“Uh, what? Deciding how I’m gonna make money? What do you mean?”
A lot of people who have websites don’t really think about how they will make money. They just put up a site, slap a few AdSense ads on the site, and wait for the money to roll in.
Well, I’m sorry, but it doesn’t work that way. At least it doesn’t work very well that way. Oh, you may make a few dollars a month, maybe even more than that. But, if you really plan and figure out your best money making methods, you can almost certainly make more money from your website.
The truth is, AdSense should not be your end-all way of making money online. For me, I make pretty nice money online, and AdSense is only a very minor part of my earnings. Oh, like others, there was a time when I thought that AdSense would be the golden paradise that would have me rolling in dough, but it didn’t take me long to find out that I was wrong.
So, in my opinion, one of the most important things that you need to do when you are ready to design a new website is to sit down and think things through and decide how you will make money on the site. In the new economy today, you may find out that no single money-making enterprise is going to earn enough to sufficiently keep you solvent. Not to worry, though, because nobody said that you can only use a single way to earn money! One thing that I have believed strongly in for a long time is to use multiple streams of income in order to make my income. And, it works. I don’t rely on one single source of money, I have many sources. Sometimes one method makes nothing for months, but then I might make $5,000 on it in a single month. That’s how it works these days.
So, when you come up with a website that you want to do, figure out all of the ways that you might be able to make money in that niche. Here are some of the ways I make money through my niche:
- Gift Services. I sell gifts that can be ordered online and delivered to recipients in my area.
- Investigative Services. I offer investigative services to check into matters for my readers.
- Consulting. I consult my readers on matters that they wish to ask me about.
- Equipment rental. I have equipment and vehicles that I rent to people when they visit my area.
- Google AdSense. Ads on my websites.
- Text Link Ads. I sell text advertising on my sites.
- Web Design. I do web design mostly for people who read my websites.
- Land Sales. My wife sells land mostly to my readers and earns commissions on this.
- Other
Yes, I have a lot of ways to earn money from my sites. So, when I am going to redesign one of my sites, I sit down and figure out how I will promote each of these services on the new site. Where will the ads go? Where is the most effective place to put the ad? These are things you need to consider when designing the site. Now, if you are putting up a site just for fun, not a profit-driven thing, well this is not important. However, if your purpose from the site is to produce an income, these considerations are probably the most important thing you can do.
One of the profitable (at least in background knowledge terms) this article suggests is, visit successful web entrepreneur’s sites … conventional bloggers and others … and analyze just _how_ they are earning money.
Many people just assume “it’s magic” and “beyond me”, when in fact it is not “magic” at all, and if it isn’t “beyond” old, retired high school dropouts like me, it is surely is not “beyond” 99.9% of the people reading this blog.
Some bloggers post detailed articles regarding the ways the monetize their sites. Others leave it open to interpretation. But it is rare indeed when there is some “secret sauce” that a reader can’t figure out with a little (often fun) detective work.
Hi Dave – Boy, you sure are right on that, my friend! I mean, for those who think it’s magic, or can’t figure it out, think about this. If a person is making money through a website, they must show the items that they are making money from, or else they could not make money at all.
For example, look at this site. You can see how I make money here if you study it:
– There are advertisements on the site. Anybody should realize that ads that are on a site must be paid for by the company advertising.
– There are ads for my e-Books here. If somebody buys an e-Book, I make money.
– There are ads for my other services here (WowPhilippines and such). If you spend money at my stores and such, I earn a profit from that.
Everything is right out there in the open for anybody to see. It’s just a matter of opening your eyes and figuring out what the page owner is doing to make the money! Than apply that principle to yourself!
Thanks for stopping by, Dave.
I think you are right. While Adsense is a great program (and I certainly benefit from it), it is foolhardy to think you can make it on Adsense alone. If you have a website, you already have information that could be turned into a book, a series of books, something that can be sold. You also may have some expertise that can be sold to others. It makes sense to capitalize on that.
Hi Tom – Without a doubt in my mind, the products like books and other products are the place where the real money is. AdSense is great, but I consider it only an add-on to the real money making potential of any site.
Hi Bob
Just a thougth that I’m sure you have considered – without knowing the implications is it possible for anyone leaving comments to receive notification of any updates to any/all of your sites?
I imagine most people would like to know when someone has contributed, responded to a thread.
Without a mental reminder to myself I can’t follow up and often cant find the same blog again. Also the number of hits would increase many times and therefore the $ increase
Something like facebook- look at its success-wow
Having posted this question I now need to remember to revisit to see your response – could take days or never.
This may be a brainfart but i hope not.
(royalies gratefully accepted) 🙂
regards Dave
Hi Dave – This is something I have considered for years, but never did it. Now might be the right time to try it. Probably the reason that I have not done it is because I personally hate getting e-mail notifying me of this sort of thing. But, as you say, with Facebook, Google Plus and such doing this regularly, people may be used to it.
Thanks for the suggestion, Dave.