How
to make my website pay.
Making
a profit from your hobby website.
For
this part we are assuming you already have a website of some
description that has unique themed content. By this I mean
the website has a general theme running through it. You run
this website because you are interested in the topic but do
not currently make any profit from it, or you want to make
more profit from it.
Firstly,
just about any website that gets a lot of visitors can make
money. I'm pretty sure of that. So thats the number one important
thing you need to do. Get a lot of targetted traffic. This
means traffic that comes to your website because they are
generally interested in the topic, not because you have tricked
them by using false keywords, or have paid to have random
traffic directed to your site (why do poeple do this? It rarely
ever converts). If you havn't already, the first thing to
do is to register with the major free directories such as
DMOZ. A DMOZ listing used to carry a lot of weight in the
rankings, this has changed somewhat, but it will still get
you into the goodbooks of the major search engines. Directories
like DMOZ are edited by humans and so are 'supposed' to only
contain useful original content websites (like yours right!).
The SE's then take this on board as being a good recommendation.
You also get the benefit of the pagerank from the page you
are listed on DMOZ. So, before you start too much SEO (search
engine optimization) and adding advertisments get it submitted
to every free directory you can find. I will shortly add a
page containing a list of these.
Now,
assuming you have now been listed (or turned down, it happens)
on the directories, especially DMOZ - you want to make sure
your website is search engine friendly. see SEO
If
this is all done correctly you need to establish pagerank
and increase your link popularity and structure. See exchanging
links and link structures.
When
all this is done, and your seeing a good amount of visitors,
you need to decide how you are going to make some money. The
general ways are as follows:
Paid
Advertising. If your theme is something that would be of interest
to a product or service you could offer advertising space
to relevant companies for a particular spot on each of your
webpages. (perhaps a banner on each page)
Adwords.
Google offer a service for website owners where they will
display a set of adverts on your webpages. These will be automatically
decided by google, dependant on what it believes is the subject
of the page. (it uses its page analysis algoryth similar to
the one it uses to rank websites). This can be a good idea
if you have a lot of visitors and your pages contain terms
that are commercially viable. The most commercial keywords
cost the most money on Adwords - see Adwords so if you are
displaying on your website, and they tie in with your content
(poeple who are interested in your topic may click on them)
then you could stand to make a lot of money. Google does this
in a peculiar way, it won't tell you what percentage of the
'cost per click' paid by the advertiser you will recieve.
So you just wait and recieve your money at the end of the
month. Cross your fingers its a good one.
Affiliate
Links. These are the bread and butter for a lot of websites.
It works basically by advertising a particular product or
service, but instead of getting a fixed rate for advertising
space, you get a commision for every sale that originates
from your site. Its is all tracked and dealt with by the merchant
so its a very simple way of making money. Basically you need
to find a product or service that is relative to your website.
Then find a the best merchant that offers an affiliate scheme.
You really want one of the best products or services because
you know that they will be hard to beat in that field, but
you also want to pick one that gives a good commision because
these can very a great deal. The temptation is always to slap
loads of banners over all your pages to get poeple to click
through. Please, please don't do this. its generally agreed
that text links get around four times the click
through rate of banner ads. Poeple are sick
of big flashy banners, theres just something about them that
gets your back up. A well placed text link in the context
of your page can be enough to generate a decent click through
rate.
Where
to find the Merchants?
There
are several large affiliate networks in the UK that between
them cover the most well known and popular companies. Then
there are lesser known but just as large affiliate networks
that offer many smaller merchants. Then there are the merchants
that don't use affiliate networks and deal with affiliates
directly. To have a look at the merchants and decide where
you need to go have a look here:
Affiliate
Programs |
