In this article I explain what sites and how you can earn, what steps to take, what specialists to hire and so on. All the information is universal, so you can fit it to your case and start earning.
The purpose of the article is to popularize making money on the Internet, and to be an instruction to action – what to do and why. Almost all sections have added blocks with useful links that explain “how” to do. All the information is already on our blog, so there’s no point in duplicating it in this article.
Sites
To start earning on the Internet, you need to choose a site that you will do. The visitors will come to this platform and there will be different ways to monetize them, that is to get money from them or with their help (about this later).
There are a lot of platforms on the Internet, but they can all be divided into two categories:
- Website.
- Social network.
Each site has its own advantages and disadvantages, each promoted in its own way. About everything in order.
Site
Site – a place on the Internet, which can be accessed by address or from a search. At one of them you are now. Websites are made up of web pages. You can navigate between them with links – for example, if you click here, you can get to the home page of this site.
A website needs a server, hosting and domain:
- A server is the computer that holds all of the site’s data: program code, images, user data, and so on.
- Hosting is the company that makes the site work and provides the server.
- Domain is the address of the site. For example, the domain of this site is BMO.
Websites come in many different forms:
- Entertainment portals – sites where people go to have fun. Most often on such sites you can see different stories, news with user comments, funny pictures, videos and so on.
- Corporate and personal blogs – where companies or individuals publish something on their own behalf. These can be event reports, training materials (like this article), articles offering services, interviews and many more different information.
- Video hostings and image boards are not the most common types of sites where users share videos or images. Such a site requires a lot of disk space, so they are usually expensive to maintain.
- Landing pages are single-page sites. They are used to persuade the user to buy a product or order a service. In fact, this is one big advertising page.
- Online stores – sites where you can choose and order something tangible: toys, tools, clothes, cosmetics and more.
- Business card sites – an extended version of a landing page. Can consist of several pages and advertise is not a product, and a specialist or company. Online business cards can be used as a platform for posting portfolios, which are examples of a company’s or specialist’s work.
- Informational or news sites – sites with news or informational articles. They differ from blogs by the fact that the information on them is often impersonal.
The advantage of websites is that you can implement almost anything on them if you have the right skills or budget for website design and development.
You may have noticed that sometimes different terms are used: website, portal or blog. With what a website is, we’ve figured it out. A portal is a site that provides several services, or several sites combined into one network. A blog is a site with publications of one person, one company or its employees.
There are several ways to create a website:
- Constructors are an easy way. Constructors allow you to create a website in a few clicks, but the free versions always have limited functionality. Most designers are designed to create online business cards or landing pages. The main advantages are the simplicity and the fact that the created site does not need to be uploaded to the server and pay for hosting – usually it is enough to click a few buttons to make the site appear on the Internet. But the downside is that the owners of the designer can place ads on your site. A domain is given the second level. That is, instead of “sitename.ru” you get the address “sitename.constructor.ru”. Of course, you can get a different domain, if you pay extra.
- Blog platforms or platforms for creating online stores – these are special sites with which you can create a blog or an online store. They can be both paid and free.
- Engines are the middle way. The most common variant. A special program (engine, the same CMS) is downloaded, installed on a virtual server, and then with its help the site is created. When everything is ready, the site should be uploaded to the server, to pay for the domain and hosting – only then other people can access it. Most engines are free, but if you need a new design, non-standard functionality or something else, you have to pay for it.
- Web-development is a complicated method. Usually used when the engines and designers can not provide the necessary functionality. For example, when you need to create some kind of complex service.
The budget and the time spent depend on the method chosen. For example, you can not pay at all (designers), to pay for the work of professionals (about them later) or only hosting and domain.
All this can cost from C $ 50 (or even less) to infinity, if you want a very complex service.
Social networks
Social networking sites are sites where you can register to upload your content and view other users’ content. Most people use social networking sites for fun, but you can also make money from them.
Popular social projects in Canada:
- Twitter – a social network where users can share statements that fit within 280 characters;
- Facebook – an American social network that is popular among young people;
- YouTube – a network where users upload videos;
- Instagram – the network, where users upload photos or short clips, and recently there appeared a function for uploading one-hour clips;
- Of course, this is not the whole list. Dating sites alone are worth a lot.
In a social network, you can create an account (page) in a few minutes and just as quickly attract the first subscribers. Subscribers are people who follow your publications. The more of them, the more opportunities for monetization.
Usually, social networks give users all the features at once. Therefore, anyone can create an account and start earning in any way they want. In addition, social networks are often universal – you can run a personal or corporate blog, start an online store and so on. And all this can be done at the same time.
Content for the site
Once you have chosen a site, you need to start creating content for it – different materials: articles, photos, illustrations, videos and so on. This is necessary to make it interesting for users to come to your site. More interested users – more opportunities for monetization.
Before creating content, you need to choose one or more topics and stick to them. We write about business, Internet marketing and everything related to it. Someone’s site may be about music or information technology. Your audience will depend on the subject matter. We are read by representatives of Internet professions and businessmen.
The former gets useful information from us, tips and so on. And the latter can learn about how to check the work of their employees. Also some businessmen prefer to do things themselves. We try to give them all the information they need, and if they can’t use our advice on their own, we can do everything for them. You can read the list of our services here.
Also, the content depends on the way you monetize. If you are promoting your business, the content must convince users that it is profitable to work with you. If you want to make money from advertising or donations, it is better to create something that will interest users and that they will be willing to spend time on. In this case, the content can either be useful or entertaining.
There are several ways to fill a site:
- On your own;
- Hire authors;
- Motivate users to create content.
Which method is preferable depends on what kind of project it is and how you want to monetize it.
Self-Created Content
This option is suitable for everyone who has time. You try to create content that is interesting to your audience, and it begins to bring traffic to your site (read about it in the section with promotion) or subscribers.
In order to create content, you need to understand the subject matter and the format itself. You have to know how to set up lights and sound if you want to make videos. And to write texts, you have to be literate. Because otherwise you can’t attract users – most will not only not come a second time, but also will not read the content to the end.
If you do not have the right knowledge, but you know how to create content well, no problem – you can always learn in the process. Often, in order to write a good article or make a good video, you need to process a huge amount of information. Under such conditions, it’s hard not to become an expert at something. And to make your materials even better, interview experts and put all the knowledge you get into practice.
Lack of skills in content creation is also not a reason to give up creating content yourself. Even if you are going to hire authors or motivate users, it is advisable to see the restaurant from the kitchen side, too.
You’ll also learn how to create a content strategy (content creation strategy, types, formats, and so on) and a content plan (schedule and topics of publications).
In my opinion, there are two good reasons to give up self-sufficiency – lack of time and lack of desire. But this is my view; yours may be different.
Pros
- Free of charge;
- No one knows better than you about your business or hobbies (not always);
- You can learn how to create content professionally;
- You do not need to look for a performer for a long time.
Cons
- You need to spend time coming up with topics and writing articles/recording videos;
- you need to be able to feel your audience in order to guess their interests.
Who is suitable for: everyone, best suited for personal pages and blogs, blogs of specialists.
Working with authors
If you doubt that you are ready to create interesting content on your own, you can hire third-party authors. Depending on the goals of the project, you can publish texts under their name or not mention them at all.
But authors need to be coordinated. To do this, you need to hire an editor, or do it yourself. You’ll need to know how to create a content strategy, content plan, and terms of reference.
One might wonder, “Why would authors write for someone else and get a cut of the profits or a fixed salary when they can write for themselves and get all the money?” Let’s start by saying that authors don’t end the list of necessary specialists. You also need marketers, optimizers, layout artists, designers, and many other specialists, which will be discussed below. Authors can’t always do everything at once. And not every author will be a good manager to manage it all.
In addition, the project needs to be engaged for some time before it begins to make a profit. And all this time you have to live on some funds. And not everyone has the ability to leave a financial cushion to devote all the time to the project. Which, in addition, may not shoot.
Pros
- You don’t have to waste time;
- You do not need to know how to do something (if you hire all the specialists).
Cons
- A good author doesn’t always know the subject matter on an expert level;
- authors need to be paid.
Who is suitable: everyone, except those who want to run a personal blog.
User-generated content
The best way if you do not want to spend money and time. Its essence is to create a site where users will generate content without the participation of the site owner.
Usually on such sites people share their creativity (prose, poetry, music, clips, photos, movies), life stories, funny statements, criticism, opinions about something and so on. You don’t have to pay for such content, but you have to put up with the fact that it’s hard to get anything worthwhile.
The main thing in this method is to give a starting impetus to attract active users. Then you only need to monitor the publications, because someone will probably try to share something forbidden, and someone will advertise their sites or services. But if such a project becomes successful, then earnings from it becomes completely passive – just hire a couple of employees who will monitor the site. Although many users are willing to work for free for the unique privileges.
Giving away the rights of users is better at the initial stages, because then the stakes will be too high to save on the salary of the moderator.
Pros
- You don’t have to spend money and time on authors;
- On a large site there are always a lot of people who want to post something.
Cons
- You will have to create interesting content yourself at first;
- Difficult to motivate people to do your work for free;
- Users might rebel if you try too hard to monetize the site;
- Publications need to be moderated so users don’t post plagiarized or forbidden content.
Suitable for: owners of entertainment portals.
Promotion
When you choose a site and decide how and what to fill it with, you need to start promoting it. Many people think that the main thing in the promotion is to interest the audience. Standing out is really important, but it’s much more important to keep your readers interested. Otherwise, you will take a shot, but you will soon be forgotten.
Here are the main ways of promotion:
- Make interesting content. If you publish something worthwhile regularly, users will share your site with each other, you will start to rank well in the rankings;
- Optimize your site. Whatever the site is, it’s in your best interest that it ranks well;
- Run advertising. If you do it right, the site traffic will increase, but you will need to constantly generate interest;
- Organize events and contests. Set up quests and give away prizes to gain a loyal audience and increase your reach.
Keep in mind that there are many more real ways to do this. They are all designed to attract more traffic (visitors).
Create interesting content in order to attract traffic interested in your site. If there is nothing worthwhile on the site, no marketing tricks and fabulous budgets will not help in the promotion.
It is best if you approach promotion in a comprehensive way to maximize results. Also works well using multiple channels to attract an audience. That is, create several sites. For example, a website and a community in a social network. You can use the site as the main platform, and the social network – as a subsidiary. This will be your additional channel of traffic.
Search Engine Optimization
Optimization is setting up a site so that it interests not only people but also search engine robots. When a search robot enters a site, it checks how interesting your content will be to users. First, it draws conclusions based on its algorithms, and then, if all is well with the optimization, the site enters the search engine results.
And when a user enters the topic of one of your articles into a Yandex or Google search, he may see a link to your material. Next, the robot evaluates the user’s behavior on the page. If he spends enough time on it, look through it, follow the links, the position in extradition will improve.
If the visitor leaves after a few seconds, the position in the ranking will worsen. Also, the site may fall under search filters for violation of search engine rules. That is, the site may disappear from the results – for good or for a while.
Advertising
Advertising on the Internet can be very different. Let’s start with mutual advertising. You agree with the owner of the other site that you will advertise each other. So you can attract a new audience. But you need to analyze: will the new audience be interested in your content, and whether there is a lot of overlap. Because if you and your partner are subscribed to the same people, then the benefits of such a campaign will not be much.
The second option is targeted advertising. It works in social networks and its principle is the following: you set up your ad so that it is shown to certain people. For example, those who are subscribed to any community. If you correctly specify all the data, the ad will be shown to the most interested people. So you can save on advertising and increase the conversion rate – the percentage of people who have committed the target action. In this case, the target action is clicking on the link.
Next comes contextual advertising. It shows not in social networks, but on sites that meet certain requirements. Typically, in contextual ads the user sees ads on his interests, and depending on what the theme of the site he sees.
Events and contests
Contests are held in order to attract new audiences. The idea is to motivate subscribers to share your contest post. That’s how your subscribers’ friends and subscribers find out about you.
But in order for everything to go smoothly, you need a good prize and interesting content on the site so that new subscribers don’t scatter after the contest.
Professionals
Experts get paid online the same way they do offline – they help businesses. Each specialist contributes to their client’s business. And if done correctly, the business owner more than recoups all costs.
Development
First, you need to create a site that needs to be monetized. This is done by:
- Web developers – create websites;
- Designers – think up a design;
- DTP – translate the design into web-page format;
- Administrators – monitor the work site.
Population
Content is the responsibility of:
- Content strategists – come up with the strategy by which content will be created;
- Authors or content managers – create the content;
- Editors – supervise the work of the authors;
- Designers – prepare illustrations for the content;
- Designers – prepare illustrations for the content; DTPers – design the content for publication;
- Writers, cameramen, actors – create videos;
- Moderators – control users’ actions.
Promotion
Promotion is done by:
- Marketing specialists – think out promotion strategy;
- Copywriters – write advertising texts;
- SEO – optimize the site for better ranking;
- Target Ologists and directories – set up an advertising campaign;
- SMM specialists – promote accounts and groups in social networks;
- Analysts – evaluate the effectiveness of promotion;
- Auditors – carry out checks of the site in order to identify deficiencies.
Sales
When users are ready to make a purchase, they are engaged:
- Consultants – answer users’ questions, help them decide to make a purchase.
- Technical support staff – help people who have bought a product or service.
Others
There are other professionals that businesses need. For example, a business needs something to sell. If your company sells software, you need programmers to develop it. If you have an online leather goods store, you need tanners and so on.
Some people have skills that different professionals need, so they can fill their roles. For example, some writers can make a content plan themselves.
Write in the comments if I missed someone – that profession will be added to the article.
Monetization of the site
Here we come to the most interesting part of this article. Depending on the specifics of your site, you can use different methods. Some of them are mutually exclusive.
You can use any site for any monetization method. The only difference is that some sites are more suitable for certain purposes, because they provide the necessary functionality.
Doing Business on the Internet
The most profitable way to monetize. Businesses include online stores and services. With online stores everything is clear – you create a website, fill the site with goods and related content, promote and start selling. Or you can confine yourself to the landing page, if you sell something alone.
The service industry has a little more opportunity. For example, you can make a business card site, a landing page or a corporate blog. The effectiveness of each site depends on the price category. It is foolish to hope that your service for 50 000 rubles will be sold with only one landing page – users need to learn more information to decide to give you so much money.
It is also not worth investing in the development of a blog about trinkets – ordinary product cards will be enough.
So you can start a blog and regularly publish useful content for your audience. This will help you showcase yourself as a professional or as a company of professionals. The more expert your content is, the more willing you will be to be trusted with your money.
It’s a long and costly journey, but it has its benefits:
- You get a reputation as a professional(s);
- The specialist/company with a blog looks more solid. You grow in the eyes of the person as soon as he finds out that you have a blog. Even if this person has not yet visited the blog;
- In case you stop providing a service, you can start monetizing your visitors differently.
There are no disadvantages either:
- You can’t monetize the site in any other way while you’re running a business – it will hit your reputation.
Advertising
One of the most difficult ways. It is mainly used on news sites, entertainment portals, personal accounts and blogs. The essence of such monetization is that you place ads on your site. Depending on the site, the ads can be different.
For example, a blogger on Instagram might get cosmetics from some company. The blogger gets free cosmetics, and the company gets cheap but effective advertising. In some cases, they get paid for such advertising. It depends on the popularity of the blogger.
Or you may have contextual advertising from “Yandex” or Google.
Many people have a question: “but why are they willing to pay for advertising on the Internet? The answer is simple – because such advertising is fruitful. If there is a lot of traffic on the site, many people will see the ads. And in order for the site to have traffic, its owner must invest a lot of money and effort. So he has to make a profit for himself.
Pros
- Passive enough – fill the site with content that interests you, and the ads will generate revenue;
- Advertising works even if you haven’t posted anything for weeks.
Cons
- Most users either have an ad blocker installed or banner blindness;
- You need a large audience to have a decent income;
- Too intrusive ads can scare users away.
Donations
Accepting donations is common in entertainment and personal blogs. And only if you exclude any other means of monetization – you want your audience to enjoy your work without advertising.
Of course, businesses should never accept donations. And if you’re making a profit from advertising, neither should you. This will cause a lot of negativity from users.
In general, the way for many may not seem the most pleasant, but in skillful hands can bring a good income.
We are talking about collecting donations at a time when the business is already fully operational. But collecting donations to launch a business is quite an effective method – it is called crowdfunding. Money can also be accepted as an investment, but this is no longer an investment at all.
Subscription Content
Quite a rare method of monetization, because the Internet is full of free content. It can work, though, if you’ve built a large and loyal audience that looks forward to your new publications.
You can make only part of your content paid for, so you can please your paying subscribers and keep your regular ones in mind. It is also common practice when a user can refuse to show advertising for a fee.
Selling a site
Suitable for keen personalities. If in the last few months you were burning desire to promote a group about knitting, but now you are more interested in restoring miniature pianos, the old project can either be sold, or hire specialists who will deal with it instead of you – depending on the budget and profitability of such actions.
Additional monetization
There are other ways to make money online on your site.
You can participate in referral programs – to motivate your users to use someone else’s service or buy someone else’s product. This differs from regular advertising in that you have to invest more effort, because you are more interested in getting your audience to buy something. It can even be compared to a full-fledged business.
The essence of the method is that you insert a link with a special code in your publications. When a user clicks on your link, the system remembers him. And if he buys something, you will get your percentage.
Earnings here can be very different – it depends on your efforts and the affiliate program.
Recently, many website owners have started embedding scripts that mine cryptocurrency using your computer. The more traffic on such a site, the more profit.
What is meant is the use of special software code that engages the resources of the user’s computer. This should not be confused with regular mining.
The method itself is very dirty, because the user is not asked permission to use the computer. In some cases, site owners include such scripts for visitors who use ad blockers.
Tracking such sites is easy – your computer starts to slow down when they start mining from it. If you’re suspicious, close the tab and see if your computer is doing better. If it does, you’ve fallen for unscrupulous site owners.
I do not recommend you to use this method in any case. Especially if you conduct business on the site – it will severely damage your reputation. An exception can be made if you have a super loyal audience and you are warned about the script.
Also, some sell collected personal data. The bottom line is that you can install a script (software code) on your site that will keep track of your users. You get information about their location, preferences, gender, age, addresses and phone numbers, social networks and so on. In some cases, you can even get credit card information.
This information is then sold to someone. For example, business people who need a base for cold calls. Or this information can be bought by marketing specialists in order to identify users’ interests and improve their products or correctly set up targeted advertising.
There are legal penalties for distributing such information.
And finally – the infobusiness. Infobusinessmen sell information:
- Trainings;
- Courses;
- Seminars;
- Books and so on.
Nothing prevents a person from becoming an info businessman, so it’s hard to find good information in the face of all the trainers and gurus who haven’t worked a day in the profession they teach.
By no means do I want to insult all info businessmen. I’m talking about those who really don’t understand what they teach.
Conclusion of the article review on monetization of digital projects
The main thing to remember is that money is not made out of thin air. You get it from people. And to get them, you need to benefit people or their businesses. Knowing this, you can come up with a bunch of ways to monetize your online activities.
For example, the article says that sales are mostly taken up by online stores and corporate websites, but you can also do it on your personal page – sell courses or something you’ve made with your own hands.
