How to make money with your web site
This page is part of Ron Mertens' web page guides.
Okay. Now we reached the question of questions... So how do you make money with your web site?
In the old ages, people thought that banners were good, and maybe charging for content is something worth doing.
Today things have changed, and sites are mainly using contextual ads and affiliate deals. Read on...
The old days
When the internet started, most web sites used banners to make money. It was quite useful at the beginning,
but mainly because people were willing to pay high prices for banners -there was simply too much money flowing into the
internet in those days...
When the bubble burst, things became to settle down, and it became clear that banners bring in very little money. The main
problem was that it wasn't targeted. So new technologies had to emerge...
CPI, CPM, CPC???
But first, let's say you have a banner in your site. So how much do you charge for it? There are several methods you could
think about -
- CPI - Cost per impressions. That's the most simple one, and how everything started. You basically say "I will display
your banner 1,000 times for x$". Never mind the clicks - it's all about impressions - ad viewing.
- CPC - Cost per click. In this case, the advertiser will pay you for each click on his banner.
- Clickthrough rate - The percentage of people that clicked on an ad after viewing it.
- Affiliate - Cost per conversion. You will display an ad for some product or service. The deal is that if someone
actually buys after clicking your ad, you will get a certain fee. Amazon started affiliate deals years ago, and
it's still one of the largest affiliate merchants in the web.
Whatever your method of charging, you can always estimate your CPM - How much money are you making per 1,000 impressions of
your ad? In the old days, people were paying up to 50$ per 1,000 impressions. When the bubble burst, this dropped quickly
to a few cents... As the web matured, and with new ad types, CPM is climbing again, and you can see web sites with
10$ eCPM or even higher.
Contextual ads
Contextual ads are the "new thing". Basically it means that you sign-up with some partner (let's say Google AdSense) and
place a generic code in your site. Google then crawls your site, and decide which ads to put inside. Automatically.
You do not have to choose the ads, or decide on the targeting. It's all done automatically.
The beauty of Contextual ads is that if it works, it really works - you get wonderfully targeted ads, inside your site. The
clickthrough rates are high, because it's targeted. You don't need to find advertisers, or worry that if you write new
content the ads will not be targeted.
Google AdSense
Google AdSense is the most widely used contextual ad network in the world. Google are so big that there are ads about any
subject imaginable, and there are tens of thousands of web publishers using AdSense. If you have a web page, you should
definitely give it a try.
Anyway, I have written a web guide dedicated to AdSense, it's such a complicated and interesting
concept!
Affiliates
Affiliate deals require more work than putting a simple contextual ad, but they might provide extra income, and in some
fields (Travel, for example) may be your major source of income.
Amazon has a large and well established affiliate network, and there are virtually thousands of affiliate deals available
in the internet, in about any imaginable field.
If you are serious about affiliating, check out Commission Junction. This is the market
place for affiliate deals. You can sign up as a publisher, and then you'll have access to lot's of affiliate deals in any
field.
Do your deals alone
One of the possibilities is to get your ads alone. Find an advertiser that is willing to pay, get a banner, and place it
in your site.
Obviously this works only for larger, well established sites. But it works great - you don't have to pay commission to no
middle man, and you can set your own prices.
What's next?
The next guide is an introduction to Google AdSense.