Let’s talk a little about making money with traditional websites. I firmly believe that most of my readers will do much better with a blog, but there are certainly ways to create an income with traditional sites.The idea behind making money with traditional sites is very much like the philosophy behind blogging, get a lot of traffic and monetize it.

How Do I Build A Traditional Site?

Building a traditional site is the part that makes it more difficult than creating a blog. You have to build each page of the site, and most bloggers probably take this for granted. Building and managing a site can become very overwhelming.

I started my marketing career at an internet marketing firm, and then started building little sites for myself on the side. In order for you to learn to build a site, you should start by learning to build a page. The approach that will be the most time effective is going with an HTML editor. I started with FrontPage, and happily made the change to Dreamweaver after about six months.

Both Dreamweaver and FrontPage allow you to design the page graphically. You basically make the page look how you want, and Dreamweaver and Frontpage create the code for the site for you. Dreamweaver creates cleaner code and is actually easier than FrontPage, which is why I would go with Dreamweaver.

I’m not going to go into all the ins and outs of building a site here, but if you are interested in learning, leave a comment at the end of the article. If there’s enough interest I’ll consider a walk-through.

What Kind Of Traditional Sites Work?

If I started another traditional site right now, I would definitely do a review site. You could review cell phones, dvd players, makeup, clothing, or anything else that you like. If you’re going to start a review site, make sure you choose a topic that will have enough products to review. If you choose pet tracking, for example, you might only have ten products to review. On the other hand, if you choose digital cameras, you’ll have a never ending supply.

One of the more successful review sites I’ve come across is TheTechZone.com. The site was actually started by John Chow in 1999 and has been reviewing computer products ever since. The site doesn’t have their own products, they just do reviews of computer parts that come out. The site is now getting over 200,000 page requests (total hits) per day.

Review sites can be great because people by nature want to know what other people think about products before they buy them.

How Would I Market A Traditional Site?

The basics of marketing a traditional site are very much like the basics of marketing a blog. For more information on promiting your site, visit my site and blog promotion section.

How Do I Monetize A Traditional Site?

Monetizing a traditional site is exactly the same as monetizing a blog. Here are the primary methods you can use:

• Ad-Boxes
  • Google Adsense - Anyone can sign up for this service and it’s 100% free to use. Google will display ads on your blog and pay you when they get clicked on. This is by far the easiest way to make money with your blog. You can see what these ads look like in my center column!
  • Yahoo! Publishing - Yahoo’s version of Adsense. Yahoo’s version is also free to use.
• Contextual Ads - These are ads that are displayed throughout the text of your blog. If you look closely through my pages you will see links that are double underlined. These are actually ads and if you hover over them, a little ad-box will appear. The contextual ad company will pay for clicks on the links or the ad-box.
  • Intelitxt - The first major company to offer this type of advertising. It’s quite difficult to get an account with them unless you have over 500,000 hits per month.
  • Kontera - Another player in the contextual ad game. Kontera is easier to sign up for when you’re still small.
• Affiliate Programs - Many bloggers sell products and services for other sites and receive appropriate commissions. There are tons of sites out there that offer free, affiliate programs including:
  • Amazon
  • eBay
  • Shopping.com
• Text Links - Bloggers can sell links from there pages to other websites. Most bloggers that use this kind of revenue stream use a company called text-link-ads.com. Their service is free to use and their company will sell the ads for you. The sites that purchase them pay monthly, and you get paid monthly.
• Direct Sales - Some bloggers sell their own products and services.

As you can see, making money with traditional sites can be very much like making money with blogs. If you have interest in learning to create income with traditional sites, let me know! I’ll add to the knowledge base accordingly.

If you want more ideas for this, you can visit my friends’ great sites: Simonne’s how to make money site,  djnuttal’s How To Make Money Online site and Shaun’s How To Make Money Online site. Sometimes it’s really great to get some additional perspective so that you’re learning is well rounded.