How to make money with your website
Once you started your own website, you want to make money, of course! Well, there are a couple different ways you can make money with your site: advertising and selling goods and services. This article will just deal with the first way. See the article, Accepting Credit Cards on your website, for how to handle selling goods and services
Using advertising to make money
As long as you have a website, you can get advertisers. Even if you are just starting out, you are able to advertise on your website. You may not make any money in the beginning, but you are able to do it. You can do this by joining an “affiliate” of sites where you can select from a variety of advertisers.
Ways to make money through advertising
When you provide advertising on your site, you will generally be paid using the following three methods.
1. Pay Per Click (PPC)
Through this method, you are only paid when visitors actually click the advertisement on your site. Therefore, simply having the advertisement display on your page will not make you any money. This is the method Google utilizes through Google AdSense, which we will discuss in more detail later in the article. The key to this type of program is targeting your ads to your audience. For example, if you have a sports website, displaying a bunch of ads for women’s clothing obviously will not be as effective as ads for sporting goods, sports betting, etc.
2. Pay Per Sale or Lead
Here, you will only make money if people actually purchase the item or sign up for the advertised service. Pay per sale has a higher payment rate than PPC, but a lower conversion rate. It is even more important with this program to target your ads to your audience.
3. Pay Per Impression
With this method, you are paid through the number of times the advertiser’s ad is displayed on your site. How much you make is generally calculated based on the number of thousand impressions of the banner. Impressions do not mean clicks; instead they are the number of times the banner is displayed. This is sometimes called CPM, which stands for cost per thousand (M is the Latin numeral for thousand). $5 CPM means that you get paid $5 for 1,000 displays of the banner. That doesn’t sound like much, but don’t forget that people don’t actually need to click on the ad. You get paid as long as people visit your page. This is considered a “high conversion rate”.
Regardless of which method you use, most advertisers won’t pay you until you reach a certain level, like $100.
How to join an affiliate program
You can join an affiliate network or program by simply going to their site and completing an online application form. After you are approved, you just paste some HTML code into your web page and the ads will display on their own.
Click here for a list of affiliate programs and affiliate networks.
How to Choose an Affiliate Program
I would not pick a program simply because you like their payment method. Just like with TV advertising, focus instead on getting to know your audience and placing targeted ads to that audience. You will likely have much better success advertising a product your audience wants rather than having random ads.
One thing you want to consider is how many affiliate programs to join. I realize that the more advertisements you have, the more opportunities you have to make money, but some people get really turned off by websites covered with a bunch of ads. Use your best judgment to decide how much is too much. One advantage of limiting the number of ads is that you can get paid quicker because you can reach their minimum payment amount quicker.
Google AdSense
Probably the most popular advertising network is Google AdSense. They are easy to set up and they automatically check your web page to determine the most relevant advertisement for the page, giving you a targeted ad. You can find more information about Google AdSense in the article, How to add Google AdSense to your website.
Get Started
Advertising revenue is one of the easiest ways to earn money from your site. Once you set up your banner ad, your work is done. I must warn you that you will barely make anything in the beginning if you have few visitors and it could take a very long time before you even reach your minimum limit. But you have to start somewhere. Eventually, companies will seek you out if you have enough visitors!
You might want to read the article, Making money with your website using affiliate programs, for more tips on earning from your website.
