How To Turn A Successful Website Into A Profitable Business
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By Adam McFarland from iPrioritize
Internet entrepreneurs face an interesting challenge:
If content is king then how do you turn that content into money?
Many of the most visited sites on the web are social networking sites, blogs, forums, wikis, and news sites. Most first time Internet entrepreneurs tend to start a content site because the alternative (selling a good or service) requires inventory, shipping, customer service, and/or an advanced knowledge of that industry. The logical choice is to start a content site about something you know and are passionate about. But assuming you are able to build a loyal user base and consistent traffic, how do you then turn that traffic into revenue?
Ad Networks
Probably the simplest and quickest way to start earning some money is with advertising networks like Google AdSense and Commission Junction. Neither requires you to have any minimum amount of traffic so you can sign up as soon as you launch your site. AdSense is a favorite for site owners because you get paid per click as opposed to per action (making a purchase on the advertisers site after clicking), however many site owners take this too far and make the sole purpose of their site to get people to click on AdSense ads (as Yaro mentioned previously).
Commission Junction is popular because you get to choose what ads appear on your site. You can choose from thousands of publishers from the Wall Street Journal to MLB.com and everything in between. The downside being that they pay per action so it usually takes quite a bit of traffic to lead to conversions. Commission Junction campaigns also tend to require a bit more work in terms of choosing ads and rotating out those that aren’t successful. There are several other Ad Networks like ValueClick with other offerings that require a minimum amount of traffic.
Affiliate Marketing
One of the best ways to supplement your content is to offer products that relate to it. Affiliate Marketing programs allow you to list other businesses products and take a cut when they sell. You generally make 5% - 10% of any item that sells through your site. Not bad for not having to make the product, store it, process payment, or ship it! The most popular programs are eBay’s and Amazon’s, both of which you can set up in a matter of minutes. So if you have a site about video games, why not put the latest games for sale next to it? Or if you write a book review it’s only natural to give the reader the opportunity to buy the book on Amazon after reading about it. Proper placement of Affiliate Marketing advertisements can be very successful because they catch the visitor at a time when they are likely to take action.
Do-it-yourself Advertising
Building your own advertising network can result in more revenue than the other two methods if you do it right – and that’s a big if. Do-it-yourself Advertising involves selling advertising yourself by dealing directly with advertisers. You need to have substantial (and consistent) traffic to ensure the advertiser that their ads will be shown. Usually you sell advertising per thousand impressions (CPM), but you can also sell it for a specified amount of time or by other technique you can think of. Finding suitable advertisers can be difficult and many times you will have to contact several advertisers before anyone is interested. Once you find interest, you need to negotiate a deal that is mutually beneficial. You also need to keep an ongoing relationship with the advertiser and be willing to update and change their ads as their promotions change. Selling your own advertising and successfully managing the accounts is more work than Ad Networks or Affiliate Marketing, but it eliminates the middleman and if done properly can bring in much more revenue than the other two.
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Adam McFarland owns iPrioritize - lists that can be edited at any time from any place in the world. Email, print, check from your mobile phone, subscribe via RSS, and share with others. Adam also has a blog about being a young entrepreneur that can be read on SportsLizard.com.
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Hi, I’d just like to add that despite having some great ways to monetize your site, it’s ultimately about getting traffic to the site/blog page which earns you revenue.
AdSense, Commission Junction etc. etc. ARE indeed great products, but without through traffic you can’t hope to get the clicks needed to generate income. It’s a difficult area to break into, and somewhere, someone has written a great article outlining the chronological steps the newcomer needs to take, to ensure even a small amount of initial success in this field of work.
I guess it’s inevitable that the masses would latch-on to these kinds of methods of earning income, but I think we may have lost the plot in the last few years - the original idea was to have a great product or service to sell online - now it’s looking more like click-throughs are the main reason for having a site, and this is ultimately detrimental to the whole IM idea (in my opinion of course).
I agree that most would-be Internet entrepreneurs have a misconception about AdSense and the like. It takes a lot more work than just registering a site, filling it with content, and putting in your AdSense code. But you’re right that if people take the time to learn the system, they can make pretty decent profits from AdSense, CJ, Amazon affiliates, etc.
.. and in addition to all this, just try getting the click-throughs on a new AdWords campaign to bring you any kind of income - without doing any homework first!
It’s basically money down-the-drain!
I don’t think you’ll find anyone on this website saying that having a great product or great content isn’t important. These are simply tips for those people who want to monetize the internet projects they’re involved in.
You can be successful by using Adsense and other programs to specfically make money, but the content is king. Nobody is going to come to a site unless there is something there.
To complain that this post doesn’t mention anything about content is missing the point. There are many other posts on this very site that address the issue of building content on blogs specifically.
I know that monetizing a site can feel sort of heartless at first, but you just need to remember that if your site is providing any sort of worthwhile content at all then you deserve every penny you’re making or trying to make.