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It is completely
possible to make money off your website, and this short document
will give you the basics as to some of the methods available to you.
Prerequisites
First, you need to have a site that receives
visitor traffic. The higher your traffic, the more
potential for revenue. If your site does not receive
traffic (or is brand new), it's probably not a good time to
start placing ads on your site. Ads are disliked by
website visitors. You want your viewers to stay at your
site awhile, and maybe even tell others about it. Placing
ads prematurely is a sure way to slow growth.
Second, you need a site that's going to fit into certain
guidelines. These guidelines will vary, depending on who
you're placing these ads for. However, any sites with
illegal content, or that exist for the sake of spam or other
objectionable means are pretty sure to be rejected.
Third, you probably shouldn't be selling things on your
website. If you're selling something, the last thing you
want someone to do is leave your site. When someone clicks
an ad, they're gone to the new site and you've just lost
yourself a potential sale. It's common sense.
Finally, the most important requirement is GOOD CONTENT.
If you're looking to make money through website advertising, you will inevitably hear
this time and time again, and it is for good reason.
Content is what brings visitors, and keeps them coming back.
Content is what causes visitors to tell others about your
website.
Money-Making Methods
Banners/Ads - ways to use banner/ad space to
collect a revenue
- Selling ad space on a contract basis - Pretty simple in
concept... You allow someone to place an ad on your site,
and they pay you monthly, yearly, etc. Great because
it's guaranteed income, whether you have a little traffic,
or a lot of traffic. The downsides are that you're
obligated to keep that ad up for that period of time.
Also if your traffic skyrockets, you don't make any extra.
- Pay-per-click (PPC or CPC) ads - You put an ad on your
site, clicks are recorded, and you are paid for each click.
Can be great if ads are related to your content, as you can
make a lot of money this way. Poor if ads aren't
related to your content, or are in poor positions on your
web pages, as you will have few clicks and make very little.
- Pay-per-impression (PPI or CPM) - Actually usually
"pay-per-thousand-impressions". This is good for
high-traffic websites, as you are paid for each thousand
times an ad shows up. Unfortunately, very few
merchants are willing to pay much for these, as they end up
paying, even if no-body clicks the ad.
- Pay-per-lead - Very similar to pay-per-click, except you
only make money if the visitor actually buys something from
the merchant's site. Think of it as a commission-based
model. Merchants love this, as they only pay when they
make money. If you send 3000 visitors to their site
who all buy nothing, you make nothing. Many
advertisers dislike this model, for that reason.
However, pay-per-lead clicks usually pay very well when a
sale is made. These are often offered in the form of
banners or links. If you link to a merchant anyway
(for example if you have a review site, and they're one of
the sites you review), making it a commission-based link
often makes sense.
Pop-up/Pop-under ads - an ad method "forced" upon
visitors that pays well
These are absolutely hated by visitors. Unfortunately,
they make good money, so they're quite popular. They're
usually pay-per-impression, and better for high-traffic sites.
The only pro is that they pay well. Here are the cons:
- Websites look less professional when a visitor is
greeted with a pop-up, or finds a pop-under when they leave.
Depending on your site's "image," this may not affect you.
- Visitors hate pop-ups and pop-unders. You may see
a sharp decrease in traffic after adding these to your site.
- As users become more and more fed-up with pop-ups, the
number of people with pop-up blockers installed increases by
the day. Pop-up blockers are even installed by default
by certain web browsers. This means that your ads wont
be shown to those visitors, and you aren't paid for blocked
ads.
Selling a link - don't want large banners on your
site? this might be for you.
This is essentially selling ad-space, but with a link
instead. If your site is heavily trafficked enough, you
might be able to sell links on a monthly or yearly basis.
However, keep 2 things in mind. First, if you're linking
to a low quality site, it can reflect poorly on your own site.
An ad is simply an ad, but depending on how you link to the
site, if it looks like it's a "recommended" site, it should
really be a site you would recommend (although in that case why
isn't it there already?). Second, do not sell links based
on Page Rank (the "rank" Google gives your site). While
people will pay well for links to site with high page rank,
Google frowns heavily upon this, and getting caught could mean
getting banned from Google's index.
Accepting donations - the generosity of others
Since so many sites already have "donate" links, people have
become accustomed to ignoring them. However, if you offer
information, or a service that you believe is extremely helpful
to others, it may be worth adding a "donate" button. The
most popular way to do this is to set up a Paypal donate link.
You can get more information about how to do this on Paypal's
web site. Keep in mind, you almost always need to offer superb
content, or at least a very useful service of some sort for a
viewer to even consider donating money.
Selling the site
Selling a domain name
If you managed to grab a great domain name, and don't really
have a want or a need for it anymore, you can try selling it.
Either mention that you're selling it on the domain's front
page, or find one of the various resources for selling domains
on the internet. If the content of the website isn't included,
make that clear.
Selling a website
This happens quite often, and there's a pretty large market
for fully developed websites. In fact, there are some who
develop websites with the sole purpose of selling them. If
you manage to put together a well-designed site with good
ORIGINAL content, chances are you can get a pretty penny for it.
Note that you can usually get more money for a site that's been
around awhile, has a lot of unique visitors, and scores highly
with the search engines (if nothing else, the buyer will simply
put their own ads on it to make long-term revenue).
Links
Google Adsense - A popular starting point for most
people is Google's Adsense program. You display ads (which
are automatically targeted based on the type of content you
have), and receive money for clicks. All that's required
is to sign up, place some html code on your website, and let time
do it's work.
Yahoo Publisher Network
- Very similar to Google's Adsense program, although with
Yahoo's own rules and regulations. Unfortunately, at the
time of this writing, YPN is in beta and only available to those
in the US, so those who live elsewhere will have to look
elsewhere.
Chitika -
Relatively new, and can apparently certain Chitika ads may
co-exist with certain Adsense ads. Because it's new, and
they're still making changes, I would personally be more
comfortable with Google's or Yahoo's service, but this is an
option nonetheless.
WebHostingTalk - A web hosting forum. They have a section
called "Advertising Forums" which includes sub-forums where you
can advertise that you're selling ad or link space.
There are many others, but I believe these to be the most
popular and the most helpful. In any case, they should be
enough to hopefully give you a head start. Good luck!
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