Best Website Ideas to Make Money 2020: Start Earning Now!

Building your website doesn’t always start with money making website ideas, but somewhere along the way, you may decide that you want to do that. You can make money from selling ad space and selling products. You can also use your website to attract subscribers and teach them something or to offer them an item that gives meaning and value to their lives. Provide services for your subscribers or to your business affiliates. First off, please tell me you’re building an email list. If you’re not, there’s not much point reading any further as this is the best option. You should use Constant Contact to manage your email subscribers. Constant Contact has a 60-day free trial (no credit card required). After that their pricing starts as low as $20/month but my readers can get 20% off so be sure to use my link! These are some of the best money-making website ideas you’ll find anywhere. A final word before we get into the ideas: Check out Wealthy Affiliate! These guys will teach you a boatload about this subject, and the best part is that you can sign up for free today to get going.

Top 14 best website ideas to make money in 2020

1. Use affiliate marketing as an idea to make money online

Surely you can think of many other businesses that are interrelated with your website or blog. These are your affiliates and you are one of theirs. It’s probable that many of them are making money from one of the ideas for websites to make money listed right here in this article. As one of their affiliates, you can make money just by directing, referring, or linking people to their site. Another idea is to advertise their products on your website or blog for sale in exchange for a commission from your affiliate.

2. Money-making website ideas for creating products

If you have knowledge in any area, write an eBook. It doesn’t have to be thousands of pages—it just has to include information that people want and need. Here’s a list of eBook publishing platforms for you to check out:

• Kobo Writing Life
• Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing
• Smashwords
• Blurb
• Bookbaby
• iBooks Author
• Lulu
• Barnes & Noble
• eBookit
• Scribd

Watch this video for a live tutorial on how to publish an eBook.

Kindle, CreateSpace, Lulu, Kobo, Lightning Source, and Bookbaby are the top self-publishing platforms for publishing a hardcover or paperback book. Create a product and open an online store using Woocommerce, Shopify, or another online store plugin. Call attention to your online store by giving away a free eBook, CD, or DVD. Sell your books, eBooks, and CD’s or videos online at Amazon in addition to your own website. Offer your affiliates a small commission in exchange for sales of your products that generated from their sites. Having many affiliates could net thousands of sales.

3. Money making website ideas for bloggers

Do you have a hobby or interest that is popular? Take command of your niche by setting up a blog and start writing interesting articles about it. Throw out some questions to your followers to get some interest and discussion going in the comment section. Interact with your followers as a first step to building a subscriber list. Sell advertising spots on your blog and collect a fee for their ad space. Other businesses and bloggers often accept guest bloggers. Offer one of your articles to someone with a similar website as a niche expert. Include a nice bio of yourself as an expert and link back to your website and products. Write for other blogs on your niche topic. Blogs like Love to Know, Textbroker, and Helium Network hire writers to write on specific subject areas.

4. Send your website money making ideas for products via email marketing

Use the subscriber list on your blog or website to reach your clients with an email marketing campaign when your new products come out. You will need an email marketing service to do this. We recommend Constant Contact.

5. Freelancing ideas to make money online

Upwork is a freelance site for writers and bloggers. Set up a profile, scout the forum for jobs that you’d enjoy writing for and submit a proposal. The longer you write for a particular client, the less Upwork charges in fees. You can also find writing jobs on Freelancer.com and Craig’s List. Today’s businesses know that they need great website content, social media engagement, and business blogs, but they don’t always have the time or staff to add content and keep it fresh. If you’re the type of person that lives and breathes all things social media, hire yourself out to post content for a company’s Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram accounts. If you are an awesome illustrator or photographer, find a paid outlet for your work by setting up an account with one of these creative resellers:

• iStockphoto
• Shutterstock
• SmugMug
• Dreamstime
• Alamy
• Fotolia
• CanStockPhoto
• 123RF
• FineArtAmerica
• Snapped4U

6. Use your money making website ideas to give webinars

As you grow your online presence as an expert, offer a more personal experience with your subscriber network by offering an informative webinar. There’s a bit of work on the front end to develop quality content or a slide presentation for your webinar. When you are ready, you will only need to give up a few hours a week to teach your class. Entice registrations by giving away an eBook, CD, audio recording, or some other small token of appreciation. Be proficient and over-deliver, so your audience knows they got their money’s worth. Students are often looking for lectures and seminars, so consider reaching out to universities to increase your audience.

7. Set up a serious or funky donation button

Creating quality content gives your website credibility. Why not use it as a means for asking for a tip? Add a simple donation button or have some fun with your audience by labeling it “buy me a beer” or “send me on a writing escape.” Ask for a minimum donation amount like $2. It’s not much to ask for what you provided for them and if you get enough donators, $2 adds up pretty quickly.

8. Money making website ideas for consulting

Most of us have laid awake at night wondering about something we just had to have an answer for. If you have the answers that someone else needs, why not monetize your website by setting up a site to answer them. This could be something as simple as your audience using email, comments, or online chatting to ask for the answer to that burning question. After they register and pay, (and aha! now you have their contact information for your subscriber list) you answer their question. Send them a free eBook with even more information and they’ll be sure to visit you and pay you again for your expertise. Some questions require more than an answer that is comprised of a few sentences. Complex questions and topics may require a one-to-one private consultation of an hour or even multiple sessions. Set up an hourly consultation fee. Entice new clients to register by offering the first 30 minutes free. If your prospects find value in your service, you can expect to schedule many more hours of consulting. Offer a free session or discount after a certain number of initial sessions.

9. Make money on your website with monetization widgets

Have you ever noticed that you shopped for something in particular and suddenly the item appears on other web pages that you pull up on your computer or mobile devices? That’s because the product seller is using a monetization widget. Monetization widgets use the buying trends of millions of shoppers to pull the most popular products to display on the sites you love to visit. You pay for your ad when shoppers click on it. Receive analytics that shows how popular your products are and receive your payments every month. Check out these trending monetization widgets to make money from your website:

• Widgetbucks
• Smartlinks

10. Makes lots of money by selling your website

If you’ve spent lots of time building your subscriber list and your site is bringing in money, you can place a value on it. Value has meaning for others who want to build off the profits that you have started. There might be a buyer out there that prefers to capitalize on your profits rather than build a new empire from scratch. Bankrate made such a deal to Bankaholic.com when they purchased the site for a cool $15 million. AOL successfully sealed a deal for TechCrunch.com for $30 million and paid a whopping $315 million for HuffingtonPost.com. The owners of Mint.com made $170 million in profits when they sold their site to Intuit just two years after the initial site went online. The granddaddy purchase goes to RH Donnelly who paid $350 million for Business.com. Have these deals gotten you thinking about the future value of your site?

11. Make money building website themes and device apps

Anyone that has some technical knowledge and ability can make money helping others get their websites, tablets, and other devices to set up to look great on any device. When designing your website, you probably went through many different themes to find the perfect format for adding your design elements. Someone had to design all of those themes. Sites like ThemeForest and TemplateMonster give you an online marketplace to sell your designs. You’ll have to make a plan for how to support your theme if users have trouble using it. You can charge a fee for that too. Website owners and site visitors want the flexibility to view sites on the go. Apps make viewing websites on smaller devices like tablets and cell phones easier to use. Create an iPhone or Android app for a popular website. Even if you only charge a small fee for your app, when many customers buy it, you will net a nice profit. When designing and selling website themes and device apps, it won’t cost you anything to get started designing. Storage and shipping fees won’t dip into your profits either.

12. Make money on your website by sponsoring reviews for affiliate products

PayPerHost was the originator of sponsored reviews. After moving past some initial controversy for not requiring disclosure on their paid posts, they overcame the obstacle and their platform took off. Marketplaces that offer sponsored reviews give bloggers and website owners the opportunity to receive and use a product in exchange for offering an honest and public review of the product. If you have a large subscriber list, why not put out some feelers to see if any of them want you to review their products on your popular site for a fee? You’ll make a bit more when you cut out the middleman. Other companies developed their own versions of sponsored review platforms. Check out additional options with these product sponsor review sites:

• Sponsored Reviews
• BlogVertise

13. Monetizing your website with a listicle article blog

You don’t necessarily have to design your website around a niche topic or area of expertise. Do you enjoy humor, cartoons, silly articles, and ridiculous photos? This type of content is perfect for a listicle-type article blog. If lists of funny things are not your cup of tea, set up a listicle site to add interesting lists about our ancestors, trivia, amazing facts, talented people, creative works, or just about anything else you can think of. Your subscribers will not only enjoy returning to your site over and over again, but they’re also likely to share what they see on their social media platforms, giving you even greater exposure. Greater exposure means you’ll be making money on your site with your ads, affiliate links, and product offerings. Expand your offerings by promoting your listicle site on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and Stumbleupon. The most exciting news is that you can set up your listicle site for about $20 per month and only an hour of your time.

14. Domain flipping: one of the first website money-makers

Before many of these ideas listed here came to fruition, some of the first website owners learned that they could buy domain names and hold onto them until someone needed a particular name and then sell it for a higher value. Many of the domain names were quickly bought up, but you can still make money buying and selling domain names. Become a web host, or be a reseller for another hosting service and sell your hosting service along with your domain name to make even more. There are lots of tools online to help you be successful at using your website to make money. Pick a few of these ideas and you’ll be on your way to making money with your website. Not found something you can work with? Join Wealthy Affiliate for free today for a ton of ideas, AND help to get yourself up and earning quickly.