How to Make Money with a Website? 30 Ways to Monetize a Personal Website

Learned from NaibabijiHow to Build a Website, then the next question is how to make money from a website?

How to make money by building a website? Naiba has summarized Google AdSense and various online website monetization methods, sharing a total of 9 major categories, comprising30 ideas and directions for personal website monetization。

9 categories and 30 ways for websites to earn money

There are many ways to make money online. The 9 major categories and 30 methods collected and shared in this article hope to provide you withmaking money by building a websitea direction to find.

I. Website content monetization

Monetizing website content may require the website to have a certain amount of traffic to be easily achievable, especially since PC traffic itself is relatively scarce nowadays.

Affiliate marketing

NaibabijiIt is believed that affiliate marketing should be one of the easiest ways for individual webmasters to make money through a website.

Why is affiliate marketing the easiest way to make money through a website?

Affiliate marketing only requires your website to have a certain fixed user base. If they are vertical users, the monetization potential is even stronger. For example, when beginners build websites, they go to various blogs recommending VPS to read articles. Those blogs earn commissions through server referral affiliate programs.

What is affiliate marketing?

Simply put, affiliate marketing can be understood as you attracting others to purchase products or services through referral links, and then earning referral commissions. It can also be understood as affiliate promotion.

The most common affiliate marketing is Taobao Affiliate (e-commerce platforms like JD.com, Suning.com have their own affiliate platforms).

Additionally, major cloud server providers also have affiliate programs. For example, if you click:Alibaba Cloud和Tencent Cloudthe link to purchase a server, Naiba will receive a certain commission.

A website that is exceptionally good at affiliate marketing: Smzdm (What's Worth Buying)

Smzdm (What's Worth Buying) is a website that started with Taobao Affiliate (Taobao Ke) and is now listed. They have joined many e-commerce platform affiliate programs. Of course, at their level, they don't rely solely on affiliate marketing to make money; they can also earn through advertising fees and other methods.

Advertising networks

By joining an ad network and displaying ads on a website is an easy way to make money. However,making money through ad networks requires the website to have a certain amount of traffic.

For example, an ad is displayed at the end of the comments section in Naibabiji articles. Given the current website traffic of Naibabiji (200 IPs), it's basically just for show, providing free advertising for others, and there won't be much income in a month. (Because most ads are charged per click, significant traffic is needed for substantial display fees.)

If you know English, you can consider building an English website and joining Google AdSense to make money. English websites have higher CPM/CPC rates (clicking on an ad might generate several dollars in revenue).

Some experts directly operate English website networks and can earn thousands of dollars daily. Of course, these are people at the top of the pyramid; it's difficult for ordinary individual webmasters to achieve.

Selling ad space on a website

Selling advertising space on a website requires the website itself to have a certain level of influence, such as the fixed ad placements you see on real estate or automotive websites.

Typically, websites in vertical industries or local services are more likely to profit from selling advertising space.

Related recommendations:4 Useful Premium WordPress Ad Management Plugins

Website endorsement articles

Website endorsement articles are somewhat similar to celebrity recommendations.

For example, when a product is first launched and advertised on TV, some people might still not trust it. But if they see you using it and giving a positive review, they might purchase the product simply because they trust you.

This is called an endorsement article.

Writing reviews for money

There are some specialized review websites abroad where you can try products and submit reviews to earn a certain commission. In a more familiar domestic term, it could be called writing positive reviews or soft articles.

Selling a website for profit

That's right, this is also a direct monetization method. When a website achieves certain results but you can't profit from it yourself, you can sell it to someone else and let them figure out how to make it profitable.

Naiba knows of people who build websites in bulk to boost their authority and then sell them to others.

II. Membership-based websites

Paid memberships are now more readily accepted in China, such as music memberships and video streaming memberships. As long as your website has content that others need, you can also monetize through paid memberships.

Members-only content

Naibabiji has shared:Method to make a WordPress website accessible only to registered and logged-in members

So you can easily use WordPress to build a website that is only visible to members.

Of course, the prerequisite is still that your website has articles or resources that these users need.

In recent years, self-media has been extremely popular, especially WeChat Official Accounts. An article with high readership on a public account can make money simply by inserting ads. Therefore, we can also drive traffic from our website to our public account and then monetize and profit from the public account.

Tools you will need:Method for WeChat Follow to View and Read More Features on a WordPress Website

Private forums

Similar to the principle of being visible only to members mentioned above, building a forum that only specific user groups can access for user communication is also a way to monetize a website.

Paid content is a hot topic this year. To put it bluntly, it's about information asymmetry, as the internet is trending towards being more closed off. You might not find what you want as easily as before.

Q&A Community

For example, professional Q&A platforms like Zhihu and the foreign Quora allow you to offer paid questions or paid answers. You can also place ad spaces, and so on.

III. Navigation and Directory Websites

This is a niche industry that most people don't know about: creating a website for a specific industry or directory where you can charge for listing websites.

Paid Business Directory

Similar to a business directory, for example, if a user searches forChongqing website development companies, and you happen to have a website that is a directory of web development companies in the Chongqing area, you can enable a paid listing feature, charging a few dozen yuan per website. When done in bulk, the income can be quite good.

Paid Job Board

You might say, aren't there professional websites for recruitment? But you can also find niche areas, such as a recruitment website for your county town. Charging 10 or 20 yuan per job posting wouldn't be considered expensive by anyone.

The key is that recruitment websites in small county towns face less competition, and you won't spend a lot of effort building one yourself.

Paid Event Calendar

This is a website specifically dedicated to collecting events happening on a particular day. Those with event publishing needs come to your website to post event information.

IV. Selling Digital Goods

This should also be considered a project where individual webmasters can relatively easily make money from their websites. As long as you have something that others don't but there is a demand for it, you can sell it.

For example: For instance, if you encounter problems during website building that you cannot solve yourself, you can pay Naiba to help you solve them. This is also a form of sales, selling your own skills.

Additionally, many websites selling resources online also make money by selling virtual goods, such as selling video resources, software resources, etc. (Be mindful of copyright issues).

Sell E-books

You can search on Taobao to see if there are any e-books for sale.

E-books can also help you make money through your blog. When you are an expert in a certain field and you summarize some of your valuable knowledge into an e-book, you can also sell it through your blog to those in need.

However, this monetization method depends on the quality of your e-book. For example, if you are a food blogger and want to sell an e-book titled 'Healthy Eating List for 30-Year-Olds,' then your e-book content should be very comprehensive, including detailed nutrition charts, lists of snacks to eat during the day, types of exercise, and so on.

However, creating an e-book is also a task that tests one's abilities. The e-book shared by Naibabiji,【E-book】'Easily Learn to Build Your Own Website, First Edition'feels quite rudimentary in its production. It wouldn't be realistic to expect people to pay for it, so it was shared for free.

Sell Courses Online

Online courses have also been quite popular in recent years. You can build your own website to sell them, or sell them on platforms like Tencent Classroom, NetEase Cloud Classroom, and MOOC.

For individual webmasters to make money through online training, besides needing a certain amount of traffic on their website, they also need to have a certain level of personal reputation. Not just anyone can start offering training and expect people to be willing to pay to join.

Friends who do foreign trade websites should know about the training from MiKe, which is quite large. Although Naiba understands many aspects of website building, some areas combining foreign trade and websites require expertise from foreign trade professionals.

Paid Webinars

Paid webinars are similar to websites selling online courses, but webinars are live-streamed and often include Q&A sessions. Software like Zoom, AnyMeeting, and Adobe Connect can implement paid webinar features.

V. Selling Services Online

Offer Freelance Services

This is easy to understand. There are many such platforms both domestically and internationally. Domestically, there are platforms like Zhubajie and Ziyouren, while internationally, there are platforms like Upwork, Freelancer, and PeoplePerHour.

After gaining sufficient experience with WordPress, many people tend to offer services online, such as Naibabiji'swebsite hosting service。

Those website building companies in the market also provide similar services. As long as you specialize in improving website content in a specific field and do website SEO, users will eventually contact you to close deals.

Consulting Business

This is exchanging experience for money, like those real estate influencers on Douyin. Specific needs can be messaged privately, and then there's a consultation fee.

Become a Mentor or Coach

Whatever expertise you have, you can offer mentor or coaching services in that profession.

VI. Selling Physical Goods Online

Start an E-commerce Business Using the WooCommerce Plugin

WooCommerce is a free e-commerce plugin for WordPress. After installation, you can run an e-commerce business. If you want ready-made solutions, you can use paid platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce.

Create a T-shirt Store

UseWP-SpreadpluginWith this plugin, you can create an online T-shirt store. Users can place orders online, and you make the T-shirts for them.

WooCommerce Dropshipping Store

Many professionals in the foreign trade industry make money through WooCommerce dropshipping. With WooCommerce Dropshipping, customers place orders on your website, and you find suppliers on platforms like Amazon and Alibaba for one-piece dropshipping, earning the price difference.

VII. Service Platforms

Online Store

Similar to JD.com and Taobao, you can also build an online mall using WordPress, combined with plugins like WC Vendors and WC Marketplace.

However, you can also use professional e-commerce systems, such as ShopEx and EcShop.

Auction Website

To create an auction website, you can try using WooCommerce, Auction extensions, or multivendor extensions with WordPress.

Job Marketplace Website

Internationally, there are many freelance platforms, such as Fiverr, UpWork, and Freelancer. These websites are actually a model of the sharing economy, similar to platforms like Didi Chuxing and Meituan.

In WordPress, download a theme calledmicro-job engineto create such a website.

VIII. For Website Designers and Developers

Develop Website Plugins

Nowadays, there are fewer people sharing WordPress research, but more people are using WordPress to build websites, so market demand is still high. If you know PHP development, you can create website plugins for sale. For example,Lightning Blogprofits by developing paid WordPress plugins.

Sell Website Themes

If you have design skills, you can also create website themes for sale. The acceptance of genuine WordPress themes is still quite high. Besides WordPress, there are many other blog systems where you can consider creating paid themes for sale.

Sell Images

If you have graphic design skills, you can also help others with photo editing, as many people don't know how to design images.

IX. User Appreciation

If you still have money on WeChat, you can tip Naiba. Let Naiba feel the appreciation.Website monetization methods。

Which Method is the Easiest to Make Money?

The over 30 website monetization models introduced in this article all have one prerequisite: the website must have a certain amount of traffic or visibility. An empty shell alone cannot generate profit.

For individual webmasters, the first basic condition to make money through a website is that the website has a certain amount of traffic.

If your website only has a few or dozens of daily IPs, then just focus on writing your blog posts and don't think about making money—it's basically impossible.

For individual webmasters, the easiest ways to monetize a website are: affiliate marketing, selling virtual products, and ad monetization.

Additionally, if there is demand in your county, running a local website might be easier to monetize compared to other types.

Thoughts on Monetizing a Personal Blog

In recent years, fewer and fewer people have been able to persist in updating personal blogs consistently. Many personal bloggers doubt whether running a personal blog website is still meaningful and if they can make money from blogging.

Here, Naiba quotes a comment from SEO expert Zac. You can ponder it carefully.

In most cases, building a personal blog nowadays is not very meaningful. Personally, I think it only makes sense under two circumstances:

First, it is very focused on a specific field, and you are an expert in that field,relying on writing high-quality articles to build recognition, authority, and a personal brand, and then using the brand to find other monetization methods, rather than relying on the blog's search traffic.

Second, treat the blog system, such as WordPress,merely as a CMS,and turn it into other types of websites. WordPress is an excellent website-building tool; many corporate websites are also built with WordPress now, and they have little to do with blogging.

If you are just writing superficial articles in a broad field, or even reposting content without personal viewpoints or originality, it's better not to do it at all.

Naiba's view on personal blogs is similar to that of the great Zac, so the current focus of Naibabiji isteaching people how to build websites, and then seeking monetization methods after the website gains some recognition.

Using WordPress as a CMS is suitable for enterprise websites. For individual webmasters without resources to sell products, adopting a CMS model may result in a broad-topic site with shallow articles, making it difficult to persist and monetize the website.

However, if you are documenting your own life, it still holds certain significance. Writing a blog can also help you make many friends.

AboutHow to Make Money with a WebsiteThis article has introduced so many methods; I hope everyone can create a profitable website.

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