As my sites get more and more search engine traffic, I am faced with trying to figure out how to best monetize my traffic. I am currently using mainly Google Adsense ads, but since I have added more affiliate programs to pages that are getting traffic I am noticing a very nice increase in my monthly income.
I have read in many places that affiliate ads that are prominently displayed will take away from your adsense income. I must agree that on sites where my affiliate programs are simply generally related to my site as a whole, my affiliate income is almost non-existent. However lately I have been studying my traffic logs closely and looking at the search phrases people have been using to find my pages.
Once I have determined the key phrase, I then narrow it down to the page they found when they typed in that phrase. Once this is established I search high and low for an affiliate product that matches that page and that key phrase. Once this golden affiliate program has been found, I add it prominently to the page.
On the two sites I have used this method, not only have my adsense income remained almost unchanged but last month but my affiliate income doubled as well.
My advice is, do what works for your site, all sites are unique and react differently, but you may want to give this combination a try it has really worked wonders for me.
This article was provided by Jon Yarbrough of , also if you would like to get more traffic monetizing tips like this one, you can also find Jons newsletter at You may use this article as long as the article is unchanged and all links are intact including this resource box.
Dear friends,
Google, the most populated search engine on the Internet,offers a great advertising tool called AdWords.
AdWords was launched in March 2002 with a purpose of providinghighly targeted advertising solutions to marketers and over a few years it has shows remarkable growth as far asthe popularity is concerned.
How does the entire system work
There is a simple 5 step process to carry out.
1)Select the geographical location, where you want your ad to get displayed.
2)Write the ad with Title, 2 lines of description and the display and destination URLs.
3)Select keywords that will trigger the ad .
4)Select the amount you wish to pay when and only when someone click on your ad.
5)Select the daily budget.
Thats it and your ad starts running immediately.
I have seen traffic coming in less than 15 minutes.Since your ads get triggered because of the keywords youselect, the traffic you are getting is highly targeted.
I have been using AdWords for almost 8 months and has seen a conversion rate of as good as 13%. This is notbecause I have good copywriting skills, but becauseof the excellent keyword selection facilities insidethe AdWords system.
The success on AdWords is largely dependent on keywordselection. Tools such as overture, Worfdtracker are a greathelp for marketers.
The best part about the AdWordds systems is that more thenumber of people click on your ad, the lesser you have to pay.This clearly means that any average person can safely compete with big corporate players, paying much less and gettingmuch more targeted traffic at the same time.
But before doing so it is extremely important to learnhow to handle various keyword options inside the AdWords system. Because of the excellent keywords analysis abilitiesit is possible to get good results in the highly competitivemarkets as well.
Here are some of the more wonderful features of the AdWordssystem.
[x]The ability to PAUSE/RESUME you ad at any time. If you think that you are overspending on you ad campaigns, you
can immediately pause the ad campaigns.
[X]The ability to select geographical destinations such as selected countries or even cities in selected countries
[x]Real time tracking of clicks, impressions, cost ..(3 hours delay)
[x]The ability to turn on/off the participation in the Google AdSense program. Since AdSense ads are nothing but ads by those who are running AdWords ads.[x]Ability to select daily budget to avoid overspending.
[x]A robust keyword analysis system.
[x]Since there is a limit for the number of characters in the ads, it is much more exciting to put all your copywriting skills to test.
[x]Ability to create a hierarchy for ad campaigns, such as various ad groups inside a single ad campaign.
The main reason why AdWords campaigns give best results isbecause of the speed and highly targeted audience. In thefield of marketing it is extremely important to test the results as early as possible.
But the real question is how to get the most out of thesewonderful features Because of the speed with which AdWordsgives results, it is a best tool to collect opt-in subscribers,in short building your list. Instead of selling directlyto the audience it is wise to educate them more forpre-selling the product and then follow up by building a relationship first.
Now everyone is talking about building your own list andits true. But here I have a slightly different logic for sending the AdWords traffic to an opt-in page.
Lets consider two situations.
Case 1>Tomorrow morning I come to your home and give away a pair of Nike shoes to you as a free gift.
Case 2>You go to a city mall and buy those same shoes by paying a price.
Now out of the two situations it is more likely that youwill take good care of the shoes that you have purchasedby paying money. Same is true with subscribers, when youpay to collect email addresses and names it is more likelythat you will concentrate more toward building a rhythm withyou prospects in order to get the ROI.
Its like trapping yourself into a mousetrap. Since youhave invested some money, you must work at it and isthe best way to tap the goldmine on the Internet.
Thats it for now. Hope this information helps you andmotivate you to give it a try.
Copyright 2005 Shrinivas Vaidya
AdWords is the registered trademark of Google Inc.
If you are dead serious about running Google AdWordscampaigns, then The Definitive Guide To Google AdWordsby Perry Marshall is an excellent resource to start with.This is more than an eBook, which deals with getting resultsfast and without spending a fortune on AdWords advertising.Click below for more information.