Web Monetization
Website monetization is a new feature in Tiki 23. It is the process of receiving payments from traffic coming to the website. There are many ways to monetize a website, such as pay per click advertising, cost per impression advertising, banner advertising, affiliate programs, data monetization, paid subscriptions, donations and web monetization.
How Does Website Monetization Work?
The website monetization process involves mechanisms to pay the website creator in real-time via an API that uses Interledger Protocol micropayments to monetize a website or a streaming channel. The website can enable web monetization for payment streaming through a polyfill or an extension. Content creators are able to implement it by adding a line of code to their website or specifying a streaming channel for web monetization.
Why Use Website Monetization?
There are a number of appealing and interesting factors to implement website monetization. To list a few, website monetization is:
- Easy to set up - all you need is a tag
- Simple to use
- Secure
- No action required from users
- Traffic equals payment so quality content is rewarded
Website Monetization Providers
The most well-known(?) service that pays content creators with the help of Website Monetization currently is Coil.
How Does Coil Work?
Coil provides a mechanism to reward creators, publishers, and content-creating platforms. Coil subscribers pay a fixed subscription fee each month for unlimited access to all monetized content linked to the service everywhere on the internet. Users aiming to set up website monetization can make a free creator account at Coil. The Coil creator also sets up a digital wallet to which Coil sends a payment every time a Coil subscriber accesses the creator's website. These micropayments are sent by Coil every two seconds. Therefore, the platform provides and ensures timely payments to Coil creators that helps enhance the user experience and overall platform reliability.
How To Set Up Website Monetization at a Tiki Website with Coil
Integrating Coil with a Tiki website is a very simple and straightforward process. Tiki users can add content (the meta tag) in the Custom Code area provided at the top of every Tiki page, thereby enabling and activating Tiki Website Monetization. The feature is available in all Tiki versions starting from version 12.
Explained below is the step by step guide to implement Tiki Website Monetization using Coil.
Step 1 - Create the Coil Account
The first step is to create a Coil creator account at the Coil website. This will allow creating a Website Monetization Wallet to which Coil will send a micropayment every time a Coil member visits the website.
To set up a Coil creator account, visit Coil website.
Step 2 - Set up the Payment Pointer
The next thing you need is a payment pointer. The payment pointer will tell Coil where to send the donations that are coming in from the Coil members visiting your Tiki site.
You can easily set up your payment pointer from the settings panel in your profile on the Coil website. Simply navigate to the settings page and click on the "Payout" tab. In the tab, you will find an overview of different payout options including a setup guide.
The payment pointer is not confidential and bears no security risks, so do not worry about hiding it.
Step 3 - Integrate Coil with Tiki
Tiki provides its users two options for the Coil integration:
- The first way is to enable the monetization setting for a particular website from the Tiki settings menu. This allows designating specific Web Monetization settings for a particular website.
- The second option is to enable website monetization from the Tiki user account. This enables the Website Monetization for all the Tiki content created by the particular user account and so automatically links the websites to the particular Coil creator account that is associated with the user account.
- However, please note that the user must enable the monetization from the Tiki settings menu first and then s/he will be able to enable the monetization for the particular user account, i.e., apply option 1 first followed by option 2 (if required).
Option 1 - Enabling Website Monetization from the Settings
From Tiki Control Panels, enable the feature "Web Monetization" displayed under Settings > Control Panel > Features > Global Features. After that, set the Default Payment Pointer to where the payments should be made, i.e., enter your Payment Pointer that you set up in Step 2.
If you want to monetize the entire website, check the Enable for all pages preference.
You may also add here the Default paywall text that is used with the wikiplugin Coil when {ELSE} is not set.
Option 2 - Enabling Website Monetization from the Tiki user account
Select your name from the dropdown menu in the log-in module, often located at the top right corner of the Tiki website. This will redirect you to the User Information page.
On this page enter the Payment Pointer acquired in Step 2, under Preferences > Preferences tab > Web Monetization. In the same place, you may configure the Default paywall text.