Do you have a dream of being able to make money with your website? It can feel exactly like that – just a dream.
I am here to say that it IS possible to make money from your website. While your revenues may be small while you build excellent content and grow your community, if you’re consistent, you CAN make money with your website.
In this two-part series, I’m going to cover some of the ways you can start to make money with your website TODAY. While not all of these strategies will be right for every person or business, hopefully this list will give you some ideas to get you started.
In this first post, I’m going to cover some of your options when it comes to website advertising. I’ll also talk about how to use affiliate marketing on your site.
In part two, I’ll give you a list of some other, perhaps not as obvious strategies. There will be some overlap between the two lists, but hopefully you’ll find a bit of inspiration and be able to start implementing a few of these strategies TODAY!
Don’t have your website or blog set up yet?
If you haven’t yet set up your site, no problem. I’ve created a comprehensive post that will walk you through EXACTLY how to set up your blog in 30 minutes or less.
It will show you how to:
- Choose a blogging platform and domain name
- Find the best web hosting service (I always recommend Bluehost, which is what we use here!)
- Choose your domain name
- Customize your blog’s appearance
- Write your first blog post (link to “How To Write Your First Blog Post”)
Click here to set up your blog now: How To Start A Blog In 30 Minutes Or Less.
6 Ways To Make Money With Your Website – Starting With Ad Dollars
Following are six strategies for finding targeted advertisers and affiliate partners you can promote on your site.
1. Approach advertisers directly
While selling display ads on your site can be one of the most profitable methods of advertising, it can also be the most difficult to nail down. It involves finding potential advertisers, coming up with rates, and tracking and monitoring ad performance. It will also necessitate maintaining a minimum amount of traffic to your site during your ad partnership.
Ad placements on your site may include: the sidebar, at the top of your site, in a featured box on your homepage, in a pop-up, or really anywhere that has some good visibility.
2. Join an ad network
If the idea of hunting down advertisers doesn’t thrill you, another option is to sign up with an ad network.
An ad network is a company that connects advertisers with websites (“publishers”) who will display their ads for a fee. In exchange, the ad network takes a cut of the publisher’s revenue.
An ad network like BlogDash will let you find advertisers and track your results
The upside is that you can focus on producing great content, and don’t have to directly find and deal with advertisers. The downside is that the ad network fees can really cut into your profits.
Some ad networks you may want to check out include BlogDash, PropellorAds and PopAds.
3. Sign up with Google AdSense
If you can’t be bothered to pound the pavement looking for potential advertisers or ad networks, signing up with Google AdSense and displaying Google ads on your site is quick and easy.
You can display text or image ads in a variety of shapes, colors and sizes. While AdSense is one of the easiest ways to get started with advertising, keep in mind that websites with small amounts of niche traffic likely won’t see big revenues.
To sign up for Google AdSense, click here.
4. Join an affiliate program
By signing up with an affiliate program, you promote other people’s products and receive a percentage of the revenue when someone purchases a product through your affiliate link.
A good rule of thumb is to try to join programs that will give you at least $20 or 30% per sale. Otherwise you could be putting in a ton of work for very little pay off!
I was able to quickly find this program by searching for “clothing + affiliate program”
If there’s a type of product you think your readers would enjoy, try running a Google search for “product name + affiliate program”. For instance, if you’d like to promote computer accessories, try running a search for “computer accessories + affiliate program” or “external hard drive + affiliate”.
5. Become an Amazon affiliate
The largest and most well known affiliate program is of course Amazon’s. While commissions tend to be quite low – ranging from 4%-10% typically – the ease of signing up and adding widgets and ads to your site makes it quite an attractive option.
And the best part about the program? If a visitor clicks on your affiliate link and buys something else on Amazon, you STILL get a commission. For most other affiliate programs, you only get the commission if the person buys the product you were recommending!
While larger sites are typically more successful with Amazon due to higher traffic volumes, smaller niche sites can do quite well if they find the right products to promote.
6. Join an affiliate network
Signing up with an affiliate network gives you access to a wide variety of different affiliate programs (see #4). So instead of going through the signup process for each individual affiliate program, you sign up once for the network and have access to many different programs (although you still need to be approved for each individual program).
An affiliate network like ClickBank lets you search for affiliates by specific categories
Some of the bigger affiliate networks you may want to check out include ShareASale, Rakuten, and ClickBank.
Hopefully there are one or two ideas here you can implement on your own site. But if not, stay tuned! In my next post I’ll cover some of the lesser-known ways of generating revenue from your blog.
Do you struggle to earn income from your site? What’s your biggest challenge? Let me know below and I’ll see if I can help!
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1 thought on “How To Make Money With Your Website, Part I”
Good options. I am just beginning to consider advertising on one of my sites, because I have come to realize that my readers are actually not my ideal clients (if that makes any sense).