How to earn money with a website

How to earn money with a website, 20 ways to make money from your website

Now that you’ve got your website online, how can you make money from it? Today we’re sharing the best ways to start monetizing your site.

Once you’ve got your own Bluehost website online (click here for our guide), there are endless opportunities to start making money.

It’s not uncommon for committed bloggers to quit their day jobs after a few months. I did!

In this guide, I’ll share some of the best ways for you to monetize your website, along with plenty of practical tips and resources to get you started from day one.

But don’t chase them all at once! I strongly recommend picking one or two that resonate with you and your website – and really focusing on those first.

Let’s get started (in no particular order) with my 20 ways you can monetize a website!

Don’t have a site yet? Use this guide for inspiration and proof that you should start a website!

How to Make Money from a Website
Here are the best ways to monetize your website:

Affiliate Marketing

How to earn money with a website, Becoming an affiliate means you promote a product or service to your website visitors in exchange for earning a commission if they make a purchase through your link.

Join the Awin network to access thousands of affiliate programs, including major brands like Travelodge, Etsy and Nike.

Then simply include an affiliate link (provided by Awin) when you mention your chosen partners’ products on your website.

Check out our complete guide to getting started with affiliate marketing and making money.

Wondering how to make money online as a student? Check out our guide to making cash fast for some more inspiration.

Use Skimlinks

Skimlinks is much like Awin (and other affiliate networks) in that it allows you to earn a commission on purchases made through links on your site.

The main difference is that, as well as allowing you to create unique affiliate links and when you want, Skimlinks can be installed on your website to automatically monetize your content.

If you link to a merchant in your content that is part of the Skimlinks network, Skimlinks will automatically convert the link into an affiliate link.

You get paid when a visitor makes a purchase through your link, and the commission varies between 2% - 10%.

Add banner ads
Man looking happy at laptop
Credit: bbernard - Shutterstock

You can easily set up network ads using Google Adsense or Media.net by copying and pasting code onto your site to create ads relevant to a visitor's recent internet searches.

As you start to grow your blog, you can come across more premium ad networks. The best ones will require you to have several views per month before you can join, but they can quickly become a big money maker for your site.

With 10,000+ monthly views, you can see monmetrics. Then there are the big players like Mediavine and Raptive, but they require you to have 50,000+ or 100,000+ monthly views (respectively).

However, both networks now offer options for smaller websites outside of their main programs. Journey by Mediavine welcomes blogs from around 10,000 sessions while Raptive Rise requires 50,000+ monthly views.

Taboola is another increasingly popular service for bloggers to monetize their content. It works by displaying relevant articles (instead of banners) from advertisers on their network.

These networks pay you every time a visitor clicks on an ad (cost per click, or CPC), or every 1,000 impressions (cost per impression, or CPM).

You can also sell banner ads directly to companies with relevant products/services. This option can be much more profitable because, not only do you set the rates yourself, but the advertiser (hopefully) knows that your audience is someone they want to target.

Use text link ads

Offer basic text links to an advertiser’s website (content ads) and charge a set rate (e.g. £20) per month. Alternatively, you can charge per click.

There are plenty of marketplaces like Backlinks and LinkPanel where you can list your offers.

Sell email subscribers

How to earn money with a website, One of our bloggers’ biggest regrets is not starting an email list sooner.

Get an account with AWeber from day one to capture your audience and keep in touch with them after they leave the site.

You can then email them with suggested products they might be interested in (affiliate promotions), and earn various commissions when they sign up or make a purchase.

Publish a Sponsored Post

Sponsored posts, sometimes known as advertisements, are advertisements in the form of articles, usually with a link to the advertiser's website.

An advertiser may send you the article, but if you can write the content for them, you will be paid whatever they charge for your time.

You can earn anywhere from £35 to £200+ for a sponsored post, depending on the popularity of your website.

Join the Blogger Network group on Facebook and share your website, where advertisers are looking.

Note: Advertising regulations state that if you pay a third party to publish an article on your site, you must say "Sponsored Post" somewhere on the page.

Product Review
Dog Using a Computer
Credit: Kalamurzing - Shutterstock

This is especially true if you have a niche audience, such as new parents or avid gamers.

But even if your readership isn’t from a specific pool, you can still get on the product-testing gravy train. As long as you’re happy to write a review after you’ve tried the product, companies will be happy to send you something for free – and may even pay you!

Sell digital products - How to earn money with a website

Ebooks, printables, graphics, templates and podcasts are all examples of digital products that can help you earn an ongoing passive income from your site.

You can charge around £2.99 for a 5,000-word eBook. That doesn’t sound like much, but selling 20 eBooks a month will quickly add up.

Check out the Envato Marketplace for inspiration and ideas.

Sell physical products

Use your website as a base to sell physical products. For example, you can create designs for t-shirts or mugs with Zazzle – even with your site branding if you think people will buy them.

One of the best ways to sell products online is to create an e-commerce website. To help you get started, we’ve got plenty of tips for starting a Shopify store.

While Shopify is a great platform, it’s not your only option. Find more ideas in our guide to the best e-commerce website builders.

You can also create handmade products to sell on other sites like eBay or Etsy.

But no matter where you sell, just make sure you link to the marketplace from your site – right off the bat, it’ll give you an advantage over other sellers on the platform.

Include a business directory

Set up a business directory page, where companies pay you a set fee to list their business.

You can charge a monthly or annual listing fee, and can charge anything from £20 - £500 per year (and beyond) depending on the traffic level of your site.

For example, let’s say you have a website that reviews sound systems. Assuming that sites like Amazon are probably already quite popular, you could charge individual retailers (both offline and online) to appear on a page listing that sells top-of-the-range speakers.

Publish Premium Articles
Laptop with WordPress in Bed

If you can create incredibly useful content, you can make money from it.

Let’s say you have a gaming website and you share some little-known tricks in an article. You can attract visitors by sharing a few tips and then linking to a password-protected page (this is an option within WordPress) for the most valuable information.

After paying you a fee via PayPal, the reader receives the password to unlock the premium content. Charge whatever you want, although £2 - £10 is a realistic price for a premium article.

You’ve seen some major media outlets like The Telegraph and The Times use this tactic, so it’s clearly got some merit.

Add a Membership Forum

You can add a ‘members-only’ forum to your site using a free WordPress plugin like bbPress. You can then monetize it by charging a recurring subscription or a one-time access fee.

Importantly, the amount you can earn depends on how much value you can create for forum members. If you can turn your forum members into a true community – one that networks and shares tips – you could be on to a winner.

Create an online course

How to earn money with a website, Create an online course as an add-on to your website. This is another type of paid premium content where viewers pay to access additional information.

The course can be automatically distributed via AWeber to subscribers who have paid and subscribed with their email address, or you can add it to Udemy to reach a wider subscriber base.

If you’re after a little inspiration, check out our guide to free online courses, or think about what your readers might be interested in. If your website is about arts and crafts, for example, you could create a course that teaches people how to crochet

Create your own affiliate program

Once you’ve created your own website product(s), such as a course or an ebook, you can create your own affiliate program and recruit affiliates to help spread the word.

This can lead to more product sales and more traffic for your website. It’s a win-win, and there are plenty of free WordPress plugins to get you started.

We work with a lot of brands here at Save the Student, and while quite a few tend to use networks like Awin to handle their affiliate marketing, many (including Amazon, most notably) go it alone. In other words, no matter what the job is, it’s possible.

Create a 'Hire Me' Page
Hands typing on laptop

When you build a website, you'll develop some new skills that will help you make money.

Set up a 'Hire Me' page on your site and offer freelance blogging and writing services to get started. If you're involved in setting up the nuts and bolts of your website, why not advertise your services as a developer?

Outside of your own site, you can also offer these services through Upwork. A freelance writer can make pretty good money, around £15 - £50+ per hour, depending on experience.

And Upwork isn't the only freelancing site. Read our freelancing guide for more tips, including the best sites to advertise your services.

Ask for donations

Add a simple PayPal donation button to your website and ask people to donate a little money (the equivalent of buying you a coffee) if they like your content. You can link to your Buy Me a Coffee page, if you have one.

Some major websites, including Your Friend and Me, Wikipedia, and others, are funded in part or entirely by donations.

Ultimately, if you don’t ask, you don’t get.

Create an Amazon Store Page

The beauty of Amazon is that it sells what you want. No matter what your website is about, there’s a good chance you’ll sell relevant products on Amazon.

You can easily add a separate Amazon Store Page to your website. If people see you as an authority on your topic, they’ll listen to your recommendations about which products are relevant to them and what they should try.

Join the Amazon Affiliate Program and you’ll earn a 1% - 10% commission on product sales when one of your readers buys something through your link.

Create Video Content on YouTube
YouTube
Credit: Abdi - Shutterstock

Creating video content for your website will not only help you entertain your audience, it can also earn you cash.

One way to monetize video content is to upload it to YouTube and set up Google AdSense (Google has a simple guide). And while you’re at it, check out our guide to making money from YouTube.

Once you’ve created your video content, you can then embed your YouTube videos on your blog. If your videos go viral, you can earn hundreds from advertising.

Become a Consultant

If you’re an expert in a field, why not share your knowledge in exchange for hourly consulting?

Advertise through your website and offer your expertise through monetized webinars and podcasts or even a video call where viewers pay upfront to benefit from your knowledge.

Whatever channel you choose, if people come to your website for your expert explanations and opinions, you should definitely consider charging for some useful advice.

Sell Your Website

Once you have a website that is already monetized and getting a good level of traffic, you will have an asset.

Like any asset, your website can be sold and when the time is right, websites like Flippa and the aptly named BusinessesForSale.com will help you find a buyer.

Expect to earn two to three times the annual profit from your website if you decide to sell.

This list is just the tip of the iceberg. Its purpose is to inspire you to take real action and launch your website, knowing that there is a huge opportunity to make money here.

If you haven’t set up your website yet, do it now. We have a step-by-step guide on how to start a website using Bluehost and WordPress.

How to earn money with a website, 20 ways to make money from your website

How to earn money with a website