How to Make Money From Your Niche Website

So once you've started your website, how do you make money from it?

First of all - don't put adverts on the site!

The first thing you need to get for your site is TRAFFIC. Monetization can come later!

So when do you monetize your site?

My recommendation is to wait until your traffic shows signs of going exponential, like in this traffic chart for the Niche Laboratory website:

So in the chart above (click for full size) I'd say that May 2015 was the time to start thinking about monetizing this particular site.

By the way, don't worry too obsessively about significant drops in traffic. As you can see below, the traffic to an authority site I built really took off in 2012. Then traffic slumped for about 18 months, before smashing past its 2012 traffic peaks:

Monetizing a Site

So hopefully you've taken heed of the previous section, and not rushed into monetizing your site.

Once your site has some good traffic, then how do you make money from it? Here are a few tips:

• If you must use AdSense, then feel free to do so. But once you've added it to your site, keep visiting and write down the names and URL's of the advertisers you see being displayed on your site [by the way - DON'T click on your own ads!]. Then when you get some spare time, check out these advertisers and see if they have affiliate programmes you can join. I did this for my authority site. I was earning maybe $0.40 from an AdSense click, but through the advertiser's own affiliate scheme I started earning $25 - $120 for each customer I sent them who bought something from their site!
• Advertising doesn't mean banner ads! I find that people don't tend to click on adverts so much these days. So one tip I have is to use text based affiliate links in your site.

Secret Way to Monetize: The Exit Strategy

I work as a software developer (i.e. I'm a geek) and I've met a lot of successful website owners lately. One secret the big guys have is that they'll often have an exit strategy for their business.

So I'll just mention that if you're building a niche site and it becones successful, you can monetize that site by simply selling it to someone else. It's true that websites sell for more money if they're profitable. However, just remember that Facebook bought WhatsApp for $19 billion, despite it making barely any money. The main way buyers evaluate the worth of websites/services is by their amount of traffic and potential, rather than their past and current earnings.

 

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