Ways To Earn Money From Your Website
Hey Guys,
In this post, I want to talk about the different ways that you can monetize your website.
I think it’s important to distinguish between the myriad of methods because what works well for one website doesn’t necessarily work well for another, so choosing the correct money-making method can mean the difference between profit and loss.
Of course, I can only draw from my own experience, so the advice imparted here should not be taken as Gospel and I’m sure there will be exceptions. I’m also sure that there’ll be ways of monetizing a website that I’ve missed, so don’t take this as comprehensive list (please share your own methods in the comments section below).
Pay Per Click (PPC)
PPC ads (such as those provided by Google Adsense and Chitika) pay a variable amount of cash for each visitor to your website that clicks on it. For me, the highest amount I’ve received for single click is around £16.50, whilst the lowest is 2 pence.
To a lesser extent a lot of PPC networks also pay you a fee based on how many impressions (views) the ad gets, however this is something silly like a penny for every 400 views.
PPC works well for websites that receive a lot of traffic because, in general, clicks are few and far between.
Because you cannot control exactly which ads are displayed, you have to rely on the ad system to pick adverts that are relevant for each particular user.
Link Brokers
Link brokers (the best in my experience being Text Link Ads) pay you a monthly fee to have a link to their client’s website on yours. Fees can vary between around $5 and $100 per month depending on your website.
Buying and selling links is something that is frowned upon by Google, so there is a chance that they will penalize you for monetizing your blog in this way. Personally, I think it’s ludicrous that Google penalise you for selling links on your own website when the problem actually lies in their algorithm relying too heavily on backlinks for ranking purposes but that’s a discussion topic for another day 
I always opt for manual placement of the links rather than using the broker’s code to automatically place them. It’s takes a little extra time but it’s less identifiable by Google.
You don’t necessarily have to have a lot of visitors to your website to sell links on it but a healthy Google PageRank (at least PR3) and Alexa Rank is required.
The main downside to selling links on your website is that it may take a while to find a buyer.
Amazon Product Links
The Amazon Associate Program lets you link to products on Amazon and if a visitor goes on to buy the product (or another product from Amazon) you are paid a commission. Commissions can ranger between around 4% and 15% of the sale price depending on the item and volume of sales you’ve referred.
I find Amazon Product Links to be useful for all manner of websites that receive a fair number of targeted visitors. Because Amazon sells just about everything you can think of, it’s fairly easy to find a product to recommend in just about any article’s text.
As an example, I have a website about treating acne and one of the pieces of advice is to use a non-comedogenic cleanser when washing. It’s simple enough to link from the text ‘non-comedogenic cleanser’ to a relevant product on Amazon.
One of the great things about the Amazon Associates Program is that they will pay you a commission on any item that is purchased within 24 hours of your referral, so once your referral cookie is installed on your visitor’s computer, if they buy anything from Amazon within a day, you will get a referral fee. Amazon is the number one online retailer in the world so there’s a pretty good chance of making money on items that are totally non-related to your niche.
The worst thing about Amazon Associates is that you have to join a different program for different geographical locations. If your website has a global appeal, you will have to decide whether to link to Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca, Amazon.it etc. or do what I do and join all the programs and write a little program to direct each visitor to their relevant store
Clickbank
Clickbank is a affiliate program that specializes in digital products such as ebooks, software and videos.
Being a successful Clickbank affiliate usually requires that your website is very close to the niche of the product that you want to sell, so much so, that websites are springing up all the time with the sole purpose of selling a particular Clickbank product (I have a few dedicated websites myself).
Because it can be more difficult to sell a Clickbank product than an Amazon product, you can earn up to 75% commission per sale and the tracking cookies last for 60 days (so even if a visitor doesn’t buy until 2 months after clicking your link, you’ll still be paid).
You don’t need an awful lot of visitors to your website to make money via Clickbank. Neither do you need a particularly good PageRank, however the visitors that you do get should be highly targeted and actively looking for a solution that the product you’r selling provides.
Summary
These are the four methods that bring in the lion’s share of the money for me each month.
Occasionally, I’ll email certain related suppliers to ask if they want to advertise on a certain website but this takes time and effort and I’m quite a lazy person by nature.
I’m also a member of various other affiliate programs that bring in sporadic amounts of money from time to time and once in a while I’ll get an email from someone that wants to pay me to link to them or show a banner on their website.
There are a few other weirder ways I monetize my websites but I’ll perhaps go into those another day
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Dan
