4 Ways to Generate More Money From Your Website While having a visually appealing website is important for any entrepreneur, knowing how to have it grow your business is just as essential.
By Jess Catorc Edited by Dan Bova
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Whether you are a product- or service-based business, you will most likely have a website or are in the process of creating one. While I teach entrepreneurs how to create their own DIY website, I've noticed that once they have mastered the steps, there is always one question that follows:
How do you make money from your website once it's up?
It can seem like an obvious question. However, I believe that a successful website is broken down into two elements: the visual and the strategic. While having a visually appealing website is important for any entrepreneur, knowing how to have it grow your business is just as essential.
I'm going to share with you four things that you can implement on your own website (even with little traffic) to help generate more income to support your business online.
1. Affiliate links.
Becoming an affiliate for your favorite products or services (relevant to your business) is a great way to increase revenue while building a trusting relationship with your audience. Not only are you gaining a commission for every purchase that came from your referral but by recommending products that will help your audience get results, you are also increasing your credibility.
Related: How Often Should You Update or Rebuild Your Website?
One of the best ways to promote these affiliate products is by offering a "Toolkit" or "Resource" page on your website. (Patt Flynn is an excellent example of this). However, it's extremely important to be genuine and disclose that you are offering affiliate links. People appreciate honesty and if your recommendations help them, they will likely come back and support you in the future.
2. Sequenced opt-ins.
If you are offering something of value in exchange for your web visitors' email addresses, are you clear on your end goal?
While regularly blogging or publishing content for those subscribers is a great way to add value, try to plan out a sequence that can lead to promoting your product or service at the end of it. This could be in the form of a challenge (i.e., a 21-day challenge to help improve something or gain a result for your audience) or even a three-part video series, as used by many entrepreneurs such as Jeff Walker and David Siteman Garland.
3. Hold workshops.
It can take people some time to build trust with your business. Rather than simply listing how people can work with you on your website (or purchase your products), why not try giving value first to establish your credibility?
Related: 6 Tactics to Generate More Revenue From Increased Holiday Website Traffic
Great ways of doing this can be in the form of webinars and online workshops relating to your business. Some tools that you can use to easily create this include WebinarJam, Easy Webinar and WebinarAlly.
4. Stop focusing on numbers.
While the concept of building 1,000 true fans is not new, it couldn't be more relevant today. We can often get sidetracked with the number of people who are following us, but, as Kevin Kelly's article explains, quality will always beat quantity. The key is focusing on building relationships with your audience and constantly giving value no matter what you do. These true fans will then effortlessly want to start sharing your work and supporting your business.
Another example of someone who has thrived from creating these types of fans includes the dubstep violinist, Lindsey Stirling. As of 2015 she has generated $6 million according to Forbes' list of the world's top-earning YouTube stars. She is even able to sell out her tours and albums without the help of a record label. While this is done on YouTube, she still regularly gives value to her followers, which is something you can apply on your website too.
These are just some ways to help generate more money from your website, but I hope you can see that there is so much more behind it then just a few quick tricks or listing your products online. It may seem like a bit of work initially but the pay off will be much greater in the long run.
Related: 3 Steps to Get Prospects Coming Back to Your Website
