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Writer's pictureMaida Barrientos
Apr 22, 20208 min read

Top 53 Ways to Monetize Your Website

When I first start a niche website, I’m not usually going to pick a particular monetization strategy until I pick a niche and keyword.   Sometimes, I’ll think that I would like to build an email list and monetize that list with affiliate marketing offers or my own products. However, this is not set in stone, and could change as I pick my niche OR as I test different strategies on the same site. As you contemplate how you should make money from your new niche site, I will show how many options are out there.   First, I’m going to list the general ways to monetize (categories like CPA, contextual ads, etc) and then I’ll number off the specific networks or options within each of those general categories. Below I will share the 53 different ways that you can make money from your website.

Pay Per Click Contextual Ad Networks Pay per click ad networks literally pay you when someone clicks an ad on your website; whether or not they go and buy anything.  This a great way to start making money online, from your website.  Most of these are extremely easy to add to your website as well. You just sign up and get approved, then copy and paste a short snippet of code onto your website. These are networks like Google Adsense that have ads displayed based on the content of your site.  Typically you will get paid per click from these types of contextual networks.  Here are a few (there are likely many many more):

1. Google Adsense If you want to learn how to apply to Google Adsense and get approved, I have a step by step guide. Most good looking websites should have no problem getting an Adsense account. This is a personal favorite of mine for it’s ease of implementation and relatively passive income for someone just getting started. Here’s an example of a Google Adsense ad:

2. Media.net Media.net handles all the ads for Bing, Yahoo, and many other advertisers.  I’ve had a few people claim that they are able to make more money online with Media.net than Google Adsense.   Here’s an example of what Media.net looks like.

5. GumGum (In-image ads)

7. Clicksor.com (both eCPM and pay per click).

Key Takeaway: Don’t always assume Adsense is your best option. I personally am enjoying using Ezoic display ads.  You can try Ezoic ads right here. In reality, there are many more pay per click networks that you can use.  However, these are some of the top options.

CPM Advertising Networks Rather than paying on a per click basis, these ad networks pay on a per view basis (usually a dollar amount based on 1000 pageviews).  Most of these networks require that you have a large visitor base to be approved to their network; therefore most of these won’t work for a smaller niche sites. Your ability to get into these advertising opportunities typically depends on how many pageviews your website is generating.




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Link Whisper is a revolutionary tool that makes internal linking much faster, easier, and more effective.  It makes it simple to boost your site’s authority in the eyes of Google. You can use Link Whisper to:

  1. Bring out your orphaned content that isn’t ranking

  2. Create smart, relevant, and fast internal links

  3. Simple yet effective internal links reporting: what has lots of links and what pages need more links? So, if you have a website that is getting tons of traffic from Pinterest for example, you can monetize that traffic through some of the below CPM networks.

9. Ezoic Ads Ezoic ads are display ads that also have an ad testing engine built in.  In other words, Ezoic actively tests the ad placement and size of your ads to ensure that you make the most money possible.  You can check out Ezoic ads right here.

10. Mediavine Mediavine is also an excellent display ad network if you have at least 30,000 sessions a month.  These ads have great RPMs and have helped several webmasters I know increase the overall earnings of their sites.

12. Tribal Fusion (500,000 unique visitors per month required).

13. Criteo

14. Adthrive Media If you have a website getting lots of visitors (over 100,000 pageviews a month), then AdThrive is an excellent option.   I know of several people that were able to dramatically increase the earnings of the website by switching from Google Adsense to AdThrive.

15. Monumetric Another reputable display ad network for sites that have high traffic levels.

18. Advertising.com (part of AOL)

19. Burst Media (25,000 monthly page views)

22. Repixel Repixel connects you with advertisers that are looking to serve Facebook Ads to people who have recently visited your website. For example, if you blog about golf, then golf shops, golf apps, golf clubs, etc., would probably pay you really good money for letting them tag your visitors to serve ads to. The beauty of Repixel is it works in the background so it’s purely incremental revenue to any sort of site monetization tactic you’re already using. You can read more about Repixel here. There are a TON more CPM ad networks out there, this is just a small sample.  You need to find one that fits your niche or works best for your site.

CPA (Cost Per Action) Networks These types of ads pay a fixed dollar amount based on an action taken (like an email submit form filled out).  Many of these affiliate marketing networks listed below offer both affiliate commissions (% of the actual purchase price) AND CPA opportunities.  There are also a LOT more ad networks out there than I could possibly ever list in this category – this is just a few. In general, these are great options if you are generating leads for businesses.  A classic example is if you have people interested in refinancing their home.  You might get paid $50 or more for each name and email address that you are able to refer to potential lenders through some of the below networks.

30. CPAlead.com About a thousand others…

Affiliate Networks An affiliate network pays out a fixed amount or a percentage of the sale amount.  As an affiliate marketer, you refer someone through your link and get paid if someone actually buys something. As mentioned, some of these networks bleed together; meaning some of these affiliate networks pay out on CPA offers as well. Affiliate marketing is a huge business and it’s a great way to make money online.  You can read about the best affiliate programs here.

31. Amazon Associates This can be a good option because you get paid no matter what the person buys on Amazon within 24 hours (not just what you referred them to).  If you happen to building a niche site, then I think this is an ideal option to get started with. Amazon has millions of products that you could write reviews on.  In addition, so many people are comfortable buying products on Amazon (and may even have a Prime account), that it makes it really easy to refer buyers to Amazon. If you are curious to see some examples referring visitors to Amazon or how to use Amazon affiliate links, go here. You can also see my full guide to how to make money on Amazon here.

33. Clickbank I’ve written a complete guide on how to make money with Clickbank.

34. SkimLinks (This is actually an in-content ad network, but it pays out based on actual sales made.  So its not a per-click basis, but does display ads automatically based on the content of your site.  Its a pretty cool option actually that I’ve used and like).

37. eBay Partner Network (Actually pays on a per click basis – but the amount you earn goes up or down based on the history of actual sales you’ve generated.  So if lots of people buy through your links, you get more per click.)

39. Rakuten

Direct Affiliate Programs Thousands (yes thousands) of companies offer their own affiliate programs that are NOT listed in any network.  These can be harder to find, but often pay very well. However, if you are in a certain niche, you will know the types of products that your visitors might be interested in.  As a result, just do a quick Google search to see if those companies offer an affiliate program.  Just type in “company name” + affiliate program, so something similar to find results. Here are just 2 examples of companies that run their affiliate program in house:

43. HostGator They have an affiliate  program here.

Sell Ad Space Directly This is a big market as well with lots of options.  You can contact people directly on your own or use an ad manager/network to help.  Here’s just one option:

Create Your Own Product The most profitable way to monetize your site is usually going to be with your own product.  Obviously the kinds of products you can create are only limited by your imagination. Here’s just a few common options:

45. Create a video training course You can see an example of a video training course that is all about building a website from scratch and making money.  It’s called the Authority Hacker Site System.

46. Create an eBook If you want to learn how to self publish a book on Amazon, I written a guide for that.   I was able to self publish a book and get it to $100 a day in earnings in a relatively short period of time. In addition, you can “publish” your book on your own website.  A digital book can really just be a PDF file that you deliver to people once they pay.  I know of several people doing really well publish small books and selling them for $47 or more on their own niche websites.

47. Create a membership area or paid forum

48. Create a piece of software I have created a couple of different software programs, and I can tell you this can be an excellent way to make money from your website.   I owned and operated Long Tail Pro for 5 years before selling it.  I currently own and operate Link Whisper as well.

49. Create other tools, services, or information.

50. Launch and sell a product on Amazon. If you are interested in selling products on Amazon, you should check out

Sponsored Posts This is a very common way for bloggers to make money. In a nutshell, brands will ask bloggers to write an article that reviews their product or that highlights their product in some way.  The brands will pay anywhere from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars per post.

51. Sponsored Posts This is a great way for brands to get in front of the audiences that are trying to target.  And this a great way to make money blogging.  However, it’s important that you notify readers somewhere on the article page that it is a sponsored post and that you received compensation for writing it.  In addition, you need to make sure any links are “no followed”, and Google will then be okay with the sponsored post.

Sell Text Links Obviously this won’t be right for everyone and many consider questionable.  I personally would never sell links on my website, and I strongly advise you against the practice.  Google can and will penalize your website so that it doesn’t appear in the search engines if you are caught participating in buying or selling links. But there’s a huge marketplace.  Here’s just a few places you can sell links:

Donations When all else fails, you can ask for money :).  Many sites have done this in the past with varying degrees of success.  Wikipedia is probably the most well known site that operates 100% on the donations of users.

55. Ask for donations

Sell Your Site Even if you never monetize your site, you might be able to sell out for a pretty penny!  If you build the traffic of your site or otherwise have an audience, there is value there.  If the traffic is high enough, you could sell for a lot (think Twitter kind of traffic…).  And of course, people buy brand new sites all the time that have no traffic or audience based on design and niche (but usually for very cheap).

56. Sell Your Site If you are interested in either buying or selling a website, I recommend that you check out MotionInvest.com for smaller content websites.

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