How to Monetize a Website? 12 Best Ways

If you’re thinking about creating a website or blog, you may be wondering how to make money from your website to ensure that all of the hard work you put in pays off. Whether you’re looking to create a passive income stream or establish a full-fledged business, we will show you the best ways to monetize a website. 

Index:

• How do websites make money?
• How much money can you make from a website?
• How to start website monetization
• Ways to monetize a website

How do websites make money?

Before you start employing website monetization strategies, you will need to set up a website or blog. In case you don’t have one yet, you can create it in just a few clicks thanks to Webnode’s beautiful website templates. Once you get things up and running, you can start thinking about how to monetize your website.

Webnode website templates

There is no need to pick only one of the monetization strategies listed below – you’ll likely want to combine a few of them to maximize your profit. Through patient testing and investing some time into the process, you will learn which website monetization strategies work best for your site.

How much money can you make from a website?

How much money you can make from a website can vary greatly depending on the monetization methods you use, the time and effort you’re able to invest, and the amount of traffic you generate. Website monetization can be a great way to earn a few extra bucks on the side each month or you can build it to be your primary source of income.

How to start website monetization

Establish your online presence

First and foremost, you will need to build an attractive, user-friendly website. If making money from your website is your goal, you may want to consider this when deciding which kind of website to create as some are easier to monetize than others.

Webnode’s website builder makes it easy to get started in a matter of minutes, no matter which type of website or niche you choose.

Create original and helpful content

Nowadays, with a plethora of websites and blogs accessible online, it’s crucial to stand out. To make that happen, you will need to create valuable and authentic content that will attract and satisfy your visitors.

A good way to do this is by writing informative texts, providing solutions for your visitors’ problems, or sharing your professional knowledge. Creating content that matches your audience’s needs, answers their questions, and provides actionable insight is essential to ensure that they keep coming back to your website for more.

Optimize your website for search engines

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of enhancing your website so that it gets the highest possible position in organic search results. Simply put – when done correctly, SEO will help your blog rank among the top posts on the Google search page.

Typically, there are two main ways to make sure your website is Google-friendly. The first, ensure the code and all the other complicated technical things are correctly set up. If you create a website using Webnode, you don’t need to worry about this. We regularly update the code to meet the latest standards.

The other way is to effectively use keywords that have the highest traffic and a lower amount of competition in your industry. It’s important to do proper research and identify the keywords that will be most impactful for your website. Proper optimization will help you achieve excellent visibility in your market and attract visitors from search results. 

You can use tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, or Google Search Console to identify which keywords to target. Then prepare your content accordingly. You can find out more in our SEO tips and tricks guide.

Build your audience and reputation

Finally, you need to start driving visitors and customers to your website. The amount and type of traffic are an important factor for many monetization strategies. 

Staying on top of the latest trends can help your brand be discovered through various social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok. Once you’ve established an audience there, you can drive them to your website through engaging posts that highlight your valuable website content. 

Partnerships are a great way to expand your reach and build your audience. This strategy works best when you partner with someone who has an audience who your website would resonate with.

There are various ways they can share your website with their audience such as social media promotion, product reviews or guest posts.

Continue generating engaging content for them. Brand building is important to ensure that you create a loyal audience that keeps coming back to your website time and again.

Ways to monetize a website

Once you’re generating a decent amount of traffic, you can start thinking about how to monetize your website.

1. Sell Ad Space with Google AdSense and its alternatives

Selling ad space is one of the easiest and most straightforward ways to monetize your website. This undemanding method will enable you to make money simply by posting ads online. 

There are various platforms offering tutorials, tips, and tricks on how to monetize a website with ads provided by professional marketers. You can also calculate the expected profit by using specifically developed tools. 

Google AdSense

Google AdSense is a well-known platform for selling ad space on your website. To get started, you need to sign up for their system here. Once your website meets the conditions and is approved, you just put the obtained code into your website and you’re good to go. The process is even easier if you have a Webnode website – learn more about how to implement AdSense in your Webnode project.

Google lets you use countless settings to help you put ads on your website and obtain profit effectively. You can even make the ads look like an organic part of your website by choosing fitting visuals. Some testing will be required initially to figure out the best settings, position, or number of displayed ads for your website. 

Agencies

While AdSense is easy to use, Google isn’t the only provider of digital ads. You can collaborate with other (local) media agencies as well.

Selling ad space in the form of pictures, videos, animation, or retargeting is an easy method to earn money online. It can be set up quickly and, after initial testing, requires a low level of maintenance.

However, with this method, your ads could get blocked by ad-blocking plugins your visitors might use in their browsers. Also, the revenue from selling ad space might not be that high since it depends directly on your website traffic.

PROS +	CONS –
Quick set-up	Visitors might use the AdBlock plugin
Massive support	Requires high traffic
Low maintenance	Visitors might overlook the ads

2. Start affiliate marketing

Webnode Affiliate Program Dashboard

You don’t need to have your own products and services to sell to make money with your website. Affiliate marketing is suitable for beginners and a great way to make money as a blogger, for example. 

How affiliate marketing works is that you promote the products or services of other companies on your website using a unique affiliate link. 

What is an affiliate link?

Affiliate links are the unique links you can use to promote a particular product or service. These links are tracked using cookies so that every time someone makes a purchase using one, you will receive a commission. 

To get an affiliate link for a product or service, you will likely need to reach out to the company directly and enroll in their affiliate program. There are also a number of affiliate platforms you can sign up for where you can get affiliate links for a range of products and services in different industries.

Affiliate practices

This can be done by including the links in blogs or on a product recommendations page. You can also include affiliate links in your newsletter, social media posts, or in banners placed throughout your website.

Another great way to promote the product or service is to write a review and include your affiliate link. An honest review can help a buyer decide to make the purchase. Similarly, a comparison article helps your reader decide between several products or providers.

These types of review articles receive the best affiliate conversion rate because they help convince the reader to make a purchase. 

Generate leads

In a similar way to affiliate marketing, you can make money from a website by generating leads to other relevant websites. The difference is that in this case, the company will pay just for driving traffic to their website. It doesn’t matter whether a visitor stays there or makes any purchase.

Webnode also has its own affiliate program. If you sign up and one of your website visitors  purchase our premium services through your affiliate link, you will receive $100. 

Affiliate marketing is a convenient method for earning a fair amount of money, but it will require gaining your visitors’ trust and choosing the most suitable affiliate partners.

PROS +	CONS –
No expertise needed	No control over the affiliate program and your competitors
Low investment costs	No possibility to establish your own customer base
Flexibility and independence	Tendency to choose quantity over the quality approach and spam your visitors

3. Sell sponsored content

As an alternative to joining an advertising network, you can cooperate with the brands directly by publishing sponsored content. This works best if you have a big enough audience that companies are willing to pay you to promote their products or services on your website. 

The idea is simple – you write a feature article or review promoting a product or service, publish it on your website, and the company pays you for it. Again, it is best to only promote companies that you believe in and that align with the interests of your audience. You can easily get started building a blog where you can offer sponsored content opportunities by using one of Webnode’s templates.

PROS +	CONS –
Higher engagement rates than classic ads	Sponsored content is typically considered not as trustworthy as non-paid content
Better performance than showing ads	Creating sponsored content requires time and effort
Converts better as it looks native and less obtrusive than ads	Companies may want to control the messaging in the article they’re paying for

4. Accept paid guest posts

Offering paid guest posts is a great alternative to sponsored content if you don’t want to invest the time and energy into creating the content yourself. With this monetization strategy, you’re essentially selling space on your blog for companies to place promotional content that they’ve written. 

If your website has a good domain authority, you will probably receive requests for guest posts as this is a popular tactic that companies use to improve the SEO of their own websites.

PROS +	CONS –
Don’t need to write the content yourself	More difficult to control the quality of content
Can share different views and voices with your audience	Harder to control the messaging of the content

5. Build a paid email list

If you already have plenty of regular visitors returning to your website for more of your great and original content, you might want to consider offering a paid premium mailing list where you share exclusive content and insights. For this website monetization strategy to work, however, you must share truly valuable content and insights that your audience feels are worth paying for. Moreover, implementing email verification ensures your premium mailing list strategy remains effective, keeping your audience engaged with valuable content reliably.

We strongly recommend using your own domain for your website if your goal is to create a premium mailing list. This will make your website look more professional and will let you create, and email address with your domain. Using services such as Mailchimp, Ecomail, or Mailerlite make it easy to set up email marketing. Platforms like Substack are also good options for creating a paid premium mailing list.

PROS +	CONS –
Affordable, easy to set up and customize	High competition
Builds a relationship with your customers	Content must but truly valuable otherwise people won’t be willing to pay for it
Easy to share and bring customers to your website	Sending premium newsletters consistently is crucial

6. Sell digital products

Make money by selling digital products

Nowadays, digital content monetization is a vast topic and there’s no limit to the type of digital products you can sell online via your website. From ebooks and images to templates and online courses, you can put your creative skills to the test and make money from your website with unique digital products. 

Digital products are great because they don’t require any industry or upfront costs. However, they typically sell at a lower price point so this monetization strategy works best if you already have an engaged audience willing to buy from you and are actively driving large amounts of traffic to your website.

PROS +	CONS –
No storage needed; hence no costs	Maintenance of a server/website required all the time
No inventory shortage – unlimited downloads possible	High competition
No shipping costs – instant delivery possible	Higher possibility of ideas being stolen or copied

7. Create membership websites with premium locked content

Membership Website

One of the best ways to monetize a website is with a membership. This strategy gives your website visitors the opportunity to be part of an exclusive club and receive premium content. A membership site can include special forums, online lessons, webinars, or gated content like news, insider information, pictures, videos, or online streams.

Selling a membership subscription is an excellent way to make money with your website because it is a predictable recurring revenue stream. However, the challenge with this monetization strategy is that you have to ensure that the members are consistently getting enough value from your membership that they’re willing to continue paying for it.

PROS +	CONS –
Affordable, low investment costs	Constant updates are required
Recurring, predictable revenue	People will likely drop out eventually
Builds a solid relationship with customers	Might get uncomfortable while collecting payments from customers who are not willing to pay

8. Sell your freelancing services

Physical or digital products and memberships aren’t the only things you can sell online. Whether you live as a digital nomad or simply love working from home, you can promote your skills on your website and sell your services as a freelancer!

Create a captivating website presenting your experiences, abilities, and portfolio to help attract new clients. Be sure to also showcase your best work and include impactful references and testimonials from previous clients.

This monetization method is perfect for freelancers like photographers, illustrators, musicians, writers, teachers, life coaches, online marketers, handymen, and many more types of professions. We have prepared plenty of portfolio templates you can choose from to help you get started.

Don’t forget to include a form or design a Hire Me section at the bottom of each page so your potential customers can contact you quickly. 

PROS +	CONS –
Low investment costs	High competition
Great way to present your services	Need to stand out and create an original website that would sell you
Easy to share and get contacted	Need to actively promote to get discovered

9. Accept donations

Donation website

Are you a creative freelancer who produces music, draws pictures, or writes short stories? You can monetize your website by asking fans to support your work through one-time or regular donations via PayPal or other special services like Patreon. You can put these widgets in your Webnode project and thus create a donation website.

The fee itself does not have to be high – ask them to buy you a coffee or an avocado toast, for example. In return, you can offer your supporters a piece of your original work.

This method is popular among game streamers as well. If you can entertain your viewers and build a loyal fanbase, they will love to keep you going.

If you are a non-profit or provide free and quality valuable content for your local or Internet community, you can ask for support too. Let your visitors choose the level of their donation by offering some little rewards in return.

PROS +	CONS –
Easy to set up and customize	Unreliable and unpredictable income
Easy to share	Not everyone is comfortable donating money online

10. Sell products and merchandise

A tried and true method for earning money with your website is to start an e-shop. There’s no limit to the type of physical products you can sell on your website. If you have a loyal following, selling branded merchandise such as tumblers or T-shirts with your logo on them might also be an option.

However, this monetization strategy will also involve a lot of other skills such as marketing, logistics, and product inventory storage. You may also incur upfront costs if you produce your own products.

When having an ecommerce website, it is important to make use of an enterprise consent management software where you can adhere to online data privacy regulations.

Thankfully, if you want to make money from your website by selling products, Webnode makes it super simple to get started with professionally designed e-commerce templates.

PROS +	CONS –
Online shopping is more popular than ever	Upfront investment involved
Avoid fees associated with communal e-commerce platforms like Etsy	Need to store inventory
Provide something tangible to customers	Logistical concerns such as product stock and shipping

11. Take advantage of dropshipping

Dropshipping is a great alternative for those who want to sell physical products on their website but don’t want to deal with all of the logistics involved in fulfilling orders. With this website monetization strategy, you work with a supplier and sell their product inventory through your website and then they ship it out to the customer.

If you’d like to design your own products rather than selling someone else’s, print-on-demand services might be worth looking into. The print-on-demand platforms work well if you’re planning to sell items such as mugs, t-shirts, or tote bags. They can save you a lot of time and logistical headaches when compared to a traditional eshop model but give you the freedom to create your own unique designs.

PROS +	CONS –
Don’t have to hold inventory and aren’t limited by how much you have in stock	Reliance on supplier
Shipping is taken care of for you	There may be additional fees involved

12. Build a valuable website and sell it (Website flipping)

Once you’ve cracked the code on how to monetize a website, one monetization strategy you might consider is flipping websites. Essentially, you create a website, monetize it so it has value, and then sell it. If you’re great at optimizing and driving traffic to websites, you can also sell websites with a domain that has high SEO value.

While you may be able to sell websites for a high price, this method typically requires a decent amount of time and effort to build websites up to a point where they’re profitable to sell.

PROS +	CONS –
Can make a significant profit	Requires significant time and effort
Can make money from website while building it up to a point where it’s profitable enough to sell	Need to be experienced at monetizing websites or SEO

Summary

There are many ways to monetize a website, whether you choose to run an online store, create an engaging membership, sell your freelance services, or utilize the power of affiliate marketing.

However, a website won’t start making money until you understand your audience and choose the monetization strategy that works best for you. Don’t forget to combine methods to maximize the money you can make from your website.

Improve your website and monetize it