The Web Publishing Business Model

[Anne]

Not everyone wants to make money from their website. Some people are happy simply with having an online presence. Some find sharing information gratifying enough to be their sole purpose for creating web pages. If you are one of these people, then you may want to move on, as this one deals with making money from your website.

There is more than one business model on the internet, but here on SiteNursery.com, I want to focus on one of the most commonly used online business models - monetizing content websites. In this tutorials I'll be covering the very basics - the essence of the money making model.

Making Money from Content Websites

When you do this for a while, it seems self-explained, so any experienced web publishers reading this page may want to skip to another page. However, I do get asked this question time and time again: "How do you make money by making your own content websites?" I guess it's an important question then, for someone who is new to this.

The general idea is this: you produce alluring content and post it on the internet. Your content attracts visitors (surfers) to your pages. On your page, certain areas are then being used for advertising. You get paid by the advertiser to have their ad displayed to your visitors.

"Real" World Analogy

The closest analogy in the "real" world would be publishing a magazine. Imagine printing a magazine or booklet on the topic of your choice. You write the content, bind it up and then give it out for free. You make your magazine attractive enough for people to want to read it and then you promote it to actually gain a readership.

You then make your money by selling ad space on your magazine. The advertisers seek out your lucrative ad space and pay you to get their ad to the readers.

The very same principle works with content websites. You get the eyeballs (by providing quality content as well as promoting the site properly), and get paid for the advertising space.

The good news is that production costs for online publications are much lower than those of printed magazines. Practically anyone can become an online publisher! And this is what we're here for, to learn how to do just that.

So, Why Shouldn't I Charge for My Content?

In today's Internet, people don't pay for content.

Obviously, this is a general statement that has its exceptions. Some websites charge money for content and get it too. Some people are willing to pay for some types of content, but you would have to come up with very compelling and unique content to get them to pay.

More often than not, managing pay-for-content websites implies a larger investment in terms of site infrastructure, billing systems etc. I would not advise this to a beginner. Therefore, here at Site Nursery, I prefer to focus on the simple model of free content websites.