Monetization

How to make money with your Website!

If you have a non-business website that is set up mainly to promote “you,” your skill set, or an organization, or if you have been attracted to one of the many free websites available in cyber-space the word monetization may not be relevant for your website, especially since most free websites that I have found draw their monetization line right where their paid services begin. If on the other hand the only reason for you being interested in a website is to generate some income from your website, and make some money, the word monetization will surely come up someday. 

Monetization (to monetizing your website or blog) simply means offering an online service or product that visitors to your website will pay for.  When I setup my Gifts website years ago, the only monetization I was aware of was the money from the items my website sold online.  Being a novice then my sales started off slow and over the years began to pick up as I began to learn more and more about operating a website. Along the way the word monetization kept popping up in articles I would read, and videotaped tutorials that I watched.

I soon realized that the people sending out this word “monetization” were opening my eyes to the many other ways my website could be generating income, in addition to the products I had for sale, and to be honest some of the income streams ideas, the force was sending my way, I had not considered before. So with my interest in exploring other ways of generating income to my website on alert. I did some research and over time learned that there were several other income sources available to my niche that I was missing out on. Not all of these other income sources I found were a fit but I latched on to and decided to develop the ones that were. 

So if you’ve heard the word monetization and wondered exactly what that word meant, with regard to your website, here are a few pros and cons about monetizing your web presents to boost your website income.

The first, and in my opinion the best, way to monetize your website was exactly how I got started, having a product (preferably your own) to offer for sale. Your own brand of whatever it is you create, be it your own product, service or CD, DVD, instruction, recipes, or book (especially an E-Book) is one of the best ways to generate income, and standout in the cyberspace universe.  Second to your very own unique creation to market is manufactured products from wholesalers, or service providers which, in the hand of a good salesperson, (you) can be just as profitable for your website. In my opinion if you have a website you need to be into sales.

The second way of generating income or monetizing your website is sponsorship. Seeking the support of sponsors in your chosen niche, for example: let’s say you operated a boating website, approaching a fishing store, or boating repair shop to see if they would pay to have their business mentioned, or featured on your website, or in one of your store videos. If the price is right and you can show some solid results most businesses will send some of their advertisement-budget-dollars to you for that kind of advertisement. I would recommend this method of monetization for those with a little sales experience. Mainly because you will be selling yourself and your business, when you make personal contact, and it helps to be as business like as you can when approaching another business.

In addition to having a good website, one that will attract enough traffic to impress a prospective client, you should also have your analytics (analytical data) in order. What I mean by this is you should be able to also present some analytical data such as, how many people visit your site in a day, along with some geographical information that will help a prospective sponsor understand how many new customers they might be able to add by partnering with you.

Affiliate marketing is my third suggestion. The way Affiliate marketing works is you sign up with an Affiliate, a company that offers you the opportunity to place their advertisement code on your website; and who is willing to pay you a commission for each item sold as a result of their ad being seen on your website. There are, what I think of as, Affiliate Clearing Houses setup like: Link Share, and Commission Junction to name just a couple, that handle hundreds of affiliates and allow you to select from a large number of businesses looking for website owners to show their advertisements.

The problem I found with most affiliate programs is that they are usually confusing and heavily weighted in favor of the affiliate. Most offer something call cookies, associated with their ad code, you place on your website. The cookies have a shelf life, in most cases they expire in 30 days, after that time expires if the ad remains on your website you will not be paid from that moment on and the affiliate gets free advertisement on your website unless their ad is removed. I know the solution seems simply, when the cookie expires, paste another 30 day cookie-filled-ad on your site, but trying to keep track can time consuming since in order for you to make any money a sale from the affiliate ad on your site, must take place within the 30 period. This period varies so be sure to read the cookie part of the contract.

Where most independent affiliates (for want of a better word) or the Affiliate companies you approach on your own will usually pay you in CPC (cost per click) or every time someone click on that affiliate ad you are paid a few cents per click. There is also something called CPM, (click per1000) meaning that you get paid one agreed upon amount  for every 1000-clicks on a particular affiliate ad; usually available from independent affiliates you can find. Commission Junction and Link Share did not offer the same opportunity. With the affiliate program if you don’t read the contract carefully you could end up making little to no money and in the long run providing tons of free advertisement to the affiliate, or as I like to put it, you could end up with negative monetization.

The fourth way to monetize your website is the best (easiest) I’ve found so far. Google AdSense is a program where you allow advertiser to put their advertisement on your website and you get paid CPC style. Every time a visitor to your website clicks on your Google AdSense ad you are paid a few pennies per click. The amount you are paid depends on the Google algorithm that determines then calculates how much you are paid; as far as I can see, you get paid based on the relevance and popularity of your subject matter to your niche. Let’s say your site niche is flowers, you have no control over the type of ads Google will place on your site though AdSense. About the only thing you do know is that your AdSense ad will in some way be related to flowers.

That was only an example of course,  the point I’m trying to make is unlike the affiliate program, were  choose the kind of ads you want to put on your website, be they related to your niche or not,  Google AdSense makes that decision for you. In this case the pay could be unremarkable for a very low traffic website and Google AdSense makes you to clear a $100.00 dollar hurdle meaning  your AdSense account much reach at least $100.00 bucks (the spendable kind) before you get paid. I used Google AdSense so let me say that pennies can add up and oft-time is better than the flow of zero into your business account. Keep in mind here too that I am talking only about supplemental form of income for your website, not a main sources of income.

Monetization method number five is paid memberships. The paid membership approach is where you provide a product(s) or service customers are willing to pay you for on a regular basses. A subscription, to timely and useful information with a system setup that can bill a customer each month for as long as they wish to continue your service or product, while offering enough free stuff to entice and maintain regular subscribers.  I plan to write more about the paid membership method in the near future so if this topic interest you, be sure to stay tuned. All of the above are ways you can monetize your website or blog and hopefully, depending on your niche, turn your website into a money maker that will sustain not only your website operation but you in general.

A sixth and final method of monetizing your website is to simply offer other businesses the opportunity to advertise on your website. Here, however, just like mentioned in the sponsorship monetization method stats and analytic data will be useful. Prospective advertisers on your website will want to know who and just how many new clients their paying for ad space on your website will bring to them, and even though you might not have an answer to that question without your own algorithm you should at least be able to share favorable stats and analytics that will help you seal the deal, honesty is the key.

How much to charge for your advertisement service is something you will need to work out. I simply took a look at what it was costing me to operate my website and tried to figure out an advertisement fee that made it so, if I didn’t make any money, I didn’t really lose any either. In business you can only walk that line for so long though. Monetization is a step you can take along the way when it comes to establishing and operating a successful website.