Diversity in Monetization
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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!
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This Stuff In Lieu of Actual Content
I've been doing a little bit of work on this site as time has been permitting me. Alas, I'm not really sure how much more I can do.
Oh wait, there's a ton of things that I can do to make this blog better! But until those good ideas come around, here's a couple of the things that I have been doing around here.
First, I've added a new plugin to the site in order to help with organic traffic, namely Headspace2. What it does is give you the ability to fill out the meta title and description of each blog post. Just think, this is a chance to get in those all-important keywords that search engines just love.
Second, I've signed up and installed Kontera, which is a content-based CPC advertising network. Basically it chooses keywords in your blog posts and automatically makes them links (denoted by the double underlines). So far, it seems to be working, although I really would love to see some real traffic show up to see just how well using Kontera works.
I've also added a neat little feature (which you can see at the top of this post if you are on the post's page rather than the index.php) which allows you to retweet my posts with a single click. Just a little bit of php code and voila, instant Twitter retweet gratification! OK, maybe not so much, but it's a very neat (and easy to use) tool for giving your readers a chance to pass your post along to their followers. Speaking of Twitter followers, my earlier blog post about how I gained 100 Twitter followers in two hours did sort of jump the gun...I'm now over 1600, and the number is steadily increasing. In fact, my followers are also growing thanks to my use of the #tcot (top conservatives on Twitter) hashtag for my other blog, Verbal Thermite. Another area where having tons of Twitter followers is showing a great benefit is in the use of Be-A-Magpie, which is a service that helps you monetize your Twitter account. I'm now making over three Euros with each Magpie tweet. I wonder what John Chow could make with his account...hmm...
Finally, and also the most important update to this site for now is the fact that I've done some work with my mailing list. Now you can get a free PLR (private label rights) article pack when you join our list! If you are wondering how this can benefit you, you should check out my Squidoo lens on how to make money with PLR and MRR products. Read that, and then join the mailing list, and together we can take over the internet...er...I mean, make money online.
If you like these posts and want to stay in the loop, please subscribe to my RSS feed and follow me on Twitter. And if you really like this stuff, you can buy me a coffee! Oh, and if you like being an insider, be sure to join the mailing list...I never spam, but you will get some insider specials!
Kontera and the Keywords of Doom
I'm new to using Kontera. So far, I like them. Heck, they are almost working...heh.
I was playing around with my site, just doing some mouse-overs of the keywords (not clicking them, that's against the rules), and I noticed something funny about the information that popped up.
Rather than just tell you about it, let me show you what I mean.
It would seem that Nationwide insurance has the corner on the kewords 'blog' and 'blogger'. Interesting. I suppose that if you want to hijack traffic, you just have to outbid everyone else on the keyword you want, and then hope and pray that they don't actually LOOK at the pop-up info before clicking on the link.
Personally, I don't really think this is a reliable method of getting traffic.
I mean, I'm sure anybody with any common sense would see right through this keyword chaos.
You need to give people a reason to click on your links. Using totally unrelated links to gain traffic (like using 'blog' to sell insurance) doesn't really seem to do it.
Ah well. Such is marketing, right?
If you like these posts and want to stay in the loop, please subscribe to my RSS feed and follow me on Twitter. And if you really like this stuff, you can buy me a coffee! Oh, and if you like being an insider, be sure to join the mailing list...I never spam, but you will get some insider specials!
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