If you are relying on income from one advertising source you
are truly not seeing the full earning potential of your blog or website. In
many cases I have seen many websites run only Google Adsense the fact is that
in the majority of cases Adsense will earn you many times less than some of the
sources I will discuss below, but the great news is all of my recommended money
makers below can be used together, on the one page earning more revenue than
you could ever thru a single source.
To give an example of
this Google Adsense across my network of sites earns me an average of US$3,000
per month, not a bad supplemental income you say, but that’s only a fraction of
my networks total earnings, a good month will see an average of US$15,000 in total
revenue across my network, and this figure is increasing rapidly as my sites become more popular and I optomize ad spots.
So what are my recommended
money makers and how can they be used effectively together?
My recommended money makers are as follows (in no relevant
order)
- Google Adsense
- Kontera
- ReviewMe
- Text Link Ads
- WidgetBucks
- Private Ad Sales
Google Adsense
To begin no you should not drop Google Adsense, it is an
easy to get into and manage revenue stream, but the trick here is to look at
the type of Google ad units you use and where you use them.
I find Adsense is great to use in the top right hand corner
of a post the 250 X 250 Square or 300 X 250 Medium Rectangle is a great
format to use here depending on space, both of these formats also work well with
forums in forum posts. The 728 X 80 Leaderboard a great format placed
on the top it will get a lot of clicks especially if it is text only and
matching the colour scheme of your page, this ad spot is one that I regularly
sell directly to advertisers so Adsense gets moved very quickly from this
position when I get a private ad sale.
Kontera
Kontera is an ad format that links or underlines words in
your post, associating ads with the relevant keyword, I find Kontera does not
earn me as much as Google but because of its style it can easily be used on a
page without taking up additional ad spots, so it is a good additional money
earner. Kontera works well on pages that
see lots of traffic and with sites frequented by readers that are not so internet
savvy.
ReviewMe
ReviewMe is another great revenue earning option, as it also
does not take any additional advertising spots. Rather advertising is in the
form of a review post on your blog or website, promoting the product or service
of the company that has ordered the review. For even slightly popular sites
ReviewMe can be a big money spinner, earning sometimes four to eight times more
than Google Adsense.
Text Link Ads
Text Link Ads is
as its name suggests is a text link advertising system, simply place their ad
code in a div where you want the Text Link Ads to display, your inventory then
becomes live on the Text Link Ads website and available for purchase for a set
monthly rate. The rate is determined by your websites Google Page Rank (PR) and Alexa
rank. Your cut of the monthly rate is 50% which can be payed into a PayPal
account.
This is personally one of my favourites because it is very
easy to setup and you can earn a reasonable revenue from a relatively small ad
area. I use Text Link Ads in the top of the right side bar.
WidgetBucks
WidgetBucks is a new shopping/price comparison widget, which
offers one of the best returns per click for this style of ad. WidgetBucks and
other shopping comparison widgets are best used on blogs and websites that
publish product reviews. So run WidgetBucks and see how it goes if earning are
terrible remove them for something better.
Private Ad Sales
Private Ad Sales, by far the best money earner, there is
some additional administrative overhead looking after the accounts and
adding/removing ads but the income is normally always great, in most cases more
than all of your other revenue earning methods combined
I find selling ad spots on your own website works best if
you have a popular high traffic website. This by far is my best money earner across all
of my websites and blog, and it empowering to know that you are cutting out the
middle men, who in a lot of cases earn up to 50% of the commission.
If planning to sell Ad spots on your blog or website
directly with advertisers, you need to setup an advertise here page, detailing
the advertising spots available on your site, traffic details for your site,
the cost for each ad spot and your terms, conditions and payment options.
You may not want to include traffic details or the cost of
advertising spots, and only provide this information by email to genuine
advertisers it’s up to you!
So you can see how multiple advertising revenue sources is
the best option when looking to maximize your monthly revenue, I recommend experimenting
with a few different programs with their different formats in different Ad
spots to maximize your revenue. Give it a try and let us know how you go.