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Tried-And-True Website Ideas – Make Money and Attract Traffic

By on January 9, 2013

The best website ideas are proven website ideas. If someone else has made a website work, you know you can make it work too. Furthermore, you can learn from the mistakes made by other people who have used the website idea and make your website even better.

Website ideas fall into two broad categories: website ideas which help you make money and website ideas which attract traffic. Let’s look at five website ideas from each category:

Make Money #1—Donations

This is the money-making website idea I recommend the least. If you accept donations from your readers, you probably won’t make much money, and if you ever start hosting adds or affiliate marketing links, your core readers will complain—and possibly leave.

Donations don’t work for a lot of reasons, but the most important is that there’s no sense of immediacy. When someone sells you a product, you buy it because you want it. But by the time someone asks you for a donation, you’ve already received the useful information from the website, so there’s no immediate reason for you to donate.

Further, there may be people similar to me who refuse to donate to websites because they donate to other, more worthy causes. When I have to choose between donating to the poor and donating to someone with enough wealth and free time to create a website, I’ll donate to the poor every time.

Make Money #2—Host Advertisements

A lot of people monetize a website using advertisements, but I’m not completely convinced it’s a good business model. For starters, some advertisements are ugly. Add to that the increasing number of people using AdBlock Plus to hide the advertisements on your website and the number of other websites which engage in fraud (lowering the value of legitimate ad clicks), and you have a tough market.

But advertisements do have one thing working for them: they’re easy. Just create an account on an advertising platform, copy and paste some code on your site, and start serving ads. I kind of make this sound too easy and if you are interested to find out more see my advertising check-list. This will help you get on the right track. If you make ads work for you, that’s great, but also consider trying some of the other techniques on this list.

Make Money #3—Affiliate Advertising

Unlike serving other people’s advertisements, affiliate advertising lets you write your own advertisements and embed them in your articles. For this reason, affiliate advertising can be much more successful than regular advertisement.

Of course, it can be hard to get your readers to trust you when you make money off of every product you recommend, but this doesn’t seem to be a major problem for most website businesses.

Make Money #4—Retail or Resale

If you’re successful at affiliate marketing, you can often increase your profit percentage by selling your own products or by selling other people’s products directly.

Of course, this means you’ll have to deal with customers directly—but that can be a major advantage. It gives you the chance to satisfy a website reader who would otherwise stop reading your website because you recommended a product that didn’t work as expected.

Making your own products can be difficult, but the growing industry of drop shipping makes selling other people’s products from your own storefront increasingly easy.

Make Money #5—List Marketing

Websites are a great way to find customers, but they’re a terrible way to keep them. This is especially true if you focus on Search Engine Optimization (SEO), infrequent blogging, and other ways of attracting one-time traffic.

The best businesses are built upon relationships. You go back to the same stores and websites over and over because you’ve learned to trust them—or at least, you’ve learned what to expect.

But if people search for information about a product, visit your website once, and never come back, you aren’t building any sort of relationship, and the only products you can sell them that will repay your investment will either have to cost a lot of money or offer a huge affiliate percentage.

Instead of selling people a product, consider getting them to sign up for your weekly newsletter—and then use the newsletter to consistently tell them about great offers. That way you can sell them dozens of low-priced products or low-profit products over a longer period of time, increasing and stabilizing your income. We all know this is called email marketing and you need to build a list of subscribers in order for this to work.

Attract Traffic #1—The Blog

Everyone wants a blog today, and blogs are a great way to attract traffic—if you write things people want to read. You can build a blog or website, the difference is disappearing because most are built on blog content management systems anyway.

Too often I stumble upon the personal opinion/personal problem blog. These blogs are only interesting to the people who write them and maybe that person’s closest friends. It’s easier to post your opinions and problems to Facebook.

On the other hand, if you can regularly post useful information, a blog is a good way to distribute it and attract traffic. But you must make sure that you write it in a way search engines can find it. To do that, use Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to arrange your keywords and blogs.

Attract Traffic #2—FAQ

People—all people—hate to look like idiots. Most people even hate to ask questions because they’re worried about looking like idiots. So one of the easiest website ideas you can create is the Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) list.

On many websites I work for, the FAQ page is the most visited page on the site after the homepage. That’s because people have learned that it will probably provide useful information in a quick and easy-to-read summary format.

You can even create an entire website devoted to the FAQ about a particular subject. Just make each entry on your blog the answer to another question.

Attract Traffic #3—Variety Sites

A good way to attract traffic is to collect the best ____ from the web. The ____ can be videos, blog posts about a particular subject, photos of kittens, or anything else. If people know they can come to your website for the best of ____, they’ll probably come back often and recommend your website to other people.

This can be one of the easiest or one of the most difficult websites ideas to implement. It’s easy if there is a ton of ____ already easily searchable. It’s difficult if you need to do a lot of research everyday to find your next ____ post.

Attract Traffic #4—Product Reviews

Before buying any high-budget item (which can cost as little as $10 for some people), people want to learn whether it will be worth their money, so they’ll search the Web for information about it.

You can tap into this huge traffic stream by offering quality reviews for these products—and you can monetize it using affiliate advertising, as discussed above.

The key to this website idea is answering people’s questions about the product even to the point of answering questions they haven’t yet asked themselves.

Attract Traffic #5—How-To

Probably the best way to attract traffic on the Web is to help people learn how to do something. Despite widespread reports of an apathetic population, most people on the Web make several searches every week for information about how to do something or another.

Any article you write which starts with the words “how to” is almost assured traffic once the search engine indexes it, making it the most simple and effective of website ideas. That is exactly how I built Tips4pc and made it so popular, by writing good how to articles.

About Mitz

My name is Milica Pantic but everyone calls me Mitz. I am addicted to internet marketing and making money online. Who wouldn't want to live that life? I started out with one website as a hobby and now have over 20. Building websites and making money online is not that hard. You have to actually take action to make money...that is the biggest hurdle! :)

53 Comments

  1. Mahendra Chhimwal

    April 18, 2013 at 5:17 am

    Hello mitz..
    Nice tips for money making online.Affiliate marketing is the best way to make money.I never think about list marketing,But surely I will gonna try it.
    Mahendra Chhimwal recently posted..After Earth Movie:Will Smith’s upcoming movie full details

    Reply

  2. Scooby

    February 20, 2013 at 4:15 pm

    i perspnally wouldn’t like ask people donate via paypal on my blog though many people do that rather i would place ads and do affiliate marketing.

    Reply

  3. Ekta Waugh

    February 5, 2013 at 2:10 pm

    Hi, Its really nice you collected all the info is hard to find just by doing a click.You really mentioned some of the innovative ideas. Thanks and i will be taking advantage.
    Ekta Waugh recently posted..New Nicki Minaj Songs – Latest Songs List

    Reply

  4. Emmanuel Obarhua

    February 1, 2013 at 9:43 pm

    Hello Mitz, you’ve done well. Your bio is what captivated me after the article. Keep this up ma. thanks
    Emmanuel Obarhua recently posted..How to add Google Adsense Ads Below Posts’ Titles and Below Blog Posts [ Adsense Inside Posts ]

    Reply

  5. MaricarLewis

    January 31, 2013 at 12:58 am

    These are only some things that we must to ponder on creating websites. It is especially for those who are using these pages for business purposes. They could easily put up a very good reputation for the sake of gaining more prospect customers.
    MaricarLewis recently posted..IAPAM – the World’s Leading Botox Training Program

    Reply

  6. krishna

    January 24, 2013 at 10:26 am

    Personally against asking for money via donations – yeah you could out up a PayPal Donate Now button on your blog,what a amazing way really these way to attract visitor really and Host Advertisements is great way and appreciate really thanks for the sharing me.thank you for sharing!
    krishna recently posted..Insurance Software (dofollow)

    Reply

  7. krishna

    January 24, 2013 at 10:09 am

    Donations usually don’t amount to much if any unless you are a big recognized organization that helps something. I have had a donation area on the main part of my site for a few years and I can tell you I get many.
    thank you for sharing!
    krishna recently posted..Banking Software (dofollow)

    Reply

  8. Vikram

    January 23, 2013 at 8:20 pm

    Hey Mitz, You have pointed out some really good website ideas for making money online. It’s a very informative article and it helped me in understanding true facts behind the success of a blog. I think it these tips will really boost up my website. Thanks for sharing.
    Vikram recently posted..Lenskart Coupon Flat 64% Off on purchase any 2 Eyeglasses

    Reply

  9. Mohit Rajwani

    January 23, 2013 at 6:17 pm

    Affiliate Advertising is my favorite and will be always,I make my 70% of revenue from it only.
    Mohit Rajwani recently posted..TricksTreat Launching Post

    Reply

  10. Roger

    January 22, 2013 at 12:07 pm

    Hey Mitz,
    Amazing tips on money making and increasing traffic count. Affiliate advertising has helped me out tremendously in making money from my website. Apart from this, paid surveys and polls have added more to my income. There are services that will pay money to run a small survey or poll on your website which I think seems to be great. I enjoyed reading all the points included in attracting traffic. Found it really informative. Thanks for the share!

    Reply

  11. Arianne

    January 22, 2013 at 7:25 am

    These are great tips for earning and making money online. Blog is one of the good ways to get traffic, and to get more traffic, a blog should really be interesting to its audience. Good to know that these are tried. Thanks for this! :)

    Reply

  12. Purnima

    January 22, 2013 at 3:52 am

    Salutary share . Affiliate advertising is new to me but seems quiet promising . I have tried advertisements but it is not such an effective way to earn an at the same time you need to analyze which advertisements you want to flash on your website. Liked the share.

    Reply

  13. Sandra

    January 21, 2013 at 10:53 am

    I am curious about the affiliate advertisement and I’m hoping to be able to try it as soon as possible. Thank you so much!! :)

    Reply

  14. Daniel

    January 18, 2013 at 9:13 am

    Hello Dear

    what a amazing way really these way to attract visitor really and Host Advertisements is great way and i appreciate really thanks for the sharing me

    Reply

  15. Kelly

    January 18, 2013 at 6:24 am

    These are nice tips you have here. Making money online is not really easy, but these tried and true tips of yours can really be helpful. A lot of bloggers may become successfully earning with your ideas.

    Reply

  16. Stacey

    January 17, 2013 at 4:09 am

    Cool! These are awesome ways on how to make money and create funds to keep going! I hope to read more of your informative blogs! Thanks a lot for sharing!

    Reply

  17. Julia Spencer

    January 16, 2013 at 7:09 pm

    I still believe and still being sure that blog is the best source for getting traffic, without spending much efforts or any money on it

    Julia Spencer’s recent post.. Best Examples of Facebook Timeline Used by Popular Brands

    Reply

  18. Lee

    January 15, 2013 at 11:18 am

    Hi mitz
    I have started a second blog about bucket list which is something I enjoy writing about and enjoy ticking things off the list. So your part about affiliate advertising rather than just using google adsense really appeals to me.

    So for great info thanks lee
    Lee recently posted..Bucket List Ideas

    Reply

  19. john

    January 13, 2013 at 12:40 pm

    I was only focusing on Marketing list, i don’t know about the others method before read out your article.But one thing i want to share with you, i get traffic without these method because i did only unique and good thing on my money making site.
    but i can earn more now to follow your instruction.
    Thanks for sharing this!

    Reply

  20. Fatima

    January 13, 2013 at 9:27 am

    Blogs and affiliate advertising are my tried and tested. Thanks for mentioning other ways; will try them out too.

    Reply

  21. Melissa

    January 12, 2013 at 4:27 am

    Hey Mitz,
    Nice tips darling. Your \”traffic attracting tips\” are so attractive. It not only helpful to new bloggers, but also remind the experts one to do all perfectly.

    thank you so much.
    Melissa recently posted..The waterproof phone Sony Xperia Z at CES 2013 make visitor Excited

    Reply

  22. marty

    January 12, 2013 at 12:51 am

    I like how you broke everything done I think most effective way to get your site is teach them something or the “how to” people are always looking for advice like me.I dont have Faq list is should go fix that
    marty recently posted..My Top 10 Favorite Post of 2012

    Reply

    • mitz

      January 14, 2013 at 11:44 am

      yes a faq page can be very popular.

      Reply

      • marty

        January 15, 2013 at 3:32 am

        I have been working on this for the last few days.My problem is my readers just started getting active and asking questions so I dont know where to start.I was thinking using all the questions I wanted answers to when I started using my online site program.Maybe thats a good way to start
        marty recently posted..Comment Contest :Top 10 Commentators Giftcard Giveaway (dofollow)

        Reply

  23. Taran

    January 11, 2013 at 9:40 am

    All tipes are effective. I am really interested in affiliate marketing. This is really a very informative post. Thanks for sharing these great and awesome tips.

    Reply

  24. David

    January 11, 2013 at 5:59 am

    This is very nice idea about making more money throughout the website. I agree with your Advertising ideas, and List Marketing and Blog are also known ideas for making money. Yes, of course FAQ page is most visited by people, because they have many questions for that particular website, this also good idea for marketing purpose.

    Reply

  25. Mark K.

    January 11, 2013 at 1:10 am

    Interesting article! I definitely got some good info from your perspective of the different bullet points you listed.

    I’m new to this blog, but I’m definitely going to have to come back since I’m new to the whole SEO scene and I would love to learn it.

    Thanks again,

    Mark
    Mark K. recently posted..VIDEO: 1. How to Attract Women Part 1

    Reply

  26. Richard

    January 10, 2013 at 11:24 pm

    I have a small blog on my main website and try to write, when i have time, when Im not washing cars, hints and tips for looking after your own car with out using guys like me. So this is a good idea after being confirmed above. I will look at your suggestion regarding reviewing car cleaning products. All these suggests seem like a logical way to increase traffic
    Richard recently posted..F1 Review 2012

    Reply

  27. Allenbret

    January 10, 2013 at 11:17 pm

    Great post. I find the best way to monetize a blog is not pushing too many ads and product reviews while your audience is small and fragile once you have a solid audience you are much more flexible. I would also on a side note, that sites which are not focused on a specific niche have a much harder time making it just because there is little reason for visitors to return for.

    Reply

  28. Ron

    January 10, 2013 at 6:38 pm

    Love the ideas on making money online. I did the affiliate thing for awhile, now sell my own products…while affiliate marketing can make you some good money, it also depends on the quality of the products you are advertising. At least with my own products I KNOW what I am selling. And yes I do agree, donations; unless they are for a good cause usually don’t work out very well. Thanks for the info and ideas, there are many people out there looking to start an online business and this will definitely help them!
    Ron recently posted..Get Out Of Debt 101 PLR Package with Private Label Rights

    Reply

    • mitz

      January 14, 2013 at 4:46 am

      Yes I see you have some PLR products. Good way to get into selling. I also like to sell my own products but only if they are hands off.. I hate support issues and so on..
      mitz recently posted..Should You Use Freebies to Build Your Email List? (dofollow)

      Reply

  29. KevinR

    January 10, 2013 at 12:48 pm

    Personally against asking for money via donations – yeah you could out up a PayPal Donate Now button on your blog, but they’re pretty useless and you’d have to harass people into giving you their money (not recommended for obvious reasons) in order to be able to make something out of it. Instead, why not sell your product for a dollar or two; that way the people get what they want and you get money too.
    Needless to say, great set of tips!
    KevinR recently posted..Tips and Tricks for Blogging Success

    Reply

    • mitz

      January 14, 2013 at 4:43 am

      Yes I agree..Just sell your stuff instead.. I had a format xp section on my website and made that into an ebook that sold for $3.95. People bought the book for convenience even though it was available for free on the site.
      mitz recently posted..The Top 10 SEO Blogging Tips (dofollow)

      Reply

  30. Ray

    January 10, 2013 at 9:09 am

    Donations usually don’t amount to much if any unless you are a big recognized organization that helps something. I have had a donation area on the main part of my site for a few years and I can tell you I get many. It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to use one if a site was talking about making money or how much money they are making online. People would probably say hey if you are making so much money why on earth should I donate. Anyway I see people telling others to add a donation page or button every now and then. I would really think about it before doing so.
    Ray recently posted..Cloud Hosting Storage and Your Website

    Reply

    • mitz

      January 14, 2013 at 4:40 am

      Yes I do not like donations as a business model. But I did get a $20 donation on a forum for giving someone some computer advice.. That was years ago so it was a lot of money back then. :)

      Reply

  31. sarika deshmukh

    January 10, 2013 at 7:25 am

    Hello Dear

    what a amazing way really these way to attract visitor really and Host Advertisements is great way and i appreciate really thanks for the sharing me

    Reply

  32. Rusty

    January 10, 2013 at 5:26 am

    Wow! This is really a huge lists that would help noobs that are wanting to start a new website. My partner and I were thinking of getting some affiliate links to promote but don’t know where to start. Your topic is heaven sent to us as I got several tips and points to keep. Thanks a bunch!
    Rusty recently posted..Kleinhoewe Preschool

    Reply

    • mitz

      January 14, 2013 at 4:52 am

      You can start by making a list of things you think your audience might buy. Then search for affiliate programs for those products or develop something yourself. :)

      Just make sure anything you promote is very much related to your site.

      Reply

  33. Steven Jude

    January 10, 2013 at 1:51 am

    Nice Compilation of how to make money from websites Mitz. Is the variety site a sustainable business model considering that you may run out best of __________ to write about.
    Steven Jude recently posted..Drive Massive Crowd With Search Engine Optimization + Nutritional Supplements: Adding To Your Health?

    Reply

    • mitz

      January 14, 2013 at 4:39 am

      I am not into variety websites as they are very hard to aim for a target market. I have a tech blog and I am not really sure which way to take the content… I thought I would review gadgets and tech stuff but people seem to like the blogging article s better?? Who knew??
      mitz recently posted..Blog Advertisement Checklist – When and Where to Promote (dofollow)

      Reply

  34. Gurwinder

    January 9, 2013 at 7:35 pm

    This is really a very informative post. Thanks for sharing these great and awesome tips Mitz :)
    Gurwinder recently posted..Migrate From Blogger to WordPress [Maintaining Permalinks, SEO, PageRank and Traffic] (dofollow)

    Reply

  35. Maja

    January 9, 2013 at 6:00 pm

    All tipes are effective. I am really interested in affiliate marketing. Writing reviews about the products and convincing the reader through magical contents is a really great job.
    Maja recently posted..A Chance to Avail the Coupons

    Reply

  36. mohit chauhan

    January 9, 2013 at 1:14 pm

    hey mitz
    a compilation of tips has been made by you. To monetize your website, advertising seems to be a great option for generating money online, but it depends upon which sorts of ads you want to go for.
    i personally like affiliate advertising, since you get to create your own ads and incorporate them into your content.
    mohit chauhan recently posted..Does Blogging Reduce Stress?

    Reply

  37. Pankaj

    January 9, 2013 at 12:12 pm

    Nice tips Mitz,

    Advertising is not a big source of income but many times makes your website to look ugly. So it’s essential to choose right advertisement that suits your theme and leaves good impression. No doubt affiliate marketing is best source of income.
    Pankaj recently posted..MLM Software India

    Reply

  38. Owen

    January 9, 2013 at 11:14 am

    Nice tips here. You mention e-mail marketing but I noticed you don’t have an aweber capture form but just use feedburner. Why is that?
    Owen recently posted..10 Inspiring People and How They Use Pinterest to Grow Their Business

    Reply

    • mitz

      January 9, 2013 at 11:41 am

      I have a few email lists and also feedburner. The optin is at the bottom of each post. I have stopped pushing for signups at the moment while rethinking my layout and business model.

      Reply

  39. candice michelle

    January 9, 2013 at 10:28 am

    This information is no doubt awesome for anyone just getting started with blogging. A real confidence booster.
    candice michelle recently posted..dog training

    Reply

  40. Sam

    January 9, 2013 at 7:30 am

    First of all when you will do good for your visitors then without any argue then you realize himself how result will come out in favor of you just in less time.
    Sam recently posted..Goa Holiday Packages

    Reply

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