Regardless of what industry or niche you operate in, the internet offers countless opportunities for success. All it takes to make healthy income is an idea and somebody to execute it. Even if you run a seemingly mundane business like a pet store website, there are plenty of ways out there for you to take your site from ordinary to extraordinary.
Below are ways that I’ve seen successful companies make money using their website – what’s your strategy?
How a website makes money?
Selling product(s) directly on site (eCommerce)
Selling directly on your own site is usually the most straight forward way to drive revenue. This can be anything from wedding invitations, t-shirts, etc.
The main benefit of selling direct is that the profit margin is high because there’s no middle man to share the profits with.
Related article: Take Control of Your Financial Future – 5 Steps You Can’t Afford to Skip
Selling advertisements (Advertising networks)
AdSense and Bing Ads are the easiest ways to run online advertising campaigns, but they are also arguably the most expensive. There are numerous other advertising agencies to choose from such as Media.net, Krux, AdBrands and Woopra.
Other advertising opportunities include using banner ads on your site (banner networks), affiliate marketing programs, or running your own display ads (e.g. Google’s Adwords).
If you really want to get into the nitty-gritty of web advertising, I recommend you check out the Ultimate Web Advertising Guide – which covers 7 ways to make money on the web in great detail.
Adsense
Google AdSense is an advertising program that allows you to make money by displaying relevant ads on your website or blog. Ad targeting algorithms select the ads and only show the products or services relevant to your website content. The profit margin is greater than when you directly sell a product, since the ads drive your advertising revenue.
Be careful! Google usually takes a pretty big cut when you’re using AdSense to sell your own products (e.g. 70-80% – depending on how well your site is doing), so I suggest you hire an ad agency instead.
Selling premium content (premium membership website)
The premium content website offers visitors a selection of products and articles to choose from, usually with recurring payments. Products and services vary from hosting, software, subscriptions, and virtual services.
The most popular premium content offer is still probably hosting services like Hostgator, where you can get a website up and running and then receive recurring payments every month.
Other popular premium content offers include software (e.g. Photoshop), subscriptions, courses and online services (e.g. virtual assistants).
Lead generation for businesses or affiliate programs (lead generation websites)
Lead generation websites are intended to market products or services which can be sold by lead buyers, who are incentivized through a commission structure from the product vendor.
Most lead buyers work directly with their vendors to sell leads, but some lead generation agencies exist where lead buyers can purchase leads from a pool of pre-qualified leads.
Best Affiliate Marketing Niches to Consider
It’s pretty simple to set up a lead generation website. The most popular lead generation offers are seed capital, tax and legal advice, business plans, and search engine marketing.
Sell consulting services (consulting websites)
If you have expertise in a certain industry or niche, that’s valuable. There will always be demand for experienced people who can problem solve for others. This can be done through selling consulting services like consulting, web development or coaching services through your own website (or via freelancer sites like Upwork).
Conducting an online survey, and charging a fee to view the results of the survey
If you have a niche or industry knowledge that people would pay money for, you can use your website to conduct an online survey. People are willing to pay for opinions on certain things. So why not ask them for their own opinions? While it’s relatively easy to conduct an online survey, it’s also quite profitable if you take the time to write surveys that are both interesting and informative. For more information on this topic, check out: Make Money Online With Surveys (and Get Paid After Each Survey)
Selling a book (ebook publishing)
There are numerous websites online where you can sell books through Amazon or Create Space.
How websites make money? (In Points)
- Selling product(s) directly on site (eCommerce)
- Advertising products or services on site (Advertising)
- Collecting an information fee for each email address that subscribes for a newsletter (Email Marketing)
- Selling ad space on the site to other companies
- Hosting affiliate products or services (Affiliate Marketing)
- Offering downloadable items on site and charging a fee to download it (Software as a Service)
- Offering free content that turns visitors into paying customers for another service or product (Content Marketing)
- Adding lead capturing forms on the site that allow users to opt-in to your email list in exchange for a free informational product (Lead Generation)
- Offering a free advisory service for your customers in exchange for customer information (Marketing Advisory Service)
- Conducting an online survey, and charging a fee to view the results of the survey (Market Research)
Each of these methods has been proven to make money using the internet.
If you want to learn how to make money from your own website, pick one, or all of them, whichever makes sense for your business! Then stay consistent – consistency is key! If you stick with it, you can see results!
