Hey there true believers - Bush Mackel here! You may have been expecting to read something from Casey, but with her going to France for a bit this summer, I may be pinch hitting for her on a few posts so we figure it’d be a nice idea to give myself a little warmup today!
So hey, some of us are newer to this online world than others, especially in the way of making money. Most people who jump in know that they can make money from a website, but aren’t really sure how to do it and also don’t know which monetization effort can work best for them. Here are the top ways to make money from a website in no specific order…
- Displaying CPC, CPA, or CPM ads
- Writing Sponsored Posts
- Direct Advertisements
CPC stands for Cost Per Click and pays you when a user clicks an ad on your site. CPA stands for Cost Per Action and pays you for when a user clicks an ad and then performs an action like buys something or signs up for a service. And finally, CPM stands for Cost Per Mille and pays you when an ad is shown 1000 times.
Now for the most part, when you’re talking about CPC or CPM ads, you’re talking about a numbers game. The more people you can get to your site that are navigating to multiple pages within your site, the more successful you’re going to be with these. CPA ads on other hand tend to work better on content sites. Users have to feel like you know what you’re talking about in terms of a genre or product before they’ll buy/signup or otherwise complete the action. And on a final note about CPC, CPA, and CPM - It can be hard to figure out how much you’ll make every month with these services, the swings and revenue can be pretty decent.
If you have a blog, you may want to think about writing sponsored posts. Depending on the requirements for the post, you basically write a review for a service or product and then tell the advertiser, “Hey!, I’m done!” And depending on your site’s stats (namely PR and Alexa Rank) you get paid a certain amount, usually as little as $5 and with top sites being able to command in upwards of $400 per post! This can be a great way for you to bring in some extra income, even if you’re not getting thousands upon thousands of visitors to your site.
And finally, there’s direct advertisements. These are considered the holy grail of site monetizations because for 1) You work directly with the advertiser so there’s no middle man taking some of your profits. And - 2) You set your own rates and can often lock up advertisers for a flat fee every month regardless of traffic, clicks or other actions pertaining to their ad.
And there you have it. I may be missing a few here, but those are the main ones that everyone uses to get money from their website. But don’t think that just reading this post will be enough to get you started on any of this. Becoming familiar with how the individual programs work, ad placement, and the nuances of link and selling strategies are crucial to success.
Oh, and you probably don’t want to forget about the people part. If you’re not focusing on traffic building, you’ll never get the revenues you want!
7-8-2007 19:17:11
Excellent post Bush! Nice tips, and thanks for guest blogging today!
7-8-2007 22:48:10
Great post!
Don’t forget about affiliate advertising if you have the foot traffic and the credibility you can make a lot of money. I just added it to one of my websites a few weeks ago although the site is “young” I’m already seeing a decent amount of traffic.
It’s a resource based so I have a lot of lurkers. My Alexa is almost down to 200k and the site is five weeks old. I try to write at least three times weekly. I have another new baby that I released one week ago my AR is already down to 700k I’ll monetize that in a few months. The vibe is different there so I don’t want to monetize that too early.
The only advertising I’ve done is submitting it to directories. Anyway I tried affiliate marketing about two weeks ago and have already made more than I have with sponsored reviews. In the long run, I completely see myself moving away from sponsored reviews.
I’m fairly new to the game been doing this since the beginning of May, but I’ve already made over 2k. I initially thought of it as “pocket change” but the potential to do so more is amazing.
Great website Casey! I hope you enjoy your time in France. I haven’t been there yet but I have been to Sweden and Iceland.
7-9-2007 01:06:45
Nice job on the post. I’m sure a lot of people are trying to pick the best ways to monetize their blogs. This should point them in the right direction.
7-9-2007 15:46:15
Hey, I’m glad your comments finally got through Brown and Opal!
Hey Opal, I can’t believe I forgot to mention Affiliate Marketing! OOPS! ::I knew I was forgetting something:: And congrats on your success, I gotta check your MBL profile and see some of these other sites you’re referring to!
Brown - Thanks! It’s still a very basic intro into these subjects…I’m sure any of us could’ve gone to town on it, but it’s sure to wet people’s appetite. (#):)
7-9-2007 16:24:38
Bush,
You won’t find that one on there, lol. I purposely left it off since I want to see how it does without publicity from the social networking websites. I’ll probably reveal it next month along with a “What did Opal do post?”