As the amount of content material output will increase, it’s turning into harder to seize consideration, which additionally signifies that the worth of consideration is rising.
So when you’ve got glorious Website positioning abilities and perceive easy methods to seize an viewers by driving visitors from Google (and different serps), there are many other ways you can also make cash.
Most individuals know you’ll be able to promote Website positioning providers, however that isn’t the one option to earn a living on-line.
On this submit, we’ll talk about other ways to earn a living with Website positioning on-line, the professionals and cons of every monetization technique, and a few particular examples to encourage you.
1. Promote Website positioning Consulting and Freelance Companies
Loads of companies are keen to pay Website positioning professionals to assist them rank for key phrases that their audience searches.
Whether or not it’s a neighborhood enterprise promoting flowers or a tech firm promoting knowledge administration software program, rating for key phrases that potential clients search on Google (e.g., “greatest flower supply in Austin, TX” or “greatest knowledge administration options”) is extremely helpful.
You may function as a solo Website positioning marketing consultant or freelancer and do the work your self, or you’ll be able to construct an company and rent others to execute your Website positioning course of.
Some providers that you simply may supply embody Website positioning audits, hyperlink constructing, content material advertising, and technical Website positioning optimizations. In case you’re beginning your Website positioning profession, choose one service after which add different providers as you turn out to be extra assured in your skills.
It’s additionally a good suggestion to area of interest down and specialise in a specific business (SaaS, native companies, ecommerce, and so forth.) as companies are sometimes keen to pay extra for a specialist.
You can even do Website positioning for podcasting, YouTube, and Amazon, as rating on the high of these serps can be extraordinarily helpful.
Examples of Website positioning Consultants/Businesses
Brodie Clark is a solo Website positioning marketing consultant who has constructed a reputation for himself within the search engine marketing group. In case you’re fascinated about taking place the solo marketing consultant or freelancing route, think about constructing a following on social media or a e-newsletter, as these channels assist him generate purchasers.
Siege Media is a good instance of an Website positioning-focused digital advertising company. They reportedly reached $10M in ARR and presently have about 100 workers.
In case you create an company, the important thing to success is establishing repeatable methods and processes that make it simple for any worker to implement and generate the identical outcomes for all of your purchasers.
Execs of This Mannequin
- Speedy money circulation and few startup bills.
- Excessive revenue margins.
- Be taught on different individuals’s web sites.
Cons of This Mannequin
- Purchasers can churn at any time (and this occurs as Website positioning takes time to drive outcomes).
- Some individuals don’t get pleasure from shopper administration.
- Restricted scalability as solo consultants can solely increase their costs to scale, and companies require extra individuals to scale.
Incomes Potential
Website positioning providers vary dramatically. Some firms can pay their Website positioning company $30,000 plus monthly, whereas others could pay a marketing consultant just a few thousand {dollars} monthly for Website positioning providers.
The value you cost is determined by the ROI you’ll be able to produce for the corporate. For instance, if you happen to drive 20 clients price $40 monthly for a florist, you’ll make considerably much less cash than if you happen to can drive 10 new clients price $2,000 every for an enterprise tech firm. Your experience and talent degree may even affect how a lot you’ll be able to cost.
Nonetheless, listed here are some stats from Ahrefs:
- Common Website positioning retainers vary from $500 to $1,500 monthly.
- Most Website positioning consultants cost $75 to $100 per hour.

2. Promote Productized Website positioning
If you wish to work with purchasers however don’t like the concept of long-term engagements, you’ll be able to productize your Website positioning providers.
For instance, you’ll be able to supply an Website positioning technique bundle that features a technical audit, key phrase analysis, a content material advertising technique, and a link-building technique. Then, you give this knowledge to the shopper, and they’re chargeable for the execution.
So in contrast to Website positioning providers, these engagements may take you per week or two to finish, and then you definitely half methods with that shopper.
Examples of Productized Website positioning
Marie Haynes presents productized Website positioning initiatives. Particularly, she analyzes declines in natural efficiency, your competitor panorama, and a future technique map. This engagement prices $6,500 with a name and $5,000 with no name.
You may view the small print of her productized providers on her web site.
Execs of This Mannequin
- Much less shopper administration than offering providers.
- Speedy money circulation and no overhead to get began.
- You aren’t chargeable for a drop in rankings or different issues that crop up with the web site.
- Usually 100% revenue margins.
Cons of This Mannequin
- You don’t have any recurring income, so that you’re at all times promoting.
- Many greater firms with greater budgets are solely fascinated about hiring somebody who can execute for them.
Incomes Potential
In accordance with Ahrefs’s statistics, these initiatives often price between $2,501 to $5,000. It’s additionally a virtually 100% revenue margin enterprise mannequin as the one bills you’ll have embody Website positioning instruments and any fundamental operational prices, like billing administration.
3. Create An Affiliate Web site
If in case you have a web site with an viewers, you’ll be able to accomplice with different companies that need to promote their services to your viewers.
These companies provide you with a hyperlink, and anytime somebody out of your web site clicks on that hyperlink and purchases the product, you obtain a sale fee.
This enterprise mannequin is known as online marketing, and it’s a straightforward approach so that you can earn a living promoting services to your viewers with out dealing with buyer success or achievement. Actually, it’s like influencer advertising, although your whole income is predicated on fee, and also you additionally don’t must have a private model behind the web site.
You’ve in all probability already seen loads of affiliate websites.
For instance, the Spruce is an affiliate web site, and if you happen to have been to buy one among these air fryers via the hyperlink on the Spruce web site, they’d obtain a fee:

Whereas The Spruce is an instance of an enormous affiliate web site, most impartial SEOs create small affiliate web sites in numerous niches, like pets, gardening, tech, and so forth.
Actually, many SEOs create a portfolio of various web sites in numerous niches.
Examples of Affiliate Web sites
Wirecutter is an instance of an affiliate web site. Basically affiliate web sites construct natural visitors after which monetize them by creating pages for “greatest (product)” key phrases and itemizing their affiliate merchandise.
Ahrefs has an awesome video of assorted affiliate web sites:
Execs of This Mannequin
- You don’t have to speak to any of the purchasers and may make passive earnings.
- There isn’t a restrict to scaling an affiliate web site, and you may construct it into a considerable model.
- You could be a solo operator and by no means have to rent an worker.
Cons of This Mannequin
- Constructing a loyal viewers can take a very long time, so that you received’t see fast money circulation.
- Google’s algorithm can change at any second and drastically change your earnings.
- As AI content material takes over and EEAT turns into extra vital, Google is cracking down on affiliate web sites.
Incomes Potential
The incomes potential of an affiliate web site varies relying on the area of interest you put money into, how a lot content material you produce, and the worth of the viewers (i.e., an auto insurance coverage viewers is extra helpful than an viewers of baking lovers).
Statistics present that about 42% of affiliate entrepreneurs make greater than $10,000 yearly, whereas the opposite 58% make lower than $10,000 yearly.
Nonetheless, there are additionally loads of affiliate companies that generate a number of thousands and thousands of {dollars} yearly.
4. Supply Sponsored Content material
Many branded and private bloggers monetize their audiences by permitting different manufacturers to create and publish sponsored posts on their web sites.
Right here’s an instance of a sponsored weblog submit from a branded weblog:

Many manufacturers may even be glad to pay for visitor posts if you happen to permit them to insert a hyperlink to their web site as backlinks are helpful for enhancing area authority.
Examples of Web sites With Sponsored Content material
An instance of a model that provides sponsored content material is the Mother Collective. You may see that they provide sponsored weblog posts, amongst different promotional providers.
Right here’s an instance of one among their sponsored weblog posts:
There are additionally loads of private bloggers that provide sponsored content material. Right here’s an fascinating earnings report from Get On My Plate, a meals blogger. She presents sponsored posts in addition to numerous different earnings streams.
Execs of This Mannequin
- You don’t have any shopper administration challenges.
- You may enhance your costs and scale your earnings as your web site grows.
- Publishing sponsored posts written by different individuals requires little or no effort.
Cons of This Mannequin
- There isn’t any recurring income, and also you’re at all times attempting to promote new sponsors.
- As audiences gravitate extra in the direction of social media for info, particular person ardour blogs are producing much less visitors.
- To maintain belief along with your viewers, you’ll have to hold a balanced ratio of useful to sponsored content material (in all probability 4:1), which may restrict scale.
Incomes Potential
Statistics from AdWeek present that the common sponsored submit is about $300. Nonetheless,you’ll be able to cost extra relying in your visitors quantity, viewers loyalty/engagement, and web site authority.
5. Rank and Hire Pages
Whereas some enterprise house owners pay for Website positioning providers to optimize their web sites, others merely need fast leads. So if you happen to can create a web site that ranks for a key phrase the enterprise desires to rank for, they’ll usually merely pay you to lease that rating web site to generate leads.
For instance, a dentist in Austin, TX, may pay to rank your web site if you happen to presently rank first for “greatest dentist in Austin, TX.”
Matt Diggity has a superb information to creating rank and lease web sites:
Examples of Rank and Hire Web sites
Grand Rapids Tree Care is an instance of a rank and lease web site. The proprietor reported that it makes about $2,000 monthly:
You may see numerous different examples of rank and lease web sites on this web page.
Execs of This Mannequin
- Excessive revenue margins.
- Minimal shopper administration.
- You may have full management over the Website positioning technique.
Cons of This Mannequin
- You’ll lose your small business in case your web site isn’t rating effectively.
- It requires loads of upfront funding to get web sites to rank.
- Purchasers could churn at any time.
Incomes Potential
Most rank and lease web sites make just a few thousand {dollars} monthly, although your revenue relies upon largely on the area of interest you choose (the worth of your leads) and the way effectively your web site ranks.
6. Develop and Flip Web sites
As Website positioning is a protracted recreation, and it may possibly take years for a web site to rank for its desired key phrases, many companies choose to buy current web sites with high quality content material, backlinks, and an honest quantity of visitors for his or her goal key phrases.
Many of those consumers will then create and promote their very own merchandise on these web sites or redirect your web site to one among their current web sites to extend its visitors and authority.
The important thing to rising and flipping a web site is constructing a stable basis with room for extra progress and monetization. To make sure your web site is flippable, listed here are just a few suggestions:
- Use a branded area title
- Choose a distinct segment with room for growth and progress
- Use primarily white hat progress methods to indicate regular progress
If you’re able to promote your web site, you should use a market like Quiet Gentle Brokerage, Flippa, or FEInternational to checklist and promote your web site.
Jase Rodely has an awesome information to flipping web sites.
Examples of Web site Flipping
If you wish to discover examples of web site flipping, take a look at Flippa, as you’ll be able to see web sites on the market and numerous metrics like asking value, visitors, backlinks, and niches to estimate how a lot you’ll be able to promote a web site for relying on its authority and natural search visitors.
Listed below are simply two present examples:
Execs of This Mannequin
- It’s one of many extra worthwhile Website positioning fashions, as you’ll be able to generate a 20-30x return on web earnings earnings.
- It doesn’t require any shopper administration.
- It may possibly generate passive earnings whilst you develop it after which a lump sum of money whenever you promote it.
Cons of This Mannequin
- It requires loads of upfront funding to generate the preliminary web site visitors.
- The acquisition course of will be time-consuming, nerve-wracking, and complicated.
- There isn’t a assure that anybody will purchase your web site.
Incomes Potential
Website positioning professional Matt Diggity estimates that the typical web site can promote for about 20-30x its web earnings revenue, so your earnings potential relies upon largely on the profitability of the enterprise you construct.
7. Create a Dropshipping Web site
A simple option to monetize your visitors is by promoting bodily merchandise. Nonetheless, if you wish to keep away from coping with the headache of producing and delivery merchandise, you’ll be able to accomplice with a producer to deal with the logistics. Then, all it’s important to do is promote and promote their merchandise in your web site.
This enterprise mannequin is known as dropshipping, and it’s primarily an ecommerce retailer that doesn’t require you to do any of the achievement your self.
You might additionally construct a dropshipping enterprise via Amazon after which do Amazon Website positioning to rank and promote your merchandise, although many SEOs choose to create and rank their very own shops on Google, as Amazon can copy your merchandise.
The Website positioning work concerned with an ecommerce web site tends to contain product web page and web site structure optimization, so it’s an awesome choice for technical SEOs.
Shopify has a superb dropshipping information with extra particulars on how one can begin your individual dropshipping enterprise.
Examples of Dropshipping Web sites
This cuckoo clock store is probably going a dropshipping web site. They accomplice with numerous cuckoo clock producers, after which when individuals place an order on their web site, they ship the order to the producer, who then sends the clock to the shopper. The dropshipper’s revenue is the distinction between the retail value the shopper pays and the wholesale value the producer costs plus different operational and advertising bills.
One other instance of a extra established dropshipping web site is Texas Snax. Immediately, it’s a $3 million greenback dropshipping enterprise that sells Buc-ee’s merchandise on-line.
You may learn the full story right here:
Alternatively, if you happen to’re fascinated about simply rising a dropshipping web site to promote it, you’ll be able to learn this case examine a couple of dropshipper that bought their web site for $130,000.
Execs of This Mannequin
- You may monetize the web site by promoting bodily merchandise with out really dealing with any of the achievement your self.
- You may scale your profitability by including extra merchandise and increasing into parallel niches.
- These companies are additionally sellable, so you’ll be able to flip them for a major revenue.
- You may run a dropshipping enterprise as a solo entrepreneur.
Cons of This Mannequin
- You don’t have a lot management over product high quality or customer support, which may harm your model’s repute.
- You’ll in all probability compete with different dropshippers promoting from the identical producer.
- You’ll must take care of buyer complaints your self, which could be a headache.
- It may possibly take a very long time to see an ROI, as you’ll nonetheless have to construct the web site and generate visitors earlier than producing any revenue.
- In case your product rankings drop and you may’t drive visitors to your product pages, your small business will disappear.
Incomes Potential
The incomes potential of your retailer is determined by your revenue margins and the variety of merchandise you promote. Along with the wholesale costs, some elements to think about when figuring out revenue margins embody delivery prices (if you happen to supply free delivery), buyer assist (if you happen to rent another person that can assist you with this), and product returns.
Statistics present that the typical revenue margin for a dropshipper is 20-30%, and the typical dropshipping retailer often makes about $1,000-$5,000 monthly.
8. Promote Your Personal Digital Merchandise
Whereas dropshipping is one option to monetize your web site by promoting a producer’s bodily merchandise, one other standard methodology is creating and promoting digital merchandise.
A digital product might be an app, a course, or a group, and the good thing about promoting digital merchandise is that you simply create it as soon as and promote it infinitely. This makes it a superb, scalable passive earnings enterprise.
In case you intend to promote programs or instructional content material, you’ll have to rank on your desired key phrases and make sure the content material builds belief along with your viewers. Individuals need to study from consultants, so you may additionally need to construct a private model round your web site.
Examples of The Digital Product Mannequin
The Copyblogger Academy is definitely a superb instance of this enterprise mannequin.
It’s a group for writers within the creator financial system, and most of our members initially discovered the group via the Copyblogger web site. Our primary progress technique right here at Copyblogger is writing useful Website positioning content material, so you should use the identical blueprint to construct an viewers via Website positioning after which monetize that viewers via a digital product.
Marie Haynes can be a superb instance of a creator who has leveraged her Website positioning data to construct digital merchandise, like her $150 Useful Content material Workbook.
Execs of This Mannequin
- Digital merchandise scale effectively as a result of you’ll be able to construct as soon as and promote infinitely.
- Digital merchandise additionally require minimal buyer assist (until you may have a group).
- You may supply upsells, downsells, and subscriptions to extend the lifetime worth of your clients.
- Most digital merchandise require minimal upfront funding to create.
Cons of This Mannequin
- You sometimes want to determine the next degree of belief to promote an educational-based product as a result of individuals need to purchase from consultants. Subsequently, your content material should not solely rank effectively but additionally construct belief, which may enhance your content material manufacturing prices.
- It takes time and assets to construct deep belief with an viewers, and you’ll have to nurture them via electronic mail and free trainings earlier than they’ll think about buying your digital merchandise.
Incomes Potential
One of many key advantages of this mannequin is that the incomes potential is actually limitless. The common value level is often round $1,000 if you happen to’re promoting a course, so your income will rely largely on product demand (market measurement) and the way a lot your viewers trusts your model.
Nonetheless, you can even promote ebooks, downloadable templates, and different merchandise for just a few hundred {dollars}.
9. Get a Job As An Website positioning Specialist
Most established firms rent full-time Website positioning specialists to assist their manufacturers rank for essential key phrases. As well as, the introduction of AI will probably change the Website positioning panorama, and individuals who know easy methods to automate numerous Website positioning processes with AI might be more and more helpful to firms.
There are additionally loads of distant and in-person jobs at numerous firms, so you’ll be able to get pleasure from a steady wage and nonetheless journey the world as an Website positioning skilled.
You can even study on the job after which construct your individual web sites so as to add extra earnings streams.
Examples of Website positioning Jobs
You may get a job as a normal Website positioning specialist or numerous subsets of Website positioning, like hyperlink constructing, content material writing, or technical Website positioning.
Simply search on Certainly or LinkedIn to seek out tons of of various Website positioning jobs:
Some examples of profitable Website positioning consultants that started as in-house specialists embody Alexandra Tachalova (beforehand at SEMrush) and Kevin Indig (beforehand at Shopify).
Execs of This Mannequin
- You obtain a gentle earnings that isn’t depending on Google’s algorithm.
- You may study Website positioning on another person’s dime after which create secondary earnings streams by constructing your individual web sites.
- You may leverage one other model’s authority to construct your individual private model in Website positioning by receiving talking alternatives and different occasion invites.
Cons of This Mannequin
- You continue to work for another person, so that you don’t have as a lot freedom as different Website positioning monetization methods.
- You may have restricted experimentation alternatives as you will need to respect the corporate’s different targets.
- It has restricted incomes potential.
Incomes Potential
The common Website positioning wage is about $56,000 in line with Glassdoor, however a senior Website positioning supervisor could make a wholesome six determine wage.
How To Take Motion Now
One of the best ways to turn out to be nice at Website positioning is by training Website positioning.
So one of the best recommendation I can provide you is to arrange your individual WordPress website and begin writing content material to rank for numerous key phrases.
When you won’t earn a living instantly, it’s the quickest approach to enhance your Website positioning abilities. As you turn out to be a greater Website positioning skilled, you’ll have extra alternatives to monetize that talent, from promoting providers to purchasers to constructing passive, cash-flowing affiliate websites.
In order for you extra assist getting began as an Website positioning skilled, think about becoming a member of the Copyblogger Academy. It’s a bunch of like-minded creators leveraging Website positioning to gas their companies. You’ll additionally obtain direct entry to me, and I host common interview periods with different high performers within the creator financial system.
You may test it out immediately risk-free, as I supply a 30-day money-back assure.