-course for people to sign up and learn about. You can set up membership as a subscription by the month or year, or give an overall price for each course,
8. Accept sponsored content for your email newsletter
Run an email newsletter? If you’re sending out content to your email list regularly, you can even accept sponsored content. Just name your price, and how many emails you will send out. You may want to also give them a report of how many people opened the emails, and how many clicked. In some cases, the advertiser will send you the content.
9. Launch paid membership section
Got content that you want to limit to members only. You can launch a paid membership to have your own type of Patreon on your website. Whether it’s exclusive graphics, or articles, your hardcore fans will appreciate these extras, and want to pay for them.
10. Accept donations
As a content creator, sometimes they just want to give you some money as a way to thank you. Add a donation button and accept tips. While this way doesn’t make much money, you can always include something in your posts that if they like your content, then they can buy you a coffee or tea, by donating.
11. Sell your knowledge
You might have experience that no one else has, and that’s extremely valuable to those that want to learn. Sell your knowledge by offering consultation services, or other special services. For example, if you’re great at coaching startups, then you can offer sessions for people wanting to launch a successful business.
12. Create and flip websites
There are lots of people out there that don’t have a lot of spare time to create their own site. Creating content, designing, and maintaining a site can be tedious at times. So, why not build mini-sites with valuable content, and flip them on Flippa.
In Summary
Now that you have all these ways on how to monetize a website, you can try them out on your own site. Try one way or try them all. Please note that it does take time to make money, so don’t dive in thinking you’ll be swimming in the dough super quickly. In the meantime, happy content creation, and good luck making money!
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you make money from running a blog?
Yes, there are several ways to monetize your blog, including digital products, affiliate marketing ads, and so on. However, to monetize a blog, you will need a decent amount of blog traffic.
Do you need technical skills to make money?
No, but having a bit of background knowledge of the industry definitely helps. Most hosting platforms will be able to walk you through the technical aspects of reselling though.
How do DIY blogs make money?
Some ways you can make money from your DIY blog include sponsored content, direct sales, advertising space, ad networks, affiliate programs, and so on.
How do beginner blogs make money?
One of the most common ways that beginner blogs make money is through display advertisements and affiliate marketing.
Nile Flores is a long time professional blogger, as well as WordPress website designer and developer from the St. Louis Metro East. Nile blogs at NileFlores.com, where she’s passionate about helping website owners, whether they’re small business owners or bloggers. She teaches about Blogging, Social Media, Search Engine Optimization, Website Design, and WordPress. Additionally, Nile loves to speak at WordCamps (WordPress conferences) across the United States. When Nile isn’t knee-deep in coding, she’s a proud mom of a college student, and enjoys oil painting, cigar smoking, nail art design, and practicing traditional Okinawan kempo karate.
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