Just curious how other people are making their money online through their sites.
Here are all the revenue models I can think of:
Selling tangible goods
Selling ebooks
Selling online courses
Lead generation - generate leads to sell to others
User donations
Premium access/subscription for content
Premium access/subscription for service/tools
Banner advertising
Contextual advertising
Site sponsorship
Selling links
Affiliate for tangible goods
Affiliate for informational products
Affiliate for lead generation
Selling user data (emails, address, etc)
Drive business to brick and mortar store
If you can think of any others, please add.
These are my revenue streams from largest to smallest
Selling tangible goods
Affiliate for tangible goods
Affiliate for lead generation
Premium access/subscription for content
Contextual advertising
Banner advertising
For newer sites, I find it extremely hard to even make any money using banner/contextual advertising. It takes way too much traffic/effort/content to generate significant money that it hasn't been worth it to me.
On the other hand, selling tangible goods has worked out well for me. Sites will start generated some revenue very quickly with low volume traffic and the profit can be used towards scaling up traffic. Selling premium access/subscript to content has also been good. I am very surprised what people are willing to pay to access silly data they can find elsewhere for free.
Just curious to see how other people are making their money. It would also be good to hear more about what it takes to make significant money using banner/contextual advertising.
