Archive for March 2008

Where you place your affiliate links on your website can really make a difference on how many clicks you end up getting and, since every click means a potential sale, this is an important aspect of internet marketing.

Research has shown that the most effective affiliate links are text links. Yes, plain text links. Not big flashy banner ads like most affiliate website are filled to the brim with. What happens is, you write a great article (or have one created) about the product or something related to the product and stick the link into your text. This allows interested readers to see the link as they are reading and click on it. » Read more after the jump →

You can elect to have your Google Adsense payments mailed to you via check in your local currency.  Google Adsense offers this option in 42 countries.  Check the Google Adsense support center to see if your country is included in this list.

To select receiving your check by postal mail, log in to your Google Adsense account, click the edit link near Payment Details and then click the Check – Standard Delivery radio button.  Then click continue.  Now you can select your currency, if available or you may select US dollars.  When you’re satisfied with your choices, click save settings.

You may also choose to receive your payment through Secured Express Delivery. There is a fee for this service but you can expect to receive your check within 5-10 business days after it has been sent.  If you choose this option, you will need to contact DHL (the courier service) to make sure they offer service to your area and that your address is in the proper format.  For more information, log on to dhl.com.

Placing banner advertisements on your website can increase your monthly revenue greatly. This option is better than being an affiliate for several companies because you will get one monthly fee no matter how many of your visitors go to the website or make a purchase. The main thing is for you to create an informative website filled with useful articles, so that you can generate a high amount of returning visitors. As your site rises on search engine rankings, the blank space on your site will begin to look more and more appealing to advertisers. Anyone can be an affiliate, but to have a banner placed in a good spot on a high-ranking website will bring in the most revenue for a company. Once you have established yourself as a site that can be profitable for them, you can rent out different spaces on your site for advertisers to place banner ads. Each month you will be paid the same fee, no matter how much they do or do not make off of you.

Google Adsense for Search is different than Adsense for Content but it is just as important to your earning power with the Google Adsense program.

Just like Adsense for Content places targeted ads on your content pages, Adsense for Search places targeted ads on the results page of the search set in motion on your page.

You can use the standard Google search box on your site and the user can then search the web or even your site. When you feel more comfortable, you can change the look of the Google search box, essentially customizing it by changing the colors and using your logo.

The best thing about Google Adsense for Search is that you can track what your visitors are searching for.  That is, if the search has two or more hits.  Unique queries will not be tracked.  But you can see the top 25 searches performed from your website by clicking on the Advance Report from the Reports tab and specifying a date range.

Pick the articles for your niche sites very carefully to ensure that you are able to successfully get traffic and gain profit from these sites. If you are going to try and utilize free website content articles, then it may be difficult for you to find ones that have your exact keywords, so you may have to either make revisions to the articles (which may not be allowed on some free articles) or base your keywords on the articles that you find (which could leave you with very competitive keywords that would take a lot of time or money to attain a high ranking for). If you are going to buy content, make sure that you let the writer know what your niche keywords are and what your specific your preferred keyword density and placement are. Remember, the wrong articles can leave you with little traffic and very low search engine rankings if they do not fit in properly with either your niche or with keywords that are easy to attain high rankings for.

Can I use the Google Adsense Program if I Do Not Have a Personal Website?

You don’t have to have your own website to use Google Adsense.  Google doesn’t usually approve personal pages but that is not written in stone.  Consult Google Adsense support pages for more information on what kinds of pages are acceptable. If selling a product or service doesn’t appeal to you, you might consider blogging.

Blogging initially meant web log but has gradually come into its own. There are as many different kinds of blogs as there are blogs themselves.  A blog can be like a cyberjournal in that you make daily “journal” entries or it can be more like a newsletter set up to inform or communicate with other people.  There are several blogging sites in cyberspace that will allow you to create your own blog pages and have targeted Google Adsense ads running on them. » Read more after the jump →

Picking a good web hosting company is important to keeping your website open and your costs down. There are many to choose from, as well as different pricing plans to look over. Depending on the amount of sites that you intend on building, you may want to consider a larger web space in the long run.

You should start with the smallest web space that you can get to test the waters, just incase niche website Internet marketing does not work out for you. You may want to add on later, so make sure that your provider offers that option. » Read more after the jump →

What are image ads?

Image ads are graphical ads.  Unlike traditional banner ads, image ads are also targeted to the appropriate audience, just like text ads.  A publisher that has a combination of image ads and text ads has a greater revenue generating potential.

Image ads are only for Adsense for Content pages and not available for Adsense for Search results pages.

There are 5 major formats of image ads.  The Leaderboard, which is about twice the size of a banner ad, the banner image ad, the skyscraper, the wide skyscraper and the medium rectangle. Google’s technology determines on a page by page basis whether image ads, text ads, or a combination of both will make you more money and then delivers the appropriate format. » Read more after the jump →

When choosing an article for your website, make sure that it is a length that is optimal for search engine optimization efforts. Articles that are as short as 200 words or as long as 500 words should fit into this category. Even if search engine optimization is not your goal, it is still a good idea to keep your articles at this length for your reader’s sake. They are likely to not finish your page if it is any longer. This could leave them Kith only half of the information you wanted them to have or leave them with the impression that your site is too “wordy”. Most Internet readers do not read a website page as they would a book, so the shorter the better. Even if this means splitting one long idea into 4 or 5 pages. Be sure to label them so that the reader can pick and choose which part they want to read or so they know what is coming up next to help them determine if they want to continue reading.

Like anything else, you’ll get out of Google Adsense what you put into it.  The following optimization tips can help you grow your Google Adsense dollars:

Write interesting content and write every day.

Have more than one site.  The more sites you have, the more ads have the potential
to get clicked. » Read more after the jump →