After you have created a website, it is time to make money from it! This can be a tricky topic because which method do you go for? There are dozens of ways to generate revenue from your blog so let us now take a closer look at five straightforward ways to make money on a website.
Add Google AdSense To Your Blog Pages
What is Google AdSense?
Adsense is the adverts you see – like the one below – which appear on websites. They are tailored to best suit your needs based on what you have searched for in the past and your activities online.
AdSense is a great source of income especially if you have a significant amount of traffic as you only “set it and forget it”. The earnings start coming when your visitors click on an advert. You get paid per click. The amount varies from a few cents to a few dollars per click.
How To Add Adsense To Your Website And Start Earning – 4 Steps
Step 1 – First, you need to apply for Google Adsense. You should at this point ideally have some content on your website and already generating some traffic. After a couple of days, Google will let you know if they have accepted your website or not into their program. In the meantime keep writing and adding content to your site.
Step 2 – Then, if you were lucky enough to be accepted, you have to copy and paste the Google Adsense code.
Log into your account and click on the “My Ads” tab then click the “New Ad Unit“.
Next, you need to give your ad set a name, choose what size the ads will be and the ad type. After, click “Save and Get Code.”
A great tip here is to name all your ad campaigns differently! Why? That is so that you can isolate the ad sets which are inefficient and need tweaking.
Once you have hit “Save and get code“, there will be a pop-up. Within this pop-up just highlight the code and copy it.
Step 3 – To add the copy to your website go to “Appearance,” then click on “Widgets.”
Then, find the “Text” widget and DRAG it across to the sidebar.
After, you only PASTE your AdSense code into the text field and click on save…
DO NOT PUT A TITLE! That is crucial. If you put a title, then the code will not work.
Step 4 – Check if the ads are working.
All you do is refresh your homepage and check if you can see the ads on your site. Please note it can take a few hours before the ads come into effect.
CONGRATULATIONS!
You are now ready to make money with Google AdSense on your website. This section was the first of the five ways to make money on a website.
Shall we move on to the next method?
Promote Products and Services As An Affiliate
The second way to make money with a website is to promote products and service as an affiliate. When you become an affiliate, you essentially get a commission when someone clicks on a link on your website which leads to a sale or subscription on the merchant’s website.
The easiest example to give is Amazon. For example, if you write a review about a $1000 LCD TV and a visitor clicks on your link which directs them to the product page, on Amazon, and they then buy it = you get a commission.
The best way to write a review is, to be honest, and base it on personal experience. The more honest and transparent your product or service review is the better the chance whoever reads it will be convinced to give it a try. But how do you find affiliate programs for your niche?
How To Find Affiliate Programs To Promote?
There are affiliate programs – on the Internet – for nearly everything you can dream of, however, most people do not know how to find them. It is very easy, and I can quickly show you how to find them using Google. The following should answer your question of where to find affiliate products to promote.
Do not worry if you think affiliate programs will not cover your niche – EVERY NICHE has affiliate programs, I do mean every niche!
To search for an affiliate program within your chosen sector you just search for;
[your niche] + affiliate program
So, if your niche is tennis shoes, then you would type in “tennis shoes + affiliate program” or perhaps your chosen niche is “iPad apps” – then you type in “iPad apps + affiliate programs”
Here are a few examples;
As you can see, there are multiple options just for these two niches. Go ahead, try it for yourself. Type in a few random niches and see how many affiliate programs you can find – the results will surprise you.
Create A Premium Membership Website
This is a bit more advanced but quite good to keep in mind for the long term. If you have an amazing service or product which you feel warrants a membership area, why not make it a premium service which your visitors have to pay a monthly subscription to be a part of?
Creating a membership website is quite advanced, so I would advise using a software or plugin with an extensive platform to help you manage the content supervision, billing, products, page views and downloadable content. Here are a few programs to get you started but I highly recommend doing a lot of testing and trial runs before deciding on which platform to use.
How Much Should You Charge For Membership?
In the beginning, you should charge the bare minimum! The aim should be to get as many members as possible to test run all the features and products you have to offer. Consider them your guinea pigs if you will. Once you have ironed out all the wrinkles and the feedback from your members is positive then increase the monthly billing – but obviously giving your existing members a better deal or even keep them on the original fee.
Don’t forget that the members you have are free advertising so having a large number is a great advantage to you. Do not alienate them by trying to charge them, if they leave; your revenue tries up.
E-Mail Marketing
E-mail marketing is a “golden oldie” of the advertising word. It is quite a simple process. You start by building a list of email addresses with which you start sending out targeted emails to try and sell products and services to them.
These come in the form of newsletters, special promotions or just the old fashioned spam that comes through, promising untold riches from just a few clicks. There is quite a lot of negative press attached to this form of marketing. However, it is one of the most powerful ones – and effective!
Why Is This Method Effective?
Well, it’s effective because the lists which you collect are very targeted. When you give your e-mail to an SEO guru, in return for a free ebook for example. Your email address is very valuable because that SEO guru now knows that you are available and willing to interact with his content. This, in turn, means that he can target your email with SEO related service in the hope of catching your attention with a catchy email title.
How Do I Use This Method To Make Money?
To make money from email marketing, you just offer your readers something in return for their email address. Such as;
- A free Ebook
- A newsletter
- Free access to a small members area
- A free how-to guide
Once you have accumulated many thousands of email, then you start to see a return on your marketing. You send out thousands of emails, advertising your services or products, to everyone in your list. Now, because they are highly targeted in your niche it means that the engagement rate should be quite high – as long as your product and sales copy are good.
As you become more experienced, you can fine tune your emails and landing pages which, equals more revenue. As long as you keep producing good content on your website, and you collect more and more email addresses – your audience and income will continue to grow.
Offer Your Services
A very effective way to start earning some extra income is to sell your services as a freelancer. Are you any good at the following;
- graphic design – such as logo creation or photo editing
- photography – taking relevant pictures which people can use on their websites
- researching – finding information online relating to a certain topic
- translating – do you speak more than one language?
- programming
- website coding
The points above are just a minute sample of tasks you can do – for other people – as a freelancer from websites like Upwork.com.
So let us say, for example, you are creating a blog and waiting for rankings to take effect. In the meantime, however, you need an income to help pay for the hosting, etc. You can take on a few freelance jobs to pay your way or even make a full-time income.
You can even create a blog specifically to promote your freelancing skills and use it as a portfolio website where you can send future clients and business partners to showcase your work.
Benefits Of Working As A Freelancer
- You earn money immediately.
- You can get a variety of different jobs to keep things fresh.
- You do single projects, and therefore you do not have the responsibility of maintaining a website.
- You can work when you want.
- You do not rely on Google or social media to drive traffic to you.
- You choose which projects to work with.
How Much Can You Make?
The amount you can earn varies drastically, depending on which skills you have and how high quality your work is. For example, if you are an excellent writer you can earn up to $200 for a 1500-word article.
Even if you are an average writer, you can earn in excess of $50 for an 800-word blog post. So there really is great potential to earn fantastic money as a freelancer.
How Do I Use My Website To Make Money As A Freelancer?
Once you have an extensive portfolio in place and a beautiful looking website. You can start to direct your potential clients to your website. From there you can create potential leads.
As your connections grow and you have a robust and returning customer base, they will always come back to your website and book you directly there as and when they need your services.
Final Thoughts
There is never a final and complete answer to; how do you make money on a website? Every passing year there are more and more methods appearing as the Internet evolves and people’s habits change. New trends emerge and new ideas and designs make it possible to earn money in ways we could never dream of five years ago.
That being said, the methods I have described in this article will never die. There will always be a space and demand for these ways of monetizing your website.