10 most popular ways to monetize your website

It’s not a myth that you can make money with your website. A lot of websites on the Internet are made for one simple reason – to generate income.

Whether you are trying to get rich or just looking for some funds to cover the hosting/domain expenses, here are some of the ways to do so.

Keep in mind that some of the ways are more or less passive while some other techniques require on-going work. Make sure you pick something that suits well with your website.

1) Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a very popular way to make money through your website/blog. In short, you sell someone else’s product(s) on your website. When your website visitor clicks on your affiliate link and buys the product – you’ll receive commission.

The commission is usually 30% – 70% of the product or service price. So if you promote an e-book that costs £100, you’ll get £50 for referring the buyer (just an example).

Where can I find products to promote?

• Commission junction
• ShareASale
• Clickbank (high payouts, but lack of GOOD products to promote)

2) Pay Per Click Advertising

Google has made a program called Google Adsense for publishers (bloggers, website owners) and advertisers (business owners, marketers, product owners).

This system is quite simple. You place a code on your website that will start displaying relevant ads to your website. For example, if your site is about pets (dogs & cats), Google Adsense will start showing your visitors ads for cat food, dog training and so on.

When someone clicks on the ad, you will receive money for this click. It’s usually £0.5p to £5 per click, but when your site has enough traffic – you can make hundreds if not thousands of dollars per month.

How to apply for for Google Adsense?

• Apply for AdSense

3) Selling Ad Space

As the name says, all you need to do is sell the ad space. You set up a price, let’s say: “Banner at the sidebar will cost £xxx per month”. You will get payed upfront and the price depends on your traffic. If your site gets ton loads of traffic from different sources, the banner ad price can go up as £3000 per month. However, if your site doesn’t have much traffic, don’t expect much.

Where can I let others know that my website is selling ad space?

• BuySellAds – The most popular one
• AdvertiseSpace

4) Sell your own digital product (ebook for example)

Selling your own product is awesome because there are no middle mans, no one is going to take the “cut” – it’s only YOU and the CLIENT. You sell directly through your website and you’ll get paid directly. While it looks quite simple, it’s actually not.

It takes a lot of time to create a good product that you can actually sell through your site. So make sure it’s well-made and polished before you throw it out on your webpage. In addition, a perfectly optimized landing page for the product is essential to higher your conversion rates.

• Additional resource: How to sell products on your website.

5) Donation / Becoming a sponsor

Setting up donation buttons or simply asking additional funds from your readers is another way to monetize your website. It’s easy to set up, but you have to be aware that it’s not so easy to make money with it. Unless you find a sponsor(s) who pays a lot! However, before you throw up your donation buttons, make sure that your visitors will see why you need those donations(hosting expenses, new product creation, researching costs etc…).

How to set up donation buttons?

• How to take donations on your website – The right way.

6) Accept sponsored posts & articles

Once your site is getting good amount of visitors monthly, you can offer sponsored posts and articles. There are a lot of advertisers who would be interested in writing sponsored posts for your website.

Another option is make money through reviewing something. Here’s an example: You have a website about Apple products -> marketer from Apple sees your site and contacts you.-> He/she offers you a free iPhone 5 if you make a comprehensive review and post it on your site for followers to read. This is an extreme case, but I’m sure you get the point…

Win=Win situation? Yep.

For further reading:

• How to make money through sponsored posts and reviews – About.com

7) Generate “Leads” for other companies

Generating leads means you help other organisations or companies to make money. It can be a simple e-mail submit or telephone number, a lead is a lead.

Scenario: Let’s say you have a website about teaching and learning math. You can easily set up links to different schools and universities that offer people to learn math. When YOUR visitor submits their e-mail or a phone number to university for application – you’ll get paid.

It’s very similar to affiliate marketing, but your visitor doesn’t necessarily have to buy something. A short contact information is more than enough.

Where can I find such offers?

• MaxBounty
• Neverblue
• Peerfly

8) Build an “Email List”

Building a “list” means that you gather your visitors emails. 90% of the websites that get some sort of traffic use that technique.

You’ll not make any quick money, but it’s definitely something long-term (and profitable). But make sure you first create relationships with your followers by simply offering great information and/or help for FREE. Spamming different offers through emails is never a good idea.

How exactly does it work?

• Listbuilding 101
• How to build a list with your website

9) Set up an online store

You don’t always have to create a website about something. You can just create a “tool” for your business – an online store.

Bricks and Mortar businesses are becoming more and more popular since the rise of the “Internet era”. If you have enough dedication to make it work, try it out.

How do I create a successful online store/shop?

• Launch a successful online store by Ecommercefuel
• 4 ways to build an online store by WikiHow

10) Sell your site for someone else

I usually don’t suggest people to do that, but site flipping/selling is becoming a very lucrative business model. If you are into short-term projects and more into “quick buck” you can implement it as well.

… but you also have to know that your site has to either get a lot of traffic or generate money through different monetization methods.

The site value is usually based on the income. If your website is making £500 per/month through selling ad space, you can sell the site for £6000 – £11000 (12x – 22x monthly income).

Where can I sell my site?

• Flippa – The most popular website market
• Digitalpoint forum
• FEinternational

Source; http://websitesetup.org/33-ways-to-monetize-website/

9 Ways to Improve Social Sharing on Business Videos

Creating a video is a great way to showcase your business or service. The time and effort you put into this marketing material can really pay off — if people watch it. So how do you tap into the power of social sharing online?

To find out, we asked nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) the following:

“What is one tip you have for getting more social sharing and views on business videos?”

Here’s what YEC community members had to say:

1. Use Three Cameras and a Good Editor

“Of course you want a snappy title to generate views, but the simple touch of having different camera angles and a smart editor makes a world of difference. This could be the difference between someone watching your video for 30 seconds versus three minutes.” ~ Rob Fulton, Exponential Black

2. Be Informative

“Remember, most people share not to help you so much as to help themselves. So, how can you make people share your video in their own best interests? Make it informative and helpful. If the video has good insights and information, and the person can help their followers by sharing, they’re likely to “be the hero” and share it with others.” ~ Andy Karuza, Gossip App

3. Cultivate Community

“If you haven’t built up a community, don’t expect anyone to care unless you pay for it. Even then, it won’t get much. Build an online community around your niche. It will help you in the long term. Note: When creating a video, make sure that it grabs the attention of the viewer every 3-5 seconds. We have short attention spans and get distracted easily.” ~ John Rampton, Host

4. Highlight Your Expertise

“You’ve made a video about your business, which means you have a target audience in mind and an attention grabbing idea behind the effort. What else would they find useful? Provide actionable insight to their issues so that when they come across your content, they will be more likely to share it with others and spread positive feedback.” ~ Stanley Meytin, True Film Production

5. Keep It Brief

“In most cases, your video should never be longer than a few minutes. Get to the point quickly and immediately show the value your video will provide. If you can’t cover everything in one video, create a series.” ~ Andrew Schrage, Money Crashers Personal Finance

6. Promote Your Video

“The best way to get more social sharing and views on a business video is to promote it. Many businesses focus on content creation so much that they forget about content promotion. If people aren’t aware that your video exists, they can’t share it. Get creative: Share it during Twitter chats and share with your strategic partners, but — and this is important — explicitly ask your social network to share it.” ~ Sean Kelly, HUMAN

7. Be Interesting

“Make it interesting. There’s no substitution for great content. One way we’ve done this is through variable data in video. A company called Switch Merge came up with this technology and we love it.” ~ Justin Gray, LeadMD

8. Feature Concise and Clear Benefit Statements

“The end user wants to know “What’s in it for me?” in order to watch and share your video. So make sure you clearly outline that.” ~ Daniel Wesley, DebtConsolidation.com

9. Add Pre-Made Sharing Links

“Though YouTube already makes it easy for you to share a video you just watched, as a viewer I might also turn to the description section to learn more about the video and then share it with a quote from that description. Use services such as Click to Tweet to get your audience to share your video more often and watch your views count climb.” ~ Firas Kittaneh, Amerisleep

Source; http://smallbiztrends.com/2014/

What Twitter’s Mute Button Means for Small Businesses

My remote’s mute button and I are best buddies. We tag team the task of watching a show and muting the commercials — all from the comfort of my favourite recliner. Why do I mute commercials? It’s simple: They’re usually annoying or irrelevant. When the program I’m interested in returns, I’m able to un-mute my TV, and life is good once again.

This May, Twitter caught on to the beautiful idea of muting and introduced a new Twitter mute button feature to its users. Basically, muting on Twitter hides an account’s tweets and retweets from your Twitter stream so you’ll no longer receive push notifications from that user. However, muted users can still favourite reply to, and retweet your tweets. You just won’t see any of that activity on your timeline.

While this mute feature is great for blocking your overly opinionated cousin, it’s not so great for businesses. If a business is muted, its engagement will be hindered because customers won’t see any live tweets of industry events or responses to questions or complaints.

So what can you do to prevent your small business’s account and tweets from being muted? Below are five key tips to consider:

How to Avoid Being Muted

Tell Followers When You’re Live Tweeting an Event

Live tweeting an event is a fantastic way to gain followers, showcase your knowledge, and offer tips and tricks. However, live tweeting overwhelms certain followers. To avoid this, announce the times you’ll start and stop live tweeting beforehand so users can mute and unmute as they see fit.

Keep Your Content Focused

Identify the content that attracts followers to your account and track the activities that also may have caused a drop in followers (like frequent event tweeting).

Use Analytics

Turn to your Twitter analytics to see follower growth and user engagement. Build on the messages and the activity that drive growth and engagement, and cut out those that hurt it.

Have a Defined Twitter Personality

The Twitter mute button makes it easier for followers to silence your voice. So it’s even more important to pay attention to the narrative of your tweets. Make your followers want to read your tweets.

Create Visual Content

Tweets with visual content are read, shared, and liked more frequently than text-only tweets. Add meaningful images such as screen shots, photos, infographics, or videos to complement the rest of your tweet.

Businesses can begin to determine whether their tweets are being muted with link-tracking tools, such as Bitly. While these tools won’t tell you directly whether you’re being muted, you can deduce that if your clicks had a 3 percent CTR and then dropped to 1.5 percent, you may have been muted and should adjust your strategy.

Likewise, if you’re seeing “unfollows,” you may have been muted prior to being unfollowed. Businesses should track the number of unfollows to see what types of content are driving followers away.

How to Win Back the Muters

Though being muted is an unfortunate occurrence, there are ways to win back the muters. Businesses can reach these audiences via Promoted Tweets, Twitter retargeting, and email marketing.

One retargeting tool, Perfect Audience, allows businesses to deliver ads to users who have visited their website. Businesses should also tap into the power of email marketing in concert with their Twitter ads to remind followers of all the great tweets they’re missing out on.

Although the Twitter mute button is successful at cutting out the excess “noise” on Twitter, it can be harmful to businesses. However, small businesses can avoid being silenced by posting relevant and engaging content — but not excessively.

If you do find yourself on someone’s muted list, remember that you can always work to win them back via Twitter or email marketing.

Trouble Determining PPC Budget Numbers? This Will Help

Everyone knows that you want your PPC budget to be just enough to make you a profit. But you have to have an initial budget to test how much you can get for each dollar you put into paid search advertising, or pay per click advertising (PPC).

Having this budget ready to go before you start creating your PPC strategy is crucial. Your budget may very well change over time, so it’s important to understand how to set a budget and why it matters. Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be as overwhelming as many may think.

Setting Up an Estimated PPC Budget

The reason that so many people dread determining PPC budget numbers is because there are many different ways to get to your rough estimate. In the end, your goal is to perfect your budget, but your initial PPC budget has to be a good solid estimate.

SEO agencies can help you perfect your budget in the end, but it helps a lot to have your own idea of a PPC budget before you even speak with an SEO agency. It’s not completely necessary, but again, that ballpark estimate will help speed up your path to success.

Below are two choices you have for coming up with a good initial budget.

Choice #1: Think About Your End Goal

What you need to do here is think of an end-goal. Whether it be to have a certain amount of sales dollars, producing a number of leads, etc. Once you have your end goal in mind, think about the target CPA and do the math from there. In other words, work backwards.

Wordstream wrote a great article discussing the importance of working in a specific order to come up with your budget. You have to first know the answers to the following questions:

• What is your goal cost per lead? Ex: $30 per lead.
• What is your new client goal per month? Ex: 150 per month.
• What is your average close rate of leads? Ex: 12% close rate.

Once you know the answers to these questions, you can start putting some numbers together to come up with a rough PPC budget. Using the numbers from the questions above, this is the way that the math would look:

1. Find how many PPC leads you need. For 150 clients from a 12% close rate, you need to do this math: 150/0.12 = 1,250 PPC leads.
2. Determining PPC budget. Take your number of leads and multiply that by your goal cost per lead: 1,250 leads X $30 cost per lead = $37,500.

Of course the value of a lead will depend on several factors including geography, bounce rate, interaction, etc. So there are ways to better control this quality (such as using negative keywords).

Choice #2: Analyze Your Past PPC Campaigns

If you had a PPC campaign in the past, you can use some of that data to help you determine where to set your budget this time around. Look at what worked and what didn’t for the goal you had in mind. For example, if you had a goal cost per action (CPA) of $200, go look at what you spent previously and see what met that mark.

Once you have narrowed down what worked, look at the impression share. Those with low impression share will give you the chance to earn more volume by having a larger budget (or increasing your bids). You then need to ask yourself, “How much additional budget will I need based on the current impression share?”

When you add up all of your estimates you’ll have a rough budget.

The Takeaway

Once again, the above options are very basic in nature. When you start working with an SEO agency or expert you can start to get into quality aspects and other factors that might come into play. Until then, having an idea of your budget is an important thing to keep in mind as you start talking to more professionals or creating a strategy.

Robert Brady, head of PPC at Righteous Marketing, said it best when he talked about the importance of understanding your own budget:

“Optimization implies choosing better options over less desirable options. Without knowing all constraints, of which budget is a MAJOR one, it is very difficult to make the best optimization decisions.”

Source;  http://smallbiztrends.com/2014/09/determining-ppc-budget.html

Internet Marketing Methods for Small Businesses

Internet marketing is a powerful marketing strategy for businesses. It is gaining the attention of small business owners because of its effectiveness. Internet marketing is aimed to enhance the business in a better way to build brand image, customer relationship, customer retention, increase sales, etc. Following are some of the methods of Internet marketing for small businesses.

Different Methods of Internet Marketing:

• Search Engine Optimization: SEO is a method where different strategies and techniques are used to improve a website’s rank in the search engine result pages. These techniques help search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing find and rank the website in the first page in response to a search query made by a user. If your business website appears in the first page visitors will consider your site as trustworthy and reliable. Moreover, you will have more traffic as people are more likely to click only the results in the first page.

• Email Marketing: This helps you send commercial messages about your products/services to your potential customers. These emails contain information related to your company's products, services, special offers, latest updates, discounts, etc. E-mail marketing takes less time, effort and money to do the campaign compared to other marketing methods.

• Web Banner Advertising: Web banner ads appear on some websites giving link to your website. This can be in the form of content, audio, video or a combination of all three. You can give ad on new products or special offers with attractive content, colours and graphics. Customizing your ad for your potential audience helps in attracting and engaging the audience and will eventually lead to traffic and sales for your business.

• Social Media Marketing: Social media as a means of marketing is gaining a lot of attention and popularity. With this form of marketing, you can gain the attention of online users to your business. By creating professional and attractive content for social media campaigns your visitors will not only like it, but will also share it. In this way, your business will gain credibility among the online audience. Social media marketing is an inexpensive marketing strategy for small businesses.

• Mobile Advertising: Mobile marketing is a process by which, you can market your products/services via mobile devices to your targeted customers. This form of marketing helps you reach a huge number of mobile users. This form of marketing is also inexpensive and requires less effort and time.

Because of the benefits of Internet marketing, small businesses should leverage the benefits of it and apply these techniques to get targeted leads, increase in sales and higher profits.

Source; http://www.sbinformer.com

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