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There are several lists with “ways to make money with a website†on the Internet, but none of them seem to be complete. That is why I decided to create this one. If you know a method that is not listed below, just let us know and we’ll update it.
Notice that ways to make money with a website are different from ways to make more money from it. Methods to increase your traffic or click-through rate will help you make more money, but they do not represent a method of making money per se.
For example, one could suggest that blending AdSense ads with the content is a way to make money from a website. In reality it’s not; it’s just a way to make more money by improving your ad click-through rate. The real monetization method behind it is a PPC ad network.
The list is divided into direct and indirect methods, and examples and links are provided for each point. Enjoy!
Above 35 Ways to Make Money with Your Website
By Daniel Scocco
There are several lists with “ways to make money with a website†on the Internet, but none of them seem to be complete. That is why I decided to create this one. If you know a method that is not listed below, just let us know and we’ll update it.
Notice that ways to make money with a website are different from ways to make more money from it. Methods to increase your traffic or click-through rate will help you make more money, but they do not represent a method of making money per se.
For example, one could suggest that blending AdSense ads with the content is a way to make money from a website. In reality it’s not; it’s just a way to make more money by improving your ad click-through rate. The real monetization method behind it is a PPC ad network.
The list is divided into direct and indirect methods, and examples and links are provided for each point. Enjoy!
Direct Methods
1. PPC Advertising Networks
Google AdSense is the most popular option under this category, but there are also others. Basically you need to sign up with the network and paste some code snippets on your website. The network will then serve contextual ads (either text or images) relevant to your website, and you will earn a certain amount of money for every click.
The profitability of PPC advertising depends on the general traffic levels of the website and, most importantly, on the click-through rate (CTR) and cost per click (CPC). The CTR depends on the design of the website. Ads placed abode the fold or blended with content, for instance, tend to get higher CTRs. The CPC, on the other hand, depends on the nice of the website. Mortgages, financial products and college education are examples of profitable niches (clicks worth a couple of dollars are not rare), while tech-related topics tend to receive a smaller CPC (sometimes as low as a couple of cents per click).
The source of the traffic can also affect the overall CTR rate. Organic traffic (the one that comes from search engines) tends to perform well because these visitors were already looking for something, and they tend to click on ads more often. Social media traffic, on the other hand, presents terribly low CTRs because these visitors are tech-savvy and they just ignore ads.
List of popular CPC advertising networks:
Google Adsense
Yahoo! Publisher Network (YPN)
BidVertiser
Chitika
Clicksor
2. CPM Advertising Networks
CPM advertising networks behave pretty much as PPC networks, except that you get paid according to the number of impressions (i.e., page views) that the ads displayed on your site will generate. CPM stands for Cost per Mille, and it refers to the cost for 1,000 impressions.
A blog that generates 100,000 page views monthly displaying an advertising banner with a $1 CPM, therefore, will earn $100 monthly.
CPM rates vary with the network, the position of the ad and the format. The better the network, the higher the CPM rate (because they have access to more advertisers). The closer you put the ad to the top of the page, the higher the CPM. The bigger the format (in terms of pixels), the higher the CPM.
You can get as low as $0,10 and as high as $10 per 1,000 impressions (more in some special cases). CPM advertising tends to work well on websites with a high page views per visitor ratio (e.g., online forums, magazines and so on).
List of popular CPM advertising networks:
Casale Media
Burst Media
Value Click
Advertising.com
Tribal Fusion
Right Media
3. Direct Banner Advertising
Selling your own advertising space is one of the most lucrative monetization methods. First and foremost because it enables you to cut out the middleman commissions and to determine your own rates. The most popular banner formats on the web are the 728×90 leaderboard, the 120×600 skyscraper, the 300×250 rectangle and the 125×125 button.
The downside of direct banner advertising is that you need to have a big audience to get qualified advertisers, and you will need to spend time managing the sales process, the banners and the payments.
Related links:
How to Find Advertisers for Your Website
Finding Advertisers for Your Blog
Direct Advertising Sales for Beginners
Openads Ad Server
OIO Publisher Ad Platform
4. Text Link Ads
After Google declared that sites selling text links without the nofollow tag would be penalized, this monetization method became less popular.
Many website owners are still using text links to monetize their sites, though, some using the nofollow tag and some not.
The advantage of this method is that it is not intrusive. One can sell text links directly through his website or use specialized networks like Text-Link-Ads and Text-Link-Brokers to automate the process.
Text link marketplaces and networks:
DigitalPoint Link Sales Forum
Text-Link-Ads
Text-Link-Brokers
TNX
LinkWorth
5. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a very popular practice on the Internet. Under this system you have a merchant that is willing to let other people (the affiliates) sell directly or indirectly its products and services, in exchange for a commission. Sometimes this type of advertising is also called CPA (cost per action) or CPL (cost per lead) based.
Affiliates can send potential customers to the merchant using several tools, from banners to text links and product reviews.
In order to find suitable affiliate programs you can turn to individual companies and publishers like Dreamhost and SEOBook, or join affiliate marketplaces and networks.
List of popular affiliate marketplaces and networks:
Commission Junction
ClickBank
Azoogle Ads
Link Share
6. Monetization Widgets
The latest trend on the web are widgets that let you monetize your website. Examples include Widgetbucks and SmartLinks. Some of these services operate under a PPC scheme, others behave like text link ads, others yet leverage affiliate links.
Their main differentiator, however, is the fact that they work as web widgets, making it easier for the user to plug and play the service on its website.
List of companies that provide monetization widgets:
WidgetBucks
ScratchBack
SmartLinks
7. Sponsored Reviews
PayPerPost pioneered this model, with much controversy on the beginning (related to the fact that they did not require disclosure on paid posts). Soon other companies followed, most notably Sponsored Reviews and ReviewMe, refining the process and expanding the paid blogging model.
Joining one of these sponsored reviews marketplaces will give you the opportunity to write sponsored posts on a wide range of topics. Not all bloggers are willing to get paid to write about a specific product or website (because it might compromise the editorial credibility), but the ones who do are making good money out of it.
If your blog has a big audience you could also offer sponsored reviews directly, cutting off the commissions of the middleman.
List of sponsored reviews and paid blogging networks:
PayPerPost
Sponsored Reviews
ReviewMe
BlogVertise
Smorty
8. RSS Feed Ads
With the quick adoption of the RSS technology by millions of Internet users, website owners are starting to find ways to monetize this new content distribution channel.
Feedburber already has its own publisher network, and you can sign-up to start displaying CPM based advertising on your feed footer. Bidvertiser recently introduced a RSS feed ad option as well, with a PPC scheme.
Finally, some blogs are also opting to sell banners or sponsored messages on their feed directly. John Chow and Marketing Pilgrim are two examples.
Related links:
Feedburner
BidVertiser
Pheedo
9. Sponsors for Single Columns or Events
If you website has specific columns or events (e.g., a weekly podcast, an interview series, a monthly survey, a special project) you could find companies to sponsor them individually.
This method increases the monetization options for website owner, while giving advertisers the possibility to target a more specific audience and with a reduced commitment.
Mashable illustrates the case well. They have several advertising options on the site, including the possibility to sponsor specific columns and articles, including the “Daily Poll†and the “Web 2.0 Invites.â€
Problogger also runs group writing projects occasionally, and before proceeding he publicly announce the project asking for sponsors.
10.Premium Content
Some websites and blogs give away part of their content for free, and charge for access to the premium content and exclusive tools.
SEOMoz is a good example. They have a very popular blog that gives advice and information on wide range of SEO related topics. On top of that visitors can decide to become premium members. It costs $48 monthly and it grants them access to guides, tools and other exclusive material.
11. Private Forums
While the Internet is populated with free forums, there is also the possibility to create a private one where members need to pay a single or recurring fee to join.
SEO Blackhat charges $100 monthly from its members, and they have thousands of them. Obviously in order to charge such a price for a forum membership you need to provide real value for the members (e.g., secret techniques, tools, and so on).
Performancing also launched a private forum recently, focused on the networking aspect. It is called The Hive, and the monthly cost is $10.
These are just two examples. There are many possibilities to create a private and profitable forum, you just need to find an appealing angle that will make it worth for the members.
List of popular forum software:
vBulletin
Simple Machines Forum
phpBB
Vanilla
12. Job Boards
All the popular blogs are trying to leverage job boards to make some extra income. Guy Kawasaki, ReadWriteWeb, Problogger… you name it.
Needless to say that in order to create an active and profitable job board you need first to have a blog focused on a specific niche, and a decent amount traffic.
The advantage of this method is that it is passive. Once you have the structure in place, the job listings will come naturally, and you can charge anywhere from $10 up to $100 for each.
List of popular job board software:
JobThread
Web Scribe Job Board
SimplyHired Job-o-matic
Jobbex
13. Marketplaces
Sitepoint is the online marketplace by excellence. Some websites and blogs, however, are trying to replicate that model on a smaller scale.
Depending on your niche, a market place that allows your visitors to buy, sell and trade products could work well. Over the time you could start charging a small fee for new product listings.
The problem with this method is that there are no standard software on the web, so you would need to hire a coder to get a marketplace integrated into your website.
You can see an example of a marketplaces being used on EasyWordpress and on Mashable.
14. Paid Surveys and Polls
There are services that will pay you money to run a small survey or poll on your website. The most popular one is called Vizu Answers.
Basically you need to sign up with them, and select the kind of polls that you want to run your site. Most of these services operate under a CPM model.
15. Selling or Renting Internal Pages
Million Dollar Wiki made this concept popular, but it was being used on the web for a long time around (check Pagerank10.co.uk for instance).
These websites sell for a single fee or rent for a recurring fee internal pages on their domain. Usually they have either high Pagerak or high traffic, so that people purchasing a page will be able to benefit in some way.
Implementing this method on a small blog would be difficult, but the concept is interesting and could be explored further.
16. Highlighted Posts from Sponsors
Techmeme probably pioneered this idea, but somehow it has not spread to other websites. The tech news aggregator displays editorial posts on the left column, and on the sidebar they have a section titled “Techmeme Sponsor Posts.â€
On that section posts from the blog of the advertisers get highlighted, sending qualified traffic their way. Considering that the monthly cost for one spot is $5000 and that they have around 6 sponsors at any given time, it must be working well.
17. Donations
Placing a “Donate†link or button on a website can be an efficient way to earn money, especially if your blog is on a niche where readers learn and gain value from your content.
Personal development and productivity blogs, for instance, tend to perform well with donation based systems (one good example being Steve Pavlina).
A small variation of this method appeared sometime ago with the Buy Me a Beer plugin. This WordPress plugin enables you to insert a customized message at the bottom of each article, asking the readers to chip in for a beer or coffee.
18. In-text Adverting
In-text adverting networks like Kontera and Vibrant Media will place sponsored links inside your text. These links come with a double underline to differentiate them from normal links, and once the user rolls the mouse over the link the advertising will pop. Should the user click on it the site owner will make some money.
Some people make good money with this method, but others refrain from using it due to its intrusiveness. It is also interesting to note that very few mainstream websites have experimented with in-text advertising.
19. Pop-ups and Pop-unders
Pop-ups are a common yet annoying form of advertising on the Internet. If you are just trying to make a much money as possible from your website, you could experiment with them.
If you are trying to grow the traffic and generate loyal visitors, however, you probably should stay away from them. Just consider the hundreds of pop-up blockers out there: there is a reason why they are so popular.
Ad networks that use pop-ups:
Tribal Fusion
PayPopup
PopupAd
Adversal
20. Audio Ads
Also called PPP (Pay Per Play), this advertising method was introduce by Net Audio Ads. the concept is pretty simple: play a small audio advertising (usually 5 seconds) every time a visitor enters into your website. The user should not be able to stop it, creating a 100% conversion rate based on unique visitors.
The company is still rolling tests, but some users are reporting to get from a $4 to a $6 CPM. Regardless of the pay rate, though, this is a very intrusive form of advertising, so think twice before using it.
21. Selling the Website
Selling your website could be your last resource, but it has the potential to generate a big sum of money in a short period of time.
Market places on online forums like DigitalPoint and Sitepoint are always active with website buyers and sellers. Keep in mind that they most used parameter to determine the value of a website is the monthly revenue that it generates, multiplied by a certain number (the multiplier can be anything from 5 to 30, depending on the expectations of the seller, on the quality of the site, on the niche and other factors).
Some people also make money trading and flipping websites. They either create them from scratch or buy existing ones, and after some revamping they sell them for a profit.
Related links:
How To Buy A Website And Flip It For Profit
How To Sell A Website – How Much Is Your Website Worth?
Where to sell a website? How to go about selling it?
Indirect Methods
22. Selling an Ebook
Perhaps one of the oldest money making strategies on the web, using a website to promote a related ebook is a very efficient way to generate revenue.
You could either structure the website around the book itself, like SEOBook.com, or launch the ebook based on the success of the website, like FreelanceSwitch did we the book How to be a Rockstar Freelancer.
Related links:
Writing an ebook for your blog
How to sell ebooks
Processing payments for your ebook
How to sell digital products online
List of ebook selling software
23. Selling a Hardcover Book
Many authors and journalists leverage their blogs or websites to sell copies of hardcover books. Examples include Guy Kawasaki, Seth Godin and Malcolm Gladwell.
While most of these people were already renowned authors before they created their website, one could also follow the other way around. Lorelle VanFossen did exactly that with her Blogging Tips book. First she built her authority on the subject via her blog, and afterwards she published the book.
List of self publishing and publishing services:
Lulu
Self Publishing
iUniverse
WordClay
24. Selling Templates or WordPress Themes
As more and more people decide to get an online presence, website templates and WordPress themes become hotter and hotter.
On this segment you have mainstream websites like TemplateMonster, as well as individual designers who decide to promote and sell their work independently.
Brian Gardner and Unique Blog Designs are two examples of websites that make money with the sales of premium and custom WordPress themes.
25. Offering Consulting and Related Services
Depending on your niche, you could make money by offering consulting and related services. If you are also the author of your blog, the articles and information that you will share will build your profile and possibly certify your expertise on that niche, making it easier to gain customers.
Chris Garrett used a similar strategy. First he created a highly influential blog on the blogging and new media niche, and afterwards he started offering consulting services to clients with related problems and needs.
26. Creating an Email List or Newsletter
Email lists and newsletters represent one of the most powerful marketing and money making tools on the Internet. They offer incredible conversion rates, and the possibility to call people to action in a very efficient way.
Creating a big list is a difficult task though, so if you have a popular website you could leverage it to increase the number of subscribers on your list.
Yaro Starak is a famous Internet marketer, and if you visit his blog you will notice that right on top he has a section encouraging visitors to subscribe to his email newsletter. Yaro generates five figures in revenues each month from his email newsletters, proving that this method works.
List of software to manage email newsletters:
AWeber
SendStudio NX
PHP Autoresponder
Constant Contact
27. Mentoring programs
People are willing to pay for someone or something that will teach them and give them knowledge (as opposed to mere information). Education is one of the biggest industries in the world, and the online landscape behaves in a similar way.
Creating a mentoring program related to the niche of your website could be very profitable if you manage to structure and promote it adequately. There is a wide range of media and tools that you can use to deliver the information, from text articles to audio and video lessons.
Brian Clark leveraged the success of Copyblogger to launch a mentoring program teaching people how to build membership and how to sell content online. The program is titled Teaching Sells, and it costs $97 monthly. Sounds expensive, but they have over 1,000 members.
28. Creating a conference around the website
If your website takes off and becomes an authority on its niche, you could create a conference around it. Depending on the size of your audience, the event could attract thousands of people, and you could make money directly from conference passes and sponsors.
Search Engine Land, for instance, created a series of conferences that visit several cities on the United States and on other countries as well. The conferences are called Search Marketing Expo, and the tickets and passes cost thousands of dollars.
Email Marketing
This is one of my favorite things to talk about because it’s just so powerful.
Building an email list can make you a lot of money, help you build a solid brand and of course help readers come back to your site, time after time.
Email marketing can be seen to make you money in a few different ways, such as direct email promotions, to deliver free reports that are monetized and my favorite, to drive traffic back to your site where you make money from other methods.
Gone are the days of finding it hard to get people to subscribe to your website.
A few years ago, we added a lightbox popup to IncomeDiary. Over night, we went from getting 20+ subscribers a day to well over 100.
At the time, most websites hated the idea of using popups because of the negative association people have with them. But these popups are different. Instead of popping up in another browser window, they popup as part of the page you are on. It was a lot less intrusive. Even better, it wasn’t to promote something spammy, but rather something of value to the reader.
After seeing the massive results, we decided to develop our own software so that other website owners can experience the huge gains we have. We called it PopUp Domination.
Even after selling over 30,000 copies, big names in the industry still didn’t want to use it. They thought they knew better. But that’s changed now because they started using it to and saw the results for themselves. Now it’s unlikely to find a monetized website that doesn’t use popups.
Love it or hate it but a big reason for the success of popup opt-ins is down to this site you are on today.
PopUp Domination works on any website. Has over 30 different designs, each with over a dozen color options. We offer a full 60 day, no questions asked, money back guarantee.
The next best thing is a squeeze page, which is a dedicated page to getting a visitor to sign up for your mailing list. You can see an example of a page like this by checking out our squeeze page for our Traffic Domination video! If you want to create amazing high converting squeeze pages (+ a lot more), check out Optimizepress, we wrote an in-depth review on it.
Here is an example of a squeeze page we created with Optimizepress for our photography blog:
In order to start collecting emails, you need to sign up for Aweber which hosts your emails, allows you to send messages to them, create follow up campaigns, split test etc.
Personally I would say you should also pick up PopUp Domination, not because I own it but because it’s the best thing for email marketing. About 85% of my subscribers sign up via it, 10% from my squeeze page and 5% from other optins.
Benefits:
Very direct way to market.
One email can make you thousands.
Anyone can do it.
Considered by most to be the no1 way to make money online consistently.
Drawbacks:
Always require new leads.
If subscribers don’t like your emails, they will unsubscribe.
Sell Advertising Space
The most popular form of making money from a website is by placing ads on it. We all know what it is, but did you know you could make money in different ways, such as Paid Per Click, Paid Per 1000 Views or Paid Per Time Frame.
The most common form of advertising is Google Adsense which is paid per click, however a lot of people know what Adsense is in 2015 and avoid clicking them.
As far as I see it, you have two choices:
1. Find and work with advertisers yourself.
or
2. Work with a middle man who takes a cut for bringing you advertisers.
It all depends on you. Is this a business for you or is this just an opportunity to make a bit more money?
I always lean towards finding advertisers myself. In my experience you get paid more, build better partnerships and can do a better job for them.
Advertising sales makes up only a small portion of my earnings but it’s nice to know that money is almost guaranteed to come in every month.
Be warned, Google does not like the practice of buying and selling text links. People buy text links because Google rank sites better based on quantity and quality of links. When you link to someone, you are telling search engines that you trust this site and you are giving them some of your authority. Google likes this to happen organically. So when you buy/sell links and get caught, Google will punish you by slapping your site down in the rankings.
Benefits:
Often guaranteed income
Little effort to monetize
Great way to connect with others in your industry.
Drawbacks:
Takes away from user experience.
If you set a set price per month, you can’t make any more even if you double you traffic.
Advertisers come and go, you have to spend time editing, adding, deleting and finding more advertisers.
Create a Job Board
This works like so:
People looking to hire someone will post a job on your board and readers will apply for the job. This is a great method of monetizing a website which I have seen done by a lot of authority websites.
On the other hand, I have seen smaller blogs try to do this and completely fail because it’s competitive and if you can’t send them anyone to apply, it’s pointless for them to post a job. Jobs can be anything from, writers to trainers.
There are a whole load of different Job Board plugins and software. In the past I have used Jobpress with WordPress and it worked well. You will want to use some of your advertising space to promote the job board so that readers will see it and apply for jobs.
Charge low at the beginning for a listing so you can attract a lot of customers and if they get applications they will be happy to return.
Benefits:
Completely hands of, you don’t have to do anything.
Adds to credibility
Drawbacks:
Doesn’t work for small blogs
Very competitive at times.
Selling Services
Selling services is a very popular technique people use to make money from a website and is often the reason for them building a blog in the first place. They want to get more clients, to do that they need to get traffic and blogs are great for that!
The easiest way to start selling your services on your blog is to create a new page within WordPress and call it services. Here you can put in the information about what you offer, testimonials and a buy now button.
To collect payments, your best two options is either PayPal or Samcart + Stripe. Both have their own pros/cons, for a small time deal, PayPal is probably a safe option. We personally use Samcart because it makes us more money than if we didn’t.
Benefits:
High converting, they see your blog and want more!
Highly profitable.
Easy to deliver.
Low refunds.
Drawbacks:
Exchanging time for money.
Customers are always right (which we know isn’t true).
Can be periods of time where you have no customers!
Review Products as an Affiliate
I know quite a few people who review products on their blogs, it makes great content and if the product you are reviewing has an affiliate program, can make you a lot of money. You can review anything from software, to bikes, cars, hotels, holidays, food, anything you could think of and it’s all tax deductible (I believe) if you buy something to review.
Check this post out about How To Start a Review Blog.
I personally want to review one product a month, it’s not so many that readers will be turned of but enough that it will make up a high proportion of my income. Doing small amount of reviews means you can pick all the best products and don’t have to speak about negative ones.
Benefits:
Great source of income.
Converts higher then banner ads and email promotions.
Free products sent to you to review.
Connect with industry leaders.
Get noticed as a top affiliate.
Drawbacks:
You can’t always say nice things.
If you say bad things, don’t expect to work with that person.
Products become irrelevant quickly in some industry’s.
Promote Products as an Affiliate
Another hot topic here on IncomeDiary.
We earn around 30% of our income from promoting products as an affiliate. What this means is we recieve a commission when you buy things.
Don’t be alarmed, we promote what works for us, not because we will earn a commission. Fortunately nearly all products that exist, have an affiliate program. If you can’t find an affiliate program for a particular product, type product name + affiliate into Google. For example: PopUp Domination Affiliate.
In my experience, affiliate marketing works best when paired up with email marketing. Top marketers consistently agree, year after year, that email marketing is their most important income source. Combine that with affiliate marketing and you have a winner.
There are so many ways to go about finding a product to promote, it often depends on your industry. For a fitness blog, you could go to Clickbank, find a product about six pack abs and grab an advertising banner from their resources area and put it up on my website.
You could also do a blog post such as, 7 Ways To Get Six Pack Abs, then at the end, promote the product.
We have a photography blog. One of the ways we use affiliate marketing is to promote the cameras and accessories that we use. All of these are available on Amazon. So we signed up for Amazons Associate program and receive a commission every time a customer buys something through our link. We also get a commission on anything else in their shoppingcart which is kind of them.
Benefits:
Can earn you big bucks!
Can get high conversions if your promotions are done right.
Passive income.
Drawbacks:
Earnings are not guaranteed, can earn $100 one month, $1000 the next.
Great products can have low converting sales pages.
High converting sales pages can have crap products.
Offer a Membership Site or Premium Content
This technique I have seen become more and more popular over the last couple of years.
Premium content is paid for in a special members area, typically there is free content which attracts readers and then they realize they need more and will pay for it. PSDtuts have a great example of this, readers come to see free tutorials on how to do something in Photoshop, then they tell them they have to become Plus members to get the photoshop files and see even more advanced tutorials.
Your first step should be to work out what your going to offer. Then, you want to create a membership area for them to login and see the information your selling, I spoken about this in detail here. Next, I would do 3 things, email my mailing list and do a blog post about the membership, then create an advert for the bottom of every post which says something like, Liked this?
If you love my membership site then, click here to find out more.
Benefits:
Continuity income, keep making money, month after month.
Can be set and forget, if you time release.
Affiliates will send you traffic!
Can be a huge earner, it accounts for over $90k a month for Tutsplus.
Drawbacks:
Can be a lot of work to set up.
Regular work to release more content.
Create & Sell Your Own Digital Product
Something I’m experimenting more and more with and I’m not sure if it’s just me.. but it seems like the world has gone crazy about making products, they are everywhere which has educated the market so they know they have to purchase content now. The simple version of creating a product is as followed, create a 30+ page word document about something, turn it into a PDF and sell it.
You can find out more about creating a product and selling it online by reading this article.
Personally I think your first steps would be to ask your audience what they want to know more about, create a product around that and sell it!
If your goal at the beginning is to make only a small amount of money, say you expect to make no more then $1000 from selling it the first month or two then I recommend you go with using PayPal like with selling services. Once you grow your business and you are selling more, a great choice is to use Samcart who handle all the orders and allow you to have affiliates.
Benefits:
Affiliates send you traffic, build your business.
Because of affiliates, you have a passive income.
Great for building your brand and authority.
Big Money Earner.
Drawbacks:
Time consuming to setup.
Sell Paid Directory Listings
This isn’t very common but I believe it should be.
I see it as a smart way to sell advertising, you see instead of putting adverts on your sidebar, you have a directory on your blog where you link to different company’s and websites in your industry and charge a premium for the listing. If you charged a monthly fee, so for example, say you had 1000 people listed in your directory and charged $7 a month, you would earn $7000 a month in continuity.
In some ways, this is actually beneficial to the reader, say you have a website about becoming a model, in the directory could be a section for photographers, where photographers pay to list their services. Models will come and look for the right person to take pictures of them for their portfolio, helpful and profitable.
Just like a job board, I would add adverts to my blog, promoting the directory to make sure customers are happy with the number of people seeing their ad and the traffic they get. To start with, I would even advertise on other sites to get people to list in your directory, as well as reaching out to people and company’s to buy a listing.
Benefits:
Highly profitable.
Useful to readers.
Makes you stand out as your doing something different.
Nearly guaranteed income.
Drawback:
Costs to setup.
Smaller sites may not work so well.
Host Webinars & Sell Something
Although I tried this year and didn’t have good results, I think that was down to promoting other peoples products instead of my own.
People get on webinars to hear you speak, not someone else to do a sales pitch. What you do is set up a free webinar that you reply once a week where you teach them something and then at the end you sell them into 4 more webinars. Once you complete the webinar series, you now have a product that you can sell as a home study course
Start by buying GoToWebinar, personally I would host a free webinar and not sell anything on your first one so that you can get in some practice with the software and talking live with people.
Lewis Howes talks about setting up successful webinars in a recent interview we did together.
Benefits:
High priced, low amount of customers, so low support.
Readers want to connect with you.
Highly beneficial to those who buy.
Great way to teach.
Drawbacks:
If your doing live webinars, your exchanging time for money.
Investment for software.
People have to turn up at a specific time, hard for different time zones.
Write Tutorials & Promote Something
Another thing I don’t see often, but I love to do!
Content is what everyone is after, that’s why they come to your website, so create content which includes them buying something so that when they do buy, they buy via an affiliate link, and you make money!
What I do to create a tutorial is start with the product, find one that you are using and you get a lot out of, it of course needs an affiliate program. Then do a tutorial about doing something using that tool.
So for example it could be a post about Photography and take a specific type of photo but you need this lens to do it.
Benefits:
Makes great content.
Good for search engines.
Profitable long term.
Quick to produce.
Drawbacks:
Finding enough products that have affiliate programs.
Some people may not be interested because they don’t yet have the product.
Publish a Book
A lot of people want to write a book, however they have no audience.
A blog can bring you branding, can help you connect with other people in your industry, help you understand what people like to read about, more importantly what people don’t like. All this can help you write a book that can become profitable.
A lot of people don’t consider a book because you only get a couple dollars a book but that’s not just what you earn.
Publishing a book can allow you to then launch a product because people always want more, also a more exciting prospect is being paid to speak. If you are published, your automatically seen as an expect, it doesn’t matter if you never sell more then a dozen books, this means you can charge to speak and charge a lot more for consulting.
There’s so many different ways to go about publishing a book, most choose self publish but if your blog is successful, either they will find you or in my case, a friend connected me with his published and told me I should write a book. Someone in your industry who blogs, will also have published a book, help them and they will help you.
Benefits:
Authority.
Long term earnings.
Increase your charge for consulting.
Paid to speak at events.
Drawbacks:
Timely or expensive if you have a ghostwriter.
Doesn’t make you a lot of money on it’s own.
Offer Live Training and Workshops
Just like selling consulting and services, you could also use your blog to sell live training, workshops and seminars.
People read your blog but I wouldn’t be surprised if over 80% don’t act on what you say. Having a workshop means they learn from you and implement with you, this is a very attractive offer to some people and they are willing to pay high prices to do it.
You don’t just make money from the price of the ticket but you can also make money from selling follow up workshops and masterminds. If you bring in speakers, then you also collect 50% of everything they make if they sell from stage at the end. Another thing to consider is recording the event and then selling that as a product on your blog.
Putting on an event is a daunting thing, however it really isn’t to hard. Ring up a hotel, book a conference room, now you have a date, write a blog post and send everyone on your mailing list to that page.
Mention your event every where and keep hustling! Apart from that, all you NEED to do is create your slides and turn up. Some of my friends even hire people to run everything for them so they don’t have to worry about the event side of things themselves.
Benefits:
Can make you a lot of money.
Can be made into a product.
People will invite you to speak at their events so that you can sell yours.
Makes you an authority.
Drawbacks:
Time consuming.
Selling can sometimes be hard.
Stressful for first timers and often the pros.
Sell Your Website
Definitely my favorite of all the above and also the one that pays the most.
Selling your website can make you very wealthy, or it could be just a nice retirement fund. Whatever it is, it can be a great way to get a large lump sum of cash.
Typically, websites sell for 12 – 24 months revenue, however if your site is old, has something unique about it or is the authority in your industry then you can expect any figure you want. I have seen some blogs go for over 200 years revenue and it didn’t even make $100,000 a year.
Work hard and it will pay off.
It is important to remember if you sold your site for 2 years revenue and it made $5000 a month, you would get $120,000. To earn that amount of money it could take you 6 or 7 years because of expenses and taxes. Also you have to consider how long it took you to build your business, if it took you a year to build your blog and it’s now worth $120,000 and you made $60,000 this last year.
That I would say would be a very profitable year! If you’re already at the stage where you can sell a website then head over to Flippa, this site allows webmasters to sell websites and allow people to come bid and ask questions. I have sold a few sites there before, some for 5 figure sums.
Benefits:
Large amount of cash.
Can be sold within a month.
Enough money not to work for years.
Drawbacks:
You lose an asset.
You lose an income steam.
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