These days, there are many options by which you can make money from your website. Here are some of the most widely-used strategies:

1. Banner Advertising

Banner advertising is one of the first and most famous means for earning online. These days, banner ads come in different sizes and are seen in an innumerable number of commercial sites. The idea behind earning through banner ads is simple: you sell page views to the banner advertisers. You show their ads to your visitors and when they happen to click on it, you earn some amount. There are now many payment modes that banner advertising hosts provide, which include CPC (where you are paid per click), CPM (paid per thousand views), and CPA (commission per sale/conversion).

2. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate programs have existed in the Internet for quite a while now. It is quite similar to banner advertising wherein you offer the advertiser’s products or services on your website. If your visitor clicks on the link or they end up buying from the site, you will be paid by the merchant. Affiliate program providers usually give you the complete tools for tracking your affiliate statistics and for determining your earnings.
These days, there are now a good number of third-party affiliates which you can join, such as Commission Junction and Linkshare. This way, there is no need to establish direct contact with merchants - something difficult to do for most small sites.

3. Google AdSense

AdSense is one of the most rewarding monetization resources today for new sites, information-rich sites and blogs. It only involves publishing test-based advertisements relevant to the content of your website. This is fairly easy to do: you only need to insert a short code into each of your page, and Google AdSense will do the rest. When an online visitor clicks on one of these text ads, you will receive some credit (usually a few cents).

4. Premium Content Sponsorships

If you are an independent web publisher, you can sell some sponsored space in your site. The downside of selling sponsored space is that you might have to publish flashy banner advertisements and annoying pop-ups, depending on the terms. The best strategy would be to select your sponsor carefully and to make sure that the products they introduce are relevant to your site content.

5. Merchandising

Selling some t-shirt, baseball cap or tumblers that contain your site name can be a good idea both for promoting your site and for earning additional revenue as well. Make sure that you come up with very sellable merchandise items that will capture the interest of your visitors.

6. Subscription

If you own a site that have contents that continually get refreshed (such as magazine or news sites), you can opt for subscription to earn money from your site. With a subscription service, your online visitors would need to pay some service or subscription fee to gain full access to all the contents of your website. You can offer additional features or premium content to your subscribers to encourage them to sign up and pay the service fees.

7. Tip Jar / Donation

If your site has a very good cause that provides something that is way beyond just the usual information provision on some topic, you can consider asking your visitors for support. However, take note that only few sites deserve donations. If you think your site can make a difference to the world and would only need funds for your campaigns, you can add in some code to make it easier for people to make a donation.
However, finding the right revenue channel is only half the story. Before setting up any of the above options, you need to make sure that your site content, traffic and promotion is enough to draw in the desired number of visitors. You also have to bear in mind that you do not earn millions overnight through these strategies, you need to exert some time and effort towards your projects.

It is best if you design your site such that it is easy to incorporate programs and advertisements. Choose a web authoring software which you are most comfortable in using.

Lastly, once you decide on the strategies best to employ, make sure that you also monitor the performance of your monetization schemes. Check whether your strategy is still working, and immediately make changes when you need to. Remember that these schemes can grow stale over time. Make sure you keep everything interesting and rewarding both for you and for your online visitors.