10 Best Ways to Monetize Website: Digital Products
Running your own website can obviously be an amazing side hustle. But to make the dream come true (e.g. lying on a beach under palm trees all year round) you do need to spend some time implementing one, or few, monetization strategies.
Yet, a common issue for the newly minted website owners is that they have no clue how to monetize websites. Following up on our recent articles we are going to unveil the best practices of website monetization through creating and selling your own digital products.
- Advertisements – how and when to use them right
- Google Adsense PPC magic wand
- Sponsored posts
- Monetizing with affiliate offers
- Creating and selling your own digital product
- Making money on donations
- Building your own e-commerce platform
- Selling online courses
- Providing quality consultation services
- Offering password-protected content membership content
Don’t know where to start? We will walk you through the best practices and benefits of this method right now.
What is a digital product?
To start with, we can’t but mention that creating and selling your own digital products is specifically good for those business owners who already niche-specific websites combined with high website traffic, ideally. Although, creating a website from scratch is also possible.
Image Source: Synergy Way
Creating your own digital product obviously allows your business to offer something super specific for your customers and retain 100% of the ROI (Return on Investment). Though it goes both ways. While affiliate/referral programs offer you a commission per action, it’s not your headache to worry about delivery, service, and refunds, or any other sudden issue that might arise. On the other hand, while selling a digital product you are managing the customer service along with the probs that might pop up.
Even though, no need to worry – you can handle the complete creation with an onshore vendor or you can outsource the work.
ps.: find more on that right here.
Why should you consider creating and selling digital products as your website monetization strategy?
There are a lot of exceptional reasons why entrepreneurs look into creating and selling digital products on their websites:
- First and foremost. Digital products are easily created and require quite a modest budget to launch.
- Secondly, we live in the information age and have the knowledge available around the corner (case studies, professional stats, social media, and open sources). We are able to sell digital products considering the needs of our niche market.
- Digital product development can be cost-effective. Your main investment is the time it takes you to create your product. Go agile, start with MVP (Minimum Viable Product), constantly test and iterate – and you’ll know exactly what your future customer needs.
- Surprisingly, it remains a passive way of getting income. Setting up the product once will let you focus on doing marketing around it and upgrading the product (not writing it from scratch) with your target audience’s needs in mind.
The biggest pros and cons of selling digital products
Let’s dive a little deeper into the biggest benefits of selling digital products:
- You can build the product once and then sell it an unlimited number of times;
- You don’t have to worry about managing inventory (unless digital becomes physical);
- Scale, upgrade and improve easily – do constant researches and questionnaires to get the up-to-date feedback from your audience, listen to the users and constantly improve your customer experience;
- Be flexible. Scale-up as slowly or as quickly as you feel comfortable. Go for more products or only stick with one;
- By hitting the biggest pain points of your customers you’ll make your audience urge to pay you for and download the premium content.
This website monetization method also comes with specific challenges you’ll need to watch out for so don’t neglect considering constraints:
- Competition is always where a good source of income is. Many websites are jumping into the business of selling digital goods, and due to the desired competitive advantage, some list their products at the lowest possible rate. Here, only a strong marketing structure will help you stay out of the crowd.
- Big server maintenance costs. When managing digital products on your website, you have to make sure that your server up and running. Otherwise, you risk losing your customers due to the delays and glitches on the website.
- Copying and reselling. The fact that your products are digital and can be downloaded easily allows people to copy and sell copied items without you knowing. To put a long story short, just be ready that almost any digital product can be copied and resold.
- Your products will be competing with free alternatives. With digital goods, consumers can most likely find free options for what your website is selling. It’s crucial to build your brand in order to be able to compete.
Of course, most of these challenges can be overcome, however, you should be thinking well about the niche you target, premium features/content you offer, and the real value of your product(s).
The most profitable digital products you can sell online
Image Source: Synergy Way
1.Educational services (courses, lessons, ebooks)
If you consider yourself an expert on a particular topic, digital products are a perfect option to put that information in a “box” and offer to others seeking to learn. E-learning is an industry rich in innovation, and learning material can be sold in a couple of different ways: a downloadable one-off course, a collection of courses, or as a membership or subscription to a web-based service (more on that below).
2. Membership for access to exclusive content/services
Rather than selling digital products solely, consider packing them behind a paid subscription to generate repetitive revenue. This approach is perfect for those of you who plan to maintain a scaling library and nurture a community around it.
3. Digital templates and tools
Selling digital solutions to the common pain points and needs of a specific audience is always relevant. E.g.: CV templates, product mockup files, plugins, icons, fonts, or UX Kits for web designers.
4. Graphics and digital art
Explore new ways to monetize your talents. T-shirts and prints will always be an option, however, there are loads of possibilities in digital downloads. Since there is no need to hold any inventory ‘in hands’, feel free to experiment without much risk to see what your audience wants.
5. Expertise or services
Services are, of course, not products at all, nonetheless, they are very commonly sold in the same way digital products are – as fixed-price services or on a case-by-case basis.
6. Audio and music
Audio is a strong medium for communicating messages, with numerous kinds of audio digital products like lectures, musical samples, language courses, audiobooks, reusable sound effects it’s easy to go online (re)selling pieces.
7. Selling software
No need to mention that the software industry is huge and consistently growing. And it is obviously full of opportunities. Have an idea of new digital software but need help in implementation? We can help. The software includes mobile or web-based apps, desktop applications, website designs & templates, video games, or anything else powered by code – Synergy Way team has rich expertise in software development and is open to awesome ideas.
As a brief conclusion, we’d like to say…
Sell digital products because that’s what the present market needs!
