Your website can generate revenue in many ways, however most small business people only consider the advertising model in their planning (more on this below).  Take the time to understand the options prior to designing or upgrading your website.

Here is a list of 3 of the most popular ways to make money from your website…

1. Advertising

Contrary to what some people seem to believe, building a good website does not necessarily mean that you can make a lot of money from advertising. If you have a premium website with a high volume of traffic and a good advertising model there is money to be made, but very few websites created for small to medium sized businesses make enough from advertising alone to be sustainable.

Media agencies look for established websites and the numbers, demographics and the behaviour of your visitors.

2. Adsense

Through Google’s AdSense program you can host ads for Google’s AdWords customers. Ads are matched to the content of your website.  You receive money whenever someone clicks on one of the ads you are hosting.

Note: If you decide to host AdSense ads, make sure it fits with the type of image you are aiming to portray with your website. Also be aware that when someone clicks an ad on your site, they have then left your site, for many businesses this defeats the purpose of getting people to your site.

3. Selling Products or Services

One of the most common reasons for a business website is to increase the number of sales and sales leads coming to the business, or to sell products or services directly.

Websites that sell products or services need to:

• Have an ecommerce facility that allows you to track sales and process orders
• Have a payment gateway so that you can accept payments, or use an easy online payment service like Paypal
• Make it easy to navigate through the check out process
• Make customers feel safe and secure enough to provide their personal information and credit card details
• Use high quality pictures of products

If you are looking for sales leads, makes sure that you have a clear call to action and a simple way for potential customers to contact you. If you are including an incentive for potential customers make it something worth subscribing for.

Happy Hunting!

Serena “Social” Star

Serena is a business coach, radio presenter and one half of the Grassroots team currently travelling through South America as an ambassador for World Vision. She has a passion for successful websites, low maintenance income and blogging and her book How to Retire in 12 Months is in stores now.

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