Long time readers know I’ve run multiple online businesses for years. I’ve been involved with dozens over the years; some my own and some were for clients. Over the years I’ve picked up on the fact that EVERYONE and I do mean everyone wants to own and run their own online business.
Let’s face it the pros outweigh the cons in this business. You can work from home, you are your own boss, you don’t ever have to wake up to an alarm again in your life, you can work in sweatpants and a t-shirt (I’m in basketball shorts at present time), the margins are great, you can live anywhere while running this business, there are no annual reviews where your boss beats up your performance and highlights your weaknesses, no office politics or having to kiss the bosses son’s ass. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
I know I don’t really have to sell you on the idea of starting your own website. You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t interested in the idea already.
Because I am getting into the Christmas spirit a bit early I thought I would tell you all the ways in which business owners (myself and others) make money from their websites. This content is usually reserved for paid members but like I said I’m feeling rather generous this time of year. My only hope is that you’ll put this knowledge to good use and let 2013 be THE year that you take control of your financial freedom and start your own website.
Let’s get started…
No matter what anyone else tells you there are really only two ways to make money from your site; everything else is just a form of these two methods.
Sell Products or Services through your site
OR
Sell Ad Space On your site
Keeping that in mind, read through the list of ways to make money online below, and choose the best monetization strategies for your site. The people who “get it” won’t limit themselves to only one way to make money from their site. Just like this newsletter and website. Sometimes I sell my own programs while other times I get paid advertisers like the sponsored content above.
The best strategy is to use multiple methods. This is a plus because then you develop multiple streams of income. You’ll literally have money pouring in to your bank accounts! Start off small with just one and then when you get comfortable and master it, add another, and another and another. As you become more of an expert the size of those revenue streams will grow.
Affiliate Marketing
This method is an offshoot of number 1, selling products through your site. With affiliate marketing you make money by selling other people’s products. It’s a great way for beginners to dip their toes in the online market. The way this works is you join a company’s affiliate program and they send you the sales letters, ads and links to sell their products. You never have to deal with credit card processing, answering customer questions, returns or any of the hum drum work that goes along with selling. Typically affiliates make 50 percent of the price of the product they sell. When looking for affiliate programs to join, look for companies that offer product lines that match up with the content on your site. For example if you write about animals, look for affiliate programs that sell pet products. Don’t sell hair extensions or jewelry, that won’t work. If you are interested in starting a site about small business advice and internet marketing affiliate programs related to that.
Email Marketing
Affiliate marketing works phenomenally well if it is used in conjunction with email marketing. This method is the first online money making strategy I ever used. I still use it today because it’s the most profitable of all the methods I’ll tell you about today. Basically you build a list of thousands of email names. The bigger the list, the more money you’ll make. The main advantage of email marketing is that you are able to deliver your services and products directly in your customer’s inbox. To create an email list put a sign up box on your website or blog and give away free reports on subjects people would be interested in. You can also rent other people’s email lists and send offers to them. If they buy from you, add them to your list.
Newsletter Advertising
Most people that do email marketing have an online newsletter they send out to their list. It’s a way to deliver content directly to your customers, rather than hoping they visit your site every day. Include a few text ads in the middle of the newsletter for your or other company’s products. It’s easy to do and creates an additional stream of income.
Wholesale
If you find that an affiliate product is selling really well for you, see if you can buy it wholesale. You’ll make more money if you do it this way. Just be sure you have found a product/service that works for your audience as you don’t want to get trapped with a bunch of unsellable inventory.
Job Boards
If you set up a niche website then this would be a good page to add to your site. It creates its own revenue stream or builds traffic to your site so you can charge more money for the ads that get displayed. A job board is pretty self-explanatory, basically it’s a forum where people who need projects done or want to hire someone will post a listing and readers can respond and apply for jobs. If you have a wordpress site this is super easy to install, there is a jobpress plugin you can set up.
Review Products
This is another great method for niche sites. You review or give pros and cons of other people’s products and services. This method gives you great original content and if the product you review has an affiliate program then it’s also a great way to make money. You can include a link to buy the product right after they read the review. Just make sure to be honest in your reviews or people will stop trusting you and stop visiting your site.
Members Only Content
If you have specialized content in a sought after field, then you can use it to earn money online. Most company’s make their content free in order to attract customers and traffic to their site. If your content will help people be better at something then consider putting it behind a paywall. In other words, charge customers to download your content. To work, you have to be able to offer subscribers something they can’t get elsewhere, or can’t get easily somewhere else. Case studies, tutorials, webinars, research reports, member forums, how to videos are all examples of premium content you can put in a members only section. In addition to the monthly subscription fees you collect, you can sell additional products and services to your members.
In Text Advertising
This method places sponsored links inside your content. These links look different from normal links by double underlining them. Once a customer rolls the mouse over the link an advertisement pops up. If the customer clicks on the ad, you make money. Just be careful not to do this too many times in each letter, it can get annoying.
Lead Generators
In this instance you want to attract customers with your content and ask them if they’d like more information. This usually involves getting them to fill out a form with their contact information. You then sell that lead to a sales team who follows up with the customers and tries to sell them a service or a product. I’ve seen this done well with real estate websites. If your site talks about real estate in your area you could sell leads to a local real estate investor who could try to get them to invest with his company or sell them his consulting services. Again, this is one of those things that works well only if you have a niche site.
Pay Per Click Advertising
Google Adsense is the most popular Pay Per Click advertising network, but there are others like Kontera and Vibrant Media. To do this you need to sign up with one of the networks and paste a code on your website. Then the network can serve up text or image based advertisements relevant to your site. Every time someone clicks on the ad, you make money. How much money depends on the amount of traffic your website gets and how much advertisers pay for ads in your niche as well as where the ads are placed on your pages. Ads placed above the fold or blended with content will make you more money.
This list is by no means an exhaustive one, but I do consider these 10 methods to be the best ones. The great thing is that they are all perfect for beginners and intermediate level internet entrepreneurs. Save this, print it, pin it…just be sure to use this information to finally live your dream of becoming an online business owner.
Good luck!
Ethan Warrick
