How to Monetize Website Traffic? Top Strategies for Making Money on a Website in 2024

How to monetize a web site and what does monetize your site mean — this question is asked by every owner of the website on the Internet. There are inspiring examples of online bloggers and webmasters, who monetize site traffic and earn six figures a month from websites. In fact, earnings from one project are often not enough to live on, and most bloggers complete their activities in site monetize before a year.

It's easy to create a website or blog, but what are the best way to monetize your site? What's hard is maintaining a constant value so you can make money from it. 

One of the strategies for monetizing websites is to host paid guest posts through dedicated marketplaces, for example, Collaborator.pro. All you need to do is list your website in a catalog. So advertisers from your niche who want to buy guest post backlinks will see it and be able to place an order.

Webmasters, marketers, or SEO specialists will send you applications for the publication of their materials with the necessary links. When they buy backlinks on sites like yours, they improve the position of their resources in search results. And you, by publishing their articles, receive income.

We at Collaborator do everything to make cooperation between site owners and advertisers mutually effective. Besides, we also offer a way on how to make money on Telegram.

In the context of making money on the websites, we are primarily talking about information sites, and sites with articles. It can also be combined with small sites, catalogs, and aggregator sites. 

All profitable sites have one thing in common: we provide benefits in the form of a solution to a user request. 

For example, the user wants to find the distance from point A to point B or a recipe for a dish. We give him this information, and due to this we attract traffic and get certain behavioral factors. 

A properly made site starts to rank well enough and gain traffic from different sources, primarily the search engine. When we reach good positions, we place ads and start earning on this site. 

There are two strategies that are actively used now: 

• creating a site from scratch and its promotion
• buying a profitable site. You can buy several projects at once. The result is within a month.

Each strategy has its pros and cons. 

Create a site to earn money

First steps when creating a profitable site: 

• choose a domain and hosting;
• take the WordPress «engine» (or, if you are a programmer, then your own engine), deploy it. Everything is done quickly according to the instructions. If you want to create a website ecommerce, there are special platforms that allow doing it in a couple of clicks. You may also be interested in our article on link building for ecommerce websites.👈

No need to order a high-quality design right away. The usual functionality is more than enough to get the result.

Initially, do not spend money on something that does not affect the result. 

Buy a site to make money

Learn buying websites to increase your income potential and implement effective strategies for acquiring profitable sites: 

1. Defining a development strategy
2. Selecting suitable sites on special marketplaces
3. Conducting an initial assessment 
4. Contacting the owner and requesting additional information for in-depth analysis
5. Bidding 
6. Deal, transfer of rights to the site 
7. You are the owner of a profitable site

Definition of strategy

There are two options here:

1. Conservative strategy: we do not focus on excess returns, but we buy a stable project. It works like an asset that can feed you for years.
   An important point: we will not be able to buy this project cheaply. But we do not spend a lot of time maintaining it, because the site is authoritative and strong. With minimal support, it will, plus or minus, remain at the same level. If you put in the effort, it will even grow.
2. Moderate strategy. It's more popular. We are looking for a site that is not monetized, is under some kind of filter, the semantic core is underwritten, there is a technical error. We buy such a site, fix the nuances, and, accordingly, get more income. This strategy allows you to earn on projects from 100% per annum and above. 

Initial assessment of the website before purchase

To conduct an initial assessment of the site, a lot of indicators and information can be seen immediately in the product card. The seller must open access to analytics services (Google Analytics) and contextual advertising services to confirm income and traffic. 

👇Read on to find out best ways to monetize your site👇

What to look for in the first place: recommendations for buying a site for monetization:

• see search traffic (from Google or other search engines). It can be wound up, so it is necessary to analyze it comprehensively;
•  analyze the gender, geography, age of the audience, and in general the structure of the appearance of traffic. It makes little sense to consider projects with most of the traffic, for example, from bookmarks or social media. Because the structure of such traffic is not predictable at all, and it often happens that such traffic is being cheated;
• at the start determine the budget. You can check more expensive projects, get inspired, and be surprised, but this is a waste of time. If we came to really buy a site, set the budget x2. Why x2? Because you can negotiate with every seller;
• look at projects that already have some income. If a person writes that the project used to earn money, and now he just removed all the advertising, then in this case you will at least have to check all these sources. Will have to go deep. If you do not want to do this, then look only at those projects that work and bring money at the moment.

In-depth check of the site before buying

When in-depth analysis, be sure to look at the age of the audience. Because there are cases of when a person buys a history site, thinking that there is an adult audience, but it turns out that schoolchildren go there in search of information for a report. The profitability of such a site can be 7-10 cents per unique, and the buyer counted on 25. 

You can also look at the history of the site (traffic, filters, etc.), that is, identify a deviation from the norm.

Important: any filter for the project does not pass without a trace. This is an indicator that the site has deviations from the norm. And with more radical SE updates, this can move from a certain stable zone to a negative one. 

It is also important to check the distribution of traffic on the site. For example, on a project, conditionally 30% of traffic is concentrated on one page. If it falls out of the top or something changes, then 30% of the traffic on the site immediately leaves. It is optimal that more pages (20-30 top ones) do not have more than 20% of traffic (30% maximum).

When buying a site, be sure to bargain. Practice shows that for each lot you can get a good discount of 10 to 30 percent. If you feel uncomfortable doing this, make yourself some kind of blank like «I appreciated your project, I liked everything. I am ready to buy it, can you make a 20% discount». The person will most likely tell you «no» and offer you a compromise. Let's say a 10% discount. Such a simple message will save you 10% on your purchase.

Important information is also the increase in link mass. How to check backlinks to a website for free, read in our material. 

Site life cycle

There is a stereotype that it is not worth making or buying profitable sites because they have a lifetime: we create a project, then it grows, then it stays in a certain place, and then it falls.

But there is a key point: all sites that are supported and not abandoned have been around for years, and their traffic does not drop.  

The site stays in the search results for a long time if: 

• publish new content, 
• update it technically,
• increase the link mass, 
• monetize moderately.

You are the owner of a profitable website

As a result, we get a website that generates income. Be sure to check the nuances here: 

• make sure that the transaction is safe,
• carefully check all sources of income,
• technical nuances. Do not buy resources with a rare content management system, which will require additional investments to maintain  

No need to chase. Many people buy sites expensively because they think that such a good site will not be found later. Believe me, there are many more sites than you can imagine.

What is really important and affects the result in the beginning is the content, we will consider it in more detail.

Content

Where to get content for the site:

• write by yourself
• find the best websites for copywriting where you can buy services
• rewriting

The first option eats up a lot of time. Rewriting is a more massive strategy. It has undergone many changes since 2010. Previously, a rewrite was simply done, as many keywords as possible were entered, and that was enough. But such texts and sites eventually began to fall under SE filters. Everyone began to think about how to make the text better. Further, the requirement was born that the text should have full disclosure. 

Given the attention to behavioral factors, it became clear that text that simply meets technical and SEO requirements is no longer enough. 

It is necessary to reveal the topic, ensure that people read to the end, spend a sufficient amount of time on the site, delve into the content, etc. To do this, we take the text from several sources and try to make the content as complete as possible. When collecting semantics, we look at all the «tails» and requests that a person has. And we try to satisfy this request. 

Now, most sites publish fairly voluminous articles, at least 6 thousand characters. As a rule, it is 10-12-14 and even 20 thousand. Such materials fully reveal the topic. From the content, a person can immediately go to the desired block. The text is supplemented with:

•  photos or galleries;
• tables and graphs; 
• screenshots;
• video;
• interactive elements in the form of surveys, tests, etc. 

The quality of content is the current trend. 

Another trend is expertise. It is not enough to write a huge text. If it is poorly written, people simply will not read it, will not find the answer, and leave the site. Therefore, there was a job for editors and proofreaders, and copywriters go through a fairly large screening. 

There are people who a priori have a negative attitude towards rewriting. But you need to understand that in 90 percent of topics this is the only way to fill the site with content. Because everything has already been written, and just a little polishing, and improving. In fact, there is a development of content, because the completeness and quality of disclosure are growing. Such articles can gain quite significant results. 

You need to understand that by creating the right project and making high-quality content, you can then earn stable and long-term money on this. 

Author's content

Additionally, we add the author's content to the site. The resource should not contain only SEO-optimized articles that close the request. 

At least 10-20% of the content should work as additional traffic generators, for example, from social media. One of the strategies is interviews or reviews. If you have a financial project, then you can record interviews with financiers. It can be textual or in audio, video format, which is decoded into text. This content serves as the viral element. Such pages are good at collecting links, additional traffic, and social media mentions. 

We need to move towards expanding traffic sources. Plus, such elements increase loyalty and site trust. 

The main rule. The text must be unique.

If we are talking about projects that will be in the index for years and in high positions, then we need unique content. If you do 5 projects well, they will all feel good for years. If you do copy-paste projects on the stream, you will have to constantly create new ones, because a small pool will fit well in the top, the rest have come and gone. 

Content Design

By making content without design, you are missing out on a lot. Today it is not enough even just to structure the text. Even such «dry» content, such as legal articles, can be diversified: add lists, infographics, and photos. We must make materials that evoke some kind of emotion. 

Website promotion

We have made normal content, let's move on to promotion. 

For some time there was a system error in the market: people did not use link promotion. Now links are an element for website promotion, especially in Google. It is wrong to ignore the creation of link building strategies and the purchase of links in the current realities. 

What should be done when forming a link promotion strategy: 

• analyze the current link profile of your site; 
• study competitors and their link profiles;
• identify competitor donor metrics; 
• characterize the dynamics of the purchase of links and distribution by pages;
• create an anchor list.

Based on this, we build our own strategy and gradually move towards such a link profile, and even better. 

Read also: How to get high quality backlinks for website

To monetize your site, it is necessary that it has automatic advertising or your goods/services.

Ways to monetize the site in 2024: 

• advertising articles;
• pay per click;
• teaser networks;
• video advertising;
• native advertising;
• partnership programs;
• offer monetization;
• direct advertisers (sale of advertising spaces);
• donations;
• sale of own products;
• paid membership;
• mailings;
• selling links. 

Guest posting

Consider site monetization via guest posting. Placing other people's articles on your site for money is a great opportunity to earn income from the site. Why it is beneficial: 

• you get high-quality content (as a rule) 
• do not waste time preparing the text (although you can write articles yourself and charge extra for it)
• you do not need to search for customers yourself, because there are special services with a guarantee of payments. Example: direct marketing exchange Collaborator.pro.

Pay per click: monetize your site with ads

The most understandable and common way. In this model, you sign up for a monetization platform (Google Adsense) or in the ads network. In the first case, advertisements from Google are displayed on your site, and in the second case, your site is displayed on the network. Every time a visitor clicks on an ad, you get a small fee.

In both models, the monetization platform acts as an intermediary between advertisers and publishers. 

Teaser networks 

Mainly used in news format. Product teasers fade into the background. Mostly news options are used, because although they look «yellow», they are not so provocative or sensitive to users. 

How to monetize my site with Video advertising 

It is now gaining a very large momentum. Many video grids give great results, so if you don’t use them, be sure to take them into service. 

Native advertising

100% there are different systems. For example, there is a SlickJump system that shows good results. Those places that show low income in contextual advertising, you can replace with native ones. For example, you have the 3rd block in the text, which shows a low profit. You replace it with a native one because for them it will be the 1st block in the content and it can work out well. 

Affiliate programs and offer monetization

If we talk about affiliate programs and offer monetization, now it is becoming more and more intertwined. You have probably seen a large number of sites related to coupons, promo codes, AliExpress, etc. It has been around for a long time and is thriving. For example, there is a hosting review site. The owner of such a site can have a good income because there is an incredible base of people who use hosting. Hosting is a regular payment from which you will receive deductions through an affiliate program. Owning such a site and bringing it to the top, you can make a project that will feed you for a long time. 

Direct advertisers (sale of advertising spaces)

In the structure of the site plan places for advertising banners and inserts from the start. And for them, look for advertisers whose offers may interest your audience. Make sure that the site is not cluttered with advertising, this repels visitors.

Can I monetize site with Donations 

Quite popular, although unusual practice in recent years. This is an opportunity to monetize without having to fill the site with ads.

Gamers, artists, video and comic creators are the ones who have successfully adapted this method. Photographers on free stock sites usually add a donate button, encouraging donations as a way to support their work directly. 

Selling your own products/expertise

This can be a physical or digital product to sell. The second option is something that is created once and distributed many times.

For example:

• e-manuals, books and audiobooks,
• apps or extensions
• merch, and other branded products.

How to monetize a site with Paid membership

Paid subscription has been gaining momentum in recent years and brings its organizers a steady income. You can create a paid private community where your users can receive exclusive content, participate in forums, discussion forums, and seminars.

Mailings to your database

Collect lists of email addresses for lead generation. The base can be additionally monetized. If your newsletter is of value to your users, you charge users a fee to access it. Examples of paid newsletters include The Economist. 

The site should not turn into a Christmas tree. There must always be a balance. The amount of advertising should be regulated depending on how high-quality content you provide.