Monetize Your Website in 10 Ways

You've gone through the motions and now your website is up and running. Now traffic is rolling in and you want to finally monetize it. After all, in order to be considered a real business, you have to bring in money. Thankfully, there are various ways in which you can monetize your website to earn an income.

10 Quick Ways to Monetize Your Website

1. Affiliate Marketing – Many Solopreneurs have products, software, and services that they pay a percentage of sales to people (affiliates) who promote their products. To become an affiliate, typically, they ask you to sign up, provide some information so that they can pay you, and then they provide you with some promotional tools for the product, such as HTML codes, images, and even content. You place these items on your website and other online platforms you have as you promote the affiliate products. From articles, video reviews, tweets of images, and ads on your website, you have many creative ways to promote others without it all being links and simple ads on sidebars.
2. Sell Your Own Products – If you know your audience well enough, you have likely identified some problems that need to be solved. If you can create a product that provides solutions to them, then you can market that product through your website. Great ideas are apps, information products, eCourses, podcasts, eBooks, and reports. You can use a combination of these or focus on one product to help get your revenue started.
3. Sell Your Services – If you’ve managed to create a popular website that has generated interest, views, followers, and fans, and you understand writing, content, SEO and online marketing, you can offer to become a consultant to others who want to do the same. You’ve got the recipe, and you’re the magic ingredient to help others experience the success that you have. Don't be afraid to share the knowledge that you've learned and the failures you've experienced.
4. Pay-Per-Click Advertising – Most people display Google Ads on their websites and in their blog posts when appropriate to help generate extra income. It’s easy to sign up for Google AdSense, and it’s easy to earn money from the ads delivered based on the content you have on your website, provided that you follow the rules and create a very niche-oriented, SEO-oriented website. Just remember not to annoy Google, and you'll be just fine!
5. Direct Display Ads – You can avoid ad services and simply sell them directly to others from your website. There are numerous WordPress plugins that can help you deliver these paid ads to your customers. This option works best for a higher-ranking website and provides a situation where you’re not worried about your competition placing an advertisement with you.
6. Business Resource Directory – Install a business directory on your website where others can enter their product and/or services in your directory for a small fee. For example, if you have a website that offers support to work-at-home moms or virtual assistants, you could provide Your own type of Elance or Angie's List directory where they can be listed or where you list products and services that will help them and customers.
7. Sponsored Articles – Think of how Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, and other companies are doing it. Either based on browsing history or profiles, the sponsored articles will be shown to those who match any particular brands. As long as you’ve matched the brands you’ll promote with your audience and the information you provide is true, original, and unique, nothing is wrong with offering a sponsored blog article service. It is important that both parties realize that you will always clearly inform your audience the blog articles are sponsored. You can do sponsored giveaways, and so much more.
8. Sponsored Reviews – Once your website is established, it is more than likely people will start wanting you to review their products and/or services, and they’ll be willing to pay for it. There is nothing wrong with doing this as long as you are upfront that you will be honest about your review, and that you will also let your audience know that someone paid you to do the review.Just like on YouTube, many sponsored reviews include letting the audience in on the behind-the-scenes experience, such as receiving a free trip to Disney for the family and then blogging about the experience with an honest review of every aspect of the trip.
9. Start a Pay-Per-View Premium Website  – Do you offer expert advice on an important topic where people might be willing to pay for answers? There is no reason why you should give away your advice for free. You can start a pay-per-view premium area of your website where people pay for specialized access to your premium content and even access to you, such as a monthly teleconference, or a special Q & A session. And yes, there is a plugin to allow pay per view content if you use WordPress.
10. Ask for Donations – PayPal offers the code to add an easy donation button to your website. Many Solopreneurs and bloggers use the donate button and make a good living with that business model. Even app makers often work with donations only. Some people have found they earn more money if people are allowed to just donate what they feel is fair.

The Rundown

Regardless of which ways you choose to monetize your website, it’s imperative that you understand three things: 1) who your audience is, 2) what your point of view is, and 3) how to combine the two in order to provide solutions to your audience members willing to pay money for. By doing so, you can earn a living from your online business.