What's the Easiest Way to Make Money on Your Blog/Website?

Photo by John Schnobrich on Unsplash

The dream is to run a business where you make money in your sleep.

This idea of passive income is great, but there is still a lot of work to be done to get you there.

There is one area, however, that is a true “set it and forget it” style of income: website advertising.

If you’re not using an ad network — and your site gets a lot of traffic — you may be leaving a lot of money on the table.

Things have developed far beyond Google Adsense, and several premium ad networks genuinely let you make money while you sleep.

But how do you sort through them all? What are the requirements to be accepted by them? How much can you really earn?

This will be a quick run-through of four different ad networks and if they would work well for your blog/website.

Google Adsense

Let’s just start with the most basic/well-known online ad network. Google Adsense is the way to go if you’re just starting out.

There are no minimum traffic requirements and the setup process is simple.

When you sign up for Google Adsense, you’ll get a unique piece of code. If you are on WordPress, you simply go to the Widgets page and drag and drop the “Custom HTML” widget into that section.

Then, you just paste the code in. That’s all there is to it.

Ads will start appearing on your website, and you’ll make money for the impressions and clicks. The revenue is determined by CPM or “cost per mille.”

This is how much it costs the advertiser to place an ad on your site that gets 1000 impressions.

If the CPM is $5 and you get 1000 visits a month, it would cost them $5. If you get 384 visitors a month, it would cost them $1.92. If you get 81,042 visitors a month, it would cost them $405.21.

The more traffic you get, the more the advertiser pays, and the more you might earn.

The CPM differs from the RPM, which is how much you will actually earn — but we’ll get to that in a moment.

The good thing about Google Adsense is that it introduces how you can make money with your website.

You’re definitely not going to get rich using it, but if you’re just starting, it’s encouraging to see how you can earn money without having to do anything.

For these networks, revenue will depend on traffic, your region, and what type of site/business you run.

Google has a calculator that shows you how much you might earn depending on all these factors.

Certain topics such as finance will always draw better ad rates as it’s a more lucrative topic. Speaking of that, here are some niches that appeal most to advertisers.

• Fitness/weight loss
• Health
• Dating and relationships
• Pets
• Self-Improvement
• Wealth building and investing
• Beauty
• Gadgets and tech
• Personal finance
• Real estate

The Google calculator would have you believe you could make a lot if you — for example — work in North America, in the beauty/fitness space, with 50,000 page views a month.

This is, of course, the “potential” revenue. In reality, Google Adsense revenue isn’t the biggest — especially if your audience isn’t in North America.

We measure this in RPM, which is the “revenue per mille.” This how much you actually earn for every 1000 impressions.

People in the right situation can still do well on Adsense and be making around $10 per 1000 views.

But if you don’t get a lot of traffic — or aren’t in the right region — it will only earn a few dollars, or cents, each month.

It’s better than nothing, but if you are seeing a good amount of monthly visitors, you want to move on to a more premium ad network. This is where the CPM/RPM rates can get much higher.

But as mentioned, Google Adsense is a great place to get your feet wet with making advertising money on your site.

Ezoic

Ezoic will be the next step up from Google Adsense. This time, there is a minimum amount of page views you need to be accepted into the program.

As of right now, you need at least 10,000 page views a month.

There is an endless amount of website data you receive. This gives you insights into every aspect of what visitors are doing on your site.

Ezoic also uses AI to learn what visitors are doing on your site and then puts ads in the best place possible.

You can also set it so it’s more user-friendly and visitors will see fewer ads.

With these types of networks, you’re getting higher-end advertising on your website. This can help make your site look more professional.

If you’re not quite at 10,000 views, you can still apply and Ezoic will have a look and see how your site — and topic — stacks up for required content.

Ezoic’s version of RPM is called EPMV: earnings per mille (thousand) views. Many factors play into this (site topic, time of year, etc), but many have in the $12–14 range.

There are many on the platform with much higher EPMV.

The setup process is also easy and they guide you through everything. They also work with Google and are a certified publishing partner.

Mediavine

Mediavine takes things to the next level. This is another Google-certified publishing partner. With Mediavine, you need at least 50,000 pageviews a month to qualify.

They are looking for high-quality websites as they work with high-end advertisers. Mediavine is interesting because they actually look at sessions more than pageviews.

They say this is because it gives them a better indicator of how visitors are interacting with your site.

This makes it tougher to get in, but you’re looking at some of the best CPMs out there if you do.

They look at the revenue potential of your site to help determine it. CPMs of $30-$50 are not uncommon on Mediavine.

The CPMs get high because they have a more in-depth relationship with the advertisers who are looking to get in front of the best possible customers.

They have top-level customer support, help you get set up, and manage things along the way.

If you are at this level — and have a great engagement with your visitors — Mediavine will be the perfect ad network.

AdThrive

When you’re involved with these top-tier networks, ads become much less obtrusive on your website.

Google Adsense can be known to include too many, and smaller networks may stuff your site full of them.

AdThrive is another high-end boutique ad management service provider. They deal with some of the best advertisers out there.

The ads will also be seamless throughout your website and not ruin the UX.

With AdThrive, you get a real hands-on approach and find the best layouts and advertisers for your particular website/business.

They take care of everything on the ad side, while you focus on the content.

This intimate involvement also makes it tougher to get in. AdThrive only takes 15–20% of applicants.

They work with Google and you need to have Google Analytics set up on your site. From there, you need at least 100,000 page views a month.

You also need to have most of your traffic coming from the countries their advertisers are from: the US, Canada, Australia, the UK, and New Zealand.

However, if you’re at the level to be accepted by AdThrive, you’ll probably be making a pretty decent income off your website.

They also guarantee that they’ll raise your RPM by 20% compared to your last network. The RPM can be around that $30 mark.

If your website is getting over 100,000 views, a month — you can see how much earning potential there is on a network like this.

AdThrive is the upper echelon of ad networks and they are looking for the best sites on the web.

Final Thoughts

It’s really hard to talk absolutes with website advertising revenue. There are just too many variables that can determine how much your site can earn.

If you look around on YouTube, and Reddit, you can find that many people are averaging around $24 CPM, no matter which network they are on.

The key takeaway here is that if you’re just getting started with advertising on your website: try out Google Adsense. If things are growing, go with Ezoic.

Many people have happily stayed with them despite having enough traffic to move to the high-end networks.

But if you’re getting into big-time traffic, AdThrive and Mediavine may really help take your income to the next level.

You may be hesitant to put ads on your website. However, most people are so used to ads everywhere they go online that they don’t really notice them anymore.

It almost looks weird if your site doesn’t have ads.

I don’t think anyone is all that surprised to see a website ad, so you may as well take advantage of it.

If you’re getting a ton of traffic, try out a few different networks and see which works best for you.

There’s no rule that you have to always stay on just one.

If you’re just getting started online with a new blog, or startup website: don’t worry about advertising yet.

Focus on building your business, niche, audience, and creating the best content possible. When things start to grow, you can look into advertising.

There are many ad networks out there, but hopefully, this gives you a bit of insight if you’re looking to get started with one.

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