With millions of blogs and websites present on the internet, it comes as no surprise that a growing number of them have sought to take advantage of the booming trends in e-commerce in order to earn a bit of revenue. After all, many bloggers and webmasters spend dozens of hours creating quality content, optimizing their pages for search and reaching out to followers via email and social media: why shouldn’t they strive to be compensated? Many people do not know where to begin when it comes to revenue streams, however, but there are a number of options to consider. Below, we will outline four different and common ways to monetize your website or blog for future prosperity and sustainability.

Affiliate Marketing

Perhaps the most common form of revenue generation for a website or blog, affiliate marketing can be used to generate passive income from relevant products and services. If you are pinging URLs on social media from your blog, for instance, then it only make sense that said post have a referral link to a product or service mentioned in the blog post. The more intelligently this is incorporated, the better your chances are for revenue generation; nobody wants to see five different links on the same page to the same product, so be sure to use your affiliate links sparingly amidst quality content.

Contextual Marketing

Commonly known through programs such as AdSense and Chitika, contextual marketing allows you to incorporate relevant ads and links to other companies’ products and services without the need for product reviews or consistently new content. This form of advertising is best used in conjunction with other methods, as search engines tend to frown upon sites that are heavily laden with contextual marketing approaches. Advertisements are displayed in boxes, widgets and modules independently, so it is easier to incorporate these into any site’s layout. Many websites have found steady streams of revenue from contextual marketing, so it is definitely another venue that should be considered.

Subscription Services

If your website has already been up and running for some time and you produce consistent amounts of in-demand content, then you may wish to consider configuring your website to handle subscription services as another way to generate revenue. Is your content worth an extra fee for users? Do you provide unique and ground-breaking information to your readers? If so, then subscriptions may prove to be a valuable tactic. You can still offer as much free content as you wish, but a subscription service is another great way to increase your site’s efficiency when it comes to revenue earned versus hours worked.

Direct Commerce

Maybe you have products or services that you can offer users directly, but do not know where to begin. Direct commerce is a booming online business, and many of your readers would prefer to purchase items and services from a trusted, existing source than pinging URLs in search for a new alternative. There are several e-commerce solutions out there that can quickly be installed to platforms such as Drupal and WordPress and configured with merchant accounts to offer these solutions.