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Monetizing a Website – Reader Question

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I received a question from a reader around monetizing their website and I wanted to include my (short) response for others to think about in their planning.

Question from a College Sports Site:

In your opinion what are some of the ways in which we could go about monetizing the site? I have received several inquiries from Sports Books and fantasy sports sites that want to advertise on our site and I have also received inquiries from sports ad networks, as well as affiliate offers. I am not too familiar with Internet advertising, so any advice or resources would be appreciated.

Also, from everything I have read, a premium service / section to our site is definitely something we want to consider. Do you have any suggestions or ideas on how best to approach this? Besides premium sports picks, what other “value added” products and services could be offered?

Some Advice on Monetizing a Site

The easiest way to monetize the site is to put google adsense ads on the site, but the dollar value is pretty low – however there are no sales people, no additional work on your end. You also have no control over what gets shown in the ads and can be a poor user experience if you get random, re-targeting ads.
Affiliate marketing is the next best way – Commission Junction or some of the other ones. This is also a pretty low time commit on your part, but the trick to maximize the impressions is to pick the most relevant offers and test multiple publishers. If you are a good performer (quality AND quantity) you can raise your per sale payout.
The next level is to bring-in very specific advertisers which means you need to negotiate placements, inventory, reporting, etc. More work, but you have more control.
Building your opt-in list is critical as this is a tremendous way to stay in touch with your audience and  promote specific opportunities.
A pay area or subscription area on your site can be a good revenue source, but you need to put the extra effort into creating and merchandising that content.
Hope this helps!
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About scott

Scott has over 30 years experience in building successful businesses in a variety of industries including: enterprise grade machine learning (SigmaIQ), Qualitative Market Research (Discuss.io) E-commerce (Amazon.com), Online Subscription (Rhapsody – RealNetworks, Optify), Digital Marketing (Avenue A, Optify & Brand Digital, Inc.), Online Games (WON.net), Consumer Entertainment Software (Sierra) and Recycling/Solid Waste Management (Rabanco Recycling).

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