Making money online is not a get-rich-quick-scheme. Yes, it’s possible to create a WordPress website in less than two hours. However, making money from a website is a whole other ball game.

Fortunately, WordPress offers you all the tools and plugins you’ll need to get that cash-flow going. Many of these premium tools are also free and available to everyone.

Now, let’s take you through some of our top recommendations on how you can monetise your WordPress website.

5 Ways to Monetise Your WordPress Site

1.Affiliate Marketing

Ah yes, you must have seen this one coming.

Affiliate marketing works on a commission basis. You simply encourage people to buy a specific product or service by linking to it from your website. In return, the owner pays you a little something for every click or purchase made.

This has got to be the most popular way of making money online.

Isn’t it crowded? Yes, but there’s a way you can outsmart the masses.

See, affiliate marketing is more than just creating a website and flooding it with links. You’ll need to have a niche – preferably a niche you’re interested in. You then provide your audience with the best content there is.

Once you have them hooked on the good stuff, you can slide in a link to a product or service you’d recommend.

There are tons of stores with affiliate programs such as Amazon – just look for their “make money with us” program.

Before you get started, ask yourself, “What product or service would my visitors benefit from?”

Many WordPress plugins can help you automatically add, track, and shorten your marketing links.

2. Selling E-books

Tell me, when was the last time you picked up a hard-cover book? E-books are more popular than ever before and a great way to make some money as a WordPress website owner.

No, it doesn’t have to be a 10,000-word e-book – just keep it short and engaging. In fact, you don’t have to write a new one. Just condense your blog posts and articles into one spicy e-book.

Trust me, you can create an e-book on just about any niche but it must be something your visitors love reading about.

E-books can also benefit your business in other ways, including:

  • Lead generation. Offering your visitors a free education e-book in exchange for the name and email address will allow you to gradually generate new leads for your business.
  • Generate sales. By adding in a call to action or a few links to your e-book, you can encourage visitors who are already interested in what you have to offer to actually make a purchase. You could even install an e-book library on your site using one of several WordPress plugins.

3. Start a Podcast

Sure, blogs and articles are cool, but it’s hard to write about a topic that already has hundreds of similar posts online. Plus, SEO is tough, especially for new blogs and websites.

Podcasting is a big trend at the moment. How else would you explain the success Audible has attained over the years?

Start a Podcast and talk about something your visitors would love to hear as they drive to work in the morning. You can talk about trends, tips, hacks, news, and so much more.

You don’t need as much to start a Podcast compared to a YouTube channel:

  • Microphone
  • Headphones
  • Audio editing software
  • Of course, juicy content

4. Ads and Sponsorships

If you’re a beginner, Google Ads is a great idea. Just link your website to Google, add the necessary code to your website and you can start making money from ads. You’ll get paid every time a visitor clicks on an ad on your site.

Google Ads might be a good idea, but it’s not where most of the money is.

Once you are generating a decent amount of traffic every month, you can also start offering sponsorships. In fact, sponsorships are better than Google Ads because you have more control of what is being advertised.

Another route is to sell advertising space directly to other brands who want to target your audience.

Here’s a quick idea for attracting advertisers to your site.

Create an infographic with detailed information about your website including:

  • Your average monthly traffic
  • Number of social media followers
  • All the necessary demographics on your visitors such as age, gender, and geographical location.

Once you’re ready, you can start approaching companies about advertising and sponsorship opportunities.

5. Create a Question-and-answer community

It’s okay to dream big like Quora, but I’d advise you to come up with a niche-specific community instead. Something like a “Q&A for Digital Marketers”. You need to target a specific audience for better results. You can even build a community around your brand.

To get started, you’ll need to have a steady amount of visitors including your email and newsletter subscribers.

To start them off, post a blog, video, or podcast that will spark a discussion.

Now, all you’ve got to do is keep the fire burning. Sounds easy, right? Actually, it’s not.

What about the income?

User-generated content – this is the best type of website content there is.

Research shows that visitors find reviews written by fellow buyers more trustworthy compared to content generated by companies. Therefore, you can go ahead and monetise their content by adding affiliate links.

In addition to that, advertisers are more willing to accept sponsorship deals from community-based websites and blogs.

The Bottom Line

Making money online is not an overnight affair. Traffic is a big deal as far as your website’s success is concerned. In addition to that, regular traffic takes time to build.

So, how do you get started?

  1. This article was a good place to start
  2. Create a self-hosted WordPress website and start creating exceptional content. Think oHuffPost, Gizmodo, and TechCrunch. Pretty successful, right? They all started with one visitor/subscriber/user
  3. Be consistent and rely on your Google Analytics stats to keep track of what’s working

Good Luck!