Generating Revenue
It's time to monetize
You have this great site that you spent all this time (and probably even money) creating. Now it's time to turn that spending into earning.
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When you become an affiliate you are promoting a service or product in exchange for a commission or flat fee for every instance of a customer coming to that company through one of your links. Different companies have different amounts of money they will offer you and there is a huge amount of affiliate networks out there to choose from. The key to being successful with an affiliate network is to choose a relevant product to advertise on your site that people will actually buy and which offers you a reasonable compensation for your advertising efforts. Some products won't sell, some won't sell to your audience, some aren't worth selling due to low commissions or unfair terms, and others don't have ads which match your site's style or format.
Most affiliate networks let you place ad code on your site but then don't have many options for checking on your revenue and making sure that you are gettig the money you are earning. Many companies invite you to advertise for them as an affiliate and promise compensation for sales and leads but then you have no way of statistically analyzing your ad placement and your click-through-rates. Still more affiliate networks have unreasonably high levels of income you must meet before they send you a check. These networks know full well that you will likely abandon the program before reaching the target amount and they will have effectively had you provide free advertising for them.
The absolute best affiliate option out there is cj.com. To join Commission Junction just head over there and sign up. With Commission Junction you can browse their catalog of hundreds of advertisers and choose companies, products and banners which suit you and your site. With Commission Junction you can maintain complete control over all the advertising on your site and you can even monitor your statistics and revenue. They offer a large number of respectable, big-name companies to choose from and plenty of options to customize your ads.
Advertisements
Advertising is the only way you are going to make any money from your website unless you are selling an acual item. If you are selling an item you need to do your own advertising. If you aren't selling an item or service then you should be selling advertising. By placing advertisements on your site you are selling Internet real estate (space for ads) and you are selling ad impressions (instances of ads being displayed). By choosing the right advertisements to place on your site you can turn your income up a notch.
As far as advertising is concerned you should be concerned with getting the maximum amount of income from each ad you place on your site. There are two ways you will be getting paid: per-click and per-impression. Some sites pay you for each click you generate through an advertisement on your site. Other advertisers pay you for depending on how many people view ads on your site (they will pay you per thousand impressions, for example). Some sites will even pay you for both of those things.
On such company which will pay you for both impressions and clicks is Adbrite. AdBrite serves ads much the same way as Google Adsense. The difference is that AdBrite lets you become part of a marketing marketplace. You have complete control over the ads on your site and can even manage and control different "zones" on your site. You can approve ads individually and ever set prices for advertisers to pay you. In addition to all the options and control you have over the ads on your site you can also join the marketplace as a buyer of ads and you can have ads for your site appear on other sites on the Internet. You can even choose which sites to advertise on. They have been growing quickly lately and currently offer the most attractive option for webmasters looking for access to an unrivaled marketplace for Internet advertisers and extensive control over their ads.
Click here to join AdBrite.
Contextual Advertisements
Contextual ads have been revolutionized recently. This happened when Google entered the advertising market. And Google Adsense has opened up contextual advertising in a way that no one else could. I will spend the entire contextual advertising discussion focused on AdSense because it is the most useful, the most advantageous, and the most customizeable.
Google Adsense is the most innovate and effective new development in contextual advertising. Webmasters will tell you that they have seen their revenue shoot up exponentially upon signing up with Google Adsense. You can find many case studies on revenue generation with Google Adsense on the Internet, a few of which are here, here, and here. As you can see with those case studies you can make a lot of money by using Adsense wisely.
Google Adsense lets you block ads you don't like and let's you choose from a wide variety of ad sizes. You can choose text or link ads and you can place a Google Search box on your page, as well, which will generate additional income. You can also customize the colors used in your ads and you can create "channels" so that you can serve different styles of ads in different parts of your site and track them separately so that you can analyze and compare performance.
Among all the advertisements you can choose to carry on your site you should choose Google Adsense. It should be the first choice and it should occupy the best spot on your web page that any ad will get. The payout is high by industry standards, the customization is useful, and the ads are on target for your audience. I highly recommend joining Google Adsense.
Google Adwords
Google AdWords puts you on the other end of adverising. With this program you can select keywords to market your site with. When people search for those keywords your site will be displayed in the sidebar of the results. The more you are willing to pay = the more exposure your ad will get. You won't appear within the results, rather your site will be linked on the sidebar of the results page. There are numerous links in the sidebar of a results page, and they cost most money the closer they are to the top. And the second page of results costs less, and the third page costs even less, etc.
The cost is low (in fact it's negotiable) and you only pay per click. That means that you can display your ad 1,000 times and it will cost you nothing if nobody clicks on your ad. Simple as that. It's a great service and it's easy to use and cost-effective because you only get what you pay for and you only pay for what you get. It doesn't get any better than that.
But do you need to pay money for ads? Are you selling something? If you're not selling something you probably don't need AdWords on your site. it's cheap, though. So I won't give it a recommendation because you might not need it. But if you want to advertise your site then Google AdWords is great and cost-effective.
Ad Placement
Ad placement is an art. There are a few basic rules I can impart to you, but I can't offer too much advice because a lot of it depends on what you sell, what your site looks like, and what kind of ads you want. But some general rules are:
- Don't ask people to click ads - EVER
- Place ads above-the-fold (in the area the user can see before scrolling down)
- People scan websites - they don't read too much - so ads in the upper left are better than ads in the lower right
- Make your ads blend in. People tend to automatically ignore ads, don't make your ad stand out enough to ignore
- Don't let ads dictate design, instead work them into a design
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