1. Affiliate Marketing (.. and affiliate links)
Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular (not to mention quickest) ways to make money from your website or blog.
Start by finding a product you like and would recommend. Then on your website, you endorse the product and promote it to your website visitors and email subscribers. If the product or service resonates with these people, they'll click on your affiliate link , purchasing the product (while you get a split of the sale price).
- Commission junction – offers reliable products with on-time payments.
- ShareASale – mostly clothes, accessories, and other offline goods.
- Clickbank – high percentage payouts, but there's a lack of GOOD products to promote.
- Amazon – a great option with above average commission rates.
2. Pay Per Click Advertising (Google Adsense)
AdWords are the advertisements that show up on the top of Google search result pages.
The best part about this system is how simple everything is. Once you sign up, you just have to place a simple code on your website that will identify the content of your site and start displaying relevant advertisements.
3. Sell Ad Space
Incorporating Google's AdSense on your website is just one way to make money from online advertisements.
Another is to simply sell your own ad space directly to companies looking to sponsor different blogs. You can come up with a price for each space, for example: "Sidebar banner ads will cost $xxx per month ".
You can get paid depending on how many visitors you get. Typically it's quoted as a dollar amount per one thousand impressions (or CPM) . You might see it as: $5 CPM. If the website gets 100,000 visits a month, that ad price translates into $500 bucks.
The other common method when selling ad space directly from your website is a simple direct price. You simply name a price (based on what you think it's worth, relative to what the competition might be charging), and get paid upfront at the beginning of each month. This pricing is also generally a simple flat fee, not tied to a Cost Per Click like AdSense.
Where can I let others know that my website is selling ad space?
BuySellAds – The most popular environment to let everybody know you're selling ad space.
4. Sell Your Own Digital Product (Ebook for Example)
You have the potential to make the most money on a per sale basis when you can sell your own directly.
That's because there's no middle-man or person in between you and the buyer that's taking a 'cut' from the money earned.
This approach seems fairly straightforward because you can simply sell these products directly through your website and get paid immediately. Unfortunately, it's not that simple in reality.
5. Ask for Donations from visitors
If you don't have a plenty of monthly visits, but you do have a strong, engaged community? Simply ask your readers to donate!
Accepting one-off donations isn't a quick way to being wealthy, but it can help you cover expenses in the short-term if people like your content and want to support your journey.
For example, PayPal offers little donation buttons that only take about ten minutes to add to your website, offering you a quick way to recoup what you might be spending on a good web hosting , new product creation, research, and all of the other costs to maintain a healthy, active blog.
6. Accept sponsored posts & articles (…but use nofollow tag)
One of the common ways to make more money from your website means getting those visitor numbers up.
Once you've done the hard work of building steady traffic to your site with an engaged community, there are a few different ways to monetize your hard work.
For example, many companies go out of their way to look for blogs that will feature their sponsored content. ' Native advertising' like this works well because it lines up with your site's primary content and it comes across as relevant and transparent.
You can also review the products from a company in an 'advertorial' that's part content, part advertisement. For example, if your website is all about the latest iOS games for iPhones and iPads, the creator of one of those ads would LOVE to have you review and feature their app to your fans.
Spend any amount of time reading blog growth tips, and you're sure to come across people saying "the money's in the list ".
They're referring to your email list, which comprises your most loyal readers. The objective is to convert as many strangers who visit your site for the first time into passionate followers who want to stay up-to-date on your latest work or content.
Admittedly this is a long term strategy (and you definitely won't get rich overnight). But it's one of the best, long-term methods to profitably growing your blog into a full-fledged, money making enterprise.
8. Set up an e-commerce site
Websites don't just have to be about content. They can be centered around tools or products on an online store.
There are literally hundreds of thousands of eCommerce websites or online stores. Make sure that yours is filling a unique niche, with a detailed strategy and the latest marketing techniques to stand out from the crowd.
9. Flip Your Websites (Create -> Sell -> Reinvest)
Believe it or not, there's almost always a market out there for your website.
That means if you've built up a following (or possibly even sold a few products or included advertising on your site), you might be able to sell it to someone else and make a quick buck
You can't deny how lucrative it can be. For example, if your website is making $500 per/month through selling ad space, you might be able to sell the site for $5,000 – $10,000 (which is about 1 2x – 22x monthly income).