Let’s explore Adsense Alternatives For Small Websites. First, Adsense is one of the easiest ways to get started with monetizing your blog. Adsense is Google’s display ad network that pay publishers a fee when visitors to their website click on Adsense ads that the site is displaying. Google then pays it’s publishers the following month once their earnings have reached or surpassed the payout threshold of $100 for the month.
However not all blog and website owners are eligible to have Adsense ads on their sites, while other may have been banned by Google due to not following their rules or for circumventing their rules altogether. If you are not able to get monetized by Google Adsense do not worry as there are alternatives for monetizing your sites.
9 Adsense Alternatives For Small Websites
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- Affiliate Marketing – Affiliate Marketing is when a 3rd party company pays an individual a commission for assisting with a sale. One of the largest affiliate marketing programs on the internet is run by Amazon with there Amazon Associates Program (https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/).One example of how this works is a publisher will review or recommend a product to their visitors with outbound links that go directly to Amazon. When the visitors purchased the product from Amazon then the referrer or the publisher in this case will earn a commission from Amazon.Amazon’s affiliate site is easy to join and they accept publishers from around the world. Although their site is easy to join, many people find their commission structure to be low requiring hundreds of sales to make significant money.However referrers may earn commissions not only on products they recommend but also on other products their visitors purchase while on Amazon. Other popular sites that offer affiliate marketing programs which work in the same way as the Amazon program are Shareasale (https://www.shareasale.com/) and Commission Junction (https://www.cj.com/).
- Sponsored Posts and Reviews – Sponsored posts and reviews can earn publishers money in a couple of different ways. One way publishers can earn money is by either agreeing to let a 3rd party publisher place a piece of content on their site which links out to the 3rd party’s website or by writing the post on behalf of the 3rd party also linking to the 3rd party’s website.The publisher can either collect a flat fee upfront or collect a fee based on how many visitors visit the 3rd party’s website or a combination of both. Another way they can make money is with sponsored reviews of a specific product or website. Again the publisher can take a fee upfront for reviewing the product or site, or collect a commission when visitors purchase the reviewed product. Say for example the owner of a keyword software asks the publisher to review the product for their readers.The publisher can negotiate a commission structure where they receive a portion of the sale of the product or they can charge a set fee upfront and cut themselves out of any sales the product owner receives from the review. If you’re looking for websites that can help with your sponsored posts and reviews then a couple of sites you may want to look into include Cooperatize (https://www.cooperatize.com/) and Sponsored Reviews (https://www.sponsoredreviews.com/)
- Digital Products – Selling digital products is another Adsense alternative for small websites. Depending on the niche your website is in you can offer digital products for sale for your visitors.Selling digital products works in any niche and can be a very lucrative alternative to Adsense.You can offer niche specific products teaching people in your niche how to use products or services. The digital products can be in video or written form and include things such as online courses, e-books, videos and templates. If you are an expert in your niche there will always be people who are willing to pay for your expertise and knowledge. One of the roadblocks to setting up a digital product may be how to host your products for sale.The good news is that there are several websites which offer all of the tools you need to begin selling your digital products today. Sites such as Clickbank (Home – ClickBank), Gumroad (https://gumroad.com/) and Teachable https://teachable.com/ offer publishers all the tools they need to sell their digital products.
- Selling Physical Products – Selling physical products works is another way that small websites can monetize their sites without depending on Adsense revenue. Instead of acting as a middleman for Affiliate websites, why not start selling your own physical products? Physical products run the gamut from t-shirts, mugs, candles, planners, and other accessories.No matter what niche your site is in their will likely be a physical product associated with your site. If you can’t think of what type of products may be suitable for you to sell then you must do market research to see what people in your niche are buying. Sites such as Etsy (https://www.etsy.com/) sell thousands of products in different niches and they have built in visitors to their site as well.They sell everything on their site from fresh produce, to candles, to digital downloads, to t-shirts to bracelets, to earrings. The options are seemingly unlimited. You can use Etsy to host your physical product store and send visitors directly to your site. Other options for selling your physical products include Shopify (https://www.shopify.com/) and WooCommerce (https://www.woocommerce.com). Let’s say for example you have a niche website all about Apple products. You could purchase Apple accessories wholesale and resale them on your website. Items such as Apple Watch bands and iPhone cases are always huge sellers and you can use your blog to redirect visitors into buying accessories from you.
- Offering Memberships And/Or Premium Content – Although most blogs offer content for free, one method worth considering is offering freemium and premium content that users have to pay to access. You can get premium content to work by offering visitors excellent content for free on your site which will then lead them to advanced content that you have that is not available to the general public. In order to view the advanced content your users will have to pay a fee for it. This is similar to offering a digital product for sell, however with premium content users will generally stay on your site and only those users that have paid for that content will be able to view it.You can also offer this content via a membership that you offer on your website. You can have a membership where each month you add more content for your users. As long as the user remains a member they’ll keep receiving new content. Or you may have a membership site that users can access with a one-time fee and all the content is available at once. These sorts of sites can work well with most niches that offer information.
- Sponsored Ads and Banners – Instead of using Google’s Adsense platform many publishers choose to instead sell their own display ads to other advertisers looking to get more traffic to their sites and products. Advertisers will be interested in placing ads on your site once you have proven that you have visitors to your site and you can sustain these visitors and they are real people and not bots. You can choose to setup your own ad exchange or you can work with sites that have established ad exchanges that work directly with advertisers making the process hands off for you. Platforms such as BuySellAds (https://www.buysellads.com/) will let you join their ad exchange if your site has traffic and fits into one of the niches they sell advertising for. Advertisers pay a fee for a certain amount of impressions and BuySellAds will then pay you part of the fee they receive.
Diversifying your blog’s monetization is one of the best things you can do for the bottom line for your business. When you diversify your earnings methods you won’t have to worry about what will happen to your if you’re blocked from participating in one of the above mentioned methods. Diversifying may also be a way to increase your revenue as you will be using many different methods to bring money into your business. If ad revenue is slow one month maybe having someone pay you for a sponsored post can offset the loss in ad revenue. These methods can help you maximize your earning potential and deliver extra value to your readers.