In today’s Web 2.0 environment, making money online is a bit
different then it was even five years ago. Today, we no longer wait for the
search engines to come and find us, today we use dozens of so-called Social
websites to help get us noticed. This is especially powerful when used in
association with
Blog Marketing.
Your blog, when used properly can be a web traffic magnet, as these social
sites first send you traffic, they then in turn help the search engine spiders
find your site. A blog post made today (that has been properly promoted), can
be ranking in the search engines tomorrow.
To monetize this traffic we can use the standard Web Marketing techniques like Affiliate Marketing, banner ad sales or even
contextual advertising like Google Adsense. It’s recommended that the marketer
experiment with different combinations of these techniques to see which proves
to be the most profitable.
Banner Ads
Selling banner ads is typically the least profitable way to monetize
a website. First off, advertisers have long known that web surfers in general
rarely see banner ads, they tend to get lost in the “noise” of the site. A click-thru
rate of less then 1% is typical of banner ads. Plus this traffic is rarely
targeted – untargeted traffic plus a very low click thru rate is not a very
good way to generate sales.
Adsense
Contextual advertising (Google Adsense) is not much better
in terms of monetizing a website. Early on, Adsense was a very easy way to make
good money if you could produce even moderate amounts of traffic. This soon
changed as Google continued to (and continues to) refine its algorithm. Today,
even with a decent click thru rate, Adsense revenue is paltry.
Affiliate Marketing
That leaves us with monetization via Affiliate Programs. With the traffic that a well
planned Authority Site can generate,
carefully selected (relevant) affiliate products can sell very well. Combine
that with the typically higher commission rate that an affiliate sale can yield
and you have a much better chance of creating a viable income. Even low to
moderate levels of traffic can result in a fair amount of profit.
Finally, as was discussed above, it is recommended that you
experiment with different combinations of monetization methods to find which
one is most profitable for your particular niche.
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