Just a quick fact: India is a BIG player in the digital market today. Indians are actively adopting the latest technologies — and thus, they need more and more online content!

So, creating a website for an Indian audience is a great and profitable idea.

But is there anything unusual about monetizing websites in India? Probably some special tricks you should know to leave behind all competitors?

We were also curious — and found it all out in this article!

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Indians Online: The Most Important Stats

India has approximately 900 million Internet users —  and only China has more. Isn’t it already enough motivation to break into the market?

We collected some stats to give you a clear image of what are the most popular – and thus most profitable niches.

And finally, let’s answer the biggest question: which website will work out?

We looked at the top popular websites rankings, at the prevalent audience (35-54 years) and made a conclusion. 

You can safely run the following websites — and nicely profit from them:

• News and Media publishers
• Coupon and discount websites
• Sports and Game Highlights websites
• Media and Content-On-Demand Websites

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Indian Buyer Persona: How to Attract Users?

So, you know the juiciest niches — and how to make locals interested in your website?

Of course, we can’t generalize all Indians — and this is exactly why we are sharing stats that help you diversify your audience. However, an approximate image of a typical user might give you an idea of how to make your Indian visitors more engaged. 

So what should you know?

• Indians are emotional

They tend to make impulsive purchases sometimes, and can be attracted by clickbait headings, vivid pictures, and engaging content.

So what? 

First, you need to prepare relevant content that will become a hook. Second, you might want to try push notifications for better engagement: they work perfectly for the Indian audience. One of the great push notification providers for India is Notix — check them out.

• Indians love bargains

Compared to, say, European customers, who will look for the best price-quality ratio, Indians are striving for the best available price. 

So what? 

In fact, this is the reason why coupon websites are pretty popular in the Indian digital space. Besides, whatever site you run, you can create content related to discounts, loyalty programs, or special-price products.

• Indians are keen on details

When an average Indian wants to, say, purchase something, they become very picky and want to know exactly what they are going to pay for. Yes, they can buy some goods impulsively — but it’s not about big expensive purchases, like a laptop or a smartphone.

So what? 

You can greatly boost your website traffic with detailed product reviews or product comparisons.

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How to Monetize Indian Websites with Monetag?

In fact, the overall monetization workflow is not really special. Indian publishers can earn from their websites and blogs the same way all pubs usually do:

• Add paid content. For example, exclusive blog posts are available only for donation or subscription. However, most Indian users are not really keen on paid subscriptions.
• Sell eCommerce products. Any goods related to your website topic — but eCommerce business might turn out very complicated.
• Publish sponsored posts. It can be an article with a native ad for some product or service. Remember that too many sponsored posts might make your site look less trusted.
• Work as a publisher for an ad network. Register at an ad network as a publisher, and start showing users various ads right on your website. 

All the options are pretty obvious, right? Only the last one might require more details.

For example, we at Monetag, know all nuts and bolts of working in the Indian market — and can give our publishers plenty of opportunities: from high CPMs to personal consultations.

But still, what ads to show? What strategy to choose?

Thanks to our account strategists, we know the answers. Read on to learn them, too!

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News Websites

So you decided to monetize an online newspaper. Great choice! 

This website type beats all popularity rankings in India — and is usually the most stable one traffic-wise. Just look – here are the stats of one of our most successful news publishers: 

What ad formats to use?

Think about yourself as a user. You visit a news website, and you want to quickly read what’s happening. Would you be happy if a large banner covered the article? 

Any top trends?

The most popular way to get the most out of your news platform is to combine two networks together.

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Coupon Websites

You can greatly profit from a coupon website, especially if you pay attention to its layout and SEO optimization. In simple words, briefly:

• Is your website easy to navigate? It shouldn’t be just a long list of random discounts
• Can users find your website with keywords (in English or Indian)?

Here is an example of how it might look like – convenient search, several coupon categories, intuitive interface:

What ad formats to use?

In fact, there is not much difference between news and coupons here. Stick to user-friendly formats that won’t interrupt and annoy users when they are hurrying to get the best available price.

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Media Websites

Some stats or experts may tell you that American media websites are way more profitable than Indian ones. 

But we at Monetags have experts, too!

The Team Lead of the Traffic Acquisition Team:

So, having American publishers among your competitors shouldn’t scare you — especially if you target Hindi speakers. Just look at one of our pubs’ stats —  it’s not AT ALL the worst daily profit, making about $12k per month with Pop and In-Page Push traffic:

This site gets a small part of US traffic, too — but it’s really a minor part. And, if you want, you can also mix GEOs for the best results. 

What ad formats to use?

For news websites, Popunder is the best performing and actually the most common traffic type. The thing is that sports site users have already gotten used to this format, and won’t mind it.

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Sports Websites

Of course, cricket is the first sport that comes to mind when you think of an Indian sports website. And, cricket is becoming more and more popular worldwide — so it allows you to go beyond India and attract a wider audience.

Of course, you don’t need to focus on cricket only: Indians adore football, kabaddi, and basketball. 

However, a quick look at the top popular Indian sports websites rating gives you a hint that cricket is the king here:

Even the news platforms often have a special tab dedicated to cricket — so a website with cricket stats, predictions, game overviews, expert comments, and other stuff of this kind have all chances to skyrocket.

Besides, Indians enjoy fantasy sports — with fantasy cricket on top, of course.

The Team Lead of the Traffic Acquisition Team:

Look at the stats – the traffic doesn’t look stable, but profits are still good:

What ad formats to use?

In fact, you can try out various options: sports sites are pretty flexible ad format-wise. Still, we have several top-performing winners.

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How to Increase Traffic: SEO Tips

Whatever way you promote your website, you can barely do without SEO practices. Is there anything special you should know about SEO in India? 

Yes, definitely — and this is why we created a short checklist with the best SEO tips for Indian publishers:

• Make sure you optimize your website for Google – it’s the first search engine in India
• Create content in Hindi – stats say, many Indians search in their native language. You can also consider localizing a website for Bengali, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil, or Urdu speakers
• When writing content in English, think about non-native speakers and make sure they will understand every word
• Don’t forget mobile users, especially Android owners. Most of the searches in India are made via mobile devices

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To Sum Up

What did we learn today, overall? 

In fact, there is nothing too tricky and complicated for Indian publishers. You saw statistics, you know what to do — just go for it!