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It’s faster and easier to earn money from a website these days than ever before. For a nimble, digitally savvy entrepreneur, there are plenty of options to choose from to earn money from your website. This may include selling physical products or offering consultations and coaching or a consistent newsletter to a dedicated audience.
Monetizing a website can be as low-lift as you need, or a place for dedicated earnings to grow your business long-term.
Read on to find out what monetizing a website means, what key options there are to pursue for website monetization, and ways to set manageable goals to measure the success of your website.
What is website monetization?
Website monetization means you’re able to generate income from a website. The method you choose, however, can mean different things to different people, and may yield more or less income depending on the chosen option.
For some, website monetization may be more about earning income as a side hustle or as passive income. For others, it may be a more dedicated endeavor, like selling products or offering services full-time.
No matter the nature of your website, there are different and exciting pathways and strategies to generate income from it.
8 ways to make money from a website
Making money from a website isn’t one-size-fits-all. In fact, the more options you have to generate income, the better your chances to diversify your income stream. Many of Squarespace’s most successful users earn their money in more than one way.
First, try generating income from your website with one method. Over time, as you’ll see from our options, you may be able to stack your income streams.
1. Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is a very simple and great way to earn income from a website. Affiliate website marketing has been around for some time—think of your favorite influencer’s content.
Your affiliate links may look like this: You have a website that’s a blog, and you review products or services on it. You can promote the products you write about to your audience through affiliate links from the brands. These brands make unique links that, if readers click on them and make a purchase from that link, will yield you a small share of the profits.
2. Content
Content is a significant way for anyone to make an income via a website. Today’s content world isn’t exclusive to the written word. Content can be anything from a written newsletter to video blogs to how-to videos to a combo of any of those options.
Your audience can pay for access to your content and you can determine the price. Many content creators include special offers for those who want specialized, one-of-a-kind content.
Generating income from the content itself is one way for creators and entrepreneurs to rely less heavily on ads and sponsorships. If you have an audience who pays attention to what you do and what you say, monetizing via content may be the route for you.
3. Digital products
In every corner of the internet, there are entrepreneurs and creators with knowledge on certain topics, no matter how niche. If you have an industry specialization, skills you can teach to others, or a good book in your head that a reader may want, it may be worth considering selling these as digital products on your website.
Digital products are downloadable or viewed online. Think ebooks, guides, webinars, or courses. Some artists and illustrators offer prints of their work on their websites as downloadable items that users can print off at their own leisure.
4. Consultation and coaching
Another way to leverage expertise is through consultations or coaching. Those who have services to offer—and knowledge in a particular field—can list these services on a website for users and offer booking slots. For example, someone might be a career coach, fitness or nutrition coach, or design consultant.
Having a professional website is useful to solidify your authority and reputation. It can also be the central point of information for clients and potential clients. Here, you can list out your services, the costs, and if an ongoing contract or opportunity is possible, which is particularly important for those who consult or coach full-time.
5. Subscription or membership programs
Many creators and entrepreneurs, as well as long-time business owners, offer subscriptions to their content, products, or services. Consider journalism: Print and digital media rely on user subscriptions to keep operations running, generating revenue outside of ad spend.
Depending on your own business and what your income goal is, offering a subscription or membership program for content or services may be the best approach to monetize your website. Here, you can offer users different tiers of payment and content and/or services for those levels.
Subscriptions often mean consistency. Users will pay regularly for content they enjoy, but they’ll also hope it arrives regularly.
5. Ecommerce
Selling products online is a major income source for any budding entrepreneur. Even if you have a brick-and-mortar store with customers coming in and out to make purchases, an online store is still necessary to move products and increase sales. It also allows you to reach outside of your immediate location or network.
Some ecommerce stores may offer print on demand and elect to sell exclusively online to avoid the added cost of managing physical inventory. An example of ecommerce that new online sellers may want to try is dropshipping. It can be as low-lift as you need or as full-time as you want, to sell online via a website with an added third-party partner to help with all of the shipping and fulfillment.
6. Donations
In some cases it may make more sense to ask for users or readers to donate to your efforts as a show of appreciation. Rather than having a tiered system like subscriptions, donations can be a one-time cost. Think of crowdfunding.
Donations can be something you keep available on an ongoing basis or dedicate to a specific project or time period. This path is another way to avoid putting ads up on your website and keep your community the way you want it.
7. Ads
Advertising on a website is possibly the lowest lift way for a website to make money. Banner ads, for example, can appear on the top, sides, or bottom of your webpage. If a user visiting your website engages with your content and clicks on the banner ad, making a purchase, you get a bit of that profit.
If your website is generating quite a bit of traffic, this may be a good route to take, because the more users that click on the static or dynamic ad, the more income your website generates.
8. Website flipping
There’s a longer-game way to get income from your website: Consider website flipping. Think of house flipping—the same general concept applies here. First you build your own website, grow it, attract a lot of users and visitors with content, and then, when it’s more successful, sell it for a price. There are factors for how valuable a website is, such as the domain name or if it’s optimized for search, that will help determine the price of your website.
Still, while you grow that audience, and work toward a sale, consider using any of the other options above to keep generating income.
How to decide which monetization option to pursue
Any monetization option for a website is a valid one. But if you’re just starting out, it can be overwhelming trying to pick the right path for your website. Selecting one option over another doesn’t mean others are negated.
Consider the following when trying to decide which option to pursue:
How much time do you want or have to devote to your website? If it’s a side hustle, select something that doesn’t need a lot of management like banner ads or donations.
Do your business goals include selling products? You may need to invest time in product development or research before optimizing your website for sales.
What’s the most natural fit? It can be easier to build on something you’re already doing and have a following for, like adding recipe access for cooking videos.
Determine your business goals and measurement of what success looks like before selecting a way forward to monetize your website. These things can always change but it’s good to establish a foundation.
What types of websites make the most money?
In general, ecommerce is one of the best ways to make money. Selling products or services may have higher or more consistent profits.
However, if you have a large enough audience, subscriptions to content or newsletters can generate a lot of income. Many journalists, for example, leave their full-time jobs at media organizations because they have enough of an audience for their work to sustain an income.
How to set earnings goals
Use S.M.A.R.T.—specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely—to guide goal-setting for your website, including earnings.
For example, if you offer coaching services, and you don’t have an established audience yet, your goals will look different at the beginning. At first you may need to build an audience and drive organic traffic to your website via search or through social media. Your earnings goal for a new business may be six to 12 months out for real profit.
How long does it take to monetize a website?
How long it takes to start earning money depends on where you’re starting from. A brand new website will take longer than one with an established following. In general, try to give yourself a three-month lead time to start making a profit from your website.
Even affiliate marketing links need time to turn a profit because they are closely tied to visitors coming to a website and clicking those links.
To promote your website, know that organic traffic is a major way for users to find any business or website. Whether you build that traffic through SEO, social media, or collaborations with like-minded businesses, consistency is key to grow over time. Create your foundation first.