Do you want to know how to make money with a website? You are in the right place.
There are thousands of bloggers and entrepreneurs who earn full time income from their websites. The most successful earn thousands (or even tens of thousands) of dollars each month.
And in this post, we will show you how you can do the same.
It all starts with the traffic. Once you’ve grown your blog and started getting traffic, you can monetize that traffic and turn your website into a money-making machine.
Below we have outlined our favorite monetization strategies that you can use to earn money online from your website.
Clever? Let’s start!
1. Electronic books
One of the best ways to make money online from a website is to use it to sell digital products, and eBooks are one of the easiest digital products to sell.
The average eBook sells for around $2.99, so if you can sell a thousand copies a month, that’s $2,990. Of course, that is no small thing, but it is doable.
That said, some publishers commented that they could make more profit by raising prices. Although they sell fewer copies, the profit can be much higher overall. Ultimately, you’ll need to find a pricing strategy that works for you.
And don’t worry, your ebook doesn’t have to be a huge 100,000-word fiction novel that takes years to write. Shorter eBooks still sell well and can be up to 10,000 words.
Creating your ebook content is quite easy. If you like to write, you can write an ebook yourself for free and create covers and promotional graphics with free tools like Canva. Alternatively, you can have an experienced writer write it for you for a fee. Sometimes this can be more profitable if you don’t have the time to spend on a large-scale writing project.
If you seem like an expert on a certain topic, try writing an informative non-fiction eBook on that topic and sell it on your website. If you already have a successful blog in that niche, even better! You can promote your eBook to your current audience to drive sales.
For example, let’s say you already have a website where you publish blog posts about wilderness camping. He could write an entire e-book titled «The Ultimate Guide to Wild Camping.» You can then advertise it to your website visitors as a popup or inline ad in your posts.
How to start
To sell eBooks online, you’ll need to create an eCommerce store. And for that, we recommend Sellfy.
Sellfy is the easiest way to sell ebooks from your own website. You can use it to create online stores from scratch.
Unlike other eCommerce platforms, Sellfy charges no transaction fees and comes with everything you need to run your digital business, including order management, marketing, and built-in analytics.
I already wrote a detailed Sellfy review if you want to know more.
You can also distribute your eBooks to online marketplaces (such as Amazon, Apple Books, Google Play, etc.) using PublishDrive. This can help you reach a larger market and generate more sales. However, you will usually have to split your profits so that you only get paid a fraction of the sales price in royalties.
That’s why it’s best to sell primarily through your own website, where you can keep 100% of the profits. Regardless, there are plenty of platforms to sell eBooks, whichever option you choose.
2. Print-on-demand merchandise
Another great way to make money online from your website is to sell print-on-demand products. Print on demand (POD) is a business model where printing does not occur until the business receives an order. It works like this:
First, find a provider of white-label products that can be customized. For example, popular products include t-shirts, baseball caps, bumper stickers, and hoodies.
You can then customize those products with your own branding. If you’re a YouTuber, for example, you can add your channel logo or a funny/iconic quote from your channel to your merchandise.
Once a customer places an order at your store, a print-on-demand provider completes the order by printing the merchandise and shipping it to the customer. They charge you for compliance and you keep the difference as profit.
Selling print-on-demand products can be especially profitable if you’re an influencer who already has an engaged audience.
E.g, Wave Englund is a well known guitarist and YouTuber with more than 700,000 subscribers. He launched his own website to sell branded POD products such as t-shirts, mugs, bags, coasters, and drink bottles, and regularly promotes this online store to his fans in videos of him. With videos of him getting tens of thousands of views, you can bet he’s generating a lot of sales.
However, you don’t need to be an influencer to make money selling PODs online, you just need to think of some products that might appeal to your niche. For example, if you have a website about animals and pets, POD products with pet names could be a great option. You might also consider selling items with generic slogans or jokes in print that appeal to a broader market.
How to start
Again, Sellfy is a great solution for selling print-on-demand products.
You can subscribe to their free plan, create your store in a few clicks, design and add your products, and start selling!
Remember that the free plan limits you to a maximum of 10 products. If you want to remove this limit or connect your own domain, upgrade to a premium plan, which starts at $19/month.
3. Online courses
The e-learning industry is booming. There is a high demand for online courses in the market, so if you have knowledge or experience that you think others might be willing to pay for, try creating and selling online courses from your website.
With online courses, you create a series of members-only video or text lessons, then sell subscriptions that give customers access. You can sweeten the deal by offering things like access to a community forum or offering integrated assessments and certifications upon completion of the course.
The best thing about online courses is that they have a higher perceived value than other digital products like e-books. As such, you can sell them at a higher price and increase your profit margins.
This is because online courses look super professional once they’re up and running, yet they don’t have to cost a lot of money to create. If you have a decent camera and microphone, you can create your courses using your laptop or computer and edit them yourself online to make them look more professional.
There are also many other ways to earn extra money with your courses. For example, you can use your course to promote affiliate products to students, such as software and tools, that they might find useful. You can also sell additional resources, such as useful articles, additional information packs, and templates.
Better yet, you can also create your own affiliate program for your online course and generate additional income by referring other sellers in your niche to promote your course for a commission.
How to start
To create your online course, you will first need a learning management system (LMS) or online course platform. You can find a list of the best online course platforms here.
Podia is the best option for those who want to be able to sell other digital products besides courses. They have a free plan and allow you to sell other types of digital products. You can also create communities and monetize them.
Once you’ve chosen a platform, you can use it to build your website and create your course. As usual, You will break the course into a series of lessons and modules.
Most online course platforms also come with tools to help you promote your courses and increase sales.
4. Affiliate Marketing
Many bloggers monetize their websites through affiliate marketing. With affiliate marketing, you don’t have to sell your own products. Instead, they promote the products and services of third-party companies with an affiliate link and take a cut of the sales.
Affiliate marketing works by joining an affiliate program that you want to promote. It then takes your own unique affiliate link and uses it to send you to the product every time you promote it in your blog posts or anywhere else on your website.
When one of your website visitors clicks on your affiliate link and makes a purchase from the company you are promoting, you will receive a commission. Commissions are typically around 10% of the sale price, but can range from 1% to 50% or more.
The great thing about affiliate marketing is that there are tons of products to promote, so just about any website in any niche can find a product that suits their audience.
The products with the highest commission rates are usually digital products like SaaS tools and online courses, but you can also make money promoting physical products.
How to start
The first step is to register as an affiliate. There are two ways to do this: sign up directly for a specific affiliate program or join an affiliate network.
affiliate marketing networks they are the easiest option because they give you access to hundreds (sometimes thousands) of different affiliate programs in one place, making it easy to find something that suits your audience.
We recommend starting with ShareASale. It has more than 16,550 merchants in its database, so you will surely find a program you like there.
Another option is to sign up directly for the Amazon affiliate program. It’s easy to sign up and you can start earning commissions instantly on any of the hundreds of thousands of products listed in the Amazon marketplace. The biggest downside to this is that the commission rates are not as high as most merchants on ShareASale.
Once you have your affiliate links, you can start driving traffic to them through your website. The more traffic you have, the more money you can earn. Focus on SEO and try to get your posts to rank in search engines to maximize organic traffic.
5. Recurring subscriptions
Another way to monetize your website is to sell recurring subscriptions. The best thing about this is that it gives you a steady and regular source of income. Instead of making a one-time purchase, your customers sign up for a monthly package so you get repeat sales each month.
One way to build a subscription business is to charge website visitors a monthly fee to access your existing content library. Alternatively, they may involve the regular provision of new content to subscribers.
Online news sites, for example, often release premium content that is only available to their premium subscribers.
How to start
There are many eCommerce platforms that you can use to create a subscription site, but we recommend Sellfy or Podia.
Both are super easy to use and beginner friendly.
To pay for premium content, use a tool like Restrict Content Pro.
6. Start an eCommerce store
So far, we’ve talked a lot about selling digital products, but another way to make money online from a website is to set up an eCommerce store and sell physical products.
There are a few ways to do this. Most people choose to buy products they think will sell well from vendors at wholesale prices, then sell them through their e-commerce store at retail prices and pocket the difference. If you go this route, you’ll need a warehouse or space in your home to store the products you sell.
If you don’t want to have to stock products and fulfill orders yourself, you might consider drop shipping. Dropshipping involves selling products to customers through your eCommerce store, but having your supplier complete the order for you and deliver it to the customer.
And of course, if you don’t want to buy from vendors, you can always sell your own homemade products on your online store, just like Etsy sellers.
How to start
You will need an eCommerce platform to create your own online store and start making money online. I have written an overview of the best eCommerce platforms here.
In particular, we recommend checking out BigCommerce. It’s a full-featured and flexible eCommerce solution that powers some of the largest eCommerce stores in the world.
If you prefer a simpler solution, Sellfy is another good option. They offer a free tier that you can use for a limited number of physical products and PODs.
If you already have a WordPress website that you want to turn into an eCommerce store, you can use the WooCommerce plugin.
7. Collect donations
If you don’t want to sell products or promote affiliate offers, another way to monetize your site is to accept donations. It’s one of the easiest ways to make money online from a website and there are no startup costs.
If you give your audience great content for free, chances are there will be some appreciative readers who want to give something back. By accepting donations, you’re giving these website visitors a way to help fund your site so you can continue to create great content.
In fact, this is something we do ourselves here at Blogging Wizard.
If you scroll down to the bottom of this page, you’ll notice there’s a link to us. buy me a coffee page, where we collect donations from users who found our tips useful and want to show their appreciation. We also include it in emails and on other pages of the site.
How to start
The easiest way to collect donations is to use a donation platform like Buy Me a Coffee. This is what we use in Blogging Wizard. It’s a completely free service, so there are no startup costs, but I do accept 5% of donations.
If you want to try it, go to the site and you can create your page with a few clicks.
8. Sponsored Posts
If you have an authority website that gets a good amount of traffic, you can monetize it by offering sponsored posts.
A sponsored post is when a sponsor pays you to post a blog post promoting their brand on their site. It is common for brands to sponsor posts on popular websites to reach their audience.
With sponsored posts, you set the terms and prices. If the sponsor doesn’t want to write the post themselves, they can outsource the writing and include that cost in the price. You can use one of these freelancing sites to find a writer.
There are a few important things to keep in mind if you’re selling sponsored posts.
First, FTC rules require that you always post sponsored content. This is usually done with a disclaimer at the top of the post, but you’ll need to do your own research to make sure you’re disclosing it correctly and following all laws and guidelines. relevant.
Second, Google requires that links in sponsored posts not be tracked. The reason for this is that sponsors often pay for posts to create DoFollow backlinks that artificially enhance their site’s authority. Paying for links is against Google’s webmaster guidelines.
How to start
Getting started is as easy as creating an «advertise here» page on your website and filling it in with all the necessary details.
Add a link in your footer (and/or navigation bar) so potential backers can easily find you, and be sure to include a contact form they can fill out to ask questions and get more information.
9. Ad networks
Display ads have fallen out of favor in recent years, but they remain one of the easiest ways for publishers to monetize their sites.
To monetize their sites with ads, bloggers and site owners often rely on ad networks, services that connect groups of advertisers with groups of publishers.
Once you sign up for an ad network, the network will start serving relevant ads to your visitors. Depending on the type of pricing model you sign up for, you may be paid per click (we call it CPC advertising) or per thousand impressions (CPM).
How to start
To get started, you can sign up for Google AdSense. Google Adsense is by far the most popular ad network out there, but it’s not the only one, and it’s not necessarily the best option for every website.
The amount you can earn with AdSense will depend on the amount of traffic your site receives, the geographic location of your visitors (visitors from North American locations tend to generate more ad revenue), and the type of niche/industry/category of your visitors. its content.
For example, if your website content is about finance and you have 50,000 monthly page views from users in North America, you can earn over $19,000 per year. You can visit the Google Adsense website and use the calculator to find out exactly how much you could earn per month.
if you feel Google advertising doesn’t pay enough, there are plenty of alternatives. Media.net is another great option for those just starting out. Once your traffic grows, you can move on to networks like Monumetric and AdThrive. Check out our roundup of the best ad networks to explore all your options.
10. Sell ad space
Selling ad space directly to businesses is a great alternative to ad networks. If you go this route, you’ll have more control over the ads you run and you’ll be able to earn more money. Since there are no middlemen taking a cut, you can negotiate a higher pay per click. Y Keep 100% of the profits.
The downside to selling ad space independently is that it requires a lot more work on your part. You’ll need to find advertisers to work with, which can be difficult to manage, especially if you have a large site with a lot of ad space. .
How to start
If your site is built on WordPress, selling ad space is incredibly easy if you use a WordPress plugin to manage your ad sales. We’ve listed our favorite WordPress ad management plugins here, so check them out if you want to explore your options.
Alternatively, you can use a self-service advertising platform like Buy Sales to access an integrated network of trusted and relevant brands.
11. Native Advertising
We have already covered several different types of advertising. But there is another way to use advertising to monetize your website: native advertising.
Unlike display ads, native ads appear to be part of your website. ads that don’t look like ads and are usually included in a block of similar posts below your content.
Because they are non-intrusive and blend in with the organic content on your site, they do not negatively affect the user experience.
They also typically generate much better click-through and engagement rates than traditional display ads, making them the preferred form of advertising for many publishers and advertisers.
The other side of the coin is that many consumers have problems with native ads because they find them misleading. When it is not clear that an advertisement is an advertisement, consumers may feel that they have been misled, so to speak.
It is a controversial topic and it is up to you what your position is on it. If you want to explore native advertising, this is how to do it.
How to start
You’ll need to sign up for a native advertising platform to get started. They are similar to other digital ad platforms, but use advanced technology to programmatically serve native ads instead of banner ads and other types of display ads.
Two popular platforms for this are out believe Y Frame. However, they usually only work with very large publishers. Outbrain, for example, will only work with websites that generate at least 10 million page views. It is used by some of the largest publishers, including BBC Y the Guardian.
If you are a smaller publisher with a low traffic site, you can explore alternatives like Native Y Yahoo Gemini.
12. Services and Consulting
Another way to make money with a website is to use it to generate leads for your online service or consulting business.
Think of your website as an online portfolio. You can use it to showcase your work, advertise your services to potential clients, generate leads, and even get paid.
You can offer just about any service you can think of that is relevant to your audience. For example, let’s say you already have a successful blog in the health and wellness niche. You can brand yourself as a wellness professional and offer a paid life coaching service to help guide your audience to greater fulfillment.
Or how about this? Let’s say your website is in the fitness niche and you regularly publish blog posts about getting fit. You know that you already have an audience of people who want to train you, so you can start offering personal training services online and access that market of potential clients.
How to start
If you don’t already have a website, start by thinking about what kind of services you could offer and go from there. For example, if you are an avid writer, set yourself up as a freelance content writer and then create a website to promote your services.
Next, add a blog to your website and start posting articles related to content writing and digital marketing to drive traffic through SEO (search engine optimization).
Once you have traffic, set up a lead magnet and signup form to convert those website visitors into leads and continue promoting your services through email marketing.
And if you are very successful and start generating more sales than you can handle, use it as an opportunity to expand. Produce your service, branch out and turn your freelance work into an agency, then outsource the work to others or hire your own employees. The sky is the limit!
13. Paid webinars and live streams
One final way to monetize your website is to host paid webinars and live streams.
Most people think of webinars as lead generation tools. They allow people to register for them for free to attract new potential customers to their websites. But another option is to hold training sessions online and charge to access them. This is a great way to monetize your website’s existing audience.
It’s very similar to selling online courses, except instead of selling access to pre-recorded video lessons, you’re selling access to a live video event. The advantage of this is that at live events, you can interact directly with your audience. You can offer a Q&A session at the end of the webinar where attendees can ask questions and get answers on the spot.
How to start
You can use dedicated webinar software to create and host your webinars. We recommend checking out WebinarNinja or Podia. Podia is a good option if you want to sell other types of digital products besides webinars.
Once you’ve chosen your software and set up a registration page, you can start advertising your event and collecting registrations. At a minimum, you’ll probably want to add calls-to-action throughout your website to invite people to sign up.
To reach a larger audience, you can also promote your webinar or live stream to your social media followers and email subscribers, or even consider running paid ads.
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That concludes our complete guide on how to make money with a website!
As you can see, there are many ways to monetize your website, and we have only scratched the surface here.
Here is a summary of these 13 ways you can make money online from your website:
- Many website owners put their expertise to use by selling digital e-books, a simple and easy way to earn money online.
- If you’re a brand or influencer, print-on-demand merchandise can be an additional source of revenue from your website.
- Online courses are growing in popularity and they don’t seem to be slowing down.
- Affiliate marketing is an easy way to generate income from your website, and if you write all the content yourself, it’s free!
- One-time payments can keep your income from growing; however, by creating recurring subscriptions with tool subscriptions or paying for premium content, you can see revenue on a recurring basis.
- Similar to print on demand, launching your own eCommerce store is a great way to make money online, especially if you focus on physical products like handmade jewelry or personalized cards.
- Not everyone has a full business yet, so donations are a great way to help generate income for your future project.
- Offering sponsored posts can generate a healthy stream of income, especially if you have a high authority site.
- Signing up for an ad network is an easy way to make money online, although ad revenue is highly dependent on your niche.
- There are many websites out there and you may want to sell ad space directly to companies instead of paying a middleman to do the work.
- Using native advertising on your site is a great way for ads to blend in with your site without appearing too intrusive to the visitor.
- Maybe you are a website builder or a composition expert – offering your services in the form of guidance and consulting is a great way to earn money.
- With massive growth in the last 2 years, webinars and live streams are a fantastic way to expose your content to the world without leaving your home.
Which one is the best for me?
The best option for you will depend on the nature of your site, your audience, and how much effort you’re willing to put in.
If you already have a blog (or plan to start one), you can get started by signing up for an ad network like Google advertising or Media.net. It requires minimal setup effort and is a great way to earn passive income from your website without investing too much time.
If you want to increase your earnings, sign up for affiliate programs and promote products to your audience in your posts. This is how most bloggers make most of their income. You can get started with ShareASale right away.
And if you’re happy to work a little harder, think about what kind of digital product or service you could sell to your audience. Then turn your site into an eCommerce store with a platform like Sellfy and start making sales.
This has much higher earning potential than relying solely on affiliate income and ad revenue, but it also requires more work to get started.
Divulgation: This post contains affiliate links. This means that we may make a small commission if you make a purchase.