The internet is full of opportunities for making money, and online business has become an increasingly popular career choice for many. These days it is pretty easy to build your own smart-looking site – see this excellent guide to making a website. And, even if you aren’t directly selling a product or service, there are plenty of ways to monetise your web project.
Every website – be it a lifestyle blog or an ecommerce store – has the potential to generate additional revenue, and as long as you keep your audience in mind, it is entirely possible to turn your site into an income source without compromising your integrity as a publisher. Here are three simple strategies for monetising your website whilst bringing added value to your audience.
Join an affiliate marketing program
Affiliate marketing enables you to present your audience with interesting, relevant products while potentially making money in the process. Simply put, you host adverts, promotional codes or products on your site and, in return, earn commission for every customer who clicks on your affiliate links. In order to ensure that the ads or links you feature are valuable to your visitors, it’s essential to partner with only the most relevant companies. Affiliate programs offered by sites such as Affilinet enable you to search by category, making it easy to find the most suitable partners across a wide range of sectors, from banking and finance to family and children. With a large variety of solutions to choose from – such as data-driven performance ads, voucher codes, and product feeds – it’s also extremely easy to integrate your affiliate links in a way that best suits your website and your audience.
Offer premium content
A second strategy for adding value to your website is to offer premium content. This could take the form of a downloadable product, such as an e-book, or even a webinar that users pay to attend. Such content should build upon the theme of your site whilst providing something unique and worth paying for; if you blog about hair and beauty, for example, you might offer a live makeup tutorial. When introducing premium content, it’s essential to consider user value first and foremost, and to be realistic in terms of pricing. Although it requires a little more time and effort, finding innovative ways to present interesting content will increase user engagement whilst building a modest but steady revenue stream.
Establish a forum
If your website already has a substantial following, you could be well positioned to set up a forum, either on the site or more commonly these days in a connected platform like Facebook or LinkedIn. No matter what niche you occupy, a dedicated community is a great place for customers or readers to discuss, share tips, and ask questions. However, in order to justify charging a membership fee, you need to ensure that your private forum is superior to the countless free ones out there; focus on useful content – such as industry news – as well as topical discussions and relevant promotions and active support. Again, keeping the price reasonable will ensure maximum participation, which is absolutely key for building a thriving forum.
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