Earning money on a web site

September 30, 2007 7:49 PM

How can I make money from a web site besides ads? I don't really want to sell email addresses to spammers.

I am developing a free web site for a niche real estate market, and I was wondering if I can make money in any way besides ads and spamming.

posted by zorro astor to Computers & Internet (15 answers total)

subscriptions?
posted by lucasks at 8:02 PM on September 30, 2007

Charging advertisers a fee/commission?

It's hard to answer without some details of the nature of the site.
posted by dg at 8:14 PM on September 30, 2007

I make a decent income from ebooks I wrote. But I also provide a lot of free information on the site.
posted by acoutu at 8:17 PM on September 30, 2007

Response by poster: it's a site where people place advertisements for their mobile homes for free.
posted by zorro astor at 8:23 PM on September 30, 2007

Charge to advertise mobile homes, charge to look at the ads, do both. go for unobtrusive ads. Don't sell email addresses. I hate it when people do that.
posted by Autarky at 8:31 PM on September 30, 2007

You could always charge people a $5 membership, but I really couldn't see that working out.
posted by B(oYo)BIES at 8:41 PM on September 30, 2007 [4 favorites]

Offer premium-level listings (which get listed first on searches or confer other benefits)?

Work something out with related service providers? (say, discounts on some form of brokerage or some form of arbitrage amongst sellers and buyers? )
posted by Orb2069 at 8:42 PM on September 30, 2007

You could set up your own opt-in marketing email, promoting the latest additions to your site, and then you could sell ads inside that email. The advertisers still get exposure on your list, but you don't actually sell the list. You could also sell advertisers a "dedicated email," i.e. they create the whole-email ad and give it to you, and you send it out to the list as a sort of 'and now a special message from our sponsor' kind of thing. So they get to advertise to your list, but they never actually get their hands on those people's email addresses.

Also:

RSS feed advertising
subscription wall (but it didn't work for the NY Times, so...)
semi-permeable membership wall (like MetaFilter)
affiliate marketing (if someone makes a deal based on the info you provide, you get a cut)
posted by bingo at 8:46 PM on September 30, 2007

Donations are always a possibility, but may not get you much money
posted by lockle at 9:17 PM on September 30, 2007

Contact dealers to see if they want to place paid for sponsorships. Or Mechanics. Mobile internet. Groups that sell tchockes that are meant for Mobile homes (Flaps, bumper stickers, electric stoves.)

What you have is a niche: and ads are still your best bet: but targeted sponsorships are just ads under a different name.
posted by filmgeek at 9:33 PM on September 30, 2007

It's not easy making money off of websites. You have to have something really unique to make worthwhile cash.

That said, there are more "active" ways to do it: for example, maybe you can do some sort of connection service, where you connect real estate agents with buyers/sellers/people who need advice; then, you charge the agent for each successful connection?

The internet is highly interactive, and usually something of value needs to be exchanged somewhere to make money.
posted by spiderskull at 11:13 PM on September 30, 2007

Commissions on the sale of the mobile homes a la a real estate agent?
posted by mwachs at 11:58 PM on September 30, 2007

Your main options are ..
- Adverts / Sponsorship
- Donations
- Subscriptions
- commissions
- Site related mechandise

Some people make money from their website by providing ancillary chargeable services. So, you'd basically use the website to promote something that you do and get paid for. It's a bit like advertising, but looser. JoelOnSoftware.Com is a good example of this.

The final option is to plan on your site being bought out by someone else (Google) and designing / monetising accordingly. Twitter seems to be in this category.
posted by seanyboy at 1:51 AM on October 1, 2007

Charge for ads with special placement ala Google's sponsored links.
posted by beerbajay at 1:52 AM on October 1, 2007

Piking up on the 'affiliate' idea of bingo and spiderskull - my son makes some decent money by linking to Amazon and some other sites through the fansite he runs for a TV show. He gets a cut for every purchase made at the linked sites by people who click on his link.
posted by Rain Man at 7:51 AM on October 1, 2007 [1 favorite]