Top 23 Ways To Monetize your Website

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.