Earning money with your website or blog is a wonderful way to generate extra monthly income. In some instances, it can even replace your full-time income. Unfortunately, most people spend weeks or even months building their website, but they won’t spend even one minute determining how they will market and monetize their site.
If you own a website, you must monetize it. If you don’t, you are working for free. Even if your goal isn’t to earn hundreds or thousands of dollars each month, you should generate enough income to at least pay for your monthly hosting fees. Once you have a steady, consistent flow of traffic visiting your site every day (50 or more visitors) you should start doing the following things to monetize your site:
1. Google AdSense: This is my favorite way to monetize my website. To get started, you simply create a Google AdSense account. It takes about five minutes to do. Once your account is set up, Google will give you HTML code to paste into your website. This HTML code places ads on your site that are relevant to the content on each web-page.
In addition, Google will only place ads on your site where you put the HTML code. Whenever someone views your page and clicks on the ad, you earn a small commission (usually 10-50 cents per click). Over the course of one month, if you have consistent traffic, you can earn $25, $50, $100 or even more per month. Some people earn thousands of dollars per month.
For instance, if you have 1,000 visitors a day, and 10% of your visitors clicked on one of your ads, that would be 100 clicks each day. At 10-50 cents per click (on average) you would earn $10-$50 daily, which equates to $300-$1,500 per month. That’s no chump change. Furthermore, using AdSense will help improve your website’s search ranking too, because Google will rank your website higher in the search engines. This equals more visitors for your site and more money for both you and Google.
2. Affiliate Products: Another great way to monetize your website is to promote affiliate products. An affiliate product is a product or service someone else creates and lets other people sell for them. You simply join the affiliate program (for free) and get your very own link to promote that product. Anytime someone clicks on your link and purchases the product, you earn a commission. Let me give you an example about how it could work for you:
You love cats, so you create a website about cats. You put videos, ads, great articles and stories about cats. For instance, you post information about feeding cats, exercise, nutrition, life expectancy, where to buy a cat, how to name one, etc.
Once you’re finished building your website, you do a quick Google search to find some affiliate products that pertain to cats. You could visit http://www.clickbank.com and see if there are any eBooks about cats. You find a great eBook about “cat breeding.” You join the program and get your own unique link to promote the eBook. On your site, you write a short article about the eBook and provide your affiliate link.
When someone clicks on your affiliate link and purchases the eBook (based upon your recommendation) you earn a commission. You don’t take the credit card order, handle the payment or email the eBook. You simply get paid. In my opinion, it’s a great deal. If you’re the creative type, you could even create your own affiliate products.
3. Build a Subscriber List: This is the best way to monetize your website in the long-term. The wealthiest people on the internet own the largest email lists. As a website owner, your goal is to build a huge list of names and emails from people who visit your website. That way, you can market your products and services to them over-and-over.
You simply need to get your own AutoResponder (I like Aweber) and place an OPT-IN Form on your website. You could offer a free report, download, or video (or anything else) in exchange for your visitors typing in their name and email. Once the visitor types in their information, the free report is automatically emailed to them by your auto-responder and you can continue to stay in contact with your site visitors. You can send helpful tips from time to time, and even recommend affiliate products. This will allow you to make income month-after-month.
In conclusion, having your own website or blog is a great way to earn an extra income. Once you have great content and have a steady flow of daily visitors, you must monetize your website. Three of the best ways to monetize your site include Google AdSense, marketing affiliate products and building a subscriber list. Eventually, if you can generate enough traffic, you could even earn enough to replace your full-time income.
