How to Monetize Your Site with These 5 WordPress Plugins

Most people who start a WordPress website intend to monetize it at some point or another. After all, monetizing your blog can give you the financial freedom some people only dream of, or at the very least give you some extra side cash. However, knowing how to monetize your site can be challenging if you don’t know where to start.

Let’s take a look at some of the best WordPress plugins on the market that will help you monetize your blog.

1. Easy Digital Downloads

Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) is an eCommerce plugin that gives you a simple way to monetize your website by selling digital products. With it, you can sell eBooks, PDFs, images, plugins, and other software straight from your website. You can also add thumbnail images and music samples like My Forest Voices, and even add a small excerpt about each download so customers know what they are buying.

EDD also gives you the tools needed to monitor your digital store’s activity, track your site’s sales statistics, accept recurring payments, and even build a bigger email list with email service provider integrations such as MailChimp and AWeber.

With a built-in shopping cart system, unlimited re-downloads, and the ability to offer exclusive discounts and coupons to your best customers, making money with your WordPress website is a cinch.

Not to mention the popular payment gateways PayPal Standard and Amazon Payments come with the plugin free of charge. Plus, as seen with Graphicfy, you can accept major credit cards too.

Easy Digital Downloads is the perfect solution if you’re looking to monetize your site by selling digital downloads of all kinds. It’s easy to use, has plenty of built-in features, and is an eCommerce platform people trust.

PRICE: FREE

2. ThirstyAffiliates

If you run a WordPress blog and need a way to monetize your website with affiliate marketing, ThirstyAffiliates may be just the solution for you. This WordPress plugin generates new shortlink/redirects of long, ugly affiliate links and makes them pretty using your own website’s URL. But that’s not all.

The premium version of this affiliate link solution also links to keywords automatically, provides data charts and tables reporting your marketing efforts, and even provides alternate destinations for international clicks via country geotargeting.

One of the biggest problems with affiliate marketing is the fact that malware can come in and steal your affiliate ID, replace it with another, and take the commission that was meant for you when a site visitor makes a purchase of a product you promote and affiliate market for. That’s why ThirtsyAffiliates makes sure to cloak all your links so no one can steal your money and you can continue to generate revenue that you deserve.

All it takes is a few simple clicks using the affiliate link button to insert an affiliate link into your blog’s content.

Or if you prefer, insert an affiliate link by highlighting the text you want to link to and choose the affiliate link you want to connect to the text.

As one of the most popular affiliate link management plugins on the market to date, you should definitely consider ThirstyAffiliates if affiliate marketing is how you want to monetize your WordPress website.

PRICE: FREE/$49

3. OptinMonster

Come to find out, there is lots of money to be made using your email list, especially when you use lead magnets. All you have to do is create something of value for your readers, offer it in exchange for an email address, and deliver the lead magnet you promised.

You now have another subscriber, and your subscriber is happy to have received something of value. And from there, you can keep marketing to your subscribers based on their needs and wants.

You can use the OptinMonster lead generation solution to offer your site visitors lead magnets in many ways:

• Use the exclusive Exit-Intent® technology to target people about to leave your site
• Get your site visitors’ attention by using scroll boxes as they explore your site
• Enable OptinMonster’s MonsterLinks™ 2-step optin technology and turn any link or image into a lead magnet form
• Trigger a lead magnet when your site visitor is inactive and remind them why they need you
• Set specific time triggers and display lead magnets when you think it’s best for site visitors

Not only can you offer lead magnets to site visitors using the above-mentioned campaign triggers, you can do so using any combination of the 8 campaign types available: lightbox popups, fullscreen welcome mat, slide-in scroll box, floating bars, countdown timers, sidebar and inline forms, and even a content locker.

You can A/B test all of your lead magnets to see which ones convert the highest, show personalized messages to site visitors to get them to convert, and even access detailed analytics to see how your campaigns are going.

In the end, you can easily grow your email list and turn more site visitors into subscribers and customers using the OptinMonster lead generation plugin and your valuable lead magnets.

PRICE: Starting at $9/month

4. Affiliate Coupons

People love using coupons to get a deal on products and services they already plan to purchase. In fact, 59% of people say they usually head online to find a promo code before they make a purchase.

People also love a good recommendation by brands they already trust, such as yourself. If you are looking for a great way to make some extra money, and want to share with loyal readers products you endorse, take a look at creating a coupon page using Affiliate Coupons.

Affiliate Coupons makes creating an affiliate marketing coupon page easy. Create vendors and pre-defined affiliate links, display coupons on the frontend using shortcodes, and even use the pre-made design templates if you need a little inspiration. Plus, you can choose from a standard, grid, list, or single coupon layout depending on your design needs.

You can display coupons on a dedicated page and even feature special deals on your site’s sidebar in the widgetized section. You can also add coupons to posts and pages, link coupons to vendors, and of course, get the commission when your site visitors make purchases.

Creating a coupon page is a great way to make money off your website, no matter what kind of site you have. Plus, you have the added benefit of recommending products you actually know and love, which your readers will appreciate.

PRICE: FREE

5. WooCommerce Amazon Affiliates 

If you are looking for a way to advertise Amazon products on your website, and earn advertising commissions on all qualifying purchase, the WooCommerce Amazon Affiliates plugin is for you.

Enable the direct checkout or add to cart features, add images and product descriptions, include a customized checkout message, and even activate the 90-day cookies feature, which keeps items added to a customer’s cart for 90 days, even if they leave and come back another time.

Not to mention, you can choose your Amazon location based on country, create custom Buy Button text to entice site visitors to buy, and even back up your products in case something happens to your site.

If you find yourself needing more features, you can check out the premium version of WooCommerce Amazon Affiliates that comes with features like cross-selling opportunities, CSV import, one-minute demo setups, the ability to add products into any post or page, and even the option to import hundreds of ASINS from Amazon in just a few seconds.

Whether you use the free or premium version of this cool WordPress plugin, you can take advantage of the huge Amazon marketplace and generate some income off the products of others, just by giving up some site real estate and advertising products you think your site visitors will love.

PRICE: FREE/$42

In the end, there are many ways to monetize your WordPress site. And the great thing about these different options is that they range in terms of effort needed and revenue potential.

Some of the plugins above provide simple ways for you to make some extra side cash, and while you won’t become rich off them, you’ll definitely boost your income in one way or another.

Other plugins require more thought and have longer lasting effects, such as building an email list that can be use in a variety of ways to generate more income, and have the potential to make you some serious money.

But in the end, no matter which plugin you decide to use, expect to make some money, build stronger relationships with your site visitors, and make your business that much  more successful.