Google Adsense As An Affiliate Alternative
Affiliate programs were once a great source of online revenue, a savvy webmaster with an eye for marketing could easily parley a site into a money making machine with a little luck and effort. However, the evolution and growth of the Internet has hampered the growth of fortune making affiliate programs. Constant search engine algorithm changes, along with the search engine's clear distaste for sites participating in affiliate programs; have made it a little more difficult to earn a healthy affiliate revenue. An influx in the use of software programs that terminate cookie tracking and privacy programs that prevent webmasters from tracking referrers, have also hindered the affiliate sales channel. While it is still possible to make money through affiliate marketing, other alternatives ought to be considered.
A Healthy Alternative or Supplement
Google's Adsense program allows approved websites to dynamically serve Google's pay-per-click Adword results. This has become a popular alternative and an effective revenue sharing program for webmasters. Google's spider parses the adserving website and serves ads that relate to the website's content. While the Google's Adsense program still has some issues, they are making efforts to improve it.
The website maintenance related to Adsense is very easy and requires very little effort. Webmasters need only to insert javascript into the webpage or website template. The javascript calls the ad from Google and will ensure that ads are served each time a visitor goes to the webpage. If the visitor clicks one of the Adsense ads served to the website, the website owner is credited for the referral.
The implementation, while simple, has its drawbacks. Google dictates the format of the ads. Webmasters can select from a handful of preformatted text boxes that lack creativity. A recent improvement allows webmasters to modify the ad boxes to resemble the website's color scheme. Still, a far cry from some of the creative ads webmasters are accustom to.
The example below reflects how the color scheme can be modified to match the look of the website, but the ads physically don't fit well into the overall website design.
sample modified to match sites color scheme: http://www.hospital-software.com (scroll to the bottom)
Google determines the content of the ads that are shown/ Sometimes the ads are poorly targeted, and of no interest to the website visitors.
sample of poorly targeted ads: http://www.real-estate-supply.com
Adwords can be a great addition to a website, and when well matched to the content the revenue stream from Google is consistent and effortless.
sample of effective Adsense program: http://www.police-supplies.com (scroll to the bottom) http://www.small-business-software.net (scroll to the bottom)
Not that the Google Adsense program is not without its problems.as the reporting provided by Google is lacking. Google has not implemented any way to track multiple sites that serve ads; they simply show the number of ads served, the percentage of clicks received, and the revenue earned each day. Google does not disclose the amount of the revenue they share, what percentage of the revenue they earn and what someone can expect to receive for each click. Webmasters with multiple sites will have difficulty determining which websites are producing the money in the Adsense program.
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With affiliate programs many webmasters implement a new browser launch with each click off the site, Adsense removes the visitor from the website and there is not currently an option to launch the visitor into another browser.
Early on Google implemented a filtering system that allowed webmasters to prevent a specific domain's ads from being served on the website. Ad blocking meant that webmasters could prevent their competitors ads from being dynamically served on their website.
Overall, adwords are great supplements to websites where affiliate programs are either not performing or when affiliate programs don't exist that target the sites content.
Give it a Try
Implementing and maintaing Google Adsense program on a content site requires very little effort and can often bring a steady stream of additional revenue for webmasters. Consider supplementing content and see what happens.
Resource Box:
Sharon Housley manages marketing for NotePage, Inc. http://www.notepage.net a company specializing in alphanumeric paging, SMS and wireless messaging software solutions. Other sites by Sharon can be found at http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com , and http://www.small-business-software.net
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Google AdSense Sandbox Tool
This is a handy little utility if you would like to see what sort of Google AdSense ads based on content or keywords. Simply enter the URL or keywords in the box below, and you will see up to 20 sample AdSense ads for the URL or keywords. Getting Sure Profits Through Google, Goto.com and DirectHit
Pay-for-inclusion is becoming highly popular lately and is an excellent way to get guaranteed traffic in a guaranteed time from major engines. That is, if you know how to use them well. So on the upside you have guaranteed quick listing and ranking. Google.com, Goto.com and DirectHit/AskJeeves can give you page one listing for searches of your keywords in as little as one hour or less from the time you sign up. On the downside, well, you have to pay for it, although even just $25 will get you started. To win and profit from these giants, you have to know your math, and your keywords. You need to know how to minimize your expenses, maximize your click throughs, and optimize your return on your investment.
Many webmasters avoid these pay-for-inclusion engines for fear that they will waste money and not get any results. If you use these engines and directories correctly, you can be sure that you will profit from their use. It is highly recommended that you do list with the pay-for-inclusion engines - it's one of the best, most guaranteed way to get traffic fast and profit from it.
To start with, you need to collect and calculate the following values for your web site:
1. Unique visitors per month. How many unique people visit your web site (not hits or page-views)? You need a log file analysis tool or similar tool to be able to get this figure. You can use Hitbox.com or WebTrendsLive.com free.
2. Total gross profit per month in US$. This is the total sales of all your products in a month, minus what those products cost you. For example, if you sell tables for $100 a table, and the table costs you $60 to make, and you sell 30 tables a month, the figure you should enter here is (100 - 60) x 30= 1200. Have your monthly average total gross (not net) profit for your business for all products and services you sell.
3. Number of unit sales per month. How many items or services do you sell in a month? This is the total number of items or services you sell in a month.
4. Average gross profit per unit, which is calculated as monthly gross profit divide by monthly unit sales.
5. Conversion ratio, calculated as monthly unit sales divided by monthly unique visitors. It is very important to have a high conversion ratio. The conversion ratio is a measure of how many of your unique visitors actually turn into buying visitors. You should try to increase your conversion ratio using various marketing techniques on your site and products. A higher conversion ratio will mean that you get a higher return on your advertising dollars. It also means you can spend more on advertising and advertise more times, resulting in a cycle of increasing profitability.
Now, let us use these values to get sure profits through Google, Goto.com and DirectHit/AskJeeves. You can use software such as PositionWeaver PRO (www.positionweaver.com) to manage all your calculations and keywords and all, or you can do it manually using a calculator and some way of keeping records. Remember, the following calculations tell you when you will be making a gross (not net) profit on your using the engines.
Google.com
Google.com is one of the largest and most used engines today. They now offer their AdWords program at (https://adwords.google.com/AdWords/Welcome.html). Your AdWords text ads appear on search result pages for the keywords you buy, and can be targeted by language and country. Pricing for AdWords is based on the position in which they're shown. Google positions your ad based on how many users click on it over time. Current rates are $15, $12 and $10 (per thousand ads shown) for positions 1, 2, and 3 respectively, and $8 per thousand for positions 4 through 8. Accounts are opened with a credit card and no minimum deposit is required.
The trick is to choose very targeted keywords that will trigger your ad. Which means that only very targeted buyers will ever see your ad and your conversion ration will be incredibly high. If your keywords are not well selected, you will end up having your ad showing often but with very few people clicking on it. And because Google charges you for ad displays and not click throughs, you will be loosing money. You can set how much you wish to spend. Google takes the money out of your credit card after it reaches $50, by which time your ad will have been displayed roughly about 5,000 times! If your keywords are highly targeted, many of the people who see your ad will instantly become buyers and you will actually get your money in before you even pay Google! Your listing shows up in about an hour of your creating it.
It is more effective to have about 20 or more keywords/phrases you are targeting, specific and related to your site, than it is to have just one, so come up with 20 or more very specific and targeted keywords/phrases if you really want to win this game hands down.
Google allows you to create campaigns. A campaign holds its own keywords and adverts. Each campaign has its own statistics that are reported to you. The best strategy to use is to create a separate campaign for each keyword and each advert, rather than put all your ads and keywords into one campaign. That way, you will easily be able to tell which keywords and ads are doing well and which ones are not so that you can eliminate those that are wasting your money.
You should also ensure that for each ad you create for a particular keyword or phrase, that keyword or phrase appears in both the title and description on that ad. Click through rations can be significantly improved when you have the keyword being searched for included in the title and description of the ad.
Once you start advertising on Google, Google will give you reports showing how your ads are doing. From the reports, take the average amount of money in dollars you are paying for every 1,000 impressions/displays of your advert (this is called CPM or cost per 1000), which varies depending on the positions your ad gets, and refer to the conversion ratio and gross unit profit figures you calculated earlier for your web site. Now, in that Google report, you will also be told what click throughs you are getting for your ads, in other words, what percentage of the times your ad is show does someone click on it.
This is how you know when to advertise and when not to advertise with Google: if the reported click through percentage is equal to or higher than:
(Your Site's Conversion Ratio x Reported Google CPM) / Your Site's Gross Unit Profit
... then you are making a gross profit on sales generated by that advertising!
Goto.com
Goto.com is another powerful pay-per-listing search engine. The trick is to pay for the top 1 position, or at least the top 1 to 3 positions. Depending on your product, how much gross profit you make out of it, and what your conversion ratio is, you may be able to profit very well with the top spot. Why is the top spot so important? The partners that Goto.com has have a very wide audience. Goto's top search results reach 75 of all Internet users through their affiliate partner network, which includes America Online, Microsoft Internet Explorer, EarthLink, Lycos, and AltaVista! But these partner sites only show Goto.com's top one to three results for any search. Goto uses the bidding model to charge for listing your site. You pay for click throughs, not the number of times your ad is shown. How much you pay for a click-through on your listing depends on what the target keyword is and how much other webmasters have bid to pay for a click. The more you bid, the higher your listing is ranked. You can list your site using multiple titles and descriptions, all targeted for different keywords. So just look for the top spot if your gross margin can allow it. The good thing about Goto.com is that they only charge you for a click through, so you only pay when someone clicks on your link. Top spots can cost you anywhere from 0.01 cents to over $4 depending on the keyword. Your listing shows up in about 3 days.
It is more effective to have about 20 or more keywords/phrases you are targeting, specific and related to your site, than it is to have just one, so come up with 20 or more very specific and targeted keywords/phrases if you really want to win this game hands down. Because Goto charges you for clicks and not displays/impressions, you can list for as many keywords as possible. Their Power Advertiser Change form at
(http://www.goto.com/d/about/advertisers/uspowerform.jhtml) allows you to easily compose and submit up to
25,000 adverts - we advise you submit for as many keywords as possible that related to your site because you only pay for clicks on those ads. That form also helps you compose ads in the right format, especially including the appropriate keywords in the title and description of the ads.
You should ensure that for each ad you create for a particluar keyword or phrase, that keyword or phrase appears in both the title and description on that ad. Click through rations can be significantly improved when you have the keyword being searched for included in the title and description of the ad.
Based on your conversion ratio and unit gross margin, you will make a gross profit on all sales generated by your advertising here as long as you bid less than this amount for each click:
Gross Unit Profit * Conversion Ratio
DirectHit/AskJeeves
DirectHit/AskJeeves (http://sponsor.directhit.com) also has a paid text ads system similar to Google's. Your link appears alongside their search results for every search topic you sponsor. Your link also appears alongside search results on Web sites that participate in the Jeeves Text Sponsorship Network, including MSN, Searchalot, Bomis.com, SuperCyberSearch, and Direct Hit. Your ads appear in a few days and you just need a minimum deposit of $25 to start. You pay for the number of times your ad is shown. They use a bidding system to arrive at this payment amount. How much you pay depends on what the target keyword is and how much other webmasters have bid to pay for their ads to be shown. Bids start at $5 for every 1,000 times the ad is displayed. For most keywords, that is all you will pay.
The trick is to choose very targeted keywords that will trigger your ad. Which means that only very targeted buyers will ever see your ad and your conversion ration will be incredibly high. If your keywords are not well selected, you will end up having your ad showing often but with very few people clicking on it. And because they charge you for ad displays and not click throughs, you will be losing money.
It is more effective to have about 20 or more keywords/phrases you are targeting, specific and related to your site, than it is to have just one, so come up with 20 or more very specific and targeted keywords/phrases if you really want to win this game hands down.
DirectHit allows you to create sponsorships. A sponsorship holds its own keywords and adverts. Each sponsorship has its own statistics that are reported to you. The best strategy to use is to create a separate sponsorship for each keyword and each advert, rather than put all your ads and keywords into one sponsorship. That way, you will easily be able to tell which keywords and ads are doing well and which ones are not so that you can eliminate those that are wasting your money.
You should also ensure that for each ad you create for a particluar keyword or phrase, that keyword or phrase appears in both the title and description on that ad. Click through rations can be significantly improved when you have the keyword being searched for included in the title and description of the ad.
Once you start advertising on DirectHit/AskJeeves, DirectHit/AskJeeves will give you reports showing how your ads are doing including the CPM, which varies depending on the bids. Now, in that AskJeeves report, you will also be told what click throughs you are getting for your ads.
This is how you know when to advertise and when not to advertise with AskJeeves: if the reported click through percentage is equal to or higher than:
(Your Site's Conversion Ratio x Reported AskJeeves CPM) / Your Site's Gross Unit Profit
... then you are making a gross profit on sales generated by that advertising.
Well, there you go. A simple way to make sure that you will make gross profits from having your site on page one of related searches on engines that reach over 75 of the world's Internet users. It is highly recommended that you do list with the pay-for-inclusion engines - it's one of the best, most guaranteed way to get traffic fast and profit from it.
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