Monetize Your Site

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Last evening I posted an article on one of my other sites that might also be of interest to many of my readers here. I had run across an offer of Free Affiliate Websites. It is a program being promoted, and operated I believe, by an Internet super affiliate. The article can be found on my site: Before You Buy a Website. Check out the article and while you are there poke around the site a bit if you have time. I have a blog there, too. Some of the topics I publish there would be of interest to my visitors here. Just click on the Blog link in the top or bottom nav bar.

I revisited an article by Internet  ScamBusters. This is a two part article. The first part details ten common Internet scams. The second part gives some hints about things to think about when looking an an offer. I found the last three suggestions to contain a lot of meat. To see the full article you can go to their site at:  http://www.scambusters.org/work-at-home.html While you are there you might consider signing up for their ScamBusters Newsletter.

Consider starting your own home-based business.

If you’re really interested in working for yourself, starting your own home-based business can be a great idea. It also involves a lot of work, and much of the time, some investment.

This is not a decision to make lightly, nor should you start a business just because you can’t find a job.

Having said that, starting your own business — if you’re willing to do your homework and do what’s necessary to make it a success — may well become one of the best decisions you ever made.

There are lots of great resources on starting a legitimate home business. (But remember, you won’t receive them via spam.)

Don’t come across as desperate.

You may be in dire straits financially, but it’s worth your while to act calmly and professionally — just like you would in a real-world job search.

Posting messages on forums saying that you are in financial trouble, or desperate to find work from home is a bad idea. Desperation is like blood to sharks — it’ll bring all of the scammers out of the woodwork, and you’ll be inundated with phony offers.

Be patient.

If you’re looking to start a home-based business, or looking for telecommuting work you can do at home, you may have a considerable search ahead of you. There are a *lot* of people in the same boat, many of whom are falling prey to scams every day.

Don’t let scammers use high-pressure tactics to sucker you in. If you’re given a time-limited offer, there’s usually a reason why — scammers know that pressure brings in people!

Even if you’re in dire straits, it pays to be patient… so that you don’t lose money to schemes that never materialize.

And most important, NEVER reply to spam.

Fraudulent offers for home-based businesses or work-at-home opportunities almost always arrive as spam. The better it sounds, the less likely that it’s legitimate.

Scammers aren’t planning to deliver anyway, so what does it matter to them what they promise? Delete and move on.

As we say — if it’s spam, it’s a scam!

There is much more good information on their sites. I believe that the couple that operates this site, as well as several others, has learned how to make a reasonable living from the Internet.

I have recently added banner advertising to several of my sites. On some of these sites I use a simple php script to randomly rotate the banners so that the content appears to be dynamic. I have attempted to select the advertisers that will be of interest to the visitors of a particular site.

There is an advantage to niche sites in that you know the targeted audience. You can select advertisers that have products that will appeal to most of the visitors to that site. Adsense does a good job of matching the ads to the content on a page, but my click through rate still hovers around 1% for the Google ads. I think that these ads are easy to ignore since they are so prevalent around the web. Good banners appear to catch the eye and provide better click through rates. There have been one or two days when my click through rate on the banner ads has exceeded 30% according to the statistics on my affiliate network data page.

The advantage with Google ads is that they are pay-per-click. The website owner makes a small amount for each click on an ad. The banner ads are mostly pay-per-action so a click does not necessarily result in even a small increment of income. The person that clicks on the banner must complete some specified action in order for the site owner to get paid. The action can be filling out a form or joining a program, in which case there is usually a flat rate offered for the action. The action can also be making a purchase from the merchant. For purchases the offer is usually for a percentage commission.

Most pay per action programs do not require an immediate action on the part of the visitor. If the required action takes place within a time frame set up in the individual agreement then the incentive will be paid. These time frames can vary from immediate to infinite. The potential income from pay per action programs is much greater than pay per click.

Welcome to the Monetize your WebSite blog. I have begun to explore ways to make money on the web. I began this during the summer of ’08, but my regular business, AudioArt Sound, keeps me fairly busy until December. Then I have a bit more time to devote to some of my other pursuits. There are a few articles on the main site, Selling on Your Website. I have ideas for a few more.

I established this blog to tell you about things that I run across in my cyber-travels and my own ideas on the subject. Some of the product or program shouts will be for products or programs to which I am attached as an affiliate marketer. I am more inclined to the soft sell than the hard sell. I will probably leave the hard sell to others. I have found that the hard sell approach to anything runs greater risk of dissatisfied customers.

The world is the market when dealing with the web. Fractional percentages can be very large numbers. Lets get a few of those numbers to fall our way!!