If you have a website of your own, chance are you are paying fees out every month or year to have the site.
While conducting research recently for reseller hosting company 34SP.com, I discovered that website fees can force site owners to abandon their sites. Often, the burden of paying monthly fees takes a toll on the webmaster. Sometimes the webmaster simply closes down the site rather than sustain the loss of money every month.
If you have a website, and if you pay fees to maintain it – you may want to consider these 5 easy steps to save money on your website right now.
1. Pay less for your domain name – While you definitely need to have a distinctive domain name and brand, you don’t need to pay top dollar for the privilege. Here’s a good example – if you have your domain name registered with Register.com you’ll pay $35.00 per year for a .com domain name. That same domain name if registered at a discount registrar like GoDaddy.com will cost just $10.69. That’s a price reduction and savings of nearly 70 percent. Imagine the savings if you have multiple domain names for your websites.
2. Pay less for your website hosting – You will absolutely need great web hosting as well. However, why pay for what you don’t need? If you run a straightforward WordPress website, then you shouldn’t need a hosting plan that charges $89.95 per month (I found this plan doing a bit of research into pricing). Great web hosting is available for less than $15 per month. Shop around and start saving – especially if your paying anything over $50 per month for a basic hosting setup.
3. Get an advertiser (or two) – No matter what the topic or content on your website, it is very likely that there is an advertiser willing to pay real money to get in front of your audience. If you are sales-minded you can likely figure out which niche you serve and approach a few companies about becoming an advertiser. Don’t be discouraged by hearing the word ”no”. This is simply necessary to get to the ”yes” that the ideal advertiser will say. You could also consider getting paid by a third party to advertise on your website. For example both Pay per post and reviewme will pay anywhere from a few dollars up to hundreds for a site review or blog post on the subject of their paying advertisers. See their websites for details.
4. Put AdSense ads on your website – Another great option to get paid ads on your website is to use Google’s AdSense program for publishers. The system is ubiquitous around the Internet and requires no selling at all by the website owner. If fact, Google will even figure out which ads perform best on your site. You simply sign up for the program and then put some AdSense code on your website. The ads appear automatically. You can find all the details here: http://www.google.com/services/adsense_tour/index.html.
5. Ask for donations – Depending on your audience and site content, it may be appropriate for you to ask for donations to keep your website operating. Large scale sites like Wikipedia operate this way, as do smaller non-profit sites. PayPal has made the process very easy with their pre-configured donation buttons. Similar to AdWords, to get the donate button on your site you simply cut and paste html provided by PayPal into your website. Once set up, you can accept donations made with credit cards, debit cards, or PayPal. There are no set up fees with the donate button – but you will pay a transaction fee for each donation. See the PayPal website for details.
Good luck with your website, and don’t forget that a penny saved on your website is a penny earned.
About the Author:Derek Vaughan is a web hosting industry veteran, marketing consultant and writer. Mr. Vaughan has architected the marketing growth of several prominent web hosting success stories leading to acquisition including Affinity Internet, Inc., Aplus.Net and HostMySite.com. Prior to his entry into the web hosting industry, Mr. Vaughan was responsible for online marketing at The Walt Disney Company where he marketed ecommerce for the ESPN.com and NASCAR.com brands. Mr. Vaughan received his M.B.A. from Vanderbilt University and currently serves on the HostingCon Advisory Board.
Photo Credit:Alan Cleaver
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It’s amazing how many new to websites and online marketing, pay upwards of $20 for a domain name. This alone can add up year after year, and its a completely NEEDLESS expense.
Good of you to point out. There are many good domain registrars out there, all of which cost less than $10. Do your research and get away from Yahoo. $35 per year for a domain name is insane.
Hosting is another BIG expense for website owners, so proceed wisely. Before signing up; ask around, visit some forums, etc but don’t overpay.
Cheers,
Missy
G34 Media
Missy´s last blog ..Blog Flipping Bee
There are also free options for websites available for someone who is just starting out and wanting to “learn” how to build and keep their site before investing in one. Then after feeling more comfortable, they can pick a domain and a host (or both together) and not spend their money for the learning process.
I just had a great experience with WP Blog Host. Less than 8 bucks for domain registration, and since I’m just using the domain forwarding service, the cost is zero dineros per month. It’s perfect for my current needs!
George
George Angus´s last blog ..I Publish Thee, I Publish Thee Not
I’m afraid I completely disagree with points three, four, and five for most small businesses. They’ll work for some people, but that’s the exception, not the rule.
Get an advertiser: If you are selling products and services, why don’t you put a banner ad for YOUR stuff in the sidebar? I imagine you’ll get a lot more income selling one of your things than selling one of somebody else’s.
Google Adsense: No. Never. I tell all my clients to turn it off. Why? Because Google uses contextual advertising – it looks at the words on the page to serve up an ad that is related. That means your competitors will show up there. Why would you install advertising code on your website that a) you have no control over the content, and b) is geared specifically to feature your competitors? No thanks.
Donations: I know so many people who have tried this and have taken them down. It looks petty and to be frank, people are used to getting stuff online for free and just putting a tip jar there does not give them incentive to pay. Why not instead put together some sort of package of content that is worth paying for?
Andy Hayes | Travel Online Partners´s last blog ..Hospitality, Tourism, and the Reciprocity Effect
Hey Andy, I normally don’t chime in too much on these guest posts…but here I thought I would.
I probably agree with you regarding #4 & #5, but think you’re taking a bit of a black and white approach to #3. I’ll give you an example.
I own an event management company, we put on sporting events, primarily running races. We manage the event from conception, through administration and execution. I make my money off the people that sign up for the events we deliver – that’s my bread and butter. We have websites promoting the events, and I will put up advertisements from companies that compliment what we do. Case and point there are companies out there that sell safety gear for runners (bright colored running vest, night lights, reflective clothing, etc), and so our websites and events are perfectly targeted to their niche. I have no problems selling them advertising, getting their products in front of our participants, and making money from that. So in this case I’m not sending away business, if anything I am profiting from giving our participants added value by pointing them towards reputable companies that sell things they need that I don’t offer. Win-Win.
Just my two cents…
Matt
What are your feelings about free hosts ? I have heard of a lot of people being successful using Blogger’s free service, and I am aware of several others. I imagine this is a good way for someone to get their feet wet and see if a website or blog is right for them.
Small business owners can also use sites like SnapPages to develop their own content and hosting for their website. They can be very economical as one is in the start-up phase.
Free hosts are a great way to test the water. It’s also a great way to build equity for someone else. If you are at all serious about it, get your own domain name! It’s a wise decision in the long run =)
As for adsense: it is an excellent program for what it does. It has limitations, of course. There are better revenue streams depending on what the nature of your traffic is, what margins you have, and so on…
David´s last blog ..The 50 Rules of Business
I wouldn’t suggest throwing advertisements all over your website – especially AdWords. They’re not bad all the time, but they tend to look spammy. If you’re trying to run a professional website, then make money through affiliates or targeted advertisers.
But really, you shouldn’t be paying more than 10 dollars a month for a website that isn’t making you money directly (selling something, etc). That’s nothing. If we’re talking about personal websites, most people can get away with a free Wordpress account and a 9 dollar domain.