For
a website to make money, it needs to sell something. Right? Well, yes
and no. Your website can sell a product or service, and it can also sell
the opportunity for another business to connect with the visitors who
browse it.
Just like a billboard on a busy road,
your website is in a prime position to reach passers-by. In this case,
it could be used by businesses to showcase their brands.
Think about how news sites make money.
The more traffic they have, the more ads they get, and the more money
they make. It is not just media organisations or major brands that take
advantage of this business model. Many small business owners and
hobbyists are capitalising on the opportunity.
Anyone with a website can start making money by signing up on Google’s AdSense,
which places text or image ads on a site and then pays the site’s owner
each time someone clicks on the ads. These Ads are matched to each
site’s content, so that browsers who are already interested in topics
related to the product or service can be reached.
Everyday Nigerians who have signed up
websites to pursue hobbies or share their passions with others are now
finding new unexpected new career path through AdSense. I recently heard
of a lady who started her website to share news and ideas about craft
projects. In a short period of time, she found that her posts were
shared by many others, who were interested in her posts and could not
just ignore them.
Her husband suggested that she should consider signing up for Google’s AdSense
of making money from her site’s loyal audience. While she never
intended to generate revenue from her site, she now makes $500 per week
from AdSense to support her regular incomes.
Every time someone clicks on one of the
ads on her website, she makes money. The more people visit the site, the
higher more clicks the ads get. That translates to more money for her.
Other business-savvy entrepreneurs have
built their entire businesses on this model. Peter Fiasco, a 30-year-old
Melbourne entrepreneur who quit his paid job to pursue a personal
business, unveiled a global employment classified site called jobsearchusa.org from his lounge room. Traffic to Peter’s website boomed in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis. Now, jobsearchusa.org attracts
some 10,000 unique visitors each day. One year after first opening his
site to AdSense, Peter is getting an annual turnover in the realm of
$1m.
As a website owner, this means you don’t
have to worry about visitors being shown irrelevant ads. If your
website is all about pet-care then AdSense or any other online advertising service you choose will place an ad for pet accommodation services.
Likewise, if your website focuses on
healthy eating recipes, then an ad for personal training would be
appropriate to show someone who is searching your site for helpful tips
to lose weight. The ad is targeted to the content which the user is
already reading, so it is unobtrusive, informative and relevant.
Website owners still have control over
the type of ads which appear. This is particularly useful to make sure
that Ads work with your site’s aesthetics. The types of restrictions you
can place on advs include being able to choose text ads or image ads or both, the colours of the ads, the design template and even the position of the ads on your website. In addition to ensuring the ads suit your site design, experimenting with changes in the colours and placement of ads can drastically impact the revenue which the ads generate.
The beauty is that the better your
website is, the more money you’re likely to make. Advertisers tend to
pay more to advertise on sites with lots of ‘eyeballs’ and to capture
the attention of a niche audience which is highly-engaged in a
particular topic.
Think about your own browsing behaviour.
If you don’t bookmark your favourite sites, you’ll most certainly visit
the same ones regularly; whether it’s your local tv guide or a weather
forecasting service. This kind of loyalty and engagement with a
particular area of interest means that website owners with
highly-focused content also have a strong proposition for advertisers.
So whether you’re a serious business or a
hobbyist who wouldn’t mind making some extra money on the side, online
advertising services are clever ways of connecting your website’s
audience with interested advertisers.