Making money with your web site
Following are suggestions on how to use and promote your web site to generate income.
Affiliate programs - In an affiliate program, you place an advertisement for a company’s products on your web site, viewers of your web site see and click the ads to learn about the products, and then the company pays you a commission for each sale that results. Many affiliate programs can be located and joined online; here are just a few:
You can visit each site for information on their programs.
For instructions on how to add Affiliate advertisements to your web site, as well as additional information on how to locate available programs, see our previous post “Adding Affiliate Program banners to your website.”
Sell Goods - You can use your web site to sell items as well, regardless of whether you create the items yourself (drawings or paintings, woodworking or other handicrafts, CDs of music from your own band… the possibilities are endless) or whether you are just cleaning out the garage or attic and looking to have a yard sale with a wider audience of buyers.
To show the items you have for sale, use your Enhanced WebSpawner web site account to create and display Image Galleries and add pages to your web site as you need, all at no additional cost.
Sell Services - Offer up your typing skills, proofreading or copy editing services, design skills, and more for others online. A web site is a great way to extend your reach to new clients, especially if you are self-employed. Pet breeders, child care facilities, auto service centers, hair salons and more can all benefit from an online presence.
Of course, you’ll need a way to accept online payments if you want to sell goods or services online. We highly recommend using PayPal as it is a convenient and trusted way for buyers to safely transfer funds online without either the buyer or the seller seeing any of the credit card details of the other party. For full instructions on creating a PayPal account and adding “Buy Now” buttons and Shopping Cart features to your web site, see the post “Using PayPal for easy online selling” (this is a 3-part article series which continues through the ‘Part 2′ and ‘Part 3′ links at the end of each part).
You can create visitor confidence in your web site and offerings by having a site with a professional appearance that is easy to read and navigate and by registering your own domain name address (www.YourOwnDomainNameHere.com for example). For further information see our previous posts “Tips for creating a viewer-friendly web site” and “Set up your own domain name.”
One of the most important steps to take in order to make money with your web site is to promote your web site… if people cannot find your web site online, then it will likely not be very successful. As the vast majority of internet users will use a search engine to begin looking for goods or services online, getting your web site included in as many search engine indexes as possible is vital to your web site’s success. For detailed information on how to promote your web site using search engines, see our previous posts “Getting your web site listed in search engines” and “Improving your web site’s positioning in search engine results.”
It is important to note that you should have realistic expectations going in; what you get out of your web site is directly related to the time and effort you put into creating it and promoting it. If you spend only a few minutes throwing together a web site and make little or no effort to promote it, then it isn’t realistic at all to expect an instant wave of visitor traffic and an immediate flow of incoming cash. Only with time and effort can a web site develop a flow of visitor traffic and therefore a stream of income for you.