If you are a website owner or developer, the digital content revenue model you choose will play an integral role in determining the amount of revenue the website can generate. KPMG, an American audit, tax and advisory services firm, indicates that a second digital revolution began with the advent of social media websites such as MySpace and Facebook. This has resulted in the need for you to rethink the revenue model you choose if you operate an online business.

Fixed-Fee Sponsorships

One of the more lucrative ways to generate revenue from online content is to establish a partnership or relationship with another related company or organization that will benefit from advertising on your website. The greater your website traffic, the better, because it means that you have the potential for developing a partnership with a large company that will be able to offer more revenue to sponsor a permanent advertisement or one that is fixed for a certain period of time. These fixed-fee sponsorships allow you to essentially rent out part of your web space to another company for a fixed-fee for a set period of time.

Subscriptions

Subscription-based pricing is a second revenue model that makes it possible to generate money through your website. In subscription-based revenue models, you offer content to the website visitor who then agrees to pay you a subscription fee for ongoing access to that content. Content can be in the form of online streaming video or digital news services, or anything else of value to the website visitor. If your website frequently changes and updates content, it stands to make the most money from this type of revenue model because the subscriber will pay an ongoing subscription fee. This can also include subscriptions to offline print publications generated through your website, as is common with newspapers and other periodicals.

Cost-Per-Click Advertising

A commonly used revenue model in the Internet world is cost-per-click or CPC advertising. In this model, the revenue that your website generates comes from advertisements displayed on the website. Each click on an advertisement by a visitor to your website generates revenue. For this reason, you should closely link the advertisements to the content you have on your website as the website content itself is often key to the amount of revenue your website will generate through the advertisements.

Affiliate Marketing and Sales

Affiliate marketing is another way in which you can use digital media to generate revenue. In affiliate marketing, your website serves as an affiliate or sales representative for the creator of a product. In this model, you are paid a commission on each sale you make through your website on behalf of the merchant. As with CPC advertising, this type of revenue model depends heavily upon matching a product with the content of your website. You can also venture out on your own to offer your own products, either in conjunction with the products of others or on a website devoted specifically to your own products.