How to Make Money Online from a New Website?

It’s a fact of life that plenty of online businesses have good ideas and good people, yet many still fail in their first few years. The number one reason why new businesses fail? Lack of capital i.e. lack of cash flow. Therefore, it’s wise before starting any online business venture to forecast when the money and time you invest will actually start paying off. I wish there were a simple one sentence answer to this question but the answer really depends on your particular method of getting people to your site.

At the end of the day there is only one way to start making money from any website and that is to generate visitors. There are plenty of wonderful looking websites on the internet, who’s owners have invested thousands in a slick design. They own a cool looking website, but because the owner and their website designer knows very little about how to get people to visit their website, there hard work and investment is wasted because without targeted traffic they wouldn’t make any money online from their website! Fortunately, there are plenty of articles and resources on the internet which can teach you how to generate traffic or you can employ an SEO consultant or internet marketing expert to help you turn your “cool” website into a hot, traffic generating, internet money making machine!

There are several ways to get visitors to find your site and each of the ways that we discuss will hopefully result in helping you to make money online, how, the conversion rates for each vary quite considerably. Some of the methods are quicker than others, some are free and some are not.

Let’s go through three of the most common ways people generate traffic to their site and assuming that you have Google Adsense, your affiliate marketing or shopping cart set up properly, see how fast the money can start rolling in with each method.

1. Pay Per Click Advertising

Without a doubt the fastest way to get visitors to your website is through Pay Per Click Advertising. The most popular of these programs is the Google Adwords program. Here you can set up an account, write a short ad and your message can be online in a matter of minutes. Visitors can be on your site seconds later and you can start to earn money instantly.

Of course, while this method is fast it’s also a lot more complicated than it seems as first. Google has recently raised the minimum amounts you must pay every time someone clicks on your ad for just about every kind of business. This happened in 2006 and it was known as the infamous “Google Slap”. If you try to open an account with no prior knowledge of the Adwords program Google will often ask for as much as five dollars for each visitor it sends to your site before your ad can even be activated. It’s hard to imagine how pay per click can be profitable under these conditions. Let’s say you get 100 clicks at that price and 3 out of 100 people who visit your site buy your 30 dollar ebook (a good percentage of buyers) you would have a net loss of $410 ($500 spent + $90 made=$410). Doesn’t sound like the best business model, now does it?

On the other hand let’s say each visitor to your site costs you only 10 cents. Then you would have spent $10 and made $90, leading to a net profit of $80. Now that sounds exciting, doesn’t it?
So we see clearly how important the cost of these clicks is. How can you get cheap clicks like this? It will take some work and some learning the tricks of the trade to get those click costs down to the most profitable levels. There are plenty of articles online, books on Amazon, or you can employ a Google Professional PPC expert to set up and manage your campaign for you.

So while PPC marketing is probably the fastest way to get the ball rolling, you must first put in some time to learn the program as it can be very unfriendly to the uninitiated. Learning the system until the point of mastery could take a few weeks, so this remains a relatively fast way to get answering the question “how to make money online from a new website?”

2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search engine optimization is a method to increase search engine traffic to your site. On average it takes longer for you to see the results of your work, but is less risky and far more profitable because each click is free unlike PPC advertising. The SEO process involves configuring your site in a way that the search engines will be likely to give you a high ranking when people type in words and phrases (“keywords”) relevant to your site. It also involves a process of building links from other people’s sites to your own. Here again there is a lot of specialist knowledge required before you will know how to do this yourself, however, in the short term, you can always employ a SEO company.

In general, the search engines don’t give priority to brand new sites so it can take anywhere for a month to 5 months for search engines to list your website and really start rewarding you for your efforts with good rankings. The benefits of this strategy, however, are great and can be highly profitable. All the traffic you receive from website optimisation will come from the Organic or Natural Search Listings which means you pay nothing every time someone clicks on your site. It also appears from research that people seem to give more credence to a website that shows up high in the Natural Search listings rather than the Sponsored Links and this may well boost the credibility of your site and increase sales.

A properly executed ethical SEO campaign can generate loads of free traffic and higher sales conversions. But this doesn’t happen overnight and is an on going process because search engines frequently update their algorithms which can result in a shift in positioning if not managed effectively.

3. Joint Ventures (JVs)

Another strategy for gaining traffic to your site which is my personal favourite because it can work very quickly, there is little risk and there is normally no financial outlay at the outset. I’m referring to Joint Ventures (JVs). Here’s how they work. A joint venture is a limited profit sharing partnership between two business owners.

For this method to work you’ll need to have your own product and you’ll need to learn how to set up your own internet affiliate marketing program. This will allow other people to promote your products and earn a commission when they make a sale. An affiliate program will give each affiliate (promoter of your site) a unique link that they will use to make sure they get credit for the sale they’ve made.

Now all you need to do is find other business owners and websites that are relevant to your own and get in touch with them i.e. businesses in the same or similar niche. You will need to explain to them that you have a product that will be of interest to their website visitors and if they are willing to promote it to their customer base via e-mail and on their website then you are happy to work on a venue share basis. Searching with your keywords through Google’s Sponsored Search and Ezinearticles.com are good places to find such future joint venture partners.

Note: Also make sure that you are finding a business whose product is related but doesn’t directly conflict with the product you create. For instance, if they are selling baby bottles don’t try to convince them to sell your baby bottles as an affiliate, there’s no reason for them to do it. But they might be interested in selling your baby blankets as is nicely compliments what they are already selling.

The beauty of joint ventures is that these business owners already may have sizeable lists of buyers or a steady stream of traffic on their website. Their web visitors are likely to trust the recommendations of the website owner. The website owner for his part is always looking for another way to generate additional venue streams from their customers and the commission they earn for each sale of your product will fulfill this need. You both make money on the deal and it is hopefully the start of a match made in internet marketing heaven.

A properly executed joint venture can provide a boost of income within days and is a low cost and low risk strategy all at the same time. It won’t be as easy as it sounds and you should expect some negative responses, but don’t be disheartened. Look around for a few more tips on the internet about how best to acquire JVs and keep all the parties happy with the arrangement.). When you succeed in landing a few JVs you’ll be rewarded with a quick profit boost which you can then reinvest in PPC marketing and SEO marketing yourself or employ an SEO specialist. Those methods can provide more steady streams of income for you over the short, medium and long term. This way you’ve planned for your immediate needs and for the distant future.