Whether you started your website as a fun hobby or a way to support an exciting business venture, monetization may be on your mind more now than ever. Times are tough, and everyone’s looking for more ways to put money in their pocket.
Luckily, your website is a goldmine of cash. With the right monetization methods, you can convert visitors into revenue.
Now, while money alone is a pretty powerful motivator for most people, it’s what this money allows you to do that really counts. Here are a few reasons why you might want to monetize your website:
1. You Need to Offset the Cost of Your Website
While you can find free options, most websites cost money to run. Between your preferred domain name, graphic design, and functionality, you could easily spend thousands of dollars to keep it up!
That’s a lot of money to invest if your website is a pleasure project. Monetizing it can help you cover the cost, and it may even cover your time and the effort you pour into your hobby if you’re really successful.
Meanwhile, for professional websites, monetization can help you shave off crucial dollars from your budget that you can reinvest in other parts of your business.
2. You Want Supplemental Income
Monetizing your website can add some extra spending money into your budget, or it could help you rebuild your emergency savings.
Which one you choose depends on your financial situation, so take some time around the new year to review your finances. The new year is the perfect time to look back and reflect on your ups and downs. And in a year like 2020, your downs may have outnumbered your ups by a mile.
Maybe you struggled to adapt quickly to the challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic, sales dropped off during the lockdown, or you had to close a brick-and-mortar location.
Or perhaps, all your bad luck materialized in your personal life as one major appliance broke down after the other. Without savings, you can do some research on potential options to borrow cash quickly online. One option may be to use an installment loan to cover these unexpected emergency repair bills, but these online installment loans aren’t a long-term solution to future emergencies.
Monetizing your website can help you recover from the year’s bad luck and prepare for any other emergencies in the future.
3. You’re Ready to Build a Business
It takes a lot of hard work to grow a website, but with proven methods and determination on your side, you’ll eventually build up an audience. You can keep doing what you’re doing as your following grows, but it would make a lot more sense to monetize your labor of love from a financial point of view.
You could transition this hobby into a full-time job, supporting your family with the money your website generates each month. It can be a great career move for people who want to be their own bosses and work from home. You can escape the 9 to 5 grind to work on a schedule that fits your lifestyle.
You also won’t be chained to one location. That means you can set up shop from anywhere in the world as a digital nomad. The office can even be on the beach as long as you have Wi-Fi.
Bottom Line
When you’re already running a website, it makes sense to monetize it. Although it may take some time and effort to hit your stride, anyone can do it with the right plan in place.
Take some time to research to see how many visitors you have and determine which methods would work best for your audience. There are hundreds of ways to monetize, so don’t settle for something until you love it.
