One of the top questions I am asked at seminars, tradeshows and coffeeshops is, "How do I generate revenue from my content based web site". I generally provide the same answer each time.

For content sites I have been a part of, the following combination has worked quite well.

1. Google Adsense - This is currently the most popular revenue generator for many content web sites. The basic idea is that you place a small piece of code on your web site, Google looks at the content on your site and provides relevant advertising. You are paid for most ads on a CPC (Cost-Per-Click) model and to some extent they also offer some CPM (Cost-Per-Thousand) pricing. You can also monetize your search engine results as well as offer referrals to some Google applications and the FireFox browser. Creating an account is quick and payment is net-30. To sign up, visit the Google Adsense signup page using this link:


Here is an example of what Adsense provides:

2. Text links - Text link ads are one of the hottest forms of advertising today. While I am not sold that this advertising model is here to stay, I can say that it has worked well for many for the last year. The leader in the text link market is Text Link Ads (TLA). I had a chance to meet some of their executives at the Search Engine Strategies conference in NYC and am very impressed with their leadership. TLA offers a 50/50 setup, you earn 50% of the total revenue generated by your text links. They have created several tools to estimate the potential revenue for your web site based on where you place the links and your web site ranking. You can signup for Text Link Ads here.

3. Ad networks - Back in the '90's, the Ad networks were the big players in the online advertising space. While I am not sure they are the big influencers that they were then, they still represent a great potential revenue stream. My favorite is Burst!. Burst! has been around since the beginning and I have always been impressed by their set of values. Their customer service is excellent. Checkout Burst! here

4. Affiliates - I look at affiliates as a way to supplement the choices above. There are loads of affiliate programs, the two I find the most effective are Amazon and Commission Junction (CJ). Amazon basically allows you to sell any product on the Amazon site and offers up to a 8.5% commission. Amazon offers many customization options including banners, text ads, search boxes and a new option called "Omakase Links" which are basically intelligent links similar to how Google Adsense works. Commission Junction offers about 2,500 different merchants you can signup for. For me, affiliates have never been a large revenue source but they offer a nice alternative when one of the above does not fill the space. Using affiliates as a default mechanism for the above works quite nicely. Basically if Google or Burst! cannot fill the advertising space, you can default the ad to an affiliate. Check out the Affiliate programs at Amazon or Commission Junction. There is a new player in the Affiliate category. Share Results offers around 50 merchants but their selection is top notch and the payout appears to be better than CJ. So far I have found their customer service to be excellent.

I hope the above gives you a quick look into some of the options and possibilities available to monetize your web site traffic. It is not an exhaustive list by any means but a look into a combination that has been successful for my content based web sites. If you have other advertising alternatives to share, just enter them into the reply box below.

-- Allen, Director
OrganicStats

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