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Diversity in Monetization

It seems like every time I'm hanging around on the Digital Point forums, I see somebody ask questions along the line of 'how can I make money online with my site?' only to be bombarded with a salvo of answers that contain one piece of advice.

Not that getting a random persons favorite network (most likely Google AdSense) is a bad thing, but many people fail to branch out beyond one network at a time and simply choose to sit around scratching their heads wondering why they aren't putting money in their pocket.

If you have ever watched any stock market advice shows, or listened to Dave Ramsey, you already know the best method. The answer is simple: diversify!

First, if your website is getting a ton of traffic, then Google AdSense might be a good thing to run. However, if you only rely on AdSense for income, you are not playing with a full deck. You are simply trusting that some of those visitors will click on the ads. Since that's not guaranteed (and many people tend to get ad blindness), you need to do more than just run AdSense.

You might look into something a bit more mouse-catching, like Kontera. No, I'm not saying replace AdSense...run both! Kontera, at least for me, gets more clicks because many people are curious about the double underlined keywords in my articles. Not only that, but there are many people on the net that aren't quite as marketing savvy as some of us, and see a link that looks a bit funny and are, for some unknown reason, compelled to click it just to see what happens.

Yeah, those are the people that want you to fix their computer on the weekends because their kids broke the dang thing on that internet...whatsit...

But lets' take this a step further. You can have all of the good traffic in the world, but if people don't click your AdSense or Kontera links, you get nothing. That's why, if you are pulling good traffic, you need to also get hooked up with a CPM ad network like ADSDAQ or AdBrite. That way, you get paid based on the number of impressions the ad makes, regardless of whether people click it or not.

Also, if your blog is well established, you could probably sell some adspace directly to readers or other bloggers in your niche. Pure profit is a good thing!

If you are only using one or two monetiziation methods on your site, you are missing out on untapped opportunity. Branch out! Get paid!