7 Ways to Monetize Your Content
In the modern world, there are more and more ways to monetize content.
Whether the content is used as a promotion tool or the content itself is expected to generate money, various monetization methods can help increase its value. In this article, we’ll talk about what monetization is and its methods.
What is monetization and what does it mean to monetize something? Monetization is the process of earning income from your own website, content, YouTube channel, etc.
Site Monetization
Affiliate sales
This is one of the easiest and most convenient ways to monetize your website. You recommend a product or service on your site and get a percentage of the sales.
To find advertisers for affiliate sales, you can use affiliate networks, such as:
- https://www.cj.com/
- https://shareasale.com/
- https://www.clickbank.com/
For example if you have a website about pets, you may find food for cats that you could recommend. Next, you post a link to the product on your website and advertise it to your users. If someone makes a purchase by clicking on your link, you get from 30% to 70% of the cost (the percentage depends on the offer of the partner company).
PPC advertising
Using Google AdSense, you can effortlessly monetize your site if it has traffic. After registering, the service will place a code on the website that will identify the content of the site and display suitable advertisements. You get paid for every click on your ad. The cost per click depends on the specifics of the site.
Before applying to sign up with AdSense, I recommend that you review the terms of use and check if your site is Google-friendly.
You can apply here.
Sale of advertising space
AdSense is the intermediary between the advertiser and your website. You can try to sell ads without intermediaries.
This method is more suitable for sites with good traffic metrics. Most often, advertising space on the site is sold at a fixed price per month. You create a price list and describe what places on the site you sell for advertising and their cost. The price will have to be determined independently. We recommend starting from the subject matter, traffic, and overall site load with advertising.
How to start selling ad space on your website:
- Create a media kit and a summary of statistics and basic site metrics.
- Send it to potential advertisers along with a cover letter stating the benefits of working with you.
- After attracting a group of advertisers, manage them using Google Ad Manager.
- You can use tools like Clicky Web Analytics, Quantcast, and Google Analytics to get information about their websites.
Finding the right advertisers can be tricky. With Seller Crowd, Google Ads, and LinkedIn you can do it seamlessly. We also recommend this service to start looking for buyers.
Accept donations from regular visitors
This method will work for a small number of sites. Most often, it is used by resources that do not have much traffic but have a loyal and interested audience. You can set up donations through PayPal, Stripe, or Fundly. Create a dedicated page for this, or simply place the widget in a prominent place.
Content Monetization
Now let’s talk in more detail about how to monetize content. This does not exclude the content being monetized on its own site.
Affiliate sales
In general, the scheme is the same as monetizing your own website. You advertise a product or service, leave your affiliate link, and get paid for every purchase.
Sponsored Posts and Articles
Many companies and brands are looking for relevant blogs to host their sponsored content.
Often in such cases, native advertising is required, unobtrusively, and without any marks that this is an advertisement. It is paid more but the choice of whether to advertise products natively or not is up to the author.
Regular sponsored posts and articles are also in demand. Recently, advertising presented in the form of interesting, entertaining content has been in demand.
Let’s say your site is dedicated to a review of game consoles and hardware. In this case, a product review would be the perfect advertisement.
Creation and sale of a project to order
One of the quickest ways to monetize content is to sell it.
It’s like a work-for-hire agreement. You produce content (video, article, book, etc.) and give it to the customer, waiving copyright and royalties.
The customer can participate in content creation such as giving a technical assignment.
Take the music industry as an example. You create music for the tracks and receive an order to write a composition or purchase a finished one. After completing the order, you receive the money. From this moment on, the composition belongs to the customer.
Sale of limited use rights is also suitable for this item.
Content can be sold for a specific time or forever. Let’s go back to the music industry. The example of using movie tracks is perfect. Music bands sell limited use rights, i.e. the company that bought the rights may use certain group content exclusively in one film.
This type of monetization is easy to implement for music, video, or art. With textual content, it is much more difficult but still possible.
Selling premium content
This method is suitable for authors who have unique experiences or knowledge that can be shared for money.
If you blog about search engine optimization, you can offer your readers a subscription that will give them unique content that is not in the public domain. These can be life hacks, courses, etc. For example, as “The New York Times” offers a subscription to its users.
As a seasoned author and industry expert, you might consider creating your own product. The details depend on the category of your content but most often they are educational products. From courses to books, all of this sells well thanks to the image of an expert.
If you have unique information, experience, and knowledge, this method is definitely for you.
Sometimes content can be so popular and successful that an entire line of products or services grows out of it. Katie Wells, the author of Wellness Mama, is a great example of this. Ten years of blogging about healthy eating and personal care have spawned Wellnesse, her own line of personal care products.
Of course, this is a specific example, it all depends on the type of content, how popular you are, and how much content involves selling something other than information.
Sponsorship material
Simply put, it is selling space for publication. Make sure your sponsored content is of high quality and relevant to your site. It shouldn’t cause negative feedback from users.
If we talk about a blog, it is an article from another, less known author, or an article from an advertiser. However, it should still be of value to users.
For example,check out this thermostat brand. Nest sponsored an article in The Atlantic on how smart home technology is affecting family relationships and daily routines.
This is a perfect example of how a brand has found a way to connect its product to the site’s theme by creating good and interesting content that will promote the company.
Consultant and speaker services
If you create content on a specific topic, then you are an expert in it. More often than not, content creators are popular as consultants and conference speakers, especially in narrow fields. If you have not received invitations yet, try searching for upcoming conferences or other events and register as a speaker.
As for the services of a consultant, you can create a special page on which you can briefly describe what services you can provide. In my experience, out of two equally qualified specialists, the one who maintains a personal blog is often the one turned to.
Finding new ways to distribute content
The problem with many authors is that they get stuck on one resource. Most often, the audience is different in different resources. By expanding the ways to communicate information, you can expand your audience. This leads to the monetization of digital content.
In the modern world, everyone can create a media resource by developing a website or blog. If you produce valuable content and constantly evolve, you can make your own popular brand that will bring good money.
Deciding exactly how to monetize your blog should be done carefully. Take into account the interests of the audience, the specifics of the content, and your popularity. With due diligence, you can make money on content even with little traffic.
