How to Successfully Monetize Your Website or Blog?

Making money from a website or a blog has turned into a successful endeavor for many.

Are you inspired by the long string of names who have made a mark by earning huge revenues using their sites? Do you want to follow suit? Then you’ve arrived at the right place. 

Every site follows different tactics, and it can get a bit overwhelming when you try to implement those for your site. But worry not, as we have got you covered with some of the best methods that can help you. 

Take your pick based on what works best for your website and get the cash registers ringing. 

Use Ad Networks such as Google AdSense (PPC)

Google AdSense remains one of the most effective ways to monetize any website. The catch is that you can earn a decent amount of money only when your blog or site gets an incredible number of visits (Here are some proven tips for this!). 

The main benefit of using AdSense to earn money is that there is no initial investment. The prices paid by it is usually based on the auction and are dynamic in nature. 

How it works – You need to place ads on your website. When a new visitor clicks or views the ads, you get paid.

To go about this, create a well-optimized campaign, which is in-sync with your blog. The ads you need to select for your site should be relevant; otherwise, it will yield no results. For instance, if you run a blockchain blog, your advertising needs to be tied to cryptocurrency and similar topics. 

For your Joomla sites, you can trust the SocialAds extension that is extremely powerful, scalable, easy to set up, and highly intuitive. 

It can take a bit of practice, but once you are confident, it will start fetching best results. 

Try Affiliate Marketing

Simply put, affiliate marketing is to refer your visitors to a site for purchasing products or services. When the visitors decide to purchase from that site, you get paid. Ergo, you get commissions from the sales that are generated via your website. 

One of the best ways to go about this is to publish detailed content on the site that informs the target audience and educates them. Reviews, product comparisons, FAQs, How-To guides and instructions are some of the content types that can get you a steady audience who will be inclined to make purchases after reading the content.

Quick Tip: Always use the affiliate links within the content in a natural manner. 

Start Selling Ad Space

When you are able to get decent traffic on your website, you can start selling direct ads on the website. You can create an ‘Advertise with Us’ page, with information about different ad formats and the cost of placing an ad on the site. Also provide the information about your site’s Alexa rank, Google PageRank and the audience profile. This can help the advertisers make a more informed decision and also help in building up the credibility of your site. Before this step, you need to create and publish quality content, work on the SEO bits, and enhance the ranking of your site. 

Use Monetization Widgets/Plugins

Monetized widgets dynamically pull in ads. By implementing these on your site, you can earn affiliate income or get paid based on per impression or per click for these ads. For instance, the Amazon Associates Program lets you earn affiliate income by displaying the widget. The best part is that there is literally no set up time, and you don’t even require a lot of traffic to get the money flowing. You can take your pick from several monetization widgets and plugins that are available. 

Native Advertising

One of the biggest fears that plagues publishers are that the ads on their websites stick out like a sore thumb! This is where native ads come to the rescue. These ads easily blend in with the appearance of the website and offer a seamless experience for the visitors. The non-intrusive ads reduce the bounce rate of the website as they engage the audience to click on them. 

Quick Tip: Make it a point to match the ad with the voice and the quality of your blog. 

Email Newsletters  

Site owners often use email newsletters to reach out to their audience. These also help them establish and maintain long-term relationships with their audience through a steady communication flow. But did you know that these newsletters can help you generate some revenue? As emails are one of the most popular ways to reach out to the target audience, several brands are willing to pay for ad space in newsletters.

To put this into action, curate topnotch content and create an exclusive newsletter only for your target audience. Likewise, you can include a few ads in the newsletter to earn from them. 

Accept Donations 

Many bloggers and publishers display donation buttons on their website. This option is used to support their publishing endeavors. More often than not, it helps them recover some of the money they invest in maintaining an active site. 

To get the ball rolling, including a link on your website along with creative text and some accompanying information. Don’t forget to add an attractive call-to-action button.  Also, make it a point to send automated tax receipts to the donors to establish authenticity. 

Sponsored Content 

Reviews, sponsored blog posts, giveaways are some variants of sponsored content, which can help you earn via your website. The issue with sponsored content is that while it allows publishers to earn money, it can put your website at the risk of earning a penalty from Google. 

The reason is simple. Google thinks that paid links can twist the rankings on the search engine, and therefore, it penalizes sites that use them. 

Surely, you don’t want your website to be penalized. The way out is to include the paid links in the sidebar or within the content but by using nofollow tags. This will help you comply with Google’s strict guidelines to the T.

Quick Tip:  Don’t forget to mention at the beginning of the sponsored post that it is sponsored content. 

Online Courses

Are you a subject matter expert in some domain? You can share your knowledge through online courses and earn money from selling the course content. 

There are several tutorials that can help you get started with creating the courses and selling them online. Since there will be several similar courses online, make sure that the content you offer in the course is unique. Make the course relevant and see to it that it offers some value to the target audience. This will help you reach out to more people and at the same time, help you graduate from an expert blogger to an expert in the subject. 

Next up, start promoting the courses in as many ways as possible. For instance, you can create social media pages and posts to promote the course or create blogs with a call-to-action that leads readers to the course. 

White Papers and eBooks

Selling eBooks and whitepapers is another money-making strategy for your site. You can write a related eBook based on your experiences and expertise. For instance, if your site is targeted towards stay-at-home-moms, you can pen a book based on anecdotes and tips that caters to readers who are interested in the topic. Similarly, if you like writing about technology, then you can come up with white papers discussing the latest topics and trends. If your blog is about photography, maybe you can publish an eBook to teach the tips and tricks of the trade for beginners. 

You get the drift!

Paywall to Sell Premium Content 

Paywalls work wonders when you want people to read more of the published content on your website. Medium.com does it with its metered paywall system. Similarly, you use a paywall on your website and get paid to make the readers access premium content. As opposed to subscription, paywalls let visitors pay for accessing a single article. Therefore, make sure that each piece of content is unique, well-researched, and offers real value to the readers. 

Bonus: Sell the Site You Created

We are talking about Flipping, which is about purchasing a domain, developing a full-fledged, quality site, and then selling it on bidding sites. These sites will have plenty of buyers for sites that are ready to plug-and-play. Done right, this can fetch thousands of dollars. The trick is to create a domain that attracts potential buyers, so focus on getting the best domain initially, and build the site from thereon.  

And remember, no blog or website started earning money right from day one itself! You need to make consistent efforts in putting these points in practice, put in dedication and time into it. Start by trying out a few options and see what works best to increase your revenue stream. This will help you make an informed decision.