If you want to make money online using a web site, there are a few main options to do it.  Of course, within each of these options are a range of variations. 

Sell Advertising

Are you able to sell advertising space on your blog or web site? 

The simplest way to do this is to set up a Google AdSense account and place the ads on your page.  There are numerous ideas as to which styles of ads work best.  My advice is to read as much as you can and test with various options.  Remember though, you’ll need to be receiving a reasonable amount of traffic to your site to make any test results meaningful.

Once you do build up traffic, you could look at other advertising either through an ad affiliate network, or by approaching potential advertisers direct. 

Promote Someone Else’s Product

Find products that reflect the focus of your blog and sell them.  You can register with an affiliate network like Clickbank that sell a range of products such as e-books, DVD’s and online training.  This content is created by other people who are looking for distribution for their products.

Some of the products can look a bit dodgy, and personally I’m not comfortable with promoting things that I don’t believe in or that I don’t know enough about.  What you choose to promote is up to you, but I suggest buying and / or using the product for yourself before you promote it.

There are a whole range of affiliate networks out there and it pays to do some investigating to find the ones that work best for you.

Always keep your eyes open for opportunities.  If you find an e-book or course you like, chances are there’s an opportunity for an affiliate relationship.  Darren Rowse does this with the 30 days to a better blog book.  He sells it through E-Junkie.  You could register as an affiliate with E-Junkie and spend a lot of time searching through the offers.  Whilst it’s not a bad idea, it could be quicker to visit the web sites that sell products aligned to your web site’s target market and see if they have affiliate deals.  That’s how I found Darren’s.

You also don’t have to sell a product.  There are other ways you can carry a link on your site that pays you when someone clicks on it instead of having to purchase something.

Create and Promote Your Own Product

This is possibly the best way to make money.  Create your own product drawing on your skills and resources (or someone else’s), and sell it.  Again, this is where affiliate networks come in handy.

Whilst your site is new, you may not get a huge amount of traffic to it.  So if you were selling a product, until you ranked high in the search engines, or unless you spend money on advertising, you’re not going to get a lot of traffic to your site.

Imagine having thousands of people selling your product.  That’s what an affiliate network does.  It enables you to distribute your product through other people’s web sites.  They’ll link to your product and get paid a share of any sales.

Using this method you have the potential to sell more product than you would ordinarily be able to sell by yourself.  You’ll make less profit per sale because of the portion of the price that’s paid to the affiliate, but you’ll still be in front.

Don’t forget, your product doesn’t have to be an e-book or CD’s or DVD’s – it can be you!  You may have the ability to sell one-on-one training over the web.  Find ways to promote this and do it.

Make More Money

So there you have it – a basic overview of making money.  you can sell advertising, sell someone else’s product, or sell your own product.

In future articles we’ll discuss each of these options in more detail and explain how they fit into the business planning process.

What are your thoughts?  How do you make money through your web site?