It's been a while but I'm back again...As usual other projects have consumed me, but I wanted to share something I started thinking about more in the recent weeks. Once you're earning with Adsense on several sites, and maybe earning with some other moneymakers like Amazon, eBay, Clickbank, you might want to expand your efforts. You might produce several blogs or sites, and find that some work really well to make you money, while others fail.
Sometimes you discover that no matter how much traffic you might get on a particular blog site, it's incredibly tough to make money off that traffic. One example may be music or entertainment blogs, which are popular, but it's hard to say how profitable they are. These can be tough to monetize in my experiences. You try the Google Adsense route, but learn that the ads just don't get the clicks, or the ads just don't pay you jack for them. In some cases they even lead to smart pricing. So you swap out Google and try something else. If you're on blogger, you can't use eBay Partner Network, but can go with Shopping Ads or Amazon Associates. You continue to see that it's even tougher to convert, however there are some tricks, tips and other things you can keep in mind. Don't go hitting the "Delete" button for that particular blog, or decide to give up on the site. Here's some food for thought and ideas of ways to make money online with your content that brings the big traffic but doesn't seem to make you any money.
Leverage your Traffic to other Sites
Consider using a blog that gets big bursts of traffic as powerful leverage to bring traffic somewhere else. Why waste the efforts right? Let's say you've got a blog that you make no money with, but would like to, and it's getting a few thousand visitors a day based on some specific posts you did. Consider using that blog to bring the traffic to another site that converts. One example is Associated Content, where you can make money for writing online.. Over there you'll make $1.50 for every 1,000 page views. Doesn't sound like a lot but it all adds up, and that kinda money could pay for hosting charges or help you buy a domain. Maybe consider writing a general article that really sparks attention, that will get people clicking to it on AC. Most celebrity scandal topics could do pretty well on AC, so why write it about on the blog if you can do a 400-500 word article on AC that makes you some extra dinero? Another good example is to send them over to a good Squidoo lens, where the more traffic your lens gets, the better rank it achieves, and in some strange, mysterious formula, that could possibly give you a nicer payout.Another consideration is using Widgetbucks which also pays for clicks and impressions. I used Widgetbucks in this form months ago until I earned a payout, and have re-introduced it in a few places that were scoring high traffic. Widgetbucks pays you for both clicks and then impressions, so the more impressions you get on your blog or site, the closer you'll get towards a payout. The minimum for Widgetbucks is $50, which again is not going to help you retire, but it will help you squeeze money out of that blog that's not performing.
Chitika is yet another one to try, and in their case the payment is just $10 minimum, so you can earn a bit of extra money to invest into your online moneymaking, buy yourself lunch, go see a movie, or whatever else the money can do for you.
From there, I just recommend testing to find what works. Consider trying related affiliate programs that Pay-Per-Lead on your blog. Back to our hard-to-monetize blog examples, a friend recently asked me about making money with a blog, saying he'd like to start a music blog. He specifically mentioned making money with Google Adsense, and based on experience, music blogs are tough to monetize. That's when you really need to put your thinking cap on though. Can you refer people to buying sheet music, musical instruments, artist albums, or joining some sort of subscription site? Consider using programs from Linkshare, Amazon Associates and Shareasale as well as Commission Junction.
Always think of Monetization
If all else fails, consider creating a catchy, clickable advertisement banner to go up at the top of your highly trafficked blog (or hire someone to make a simple one). Use it to grab those viewers and direct them to another site that you can make money with, or even to a Clickbank product. It will be indirectly making you money if you have your traffic sent to the right place (including AC or Squidoo). My overall point here is you need the mindset to make money online, to keep finding ways to monetize all your content, even the stuff that doesn't seem worth it. That's not to say put all your effort in, but keep it in the back of your head.You need to try new things with the under-performing blogs until you can determine what works best with them. And yes, in some cases you'll try 5-10 ideas and nothing seems to work. Give them a chance though, maybe several thousand impressions before you swap them out though. Do your best to track the stats using what the various programs allow you to. There's no sense in letting any traffic go to waste these days, so always be thinking of ways to monetize it if you really want to profit at this online moneymaking game...
(As for Adsense, there's a really interesting, informative forum post over at Warrior Forums, you may or may not have seen from a guy that makes $300-500 a day using about 30 websites he built with Adsense. Check it out here.)
