Blog Monetization: Soup to Nuts Stephan Spencer, Founder & President, Netconcepts

Monetization Options Google AdSense Yahoo Publisher Network SearchFeed Kontera ClickBank LookSmart LookQuick PeakClick Affiliate Programs Text link ad brokers (e.g. Text-Link- Ads.com, LinkExperts) Chitika Swickis (Eurekster) Video ads (Revver) RSS feed ads (e.g. Pheedo) Donations / tip jar Information products newsletter advertising Banner ads Pay per lead programs (e.g. ModernClick, Copeac, Pay- Per-Lead Power Ads System) XY7 CPAEmpire Azoogle Ads etc. etc. Your mileage will vary. What works for some may not work for you.

Most Common Ways to Monetize Affiliate links Google AdSense / Yahoo Publisher Network Advertising / sponsorships –Text links –Banners Donations / “Tip Jar” Direct sales (hard products, information products)

Affiliate Links Affiliate networks like Commission Junction offer hundreds of merchants Datafeeds are best (e.g. cardoffers.com) Some of the smaller networks can provide better offers with higher payouts than CJ (e.g. CX Digital, neverblueads)

What Are the Levers? Turn the dial up on… –traffic (through SEO & SEM) –clickthrough rate on the ads –ad prices –number of ad units (AdSense allows 3, and 1 link unit) –venues (videos, RSS feeds, s, etc.) Content based ads and search ads

Don’t Make It Look Like an Ad Text ads good; image ads bad Which ad formats work best? –Good: Leaderboard, large rectangle, wide skyscraper –Bad: 468x60 banner –Experiment because it varies for each site No border Match your site’s background, font color, link color Make use of the Link Unit too

Attract better ads Make the ads more relevant –Use Section Targeting –Ignore reader comments and navigation Target more expensive keywords –Check bids and revise content accordingly – e.g. house painting vs. home improvement Put competitors and low CTR advertisers on your block list Dispense with Flash-based or graphics-rich approach. Content! Keywords! in URL, H1 tag, body copy, title tag, etc.

Optimize Placement Where are your visitors most likely to look? tatic.py?page=tips.html Use a heat map clickthrough tool like CrazyEgg to see where people tend to click Definitely “above the fold” is best Wrap content around it Place near the search box, a “Submit” button, or other things that get looked at a lot

Public Service Ads For when there isn’t a good paying ad to display You can choose to display your own house ads instead –Google Backfill (allfeeds.com) –Google AdSense Plus (googleadsenseplus.com)

Not All Visitors Are Created Equal Crank up the ads for… –Lookie-loos who aren’t converting –Overseas visitors who aren’t your target audience

Channels Up to 200 allowed Group ads by format, by keyword, by location on the page, etc. Two types –URL channels –Custom channels

What’s Going Too Far Ads adjacent to images Wrapping keywords or small bits of text within google_ad_section tags

AdSense + YPN? “publishers may now display other contextual ads on the same site or page as Google ads as long as they don’t have the same look and feel as our ads” -- Brian Axe of Google

YPN Optimization g-for-relevancy-part-i/ ate-my-web-page…/ g-for-relevancy-part-iii/

Making Money While You Sleep It’s child’s play! If a 15 year old (now 17) can do it, why not you too? Case in point: NeopetsFanatic Passive income: ~$1000/mo. from Google AdSense Effort required: 1 hr/month Thank you, Google! My daughter, SEO-in-training

More Examples… Innsite.com Writers.net Lockergnome.com

Thank You! For a 60 minute screencast on how to optimize your blog, drop me your business card or e- mail your request to To contact me: