How To Monetize A Website For Real Profit

The internet has given us many unusual ways to make money. Whether it’s selling photographs you’ve taken, turning a craft hobby into a profitable business venture or even acting as a virtual receptionist for a business halfway across the world, there are countless opportunities out there that are just waiting to be taken advantage of.

One of the more unique and flexible ways to make money is to actually monetize a website. This could have plenty of implications because of how varied and far-reaching your website is, and there are actually hundreds of ways to turn your website into a profit-making machine–and that also includes the opportunity of passive income!

So in this article, we’re going to take a look at how you can monetize a website for real profit instead of just leaving it to rot.

Try affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is essentially a method of creating content that links to a website where the reader can make a purchase. This could mean linking to Amazon in a review of different products or selling a specific product or service that a company has contacted you about. There are many different ways to take advantage of affiliate marketing with your website, so take a look at Legendary Marketer or a similar service to see how you could start earning commissions for writing fantastic content. Affiliate marketing does require that you have a sizable audience, so make sure your website has regular traffic before attempting to use this monetization strategy.

While it doesn’t require much money to start up, it can be quite difficult to write content if you don’t have much practice. It requires you to also have SEO skills so that your article appears on Google searches and you also need social media skills in order to expose your content and get more viewers.

Related: 30 Of The Best Passive Income Ideas That Can Turn Your Life Around

Seek out sponsorships

If your website is popular enough then you may be able to contact influencers or specific businesses in order to establish a sponsorship deal. This often involves creating an article or video centered around a specific product and essentially selling it to your audience. This is sponsored which means you have to disclose the nature of your content or else it could get you in trouble. However, it’s a sure way to monetize your website as long as you’re willing to balance out original content with sponsorships.

It’s also important to draw the line depending on what you’re willing to do. For instance, some sponsorships will require you to speak highly of a product, but other companies are more than happy for you to insert your own opinion as long as you touch on certain talking points.

Setting up crowdfunding

If you’re doing something creative such as fictional pieces or creating high-quality reviews and content for your audience, then it may be possible to ask for donations and contributions. This could be something like setting up a Patreon, adding a subscriber-only section to your website or simply just asking your donations. The less intrusive the method, the less likely it is to get on your viewer’s nerves. Asking for donations and constantly pestering them for money is a quick way to lose viewers, so make sure it’s not done in an annoying manner.

However, if you want to increase the chances of your viewers paying, then it’s important to try and offer something back. Patreon subscriptions are a good example of this as many creators offer rewards depending on how much money the viewer wants to contribute each month. For artists, this could mean showing in-progress work or tutorials, and for writers, this could be something like behind-the-scenes looks at upcoming chapters.

Online advertising

Lastly, we have online advertising. Slapping adverts all over your website isn’t the most lucrative or exciting way to make money, but it can work if you’re willing to be subtle about it. The less intrusive your ads are, the more likely your audience is to accept it and use your site as usual. The advertisements also have to be relevant to your audience, but this is typically handled by the service that you’re using.

It’s easy to set up online advertising thanks to services like Google AdWords, but there are also alternatives that could be more lucrative or specialized depending on what your website focuses on. While it’s a fairly simple way to earn passive income, it’s not lucrative unless you have a lot of traffic coming into your website on a daily basis.