How to make money to cover my expenses

[Leo]

Hello

Can anyone give me advice on how I can make some money from my sites, just enough to cover my own expenses.
I spend quite a lot on my website and I dont really want to have ads on it but it might be the only option.

Thank you for any replies

 

[imported_maxhest]

Hi Leo,
I put your thread here, better suited. But to anwser your question.
Get some advertisers, if its big enough, I am sure they would want to advertise, make it reasonable, and you will get even more people intrested! Those are a pretty good ideas, if you need more help contact me, I am here all the time.

 

[vpscolo]

Other choice is get a few friends who want to host small personal sites. Just get enough from them to cover the costs and off you go..

Rus

 

[Leo]

Hello Max,
Thank you for your reply

Is there any other options apart from advertising?

Thank you

 

[imported_HadleyHost]

Get advertisers as max said.

 

[Custmguru]

What kind of sites do your run? There are a ton of ways to make a profit on individual sites, but its difficult to give you ideas becasue we dont know what kind of sites they are.

1.) Advertising. Already been mentioned, but you can do more than banner ads to sell advertising. A simple 'This page sponsored by Thissite.com' text link at the top of the page can get 30-40 bucks a month on a busy site.

2.) Merchandise. Create and promote merchandise for the site. If you have loyal fans, they may want to wear your gear. Cafepress is a good start, but expect to only make a dollar per sale. If you have some money to invest get some basics printed and sell those yourself. T's, hoodies, and hats usually. If you do sign up on cafepress you can enter my ID ' westcoast ' and I'll get a referral.

3.) Subscribers. I operate a message board with 8200 registered members and we offer various levels of subscriptions. We offer 4 packages, the cheapest runs 1.50/mo or 15 per year and you get rights to an avatar, signature pictures, and access to a special subscriber forum. Next one gets all the level 1 plus access to a photo gallery. Level 3 gets all of 2 plus an @s-series.org email address for $5/mo or $50/yr. The ratio from registered members vs subscribers is horrendously low, but we do make a couple hundred a year off of that option. Not a lot but it helps to defray some out of pocket costs.

4.) Donations. Im not one for begging so I don't make use of this option. I would rather offer someone something in exchange for thier money, but if your visitors are loyal they may donate to help keep the site running. I've seen one site say they needed help and some donations and they had over 20 guests donate over $50 in about 2 weeks. There were a ton of people who donated total, and all in all I think he raised $7K in less than a month.

5.) 50/50 Raffle. This only really works on a site with several thousand unique visitors a week. Set up a paypal account, tell people you have 100 tickets to sell at $5 a piece, winner gets 50% of the proceeds. Its good because unlike a giving away a prize you're not worried about recouping the money you spent. Also anyone would like to get cash as opposed to some lame prize. Be wary of local laws (gambling and whatnot)

With any of these ideas, people need to be cautious of legalities and taxes. Cafepress reports your earnings to the feds. Make sure if they report your earnings you report it also. If they find a discrepancy they will make your life a living hell, so i wouldnt even risk it unless it was 100% untraceable.

These are just some ideas. There are a ton of ways to make money, and the more creative ones are usually the most successful. People will be more willing to spend thier money on something rare or odd than they would on someone who just throws up a paypal 'Please donate to my site' link.

 

[BlackStorm]

Hey Custmguru,
Welcome to HostingRefuge
That is an amazing first post!

I'm sure that will really help Leo. You put a lot of effort into that and it contains great information.
Great post

If you have a site with a high PR selling text links can really help bring in some money to help cover your expenses these days, a lot of people are after text links on sites with a high PR.

HR currently has a PR5 but I don't sell any text links.

If you don't really want to do advertising, text links might be a good option, they won't really annoy people and they can bring in just as much money now to be honest.

What about selling things through your site?
If your site has an affiliate programme available for the subject, you could make a little doing that.
Even selling things that are available in Amazon.
I don't think people make much from this though.

A few people here have actually asked me to do t-shirts etc. for the site but I think that because I live in Ireland getting them posted out here, then sending them off again, plus the cost of making them would end up that I lose out money.
I think if you are buying in bulk you could make profit from this.
I think there is a company near me which does commercial signs and advertising products and I have thought about calling in on the way past a few times to see if there is anything I could get for members here.
I don't think there would be a high demand for it and the things might cost a bit to have them made in such small quantities.

If you have a lot of unique visitors/members on your site this could be a good option.
I know some people have made good enough money from that, it would be better than selling advertising plus people are advertising your site, an added bonus

I would love to have merchandise for my site and if the demand was there, I would go for it. Not just for making money because I wouldn’t expect to make much from it myself but I think its good for loyal members.

Hope this helps a bit too,
John

PS. Nice site Custmguru, keep up the good work