With print media being the most primary form for publishers to reach the masses, magazines & newspapers have conquered the journalism and publishing domain for centuries. But with the introduction of the internet and the evolution of technology, news and media have drastically taken a shift by concentrating on the digital avenues to generate profits. With the ability of the web to disseminate news and articles and providing clear measuring tools, almost all the news media businesses have moved on to create their online presence.
Moving to an online ecosystem is easy with a website but the challenge is to make money out of it. And if yours is a new website, you would definitely struggle to monetize through blogs & sites because of a very simple reason that there are uncountable similar businesses trying to make profits. The very basic but important factors to make revenue from your news site is-
– Getting web traffic through search engines (not via social media channels or forums).
– Crafting effective strategies to monetize your news website.
Turn out organic traffic through search engines
Understand that your organic web traffic is your money-making machine. And this traffic does not include the traffic from social media channels but through search engines. This web traffic can be achieved by following proven ways-
– Use of long-tail keywords with more than 3 words in it. It is impossible to get traffic to your blog content with the use of short keywords.
– Focus on keywords that have monthly competition not more than 1000. One can easily get higher search results with less competitive keywords.
– Always use keyword research tools to monitor and analyze keyword performance.
Effective ways to monetizing a news website
Your news media website is one of the most appealing opportunities for earning through customized ads that are easy to set up on media sites. We bring to you 3 effective ad techniques to monetize your in-house media news website.
Using PPC Ads
There are numerous big new brands making money through PPC ads, but even if you are a small news media house PPC ads can get you decent traffic that converts into sales.
These ads work really simple. Ad publishing networks place publisher’s ads on your news website and as soon as this ad gets clicked you get money. Thus, revenue from PPC is entirely linked to the website traffic and the number of clicks the ad receives. Definitely, PPC is one of the best methods to monetize quickly.
Though there are a number of ad networks that offer PPC ads to create income from your news site, always research for the best in the market before you proceed with any ad network.
Utilizing Banner Ad services
Banner ads displayed on your news site can help you in reaching profits. But for banner ads to perform, the major requirement is the traffic on your website. Along with this, your website needs to be frequently updated with fresh content in order to increase traffic on a website that can click on banner ads.
Also, make sure that your news website is self-hosted and does not use any free plugins, etc. Banner ads are highly paying ads and thus it is important for the news media website to avoid using too many ads and focus on relevant banner ads that provide revenue to them as well as publishers.
Using an Affiliate Ad scheme/ Promoting and Selling Products via your website
One of the proven ways to monetize your website is to sell products (either your or anyone else’s) on your website. Though this method is a well-known website monetizing strategy since you are a news media agency you have to be cautious if you have more acquaintance towards journalism.
This method does not need immense traffic on the website but calls for the right kind of product for your targeted audience so as to maintain your brand reputation. For a news media website, it is more important to build people’s trust instead of gaining page impressions that could lead to solid monetization. Some of the affiliate ideas for increased promotion and selling from your news site include-
-Try to build an email subscribers’ database to connect with your audience. One can only make money through affiliate ads by building trust in their subscribers.
-Always analyze your completion and look for the kind of ads they run on their websites.
Now we understand that ads are the best ways to monetize your website, let us know how one can monetize ads to generate revenue for a news media site.
1) Always set targeted ad placements on your website as it allows the prospective customers with higher conversion and lesser cost-driving more revenue to your news site. Placement targeting helps publishers and advertisers to select ad placements of their choice where they would like their ads to appear. Based on the placement of ads, it is possible to achieve increased CPM and best returns for the ads.
2) The position of specific ads is of importance when news media sites are concerned. Within the news media industry; the audience is highly engaged and goes through the entire information/ content provided on site. Thus, publishers must check for the content which is most sought after by the users and place their ads within the content vicinity for it is most likely to appear within the user viewability range. Running Automatad’s AXT on a sticky unit would be an efficient way to get better ROI. Click here to learn more about AXT.
3) Social media channels play a vital role in monetizing news media websites. With news business turning their presence online too, one must have social media accounts in order to drive traffic to their websites. Running sponsored ads/ content on their social media feeds, drive significant organic traffic to their websites. Since journalism is a sensitive term, one must use special and professional sponsor tools to get the best of the web traffic to their ads.
4) Sponsored webinars or paid webinars are other important sources of driving revenue. Webinars provide the relevant content to the audience and assist in educating them through audio and video engagement.
5) Crafting an engaging content for the user is the utmost priority of any news media website. Try to post fresh and compelling content, and post it before your competitor does so that you appear as the first news source.
The Next Move
The dramatic and accelerating change in the news media vertical has deeply impacted the way consumers interact with information. So in order to make user news media website profit ready and a moneymaker, you should make careful marketing strategies, well-planned efforts, try to avoid overselling on your website and be patient about the results.
Once you are done with these actions, you can work on polishing up your strategies and towards gaining more revenue.
