1. Search Engines Take Time
New blogs will take a few months to get significant traffic from search engines. Doing SEO is one way to improve on this. Other traffic sources, such as networking or social media, can boost up your visitor numbers quickly if you have the right strategy – so don’t focus on search engines only.
2. All Traffic Are Not Equal
Responses from visitors to your blog in terms of time spent, depth of pages, interest in content are best if they found what they’re looking for. Generally, these kinds of visitors arrive at your blog from either search engines, subscribers, and from recommendation from other blogs with similar niche. Traffic from social media has been commented to be less responsive and even unlikely to return back to their blogs. Try to consider what type of traffic is best for you when promoting your blog.
3. Post Consistently
Most successful bloggers post consistently and regularly even when they already have large search engines traffic drawn to their older posts. The reasons for posting new content consistently are to grow the number of subscribers, get new pages in search engines, and keep the blog fresh to get votes in social media. So why stop when you can get more?
4. Traffics Are Inconsistent
There are days that traffic goes up, and at times down. It’s natural. Be ready for anything or you might get upset. The most important thing is to get your mindset focused and not let down by a few hurdles.
5. Get More Repeat Visitors
The heart of successful blogs is repeat visitors. Unique visitors are great too, but nothing can guarantee they’ll be back. So, it’s good to really focus on getting more subscribers. They are also the most responsive in terms of giving comments, votes, etc.
6. Get Inbound Links
Having other blogs link to you helps in many ways. They bring visitors in, expose your blog more, and boost your search engine rankings. These links also signify that your content is valuable, trusted, and worthy to pay a visit to. Not only they help with search engine traffic but also build your credibility.
7. Get Traffic from Multiple Sources
Getting huge traffic from one type of traffic, say search engines, doesn’t guarantee it will always stay that way. For example, Google penalizes blogs that violated their guidelines. Likewise, other types of traffic can’t guarantee giving you consistent traffic all the time. So, diversify your traffic sources.
8. Don’t Ignore Small Traffic
Traffics that come from resources such as your comment or forum links are relatively small. But most of the time those visitors find your blog to be very relevant to what they’re searching for and are likely to become loyal readers. So, keep them coming.
9. Build Your Network
To be successful in blogging, you must have strong network. People in your network can provide you valuable advice, link to you, vote for your posts, inspire and encourage you, and even become partners in future projects. To build a strong network you must first be proactive and willing to meet and help others.
10. You Can Buy Traffic
You can buy advertisement to drive traffic to your blog quickly. PPC ads can be efficient and inexpensive if you bid on the right keywords. StumbleUpon also offers an advertising option where you buy traffic at $0.05 per visitor. Running these ads for a few months will drive significant traffic and give you good exposure at low costs.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
28 Ways to Make Money with Your Website
1. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a very popular practice on the Internet. Under this system you have a merchant that is willing to let other people (the affiliates) sell directly or indirectly its products and services, in exchange for a commission. Sometimes this type of advertising is also called CPA (cost per action) or CPL (cost per lead) based.
Affiliates can send potential customers to the merchant using several tools, from banners to text links and product reviews.
In order to find suitable affiliate programs you can turn to individual companies and publishers like Dreamhost and SEOBook, or join affiliate marketplaces and networks.
List of popular affiliate marketplaces and networks:
Commission Junction
ClickBank
Azoogle Ads
Link Share
2. PPC Advertising Networks
Google AdSense is the most popular option under this category, but there are also others. Basically you need to sign up with the network and paste some code snippets on your website. The network will then serve contextual ads (either text or images) relevant to your website, and you will earn a certain amount of money for every click.
The profitability of PPC advertising depends on the general traffic levels of the website and, most importantly, on the click-through rate (CTR) and cost per click (CPC). The CTR depends on the design of the website. Ads placed abode the fold or blended with content, for instance, tend to get higher CTRs. The CPC, on the other hand, depends on the nice of the website. Mortgages, financial products and college education are examples of profitable niches (clicks worth a couple of dollars are not rare), while tech-related topics tend to receive a smaller CPC (sometimes as low as a couple of cents per click).
The source of the traffic can also affect the overall CTR rate. Organic traffic (the one that comes from search engines) tends to perform well because these visitors were already looking for something, and they tend to click on ads more often. Social media traffic, on the other hand, presents terribly low CTRs because these visitors are tech-savvy and they just ignore ads.
List of popular CPC advertising networks:
Google Adsense
Yahoo! Publisher Network (YPN)
BidVertiser
Chitika
Clicksor
3.Direct Banner Advertising
Selling your own advertising space is one of the most lucrative monetization methods. First and foremost because it enables you to cut out the middleman commissions and to determine your own rates. The most popular banner formats on the web are the 728×90 leaderboard, the 120×600 skyscraper, the 300×250 rectangle and the 125×125 button.
The downside of direct banner advertising is that you need to have a big audience to get qualified advertisers, and you will need to spend time managing the sales process, the banners and the payments.
Related links:
How to Find Advertisers for Your Website
Finding Advertisers for Your Blog
Direct Advertising Sales for Beginners
Openads Ad Server
OIO Publisher Ad Platform
4.Text Link Ads
After Google declared that sites selling text links without the nofollow tag would be penalized, this monetization method became less popular.
Many website owners are still using text links to monetize their sites, though, some using the nofollow tag and some not.
The advantage of this method is that it is not intrusive. One can sell text links directly through his website or use specialized networks like Text-Link-Ads and Text-Link-Brokers to automate the process.
Text link marketplaces and networks:
DigitalPoint Link Sales Forum
Text-Link-Ads
Text-Link-Brokers
TNX
LinkWorth
5.Monetization Widgets
The latest trend on the web are widgets that let you monetize your website. Examples include Widgetbucks and SmartLinks. Some of these services operate under a PPC scheme, others behave like text link ads, others yet leverage affiliate links.
Their main differentiator, however, is the fact that they work as web widgets, making it easier for the user to plug and play the service on its website.
List of companies that provide monetization widgets:
WidgetBucks
ScratchBack
SmartLinks
6. Sponsored Reviews
PayPerPost pioneered this model, with much controversy on the beginning (related to the fact that they did not require disclosure on paid posts). Soon other companies followed, most notably Sponsored Reviews and ReviewMe, refining the process and expanding the paid blogging model.
Joining one of these sponsored reviews marketplaces will give you the opportunity to write sponsored posts on a wide range of topics. Not all bloggers are willing to get paid to write about a specific product or website (because it might compromise the editorial credibility), but the ones who do are making good money out of it.
If your blog has a big audience you could also offer sponsored reviews directly, cutting off the commissions of the middleman.
List of sponsored reviews and paid blogging networks:
PayPerPost
Sponsored Reviews
ReviewMe
BlogVertise
Smorty
7. RSS Feed Ads
With the quick adoption of the RSS technology by millions of Internet users, website owners are starting to find ways to monetize this new content distribution channel.
Feedburber already has its own publisher network, and you can sign-up to start displaying CPM based advertising on your feed footer. Bidvertiser recently introduced a RSS feed ad option as well, with a PPC scheme.
Finally, some blogs are also opting to sell banners or sponsored messages on their feed directly. John Chow and Marketing Pilgrim are two examples.
Related links:
Feedburner
BidVertiser
Pheedo
9. Sponsors for Single Columns or Events
If you website has specific columns or events (e.g., a weekly podcast, an interview series, a monthly survey, a special project) you could find companies to sponsor them individually.
This method increases the monetization options for website owner, while giving advertisers the possibility to target a more specific audience and with a reduced commitment.
Mashable illustrates the case well. They have several advertising options on the site, including the possibility to sponsor specific columns and articles, including the “Daily Poll” and the “Web 2.0 Invites.”
Problogger also runs group writing projects occasionally, and before proceeding he publicly announce the project asking for sponsors.
8.Marketplaces
Sitepoint is the online marketplace by excellence. Some websites and blogs, however, are trying to replicate that model on a smaller scale.
Depending on your niche, a market place that allows your visitors to buy, sell and trade products could work well. Over the time you could start charging a small fee for new product listings.
The problem with this method is that there are no standard software on the web, so you would need to hire a coder to get a marketplace integrated into your website.
You can see an example of a marketplaces being used on EasyWordpress and on Mashable.
9.Pop-ups and Pop-unders
Pop-ups are a common yet annoying form of advertising on the Internet. If you are just trying to make a much money as possible from your website, you could experiment with them.
If you are trying to grow the traffic and generate loyal visitors, however, you probably should stay away from them. Just consider the hundreds of pop-up blockers out there: there is a reason why they are so popular.
Ad networks that use pop-ups:
Tribal Fusion
PayPopup
PopupAd
Adversal
10.Selling the Website
Selling your website could be your last resource, but it has the potential to generate a big sum of money in a short period of time.
Market places on online forums like DigitalPoint and Sitepoint are always active with website buyers and sellers. Keep in mind that they most used parameter to determine the value of a website is the monthly revenue that it generates, multiplied by a certain number (the multiplier can be anything from 5 to 30, depending on the expectations of the seller, on the quality of the site, on the niche and other factors).
Some people also make money trading and flipping websites. They either create them from scratch or buy existing ones, and after some revamping they sell them for a profit.
Related links:
How To Buy A Website And Flip It For Profit
How To Sell A Website - How Much Is Your Website Worth?
Where to sell a website? How to go about selling it?
Affiliate marketing is a very popular practice on the Internet. Under this system you have a merchant that is willing to let other people (the affiliates) sell directly or indirectly its products and services, in exchange for a commission. Sometimes this type of advertising is also called CPA (cost per action) or CPL (cost per lead) based.
Affiliates can send potential customers to the merchant using several tools, from banners to text links and product reviews.
In order to find suitable affiliate programs you can turn to individual companies and publishers like Dreamhost and SEOBook, or join affiliate marketplaces and networks.
List of popular affiliate marketplaces and networks:
Commission Junction
ClickBank
Azoogle Ads
Link Share
2. PPC Advertising Networks
Google AdSense is the most popular option under this category, but there are also others. Basically you need to sign up with the network and paste some code snippets on your website. The network will then serve contextual ads (either text or images) relevant to your website, and you will earn a certain amount of money for every click.
The profitability of PPC advertising depends on the general traffic levels of the website and, most importantly, on the click-through rate (CTR) and cost per click (CPC). The CTR depends on the design of the website. Ads placed abode the fold or blended with content, for instance, tend to get higher CTRs. The CPC, on the other hand, depends on the nice of the website. Mortgages, financial products and college education are examples of profitable niches (clicks worth a couple of dollars are not rare), while tech-related topics tend to receive a smaller CPC (sometimes as low as a couple of cents per click).
The source of the traffic can also affect the overall CTR rate. Organic traffic (the one that comes from search engines) tends to perform well because these visitors were already looking for something, and they tend to click on ads more often. Social media traffic, on the other hand, presents terribly low CTRs because these visitors are tech-savvy and they just ignore ads.
List of popular CPC advertising networks:
Google Adsense
Yahoo! Publisher Network (YPN)
BidVertiser
Chitika
Clicksor
3.Direct Banner Advertising
Selling your own advertising space is one of the most lucrative monetization methods. First and foremost because it enables you to cut out the middleman commissions and to determine your own rates. The most popular banner formats on the web are the 728×90 leaderboard, the 120×600 skyscraper, the 300×250 rectangle and the 125×125 button.
The downside of direct banner advertising is that you need to have a big audience to get qualified advertisers, and you will need to spend time managing the sales process, the banners and the payments.
Related links:
How to Find Advertisers for Your Website
Finding Advertisers for Your Blog
Direct Advertising Sales for Beginners
Openads Ad Server
OIO Publisher Ad Platform
4.Text Link Ads
After Google declared that sites selling text links without the nofollow tag would be penalized, this monetization method became less popular.
Many website owners are still using text links to monetize their sites, though, some using the nofollow tag and some not.
The advantage of this method is that it is not intrusive. One can sell text links directly through his website or use specialized networks like Text-Link-Ads and Text-Link-Brokers to automate the process.
Text link marketplaces and networks:
DigitalPoint Link Sales Forum
Text-Link-Ads
Text-Link-Brokers
TNX
LinkWorth
5.Monetization Widgets
The latest trend on the web are widgets that let you monetize your website. Examples include Widgetbucks and SmartLinks. Some of these services operate under a PPC scheme, others behave like text link ads, others yet leverage affiliate links.
Their main differentiator, however, is the fact that they work as web widgets, making it easier for the user to plug and play the service on its website.
List of companies that provide monetization widgets:
WidgetBucks
ScratchBack
SmartLinks
6. Sponsored Reviews
PayPerPost pioneered this model, with much controversy on the beginning (related to the fact that they did not require disclosure on paid posts). Soon other companies followed, most notably Sponsored Reviews and ReviewMe, refining the process and expanding the paid blogging model.
Joining one of these sponsored reviews marketplaces will give you the opportunity to write sponsored posts on a wide range of topics. Not all bloggers are willing to get paid to write about a specific product or website (because it might compromise the editorial credibility), but the ones who do are making good money out of it.
If your blog has a big audience you could also offer sponsored reviews directly, cutting off the commissions of the middleman.
List of sponsored reviews and paid blogging networks:
PayPerPost
Sponsored Reviews
ReviewMe
BlogVertise
Smorty
7. RSS Feed Ads
With the quick adoption of the RSS technology by millions of Internet users, website owners are starting to find ways to monetize this new content distribution channel.
Feedburber already has its own publisher network, and you can sign-up to start displaying CPM based advertising on your feed footer. Bidvertiser recently introduced a RSS feed ad option as well, with a PPC scheme.
Finally, some blogs are also opting to sell banners or sponsored messages on their feed directly. John Chow and Marketing Pilgrim are two examples.
Related links:
Feedburner
BidVertiser
Pheedo
9. Sponsors for Single Columns or Events
If you website has specific columns or events (e.g., a weekly podcast, an interview series, a monthly survey, a special project) you could find companies to sponsor them individually.
This method increases the monetization options for website owner, while giving advertisers the possibility to target a more specific audience and with a reduced commitment.
Mashable illustrates the case well. They have several advertising options on the site, including the possibility to sponsor specific columns and articles, including the “Daily Poll” and the “Web 2.0 Invites.”
Problogger also runs group writing projects occasionally, and before proceeding he publicly announce the project asking for sponsors.
8.Marketplaces
Sitepoint is the online marketplace by excellence. Some websites and blogs, however, are trying to replicate that model on a smaller scale.
Depending on your niche, a market place that allows your visitors to buy, sell and trade products could work well. Over the time you could start charging a small fee for new product listings.
The problem with this method is that there are no standard software on the web, so you would need to hire a coder to get a marketplace integrated into your website.
You can see an example of a marketplaces being used on EasyWordpress and on Mashable.
9.Pop-ups and Pop-unders
Pop-ups are a common yet annoying form of advertising on the Internet. If you are just trying to make a much money as possible from your website, you could experiment with them.
If you are trying to grow the traffic and generate loyal visitors, however, you probably should stay away from them. Just consider the hundreds of pop-up blockers out there: there is a reason why they are so popular.
Ad networks that use pop-ups:
Tribal Fusion
PayPopup
PopupAd
Adversal
10.Selling the Website
Selling your website could be your last resource, but it has the potential to generate a big sum of money in a short period of time.
Market places on online forums like DigitalPoint and Sitepoint are always active with website buyers and sellers. Keep in mind that they most used parameter to determine the value of a website is the monthly revenue that it generates, multiplied by a certain number (the multiplier can be anything from 5 to 30, depending on the expectations of the seller, on the quality of the site, on the niche and other factors).
Some people also make money trading and flipping websites. They either create them from scratch or buy existing ones, and after some revamping they sell them for a profit.
Related links:
How To Buy A Website And Flip It For Profit
How To Sell A Website - How Much Is Your Website Worth?
Where to sell a website? How to go about selling it?
Monday, April 6, 2009
How to Make Money From Your Blog or Content Website
It is the blinkered thinking which is stopping many bloggers and content website owners from realising the commercial potential of their sites. There are actually dozens of ways of making money from a good content website. Here are over 30 ways that I have come across. Please add any others in the comments below.
Advertising
Text Ads – short text ads automatically displayed on a page based on the context of the content. Google AdSense dominates the market.
Display Ads – Banner and button ads displayed at the top or to the side of content
Video Ads – Short video ads embedded into a page. They can be auto-play (annoying!) or be clicked to play. There is usually an example on the Yahoo.com home page
In-Content Ads – Ads that are linked to keywords within articles. Learn more at InLinks.com
Classifieds – User submitted classified ads. Craigslist is the gorilla, but lots of content websites have niche classifieds. Take a look at RockyMountainNews.com
Classifieds
Jobs Board – Paid job listings. A good example is SmashingMagazine Jobs
Pre-roll/post-roll video ads – Short ads at the beginning and end of video clips. Being trialled by YouTube
Paid Reviews – charge companies or individuals to review their book, product or service. Learn more at ReviewMe.com
Pay Per Post – offer to write posts mentioning a product, company or service for a fee. Can be unethical if commercial interest not declared. Learn more at PayPerPost.com
Advertorial – Allow customers to publish their own articles promoting their products or services for a fee. Make sure you clearly mark articles as advertorial to maintain your independence and integrity. Example of Rackspace Advertorial
Sponsorship – Charge for sponsorship for all or part of your website. Usually fixed price agreements for a fixed period of time. Example of a Time article sponsored by FedEx
Directory Listings – create a directory and charge suppliers to be listed, or list every supplier and charge for an enhanced listing. Example of an enhanced directory listing on financial advisors website
Affiliate Marketing
Commissions for Actions – you get paid every time an action is completed e.g. email newsletter sign up, trial sign-up, survey completed, etc. For example you can get paid a commission every time a free copy of the Firefox browser is downloaded. Sign up for a Google AdSense account
Commissions for Sales – you get paid a fixed commission or percentage share of sales value. Learn from Commission Junction
Lead Generation – generate leads on the website and sell them to prospects. Learn from Approved Index
Commission For Events Promotion – promote events in your industry in exchange for a commission on ticket sales. Approach any event organiser
Ecommerce
Digital Product Sales – sell products that can be downloaded over the internet. They can include ebooks, research, software, reports, music, video clips, etc. Go to Clickbank.com to see dozens of downloadable products
Physical Product Sales – stock, sell and ship your own products. For example CannotStopSmoking.com sells electric cigarettes
Dropship Sales – sell products that are stocked and shipped by the manufacturer or wholesaler. To learn more have a read of Wikipedia Dropship entry
Pay Per View – sell one-off access to service. Take a look at The Geological Society for an example
Pay Per Article – sell one-off articles. Example on the RSC Journal website
Auction Sales – auction products or services from your site
Marketplace – match buyers and sellers and facilitate payment.Take a look at EditAvenue.com, a marketplace for editors.
Merchandise – If you have a popular site with a loyal audience you can sell branded merchandise. Try using CafePress.com
Advertising
Text Ads – short text ads automatically displayed on a page based on the context of the content. Google AdSense dominates the market.
Display Ads – Banner and button ads displayed at the top or to the side of content
Video Ads – Short video ads embedded into a page. They can be auto-play (annoying!) or be clicked to play. There is usually an example on the Yahoo.com home page
In-Content Ads – Ads that are linked to keywords within articles. Learn more at InLinks.com
Classifieds – User submitted classified ads. Craigslist is the gorilla, but lots of content websites have niche classifieds. Take a look at RockyMountainNews.com
Classifieds
Jobs Board – Paid job listings. A good example is SmashingMagazine Jobs
Pre-roll/post-roll video ads – Short ads at the beginning and end of video clips. Being trialled by YouTube
Paid Reviews – charge companies or individuals to review their book, product or service. Learn more at ReviewMe.com
Pay Per Post – offer to write posts mentioning a product, company or service for a fee. Can be unethical if commercial interest not declared. Learn more at PayPerPost.com
Advertorial – Allow customers to publish their own articles promoting their products or services for a fee. Make sure you clearly mark articles as advertorial to maintain your independence and integrity. Example of Rackspace Advertorial
Sponsorship – Charge for sponsorship for all or part of your website. Usually fixed price agreements for a fixed period of time. Example of a Time article sponsored by FedEx
Directory Listings – create a directory and charge suppliers to be listed, or list every supplier and charge for an enhanced listing. Example of an enhanced directory listing on financial advisors website
Affiliate Marketing
Commissions for Actions – you get paid every time an action is completed e.g. email newsletter sign up, trial sign-up, survey completed, etc. For example you can get paid a commission every time a free copy of the Firefox browser is downloaded. Sign up for a Google AdSense account
Commissions for Sales – you get paid a fixed commission or percentage share of sales value. Learn from Commission Junction
Lead Generation – generate leads on the website and sell them to prospects. Learn from Approved Index
Commission For Events Promotion – promote events in your industry in exchange for a commission on ticket sales. Approach any event organiser
Ecommerce
Digital Product Sales – sell products that can be downloaded over the internet. They can include ebooks, research, software, reports, music, video clips, etc. Go to Clickbank.com to see dozens of downloadable products
Physical Product Sales – stock, sell and ship your own products. For example CannotStopSmoking.com sells electric cigarettes
Dropship Sales – sell products that are stocked and shipped by the manufacturer or wholesaler. To learn more have a read of Wikipedia Dropship entry
Pay Per View – sell one-off access to service. Take a look at The Geological Society for an example
Pay Per Article – sell one-off articles. Example on the RSC Journal website
Auction Sales – auction products or services from your site
Marketplace – match buyers and sellers and facilitate payment.Take a look at EditAvenue.com, a marketplace for editors.
Merchandise – If you have a popular site with a loyal audience you can sell branded merchandise. Try using CafePress.com
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