How to make money on your news content website

Forget what you might have heard: Journalists can earn money publishing online. Here are some tips from OJR readers. This article is designed to help journalists learn how to make extra money, or even a full-time wage, by publishing independently online. It is not intended to provide an online revenue model for established news organizations. Heck, they've got business managers. They shouldn't need a wiki to show them what to do.

 

Content websites typically earn money through one of four ways:

• Commissions / Affiliate links
• Advertising networks
• Selling your own ads
• Paid content
• Sponsorships/Grants

Once you have ads on your site, you will want to compute the eCPM (effective cost per thousand impressions) of revenue that each ad type is earning for you. You calculate eCPM by taking the total amount generated by an ad (or ad type), diving it by the number of pages on which that ad (or ad type) appears, then multiplying by 1,000. Let eCPM data help you decide which advertising type, layout and position work best for you.

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