4 Ways to Make Money with your Website

You are most likely aware that you can earn money through your website by selling your products and/or services via an online store. But, did you know there are ways for you to easily sell other people's products without actually having to carry their stock? And the news gets even better ... you can also earn money from allowing people to advertise on your website.

If you are starting a business, but are not sure what products to sell or if you are having problems sourcing products, this may be the solution for you. And if you already have a website, there is no reason why you can't add to that revenue by adding extra income streams.

1. Advertising on your website

You could approach businesses who have similar target audiences as you and offer them space on your website to place banners or ads, but the truth is this can be time consuming and if your business is currently not getting much traffic it may be difficult to find advertising partners.

The simplest way to add advertising to your website is through Google AdSense. The way it works is this - Google AdSense places relevant ads on your website - they match advertisements to your site's content, and you earn money whenever your visitors click on them. They even offer you different options of advertising:

AdSense for Content - the robot crawls the content of your pages and delivers ads (you can choose both text or image ads) that are relevant to your audience and your site content-ads so well-matched, in fact, that your readers will actually find them useful.

AdSense for Search - this allows you to provide Google web and site search to your visitors, and earn money by displaying Google ads on the search results pages.

Setting up AdSense on your website is very simple - all you do is sign up for a free account and you will be provided with a simple code that you (or your website designer) can add to your website. You can choose different styles, shapes, colours and sizes of ads.

You can learn more by going to:

www.google.com/adsense                

2. Selling other people's products via Affiliate Programs

Another way to earn money through your website is via affiliate programs.

An affiliate (also known as associate, partner or referral) program is simply any type of revenue sharing program where a website owner receives a portion of income for generating leads, traffic, or sales through a graphic or text link to a merchant website.

 

Merchants specify how much affiliates will be paid and under what payment terms, how sales will be tracked and when/how payments will be made.

 

The great thing is that it doesn't cost you anything to join and you earn commission simply by referring people to the merchant's website.

 

You don't need to ship any products or handle any payments. Again, all you do is place special code on your website and the rest is done automatically.

For an example of an affiliate program you can visit: www.web4business.com.au/recommendedbooks.htm

 

There are hundreds of different affiliate programs, so you can find products that complement your products/services. Check out:

http://www.web4business.com.au/ClixGalore.htm                

3. Your Own Amazon Store (aStore)

Amazon takes your affiliate/associate program to the next level by providing you a free online store with thousands of products. No programming is necessary. The aStore setup tool will guide you through the process and generate a URL to which you can link or embed in your site. All Associates have access to aStore, and there are no fees associated with building stores for your sites.

You can select product categories or individual products. Again you don't stock any items or process payments - you simply refer people to your store.

To learn more about Amazon aStore, go to:

http://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/join/info6.html

4. Selling Your Own Products & Services

If you want to sell your products online, you need a shopping cart. Forget about having printable order forms or asking people to email you to place an order, because in most cases they won't. If you make it too difficult to buy your products, your visitors will go elsewhere.

You have several options:

1. Get your web developer to create a custom shopping cart for you, although this can be quite costly

2. Use existing shopping cart software (simply search for "shopping cart software" online)

3. Set up a free Paypal shopping cart - all you need to do is sign up for Paypal Business or Merchant account.

 

You may even consider setting up an affiliate/partner program, which will allow others to sell your products. The great thing about this is that you only have to pay them when they sell your products. There are some excellent websites, which allow you to easily set up an affiliate program. For more information visit the following (or simply search on "affiliate programs"

 

http://www.web4business.com.au/ClickBank.htm
http://www.web4business.com.au/ClixGalore.htm
http://www.paydotcom.com/

 

If you are spending money on developing a website, you may as well make the most of it. Affiliate/Associate Programs and Google AdSense advertising are free to join and once they are included on your website, you don't need to do anything, except promote them.

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Ivana Katz makes it easy for you to get your business online very quickly. If you're looking for a professional and affordable website designer, visit www.web4business.com.au and download a free website plan.

Interesting reading

I like to spend my Christmas break catching up on reading and learning about new marketing techniques and ways to improve my business. This year I've come across some fabulous material. Nothing gives me a greater buzz (except for spending a day shopping ;) than when I learn something new - either something that will save me time, make me money or both. I've picked up some great tips and I will be posting them here over the upcoming months, but today I wanted to share an informative interview with Michael Cheney from AdSense Videos which I came across recently. Happy reading!!!

Ivana Katz
Websites 4 Small Business

Interview with Michael Cheney from AdSense-Videos.com

Q. So what made you get started with AdSense?
A. I was looking for a way to monetize some of my websites. AdSense is such an easy thing to get started with the eye for it would be a great way to start earning more money without actually putting into much more effort. I think as soon as you see the first earnings coming into your account you get addicted to AdSense. I know is what happened to me and since then I've just spent time working out how to earn more and more each day.

Q. How much do you make with AdSense?
A. Some days I can earn close to $1000 and others it's less than that. But it all comes down to how much time and effort you devote to creating a quality site that people like visiting. AdSense is not what my business is based on by any means - but it is a great way to earn revenue almost on autopilot.

Q. What is the biggest mistake people making with AdSense?
A. Probably the biggest mistake people make is thinking the AdSense earnings are easy to achieve. It is very easy to get started but as I learned it takes a lot of effort to increase your earnings. I got really downhearted whenever I would log in to my account to see that I had only made a few dollars. And that's when I decided to spend months and months of my time learning everything I could about
AdSense.

I basically buried myself away and devoured every single piece of AdSense information I could find. I ran thousands of AdSense tests and started to see a dramatic effect on my click through ratio and therefore on my earnings.

This is why I'd decided to record the videos - because I knew that it would help people who were in my position to also increase their earnings. I've read an absolute ton of AdSense e-book's but they take so long to go through and always seem to keep information back.

With AdSense Videos I knew that I had to tell the story exactly as it is and actually show people and lead them by the hand through the exact techniques that I use to generate large earnings from AdSense.

Q. In your videos you show people how to increase their AdSense earnings - can you
give us a taster of this advice?
A. I don't want to give away my biggest secrets as you can understand! But some of the more basic things that you can do to increase your revenues include using ads that blend in rather than stand
out from your content. Flat out the worst thing you can do with an AdSense ad is make it look like the standard Google ad. What you need to realise is that you will get more clicks if your ad
actually appears part of your site rather than something that's just been dropped into the page.

Q. What would you recommend that someone do right now to increase their AdSense
earnings?
A. I've created a totally free AdSense minicourse that people can go through to learn some of my techniques. It takes you through the four cornerstone principles that I've used to build up my AdSense empire. You can check it out, as well as all the AdSense Videos, by clicking here