Tue_Feb_12_19:00:07_PST_2019

78 Even if you are only trying to sell your opinion, you can still earn money from it through hard work, creativity, or simple outspokenness. If you are selling advertising space, you first need to win great distribution. You do not win that distribution by throwing too many ads up too early! Offer something worthwhile, then try to extract value— in that order. I made a personal blog about losing weight that was accepted into DMOZ and the Yahoo! Directory, both absolutely free. After the site aged and gained authority, I placed ads on it. It is easier to get links for a non-commercial site than for a commercial site. After the links are in place, you can use that link popularity and authority to do whatever you want to do with it. Some people may consider it bait-and-switch, but as long as your site does not deviate too far from its original purpose, most of the links will likely stay. Banners versus Contextual Ads Many web surfers have become banner-blind and ignore the top part of a page. Banners have horrible click-through rates. I do not usually use default banner sizes unless I feel it fits well with the site design. The best revenue options are link rentals, sponsored content, or context-based text ads. Good advertising does not look like advertising. One site that I work with sells links for $500 a month per link and only made about $30 a month off AdSense. Other times, AdSense can make far greater profits. Depending on the market, it may be best to use one or the other or a combination of both. Reviewing Products If you read a book you like, tell people about it. Give them the opportunity to buy the book from your website. Review products you like. Successful affiliate marketers know it is much easier to sell products if they provide what appear to be personal, unbiased reviews. Mike's Marketing Tools is a site that sells Internet marketing books and software. Some of the stuff he recommends is great, but some of it is also terrible. No matter what Mike thinks of the product, he gives the appearance of an honest unbiased positive review of just about everything listed in his directory. It usually highlights more benefits than downsides. By doing that and ranking well for numerous product names, he makes a good amount of money. If you do review products in depth, make sure you give each product its own review page. Point-of-Action Marketing