I think it is important to understand what your real goal with your site is when considering how to make a website generate income. Not everyone has the same goal and this will affect the direction your site takes from the start. Let me go over some examples of what I mean.
1. What is the main niche your site will be in? Some niches lend themselves to better money-making opportunities than others. For example, if you are developing a website targeting the home business niche, you will primarily focus on programs that people can join. This is completely different from people looking to build a content-centric website.
2. How will you make money from your site? Even if you are focusing on home business programs, you may want to make money in other ways. For example, there are affiliate programs available today that allow you to earn money with every click when you join a PPC affiliate program. You can also join cost per lead programs and earn money when they fill out forms. Even one more example would be selling products and making money that way. One more example would be joining programs where you get paid to recruit people and build your business that way. 3. What will your site design be? This is important because many internet marketers today use blogs as their primary website. These are quick to set up and easy to add content. WordPress is the most popular blogging platform available today. They offer a simple plugin for affiliate programs like Google AdSense. Of course, Google owns Blogger, from which you can motivation create a Blogspot website. Again, it is very easy to add affiliate programs like Google AdSense to it.
4. How much technical knowledge does it take to develop a profitable website? This is where goal setting can come back into play. If you want to get started, it is probably best if you pay someone to set up your site for you. This does not cost much and allows you to focus on other aspects of your business, such as marketing.
However, it is interesting to note that many people without much technical knowledge can still create websites today. Again, blogging is very useful because once your initial site is set up, adding content is as easy as writing or cutting and pasting articles into a blog post. Here are some ideas on how to make money on a website. Understanding the purpose of your site from the beginning is critical.