How To Monetize Your Site – 50 Ways

1. Merchandising

If you are a blogger and you have a strong fan base, take advantage of merchandising opportunities. You can use CafePress.com, which makes it easy for you to put your blog’s logo on shirts, bags, coasters and other items and then you can sell it. Or if you prefer, you may want to create and self-publish your own books with self-publishing services like Lulu, and you’ll earn profits even without a huge book deal. Besides books, you can also create hard-copy content on CD-ROM “book” with cleanly organized content that can be accessed offline. Taking things a step further, sell subscriptions for future updates to the system. Another merchandising opportunity is to design and sell custom products with Printfection.com or GoodStorm.

2. Text Link Advertising

Text link advertising involves you placing a text link ad on your blog or website. Text links are text on your site that is hyperlinked to a specific page on another site. Your site which publishes the text links (called the publisher) gets paid by an advertiser who is trying to drive traffic to the linked page. Publishers can get paid based on the number of clicks on the text link ad (called pay-per-click) or they could get paid a flat fee for publishing the link.

3. Selling Services

Monetize your website by attracting new customers (clients, patients, …) and rendering your services to them, for which they pay you a fee.

4. PPC Advertising Networks

Sign up with PPC (pay-per-click) networks 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. Some popular CPC Advertising Networks include:

• www.google.com/adsense
• publisher.yahoo.com
• www.bidvertiser.com
• chitika.com
• www.clicksor.com

This is an excellent course that shows you how to make money through PPC: http://ppcquake.com/

5. CPM Ads (Cost Per Thousand)

CPM ads pay per impression. The downside of this is that you’re paid almost nothing for each impression because rates can go as low as $0.10 per thousand impressions. The strategy is to use CPM in conjunction with CPC ads. CPM ads can be placed in less prominent spaces (below the fold) whereas CPC ads should have better position. Networks that offer CPM/CPC ads include AdBrite and ValueClick Media.

6. Banner Advertising

For banner ads, you will need to have high traffic to make it worth the price for the advertiser. Generally banner advertisers will find you rather than the other way around, so if you focus on building traffic then have faith that they will eventually come. Another way is to join Technorati which once you are approved allows you to add blank ‘ad space’ to your site which advertisers can select and pay for without you doing any of the work. You can use this easy banner creator: http://www.easybannercreator.com/

7. Create Job Boards On Your Site

With a job board, employers will post a job on your board and readers will apply for the job. This is a great method of monetizing a website for authority websites. For smaller blogs, it might not work as well because it’s competitive and if you can’t send them anyone to apply, it’s pointless for them to post a job. Jobs can be anything from, writers to trainers.

8. Paid Content

Devote special sections of premium content to readers who are willing to pay for the information. Here are some examples of paid content you can offer to your readers:

• E-Books: It can be a compilation of your best tips or a new idea altogethe.
• White Papers: This include a more technical version of your content.
• Phone Calls: Sell one-on-one phone calls for advice and other consulting through Ether.
• Miniguides: Package your tips and advice up into a miniguide.
• Tutorials: Compileyour knowledge into a tutorial that relies upon your expert advice.
• Members-Only Sections: Deliver products or content that your readers are willing to pay for.
• TextMarks Inc.: Charge readers to get text-message alerts about your content.
• X-Events: Project physical events online and create revenue by charging admission, attracting sponsors and selling subscriptions to future events.
• Podcasts: Some readers may be willing to pay to be able to hear your entries on the go.
• Videos: Videos are value-added extras that readers may be willing to pay for.

9. Direct Sales

Sell your own products directly using shopping cart technology like:

• KickStartCart – A shopping cart, merchant account with marketing tools.
• PayPal – One of the lowest-cost choices for selling your own products.
• EasyStoreCreator – Includes hosting, merchant account integration, and shopping cart.
• 1ShoppingCart – Provides packages with marketing tools, shopping carts and merchant accounts.
• ASecureCart – An affordable shopping cart service
• NetSuite – Full e-commerce option.
• GotShoppingCart? – Free version available.
• 3D Cart – Includes marketing, statistics and more
• Americart – 30-day risk-free trial.
• MonsterCommerce – Full of features.

10. Affiliate Programs

Join and promote affiliate programs. There are hundreds (probably thousands) of affiliate programs to choose from. Most affiliate marketers create a website surrounding a particular niche and promote other people’s products on their site. What this means is that the reader is able to click on a image or text links on the affiliate marketer’s site and be directed to another merchant’s product which relates to the subject of the paragraph or page of the affiliate marketer’s website. When the visitor “clicks through” to your merchant partner – and buys – you get paid. Here’s an excellent affiliate marketing guide: http://www.commissionsavalanchemastery.com

11. 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 pagerank or high traffic, so that people purchasing a page will be able to benefit in some way.

12. CPA (Cost Per Action)

CPA ads pay per action. They are the highest paying ads. However, viewers don’t just need to click on them, but they actually have to do something, either sign up/register or make a purchase. How likely your visitors will click on the ad and perform the desired action will depend very much on how relevant the ad is to your content. Here’s an excellent CPA marketing guide: http://www.cpaquantum.com/

13. Paid Reviews

A company will pay you or provide you a complimentary service for reviewing their product or service in your blog. To get paid for writing reviews, approach a company directly, or use a website which pairs bloggers and advertisers – SponsoredReviews.com and BuyBlogReviews.com are two of these such services.

14. Email Marketing

Building a email list can make you a lot of money, help build a solid brand and of course help readers come back to your site, time after time. Email marketing can be seen to make you money in a few different ways, such as direct email promotions, to deliver free reports that are monetized and to drive traffic back to your site where you make money from other methods. The first thing you need to do is register an Aweber account. Sign up for an aweber account here: http://www.aweber.com

15. Asking For Donations

Ask your readers for donations in a polite way and the ones that truly value your work will likely be more than willing to help support your ongoing success. Here is how you can do it:

• Using PayPal: PayPal’s system allows you to place a donation button on your blog.
• Amazon Honor System: This system allows you to accept online donations.
• Mailed Checks: Provide readers with a P.O. box that they can mail donations to.
• Buy me a beer/coffee: Asking for donations in the form of a beer, coffee or other special item allows readers to reward you with something tangible.
• Amazon Wish List: This is not cash. This system asks readers to buy you items from your Amazon Wish List.

16. Parked Domains

Parked domains are additional domains which you host on your account. Parked domains are often used by businesses that want to have more than one web address for advertising purposes. You can use these services to make money from parked domains:

• Revenue Direct – Make money from a parked domain.
• Parked – Another option for parked domains.

17. 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. The ads served must be related to the content contained in the feed. If the RSS feed contains quality content, the ads are relevant, and the volume of ads is in balance with the volume of content served, advertising in RSS feeds will succeed. Players in this field include:

• www.feedburner.com
• www.bidvertiser.com
• www.pheedo.com

18. Sponsored Blog Posts

Sponsored blog posts are slightly different from paid reviews in that they may be a post written by an advertiser, or one written by you endorsing a product/service within it.

19. Membership Site & Premium Content

Premium content is paid for in a special members area, typically there is free content which attracts readers and then they realize they need more and will pay for it. Create a membership area for readers to login for premium content. Membership sites provide continuity income which comes to you month after month.

20. Offer Writing Gigs

After you have blogged for some time, you’ve provided a living resume to any blog network or news site that might be interested in hiring you.

21. Sell Ad Space

Once your website is getting substantial traffic and visitors, you can start selling ad space on your website. There are companies that provide content -targeted ads and you are able to control the ads that appear on your site. Another way is to get direct sponsors. This way you can name your own price for the ad space you are selling.

22. Selling the Website

Selling your website has the potential to generate a big sum of money in a short period of time. To determine the value of a website, the most commonly used parameter 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. This is an excellent course on selling websites for profits: http://www.millionairesociety.com/domainflipping/index.php

23. Sell Your Own Products

The simplest way creating a product is to create a 30+ page word document about something, turn it into a PDF and sell it. First, ask your audience what they want to know more about, create a product around that and sell it!

24. Seminars and Workshops

Once you have built a loyal following from your website, you will be seen as an expert in your niche. As an expert, you can invite readers to visit with you in person for seminars and workshops.

25. 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.

26. Paid Directory Listings

Have a directory on your blog where you link to different company’s and websites in your industry and charge a premium for the listing. This is actually beneficial to the reader, say you have a website about becoming a model, in the directory could be a section for photographers, where photographers pay to list their services. Models will come and look for the right person to take pictures of them for their portfolio, helpful and profitable.

27. Shareapic.net

Host your photos with this service, and you’ll get paid for the number of views they get. That means that you can publish them on your blog and get paid every time someone reads a post with one of your Shareapic.net photos on it.

28. Mentoring programs

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.

29. Host Webinars

Set up a free webinar series where you teach people something and then at the end you sell them into other webinars. Once you complete the webinar series, convert it into a product to sell.

30. Vizu Corp. Answers

Host polls on your site. Visitors will enjoy sharing their opinion, and you’ll earn some extra cash.

31. Sponsors for Single Columns or Events

If your 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. While this method helps you monetize, the sponsoring companies are able to target a more specific audience and with a reduced commitment. Win-win situation.

32. Private Forums

Create a private forum where members will pay a single or recurring fee to join. In order to charge a higher price for a forum membership, you need to provide real value for the members.

33. Audio Ads

Also called PPP (Pay Per Play), this advertising method concept is 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. However, this is a very intrusive form of advertising, so do think twice before using it.

34. Monetization Widgets

These are widgets that let you monetize your website. Examples include Widgetbucks and SmartLinks. Some of these services operate under a PPC scheme, others behave like text link ads, others yet leverage affiliate links. Their main differentiator, however, is the fact that they work as web widgets, making it easier for the user to plug and play the service on its website.

35. Syndication of Content

By repurposing content from other channels, or displaying your content on other websites can result in residual revenue in micropayments or fixed pricing. Displaying content feeds from other sources can result in content providers paying money to the provider.

36. Monetize Using Marketplaces

Depending on your niche, a market place that allows your visitors to buy, sell and trade products could work well. Over the time you could start charging a small fee for new product listings. The problem with this method is that there are no standard software on the web, so you would need to hire a coder to get a marketplace integrated into your website.

37. Pop-ups and Pop-unders

Warning: Stay away from this if you are trying to grow your site’s traffic and generate loyal visitors. Pop-ups are a common yet annoying form of advertising on the Internet. If you are just trying to make a much money as possible from your website, you could experiment with them. Here are some ad networks that use pop-ups:

• Tribal Fusion
• PayPopup
• PopupAd
• Adversal

Use this software to create your popups: http://www.popupdomination.com/live/

38. Selling Templates or WordPress Themes

Website templates and WordPress themes are becoming hotter and hotter on the internet, given the increase number of people wanting to get an online presence either for themselves or for their businesses. Hence, templates and WordPress Themes will be selling like hotcakes and it’s your choice whether to jump on the wagon.

39. Ecommerce

Selling online goods, and providing recommendations to them provides an opportunity for the seller to either profit from selling their own goods, or a wholesaler or middleman to take a cut from the transactions.

40. Selling Data

Collect information that can be resold to third parties. Data types could be: web traffic, search terms, registration information, email information. Please be open and transparent to your users when collecting information if this is your intention.

41. Downloadable Guide

Offer a downloadable guide on your website for a ridiculously low price as a front end. Power up on your backend in your sales funnel.

42. Teleseminars

Teleseminars are used to provide information, training, or promote or sell products to group of people interested in a particular topic. They are similar to traditional seminars, in content and purpose, but they are given over a teleconference or bridgeline rather than at a specific location.

43. Product Offer

Position and present your product or service to the prospect or market clearly and make sure that the end offer is irresistible. Your product offer should typically include features, advantages, and benefits for potential prospects.

44. A Clear Call To Action

You need a clear call to action. This is especially so if you are in the non-IM niche. Treat all potential customers as if they have not visited a website before, they don’t know that they have to click on the icon of the book to get to the sales page. A good CTA ( call to action) involves having a prospect just looking at it and knowing what to do next. Educate your prospects to buy.

45. Offer Something Free To Build Your List First

When the visitors land on your page, they are “strangers” and they are skeptical because they don’t know you. When you give them a free report in exchange for their name and email, they will trust you more because they perceive you as a giver and not a taker. After that, you can send them useful information, build relationship with them and turn them into “prospects”. Once they trust you, it is much easier to sell to them and you can turn them into “customers”. Eventually some will become “long term customers” and you can sell to them over and over again. This software helps you build your list fast: http://quizfunnel.com/

46. Make Your Offer More Prominent

Ensure that the first thing (or one of the first things) that your visitors see is your offer. In order to do that, keep your offer ‘above-the-fold’, meaning the user do not have to scroll down your website to see your offer, and include arrows or red boxes to make your offer stand out among the rest of the content on your page.

47. Track Your Conversions And Test

Install Google Analytics or any sort of analytics that track the behaviour of your visitors to your website. Look at your bounce rate, clickbank clicks, then maybe try the new layout and wait a month and check the bounce rate and the clickbank clicks, to see if it has made a difference. You need to test.

48. Generate Massive Traffic To Your Website

If your traffic is anything less than 100 visitors per day, you may find yourself struggling to convert sales. Calls for action and free offers and etc are very relevant to monetizing your site. However, without loads of traffic it’s not going to work. Here’s a course that shows you how to generate massive traffic: http://www.trafficevolution.com/power.html

49. Try Out Different Monetization Strategies

Some might notice that you are getting tons of traffic but your sales are not coming in at all. The problem is that all visitors are not created equal. Some click and some don’t. Your visitors are probably on your site to read your stories and they really don’t want to click something and leave the site. So maybe trying out a different monetization strategy is required.

50. Copy What Other Successful Marketers Are Doing

Find successful marketers in the niche you are currently in and find out what they are doing. Go to their sites and see how their website layout is like, are they using Google Adsense? CPA? Affiliate Reviews? Model after the successful and your success accelerates.