Making Money With A Content-Oriented Website

Many websites out there have quite a bit of content, but are untapped as a resource for making money. Countless webmasters have heard the stories about getting rich working from home on their website. Yes, many people have done it. Yes, those who got in early on it did pretty well, but as I tell people fairly often, the ways to make money online are only limited to your imagination. The internet is the most free medium on the planet. Now, a website which directly offers a service or product is a no-brainer. You promote that produce or service and sell it and you make money. However, if your website is a nice library of content, but with no services or products to provide to the visitors, how can you make some money with it? There are ways and here are a few of them:

• Traditional Banner Advertising
• Form a subscription service
• Host contextual ads
• Sell affiliate products
• Sell your own content

Banner advertising is the most prevalent method of generating revenue from content sites. Content sites are valuable to internet advertisers. After all, what gives any content site value is the eyeballs looking at it. Its like an internet highway. In the real world, people will pay to put billboards on the side of well traveled highways. The same occurs online. Well trafficked websites are valuable for advertising. If your content site does not have much traffic yet, then get busy promoting, because the traffic is what gives your site value. Without the traffic, your content is worth very little in the real world.

There are many sources of getting advertising in your website, and the easiest is to join a network. A few networks are Burst, Tribal Fusion, Rydium, FastClick, and Google Adwords. Each network has its own requirements for applicants.

Offering a subscription service is another method of generating revenue. The trick here is to figure out what to offer. The best bet is to survey your public for what they need and want from your website and what they are willing to pay for. If your content is updated routinely, you might be able to charge people a fee for accessing it. You might also offer enhanced services of some kind for subscribers. If you have an online forum, you could possibly offer access to private forums or other enhanced profile capabilities for a small fee. The trick on this is to offer something for free. It is the free content which will bring traffic to your website, so finding the balance is something you will need to work out.

Affiliate programs are something you can get into as well. In this case, you don't have to come up with the product yourself, yet you can bring attention to it and get visitors to purchase them from you. Find affiliate programs in which the products offered are relevant to your site. You want something that your public will be interested in. Amazon.com has a popular affiliate program in which you can offer books for sale on your website for a commission. You can also go to the affiliate networks to search for programs. Some well known such networks are Linkshare, Commission Junction and Regnow.

You can also come up with and offer your own products. This is where some imagination comes into play. One possible idea is to author and sell an e-book. You could sell white papers for your visitors to solve certain problems they may have. There are a number of things you can do, and it depends on the type of site you have. On the internet, though, your best bet is to sell your knowledge and expertise. It is a 100% profit margin (after your initial investment of time to put it together).

The trick in any of these ideas is to survey your public and find out what they need and want. People love to express their opinions, and you should not be sitting there guessing at what people want and would spend their hard-earned money for. Ask them!

5 Powerful Ways to Make Money Online with a Website
 by: Michael Turner

There are many ways to make money online and the best way for you is to simply be creative with your skills, knowledge, and abilities. However, the following five options are powerful ways to make money online with a website and definite something you should consider.

#1 Knowledge

You can always sell your knowledge, which many times is the best way if you are an �expert� of any type or subject matter. People are looking for your knowledge and input, regardless if it is self taught, learned in college, or wherever. People are always looking for answers online, so if you sell your knowledge you can simply make money from what you know.

#2 Affiliate Programs

Become an affiliate for products based on your website theme and then simply promote these programs where you earn money from referrals. It is easier than it sounds and only takes you creating a website full of rich content.

#3 Hard Goods

Selling hard goods is a traditional way of making money and it transfers to the online forum as well. No matter what hard goods you have to sell you can certainly find a buyer online. Create a website that focuses on your goods, have a good shipping plan in place, and then start selling online.

#4 E-books

Selling e-books, articles, and other written materials is also a powerful way to make money online and if you are good at writing it is certainly something you should consider. You can have your own website selling pre-written topics or else you can also write on demand, whatever works best for you and your web business.

#5 Auction Goods

Auction web sites are also very powerful ways to make money. The reason for this is you can sell a wide variety of products, do not necessarily need your own website although it helps, and can change your products from time to time as you need to. Many people enjoy working and selling via auction sites because any number of things can be sold from old personal items to new products as well.

The best way for you to make money online is for you to do something that you like and enjoy. When you do some thing you like and enjoy you will be able to commit yourself to doing it fulltime. The reason for this is working online can be difficult at times and if you do not enjoy it then it will be difficult for you to be successful making money via your website.