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If you’ve ever struggled to find a way to make some extra money, without getting a full time job, you don’t have to look any further than your laptop. You don’t have to be launching your own startup to benefit from having a website. Even if you only have a blog for the purposes of having a hobby, or sharing your interest with the world, you’re not exploiting its full potential if you’re not trying to make some money out of it. After all, isn’t it more fun to make a little extra money by doing something you love? If you still think it sounds too good to be true, here are a few ways your killer website could make you money. These tips could even be used to finance your small business.
Affiliate marketing
If you have a strong following of loyal readers who trust your opinion, you could make money through affiliate marketing. Say your website focuses on fitness or makeup tips; you could try out products that are relevant to your website, and if you like them you endorse the products to your subscribers. If your audience is interested in the product, they click on an affiliate link, and you get a split of the sale price if they purchase the product. Amazon Associates is a good option for this, as you’re more likely to get paid.
This option really only works if you’ve established yourself as an expert within your industry, so it might be safer to wait before you attempt to make some money this way.
Pay per click advertising
Pay per click (or PPC) is a model of internet marketing in which advertisers pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked. Search engines like Google and Bing allow businesses and individuals to buy listings in their search results. Every time you type a term into a search engine, you see the results of PPC advertising at the very top of the search results. You can use services like Google AdWords or PPC Pro to draw more visitors to your website, increasing the chances that they will click on any affiliate content in your website. To see a good return on investment with PPC ads, you want a high click through rate of target consumers. Before you sign up to this, take the time to research successful marketing tips and good keyword tools.
Sell your own product
If you’ve been blogging for a while now, you might feel qualified enough to turn your thoughts into an eBook, or begin a video training course. If you publish and sell your product on your own, you have the potential to make the most money on a per sale basis because there’s no one else taking a cut of the profits. It’s not likely that you’ll get it done right away – in fact, it may take you a few failed attempts before you have a viable product – but you shouldn’t let that stop you from trying.
