Making money from a website, when you reduce it to the very basics, is a numbers game.

You keep track of statistics for your website that tell you how your sales funnel is working. You analyze the numbers and try to improve on them. This is how it works.

For  a website your you sell your own product, such as an e-book, video or any other type of product you would keep stats on the following:

What percent opts-in for your free offer
( Free report, offer of your free newsletter, etc)

What percent reads your offers?

What percent buys?

What percent takes an upsell or downsell?

What percent becomes repeat buyers?

Your website should direct people to the goals you want them to take. This post won’t cover the “how to” of doing that but everything on your website should have a purpose, otherwise you are just running a hobby.

You aim for a certain percentage with your numbers and then get the traffic and make necessary tweaks to obtain your goal.

For example: If you want to obtain a 30% opt-in rate for your free offer, you start keeping track of the conversion rate of this part of your website.

Maybe when you begin you only have an 18% conversion rate, well your goal was 30% so now you begin to tweak. Maybe try a different headline – one that evokes more curiosity or one that includes a bigger benefit to the prospect.

Maybe this one change will increase conversions a significant amount. I’ve seen one change make my conversion rate triple.

This simple formula is the basis of how to earn money from your website.

A certain percentage of people complete the goals you want and direct them to. The higher you can get this percentage, the more money you make.

As another example, when it comes to marketing with articles, you post some articles on articles directory websites…you give people good information and a certain percentage will click your link in your “About The Author” bio box at the end of an article.

I currently have 1 article that is pulling over 20% click thru rate from the article to my website (1 in 5 people who read the article feel the desire to click thru and see what else I have)

I currently have another article that is pulling around 6%, a much lower rate.

But, it’s the same thing for your advertising or your websites, it’s all about keeping track of your stats and improving the percentage of people you want to take a desired action.

That’s the simplicity of how to earn money with a website.

You Are Just A Middle Man Helping People Find What They Want.

You really could boil it down to being that simple.

Take Google as the broadest example. Google just helps people find information they need on the widest scale. They seem to do that better than anyone else and thus became the biggest search engine.

Just help people find the answers and solutions they are looking for.

You may also have an advantage over many other people…a greater knowledge of how the internet works.

There are a ton of people who don’t even know how to really best use a search engine. There are still plenty of people who go to google and type in Yahoo!

Now, to get back to the middleman concept…

People want a solution or answer to something…just connect people with the solution they want.

3 examples:

1) If its an page recommending some piece of software of which you are an affiliate, you review the program for the visitor giving them information and a recommendation.

Combine this with different methods of getting traffic like ppc, forums, onsite seo, etc. to get it in front of the RIGHT people.

And then what happens is…

A certain percentage of the people who consume your material will purchase.

2) If its your own product, you get this product in front of the people who would be most interested in this solution.

You educate, prove it works, demonstrate what it would be like to use the product, etc. and then what happens is…

A certain percentage of people will buy

3) If its monetization thru ads…

You provide content that will interest people and use traffic methods to get this info in front of people who are looking for it…and then…

A certain percentage of them will click the advertisement thus leading to money for you.

So a great thing to do is to change your mindset and simplify. Think of yourself as a solution provider. Then, just find the people who want that solution.