Your website is an important tool in growing and scaling your business. It’s how you connect with your audience and generate repeat customers. It’s a big billboard for who you are, what you’re passionate about, and how you can help others.
There are many different ways to make money from your WordPress website. You don’t have to create your own products to monetize your site. There are other ways to use your website to boost your business. You can sell digital products, and services you offer (either in person or virtual), run relevant ads, offer niche memberships, and more.
Here are the five most popular ways to turn your website into a money-making tool!
1) Sell your own products or programs (digital or physical)
We all know sites like Amazon sell physical products include including books, household goods, apparel, and almost anything you want. Most online sales come from big retailers like these. As a small business, you might sell your own books, handmade jewelry, artwork, baked goods, or herbal remedies.
Digital products are also another option for making money on your website. Some examples are eBooks, workbooks and printables, courses, or other valuable content.
Setting up an eCommerce aspect of your website can be time-consuming. However, it has the potential to earn you a great deal of money without ongoing time and maintenance.
2) Sell Your Coaching/Consulting Services
You may want to offer services for businesses or individuals through your website. Examples of people selling services online are coaches, copywriters, consultants, medical providers, etc.
If you have a service-oriented business, it’s important that your website is professional looking and conveys what you offer. Your website is a fantastic marketing tool to generate customers if they can easily find what they’re looking for and get any questions answered.
3) Sell an Online Course or a Membership Program
Do you have expertise in a particular area and what to share that knowledge with others? Your website can serve as a platform for an online course. Depending on the depth of the topic, courses can be short and inexpensive, or more time-consuming and priced higher. I teach people to create courses in the Create Your Course workshop.
An opportunity for recurring income from your website is through selling membership programs. Membership programs generally charge a monthly fee for access to training, community, and other premium resources that are appealing to your audience. A couple of examples of this are an online course with a monthly charge, a paid Facebook group or a club that meetings monthly via Zoom.
4) Sell Other People’s Programs through Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing and affiliate links are other strategies to monetize your blog or website. With affiliate marketing, you’d choose an affiliate program and create an affiliate link that you’d post on your website to recommend to your website, visitors.
When your visitor clicks on the link and buys the product, you’ll get a commission for that sale. The commission varies but generally ranges from 1-10%. In order to generate money with affiliate marketing, it helps to be recognized as an authority or expert at whatever you are recommending or promoting.
One of the advantages of affiliate marketing is that it’s fairly easy to set up and it’s passive income. Once it’s up and running, you don’t need to do anything. Not only do I have a group of partners that promote the Website Creation Workshop, but past students have also earned a referral fee when they recommend the program to others who purchase. Contact us if you are interested in learning more about it.
5) Sell Advertising
Finally, you can sell advertising on your website. This is my least favorite way to monetize a website because ads can be a put-off and distracting to your visitors. However, it is one popular way to make money from your website.
When selling ads on your website, you can find and work with advertisers yourself or work with a middleman who takes a cut for bringing you, advertisers. Google AdSense is the most common program to get ads appearing on your website fast.
Running ads takes little effort to set up and you can start monetizing very quickly. However, it can draw visitors away from your website when they click on an ad. It takes time to maintain since advertisers will come and go.
Conclusion
When you have a website, there’s an unlimited opportunity to use it creatively to make money. I’ve shared a few of the most popular ways to monetize your website, but there are many others.
Don’t chase all these ideas at once though! Pick the one that makes sense for you and your business. If you’re a coach or a consultant, you may use your website to sell your services and book clients. If you’re a blogger, it may make sense to do affiliate marketing or sell advertising.
We’re blessed to live in a time when we can create a successful online business and share our services and products with the world!
