What Is The Best Way To Monetize A Website

There are different ways to monetize a website, and I will show how each way works. In my conclusion, I will reveal what the best way for me to make money with my site is.

What the best option is for you, will be depending on the type of site or blog you have or are creating. It is also helpful to know who your customer is and what problems you are solving with your website.

As an example, take my website. I am providing information and solutions for people who are looking for work from home jobs online and for ways of how to leverage the Internet to build an online business.

In my various posts, I am showing them where they can learn the skills and gain the knowledge to start their online journey.  So I add links to programs and services I am using myself and can highly recommend.

Who Are My Customers

I also created a client profile for my site: my visitors are typically between 35 and 55 years old, male and female, working full-time or are stay at home parents, who are looking for new ways of earning money from home, who want to escape the 9 – 5 grind. Some of them may have already a website but don’t know exactly what to do with it.

Just to clarify – I am only assuming. But when I write my posts it helps me to have a particular group of people in my mind. Don’t worry if you are younger or older and have different motivations. I still hope you will find my articles helpful. 🙂

Different Ways To Monetize A Website 

1. Use Affiliate Programs
2. Amazon Associates
3. Google Adsense
4. Building An Email List
5. Sponsored Posts
6. Create And Sell Your Own Product.

Let’s get into it with more detail.

1) Affiliate Programs

With this site, HonestSuccessOnline, I am using an affiliate program that I strongly recommend. You can read more here: What Is The Best Affiliate Marketing Program.

I have written a comprehensive review outlining pros and cons, so my readers can make an informed decision. If my reader clicks on the link and signs up or buys the product, then I will get paid a commission by the vendor. At no extra cost for the customer!

In essence, that is what you need to do for your website. You identify a problem your reader may have, and you will find a solution that will help solve the problem. The best way is to write a thorough review why you would recommend a particular product.

Finding an affiliate program is very easy. There are literally thousands of affiliate products on the market in any given niche.

You find them by typing into google for instance:

loose weight + affiliate program.

If you have a particular product, you would like to recommend, type the name in directly. I typed in ‘weight watchers’ to give you an example.

The next step is to apply for their affiliate program which is free, and as soon as you get accepted, you will have access to banners, text links, etc. with your affiliate code installed. Now you can go ahead to put these links on your site.

As you can see on the screenshot,  you can find Weight Watchers affiliate program on Commission Junction (CJ) which is an affiliate network. So you apply first with CJ.

I have written a comprehensive post about How To Make Money With Affiliate Marketing For Beginners that will explain the process in more detail.

There are several other affiliate networks on the net like

• ShareaSale
• Flexoffers
• Clickbank
• Commission Junction (now CJ bAffiliate)
• eBay, just to name a few.

2) Amazon Associates 

I am sure everyone has heard of Amazon, the giant e-Commerce store based in Seattle in the United States. Its affiliate network is called Amazon Associates that is relatively easy to join. (Read more here)

As part of Amazon’s affiliate network,  you have access to millions of products. My favorite part is that you get paid a commission not just for the product you are promoting.

Whatever the customer is purchasing in the first 24 hours after clicking on your affiliate link, you will get a commission on any product they are buying. That is pretty impressive!

3) Google Adsense

Another way of monetizing your site is by putting ads on your posts/pages. The most popular one is called Google Adsense.

You need to apply for a Google Adsense account, and once you get approved, you’ll get a code that you add to your site.

When you add this ad code, ads will show in your post, page or sidebar; but no more than three per post/page. To make money with it, you will need to have lots of traffic since you only get paid a few cents for each click.

I personally don’t use Google Adsense on any of my sites because I want my readers to stay on my site. It doesn’t make sense to me sending my visitors off to a product I might not even like or approve. With AdSense ads, I have no control of what advertising will be placed on my site.

But you can try it out and see how it works for you. You can put Adsense and affiliate links on your site without any problems.

4) Building An Email List 

Collecting the email addresses of your visitors is another way of making money with your blog.

That way you can keep in touch with your readers and offer them more valuable information. You could direct them to new articles you have written, a product review or even put sales offers in the mail.

The best way to get the email addresses is by putting a sign-up form on your site and offer an incentive like a free ebook or a free course.

I use an email service provider which is easy to use and doesn’t even cost anything. Read more here.

The initial set up of creating an ebook, a sign-up form etc will take a bit of time, but once it’s done, you don’t even have to worry about it.

5) Sponsored Posts

Getting sponsored posts on to your blog requires first up a decent amount of traffic and a good social media following. If that is the case, you can approach companies if they want to put ads on your blog.

Vice Versa, companies/advertisers will get in touch with you once you are an established authority site and will ask you for sponsored reviews etc.

To make things easier, you can use a website called buysellads.com that connects the advertiser and site owner.

Even though this kind of advertising will earn real money, it is one of my least favorite ways of monetizing my blog. My main focus is on generating a passive residual income.

6) Creating Your Own Products

That is something I would recommend when you know how to get traffic to your site and have had some experience with affiliate marketing.

To start off with,  you could create an ebook for instance and sell it on Amazon’s Kindle store. But that would be another blog.

Anyhow, if you desire to market your own products I’d suggest learning the basics of internet marketing first.

Wrapping It Up

I do hope these six different ways of monetizing a website have given you a good idea to find a strategy you can apply to your blog.

This article was all about giving you a good overview of the different possibilities and opportunities.

What is the best way for me to monetize my website?

For one of my niche websites, I use only the Amazon Associates network. My second niche site is a mixture of Amazon and other affiliate programs.

HonestSuccessOnline mainly features products from affiliate programs. If I recommend a book or something similar I will link it to Amazon.com.

In addition, on my three sites, I have sign-up forms for email addresses. So building an email list is always part of my priorities.

So in conclusion, I love to mix things up a bit. It depends on what I want to achieve with my different websites.

Please feel free to leave a question or feedback in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you!