When we run our blog and see serious traffic coming onto it, we’ll probably want to earn money from it. And who doesn’t want some extra to spend on work time pizza or leisure time movie?
Here we will discuss on the popular ways to earn money from your website. But you do not have to depend just on these ideas. Remember, Google is your friend, and you can find out many ways to earn online. I’m telling you about some most used ways to earn online.
Advertisements
Online Advertisements can be of two types typically –
1. Cost Per Click (CPC) Ads
CPC ads are typical click and earn advertisements. Displaying Banners on a Cost-per-click basis is the easiest way to make money from a website. It’s just a matter of creating the ad banner and placing it on the visible part of the site (within the guidelines). You get paid for each click on the ads. CPC ads come in a traditional 468×60 banner to in-text ads.
Google’s AdSense program made this mode of earning very attractive, and it still offers the highest payouts by far. But as every reward comes with a price, being the highest payer, Google’s guidelines are strict. For, e.g., it is tempting to put ads right next to navigation to get an accidental click, but this can get your account banned.
You get a percentage of revenue earned from the ads, so more attractive terms/ads will inevitably bring more revenue, which can differ from few cents to several dollars per click.
Famous CPC companies include:
- Google AdSense
- Media.net (Yahoo! and Bing ads)
- InfoLinks
2. Cost Per Mille (CPM) Ads
Cost-per-mille (CPM) ads are those where you get paid for every ad displayed on your website, even when no one clicks. And because advertisers don’t want to pay for ads that are not clicked upon to redirect, CPM advertising has strict rules, when it comes to placement and site quality.
Another requirement that you have to meet most of the time is the minimum traffic regulations, which are 100,000 impressions/visits a month or more.
But once you are accepted, you will be getting ads from all the major advertisers, which comes with a gift of enhancing the professionalism of your website.
The earnings here are quite difficult to determine. You can get $1 to $4/CPM for general topic sites and up to $10 for niche-focused sites.
Some famous CPM companies would be:
- Google AdExchange
- BuySellAds
- Exponential
Affiliate programs
The concept of affiliate program is simple: you get paid for each lead or sale you refer. Some companies offer a fixed fee while others work with a revenue share. These programs are usually offered through large affiliate networks, which offer many different advertisers. Also, some companies have their in-house affiliate programs.
Earnings are calculated as EPC, which can either be Earnings Per Click or Earnings Per 100 Clicks. Targeted and well-promoted offers can bring you up to $1 for each visitor you send.
- CJ Affiliate (Formerly Commission Junction)
- OneNetworkDirect (Digital River)
- ClickBankDGM (India)
- VCommision (India)
- ICubes (India)
- Amazon – Being an affiliate program, it still requires special attention as an Associates program.
You can get into the Amazon program quite easily, but setting up takes some time and dedication. Amazon offers many ways of promoting their products, from simple links to full blown stores that integrate via their API.
The commissions Amazon pays might be low of 4-10%, but the great thing is that they pay you for anything customer orders after using your affiliate link. For, e.g., send a visitor to Amazon to purchase a PC Monitor and end up earning commission for the purchased Desktop table too.
Amazon is available in different countries, but you’ll have to sign up for each country independently.
- Fixed Price Earning – There’s an option available too when you don’t want to worry about how your ads are performing.
With this method, you don’t sell clicks or visits/impressions. Instead, you’re just renting out Ad space on your website for a weekly or a monthly fee. The price is determined based on the quality of your site and its traffic.
As it doesn’t fluctuate as much as the other methods, revenue with this approach is lower than with the CPM model. The competition is less, and even if there is more and more traffic is incoming on your website, you won’t get paid any extra for that.
Fixed price ads are good ways of earning a steady recurring income without too much hassle.
Popular Fixed Price Ad companies include:
- BuySellAds
- iSocket
- AdEngage
Pop-ups and pop-unders
Pop-ups and pop-unders are perfect for the sites with a significant number of visitors but low engagement. If your visitors are not clicking on the ads on your site, then you might earn on them when they enter or/and leave.
Revenue from these type of ads is a bit less. Still if you got hundreds of thousand visitors per month, you could add up to some nice numbers.
Some famous names in pop-up advertising include:
- Advertise.com
- PopAds
- MediaTraffic
Sponsored Content
Advertisers write posts on the topic that your site covers to show their expertise and build their brand there.
One thing to keep in mind is that sponsored content is different from paid links. People often get confused between the two. In the case of Paid Links, an advertiser is solely paid for link placements. Hence, there is a fine line difference between the two. Paid links are risky and can get you in trouble with Google. So, the thumb rule is that your audience should value the content and learn something from it. It’s the content that matters the most and matters more than anything else.
Most of the networks abuse link building, so, sponsored content can be best sold by you. You can charge ranging from $50 to thousands of dollars per post depending upon the traffic coming to your site.
Related Post
Related posts are usually placed on each article, and when the users are reading, they are very much engaged and interested in what you have to offer, or the story has to offer. Because of this high engagement level, selling related posts can turn into a great income.
To qualify for related post advertising, firstly, you’ll need to have a high-quality site and high level of traffic.
That space can still be better used for an affiliate Ad since the reader engagement at that level is worth the serious money, but you know your customers better than anyone else.
Popular related post advertising companies include:
- Disqus
- Outbrain
- Taboola
Selling your site
With increasing your bank balance, there are other benefits as well. You can stop worrying about traffic/visits and ad performances. It also frees up your time, which you can use for other projects.
But still, you have to think about deciding when to sell your website. Sell too soon and you might not get what it really can be in near future, sell too late, and you will receive less money because it might be obsolete. Especially with websites, revenue generation can be volatile, so it’s always a gamble. You can sell after the income is stable for few months.
You can sell the website directly, or contact an agency to do it for you. Surely they will charge their commission, but they’ll do all the work for you.
Sale prices may vary widely because of the areas and interests of people. It can range from thousands to six figures or more.
The best way to earn money from your site depends on your content and design as well as your traffic. You should always keep on testing what works best for your site. For, e.g., try different ads and ad placements on the site and always track for the future reference.
