Website Monetization

The dividing line between a commercial and a non-commercial website is always very thin. Designing a business website is an investment like any other done by a company but many companies have not been viewing them in that perspective. You can design a beautiful website for your company but fail to make money out of it. Website monetization is an important but mostly neglected part of website development because companies fail to have clear objectives before they embark on the process of designing their website. Information Technology (IT) has grown to gigantic proportions over a short period of time and in the process they caught up with many companies and in a bid to re-establish their former market command, companies have tried to design websites without prior plans and as a result many companies have websites that they don't use at all. Website monetization is a possible approach that these companies can use to generate extra revenue. Companies can either generate revenue through direct sales of their products, placing advertisements on their websites or through affiliate programs.
Website Monetization through Direct Sales
Companies can sell their products through their websites by creating an online sales platform. Such a platform requires a database with all products and services that the company has in stock, their up- to- date prices and any other necessary product details. The company will also need to create an online shopping cart that will enable the online clients select and buy many products at a time. To complete their sales, the company may have to integrate the shopping cart with an online money gateway that will transact through either paypal, credit card, moneybookers, payooner or any other acceptable online payment method. For safety reasons and also to smoother online transactions it would be important to engage a third party payment processor such as plimus, swreg, etc. Delivery of the products you sell online can be organized either through the third party payment processors or the delivery can be arranged between you and your buyers.
Website Monetization through Advertisement Placement
Many website owners rarely use their websites as an advertising platform for other marketers. There are many forms of advertisements that can be used to generate revenue for a company; the most prominent amongst these methods is Google adse. Google uses its online dominance to advertise for other companies, but to sufficiently cover all the advertisements they receive everyday they subcontract other website owners who on agreement places advertisement banners on their websites. Google in turn pays the website owners on per click and per impression methods. If a website owner opts not to use Google adse, they can place other adverts on behalf of other companies that will want to advertise on their website. Direct adverts are often preferred to Google adse because the website admin can select which adverts to include on their websites which is always the case when Google adse are used. Another alternative that a company can use to generate revenue through their website is use affiliate programs. Through the programs, the company earns a percentage of the money a customer spends if the customer directly emanated from the company's website. Whichever methods you prefer just remember that your company website should not be a liability and if you are not generating any revenue from it, website monetization should be your next move.