Here at Strikingly, we are all about empowering people and providing them with the right kind of tools to enable them to share their passions to the world. Our platform was created to provide every individual a personnal web page where they can pour their thoughts and creativity for everyone to see. And over the years, we have seen a lot of people starting websites because of the sheer love for writing and creating. Eventually, they grew their online spaces and these sites turned into income generating platforms for them.
It is possible to do something you’re passionate about and earn from it at the same time. With the right kind of strategy, you can monetize your personnal site. Here are a few guidelines to think about.
1. Building content
Content building is the first phase of monetizing personnal sites. Your site needs valuable content to attract a following. People are more likely to keep visiting your website if they find something useful and life changing in your content. The more traffic your website gets, the higher your success in earning money from it.
Content drives a greater portion of monetization strategies. It might be time-consuming but if you have been working on your website for quite some time now, you probably just need to create or rewrite your content to cater to your target audience.
2. Create a content distribution strategy
To build quality content, it’s important to find out what kind of material your target audience is looking for. Serve up your information in different formats to cater to varied consumption preferences. Repurpose your content according to the various distribution channels. For instance, a blog article on social media strategy can be repurposed and converted into an infographics for sharing in Pinterest and other infographic platforms, or into an image set for Instagram. Share the link on Facebook and selected bookmarking sites. Create a content marketing strategy every time you put up new material on your website. Content distribution is a good way to spread your website’s links all over the internet, directing interested users and increasing your online visibility.
3. Google AdSense
Once you’ve established a following for your website, you can now start earning from it through different ways. The most common method is by adding Google AdSense to your personnal site. Essentially, you turn your site into a “publisher website” where other related brands can post Google Ads. All you need to do is sign up for an account with AdSense, add the code that it sends you to your site and you’re good to go. AdSense will assign ads to your site that are relevant to your content. For instance, if you’re a travel website, you’re most likely going to get ads from airlines or online ticketing sites.
4. Affiliate Marketing
Another way to monetize your personal website is through affiliate marketing. You become an affiliate for a brand related to your niche and promote their products on your website. The brand gives you an affiliate link or discount code where you earn a commission when your readers follow the link or use the code to purchase products. There are a lot of different affiliate marketing programs that you can use. Amazon and Share-A-Sale are just two of them.
With affiliate marketing, you should be careful to choose products or services that you truly believe in. Remember that your reader relies on you for credible information. If you associate your site with shady brands, you might risk losing your visitors and, in effect, traffic to your site. Choose the brands and affiliate marketing programs you adopt wisely.
