Many of us are fascinated with the idea of launching a news portal. The digital news industry is gaining prevalence these days. People find this business idea lucrative and profitable and are vigorously joining the industry. But not everyone is apprised with the ways of earning money from the news portal.
The online publishers need to know about the revenue models. They should know which revenue model fits best to their news portal. Before jumping into the industry, publishers should know that it takes time and effort to extract the money out of a news portal.
In this blog, we will be talking about different ways of monetizing your news portal. The different ways of monetizing your news portal include AdSense, AdMob, Subscriptions, advertisements, and many more.
How to make money from the news portal?
There exist different revenue models, through which you can generate money from a news portal. You need to understand each of the models and choose your perfect fit accordingly. At the initial level, you may or may not be able to choose the right revenue model. You can seek the help of professional agencies to assist you in such matters.
The basic revenue models used to encash the news portal include subscriptions, advertisements, while the newer strategies include sponsorships, hosting live events. Here are a few ways through you can earn money from your news portal-
- Focus on the content- A news portal or a website is content-driven. You get paid for the type of content you offer in the form of information on different topics like sports, business, politics, entertainment, and many more. It is believed you should wait at least for 6 months to join any other method of earning money like advertisements.
It is advisable to work on your content during this period. Work with your reporters, editors, photographers, and other members to produce a unique editorial style. You can also consider writing an editorial mission statement that could state the purpose of your publication.
It is not easy to pitch the advertisers, they see the type of content that is going to run along with the advertisements and then deal. So, producing valuable content for personal advertisement is beneficial at the initial level.
2. Approach local advertisers- After producing valuable content, now you can consider approaching advertisers. You can start with your area by pitching local advertisers. Check out the newspapers, the businesses that want to promote themselves. You can approach those owners and talk about the offer. You can display their product along with your article, blog, or news content and earn money.
Finding the first contract or client is a bit more difficult than cracking following deals. Don’t get frustrated, keep trying for the sake of your business. Your main focus should be on building an audience full of loyal and local readers. This can help you in getting advertisers.
3. Pay-per-click advertising– Pay-per-click advertising runs through Google AdSense, however, several other vendors deal with independent local news publishers as well. Online publishers are not fond of the PPC method. This is because the rates are very low as compared to the money they can earn from advertisements or other methods.
They can earn between $0.50- $2 per click. Popular news portals or websites use this method to bag a good amount of money, but small publishers get failed. It is advisable to use this method after gaining prominence.
But, if you are in the early stages of learning how to earn money from a news portal, then PPC advertisements can be a great tool for your business. You can at least fulfill the display advertisement slot, instead of making them sit idle.
4. Start Selling Subscriptions– Selling subscriptions is a great idea if you have a niche audience. Using advertisements as the only source of generating revenue is not a good idea. You can offer high-quality content, build your loyal audience and then sell subscriptions.
This is a great way of making money. But you have to offer out-of-the-box content because many news sites or portals are running in the digital world. If they can offer the same content for free, then your idea of selling subscriptions is already a flop.
You have to guarantee quality to your readers and assure them that the content you are providing is unique. The big news website or portals are resorting to this method of earning money from the news portal. The golden rule is, the more content (unique) you offer, the chances of your subscription model becoming successful increases.
5. Hosting live events- This method of earning money from the news portal is not known to everyone. Online publishers are considering hosting live events on their websites. It is becoming a great source of making money from the news portal. If you are a niche publisher, you can consider organizing industry conferences. Local news portals or websites can consider hosting community forums or meet-up events. Along with selling tickets to attendees, publishers can also sell sponsorship packages to businesses.
6. Affiliate Marketing- This is one of the best ways of creating money from an online news portal. The commission comes up for every purchase based on the recommendation of the affiliate products or services.
7. Facebook Instant Article- Instant Articles is a publishing format used by news publishers to spread their blogs, posts, articles 4 times faster than the standard mobile website or portal. This could be one of the best ways of making money for online publishers. You can make approximately $1.5-$4 depending on the country in which you are residing.
These are the most particular methods of making money from the news portal. In the following sections, we will be talking about different methods through which news portals can earn money.
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How AdMob Works?
Admob helps app developers in earning money. Yes, you read it. This service is for the applications and not for the portals and websites. At one point, site or portal developers do not mind developing applications. Sometimes online news providers get their applications designed right at the beginning of the business. It happens when they aim towards starting a business at the bigger level.
AdMob works by matching the ads to your app based on the criteria you set. These ads are then created and paid for by the advertisers who want to promote their products or services. The amount paid by advertisers may vary, so the amount you will earn is uncertain.
This is how AdMob Works-
1. Create ad space in the app- One of the most important things you need to do is creating an ad space in the application. This is done by creating ad units in AdMob. While making the ad space, you can make other choices like where you want the ads to appear. This is done when you add the ad units to your app code.
2. AdMob shows highest performing ads to your users- People resort to options like AdMob for the quality. AdMob has a huge network and it works with its network and third-party ad networks to ensure the highest performing ads will be shown in the application.
3. You will be paid- Like AdSense, you get paid for the advertisements you allow on your application. We handle the work of billing advertisers and networks for the ads shown in the application.
This is how AdMob works. It is different from other platforms as it uses the best technology in a single platform, where you can get insights into your users and increase your ad revenue. Now you don’t have to spend on the special solutions or rely on a combination of tools or develop resources to meet your requirements.
Using AdMob you can make money from the ads, use house ads to promote your app, and run direct deals for the clients. Like AdSense, you don’t have to choose for the ads. AdMob serves ads to your apps based on the content and the target audience.
You must be thinking about who decides which ads to appear in my app. AdMob uses an auction to automatically select the ads that will be shown on your mobile application from all the available ad sources. The best part of AdMob is it will show the best performing apps on the application. If you want to control which ad should appear, you can block ads from certain advertisers and categories.
What is Google AdSense?
Google AdSense is a free advertising program handled by Google that allows websites or portal owners to display different types of ads on their website along with the content with the hope that site users will click on them. The ads could be in different forms like images, text, video, or interactive media.
The ads that get displayed on the portal or website are controlled by Google. And Google is smart enough to publish ads that are relevant to your content and audience. This encourages the visitors to click on the link.
When the ad appearing on your site gets clicked, you get paid for about 68% of what the advertisers paid to have their ad shown on your site. The goal is to generate clicks as these clicks are going to generate money. You may not be able to handle such things at the initial level, so you can take professional assistance.
You must be pondering will it work for my news portal. The answer is yes. Google AdSense is one of the best ways of monetizing any website. It is going to work for news portals, news websites, e-commerce websites, in short, it is going to work for every website. And the best part is you don’t have to pay for it.
We agree that Google AdSense is a great choice for all the advertisers but some websites are doing exceptionally well. These websites include a blog, forum sites, free online tool sites.
How AdSense works?
Google AdSense provides a way for online publishers to earn money from the content. It can be opted by both small or big publishers. Google AdSense is a free service that offers inimitable benefits. What else one could ask for? These ads are then created and paid for by advertisers who want to promote their products or services. These advertisers pay different amounts for different ads, that’s why the amount you earn may vary.
This is how AdSense works-
- You make your ad spaces- The first thing you need to do is build ad space in the news portal. Space can be made available by pasting an ad code on your site. You even have the choice to select the place where ads should appear.
- The highest paying ads appear- Google AdSense has irresistible services. People love Google AdSense before it offers quality. It chooses the highest paying and highest performing ads to spear on the website. This runs as the advertiser’s bid to show in your ad spaces in the auction. Thus, the highest-paying apps win and get shown on your site.
- You get paid- I know you are glad to read this. You will get paid. You will get paid for the advertisements you will be showing on your portal or website. Google will handle the backend work like billing all advertisers and networks for the ads on your site.
The process is simple and free of cost. So, you can consider choosing this method for the news portal.
Tips to use AdSense
- Read and adhere to Guidelines- Make sure you read and adhere to the guidelines of AdSense Policy and Google’s Webmaster Policies.
- Don’t click on your ads or ask others to click them- Do not break the rules. Google does not have forgiving nature. Incentivizing clicks, buying PPC space, or using special programs to enhance traffic is against the AdSense Policy.
- Offer quality content- As we already said, the news portal or website is content-driven. You can use different methods to generate money, but the content is the real king.
- Use honest traffic-building website marketing techniques- Use the honest method of increasing traffic. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a great tool for increasing traffic.
- Optimize your news portal for mobile phones- Make sure your news portal or website is optimized for mobile phones. People prefer to use news on mobile phones, so your portal should be responsive so that the ads can also be adjusted accordingly.
- Test ad types and positions to find the most yielding space- Start testing with standard size and then experiment on other sizes, whether they can generate clicks or not.
- Use maximum ad placement- You are allowed three ad placements per page. Make sure you utilize the given space.
- Keep ads above the fold- This section is visible without scrolling. This is the right place to keep an ad.
- Include in-content ads for visibility- Include the ads within the articles. It can increase the clicks as it will be seen during the period when a user is reading the article.
- Have a leader board under the logo- You can put an ad below the logo to fetch the attention of the users.
- Evaluate your results- Make sure you analyze your data and results time-to-time. It can help you in dealing with your shortcomings. You can analyze where you are lacking and put your efforts into that area.
- Read e-mail from Google- Read Google mails. If they are not liking anything, they choose to warn. And if you ignore you are ought to bear repercussions.
- Experiment with links and colors- Once you got settled on AdSense, make sure you are using a maximum of it. Try experimenting with the colors. For example, if your color is not matching with the theme, try to choose the color that matches well.
- Enable Placement targeting- This allows advertisers to choose where their ads are to be placed. Try hand-on this tip for sure. It would make the advertisers feel customized and special. And they would choose to stay connected with your website for a longer time.
You can make a lot of money using AdSense. Go through these tips to make money from your news portal using AdSense.
Pros and Cons of using AdSense
AdSense is a great that can be used to monetize your news website. It is free of cost and can help you in generating good revenue if used correctly. But it exists in the world of imperfections and it ought to hold some drawbacks as well. So, in this section, we will be talking about the pros and cons of using AdSense.
Pros of using AdSense
- It is free.
- Google pays you monthly if you meet the $100 threshold.
- The options are available in bulk and you can even customize the look of your website or portal.
- Eligibility requirements are not hard. You can even monetize your new blog or article.
- You can run ads on multiple websites from one AdSense account.
- You can also run ads on mobile devices and RSS feeds.
Cons of using AdSense
- If you break the rules, Google can terminate your account straightaway.
- Like other methods of generating online income, you need the traffic to earn money.
- It doesn’t necessarily pay more than other ad programs.
- When people click on AdSense, they leave your site which means you lost the chance of earning from your product or the affiliate product.
How online publishers make money with Google Ad Manager?
You must have heard of Google Ad manager. Thousands of online news publishers are using this method of Google Ad manager to run digital advertising and on their websites, portals and applications. Google ad manager is chosen for its performance controls and ability to connect tons of third-party advertisers to help them in making money from the sale of ad space.
Google ad manager aims towards helping online publishers to grow and earn money by providing information to the people. Although the revenue model of every news company is different, here we will talk about a few basic and common ways through which online publishers earn money when they use Google Ad Manager.
News publishers use Ad manager to facilitate direct sales and deals with other platforms
The two common ways through which publishers manage their digital advertising business include directly managed sales and programmatic sales with ad managers. The maximum part of the revenue of the news publishers’ comes from the direct sales to advertisers and agencies, managed by their teams.
They sell ad space directly to the advertisers who want a specific position of the placement of their ads on the news portal. The sales team also deals with other ad tech platforms like ad exchange, ad networks, and header bidding providers.
Online publishers sell products through direct sales or other ad tech platforms, they can use ad serving technologies in Ad manager to deliver the ad on their website or portal. When the ad is shown from one of these sources, the majority of work is done by the publisher. Ans they are entitled to keep 99% of the revenue, while Google keeps only 1% for providing the platform.
News publishers sell programmatically with Ad Manager
Another way online publisher makes use of Google ad manager is for programmatic ad sales. Programmatic ad sales allow the online publishers to sell their services to millions of users, many of which they would not have access to without Google ad manager.
When the online publishers sell ad space with an ad manager, they get access to the tools that allow them to manage ads that appear on their portal or website. Many factors like the brand that can advertise, the minimum price of ad space, the type of ads that are to be shown, and many more come under the control of the online publisher.
The ad manager is then employed to find the highest paying advertiser that is perfect based on the requirements set by the publisher. Google ad manager charges 20% of the revenue for this service.
Ad manager is for digital news providers
The main purpose of Google Ad manager is to help online publishers to grow and earn revenue. Google ad manager is based on high technology that aims to serve online news creators. It can be used by both old and new publishers to create long-lasting businesses.
You can use Google Ad manager to convert your words (content) into cash. You just have to choose the right strategy.
Other methods
Apart from AdSense, AdMob, several ad-network programs like Media.net and InfoLinks exist. Some of them require traffic, so make sure you gather enough traffic before resorting to any other methods. The rules are similar to that of AdSense.
You can be terminated for incentivizing clicks or clicking your ads. Also, there is a limit to the number of the network’s ads per page. You should use Ads in the right quantity. Ads should not overshadow the purpose of your website.
Sponsoring is also a great method of monetizing your news website. When you can have a good amount of traffic and influence the audience, then other websites would love to sponsor your website. They can either sponsor a page, post, or the entire website or portal.
There exist multiple methods of generating income from the news portal. All you need to do is choose the best out of the rest.
Conclusion
The news industry has become one of the most lucrative businesses of this era. It offers promising returns on the investment. People are investing in the industry as the investments are low. Some are even starting for free. Social media has become a support system for the industry.
Many online publishers begin their journey from social media platforms for zero rupees. They use social media strategies to grow, earn and then flourish. There are different ways through which you can earn money from the news portal. You can reach out to advertisers, sell subscriptions, use AdSense, and many more. But make sure you are offering quality content.
News website or portal runs on content. You must focus on providing premium quality content. The primary focus should be to build an audience consisting of loyal readers before jumping on different methods of monetizing your website or portal. Also, the design and the responsiveness of your news portal should be extraordinary.
Undoubtedly, content is the king but other factors also determine the success of the news portal. For those purposes, you would require high-quality services. Get connected with the 7k network for the extraordinary services associated with the news industry. We provide news portal designing, development, and many other services at pocket-friendly prices.
Frequently Asked Questions
Ques.1 How can I make money from the news portal?
Ans. Different revenue models can be used to earn money from the news portal. You can make money by selling subscriptions, putting advertisements, using AdSense, Google Ad Manager, and many other ways that suit you the best.
Ques. 2 What is AdSense?
Ans. AdSense is a way of earning money by showing ads beside your content. You can show the relevant ads to the users and even customize the look of the portal to attract the crowd.
Ques.3 Do I have to choose which ads to show on my portal?
Ans. No, AdSense will automatically choose the ad that should be displayed on your news portal. You don’t have to choose for yourself. It will choose the ad based on your content or audience.
Ques. 4 Do I have to pay for using AdSense?
Ans. No, the best part of using AdSense is you don’t have to pay for it. Google will pay you for the clicks, impressions, and interactions.
Ques. 5 Is it a good idea to use a subscription model in the beginning?
Ans. The answer is No. It is not a good idea to use the subscription model right in the beginning. People pay for the content. If you can provide, extraordinary content, then go for the subscription model. It is advisable to provide the news for free at the initial stage.
Ques. 6 What is AdMob?
Ans. AdMob is a method of making money through applications. AdMob works by matching ads to your criteria. The sellers who want to promote their products pay for these ads. You just have to show the ads on your app.
Ques. 7 Do I have to pay to use AdMob?
Ans. No, you don’t have to pay to use Admob. It is free of cost. Just like AdSense, it will pay for the clicks, impressions, and interactions.
Ques. 8 How to make money from Google Ad Manager?
Ans. Google Ad Manager is an ad server and platform that unites the best of Double-click Ad exchange and Double click for publishers into a unified account. It is a helpful tool as it can even monetize your traffic.
Ques. 9 Why should I hire an agency for news portal services?
Ans. An agency can provide professional services. It would provide you with unique and updated designs crafted with the updated technology. It will help you in choosing the right revenue models for your news portal.
Ques. 10 What is an ad exchange?
Ans. An ad exchange is a platform where buying and selling of advertisements are performed. The buying and selling process is based on bidding. It uses high-level technology and invites several users.
Ques. 11 What is an ad network?
Ans. An ad network works as an aggregator that collects ad inventory from online publishers and sells it to other advertisers.
Ques. 12 What is content syndication?
Ans. It involves the transferring of rights re-publishing the content created by the news portal or published on the news portal on another website or platform. Nowadays, many news portals are resorting to this method of monetizing their news portal.
Ques. 13 What are Infolinks?
Ans. Infolinks is an advertising solution for both publishers and advertisers. It refers to the practice of delivering brand messages to engaged users. Online publishers are resorting to such methods of creating money from their websites.