So I would say that you should find out in the first place if you're in a niche with a good potencial for monetization.
You may be in a niche that provides value, but maybe your audience — for several reasons — are just not interested in paying for what you are offering.
The specific method used to monetize the website will be a direct consequence of this.
Here's some monetization options you should consider:
- Gated content (courses, ebooks).
- Affiliate marketing.
- Consultations.
- Services.
- Job boards) and other kind of listings that provide value).
- Physical products (yours or from 3rd party, like drop shipping).
You should also consider other strategies that are built on top of your main monetization methods, like cross-selling, and upselling.
Obviously, if your site has only a small amount of traffic, you should skip adding ads as an option as it will not be an effective monetization strategy in this case.