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Sell a product or service directly to the visitor via ecommerce.
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Place click through ads, such as Google AdSense, on the pages of
your website and get paid every time a visitor clicks on one of the
advertisements.
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Become an affiliate
advertiser for other companies and receive a
commission when someone goes to their website via
your website and then consummates the purchase of a
product or service. There are a few companies that
specialize in providing affiliate marketing
programs. One of the best is Commission Junction.
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Sell advertising space
on your website to other companies.
The first three methods are quite obvious in their implementation
and methodology.
Having a product or service that can be purchased directly from your
website is in my opinion one of the primary reasons that the
Internet should exist. There are some notable names in the sale of
products on the Internet, companies such as Amazon.com have expanded
their products from books to a vast array of items, and Amazon.com
does not have a retail store front.
Cooking.com is another very
successful Internet retailer, offering tens of thousands of items,
without a retail storefront. Most of the big retailers, such as
Sears, Home Depot, and Lowes have an online storefront. Amazon.com,
Cooking.com, and Home Depot also have affiliate programs in place to
drive potential buyers to their websites.
Google AdSense and Commission Junction are examples
of the second and
third methods, namely click through ad placement and affiliate
program companies. These companies will accept most websites into
their programs with the normal exceptions of websites that are
designed for fraud, hatred, racism and/or are sexually explicit.
Both of these companies publish their terms and conditions on their
websites and although I have not investigated every ad placement or
affiliate program company, I would think that they all have similar
exclusions.
There are two primary differences between the programs.
With click through ad placement you have little control over what
ads will appear on your website, however you do earn revenue every
time a visitor clicks on an ad, whether they place an order with the
advertiser. With affiliate programs, the visitor must not only click
on the ad that appears on your site, but they must consummate a
transaction of some sort. Commissions are substantially higher in an
affiliate program then with a click through program, but you are
subject to the advertiser "selling" the visitor on there product or
service in order to receive compensation for placing their ad on
your site. Whether you use a click through program or an affiliate
program the higher your website traffic the more money your website
will earn for you.
The forth method, selling advertising space directly on your website
to other companies can be a much more difficult to implement than
the other three methods, but on the other hand it can be much more
rewarding - financially. The two challenges are; finding companies
that would be willing to pay for a position on your website and what
advertising fee to charge. If your website becomes noted, companies
will come to you, however that requires a relatively high level of
traffic. You can go out looking for companies that you believe would
be interested in advertising on your website. To attract an
advertiser there has to be some sort of relationship between your
company and the company that you are trying to obtain advertising
from, in other words a common set of visitors. As an example, if you
offered small business accounting services then a likely candidate
would be a small legal firm that would be interested in providing
legal services to your clients. Your businesses are complimentary.
The decision that you have to be make at this point is, are you better off to
trade banners and attract each other’s clients or to sell the
advertising space on your website. This is usually dependent on your
current business loads and your ability to gain more business if and
when you need it. As a rule of thumb, you will need to have a bare
minimum of 1,500 unique visitors each and every month in order to
sell advertising space.
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