How to monetize a website?

Ritchie X Rich · Oct 6, 2017

Hello NTers,

For those of you that that own or run a website, I was wondering what are your ways of monetizing your website if you offer free services or aren't selling products. For example if you're making a food blog, or a shoe review site, or anything along those lines where you aren't charging anything or selling anything. How are you able to generate revenue then?

The basics from what I know is probably google Adsense and affiliate programs? Is there anything else? It's tough, I can't imagine many people ever clicking on ads on websites now a days, unless you're drawing big time traffic onto your site. Any one do this successfully?

btw, anyone also have any experience with viglink or skim links, how is it? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated it!

smedroc · Oct 6, 2017

I'm stating the obvious but if you're creating a blog it's best to focus on building a following/audience through social media.

If you can achieve that then you have viable options in terms of ads, patreon etc.

If you have quality content and quality interactions with your audience you can get the support.

Moheezy · Oct 6, 2017

There's a ton of ways to monitize a website, but the reality is it's not about the website at all. It's about what you offer and a website is a means to communicate/ provide that value.

Good marketers usually start with a mailing list before anything else. The list may be the quickest and easiest way to validate what you are doing and see if there is real interest. Then you take that validated idea and find ways to scale it.

The second is that one it is validated, you are going to want to focus on traffic (not money) once you get the traffic, there will be many ways to monitize off of that.

Many entrepreneurs have very successful blogs but made $0 from it, however, that blog is a means to strengthen their brand name and indirectly bring clients to them for consulting services. You can do the same with products and such. Other people have e-learning courses on Udemy and provide niche content to drive traffic, so even though the site doesn't directly generate revenue, it's a great way to build a brand and drive traffic to all the other products/ services that you sell.

If you are launching an online product, you should listen to this podcast: https://www.smartpassiveincome.com/podcasts/step-by-step-product-creation-with-bryan-harris/