If you found your way to this post, then that more than likely means that you are a blogger!
First of all, I want to say congrats on taking the daring leap to put your ideas, beliefs, and knowledge all online. It is extremely hard to write creatively, manage a website, and continue to research more ways to gain exposure.
If you do have a substantial amount of readers already on your blog, then your next plan of action might be to start making some money!
Surprisingly, this is probably the hardest part of being a blogger – monetizing your website.
Monetize A Website
In order to monetize your website, you are going to have to first decide how you want to do it. There are a ton of different ways, and not all of them will work for your audience. Therefore, you are probably going to have to try multiple ways to monetize a website before one really clicks, or before you have enough streams of income to feel good about it. Here are the 5 ways to monetize a website that we will be discussing:
- Google Ads
- Amazon Affiliate
- Branded Merch
- Partnership With Company
- Create A Course
Lets start with the most common way to monetize a website first which is the popular use of Google Ads.
Google Ads
This is the first way most bloggers will try to monetize a website.
It is not a bad way to do it, but there are some tricks and catches that you need to be aware of.
First, when you go onto the Google Ad Sense website and try to put ads onto your website, you will not be able to. That is because Google actually needs to review and approve your website before they will even let you places ads onto it.
In order to do this, you will need to place some code on the back end of your site for Google to confirm the site is yours and review the site content. You will also need to set up a Google account if you do not have one already set up.
The process should only take about a day or so, but more often than not your site will get rejected a time or two. My first time trying to sign up for Google Ads, I had to try several times before my site got approved through the system. I do not really know why this is the case, but if it is for a specific reason then they should notify you in some way.
Once you do get approved, you can go in and select the places you want Google ads to appear, restrict areas where the ads should not appear, and then set the frequency at which ads should appear.
A common question is – how many views do you need to make money off of Google Ads?
Well, this is entirely dependent on your ad types and blog topics. If I were to give a general number, I would say you need a couple thousand unique visitors a day to make upwards of $100 a day through Google ads in some cases.
Amazon Affiliate
The probably second most common way for bloggers to try and monetize a website is through Amazon Affiliate program.
Amazon Affiliate program basically allows you to pass along a custom URL for products and items you discuss on your website. These URLs will act like affiliate links, giving your a small percentage of the profits for each sell made from your links.
The percentage is pretty small and usually between 1% to 5% per item. The lowest threshold of the percentage split out for affiliate links is on technology based items like cameras or tablets and things like that.
You make the most money off of selling basic retail items like clothes or house hold products through affiliate links, but these are the most common products and also the most difficult to sell or rank for in posts.
I would think about Amazon Affiliate as more of supplemental income. If you already include products in your blog posts, then by all means throw some affiliate links in there and you might start generating some passive income from them over time.
From my experience, I would not say this is a viable way to make a sole income from blogging though.
Branded Merch
The next monetization method on the list is through creating your own branded merch.
The branded merch idea completely has to do with the identity of your website. Some people do extremely well with their sites, and gain huge following on social media channels as well. Either on your website or through these channels you will probably have an icon or image that represents your brand. Surprisingly, people will buy merch with your image or icon on it, if they like you enough and follow you closely.
Not only that, but you can also sell merch about specific topics you discuss with certain catch phrases, or symbols of that industry. For example, let’s say you have a blog about farms and farm animals. Well you might be able to sell shirts with different farm animals doing funny things with your logo on it. I know that sounds silly, but it is basically how it works. Leverage your brand and your content to sell items that people might want.
Partner With A Company
The other option is to partner with a company.
This is typically a great option for websites or blogs that like to discuss or leave reviews on specific products or services. For example, your blog could consistently discuss different sneakers. It goes in depth about the shoe creation process, the branding, the prices, it talks about the best companies, and things like that, then you might have a good website for this.
In that example, the owner of the blog might be able to reach out to a few newer sneaker companies and ask them to partner with you.
Once they partner with you, the website can become sponsored by that new brand and include them in certain posts. Lets say you write a post about the top 5 best sneakers to purchase right now. Well, you might be inclined to place them at the number one spot if they are partnered with you.
Or, you might just have an ad on the side of your blog for every post that shows their sneakers and an optional button to “purchase now”.
Typically, when partnering with another company like this you are becoming an affiliate of theirs. But in special circumstances, they will just pay you outright to post about their product, and funnel people to their page giving them massive amounts of exposure.
It all depends on how valuable your audience and reach is to that company on what they’re willing to do in the partnership.
Create A Course
The last way to monetize a website that we are going to discuss is by creating a course.
This also takes a very special website in order to do this, but in general it can be done over a multitude of things. For instance, if you have a blog about trading in the stock market, forex, cryptocurrency, or anything similar, then you might be able to make a course on how its done.
Once you make your course, you can leverage your websites audience to sell it to people. If you do it right, it can take off pretty quickly and make a lot of money for you. In addition, there is a plethora of third party platforms that will let you list your course and get even more exposure to a broader market.
These platforms will obviously want a cut of the profits, but it is in their best interest to promote your course given that it is good and people really want to take it.
Creating a course can be very tricky and take a lot of time. Not to mention you need decent video editing skills and a deep understanding of whatever you are teaching. If you are consistent and patience though, you can definitely get it done.
How To Monetize A Website
Thanks for reading our post on how to monetize a website. There are a bunch of other ways to achieve making money off of your blog, but these are a few good ways to get you started. More often than not, you will need multiple streams of income to make a blog successful, so you might as well start today on a few of them.
