A few weeks ago, we debated the pros and cons of monetizing your site. Today, we are going to review some of the essential ways to succeed in making money from your site for those who come down in support of the issue.
While most people think that monetizing a site is all about ad revenue, placing advertisements on the content is but one of several tried and true ways to earn back on the investment of time and energy you put into site building. In this post we are going to go over ads, eBooks, self-published books, merchandise, affiliat programs, and donations as ways to bring in a little (or a lot) of green for your contribution to the blogosphere. Let’s get started!
Ads
The most common form of monetization for blogs and sites around the internet are ads. The quickest and easiest way to get ads going on your site are to incorporate prepackaged contextual ads, such as Google AdSense or Chitika, which allow you to immediately and fool-proofily add ad blocks to anywhere you like on your site. Contextual ads get their name from scanning the content of your site and placing ads in the ad blocks which share similar keywords. These ads are fluid and will change depending on the specific page on the site and also the content.
Contextual ads have been the cornerstone of many an online empire, and several famous bloggers have credited with the revenue from their contextual ads as being able to pay for everything from groceries to the mortgage each month with no issue. For example, Steve Pavlina claimed that after less than a year online his blog made an excess of $1,000 from contextual ads alone. Now that is some serious cheese.
However, these contextual ads are not the only source of advertising revenue to be earned. Text link ads work like contextual ads by scanning the content, yet instead of placing the ad links in a defined box, they hyperlink certain pre-existing areas of text and make it a link to the client site.
You can also earn some revenue from your site from selling ad space to individual and private clients. These ad contracts tend to be in increments of one month, six months, or a year, and the client will provide the ad code and pay a fee for you to maintain that code on your site for a certain period of time.
The bottom line with all three of these examples of ads are that the higher your traffic is, the greater your Click Through Rate will be. A high CTR means that people click on the link or ad, which translates to a higher percentage cut for you (which is always good). Therefore, higher traffic blogs will benefit more from ads than lower traffic ones.
eBooks
Another great way to make money from your site is to sell an eBook. The term eBook stands for electronic book, and essentially they are PDF documents that a user can download for a certain fee. eBooks are a great way to make money for your site by packaging information into an instantly available format for your readers. They can be priced anywhere from a few dollars to around $100 depending on their length and depth of content. In my experience, the best online source for selling and distributing eBooks to readers is E-junkie for its easy set-up, low costs, and available of a simple affiliate program.
Self-Published Books
While eBooks are all the rage, especially after the advent of the Kindle and other online readers, it is still possible to earn a decent bit from self-published books you sell on your site. Self-published books are just like normal physical books with the exception that they are not edited and printed by a traditional publishing house: they are edited and printed by you.
Self-published books are great alternatives to eBooks, especially for individuals who give talks or have a physical sales location as well. They can be put together 100% online, where you can upload the content, design the cover and style, and select how it is bound and how many are printed. Want To Freelance recommends Lulu.com for those interested in offering self-published books,
Merchandise
Got a cult following? Then allow them to revel in the coolness that is your site by providing them with a variety of merchandise options. Hats, T-shirts, key chains, coffee mugs, mouse pads, even MP3 players can be customized with your site’s logo, tagline, or name on it for you to sell. CafePress.com is a great solution for people who feel they have an audience who would buy products with their site on it. Want to get some free advertising? include you URL on whatever you sell to help turn your dedicated followers into little PR machines for your site (which brings new traffic, more ad revenue, more eBook sales, and therefore more money).
The key with merchandise is to be sure you have a market for it among your readers before you actually start to sell it, as offering to sell a T-shirt with your face on it can make you look a little lame if no one is interested.
Affiliates
An affiliate is an individual who volunteers to go out and sell an online product for a commission of the profits. Affiliates are online door to door salespeople who bring revenue in for a piece of the pie. They can work for you in two ways: you can earn money by being an affiliate yourself, or enjoy higher sales overall by having affiliates for your products.
You can earn a percentage of sales from selling someone else’s product on your site, be it an ebook, a hat, or a compilation CD. However, before you start endorsing someone else’s product, be sure you believe in it enough to put your name behind it – you don’t want to be associated as recommending a ponzi scheme to readers…
You can also earn money for your site by recruiting affiliates to hawk your wares at their own pages. The best way to get a good affiliate revenue is to offer a generous affiliate commission – between 40-50% are typically the most attractive (while still being realistic). The more an affiliate stands to earn from your products, the more they will be motivated to promote it. As a rule of thumb, you don’t want to make less than 50% for yourself on every affiliate sale.
Donations
If ad revenue, products, and affiliates fail to bring in the type of cash you would like to see from your site, you have a final option: beg for money. Many sites ask for donations from loyal readers to help keep the site going, however the success level of this method is a bit of a crap shoot. On the one hand, many bloggers claim that by offering to keep the site ad-free they are able to earn a worthwhile amount in donations, yet a louder majority of site owners complain that their donation dollars make up 0% of their earnings. The results with this one are different for every site, as only you know your readers (and the volume of your readers).
The bottom line with all these options is that only you can decide what feels right for your site. Some of it may work wonders for your bottom line, while other tactics may fall on deaf ears. The best piece of advice is to start small with revenue streams that don’t require an upfront investment from you, such as contextual ads or affiliate programs, followed by those that require investment of time for creation (ebooks) and money (products). No matter what you offer, just make sure that the value and quality of your content is never jeopardized by your quest to make money from your site!
Have managed to earn a worthwhile amount from your site? Share your tips with your fellow freelancers!
