How to get a steady income from the site: the main ways to monetize content

For site owners and newbies

Any web resource is not only useful content and beautiful pictures, but also an opportunity to receive a stable income. How do you start making money on your own website and what method of monetization should you choose? Read about this and more in the article from the experts of the professional RTBSape platform.

For a resource to bring stable income, you need traffic – users who switch to it. And for this you need to regularly post useful content. The more visitors, the more attractive the site is for advertisers, and therefore more profitable for you.

But traffic is different. If the traffic of the resource is 500 people per month, it is unlikely that advertisers will be interested in it. You cannot create a website and start selling with it in a month: in such a short period of time, you simply will not gain a sufficient number of audience.

If you want to monetize a resource, at least 500 people should come to it per day. And for this, you need to spend time and money on its development: technical optimization, content creation, search engine promotion for a stable increase in traffic, improving usability, launching advertising using paid channels, administration and other tasks.

As a result, you will receive a stable resource with a constant audience that will grow from month to month. And this is the best moment to start earning.

Ways to monetize a resource

1. Sale of goods and services

An illustrative example of sites that sell various products are marketplaces (Ozon, Wildberries, Yandex.Market and others). These are trading platforms where sellers offer their products, and buyers choose the ones they like and place an order. Thus, marketplaces provide intermediary services, promote residents, for which they receive income.

Another example of a resource selling products is Sape.ru. In this case, the site contains tools for promotion.

2. Selling content

Many online publications, such as Executive, Vedomosti, RBC, offer to subscribe to special materials or register on the website to get access to full versions of articles. This monetization method is called paywall. However, in order for users to subscribe and not leave the resource, the content must be of value. In addition, the reputation of the site itself or its owner plays an important role.

3. Selling links

Links are still one of the important factors in site ranking, so this method of monetization also takes place. However, in order to make money on the sale of backlinks, a resource must occupy a strong position in the TOP, have a high ICS, etc.

What links can you sell:

rental – backlinks that are posted on the site for a specific time;
eternal – links that are placed for the entire lifetime of the resource (they usually cost more than rental ones).

Of course, if you publish too many backlinks, there is a risk of deteriorating the site’s reputation in the eyes of search engines or even falling under the filters. To prevent this from happening, it is better to post links in useful materials. For example, write several interesting high-quality articles and publish a paid link in only one of them. Thus, you will fill the resource with useful content that meets the interests of users, and at the same time you will be able to earn.

To find those who want to place links on a paid basis, use exchanges, for example, Sape, Miralinks, Trustlink, MainLink and others.

4. Sale of advertising spaces

To sell ad space, you need to understand what kind of ad you can offer. This will help determine in what format and with whom to collaborate in order to make a profit.

Direct advertising… This includes contextual, display advertising on sites, that is, any video clips, as well as animated, static, interactive banners and teaser ads, the purpose of which is to sell something. At the same time, you can place ads on both desktop and mobile devices. In this case, the formats will differ. For example, in mobile, these are Fullscreen ads, rewarded videos when a user receives bonuses for watching a video, as well as in-app format inside applications.
Native advertising… This is an advertisement that fits well into the main content of the resource. For example, a review article, a post in a mailing list, a video on the topic, a link in the text, a selection of services, news, a clickable logo, that is, everything that can be useful to the user to solve his problem.

In this case, sponsored articles are one of the main ways to monetize content sites.

Such materials, as a rule, are posted with the mark “Advertising” or “As an advertisement”.

Some popular media offer companies blogging. This allows you to fill the site with useful content and make money at the same time.

How to sell ads on the site

Let’s take a look at the most popular ways to sell ads.

1. Direct sales

In this case, a section “Advertisers” is usually created on the site, where all the necessary information is published. No exchanges, agencies or intermediaries: you wait for messages from those who will be interested in advertising, agree on the format of the placement, and then publish it and receive a fixed amount as a subscription fee.

The advantage of this method of selling is that you are not paid money for clicks, views or leads, but simply for the fact that, for example, you have hung a banner on the site or published an article. However, there is no guarantee that there will be a line of advertisers and you will receive a stable profit.

2. Participation in affiliate programs

What is the basic principle of operation? You publish advertising materials on your resource that lead visitors to the advertiser’s website. Users perform certain targeted actions there, after which the advertiser pays a reward: it can be either a fixed amount or a percentage of the transaction.

In this case, the amount of income is influenced by such indicators as the quality of traffic on the site, the size of the commission agreed with the advertiser, and the number of targeted actions performed by users.

To participate in affiliate programs, you can use specialized networks – these are intermediaries between clients and publishers. To do this, you register a site on the network, and the network, in turn, offers it to customers in case of requests for advertising space.

There are several types of affiliate programs that differ in terms of payment models:

CPA (cost per action) – payment for conversion actions… You get paid if a user goes to the advertiser’s website and performs the desired target action: register, download the program, watch a video, leave a request, etc. To find partners, use partner CPA networks, for example, Admitad, Cityads, Ad1, Actionpay, etc. …
CPC (cost per click) – pay per click, that is, the transition… You post a banner on the site or publish advertising material that is relevant to the topic and meets the interests of the audience. If users click on it and go to the advertiser’s website, you will receive payment. This model is more common in teaser networks (MarketGid, DirectAdvert, TeaserNet, etc.) and contextual networks (Google AdSense, Begun, Yandex Advertising Network, Or.ru, etc.).
CPM (cost per mille) – pay for 1000 impressions… In this case, you receive a reward for the number of ad impressions; clicks on the link do not play any role. This model is usually used in media networks, for example, Wizard Banners, Soloway, Advego, when it is the audience coverage that is important.
CPS (cost per sale) – payment for the sale… By choosing this payment method, you will receive a percentage of the purchases of users who went to the site by advertising on your resource. Usually, the CPS model is offered by online stores through product partner networks.

3. Advertising using RTB technologies

RTB (Real Time Bidding) is a technology for buying online ads and selling them in a real-time auction format. With this payment model, the visitor of the resource receives information that meets his interests, the advertiser receives a site with a suitable target audience and topic, and the publisher sells advertising space to the one who is willing to pay more.

Conclusion

There are many ways to monetize. Test and choose the most profitable options based on the characteristics of the resource and other parameters.

But don’t forget that users come to your site to get the most relevant content. And if they have to wade through the advertising jungle, instead of making a profit, you will end up with bad behaviors, high bounce rates, and disloyal visitors.

To avoid this, regularly publish useful content, develop a resource and increase traffic. Then, regardless of the chosen monetization method, you can attract interested advertisers and earn money.

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