Monetizing a Website
What is monetizing a website? - Earning money from a website.
What is a website? - All groups of webpages are websites, there are website types, such as Blogs, eCommerce, Directories, Membership, Reviews, Comparisons, and Content, etc., but they are all websites.
Some Ways to Monetize a Website? (Most common.)
*Affiliate Ads
Placing ads on a website that generate income due to a reader's action. It can simply be the reader seeing the ad, or maybe clicking on the ad, or clicking on the ad and then purchasing a product or service.
*Donate Button
*eCommerce
Selling your products or services using your website as an ecommerce site.
*Referral Programs - Similar to affiliate programs, but designed more for personal referrals to friends, though some programs can be done with referral links in websites and social media pages.
*Selling Ad Space
Affiliate Marketing Ads
What is an Affiliate Marketing?
Let's look at the word "affiliate" - simply to associate with, to connect with. In the case of Affiliate Ads, an Affiliate Marketer, Blogger, Website Owner, connects with a company or organization and agrees promote the company or organization's products/services, usually by sharing advertising or perhaps writing reviews, in exchange for a fee or commission. Most popular, from my reading, are generally considered to be Pay-Per-Click (PPC) or Pay-Per-Performance (PPP). While Referral bonuses are considered by some to be in a different league, it is common, from my reading, to see any earnings from promoting products/services to all get lumped into Affiliate Marketing. There are more possibilities, and you can read up about them, but these are the basics.
So where do you get Affiliate ads?
Companies such as: Google AdSense and Amazon Affiliate Program.
Networks such as: ClickBank, Commission Junction and LinkShare.
(Networks are a collection of many companies managed by a single affiliate program.)
Direct: Many companies have their own affiliate programs.
Referral Programs: Some companies pay a referral fee.
To find a company's affiliate or referral program, if it is not obvious, try looking at their menu at the bottom their website for "Affiliate". If not there, then try a search of the company's name and "affiliate program".
Where can you put affiliate ads?
Your own website/blog or a webpage like Facebook. Sometimes you can put information on business cards or send via email (be aware that some programs, like Amazon and others may not allow business cards and emailing ads). Most social sites will now accept affiliate ads and most companies now embrace social site affiliate postings. (However, I do not believe Google Adsense can be used on social sites due to the login aspect of the social sites.)
Note:
Some "free" website hosting services limit the type of affiliate ads that can be used, read the "terms of use" or do a search like: "can I use affiliate ads with xyz".
Read the Affiliate Program Rules!
Google does not allow for ASKING readers to buy, such as "Support My Sponsors". Google does monitor their ads on websites, so read their rules. https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/1346295?hl=en
Amazon's requirements seem like a book to read. Here is a brief over-view.
These Mistakes Will Get You Banned As An Amazon Affiliate (Most Do # 1 & 7)
The biggest no-no is buying products for yourself using your own affiliate link. This can happen by accident where you are placing ads on your website, in viewing and testing you can be placing cookies. Then you see something you want to buy and when you go to buy it, due to cookies, it credits your purchase as an affiliate purchase. If you even suspect this has occurred. you might want to contact the company right away to let them know of the happening. If they find out on their own they might think the purchase was intentional and deceitful to earn a commission.
ShopMozo - Affiliate Store
ShopMozo - Unlimited Store - DEAD SIMPLE 1-click cloud based Affiliate Store builder that uses the Power of Videos, SEO & Social Media to Automatically Add Affiliate Products from top E-Commerce giants. #affiliate ad
Affiliate Disclosure Statement
The FTC has rules about disclosing affiliate relationships. I am not an attorney, but from my reading I believe this is to protect consumers from people giving reviews and promoting a product in a positive light just to earn a commission without telling people they are being paid to promote that product.
Most companies now have a requirement that affiliates disclose their affiliate relationship. At minimum is might be something like "This website earns affiliate income". - Or as complicated as: "We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.”
If a website is a review website, it might be prudent to acknowledge an affiliate relationship on each review.
In addition, from my reading, many companies also want an affiliate relationship noted at social sites by at minimum the use of a hashtag: #affiliate.
Don't be scared off by this disclosure stuff, this information is just to make you aware that there are rules. If you look at other people's websites, many people are not even following rules. Generally the rules are so basic, it is hard to understand why these sites are not at least trying to follow the rules?
Be most cautious with Google Adsense and Amazon Affiliate Program, they are two of the most popular affiliate programs to use and two of the strictest affiliate programs.. Many new affiliates make rules mistakes, and sometimes you can get back in with an apology and correcting the problem, and sometimes not. There are many affiliate programs and affiliate networks, if you make an error and get cancelled, just move on is my thought, but at least try not to get booted, read the rules. Just to give you an idea of how many affiliate networks there are, here is a list, and some of the affiliate networks that I use are not even on this list. Top 50 Web Rankings: Affiliate Networks.
Amazon Links for Affiliate Program (You need to be logged in to read some Amazon pages.)
Amazon Associates Program Policies
Amazon Appropriate Conduct (Required Disclosure Statement)
Affiliate Programs
Referral Programs
60 Best Referral Program Examples for 2017 - Omnistar - Affiliate Software Made Easy.
An Epic List of 50 Referral Program Examples - Extole.
An Epic List of 74 Referral Programs - Referral Program Blog.
Referral Marketing 101: 7 Tactics to Launch Your Own Referral Campaign - Shopify Blogs.
The 51 Best Referral Program Examples of 2016 - Referral SaaSquatch.
Zazzle - (has referral program) Personalize Popular T-Shirts, Mugs & Gifts With Your Favorite Design. Upload/Sell Your Artwork.
Articles
3 Types of Affiliate Marketing Explained - Smart Passive Income - Affiliate marketing is a large part of the Smart Passive Income business. I'm here to share the three types of affiliate marketing t have worked for me the best.
Amazon Affiliate Rules – 18 Mistakes You Might Be Doing - Kasa Reviews.
How to Become an Etsy Affiliate - The Work At Home Wife.
How to Build an Amazon Affiliate Website - Make A Website Hub.
These Mistakes Will Get You Banned As An Amazon Affiliate - MarketEver.
Top 50 Web Rankings: Affiliate Networks - Website Magazine.