How to make money with your website ?

There are several lists with “ways to make money with a website” on the Internet, but none of them seem to be complete. That is why I decided to create this one.

Notice that ways to make money with a website are different from ways to make more money from it. Methods to increase your traffic or click-through rate will help you make more money, but they do not represent a method of making money per se.

For example, one could suggest that blending AdSense ads with the content is a way to make money from a website. In reality it’s not; it’s just a way to make more money by improving your ad click-through rate. The real monetization method behind it is a PPC ad network.

The list is divided into direct and indirect methods, and examples and links are provided for each point. Enjoy!
Direct Methods

1. 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.

2. CPM Advertising Networks

CPM advertising networks behave pretty much as PPC networks, except that you get paid according to the number of impressions (i.e., page views) that the ads displayed on your site will generate. CPM stands for Cost per Mille, and it refers to the cost for 1,000 impressions.

A blog that generates 100,000 page views monthly displaying an advertising banner with a $1 CPM, therefore, will earn $100 monthly.

CPM rates vary with the network, the position of the ad and the format. The better the network, the higher the CPM rate (because they have access to more advertisers). The closer you put the ad to the top of the page, the higher the CPM. The bigger the format (in terms of pixels), the higher the CPM.

You can get as low as $0,10 and as high as $10 per 1,000 impressions (more in some special cases). CPM advertising tends to work well on websites with a high page views per visitor ratio (e.g., online forums, magazines and so on).

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.

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.

5. 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 draemhost and seobook, or join affiliate marketplaces and networks.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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 markiting pilgrim are two examples.

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.

10.Premium Content

Some websites and blogs give away part of their content for free, and charge for access to the premium content and exclusive tools.

seomoz is a good example. They have a very popular blog that gives advice and information on wide range of SEO related topics. On top of that visitors can decide to become premium members. It costs $48 monthly and it grants them access to guides, tools and other exclusive material.

11. Private Forums

While the Internet is populated with free forums, there is also the possibility to create a private one where members need to pay a single or recurring fee to join.

seo blackhat charges $100 monthly from its members, and they have thousands of them. Obviously in order to charge such a price for a forum membership you need to provide real value for the members (e.g., secret techniques, tools, and so on).

performancing also launched a private forum recently, focused on the networking aspect. It is called The Hive, and the monthly cost is $10.

These are just two examples. There are many possibilities to create a private and profitable forum, you just need to find an appealing angle that will make it worth for the members.

12. Job Boards

All the popular blogs are trying to leverage job boards to make some extra income. guy kawasaki, raed write web, problogger… you name it.

Needless to say that in order to create an active and profitable job board you need first to have a blog focused on a specific niche, and a decent amount traffic.

The advantage of this method is that it is passive. Once you have the structure in place, the job listings will come naturally, and you can charge anywhere from $10 up to $100 for each.

13. 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 easy wordpress and on mashable.

14. Paid Surveys and Polls

There are services that will pay you money to run a small survey or poll on your website. The most popular one is called vizu answers.

Basically you need to sign up with them, and select the kind of polls that you want to run your site. Most of these services operate under a CPM model.

15. Selling or Renting Internal Pages

million dollar wiki made this concept popular, but it was being used on the web for a long time around.

These websites sell for a single fee or rent for a recurring fee internal pages on their domain. Usually they have either high Pagerak or high traffic, so that people purchasing a page will be able to benefit in some way.

Implementing this method on a small blog would be difficult, but the concept is interesting and could be explored further.

16. Highlighted Posts from Sponsors

techmeme probably pioneered this idea, but somehow it has not spread to other websites. The tech news aggregator displays editorial posts on the left column, and on the sidebar they have a section titled “Techmeme Sponsor Posts.”

On that section posts from the blog of the advertisers get highlighted, sending qualified traffic their way. Considering that the monthly cost for one spot is $5000 and that they have around 6 sponsors at any given time, it must be working well.

17. Donations

Placing a “Donate” link or button on a website can be an efficient way to earn money, especially if your blog is on a niche where readers learn and gain value from your content.

Personal development and productivity blogs, for instance, tend to perform well with donation based systems.

A small variation of this method appeared sometime ago with the buy me a beer plugin. This WordPress plugin enables you to insert a customized message at the bottom of each article, asking the readers to chip in for a beer or coffee.

18. In-text Adverting

In-text adverting networks like kontera and vibrant media will place sponsored links inside your text. These links come with a double underline to differentiate them from normal links, and once the user rolls the mouse over the link the advertising will pop. Should the user click on it the site owner will make some money.

Some people make good money with this method, but others refrain from using it due to its intrusiveness. It is also interesting to note that very few mainstream websites have experimented with in-text advertising.

19. 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.

20. Audio Ads

Also called PPP (Pay Per Play), this advertising method was introduce by net audio ads. the concept is pretty simple: play a small audio advertising (usually 5 seconds) every time a visitor enters into your website. The user should not be able to stop it, creating a 100% conversion rate based on unique visitors.

The company is still rolling tests, but some users are reporting to get from a $4 to a $6 CPM. Regardless of the pay rate, though, this is a very intrusive form of advertising, so think twice before using it.

21. 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.

22. Creating an Email List or Newsletter

Email lists and newsletters represent one of the most powerful marketing and money making tools on the Internet. They offer incredible conversion rates, and the possibility to call people to action in a very efficient way.

Creating a big list is a difficult task though, so if you have a popular website you could leverage it to increase the number of subscribers on your list.

yaro starak is a famous Internet marketer, and if you visit his blog you will notice that right on top he has a section encouraging visitors to subscribe to his email newsletter. Yaro generates five figures in revenues each month from his email newsletters, proving that this method works.

23. Mentoring programs

People are willing to pay for someone or something that will teach them and give them knowledge (as opposed to mere information). Education is one of the biggest industries in the world, and the online landscape behaves in a similar way.

Creating a mentoring program related to the niche of your website could be very profitable if you manage to structure and promote it adequately. There is a wide range of media and tools that you can use to deliver the information, from text articles to audio and video lessons.

Brian Clark leveraged the success of copyblogger to launch a mentoring program teaching people how to build membership and how to sell content online. The program is titled teaching sells, and it costs $97 monthly. Sounds expensive, but they have over 1,000 members.

A Real Life Guide to Starting an Online Business

Zero Dollars, a Little Talent and Thirty Days is the compilation of the popular Search Engine Guide article series by the same name. Zero Dollars follows entrepreneur and writer Jennifer Laycock as she tries to start a successful online business in just thirty days without spending a dime out of pocket.

Learn a variety of tips and techniques that you can put to work on your own site.

• finding a niche where you can be successful
• using a blog to drive traffic and sales
• earning extra profit through affiliate programs
• launching a viral marketing campaign
• making use of organic search engine optimization
• planning for a public relations pitch
• networking with other business owners

So what's the cost? There is none! This book features more than one hundred pages of practical advice and insight written in a language that anyone can understand.

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Art of Earning Money

This free e-book is all about teaching, how to earn money in any business.



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How to gain More Traffic Through SEO Tactics

You can always continue revamping your websites in order for them to look as perfect as you want them to be. You can also continue on experimenting and creating the best product the whole of Web World has ever seen. Of course, these will surely draw rave reviews for your site. Have you ever heard of internet marketing SEO, though? Do you think you need to do more of this?

Even as you have the most gorgeous-looking website and the most useful product the world needs to get on living, you still need to become visible. The thing is, if people do not know your website existed, they cannot buy from you. In the wide, wide world of the Web, it is not that easy to achieve traffic as before.

Presently, with millions of websites competing for attention to the users, you need an internet marketing SEO tactic to boost your visibility. Only by consistent and dedicated internet marketing SEO will you attain the traffic that will draw crowds of users into your site.

By knowing some of the popular internet marketing SEO tactics, you can boost your site and gain interesting prospects for your business.

Start considering these internet marketing SEO strategies:

1. Link popularity through search engines - submit you website to major search engines. Once you optimize your pages and are able to rank within the top 10 or 20 sites using a particular keyword, you will get steady targeted traffic, guaranteed.

2. Doing pay-per-click search engines- major SEs offers the chance for you pay for your ranking. If you do not want to be bothered with optimization, pay-per-click is a popular option.

3. Taking advantage of link exchanges - this internet marketing SEO tactic is done by searching for other high-ranking sites related to your site or within your market and request a trade of links.

4. Doing joint ventures with collaborates - partner with other editors or webmasters related to your market and strike an agreement to help promote each other's businesses.

5. Start referral marketing - if you already have customers who came back more than once, encourage them to refer you to other internet users that they know. Introduce an incentive for them like providing discounts or offering a free quality gift. This way, your customers will be attracted to participate in this internet marketing SEO strategy.

6. Start building your own opt-in newsletter - having your own newsletter gets you points for credibility. It will also help you stay in touch with your customers. You can introduce an ad corner and market your own products or services to subscribers. You can also earn extra income from advertising sales.

7. Look up Ezine advertising - for just a few dollars, you can reach thousands of targeted prospects.

8. Doing article submissions - you can write articles depending on your specific area of interest and then submit them editors and webmasters in your market. You can also submit them to free article submission sites for others to reprint them.

There are many other things you can do and liven up your site's traffic. You can network by joining forums or participating in message boards, are listed in major indexes and web site directories, create a free eBook and give it away to visitors and webmasters.

Just remember to be consistent about it. There are many internet marketing SEO strategies. You just have to discover them and start boosting your visibility.
You can always continue revamping your websites in order for them to look as perfect as you want them to be. You can also continue on experimenting and creating the best product the whole of Web World has ever seen. Of course, these will surely draw rave reviews for your site.

Why Are Some People More Successful Than Others?

What is it that makes certain people successful while others are not? Only 5% of all people are really successful. What do they do that that differs from the rest? In this article you will discover the secrets behind their success.

Have you just like me sometimes been annoyed over why some people are better off, are more successful and succeed with everything they do, while you yourself struggle without getting it to work at all? What is the secret they know or do, that others do not know about or do not do?

I am sure that we all recognize our selves in this situation, being annoyed over people who are more successful than we are, maybe not all the time but sometime when things do not get our way. Have you noticed that as long as you have that attitude, you do not get really satisfied with what you are doing. It is like there was an angry little bee inside us that want to get out, but the bee just gets angrier and angrier. At last it starts hurting really bad and we develop a number of different symptoms of stress, like heart- and cardiac diseases, diabetes, high blood pressure, etc.

If I now told you that you can get rid of the inner stress and at the same time get more balanced and successful. Would that be of interest? Of course it would, at least for most people. The only way to solve the annoying feeling inside is to find out the underlying cause. Let us say you are annoyed by people that are managing directors who makes a lot of money. There can be many causes but in this case we imagine that it depends on your father that was a worker who got very pushed around by his CEO. Would it not be nice to let go of this infinite stress that you carry on?

What you can do is to heal this anger inside you. The secret is to take control over the situation and say to yourself: I release the anger I have inside myself that makes me angry over others that are more successful than I am. In this way you open up you inner soul and release the anger that looses its grip of you. You are now free to create unlimited success. You have released the mental blocks you might have and have an open mind, which allows you to create success.

Most likely it will take some time to heal this anger inside you. If you repeat the sentence above, to release you anger inside yourself, each morning and evening during a 3 week period, you should be able to take control over your feelings and remove you mental blockings. Sometimes, when the anger or annoying feeling is very deep inside yourself, it can take longer times. Just continue repeating those words above and you will sooner or later find yourself free to create unlimited success.

The second part in creating unlimited success is to study those who are really successful. Identify one or a couple of persons who are really successful, preferably in the same niche as you are or in a similar one. Study what they are doing, learn how they have got where they are, find out as much as possible about those persons and copy and model what they have done.

It is not necessary to re-invent the wheel. Learn from the masters and adjust it so it fits your business, and you will also succeed.

Good Luck!

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Contract Management Market Poised for Consolidation

The contract management software market is moving toward a merger and acquisition spree. Choosing the right vendor can be a risky proposition. This does not mean organizations should delay a contract management purchase. Instead, it means decision makers should carefully weigh the pros and cons of purchasing an Oracle or SAP module versus a best-of-breed solution. Base Requirements In order to obtain the business benefits from contract management software, the application must have the following functionality: - Central searchable contract repository. - Contract templates. - Redlining and version control with check-in/check-out capability. - Integration with Microsoft Word. - Basic reporting capabilities. Best-of-Breed Solutions Contract management solutions offered by best-of-breed vendors like diCarta, Hummingbird, i-Many, Ketera, Nextance, Selectica, and Upside Software deliver many additional key features: - Alerts triggered by contract conditions. - Supplier compliance enforcement. - Central repository. - Analytics and audit tools. - Easy-to-use interfaces. - Contract renewal management. - Integration with enterprise systems. - Rich Microsoft Word integration. - Robust template and clause libraries. - Scalable to 10,000 documents. - Span across all spending categories. - Supplier portals. - Workflow engine. Financial Suites Major enterprise software vendors like Oracle and SAP offer contract management modules for their Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) applications. However, they only track the contract start and end date, key prices, volume, and attachments. They still lack the functionality provided by best-of-breed solutions to perform analytics on the right contract prices and terms, manage conflicts, and assess compliance. Consolidation Looms To complicate matters the market is ripe for vendor consolidation. Info-Tech believes that within the next two years Oracle and SAP will bolster their financial suite offerings by acquiring key contract management vendors to increase product functionality. This will likely occur after best-of-breed vendors look to increase market position by merging with a competitive offering. As a general rule smaller vendors with $20 million to $50 million in revenue are prime takeover targets for dominant vendors with weaker competitive targets. With market-leading solutions now providing a similar range of functionality, we expect larger vendors to look at consolidation as a means to increase market share. The most likely candidate for making an acquisition is i-Many or Selectica. Although these companies botched a merger last year, with revenues of $40 million and $30 million respectively, they remain market leaders. Potential acquisition targets include diCarta ($18 million revenue) and Upside Software ($10 million revenue). Hummingbird is the largest best-of-breed vendor ($220 million revenue), but it is turning its focus on its Enterprise Content Management (ECM) platform. For the next year we expect management's primary objective to be absorbing its recent acquisition of RedDot Solutions, a Web Content Management (WCM) vendor. Recommendations 1. Large enterprises with a significant Oracle or SAP infrastructure and requiring base functionality should look to add the respective vendors' contract management module. 2. Large enterprises requiring advanced functionality should implement a best-of-breed solution with pre-built integration for enterprise systems. 3. Smaller organizations without Oracle or SAP applications should implement a less expensive best-of-breed solution. Bottom Line Consolidation in the contract management space is imminent. The survivors will have both financial clout and an innovative product roadmap

how to be polite in business !

English speaking people value politeness over directness, and appearing rude when you write or speak is as much a mistake as getting the language wrong. In fact, people are more likely to forgive inaccuracies than rudeness. Here are ten tips for staying polite in business.

1. Avoid making demands or giving instructions

Phrases like "I want…" sound rude. Instead try "I would like…" or "I would be grateful for…":

"I would like some information on your range of printers."
"I would be grateful for some information on your range of printers."

2. Remember to use "please and "thank you"

Use "please" when you ask someone to do something for you:
Can you open the window please?
Could I have some assistance please?

Use "thank you" after you have received help. You can also start a letter with "Thank you": "Thank you for your confirmation of February 10."

3. Show you care about the other person

Even if you cannot help a person, try to avoid sounding unfriendly or direct.

"We cannot help you" becomes "We are sorry that we cannot help you further".

"We have no information for you" becomes "Unfortunately, we have no information regarding…"

"Your order will be late" becomes "Unfortunately, your order might be late".

4. Use modal verbs

These verbs change the mood of a sentence and allow you to sound polite and diplomatic. They also make you sound less definite, and more open to other people's ideas.

You can use modal verbs to make suggestions, such as "Perhaps you could consider"; to make requests, such as "Would you let us know the costs?" and to sound tentative, such as "It might be difficult to fill your order in a week."

In particular, the past modals (would, could and might) are useful in situations when you want to sound less definite. For this reason, they are useful in negotiations when you want to invite the other person to give you a better offer. For example, saying "Your price is too high for us" sounds definite and could close the discussion. If you say "Your price would be too high for us", you are inviting the other person to make a counter-offer.

5. Use past forms

Use past tenses to put distance between you and the other person and to make you sound less definite.

"We were hoping for…" (rather than "We are hoping for…")

"We wanted to know…" (rather than "We want to know…")

6. Use qualifiers

Qualifiers such as "rather", "a little", "somewhat" or "a slight" make problems sound less serious.

"We have a problem with the account" becomes "We have a slight problem with the account."

"There's an issue with our suppliers" becomes "There's a little issue with our suppliers."

7. Introduce bad news

Use an introductory word or phrase to warn the reader that you have bad news.

"The company has decided to close its offices in New York" becomes "Unfortunately, the company has decided to close its offices in New York."

"Your application has been unsuccessful" become "We regret to inform you that your application has been unsuccessful."

8. Apologise

English speakers apologise in many types of situation: when they have made a mistake, if they have bad news, or even when they are referring to general problems:

"I'm sorry, but Mr Smith is out of the office this morning."
"We are sorry to inform you that we are no longer manufacturing this item."
"We would like to apologise for this misunderstanding."

9. Appear neutral rather than confrontational

Reduce the impact of a criticism by replacing a negative adjective by 'not very' + positive adjective.

"That was a stupid comment" becomes "That wasn't a very smart comment."

"Your customer service representatives are rude" becomes "Your customer service representatives are not very polite."

Try to use words with a positive focus instead of a negative focus.

"issue" or "matter" (instead of "problem")
"inconvenience" / "inconvenient" (rather than "difficulty" or "difficult")
"misunderstanding" (rather than "argument")
"sensitive" (to describe an issue that you would rather not discuss)
"unfortunate" or "disappointing" (rather than "bad")

10. Avoid "you"

Change the focus of the sentence to avoid sounding as if you are accusing the reader. Instead of writing "you", write "there" or "we".

"You made a mistake" becomes "There seems to be a mistake."
"You said…" becomes "We understood…

avoid these mistakes

People are bragging about how much money they are making from the Google AdSense affiliate program... But, you've been at it for awhile and you still haven't seen a big commission check in the mail yet...
With these seven AdSense affiliate tips, you can increase your AdSense income... Up until now, no one has ever pointed out what may be preventing you from reaching your earnings objectives. Could it be that you've been given the wrong information?
We'll look at seven mistakes that AdSense publishers make and how they should be handled. And don't worry; the suggestions for improvement are within the AdSense terms of service so you won't get banned from using them. After you are done reading about these mistakes, you should be able to identify if you need to make the necessary changes to your site.
So then, here are the seven mistakes AdSense affiliates make and tips to correct them...
(1) Creating Sites for the Purpose of Showing AdSense Ads
M.F.A. or "Made for AdSense," is the other term which people use to describe a site which was built for the purpose of earning AdSense affiliate commissions. The primary purpose wasn't to serve the people of a niche market online. No. The site was created for the owner to make easy money from people who click ads because there is nothing else of value on that site. No content, no real products being sold...
Tip #1: If you have a thin affiliate site, then start thinking about the market you are targeting and fatten it with information most helpful to them.
(2) Placing Ads on Blinds Spots
When the web was young, the 468 x 60 pixel banner ads where on almost every site...usually at the top before the real content below. They were effective back then, but Internet surfers have become so used to them being ads, that now a days they ignore anything in that location. So, placing AdSense ads in this region doesn't get as many click thrus.
Tip #2: The best places to place your ads would be within the written content; however testing will give you a scientific answer to exactly where your site will get the most clicks.
(3) Making AdSense Ads Look Like Ads
People tend to ignore anything that looks like an ad. The AdSense Setup tab in your account allows you to change the colors of the words, borders and background of the ads you will place on your site. If you choose colors that clash with the colors of your site, then it will draw negative attention to those ads.
Tip #3: For your ads, you should use colors which blend in with the color and content of your site.
(4) Not Knowing Where a Click Came From
People aren't using what AdSense calls "Channels" to help publishers track click-thrus. These channels are assigned by you and help you figure out if clicks are coming from a specific ad format, region of your web page or an entire site. With this click thru data, overtime it will help you determine which placement works out the best or which needs improvement.
Tip #4: Take a closer look at the features available on your AdSense Setup tab and start creating and adding channels to your AdSense ad codes.
(5) Optimizing a Site with the Wrong Keywords
Money from the AdSense program comes from advertisers who use Google's AdWords advertising system. They bid on keywords for placement and one of the ways price is calculate is by how much competition there is for that search term. The greater the competition in general, the higher will be the price. Which means, AdSense affiliate sites that have content with those keywords will most like be paid higher for clicks. If a site is on a less popular topic, then those keywords will return a smaller commission.
Tip: #5: To increase the pay a click delivers, make sure the content you have on your site is appropriately optimized for the higher paying keywords. Many tools are available online to help you discover the profitable keywords or keyword phrases that should be on your site.
(6) Killing Potential Affiliate Sales
AdSense wasn't meant to replace the income a website can generate with your main products or the other affiliate products you are promoting. The only exception would be if your site focuses on providing pure information. Having AdSense links will make it easier for any potential buyers to leave your site. You may earn a few cents when the visitor leaves your site, but you may have made a few dollars if the visitor stayed and turned into a buyer. Sometimes AdSense ads will out perform the product you are selling directly.
Tip #6: To find out if AdSense or your main product makes you more money, you have to do some testing and tracking.
(7) Not Collecting Opt-ins
Even before email marketing was born, a mailing list in the offline business world generated billions of sales for mail-order and direct marketing companies. Successful businesses online regularly collect opt-in email addresses to stay in contact with their customers and send them promotional messages to generate additional backend sales and profits. Many sites built to make money displaying AdSense ads don't make the effort to also collect the email address of their potential customers. Try not to make that mistake.
Tip #7: Put up an opt-in form on your site and offer your visitors a free report related to the topic of your site so you can collect their email addresses.
Summing Up
These are the seven AdSense affiliate mistakes that when identified and corrected, can improve your click thru rate and overall site income. Once you've overcome the inertia to make these critical changes, soon you will be able to brag about the money you are making to people who doubted you could have a successful online business.
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