Making Web Sites Pay
From Evrose
There are three main ways for a website to pay its way.
- The site sells the owner’s products and services, directly through online shopping, or indirectly as a shop window
- Subscribing to Google Ads – ever changing advertisements aimed at your likely visitors, displayed on your site and from which commissions are paid “per click"
- Affiliate links – static advertisements of your own choosing and which complement your business, generating commissions from actual sales derived from people clicking the links.
Google Ads are ideal for those with non-commercial sites. On a commercial site the most likely outcome is that the ads will bring a competitor to the attention of your visitor and whilst you may make a few pennies (literally), you may well lose the customer yourself.
A small number of well-chosen affiliate links that have been proven to attract visitors, and which can generate as much as £50 per sale, are a better option for commercial sites. By selecting links that complement, rather than compete with, your own business, there is no danger of self-harm. At the same time you are providing your visitors with additional useful resources. If you are both fortunate and savvy, affiliate links can generate a significant additional income. For example, if you are a small-scale motor trader, links to insurance companies and financial brokers might be appropriate.
Whilst some webmasters generate a significant income from renting out small sections of their sites as advertising space for others, for most the rewards are very modest. Therefore the site will only pay its own way if the costs of developing and maintaining the site are equally modest. Extremely expensive and highly complex sites, hosted on premium services, are unlikely to be good candidates – the cost of adding the links will almost certainly not be cost effective. For content management system and other template based sites, however, adding the links will incur negligible costs.
© Evrose Business Consultants Ltd, 2009
