In the past, I’ve described 10 methods of earning online income with definitions included. That post was a high-level summary designed to introduce monetization concepts. Other posts have focused on giving detailed, in-depth information about specific ways to monetize a site. My hope is that by giving you a mix of ideas and explanations, you can find the monetization methods that work best for you, your site, and your niche market. Generally speaking, it’s usually best to diversify, using a mix of methods, so if one revenue stream dries up for any reason, your other methods are still bringing in some income. Watch the video, or jump to the text below the video.

1. Sell access to premium content.

This works best when it is in the form of a membership site, in which members pay a monthly fee to access exclusive content. If you’ve got premium content, you can quickly make a lot from a membership site.

Related posts:
Membership Sites: An Introduction
Plugin Easily Turns WordPress Into Membership Site

2. Review products, earning affiliate commissions from referrals.

When done well, review sites can attract lots of search engine based traffic, and can be one of the best earners out there.

Related posts:
Review Sites: An Introduction
Simple Way To Create Review Sites Using WordPress

3. Sell your own info products such as ebooks, videos, and audio “how-to” information.

Absolutely everyone has the ability to create their own high-quality ebooks and video products these days. And with services such as eJunkie to handle the orders and delivery of the downloads, it doesn’t get much easier.

Related posts:
How To Create Your Own eBooks – Easy, Fast, and Free
Free eBook Covers
Free eBook Covers – Volume 2
Creating Unique, Profitable Content With Web 2.0 Flavors

4. Sell your own non-info digital products such as templates, graphics, and photos.

If you have talent in these types of areas, you can sell your work not only on your own site, but also on sites like the Envato marketplaces and Fotolia.

Related posts:
How To Accept Payments for Downloadable Digital Goods
Selling on Your Site: Shopping Cart Solutions

5. Sell your own physical products, such as t-shirts, hand-made items and published books.

With services such as Etsy, CafePress, Zazzle, and Lulu to host your products, you can easily sell and ship real physical goods.

Related posts:
Quick Tip Tuesday – Volume 4
Selling on Your Site: Shopping Cart Solutions

6. Run a marketplace/auction that allows others to list items for sale

You let others list items for sale on your site, and in return, you either receive a listing fee, a portion of the sale, or both. Running a classified listing service is similar to running marketplaces or auctions, but it is more generic, and with less interactivity. Classifieds would consist of simple listings, with a fee charged for each. And of course, with easy to use WordPress themes, like this classifieds theme, it’s just plain easy.

Related posts:
Hosting Online Auctions or Classified Ads: An Introduction to Marketplaces
Easily Add A Classifieds Marketplace or Auction To Your Site With Premade Scripts

7. Host or share sponsored content

You are paid to post sponsored content (such as a blog post that an advertiser pays for), or you are paid to share sponsored content, such as a paid tweet. The best place to start with this type of monetization is at Izea, where you can sign up for SocialSpark, Sponzai, or Sponsored Tweets. Technically speaking, sponsored tweets aren’t exactly monetizing your “site”, but if your Twitter account is tied to your site’s brand, then in effect, it is a method of site monetization.

8. Sell your own services.

Some service examples include consulting, designing, programming, freelance writing, marketing, etc.

Related posts:
Freelancers Union
Where To Find Work – Quick Resource List
Free Time Tracking Apps For Freelancers

9. Run a job board in your niche

Running a job board is a great add-on to any site, and with WordPress themes such as Job Board and Job Press, it couldn’t get much easier. Basically, you charge a fee for each job posted. Job seekers search for free, but you could charge for premium services such as hosting resumes, helping job seekers create resumes, selling access to premium content such as guides to successful interviews, etc. A good way to know what you can offer is to run through some of the popular job boards as if you were looking for a job. What’s missing? What do you wish they had for you but they don’t? Can you supply that others in your niche?

Related posts:
Where To Find Work – Quick Resource List

10. Sell banner ad space.

This could be through ad networks such as buysellads.com or via one-on-one sales negotiated directly with advertisers.

Related posts:
The Perfect Ad Marketplace?
125×125 Ad Rate Calculator

11. Serve Google Adsense ads or any automated ad network ads.

The easiest, but not always most lucrative, method is of course, slapping Google Adsense on your site (or some equivalent, though there’s not much in the way of equivalent choices).

Related posts:
Adsense Realities for New Publishers

Get Creative!

The bottom line here is that you can increase the bottom line of your site’s income, just by getting creative. Most of the pain has been taken out of the equation over the years, as there are services, products, and vast quantities of information to help you handle almost any aspect of monetizing your site using these ideas. Stop limiting yourself with just the occasional banner ad, and move towards an increased level of freedom. Freedom? Oh yeah, freedom. Freedom is what comes with that extra bit of security, known as a bank account that isn’t teetering on the edge of emptiness. So start thinking, and start working towards that extra level of freedom. Good luck!

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2010. | Permalink | 41 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: monetization, Online Income
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CSS and Templates: Separation of Content From Presentation

At some point, and no I don’t remember when, the movement to separate content from presentation via the use of CSS stylesheets took hold. With the added convenience of using templates and themes in content management systems, the separation was complete. It was a tough transition for the old-timers, sure, but the rewards were many and worth it. One of those rewards involved the fact that the presentation / layout / design / style of the site could be dealt with once and then the site would essentially autogenerate that code in the future. All we had to do from then on was concentrate on writing content, and we could forget about including all the design code each time we wrote a new article.

This kind of automation (the use of stylesheets and templates) is extremely valuable because it eliminates tons of time, without sacrificing quality.

Monetization: Another Aspect We Can Separate / Automate

I think it’s important to also separate and automate the monetization of your site as well. What do I mean by that? Well, I’m not just talking about placing ads in your templates, although that counts too. That’s just another aspect of separating your content from your presentation though. What I mean is that the entire concept of monetizing your site should be a completely separate thought process, and should be automated as much as possible, once the monetization methods have been chosen.

Just like you’d spend a fair amount of time setting up the design of your site before you start adding lots of great content, you should also spend a fair amount of time deciding how to monetize the site. Make those decisions early on, implement them into the template when possible, and know ahead of time how you’ll integrate them on an ongoing basis. If you plan ahead, and automate the process as much as possible beforehand, again, you’ll be left with the ability to concentrate on the really important stuff – the content!

Why I Spend So Much Time Talking About Monetization

I spend a lot of time on this site telling you about all the different ways you can monetize your site. I don’t spend nearly as much time talking about your site’s content because I don’t have any way of knowing what that is. Your content is what makes your site unique. Whatever that content is (text, audio, video, games, web apps, etc.), it’s the meat of the site. I can’t help with that in a general way, because it’s all very unique to you. (Note: I do help with that in my one-on-one coaching, but that’s just not possible in this broad scope). So instead, I focus on the things that can be generalized, and much of that involves methods of earning money from your sites.

If I had more skills as a designer, I’d probably also spend a lot of time talking about design and CSS, because that kind of information can be generalized easily as well. Luckily for you, there are plenty of very talented designers and developers who love to share their knowledge, so I know you can find that information very easily.

The Quick Takeaway

The first and most important thing you can do for your site is provide outstanding content to your users. What that outstanding content is … is totally dependent upon you. You’re the one with the knowledge, interest, and skills to determine what you can offer to the world via your site. That content should be the one thing that is so unique and so outstanding that it can’t be automated. Only you (or your company) can deliver it, and no automation is possible in its creation. (Actually, some content can be automated ONCE it’s initially created, such as a web application, but let’s just assume that we’re talking about “most” content here).

All other aspects should be separate events, separate thought processes, and automated as much as possible. This includes design, style, presentation and monetization. Try to make decisions on all of this early on. Sure, you can and should tweak, adjust, and change as needed in the future, but the majority of the decisions should be dealt with early on, and utilized in such a way that the system automates the process in the future. You shouldn’t be thinking about monetization very often, any more than you think about your site’s template sidebars or footers very often. Once you do, you’ll find that your focus can be shifted to creating great content, and everything else follows naturally.

One Caveat

DON’T completely forget about style or monetization forever and ever and ever! While I recommend focusing mostly on content on an ongoing basis, and letting the system handle the style and monetization as much as possible, I don’t want you to think that you should never ever think about either again. Of course, you should be analyzing traffic and income, and making adjustments to either presentation or monetization as needed. The point I wanted to emphasize, however, is that the processes should be separated and automated as much as possible, so the content creation process is the main focus on a daily basis. Periodically, however, you should analyze and adjust so that your income is maximized, and your users needs are continually met.

The One Thing That Can’t Be Separated (In My Opinion)

I don’t believe you can separate marketing and promotion from the process. Promotion of your content should go hand-in-hand with the creation of the content. You should know who the content will be promoted to before you ever finish creating the content. Once the content is created, the promotion of it should begin in earnest. You may even start promoting it before it is finished, by posting “teaser messages” ahead of time to build excitement. In addition, the promotion of each piece of content may be unique to that content, so while you may be able to automate portions of it (such as automatically tweeting a blog post), the bulk of it should be unique to the individual content piece itself.

Want to know what inspired me to write this particular post? A really great post at Viperchill started the wheels churning and eventually it turned into this post. So, thanks, Glen, for getting my thoughts spinning.

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Post tags: Cascading Style Sheets, content management, HTML, monetization, separation
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The Concept

The concept behind this scenario is that you either charge a small listing fee for users to list the items they have for sale, or you get a small cut of the sale price of each item. Some sites charge both a listing fee and get a cut of the sale price. Essentially, you create a mini-ebay or mini-craigslist just for your niche, and your users.

This type of marketplace can work for both real and digital goods, so whether your niche is classic cars or web templates, you can open a marketplace on your site to help visitors buy, sell, and trade related items in an ebay-style online auction or a simple classified ad style system.

Your Mileage May Vary

Marketplaces seem to work best on well-trafficked sites that have some “status” within their niche, but if you think your users would participate, it may still work well for smaller sites. As with many monetization methods, sometimes the only way to know if it will work for you is to try it and see. Before jumping in, however, why don’t you actually throw the idea out to your visitors? Ask them if they would be interested in this. You could create a poll or simply ask them within a blog post to share their opinions within the comments. Does your site have a forum attached? If so, that’s another place that’s perfect for gauging interest. You may not get a complete picture of how well a marketplace would work on your site, but it would be a better barometer than just flat out guessing.

I don’t recommend making your marketplace the key focus of your site, in most cases, but it can be a nice addition to one. It’s certainly worth considering as one way of adding to your online income basket.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2010. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: ebay-style online auction, marketplace, monetization
This feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this in your news aggregator/reader or on DazzlinDonna, then the site you are looking at is probably infringing upon my copyright.

Look to the right. See the widget that says Are You In My Top Spots? Of course, you do, how could you miss it?

That is the Scratchback widget. It essentially functions like a tip jar or donate button, but in return for tipping someone, the person receives an advertisement. That in itself is really cool. But as they say OnTV, wait there’s more.

There are several options for how the process works, but here’s the default one and it’s the way I have it set up. Every time someone tips me (I’ve got the tip set up to be $1.00), their link gets placed in the #1 spot, bumping the #5 spot off and everyone else down. With this autobump method, the spots could stay for a while, or get bumped quickly. You can, however, set the options to not auto-bump, and instead let listings stay for 24 hours, 7 days, or 30 days.

Ok, is this going to upset Google? No, that’s the next cool thing. This is Google-friendly, with text links no-followed. So no penalties to worry about with this.

There’s all kinds of other cool things about this, but I want to test it out before commenting any further. So far I like the concept A WHOLE LOT, but it is in beta, so time will tell.

That’s it for now. This system officially opens up to everyone tomorrow, October 31 – Halloween! I think it’s got big, big potential.

If you want to understand a little more about it, you can visit my advertise page.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2007. | Permalink | 9 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Advertising, Google, Halloween, Jim Kukral, monetization, Scratchback, tip jar, top spots
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