Many ways to make money online.

A lot of who are have own blogs or sites are dreaming about how to realise the commercial potential of their sites. There are actually dozens of ways of making money from a good content website.

Some people have strong individual sensations with respect to making money from their blogs. If you think commercialising your blog is harmful, then don't do it. If you have mixed feelings about monetizing your blog, then sort out those feelings first.  Here are a lot of ways that I have come across.

Advertising

• Text Ads – short text ads automatically displayed on a page based on the context of the content.
• Display Ads – Banner and button ads displayed at the top or to the side of content
• Video Ads – Short video ads embedded into a page. They can be auto-play (annoying!) or be clicked to play.
• In-Content Ads – Ads that are linked to keywords within articles.
• Classifieds – User submitted classified ads. Craigslist is the gorilla, but lots of content websites have niche classifieds.
• Jobs Board – Paid job listings.
• Pre-roll/post-roll video ads – Short ads at the beginning and end of video clips. Being trialled by YouTube.
• Paid Reviews – charge companies or individuals to review their book, product or service.
• Pay Per Post – offer to write posts mentioning a product, company or service for a fee. Can be unethical if commercial interest not declared.
• Advertorial – Allow customers to publish their own articles promoting their products or services for a fee. Make sure you clearly mark articles as advertorial to maintain your independence and integrity
• Sponsorship – Charge for sponsorship for all or part of your website. Usually fixed price agreements for a fixed period of time
• Directory Listings – create a directory and charge suppliers to be listed, or list every supplier and charge for an enhanced listing.

Affiliate Marketing

• Commissions for Actions – you get paid every time an action is completed e.g. email newsletter sign up, trial sign-up, survey completed, etc. For example you can get paid a commission every time a free copy of the Firefox browser is downloaded.
• Commissions for Sales – you get paid a fixed commission or percentage share of sales value.
• Lead Generation – generate leads on the website and sell them to prospects.
• Commission For Events Promotion – promote events in your industry in exchange for a commission on ticket sales. Approach any event organiser.

E-Commerce

• Digital Product Sales – sell products that can be downloaded over the internet. They can include ebooks, research, software, reports, music, video clips, etc
• Physical Product Sales – stock, sell and ship your own products.
• Dropship Sales – sell products that are stocked and shipped by the manufacturer or wholesaler
• Pay Per View – sell one-off access to service
• Pay Per Article – sell one-off articles. Example on the RSC Journal website
• Auction Sales – auction products or services from your site
• Marketplace – match buyers and sellers and facilitate payment.
• Merchandise – If you have a popular site with a loyal audience you can sell branded merchandise.
• Photo and Video Sales - you can sell images and videos direct from your site or through specialized  services.

Subscription

• Paid Membership Access to Premium Content – subscription for month, quarter or year to get access to member-only content and resources
• Premium Membership to Upgrade Free Services – provide an enhanced service to paid members. Can be on a forum, information website, social network, etc.
• Subscription to a Webservice – enable people to subscribe to a service.
• Subscription to an Online Course – enable people to subscribe to an online course with modules being delivered every week.
• Subscription to Archive Material - After a fixed time period archive content, then sell subscriptions to this archived data.
• Subscription to a Podcast – Create a regular high quality podcast and sell it for a monthly subscription.

Participation /Events

• Webinars – promote and sell webinars
• Seminars/Workshops – promote and sell offline seminars and workshops
• Mentoring – promote and sell mentoring which can be delivered over the internet, phone or face-to-face
• Consultancy – promote and sell consultancy services
• Franchise – turn products or services into a franchise opportunity and sell franchise via your site
• Reseller – Create products that can be re-sold. They can be sold with your branding or you can allow resellers to rebrand.

If you know a method that is not listed below, put in a comment below. Tell us your experience about these opportunities. It's would be very interesting for everybody to learn about making money online.