Broadly speaking, there seem to me to be three main types of monetized website.

1)  A product sales site where a product or service owned and possibly manufactured by the seller is promoted and offered for sale. There may be a shopping cart for online purchase or some other purchase arrangement.

In some cases, such as a car manufacturer, potential buyers may be directed to the website or brick and mortar showroom of the local dealer.

Drop shipping would also fit into this category.

2)  An affiliate marketing site where goods or services are offered for sale and the site owner gets a sales commission.

3)  An information site where the site owner gets advertising revenue from semi permanent banner ads or Google type advertising.

Of course, there would be many variations on these three broad styles with many websites incorporating at least two styles.

Then there would be other smaller styles such as selling backlinks, blogging for payment and requesting donations etc.

Does that about sum it up or is there more to monetizing the web?

Thanks,
Laurie.

You count membership sites as product sites?

I don't run any but there's something appealing about peopple paying you every single month, over and over again

OK Nic, thanks.

So you don't run any membership sites and I don't belong to any.

Membership sites must be where you pay a monthly fee to watch sport or listen to music. That sort of thing.

I think I may have noticed some sites of that nature that give bad pictures.

Regards,
Laurie.

laurie_m wrote:

I think I may have noticed some sites of that nature that give bad pictures.

mmmm...I wouldn't know anything about that

hehe..but some examples that come to my mind are sites like SeoMoz and WebmasterWorld were you can pay a certain fee per month to get access to their info

I guess that could fall in your "Information Site" category accept the revenue model their also includes membership fees.

The thing that makes membership  sites so attractive to me (from operating one, not joining one), is that while with a product site you may get 1 sales (or a few repeat ones from the same customers), with a membership site your customers pay you every single month

so it's not a "pay once and goodbye" you type of thing...your members come back every month to give you money...now that's a beautiful thing