If you have a website or a blog, then we have some great news for you. Contrary to popular beliefs, making money online is not as easy as some people make it seem. In fact, it requires a lot of hard work and careful planning. If you have some time and patience, you can use some strategies to have your website start making money for you. Read more as we outline how to make this happen
Affiliated Marketing
If you follow influencers on Instagram or read food blogs, chances are that you are well aware of affiliated marketing. Essentially, you would use your website to publish original content, but give nods to certain products or services in exchange for a little kickback.
There are several ways in which people capitalize on affiliated marketing.
Reviews and Recommendations
People love reviews! Whether it is from a family member, a friend, or a website, people seek advice and experience on potential products and services that they are looking to spend money on. This is where your website comes in. Do some research on potential purchases and publish reviews with links to the appropriate websites or outlets.
Recommendations often go hand-in-hand with reviews. There are a few bloggers that have a list of products and services that they highly recommend because they trust them, like them, and sometimes, just because they get paid to promote them. By adding a page devoted to recommendations with links, you can also earn money.
Tutorials
There are also countless web or graphic designers and photographers that have websites that offer similar services to online classes. They often have a few tutorials or how-to videos walking users through a creative process, then at the end, they advertise things like program presets, graphics bundles, and templates that are available for purchase.
Sell
Selling a product or service is a pretty obvious option for earning money. This method is a double-edged sword for many. On one hand, you can simply create a product and promote it, which can be difficult depending on your niche and what you’re selling. On the other hand, you don’t necessarily need to keep creating new content, as you do for blogs in order to be successful. If you happen to have a flourishing ecommerce site, it can also very valuable commodities that you can sell as well!
Here are a few ideas for things that you can offer on your website.
Physical Products
Selling t-shirts, stickers, and other tangible goods is a great way to have your website make money. Depending on how hands-on you want to be, you can use a dropshipping service and just promote, or you can handle everything from customer service to restocking and shipping your products. This can be a bit more time-consuming than some of the other options, but it is very profitable.
Books
If you happen to have a high level of knowledge in a particular field or have an interesting take on life and have put the metaphorical pen to paper, you can try to get it published. Whether it is a digital, physical, or audiobook, you can sell it through your website. For obvious reasons, this is a very involved and lengthy strategy that can take quite some time to execute.
Don’t forget that ecommerce sites are great places to host pay-per-click advertisements for extra capital!
Online Class
In the past few years, online classes or courses have become an extremely popular way to cash in on knowledge and experience. You have probably seen famous celebrities and personalities such as Gordon Ramsey, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Margaret Atwood offering courses pertaining to their fields of expertise. What better way to capitalize on your knowledge than using your website!
Membership Subscription
Some successful blogs and websites pertaining to design work, cooking, as well as news sites have a mixture of free to consume material available to all, and then a bit more of an exclusive area. By adding a paywall that restricts access to extras, add-ons, and specialties, this is a great way to increase cash flow.
Cash in on Your Email List
If you have a newsletter that goes out periodically, then charging a premium for people to receive it is a business model that some news sites and magazines utilize. When considering this option, quality and consistency need to be your primary concerns!
Sponsorships
Sponsorships are a great tie in with product reviews and recommendations. You can either reach out to the company that you are seeking sponsorship for, or vice-versa. In exchange for you using, displaying, or promoting their products or services, you can charge them a fee for being featured.
Donations
If you pride yourself on being independent and want to keep giving your audience high quality content, then donations are a way to get paid. There are streamers, artists, and podcasts that utilize this model and are rather successful.
Sell Your Skills
The freelancer and side gig market has seen an explosion in recent years. A way that people capitalize on their website is by giving a a brief demonstration of why or how they are an expert in their field to have clients hire or pay them. This is a great option if you are a web developer, consultant, or work in the marketing field. Don’t forget that you don’t have to offer only distance meetings; you can offer in-person and experiential services as well!
Certifications
Like an online class, you can offer a course for people to become certified in a specific field of study as well. If you happen to be a recognized expert in your field of study and expertise, then you could potentially offer certification programs. Credibility and recognition is key, so this isn’t necessarily an option for everybody.
Make and Sell Websites
If you have a knack for creating websites, then you could become a website flipper. If you can successfully build a website that generates income, this is a very profitable niche and skillset. The best and most profitable sites to do this with are blogs with sponsors, ecommerce sites, as well as news or magazine websites. This can take a while, as you will have to build a website with a proven record of consistent income and traffic.
No matter if you are trying to use your website or blog to make money as a side gig or as your full time job, there is a lot of work and effort involved. It is unlikely that you will see profits within the first few months, but don’t let that discourage you. Follow some of the above tips and methods to have your website start making money for you.