The original idea for this topic was to ask about ways to make money from your website which are not advertising, in addition to the advertising, but just to make it more interesting let's suppose a site doesn't do ANY advertising at all. How would it make money? And this doesn't include on the side services like writing content for someone else or reviewing somebody's blogs or whatever. It's about making money from your very site, not from your web and writing skills aside of it. Does anyone have a web site with no advertising that makes money? Thanks
Oh, donations indeed, but that doesn't always work. I guess it may work better if visitors are given clear incentive to donate, but that too doesn't always work. Still, it's a good point. What kind of stuff?
What if the site isn't about any of these and the only digital product available for sale is basically an advertising service? Oh well, I suppose that question is becoming quite stupid now. I might be looking for a needle in a haystack or for something that might not even exist. If a site offers nothing but a discussion forum and articles on a rather general topic, advertising seems like the best bet. Thing is, I only wish it weren't so. Hence the question. But anyway, you mentioned services. I am not a professional web designer, but say I have my own server and know how to set up and maintain blog software like wordpress. What if I offer a service of doing just that for people who don't want to bother setting up their blog, but don't want to depend on existing blog networks like blogger and wordpress.com either (due to the limitations they tend to pose, like no-ads policy or displaying a bar above the blog)?
And viral marketing. You must create "quality" and unique content to try to attract web users without even advertising, nor trying.
Make money without advertisments? - Donations - Selling Your own stuff - Affiliate links in the content - do something like Alexscoupons.com
Paid content, subscriptions, donating, affiliate links, selling backlinks (yes, it's kind of advertisement but it's almost invisible
Just wondering if you are on about not wanting to put advertising on your website or you actually mean not advertising your actual website. If it's the second on then nothing will make you money.
Just a reminder: they allow ads (only blogger won´t allow adult content) Wordpress is realy customizable. You can put your own header, like some pic with some design built in. If you decide to go with your idea, i´d say you´re faccing some really serious competition (they´re free!! always a must!!); but it can become interesting, and remember: if you´re up to build some decent service/software (even if its free) and if you can stick to it and make it grow, maybe in some near future you can sell it for some xxxxxx$; remember Youtube. But it´ll be hard and will require a lot of work and knowledge, and I don´t know if your own server is up to the challenge. Good luck with your own business!
Text links? That's what I already do. I'm not actually selling any image advertising (banners etc.). So when I say no advertising I mean not even text links. Of course, I wouldn't actually stop selling text link ads, but I'd like to be a bit less dependable on them. It's the former. Advertising your website in some way is obviously a must. There are many ways to do that though, and the biggest for me was original content. You mean buy premium account for rapidshare (actually I have one at the moment) and sell the same to other people? Well... considering that this would only work if other people get it for less than they get directly from them how can this work without selling the same account twice (basically selling your login details to multiple people)? I'm aware blogger allows ads. Wordpress.com however does not and I believe they are limiting regarding plugins as well, at least for the free account. My way would be to set up a blogging platform of their choice, give them SSH access and allow them to choose whatever plugin or theme they wanna install (or just tell me what they want and I'd install for them). They can put advertising on it and there are no network bars or anything like that. Basically what they get is their own blog except that the hosting and maintenance is done by me. The idea at the moment is not to do this for too many people, but just a few for a start to see how it goes. So this basically means I just have to find a few people willing to pay for such a premium service and see how it goes. If it works out, if those people are satisfied, then I can go buy a bigger VPS or even dedicated and do even more... I mean.. it's an experiment. We'll see. Thanks for the ideas people. Keep them coming.
How about creating and building a website and then selling it on. A website without advertising is quite attractive to a lot of users, and if the new owners decide to place ads on your creation, well that's their choice.
WP allows ads. You can use adsense or whatever you´d like. If it´s an adult site (no adsense for those) you can even put all the affiliate stuf in, with all the pics someone can imagine. So, i really think it´s an interesting business idea, but you must be aware of the competition, know everything about them and provide a better service if possible. But they have a strong point: they´re free!! Sincerely i don´t know why somebody will pay for such a service, maybe you could re-think your idea and provide a service only for small business owners (like the stores or the small businesses you can find on your own town). They could pay you a small monthly fee for such a service (small radios or newspappers are potential customers too); to mantain a website.