According to OptinMonster, 93.5% of global internet users have purchased products online. With the emergence of internet and e-Commerce, building a website has almost become a step in establishing a business.
There are several reasons for creating a website i.e. exposure to a HUGE number of consumers all over the world, adding credibility to your business, and more opportunities of making a sale. Add to this the fact that a website is operational at any time on any day, therefore, the possibility of making a sale becomes endless.
Website Building
In order to be able to make money, the first step is to actually build a website. It starts with choosing a certain domain & hosting provider such as Bluehost, Godaddy, etc. I personally created mine at Bluehost. The registration process itself is a simple step-by-step mechanism . It might vary from one website to another, but at its core its pretty much the same thing. So you can just follow the instructions and choose a service that suits your business well. But one thing that I want to stress here is that the domain name you choose is highly important. Choosing a domain name is like choosing one word that can tell your whole story, so you must choose it wisely.
Every product falls under a niche segment in the market. And each niche segment has its own unique needs, preferences, or identity that makes it different from the market at large. So choose the domain name according to the niche of your product. Why? Because it is easy to market domain names that reflect the products that they are selling. If I am looking for something related to fitness and your domain name already reflects the word fitness in it, I would be more tempted to click and explore it. Moreover, a proper domain name also helps from SEO perspective and serves a long way in terms of bringing traffic to the website.
Once you have selected your domain name, the next step is to get the website up and running. Depending on your expertise, there are various website builders. You can use Wix as it has easy to use website creation tools. I personally used Wordpress for designing my own website. Similarly, there are other webpage builders as well. So you might want to use one of these, and get your website going.
How to Make Money by Building a Website
So now that the website is up and running, how to make money from this? As I said, the possibilities are endless. I will discuss a few of them here:
- Selling Physical Products: One method is by selling physical products to your customers. If you do not have your own products, there are certain websites like Zazzle, which allow you to custom design their t-shirts and sell them. You might want to try websites like that
- Selling Digital Products: Successfully selling any digital item such as e-Book, website templates or digital graphics, is an excellent source of income. I’m personally a big fan of this and the reason for that is that creating a digital product takes a one-time effort, but you can keep selling it repeatedly. So the ROI (return on investment) is several folds.
- Affiliate Marketing: What if you don’t have any product? Don’t worry, you can still make money by selling other people’s products. There are several websites such as Clickbank that allow you to sell people’s products and earn a commission for it.
- Online Courses: One of the areas that has boosted significantly post Covid-19 is online guides and courses. You can offer online courses related to your niche or even write comprehensive guides and sell them at affordable prices.
- Paid Banners: You can earn money by allowing adverts to run on our website. If your website has organic traffic, you can monetize this by using services like Google Adsense. For any user that clicks on an advert running on your website, you’ll earn a certain commission known as the cost per click (CPC). An easy way to add a few bucks of side income.
- Sponsored Posts: If you are running a Blog or your website has a content section, you can start charging people for posting on your website. People will be more inclined to post on websites whose users are related to their niche and as such, you can find such sponsors and charge them by posting their content on your website.
- Review Products: Another important way to earn money is by reviewing different products. Generally, if your website is doing well, people would pay you to review their products. Additionally, some people also review products that provide affiliate services. As such, when people try to make a purchase based on their review, they earn a certain commission from that sale.
Too Long Didn’t Read (TLDR)
Creating a website is a crucial step in establishing a business. It adds credibility and exposes you to a wide audience which you can turn into potential customers. The first step is to create your domain and hosting. Your domain name is basically a single word that is supposed to tell your whole story, so be a little wise in choosing that. Make sure that its related to your niche – you wouldn’t want to have a fitness website that is called marketing and vice versa. Also just remember that the name of the domain also comes into play during Google searches and a domain that directly relates to its content ranks higher in terms of SEO. The next step is to actually build a website using a web builder such as Wordpress, Wix, etc. Once your website is up and running, you can use one of these methods to start earning some cash on the side: selling physical products, selling digital products, affiliate marketing, online courses, paid banners, sponsored posts, product reviews, etc.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Fahim Ahmadi is an entrepreneur, blogger and marketer. Follow Fahim at fahimahmadi.com as he writes about making money online, emerging software and technologies, and his journey as an affiliate marketer
