Followed by the latest update of Project MMO (it’s sold, in case you haven’t read it) and newsletter about the future of WebsitesFlipping.com sent to my subscribers last week, I decided to write this article about monetizing a website before flipping it.
Monetization is one of the essential elements when it comes to maximizing profits from a sale. A site making $100 per month can be sold x24 – x36 of the monthly revenue, if not more, depending on the niche and other factors. If you monetize your site properly, you can easily double or even triple the profits from a sale.
So, let’s say you’re ready to monetize your website. How can you do this in the most efficient way? I’ll go through some of the most popular and successful methods to monetize your website before selling it:
Monetization Methods to Boost Your Website’s Income
This blog may contain affiliate links. That means if you click and buy, I may receive a small commission (at zero cost to you). Please see my disclosure policy to learn more.
1. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular methods of monetizing a website. This strategy involves partnering with businesses to promote their products and services on your site. In return, you earn a commission whenever a sale is made through your referral links.
To succeed in affiliate marketing, choose products and services that are relevant and valuable to your audience. Some well-known affiliate marketing platforms you can join include Amazon Associates, Commission Junction, and ShareASale. All of them offer a wide variety of products and services you can promote on your websites, of course, depending on what you’re blogging about.
Another way to affiliate marketing is direct via companies. You can reach out to companies in your niche, and negotiate an agreement with them. This could be a commission-based or a flat fee deal, depending on the size of your website and its monthly traffic.
Also, many companies or service providers have their own affiliate programs that you can join. For example, if you’re in the blogging niche, RankIQ.app, LinkWhisper.com, or Jasper.ai are among the popular services that offer their own affiliate programs.
2. Advertisements
Placing ads on your website can be an excellent source of passive income. You can opt for display ads, which are graphic or text ads placed on your site in exchange for a fee. Alternatively, you can try native advertising, where you blend paid content seamlessly into your site’s content.
Popular platforms to set up display ads include Google AdSense, and Ezoic.com. They are the two most popular ad networks that you can use, especially if your blog is quite new and doesn’t have a lot of traffic yet.
For me, whenever I have a site up and running, I’ll apply for Google AdSense as soon as possible, and later, my VA will take over the process of applying for Ezoic.com. The whole process will take 1 – 2 weeks, depending on your website’s content.
If you have a high-traffic website, you can opt for companies like Mediavine or AdThrive, or even direct advertisement and reach out to companies directly for sponsored posts or display ads on your site. This type of adverting generally pays more than using an advertising network.
3. Sponsorships
Many businesses are willing to pay for bloggers and influencers to have their brands featured on popular websites. You can offer sponsored blog posts, product reviews, or banner ads. Remember to be transparent with your audience that the content is sponsored to maintain trust and credibility.
Sponsored posts can bring in much more income than display ads, depending on your website’s monthly traffic and niche. Plus, it’s a great way to bring in some extra cash besides affiliate marketing or display ads.
4. Paid Content
Like a subscription to an online news or magazine, you can write and make some of your content available exclusively to paid subscribers.
This could be an entire course or a series of tutorials on any topic relevant to your audience. You can also opt for memberships, where people pay to join a private community that offers exclusive content and resources.
Although I’m an active subscriber to several paid content sites, I haven’t personally used this method of monetizing my blog yet. I can see that it requires a lot of planning and commitment, and I always tend to press myself too thin here and there.
That being said, I’ve seen many bloggers and influencers use this method successfully to bring in a steady passive income stream. So, definitely, it’s a good option worth considering if you have valuable content to offer exclusive to your paid subscribers!
5. Selling Your Own Products
Selling your own (digital) products on your website is one of the most efficient ways to monetize your site and increase its value before flipping it.
You can create digital products like ebooks, courses, or templates that are related to the niche of your website. This will help you attract different kinds of buyers that might be interested in your products. If you’re a web designer or developer, you can also sell themes, plugins, and other products — whatever makes sense for your website and audience.
Creating and selling products on your website will require you to invest in marketing as well, but it’s definitely a great passive income option to consider! And, on the way to selling your site, you’ll also earn more money if you have a profitable product line than just relying on the website’s affiliate sales or display ads.
6. Services & Coaching
If you have enough knowledge and expertise in the subject matter of your website, you can offer professional services like web design, copywriting, social media management, and more. You can also offer one-on-one coaching or consulting services for clients.
This works incredibly well if you have a website in the health, fitness, self-help, or business niche. You can also offer virtual assistant services to other bloggers and small businesses. This will help keep your costs low while providing the excellent service that many people are constantly looking for!
When writing this blog post, I have two websites in the business niche. One is a content writing service, and the other is about blog management service for small businesses and bloggers.
The first site is bringing $800 – $1,000 per month (I scaled down a lot since I returned to work last year), while the second one is still in development. So, I can personally attest that offering services through your website can be highly profitable and rewarding!
Factors Influencing Website Value
The value of your website from a buyer’s perspective is affected by its niche, monetization strategy and income, and other factors. Here are some of the common factors that can influence your website’s value:
Website Traffic
The more traffic your website attracts, the more potential for monetization through ads, affiliate sales, and sponsored content. A website with more visitors will usually have more value in the eyes of buyers than one with less traffic.
However, the quality of this traffic is also paramount. The most valuable websites have a high number of organic traffic, returning visitors, and prospects who convert into paying customers.
Reputation & Trustworthiness
If you have a well-known brand, you can sell your website for more money or get sponsorships and partnerships with other businesses.
Trustworthiness is also a major factor here. People are more likely to invest in a website that has built up the trust of its readers through excellent content, good customer service, and reliability.
If your site has been penalized by search engines, its value will also be lower.
Content Quality
The quality of your content will determine whether people will stay on your website and become loyal readers. Quality content will also attract more organic traffic, which is valuable to potential buyers.
I used to build and sell sites using PLR as the base content; however, I eventually realized that the long-term success of a website is determined by its content quality. If you can create high-quality, well-researched content for your website, then it will be worth more in the eyes of buyers than if it were filled with just PLR articles.
In my opinion, there’s nothing wrong with using PLR, but if you want to maximize the value of your website, you should focus on creating unique and engaging content — or at least give the PLR content a fresh spin.
SEO Optimization
A website ranking highly on search engines is more likely to generate organic traffic and income. This is why it’s important to optimize your website for SEO by following best practices and avoiding any tactics that could get you penalized.
The quality of your backlinks also affects the value of your website. Sites with high-quality links from authoritative websites will be seen as more valuable than those with low-quality, spammy links.
What if you’re not into all these SEO tactics? Focus on on-site SEO by ensuring your website is optimized correctly for search engine crawlers, internal linking, and keyword targeting. And you’ll be fine!
Domain Authority
Domain authority, or DA for short, is a metric used to measure the strength of a website based on its backlink profile. You can track your domain authority using various tools like Ahrefs or Moz.
Generally speaking, websites with higher domain authority will be more valuable than those with lower DA scores. Higher domain authority signifies a well-established and respected website, which is attractive to buyers. A brand-new site built on a newly bought domain will have a DA of 1 as it has yet to accumulate any backlinks.
I’m recently into the game of aged domain hunting. While buying an aged domain is not a one-stop solution to success, it can give you the initial boost, allowing your website to rank faster and become more valuable.
Of course, it can be costly to purchase an aged domain, but it may be worth considering if you want a website that has more value in the eyes of buyers. Or, if you want to build a niche site for yourself, going for an aged domain can give it a shortcut toward success.
In Conclusion
Overall, the value of a website depends on various factors such as traffic, reputation, trustworthiness, content quality, SEO optimization, and domain authority. If you focus on creating an attractive website that meets all these requirements, then it can be worth more in the long run.
Obviously, your website’s worth depends on the buyer, so it’s important to ensure you’re marketing it correctly and making it attractive to potential buyers.
Sites like Flippa, Empire Flippers, and FEInternational are excellent places to start, especially if your site makes a good chunk of money. Alternatively, opt for independent brokerages or even reach out to buyers directly.
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