How to monetize your website

Website monetization is a key area to ensure that you have enough money to carry on running your website in terms of domain and hosting fees. Of course, you'll be wanting as much money as possible, so the more methods you use to bring in a recurring revenue, the better.

This hub is going to look at the various ways in which you can monetize your site to bring in money every day to help you with your every day running costs.

As you're reading this just now, you've probably noticed that there's adverts appearing on the side and at the top of the Hubs. Adsense is the first step in monetizing your site and it's extremely easy to utilise. Normally, you'll have your website already up and running and then apply for Adsense. Then, once you're approved you can select a wealth of banners to place onto your site. Every time that someone clicks on one of the adverts, you'll instantly get money for it.

The great thing about Adsense is that you can place these ads on various websites, including HubPages and also YouTube. By using this simple and free method to place adverts on your content, you can ideally earn a recurring revenue.

PayPal used to allow people to add donation buttons to their website to ultimately earn money from it. However, because of recent policy changes on PayPal, when you search for 'donation button on PayPal', you're taken to the business instead of personal part of the website.

However, you do not need a business account to make money through PayPal, and can still set up a donation button with a personal account.Simply go to your profile settings, and there will be an option to create a new button. After this, you can set up the details of this button (i.e. selecting donation) and you'll then be given the option to copy and paste the HTML code, or simple select the link to the page (that you can then hyperlink into your text). An example of the link appearing in your text can be found here.

A point to note though is that once you hit $10,000 in donations, if you are not verified as a not for profit organisation, then you'll need to show how the donations will be used. Of course, you don't need to worry about this until you reach $10,000. There is however a third option to raise money through donations as will be discussed below.

PitchInBox is a great new website that allows you create a donation widget and place it on your website in the form of HTML (although you can also copy and paste the link to your donation page to your friends etc). The thing with PitchInBox is that every time a donation is made to you, it's sent directly to your PayPal account. This also bypasses the $10,000 donation limit on PayPal and you can get as much money as possible without it being a worry.

It's extremely easy to set up and make a widget with PitchInBox and it's free to use as well. My PitchInBox link can be seen here.

You can even add your link to your channel page on YouTube to help pay for the production costs of making new videos, as well as placing your link on HubPages to help bring in some additional revenue. If you use Fiverr and have a gig that usually over delivers then you can even ask your buyers for a small donation. This may sound cheeky, but if the work you have delivered is worth more than $5, then they'll be glad to add to your donation fund.

I hope you've enjoyed this Hub and it's helped you to earn money from your website in various ways. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them in the comments section below.