Just because you have an online website and steady traffic, do not expect to make money that easily. It takes a lot of work to create a proper monetization strategy and drive relevant traffic that converts.
Many website owners try multiple methods before they land on one or multiple ideas to make money from their sites. Ultimately, it is about trial and error to determine what works and what does not.
Let’s take a look at some of the best website monetization methods that should push struggling website owners in the right direction.
Affiliate Marketing
Starting with affiliate marketing is a good approach. However, it is important to note that you do not want to spam your website content with too many affiliate links and buttons.
Suppose a website is not meant for affiliate marketing, and you suddenly switch to promotional content. In that case, your regular visitors will likely not bother returning, and starting fresh to attract new website visitors is not that easy.
Therefore, if you are going to try affiliate marketing, be smart about where you insert links, so they are not as obvious. Other than link insertions in articles, you can create side banners with images that promote affiliate products, but do not make these banners too large.
Now, as for which affiliate marketing service to use, a lot depends on your website’s niche. There are general affiliate programs, such as ClickBank, Amazon, and eBay. However, you can seek niche-specific goods or services that you can promote to your audience.
The goal of affiliate marketing is to drive as much traffic to product landing pages and hope that redirected visitors carry out the call-to-action while the browser cookies are still active. For example, you need them to purchase a product or download an application.
Each successful conversion will net you a commission. If things pick up and you start converting at least a few percent of your total website traffic, you should be more than happy with the amount of money that affiliate marketing is bringing you.
Advertisements
Online advertisements are not as easy to pull off these days, but you can still find plenty of websites that rely on ads as the primary monetization method.
Besides, online ads are different these days. What you might have seen 10 years ago is not really the case these days.
Right now, there is an emphasis on mobile devices since they make for about 50 percent of all online traffic, meaning that an ad should be optimized for smartphones and tablets, not just computers.
Video ads are also quite popular. Thanks to intuitive solutions like the sticky video player that lets users create inPage, inBanner, and inApp video ads, it is easier to insert professionally-looking online advertisements that are not over the top and discourage website visitors by ruining their experience.
Paid Membership
Paid membership sites are not as straightforward as some might think. For starters, there is a question of why one should bother paying for a membership on a website when you can probably find a free alternative.
Such hesitations are still preventing website owners from adapting the paid membership model. Surprisingly, there are quite a few benefits that might not seem so obvious.
Membership sites create relationships and loyal communities. They also give website owners a pre-qualified audience for marketing and upselling. Growing a significant community also establishes you as an authority in the industry. Finally, as the website scales and your value increases, the community will keep you on your toes and encourage you to create the best possible content you can.
Checking all these marks should be good enough to turn a membership site into a sustainable source of income. Other than the membership fee, you can also look for other monetization methods in the future.
Before building a membership site, consider the available options as far as platforms go. Right now, Kajabi is one of the best all-around membership site platforms because of its pricing and available features.
Digital Products
There are two approaches to selling digital products on your website. The first is to create products yourself, and the second is to collaborate with other content creators and promote their products.
Both options have their upsides and downsides. For one, selling your own products would let you be in complete charge of everything and not be reliant on others. At the same time, you might lack the necessary resources to come up with enough new product ideas consistently, not to mention ensuring quality. Moreover, if it takes too long to create a digital product that does not sell, you will end up wasting valuable resources.
Meanwhile, selling products from others means more quality control, but you also get to build potentially valuable relationships and not worry too much about running out of ideas.
Before you commit, consider which of the two options is better. Or, you can take the simple route of promoting both your own and other people’s products.
When promoting digital goods, offer your website visitors only relevant stuff that is of the highest quality you can provide.
If you have a health blog, you could create a workout program or share healthy food recipes. As a video editor or a professional copywriter, you can create an educational course on Skillshare and Udemy on picking the right work tools, dealing with customers, or promoting yourself on various marketing channels.
Finally, remember that since distributing digital products is so much easier than distributing physical goods, you do not have to worry about shipping and other fees.
Sponsored Content
These days, even ecommerce websites include a blog on their platform. The trend is quite noticeable, and there is more to that than just publishing content for extra SEO juice.
Having a blog allows selling guest posts and making money. This particular monetization method is pretty straightforward. You seek interested parties who would like to publish an article on your website and get a do-follow link to help their search engine optimization campaign.
The number of interested people might come as a surprise, but there are a lot of blog and website owners who are looking to publish articles on other blogs.
Other than making money, you will also benefit from the content. However, keep in mind that you want to check for plagiarized content and the overall quality. Neglecting to do so will hurt your website.
In case you have no idea how to find leads, start with LinkedIn, Facebook, and other social media platforms. Join relevant groups and advertise yourself as someone who invites interested parties to post on your website.
Once you collaborate with a few website owners, build your network from there and use them as a reference to gain more leads. Before you know it, you will have people contacting you directly and asking to publish their articles on your site.
Conclusion
All in all, these five website monetization ideas should prove valuable to website owners who are having problems making money. You can pick one of the methods and work on that or try to combine multiple ideas and see where that will take you. And remember that success does not come that easy. You will need to put effort into the venture to succeed.
This is a Contributor Post. Opinions expressed here are opinions of the Contributor. Influencive does not endorse or review brands mentioned; does not and cannot investigate relationships with brands, products, and people mentioned and is up to the Contributor to disclose. Contributors, amongst other accounts and articles may be professional fee-based.