SEO Expert :: How to Monetize Your Web Site

Article: How to Monetize Your Website
By Julie Friedman Bacchini

In today’s soft economy, it is important to make sure that your website is working as hard as possible to support your business. Ideally, you want your website to make money. Unfortunately, many businesses do not realize all the ways that they can monetize their website to their benefit:

Direct Online Transactions

The most obvious way to make money from your website is to enable online transactions. For instance:

Product Sales. Do you sell widgets? Don’t rely solely on your store or your sales force – promote your widgets online and allow people to purchase them directly.
Information Sales. Suppose you don’t have any widgets: you’re a consulting firm. Then sell your information! Develop white papers or ebooks that can be downloaded for a cost. As digital downloads, you won’t have any printing or distribution expenses: everything can be set up to happen automatically.
Online Donations. Are you a non-profit organization? Be sure to have an online donation option available! People want ease and convenience, and the web can provide exactly that.
Automatic Quotes. If your product is more complex, you may want to have an automatic quote generator developed. People requesting an automatic quote can pre-qualify themselves and provide your follow-up sales force with invaluable information to close the deal.

Support Internal Resources

But direct online transactions are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to monetizing your website. There are also a host of supporting functions your website can play that can make your business run more efficiently and thereby free your internal resources to spend their time more productively:

Product Information. Put product manuals online in PDF format and create FAQ sections that are detailed and user-friendly to cut down on technical assistance or customer service calls.
Account Information. Develop a secure area on your website where customers can manage their own account information.
Internal Information. Free up your HR staff by making forms and company information available on a secure intranet site.

Your website can have a significantly positive impact on your bottom line. All that is required is that you take the time to consider the full range of direct and supporting ways it can interact with your business model – and then put those solutions into practice.

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About the Author:

Julie Friedman Bacchini is President of Neptune Moon Design (www.NeptuneMoon.com), a full-service agency providing businesses and non-profit organizations with custom web designs, web site marketing plans, and strategic search engine optimization (SEO), all designed to build brand recognition, increase site traffic, and generate leads, clients, and revenue. Be sure to visit NeptuneMoon.com to read additional articles that will help you reach your business goals!