How to Make Money with Your Website as a Small Business
Catherine Woodcock • May 25, 2021
Earn Money with your website
We all like money and with websites costing you on-going fees, it's a good idea to strategize how to outweigh those costs with revenue streams. There are a bunch of different ways you can use your website to earn revenue outside of selling your normal services. The main ones are:
- Google Ads
- Affiliate Links
- Selling Consultations
- Selling Products through and E-Commerce Store
E-commerce Store
An e-commerce store is going to be the most direct way to sell products you have in bulk quantity or that have a high enough price tag to make listing, product management, and shipping and handling, worth it. Remember, your time is worth money so consider the cost/benefit of listing various products.
Through the Duda platform we use to build super fast, mobile friendly, and secure websites, you'll have the option to optimize your store for Google. This will enable your products to be found more readily in search. We can take that off of your plate completely and optimize your store SEO with our SEO Packages.
Looking into how to sell products online? An E-commerce store is the perfect solution to get you earning revenue through your website. And if you're a service business who doesn't have a physical product to sell or ship, adding consistent Call-to-Action's throughout your site can help you get more leads and customers. Some examples of Call-to Action's you could use would be:
- Call Now
- Book an Appointment
- Get Started
- Free Estimate
Here's how we are using call-to-action's on our website:
You can make these action steps extremely streamlined with buttons that click to call you, a booking calendar embedded on your site that's synced with your calendar to get bookings when you're available, or contact forms to gather customer information so you can easily follow-up. These are technical features we can help you decide on in a website on-boarding call if you're looking to redesign your website, or update your existing Oostas website!
Consultations or Bookings
Rather than an e-commerce store where a physical product must be sold, service based businesses like massage therapists, financial coaches, doctors, plumbers, or educators can benefit from offering paid appointments on their website. You will have the ability set up a calendar within your business, set time blocks for openings to have calls booked, cancellation and rescheduling terms, and more.
We offer free consultations through a booking form on our website as way to connect with potential customers and allow them the flexibility to book a time that works for them, sit back and have us call THEM to answer questions.
You can set an hourly fee and have customers book and pay right through your website. New features online enable clients to get your phone number, zoom link, or other method of meeting together sent to them in a confirmation email so it's all set-up right after they fill out and pay. You'll get the money straight to your bank account and attend the call! This makes both tracking appointments, and getting new business, extremely easy and looks very professional.
Affiliate links
If you have a blog or resources page on your website, your next step should be to set-up an affiliate program with big companies like Amazon. Sometimes you find an amazing product that you don't sell yourself, but want to recommend to your audience. There's a way you can use this to your advantage and get a kickback when someone purchases the item. Amazon pays up to 10% of a sale to affiliates. Overtime with more visitors coming to your website, reading your content and clicking to view the items you recommend (and hopefully purchase it) you can earn steady, passive income on every sale you help Amazon make.
Lots of other programs and websites offer referral programs where you can generate a trackable link showing you referred someone via your website. For example, at Oostas, we give our clients $50 if they refer a client to us as a "thank you". This is a great way to thank our happy clients for spreading the word and that's the same thing these affiliate links do, just in a larger scale way! Look for strategic partnerships and get a nice kickback in return with Affiliate links!
Advertisements
A more common known way to earn revenue on your site is to designate ad space along the sides or sections of your website for advertising companies to run targeted ads. Think of it like a billboard on your website. You're essentially selling real estate of your site to ad companies and get a bit of revenue each month as a result. While this is appealing to many small businesses, it's not something we recommend, mostly because it detracts from the user experience, can clash with your branding and can lead to people clicking away from your website without actually contacting you or buying YOUR products. It can almost conflict with your goals for your site.
Your website has potential
Your website can make you money in so many ways outside of just getting you customers. So if you're interested in building any of these strategies into a new website, book a consultation and let's talk about it!
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