Gone are the days when websites and blogs were predominantly treated as a means to share
knowledge and information. With the boom that online businesses have witnessed in recent years, the primary objective behind the creation of websites has deviated more toward making money online. The temptation of being your own boss and doing what you are passionate about is pretty difficult to resist. And when there’s the prospect of making a living out of your passion, only a handful could refrain from exploring the opportunity.
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to state that every three out of four websites that are unveiled in the public domain today, are created with one exclusive objective — which is to make money online. Tech-savvy youngsters and aspiring webpreneurs are increasingly exploring the unchartered territory of online monetization instead of looking for a much safer career option.
There are several ways of making money in the realm of World Wide Web. While a few prefer to sell advertising slots on their websites and blogs, there are individuals who are more comfortable with affiliate marketing. Paid podcasts and webinars can also be excellent choices and eCommerce business is in the mix as well.
If you are interested in maximizing the earning potential of your website, then the widely used website monetization methods may not prove to be sufficient. You need to think out of the box and come up with innovative ideas. To help you in your bid to generate a steady flow of income from online sources, we are going to introduce you to five innovative monetization concepts which can effectively increase your online income.
1. Search Monetization
The concept of ‘search monetization’ may not have caught the imagination of webmasters yet, but it can be a very effective technique when it comes to monetizing a website. You do not have to do anything more than add a ‘On-Site Search Box’ to your website and, whenever a visitor uses this feature, your revenue will increase.
What Do You Need to Do?
First, you need to register with a monetization partner that offers this feature. You will be provided with a line of JavaScript-based code to integrate the search box on your website. You need to copy the code and place it at the desired position on your website.
How Does It Work?
It’s pretty similar to PPC advertisements. When a visitor enters a search term and clicks on the search button, relevant results would be displayed from existing entries available on your website. Besides the search results, the page will also have a few sponsored contextual advertisements, which is the source of income for the search service provider. You get rewarded every time a visitor makes a search request, irrespective of whether it generates any click on the sponsored advertisements.
2. Co-registration
Another relatively new monetization concept is co-registration — more popularly known as co-reg, which is nothing but offering a free value-add to your visitors. It is basically a lead generation technique with a slight twist. While traditionally webmasters generate leads for their own purpose, here you will be doing it on behalf of a third-party business.
What Do You Need to Do?
To make use of this monetization technique, all you need to do is to register with a trustworthy Co-Reg network and promote its ‘opt-in’ offers on your website. You may also get in touch with relevant companies in your niche for co-registration collaboration.
For example, if you have a travel related website, you can approach travel agents and tour operators with a co-registration proposal and convince them to join as a promotional partner. It’s a win-win situation for both. The travel company would get contact details of your visitors who are interested in tourism, while you get rewarded for introducing them to your partner company.
How Does It Work?
Visitors are presented with an option to register for a freebie. It can be a free newsletter or a discount deal or an app download request. For those visitors who would decide to opt-in (subscribe, register or download), you will receive a certain sum of money as reward.
3. On-Video and In-Image Ads
In-case you own a website with lots of images and videos, then this type of ad can add a new dimension to your earning potential, without disrupting the existing banner ads set-up. For showing an overlay of display advertisement on your images and video files for a specific duration, (usually five to 15 seconds), you get to earn a pretty high eCPM rate (Cost Per Impression) in the range of $3 – $5 for 1,000 raw impressions.
What Do You Need to Do?
Register with a reputed publisher network that offers In-Image and Pre-roll Video ads. Once your website is approved for ad serving, generate the required ad tags and paste the HTML/JS code on your website’s stylesheet.
How Does It Work?
You must have come across Pre-roll-Video ads on YouTube. It’s the same concept here as well. Your visitors would need to watch an advertisement for a few seconds before the actual video is displayed. As far as In-Image ads are concerned, an interstitial layer ad is shown to the visitors over the image.
4. Sponsored CAPTCHA
We all are aware of the effectiveness of CAPTCHA for preventing bots and other automated spamming tools from cluttering our websites. But wouldn’t it be great if the same concept was used for the dual purpose of preventing spam and earning money at the same time? That’s where Sponsored CAPTCHA comes in to the picture. Being a relatively new concept, there aren’t too many options at the moment, but the concept is slowly gaining momentum.
What Do You Need to Do?
Sign-up with a company that specializes in this type of advertisement. You will be provided with a link to download a plugin and install it on your website.
How Does It Work?
After installing the plugin, you can configure CAPTCHA on all the user input gateways such as the login, registration or comments form. Besides offering the CAPTCHA functionality, it will also incorporate ads on the applicable interface. You will be earning a revenue share on the displayed advertisements.
5. Sell Your Own services
Do you possess any exceptional professional skill that is always in demand? If yes, then why don’t you extend a helping hand to those who are in need of that specific skill? Businesses of all sizes are always on the lookout for exceptional talents and they wouldn’t hesitate to offer a deserved compensation if someone can help them to attract new customers.
It’s a fundamentally different concept when compared to the other four techniques discussed in this article. This idea is all about utilizing your website as a medium for earning money instead of monetizing your traffic.
What Do You Need to Do?
If you have a knack for writing quality content, then put up a banner on your website which says, “Wish your website could have such amazing content? Don’t just wish, make it happen. Hire me and impress your readers.”
Similarly, if you are good with designing, then you can promote digital design services via your website. You may offer a host of services including consultation, programming, photo editing, event organization, and whatever else you can possibly think of.
How Does It Work?
Readers, who are in need of a service that you are offering, can contact you directly with their proposals. If an offer sounds interesting, you can take up the work and earn a fair compensation for your efforts.
So are you up for the challenge? For maximizing your revenue, you need not have to re-invent the wheel — just start a blog, add quality content, build a loyal base of visitors and showcase your talent. Then put your thinking hat on and devise innovative ideas to make the most out of your website and traffic.
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