But they’re not just ‘money’ because they bring in revenue: they are one of the easiest ways to grow your audience without much work. If you learn how to optimize these money pages (its not hard to do), you’ll really improve your website in so many ways. More revenue, more members, more influence and authority. Doesn’t that sound good?

I’ve talked very briefly about money pages in my previous post on analyzing your site visitors and decided to expand a little more on this topic because I think its often overlooked by webmasters. We’re always focused on creating new content and getting new visitors to these new pages that we forget about what’s going on in other parts of our website.

This is tailored towards content publishers and bloggers but the main strategies here apply to other site types as well, you just need to find the right tools to do it. So lets get started.

How to Optimize Your Money Pages

Image Credit: marissa cap

There are many things you can do to money pages, in order to make them better or more profitable. It’s important to decide the extent of your work according to your goals and resources. How much time do you want to spend and what’s most important to you? Do you want a bigger readership? Or are you just concerned with increasing your daily revenue?

Here are a list of things you can do for your money pages:

1. Monetize. The aim here is to get more revenue out of each page. There are various ways to achieve this and they generally involve the placement of ads both around and within content. There is also an indirect future revenue from lead capturing.
2. Capture Leads. The money page is optimized to encourage a visitor to subscribe to your mailing list, site feed or register for your website. The main aim is to find a way to continue to reach your visitors after they leave your money page. This helps to grow your site audience and is also a component of revenue generation.
3. Improve Relevance. This involves revamping the money page in order to provide up-to-date information or better content in order to accommodate visitor needs. This provides  an improved user experience for all and can result a host of benefits like more referral/citation links and greater visitor loyalty/trust. Relevance is also important when your main goal is to capture leads or increase revenue.
4. Make it Rank Better.  Doing on-site and off-site optmization will help specific money pages to rank better on the search engine result pages, hence driving more traffic back to your site. This increases your site reach and revenue at the same time.

Step 1: Find Your Money Pages

Image Credit: TW Collins

Open up the web analytics program you’re using for your website. There should be a section which reveals which pages have the highest unique views per month. Extract the urls for the top 10 pages and put them somewhere for easy access. Or bookmark them on your browser. If you don’t currently use an analytics tool, I recommend setting up Google Analytics.

How many pages you choose to optimize really depends on your website and preference. If you have a lot of webpages that get solid traffic, you can do more. If you don’t have many pages that get web traffic, then you have a lesser amount to work with. I like to focus on the top 10 because if its a manageable amount of work for an acceptable returns on investment.

My personal guideline is to only work on pages with a minimum of 200 unique views everyday. It’s a basic number that’s good for some decent conversions. Adjust this figure to something you can work with, if your website is new or gets less overall traffic.

The point to remember is that not every page is hot. The goal is not to optimize every single web page you have. There has to be a limit. So learn to prioritize and work only on the pages that are currently receiving the most traffic to your website.

Step 2: Improving Content Relevance

Image Credit: jesse.millan

Visitor search queries reveal what people are looking for and what they want to get from your web page. It tells you what information they expect and is a way to understand their desires or needs. Many are ready to pay for a solution or subscribe to get knowledge in their inbox.

Better relevance = better conversions. It’s that simple. By making your website as relevant as possible to search queries, you’re making visitors more likely to stick around, opt-in or buy. Users are going to click away if they find that your web page doesn’t fulfill their info needs. So the first step is closely examine your money pages in relation to search traffic terms.

My goal is to include every search query in my money page. Every question typed into search engines by visitors who access my site must be answered. One very easy and quick way to do this is to add a simple FAQ to the page to address the visitor’s specific needs. Just phrase the same exact search query as a question. Then write an answer which responds to it.

Another method for search query relevance is to create new content and insert it into the money page. It’s important to edit your pages so that it doesn’t display content that is simply outdated or useless. You’re not going to presell anyone with stuff like that. It won’t work.

Either rewrite the entire money page or include update notes specifying new information and linking to other pages on your website with newer content. Whenever new information or changes occur, go back into the money page to make necessary adjustments. This is one reason why I asked you to keep those 10 URLs bookmarked or easily accessible.

Note that by increasing your money page’s relevance and informational value, you are also increasing its linkability: People are more likely to link to it because it is a detailed and useful reference page on the topic. Whenever possible, I try to fashion my money pages on blogs after Wikipedia in terms of comprehensiveness.

Step 3: Monetizing Your Money Page

Image Credit: Gaetan Lee

While you can monetize your money page and capture leads at the same time, I find it better to optimize for one goal instead of trying to achieve both. Because when it comes to monetization, captured leads are usually a good source for long term income anyway.

There are formats for each goal (monetize or lead capture) and you’ll get better results if you either choose to monetize fully or go all out to hook your visitors by making them sign up or subscribe to your website. If you put up too many well blended ads, the visitor can easily click away instead of subscribing to your newsletter, so either pick one goal or balance both.

Let’s talk about monetization first. This is easy if you’re using ad networks like Google Adsense. Go to your money page and insert an additional ad unit, blend it well with your content and make sure that its quite visible while not being too obtrusive.

A well placed Adsense unit can really increase your overall daily income. I’ve seen a jump of more than $20 a day for a site that I own when I took the time to test and optimize a few money pages. While you may have default ads already on every page of your site (sidebars, header etc), these may not be truly optimized for a money page.

Money pages need to be treated differently from the other pages on your website. They’re the ones that bring a lot of visitors (big sample size) so you can really use this opportunity to test the profitability of specific ad schemes. You can even remove the default ads specifically for this page so you have more room to experiment. That’s what I do for some sites.

Other ways to monetize include the use of commission-based affiliate programs which range from digital products to established eCommerce retailers like Amazon.com. Clickbank is a digital product marketplace you can use. Sign up, search through the marketplace for a product, grab your affiliate link, insert it on your money page.

You can also try CPA networks with relevant pay-per-lead or pay-per-sale programs. Commonly used CPA networks are Market Leverage, Max Bounty, NeverBlue, PepperJam, Copeac, Azoogle and Hydra Network, among many others. Affiliate programs can work well but remember to keep them related to your content.

Alternatively, you can promote your own products on your money page by including a short pitch for it and linking to a proper sales page. Or you can try to sell your visitors away from the money page by getting them to first subscribe to an email list. This brings us to the next step.

Step 4: Optimizing to Capture Leads

Image Credit: sindesign

The goal is to capture not just the email of the visitor but his/her permission to allow you to reach them away from your website. For some of you, you want visitors to subscribe to your RSS feed so they’ll continue to read your content or hopefully participate on your site.

Many set up email lists and auto-responders with the aim of eventually monetizing by selling their own products or recommending those of JV partners. Their aim here is to get users to opt-in to receive newsletters or special offers. The same goes for online retail stores.

Good email marketing providers are Aweber and GetResponse, both of which charge a monthly fee that you should be able to earn back easily. There are free alternatives available but you’ll often lose out in terms of features. If this doesn’t bother you, you could try starting with any of the free email software or plugins available.

To optimize a money page to capture leads, you’ll need to do some offer customization. Look at what content/product is on the page and create a specific offer that’s relevant to it. Provide an incentive for someone to sign up: perhaps a free digital product with related or more in-depth information. Or simply the promise of future discounts or special product offers.

To get into the mind of the visitor and understand what entices them, you’ll need to go back to the search queries you’re getting. If someone is interested in ‘what causes wrinkles’, you’ll know they’ll be interested in an ebook on natural anti-aging remedies. Do up a free guide and offer it to them only if they register as a member or sign up to your email list.

How about lead capture for communities and membership sites? Apart from providing incentives you can use teasers. Restrict visitor actions by only allowing them to view a limited amount of content or interact in a limited fashion. This limit will be removed when a user registers with your community. These are methods commonly practiced by paid membership sites, forums and social media sites to entice signups.

Step 5: Sending Internal Traffic to Your Money Pages

Image Credit: leeds at night

Now that you’ve optimized your money pages for maximum conversions, you can also send over visitors from other pages of your site. You’ve already done the work to make the pages incredibly relevant and usable, they shouldn’t just be seen by search engine visitors.

If your money pages are related, by sure to interlink each one so that each visitor is funneled to another optimized page. This not only improves your bounce rate but makes sure that each visitor is given two opportunities to convert if they aren’t persuaded the first time around.

Another method is to use a script to autolink specific anchor keywords or phrases on your entire site to the specific web page. This helps with SEO and is very easy way to get more eyes on your money page. If you’re using Wordpress, try the Internal Link Building plugin or the SEO Smart Links plugin. Both help to auto-link keywords on every page of your blog. There are quite a few similar plugins out there but these two work well for me.

If you’re a blogger producing content daily, endeavor to link to the money pages whenever it’s pertinent to your post because you’re driving traffic to pages that will perform well. Alternate the links to each money page so your audience won’t get sick of seeing them all the time.

There is an alternative way to highlight your money pages: Group the ones about a similar topic together and list them all in a reference page, which will funnel traffic out to different locations. Instead of linking to each individual money page, you can just link or promote the reference page, which will then direct the visitors you get to each money page simultaneously.

A simple example of this is my reference page on social media marketing, which collects both money pages and less visited pages together under a specific theme. There’s also the option of creating special banner ads or images to link to either your money page or the reference page, it doesn’t always have to be promoted in the form of a link within content.

Step 6: Improving Your Search Engine Ranking

This is the final step in the process and should always come after you’ve optimized your money pages for maximum results and set up a method to promote it internally on your site. After you’ve done all that, it’s time to look at boosting a major factor for earning more money: your website’s ranking on the search engine results pages (SERPs).

This is an optional step because if you’re getting a lot of visitors, you’re should already be ranking quite well. But if you’re on the second page of Google or not yet in the top 3 queries for a keyword/phrase that is sending you a good amount of traffic, why not bump it up and get even more visitors per day?

You’ve already got your list of top money pages based on search queries. Now you should find what these pages are ranking for, which is something you can easily discover through your stats trackers. If you’re already using it,  Google Webmaster Central is a free tool that shows you the top 20 search queries visitors use to reach your site.

Off-Site Search Engine Optimization

SEO is a pretty big topic: its hard to cover everything that needs to be done so I’m going to simplify it into one fool proof method of improving your search engine rank for Google. This is something that is unanimously agreed upon by everyone.

All you need to do is get links from other sites, especially with the specific anchor text you are trying to rank for. But not just from anywhere. You want links from quality, relevant websites.

Let’s see what Google itself says about ranking:

Sites’ positions in our search results are determined based on a number of factors designed to provide end-users with helpful, accurate search results. In general, webmasters can improve the rank of their sites by increasing the number of high-quality sites that link to their pages.

One more. From Google’s warning on link schemes:

Your site’s ranking in Google search results is partly based on analysis of those sites that link to you. The quantity, quality, and relevance of links count towards your rating. The sites that link to you can provide context about the subject matter of your site, and can indicate its quality and popularity.

It is not only the number of links you have pointing to your site that matters, but also the quality and relevance of those links. Creating good content pays off: Links are usually editorial votes given by choice, and the buzzing blogger community can be an excellent place to generate interest.

Links matter a lot because Google’s algorithm is set up to use the collective intelligence of the web to determine a page’s importance. High quality links boost the trust, relevance and authority of your web page. This is somewhat the same for search engines like Yahoo or Live.

Ideally, the best type of links you can get are from the websites that are already ranking well for the keyword or phrase you are targeting. But these links might not be easy to acquire, since you’re likely to be viewed as a competitor and a threat.

So, what I personally like to do is to do some research on the people ranking for your keyword/phrase on the first two pages. Dig into their backinks by using something like Yahoo Site Explorer and find out who is linking to them. Try to get those same links if possible and even more quality links that your competitors don’t have.

There are many ways to build links, some are blackhat and others are more compliant with search engine guidelines. As I’ve mentioned in my previous post on long term social media marketing, I favor the strategy of creating valuable services, tools and content in order to attract links from bloggers. It’s stable and works extremely well for every niche out there.

If your money page is optimized for relevance and is high on informational value, it is already a potential link magnet. So here’s something you can do immediately. Send email pitches about your money page to relevant blogs. If you contact 1,000 blogs, you might easily get 50 to 100 extra links (or more), which may be enough for you to outrank other websites. Sometimes all you need to do is to get the word out.

And there are many other ways. Article directories. Blog/web directories. Social bookmarking websites. Social news sites. Social media communities (Flickr, Youtube etc). Contests. Link exchanges. Blog comments and carnivals. Donations/sponsorships. Forums. Press Releases.

On-Site Search Engine Optimization

Image Credit: Mario de Leo

On top on link building, another aspect of ranking better is on-site search optimization, whereby you make your webpage compatible with search engine requirements and the specific search query you’re targeting. Google’s webmaster guidelines, Yahoo’s Webmaster Resources and Live Search’s Webmaster Center has a list of the most basic stuff you should be doing and ways for you to track your site in their search engines.

Basic pointers for on-site optimization involves having a good site architecture, where pages with similar themes are grouped together with a focus on great navigation and usability for visitors. On site-optimization also involves having your targeted keywords in the title tags and an appealing meta-description, which may affect SERP clickthrough rates. For the WP users out there, you might find this excellent guide to Wordpress SEO useful.

Other on-site factors include keyword density, which is the number of times a keyword appears compared to the total number of words in a page. And latent semantic indexing (LSI), which examines a page in relation to groups of associated words/terms used within it.

I wouldn’t worry too much about latent semantic indexing and perhaps even keyword density because a content heavy page is likely to include the associated terms and keywords naturally, because of its depth. The main point to note is to maintain a tight focus on your chosen topic and not divert too much from it in your content.

And then there’s the controversial topic of PageRank Sculpting: using the nofollow tag on internal site links to optimize the strength of specific pages, thereby enabling them to rank better in search engines. Perhaps a useful tactic, although one that isn’t quite necessary. Any possible success here partly depends on how knowledgeable you are with SEO.

On-site optimization isn’t a difficult process, as long as you have a good site architecture set up from the start and follow search-engine guidelines. The hard part is really the task of getting people with relevant/quality websites to link to your money pages.

Time for You to Do Some Work…

These are the fundamental factors involved in optimizing your money pages. After completing the first step of finding your money pages, you don’t need to work on the other steps in a sequence. As I’ve said earlier, it depends on your goals. Personally, I go through all six steps when I’m looking at money pages that receive a substantial amount of daily web traffic.

The good thing about money pages is that once you optimize them, you can just leave them alone for a while. If you’re busy every day, you might want to spend an hour during the weekend on your money pages. Or just assign them to a colleague or a member of your staff. Set aside some time to optimize them and you’ll definitely see the results.

If you found this article useful in any way, please consider linking to it or sharing it with others. I’ll love to hear your comments as well!

Don’t miss any future tips on improving your website, subscribe to dosh dosh today (It’s free!).

6 Fool-Proof Steps to Make More Money With Your Website

Ideally, you want to monetize while adding value for your visitors and a means to achieve this aim is to use Google’s Adsense for Search, which places text-based ads next to your search results

I’ve inserted a Google Custom Search engine on Dosh Dosh a few months ago and I thought it’ll be helpful to share the process of setting up a Google Custom Search for your own site, in order to generate some extra income.

What is a Google Custom Search Engine?

Simply put, Google Custom Search Engine is a tool which allows visitors to search your website by using Google’s core search technology. This enables you to list search results according to the sites and pages you specify. According to Google, the Custom Search Engine also allows you to:

• Apply your Website’s look and feel to the search results page.
• Provide search refinements within results pages to make it easier for searchers to find the information they’re looking for.
• Make money from your Custom Search Engine by participating in Google’s AdSense program.

There are two main ways for visitors to experience your Custom Search Engine. One way is to direct them to a Google-hosted results page when they type in a search query and the second way is to integrate it by hosting the search results on a page within your website.

Example of an Integrated Google Custom Search Engine

Currently I’m using Google’s Custom Search Engine for Dosh Dosh and you can see it on the top right hand corner of every page. Typing in a search query and clicking ‘search‘ will bring you to a search results page on the left, where the content section is currently located.

Here is an example of a search for ‘make money blogging‘. Note that the Adsense ads appear at the top (this is changeable) and the search results show up below it.

Why I am Using Google’s Custom Search Engine

I am using Google custom search instead of the internal Wordpress search function because I feel that Google’s search results are far more relevant and precise. I also choose to use Custom Search because it allows me to make money from Adsense for Search, which allows you to monetize your search results pages with ads.

A look at my Adsense stats shows me that I’ve earned approximately $20 in this month. It’s not a lot of money at all but it is still an additional source of income, particularly if you are already running Adsense on your site.

Like the traditional Adsense units, how much you earn might vary depending on the ad placement and traffic levels. If you like Google’s search results but don’t feel the need to monetize, set up the custom search engine without advertisements.

How to Set up Google’s Custom Search for Your Site

While writing this article, I found out that SEOmoz had a similar post on how to perform the same steps. I’ve decided to use my own commentary instead, as some readers have been asking me how I set up the google search box on Dosh Dosh.

There have also been some changes (additional features) within Google’s Custom Search function so this will be a more current post on this topic.

Here are the exact steps needed to successfully set up and integrate Google’s custom search engine into your website. This will teach you how to make the search results show up within a designated page on your site.

1. Create a Webpage for Custom Search

Start first by creating a web page on your domain for the search results page. If you are on Wordpress, simply click on ‘Write’ and then select ‘Write Page’. Name the page by using ‘Search results’ or something similar as the Page title.

Leave the text box blank and publish or save the page. Note down the URL for the webpage as you will need to use it later.

2. Create Your Custom Search Engine

Visit the Google Custom Search Engine homepage and click on the ‘create a custom search engine‘ tab. After which, fill in the name of your search engine, along with the keywords. Be sure to select the ‘Only sites I select‘ option and then list your site URL in the Sites to Search box.

Also remember to select ‘Show Ads on results pages‘ if you intend to run ads.

After creating your custom search engine, you’ll be asked to test it by entering some keywords. Type in some keywords related to your site to see the results.





3. Determine the Look and Feel for Your Search Engine

After you’ve created your search engine, go to your control panel and click on the Look and Feel link. This is where you will able to determine the branding style for your search box, along with the style of the search results page.

Choose the right colors so that the results pages fit your overall design.

You can also choose to add a logo to the Google hosted results page but in this case, it won’t be necessary as you are hosting the search results on your own site.


4. Set up Adsense for Search

If you want to make money from your custom search engine, you’ll have to set up Adsense for search by clicking on the ‘Make Money‘ navigational link and connecting custom search with your Google Adsense account.

If you already have an Adsense account, simply check the appropriate box and then type in the email, zip code, phone and location details associated with it.

After doing this your custom search engine profile will be connected to your Adsense account. You can then set up a custom channel to track the amount of searches and money you are earning from it.

Simply do this by typing in a name for your custom channel. For example, I’ve used ‘Dosh Dosh Custom Search‘ as my channel name. This means that the same name will show up in my Adsense Dashboard reports as well.

5. Insert the Code on Your Blog

After you’ve completed the above steps, its time to insert the code on your blog. Go to the ‘Code‘ section of the control panel and select the iframe option.

The new Overlay option will allow the search results to show up in a nifty Ajax-style overlay but unfortunately only the first 8 search results are displayed and you cannot make money through Adsense for Search.

Only consider the overlay option if you are not planning to run ads. After choosing the hosting option, specify the search results details by inserting the URL where you want the results to appear. This would be the page you’ve created in step one.





Then scroll down to the second half of the page to grab the search box code. Take the first code you see and place it where you want your search box to appear. After which, copy the search results code in the lower frame and place it where you want the search results to appear.

Which means you’ll have to paste it on the new page you’ve created.

For Wordpress blogs, simply open up your new page, insert the code in the empty text box and publish.

And That’s All You Need to Do

After completing all the steps above, you should have Google Custom Search set up perfectly for your website. One possible drawback I think of when using ads on the search results pages is that users will click away from your website.

I don’t think this is really that big a problem because users who actively use your website to search for a specific items are people that are interested in your opinion or content. I would believe that these visitors would return to your site eventually.

An easy solution to this would be to run no ads at all. The choice is yours.

For more effective ways to monetize your website, subscribe to Dosh Dosh today.

How to Set up Google Custom Search for Your Website and Make Money

Unlike other Google Adsense units, this referral program allows you to directly recommend products by using action-based text, which directs a user to click through on any specific links or ad banners.

Google Adsense’s Help Center clearly shows that this is something that is allowed:

Actively endorse the products you refer. Unlike with AdSense for content ads, we encourage you to endorse referral products by calling attention to the button or text link. If you believe in the quality of the product that you’re referring, feel free to let your users know! Of course, in line with our policies, you may not click your own ads nor encourage conversions for deceitful reasons.

Why I Like Promoting Google’s Firefox Referrals Program

Firefox’s credibility, usefulness and excellent features is the main reason why you should consider using Adsense’s Firefox referral program. Firefox is really a terrific and secure web browser that I and many others love and you will only be adding value for your visitors, by actively promoting adoption and usage of Firefox.

Secondly, Firefox is a risk-free investment that anyone can make. The web browser is free for download and your visitor will not have to give their personal details or email addresses. This may make conversion more likely to occur than affiliate programs which require initial investment of some sort from the interested user.

If you would like to try the Firefox browser, I’ve attached a referral banner below. Note clearly how I’m openly endorsing the referral product by encouraging you to download and try it for yourself. Don’t be afraid to do the same for your website.

Copywriting Tips for More Firefox Referrals

Writing sales copy for Firefox referrals is not a difficult process and there are some key elements which may help to make your promotional text more efficient.

• Mention Firefox Benefits. People need to know how Firefox will help them have a better and more efficient browsing experience. This list of benefits should be direct and factually accurate. You should also avoid overselling and the use of marketing speak or overly technical jargon.




• Compare Firefox with other browsers. I have not seen many marketers do this and I do think this is one of the most important conversion tricks you can use. People want to know what they are currently using matches up to what you are pitching. They need to know they are missing out on something.




• Include Referral links within Relevant Content. People are more likely to convert when you are promoting your affiliate link within a natural context, such as a relevant article on technology or one on Firefox itself.




• Associate your Site with Firefox. One of the easiest ways to convert users who visit your website is to inform them your site is ‘best viewed with Firefox’, which may indeed be true. Tying your site to Firefox will encourage some loyal visitors to consider using the new browser to experience your site.




• Outline Your Experiences. If you’ve been using Firefox for a long time, it will be useful to include your personal experiences you’ve had with other browsers and your opinions on Firefox. This will give your copy some validity while endowing it with a human voice which evokes empathy.

Four Simple Ways to Make More Money With Firefox Referrals

Here is a list of the four main ways to get more Firefox referrals. Do note that some of these tips can also be applied for all the other Google Referral programs as well.

I shall be writing more on Google Referrals specifically, but meanwhile these four points will help you set up Firefox referrals as an income source.


1. Create a Referral Landing Page or Fan Site

Simply register a generic domain name and set up a website or one-page sales letter outlining the benefits of using Firefox. Make it look clean, simple and helpful. Include your Firefox referral link throughout the copy or use a banner. You should choose to only show ads for non-Firefox users.

I have also seen referral websites encourage Firefox downloads by giving away free software and installation guides or user tricks. While they may seem like fan powered websites, they are thinly disguised affiliate sites whose ultimate aim is to get you to use their referral link and recommend others to their site.

There are some advantages in creating a referral site, namely because you can be used for social media sites like StumbleUpon. Here is an example (screenshot below) of a Firefox referral page, which I aptly discovered while stumbling.

The affiliate links are indicated with red arrows:

2. Write an Article about Firefox

Write about the Firefox browser or its plugins and features. Keep up to date on its developments and publish short blog posts about it. Alternatively if you own a tech-oriented blog, do a weekly or monthly roundup of Firefox related articles, themes and extensions.

If you have written about Firefox in the past (do a keyword search) visit those webpages/blog posts and insert referral links into the articles. This evidently will not work with sites in all content niches. Be very sure that your Firefox article adds value for your reader as well.


3. Use a Referral Banner or Text Link on your Website

This simply involves setting aside some space on your website and putting up a Firefox referral banner or text link. Places to consider include the space above your site logo, your blog sidebar, within the single post pages or in the footer itself.

Remember to include promotional copy (e.g. Browse the web safer with Firefox) as it will help to improve conversions. Here’s an example of a prominent ad banner strategically placed among content.

Note the use of a recommendation tagline too:

You may also want to consider only targeting the right visitors. Here is a PHP code that will only shows ad banners or links to non-Firefox users:

<?php
if(strpos(@$_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'],'Firefox') === FALSE) {
?>
<INSERT FIREFOX REFERRAL CODE HERE>

<?php
}
?>

Just place this code on any location on your website and the ad will only be seen by visitors not using the Firefox browser.

You can also use a simple CSS hack to display a simple text message for users who are not using the Firefox toolbar. This can be inserted right at the top of your website or on individual post pages as well.

Click here to get the code (taken from Sizlopedia) and remember to download the firefox icon and upload it to your own server. If you are using a Wordpress blog, insert this code before </head> in your header.php file.

Here’s a screenshot of the ad in action, at the very top of Dosh Dosh.

Alternatively, you might like to use Explorer Destroyer, a script that is considerably more aggressive, when it comes to promoting the use of Firefox to your site visitors.


4. Target Social Media Channels and Communities

Less web savvy communities are good places to acquire easy conversions. This would work best if you have a referral website/landing page, which will make it far easier to share your referral link.

Places to consider include forums, social video sites like Youtube, networking sites like FaceBook, Bebo or Myspace or even free online dating websites or community-driven info sites like Yahoo Answers.

If you are adventurous enough, there are literally hundreds of quality sites which will allow you to interact with others or drop a discreet link to your referral page.

This trick here is not to spam, but to connect with others on high traffic websites and share your link in a relevant context.

More Firefox Referral Marketing Tips

Some common sense guidelines apply: For your flagship website, don’t push Firefox too hard because it may irritate your visitors and hurt your brand. It’s more appropriate to promote Firefox harder on sites you care less about.

Most of the Firefox marketing methods are variations of the four points I’ve mentioned above. Want more creative ideas? Check out the Firefox marketing section in the Spread Firefox website.

While they focus on non-affiliate promotions, some of the tactics suggested can be easily applied for your own Firefox referrals conversion plan.

For more ways to monetize your website, subscribe to Dosh Dosh.

Four Simple Ways to Make More Money with Adsense’s Firefox Referrals Program

Why? Because the user reviews there give me more details on the actual product’s design or usability. I like to have as much information as possible before paying for an expensive camera.

And it looks like I’m not the only one. A recent social commerce report on online retailers shows that the use of customer reviews will increase the overall sales for your website.

Asked about the effects of customer ratings on their Web sites, over half of online retailers in the United Kingdom, the United States and Europe said their overall conversion rates had gone up in the past year, compared with only 9% who said they fell.

Over three-quarters said their site traffic had increased. Only 5% said it had fallen. Average order values rose for 42% of the responding online retailers, and only 6% said they had decreased.

And that’s not the only benefit of user reviews, it seems. The online retailers surveyed have suggested that user reviews provide other advantages, such as improved customer retention/loyalty as well as better search engine optimization.

The report also suggests that search engines are the largely the first source used by customers when researching a product, with the official company site coming in second.

Customer Reviews Build Transparency and Trust

I’m in favor of user-generated customer reviews and I think they should be added to all online retailers in some way. Customer reviews show that you accept objective opinions of your products from the people that matter the most: your target market.

Even better if you indicate that all feedback will be taken into account and used to improve future products. Acknowledging your customer’s contribution to your brand demonstrates humility and concern for their needs.

Customer Reviews can also be considered as elements of social proof which show that a demographic is actively interested in your brand and product.

Improved customer retention and loyalty? You bet.

Blogs and User Generated Content/Reviews

Communities are built when you allow users to interact with your business or website through user submitted comments, articles and reviews.

Blogs are a content management system that is remarkably community-orientated. Customer reviews and testimonials are already built-in to the overall framework through the natural comments left by site visitors.

This is perfect for product reviews or affiliate recommendations because you’ll tend to get visitors sharing their thoughts about the same product or website. This makes the product buzzy and interesting, while possibly increasing your direct or affiliate conversion rate.

I’ve also noticed that some posts on Dosh Dosh rank on search engines because of specific keywords left in comments as well, which is another reason why I think having comments on blogs is very useful indeed.

Try using customer and user reviews if you are running an eCommerce setup.. you just might see improved sales and traffic.

For more effective monetization tips, subscribe to Dosh Dosh today.

Customer Reviews can Increase Your Online Sales or Affiliate Conversions

One simply needs to strategically optimize your website in order to best accommodate whatever traffic you are currently receiving.

This article will provide some useful details on the various methods and principles you can immediately use to improve the overall net revenue from your website or blog.

Main Principles to Follow for Greater Income

There are three main principles you should remember when trying to increase the overall income for your site. These are conversion, leverage and diversification:

• Conversion. If you want to make money from the same ad space on your blog without an increase in traffic, you need to develop greater conversion rates for affiliate programs and contextual ads. This includes restructuring your website to highlight specific webpages, projects or advertisements.




• Leverage. To expand your income beyond on-site advertisements, you need to start using your site as a platform towards something a specific service or product that brings in an external income.




• Diversification. To increase your overall earnings, you also need to gradually develop a diverse income stream by experimenting with multiple ad programs and monetization strategies which fit the overall content and direction of your site. This also involves the development of content that can be easily monetized.

5 Ways to Gradually Make More Money from Your Website

These five methods are practical explanations of how you can apply the three principles outlined above to your own website or blog. Consistent application of these methods will ensure that you increase the income generated from each site.

1. Make an Effort to Use Affiliate Links Regularly

Reviews of products like books and software or other websites will allow you to generate income via affiliate links. Conversions for affiliate links will always work best when combined with personal recommendations within content.

Strive to write objective reviews of these products or websites on a regular basis. Write one review every week and you’ll gradually develop a substantial archive of monetized content accessible by search engine traffic and other visitors.

2. Develop and Display a List of Recommended Websites/Products

This list of websites should be prominently displayed on a sitewide level although you can choose to display it on its own webpage. Each of the recommended websites should preferably be linked to a presell page on your website.

This can come in the form of a review post or a short note detailing your experiences with the website or product. I highly recommend creating your own presell page, instead of sending your visitor directly to the affiliate product or website because presell pages will lead to higher conversion rates.

3. Focus on Conversion: Optimize your Existing Ad Placement

Income generated from on-site advertisements can vary a great detail depending on placement, particularly if they are contextual CPC or CPA ads. Try experimenting with ad formats and placement on your site while monitoring your click-through rates and ad earnings at least once every week.

This should gradually give you a good idea of where to best place your ads for maximum earnings. You can also choose to place ads on specific areas of your website for greater overall performance. For instance, effective monetization of your single post pages will provide an additional source of income.

4. Diversify Your Income: Try New Monetization Tactics

Diversification of your income is one method to make full use of your blog’s earnings potential. Sign up with new ad networks and run ads to test if they produce equal or higher earnings. Some websites work very well with Adsense, others would probably do better with text link sales (aff) or direct ad sales.

A good way to pick up different ad-models is to observe the various sites in and outside of your niche. How are they monetizing their site? Can you apply the same method to your own site?

Another method of monetization would involve offering premium features or content for subscribing members. This requires a substantial amount of work but may work if your site already has an established audience which trusts your product or brand.

5. Leverage Your Blog to Promote Your Services or Business

If you have a particular skill such as web design or writing, I would recommend putting up a page on your site promoting your services. This aim of this page is to let visitors know that you are available for hire and will encourage interested visitors to contact you for assignments on specific projects.

This indirectly increases your monthly income by providing a revenue source on top of your regular monetization methods. David Airey is a good example of a freelance graphic designer who leverages his site to promote his services.

David’s blog clearly shows that he is available for hire and prominently displays his portfolio. A collection of featured articles on topics such as graphic design, advertising and branding demonstrates his knowledge on the topic to prospective clients. It also helps that he has optimized his site to rank well for local search terms like ‘graphic design edinburgh’ and ‘web design edinburgh’.

Building Traffic is Still the No.1 Priority

While the above methods will definitely increase your online income, building regular amounts of traffic to your website is still of primary importance because it exponentially increases the amount of money you can earn from every single ad format or program that you run.

Should you need more information on traffic building, do check out my category of articles specifically on how to get more visitors to your website.

For more tips on making money online, subscribe to Dosh Dosh’s blog feed.

How to Make More Money with Your Website (without Getting More Traffic)

Mini-hubs of social interaction, blogs have gained an interested audience derived from a smörgåsbord of keywords, communities, interests and demographics.

They have evolved into platforms allowing traditional media and businesses to reach communities hitherto immune to their advertising efforts. Because of their strong integration with niche communities, blogs are also becoming an invaluable part of any viral marketing or promotional campaign.

The Value of Blogs as Advertising Platforms

A recent analysis of the advertising revenue earned by bloggers in 2006 examines the rising value of blogs as advertising platforms. Utilizing data from Chitika’s network of 12,000 blogs and Technorati’s ranking system, several conclusions were reached:

Ad revenue in a blog is more sensitive to the rank of the blog..One reason for this may be the social value of advertising in a blog. If online advertising is like advertising in a mall, advertising in the blogosphere is like advertising in a country club.

Apparently, the top 15% (rank-wise) blogs accounted for approximately 90% of the total revenue earned. The report goes on to suggest that the overall social popularity or size of a blog is important to advertisers.

There are several major weaknesses in the report. For example, it uses a small sample size and does not take into account the indirect income generated by a blog.

Another problem is the focus on Technorati rank instead of traffic figures, which has a higher relevance when it comes to blog advertising revenue.

While the link between the statistical data and conclusion is not strong, I agree that the ability to influence a specific target audience appeals to advertisers.

Traditional Media’s Growing Interest in Blogs

News broke today that Discovery Communications purchased TreeHugger.com, a environment and sustainable development blog, for $10 million dollars.

In the issued Press Release , Discovery gushed predictably about how the partnership is a way to fulfill their vision of ‘bringing green living to the masses‘.

And rightly so. Discovery just acquired the most popular and respected blog in the environment niche. Treehugger’s figures: 1.4 million unique monthly visitors, 13,500 posts and 35K feed subscribers.

This includes archives of video podcasts, radio shows, newsletters and a job board. An established niche blog which reaches an large audience through multiple streams of communication.

To put it another way, an influencer with a community of readers and supporters.

How to Make Your Blog a Magnet for Big Advertisers/Media

Treehugger’s purchase exemplifies traditional media’s growing interest in blogs. Large advertisers as well, have money to spare and they are looking for blogs which offer the best platform for their brand.

If you own a well established blog within a particular niche, you have a potential money maker. One way to improve your blog income is to focus on attracting both big advertisers and traditional media.

Here are some tips on how to do so:

• Actively contact advertisers to look for ad buyers. Passively relying on advertisers to contact you limits your ad selling potential. At the very least, create an advertising page for your website.




• Think of your blog as a business. Monitor your traffic and webpages with conversion ratios in mind. Set up auxiliary streams of income (Job board, online stores) to improve your site’s perceived income value.




• Consider syndicating your content through alternative means (podcasts, newsletters etc.). Contact online and traditional magazines and offer some of your articles for free in return for credit.




• Build a community around your site by actively engaging in dialog with other similar blogs in your niche. Create forums, social voting sites or allow users to generate content for your site as well.




• Develop social proof indicators such as the Alexa Rank, Technorati Rank or RSS Feed subscribership. While these indicators of social proof can be flawed, they are widely accepted and acknowledged by traditional media and some parts of the general public.




• Establish Authority by focusing on a specific topic in great depth. Spread your opinions by contributing articles to online magazines, blogs and newsletters. Get interviewed if possible.




• Hire writers/guest bloggers so you can focus on strategic planning for your blog. Multiple writers will also help establish your blog as an online publication or community blog.

A strong community that trusts and support your blog is attractive to advertisers, particularly because they can leverage your personal reputation or blog brand.

Building advertising partnerships with traditional media and online businesses is an effective way to generate a substantial amount of regular income from your blog.

For more tips on how to earn money blogging, subscribe to Dosh Dosh today.

How to Make Your Blog Attractive to Advertisers and Traditional Media

Subscription-based models often utilize a trial subscription program which allows customers to try the product or service, in order to see if it fits their needs.

These free trial subscription periods usually offer less functionality than paid subscriptions and are designed to encourage a transition from free usage to paid subscriptions.

The success of converting a potential user into a loyal customer depends on a lot of factors, one of them being the trial experience, during which the customer becomes gradually familiar with the features of the product offered.

Conversion Mistakes Will Cost you Customers (and Money)

I’ve been using 103bees, a search traffic tool for some time and have mentioned them in my extensive article on longtail keywords. Today, I logged into my 103bees account and realized that the 30 day trial period for my account had expired.

In order to continue tracking the search hits for my websites, I needed to pay $5 a month to upgrade my account. I didn’t take the bait and pay up because I didn’t find their web tool to be particularly helpful for my websites.

More importantly, I noticed some weaknesses in their conversion model for paid subscriptions. These mistakes are common to other websites as well and they will impact potential customer signups and profit earned.

Six Ways to Improve Conversion Rates for Subscription Products

Here is a collection of methods to increase your conversions for paid subscription models. Some of the points can be applied to blogging and affiliate marketing as well, to improve your own newsletter or feed subscription signup rates.

1. Provide Incentives to Encourage Signups

Apart from the usual paid features that users will enjoy, you can offer specific incentives which will improve your conversion rates. Examples of these incentives include free eBooks, software or video tutorials for advanced usage of the specific product.

A purchase-related incentive can also take the form of a satisfaction or moneyback guarantee, which will considerably soften the perceived risk.

2. Offer Flexible Paid Subscription Options

While locking users into a long term plan is beneficial for you, customers might hesitant to take that leap. For example 103bees only offers a 3 month subscription package which may not be appealing for everyone.

Offer both short term and long term subscription packages, while providing long term discounts to further encourage signups.

3. Send Reminders to Users with Expired Accounts

If the specific user has opt-ed in for newsletters and admin announcements, you should probably send an email notifying the user that his or her trial period has expired. The email should be brief, while containing a link to the specific benefits of a paid subscription.

Don’t assume that all users will be visiting your website to check their account regularly. 103bee forgot to send any emails to inform me that my trial subscription had expired.

4. Give Free Limited Period Upgrades

At the end of the free trial period, offer a free limited period upgrade so users can try the paid features for a few days.This gives them a clear taste of what to expect and is a powerful method to encourage a final conversion.

5. Build Customer Trust by Providing Efficient Support

The best way to earn the trust of your potential customer is to offer excellent and speedy support for customer queries. Don’t just offer a free trial and completely ignore the user because they aren’t paying for the service.

Users gauge the value of your company and product by the type of support they receive. For example, Feedburner is a company that has provided excellent support for its free feed users.

I was impressed with the fact that one could leave a question in their support forums and receive a reply within hours from an admin. Remeber to address any feedback you receive speedily through private or public channels.

6. Soft Sell Your Product by Providing Relevant Information

After a user has signed for your free trial they will need some prodding into convert into users. You can do this by creating a company blog or public support page which addresses troubleshooting issues and tips on how to better use the service.

103bees has done rather poorly in this aspect, by only updating their blog once or twice a month. A regular posting frequency with more articles on search traffic/keywords would really help to promote their product.

They should also integrate their latest articles within the user account profile as well for maximum visibility, much like what Wordpress is doing for most WP-powered blogs.

Remember the goal here is to gradually soft sell the potential customer and gradually convince him or her that your product is necessary for their goals.

I’ve limited my suggestions to these five methods but one should note that there several other relevant factors, such as your site design, brand reputation and sales copy.

While all these elements play a role in determining conversions, the value of your product or service remains of utmost importance.

If your service is useful or unique, it’ll naturally sell itself to the user. Such products will make it far easier to obtain conversions for most types of paid subscription schemes.

Found this article useful? Subscribe to Dosh Dosh for more monetization tips.

6 Ways to Improve Conversion Rates for More Subscription-based Revenue

Instead of relying on popular online marketplaces and networks which take a cut of your earnings, you focus on negotiating and acquiring advertisers directly for your websites.

I’m a strong advocate of direct ad sales and have written extensively about it in my beginner’s guide to direct advertising sales. This is something anyone can do for themselves and you don’t even need a terrifically popular website to get advertisers on board.

I don’t believe in giving a large percentage of your revenue to an ad broker because they seem to do so little but take so much. It almost seems odd when you consider how convenient it is for them to earn a hefty commission from a website that you’ve personally built with your precious time and energy.

If you’ve never had success selling advertisements through ad networks like Text Link Ads or Blog Ads, consider dropping them and using direct advertising options instead.

I’ve previously developed a primer on how to find advertisers for your website and now I’ll just add one very simple but effective tip that will very likely increase your direct ad earnings.

Understanding the Potential of Incoming Emails

I receive many emails on a daily basis and each of these emails concern various matters concerning my websites. I’ve come to realize that while the content of these emails differ, a similar current underlies most of them.

Herein lies their essence: These people are interested in either my website or opinion and want to get something out of that email, be it a reply to a question or a mention on my website.

They are interested. They want something. And that something is almost inherently connected with your website. This is what you need to control and use to your benefit.

Using Email Responses to Market your Ad Space

To obtain more advertisers for your website, you need to first of all let them know that you are actually selling ad space. This best way to do this is to send them to the ‘Advertise‘ page on your site, which lists all the different ad options while selling the benefits of advertising on your site.

One way of actively promoting your ad space is to directly contact businesses and webmasters in your niche, in the hope that they will be interested.

The method I propose here is somewhat similar but focuses on converting people who send you emails with questions or suggestions concerning your website.

As I’ve mentioned above, these people have elicited an interest in your website and you need to make full use of this pre-established relationship to push your ad space.

Four Steps in Email-Based Ad Marketing

Here are the four simple steps you can take to start promoting your ad space via email interactions.

1. Check the recipient’s listed website. When replying to an email, check the recipient’s URL (if any) and assess its relevance to your site niche.




2. Include an ad pitch within the body of your email to inform the recipient that he or she can purchase ad space on your site. Provide a link to your Advertise page so they have access to more information.




3. Or include a signature with a link to your Advertise page, if the recipient’s website does not appear to be relevant.




4. Be sure to followup with any email replies or queries that may come afterwards.

There are generally two main ways to promote your ad space to the recipient of the email: either through a email signature or a message directly within the body of the email itself.

I would suggest using a one-liner with an ‘Advertise‘ link in the signature for all types of emails. An example of a line you could use would be “Need more exposure for your website? Advertise on Dosh Dosh today.”

For those with high relevance, drop the signature and include a personalized message in the body of the email. Remember to always go for the mutual benefit angle by suggesting a collaboration and not simply a sale.

Why Email-based Ad Marketing Works

• It’s natural. Replying to an email that someone sent you is perfectly natural and in the flow of things. You’re not sending an unsolicited email to promote your services. Instead your brief ad pitch is subtle and viewed as an ‘addon’ to your actual reply, which is the main topic at hand.




• Relevance is high. You’re promoting your ad space to people who have shown an interest in your website. The use of either an email signature or an in-content pitch also allows you selectively target different recipients for higher relevance. This also prevents you from over-obscuring the original message in your email.




• Complements your actions. Just helped someone a great deal on any specific matter? Don’t be surprised if they decide to take up an ad to show their gratitude. While you shouldn’t expect this to be the case all the time, bundling your actions with an ad pitch can be a very powerful motivator.




• Inform the familiar. Some loyal users might have been visiting your website for some time but never realized that you were selling ads. This is a good opportunity to run a quiet sales pitch by them.




• You target the new. Some of the emails you receive will come from visitors who land on your site through search engines. Usually some of them fire off an email without exploring your site in detail and your reply should give them a clear understanding that they can advertise on your site if they wish to.

Other Email-Based Marketing Uses: Going beyond Direct Ad sales

If you’re an affiliate marketer you can use this technique to encourage more signups for your email list. This gives you a greater reach and more monetization potential in the future.

Just be sure to include information on what joining your list entails and the options they have for opting out when they no longer find your newsletter suitable for their needs.

I don’t recommend using this method to promote affiliate links because that’s tacky and a little too aggressive. If you really want to push your affiliate programs, include a link to a webpage on your website with a well-written list of affiliate programs you recommend.

This doesn’t bode well with everyone so try at your own risk and remember to include proper disclosure if needed.

More Thoughts on Email Ad Marketing..

This method of sourcing for advertisers is largely passive and will work for time-pressed webmasters because one doesn’t have to go out of their way to look for potential advertisers.

The act of promoting your Ad space subtly through email interactions is largely ignored by most people and unjustly so, because it does offer a great deal of untapped opportunities.

If you consistently receive email queries from the public, this method might work remarkably well and will definitely help you to make more money from your website.

For more fresh tips on ways to increase your advertising revenue, do consider subscribing to Dosh Dosh’s blog feed for free updates.

Here’s a Quick, Easy and Compelling Way to Get More Advertisers for Your Website

If you want more monetary benefits from your content, you should probably spend some time optimizing what I call the Gap or the space between your blog post and the comments section.

In this article, I will outline four methods you can use to effectively monetize this untapped space, while correspondingly increasing both your profit potential and your reader base.

Introducing ‘The Gap’: Anatomy of the Single Post Page

The Gap is the empty space immediately after the end your blog post, until the start of the comments section. While some have enthusiastically filled the space with advertisements of all sorts, it is often an untouched resource for most blogs.

Here is the main reason why you should make full use of this space:

• Relevancy through Association. Anything placed at the end of an article appears to be structurally connected with the content and gives the illusion of relevancy, simply because it exists on the same page as a chunk of content.

  Relevant ads and links receive more clicks from visitors. If you want to promote an affiliate link for a web host, you don’t put it on a page about baby showers but on a page about web hosting or webmaster tools.

Here’s the catch. All of your written blog posts are goldmines lying untouched. Each of them are about very specific topics and are perfect specimens for targeted ads, links, recommendations and call-to-actions. To not use them in some way would be absolutely a waste.

And waste it we shall not. Here are four easy methods you can apply to make full use of the Gap.

1. Use Related Posts to Add Value and Increase PageViews

Related posts are a excellent way to introduce a reader to more material on your blog and there are three primary benefits which can result from it:

• Higher pageviews. After reading an article, a reader is likely to visually scan the list of related post titles and click on the one that leads her to another post, while possibly doing the same for the next post as well.

Higher pageviews means more potential ad clicks and a higher ad impression rate. This directly impacts the monetary earnings you will see from your blog.



• Increases your reader base.This is an easy way to encourage a new reader to browse through more material on your blog and can exponentially increase the potential of gaining a longterm reader or feed subscriber.

This is especially important because a large portion of most blog visitors arrive through the search engines and land on the single post pages.



• Adds value for your regular readers. By adding related posts, you provide your regular readers with more relevant information which is helpful. This generally adds to their viewing experience and is a great way to develop visitor loyalty.

How do I put up Related Posts ?

If you are using Wordpress, I highly recommend using Aizatto’s Related Posts plugin, which is a improvement over the original Related Entries plugin that most bloggers are currently using.

This excellent plugin does not require you to insert any code into your blog template and automatically includes related posts at the bottom of all your single post pages. It also allows you to customize the look of the related posts section through the admin panel itself, while giving you the option to include related posts within your RSS feed as well.

I’m currently running this plugin on Dosh Dosh and you can see it in action at the end of this post. I’m sure there is a way to do it in Blogspot and other platforms as well but so far I haven’t been able to find any tutorials or instructions.

2. Display Highly Relevant Advertising

There are basically two options here: advertising networks or affiliate programs. Google Adsense is an obvious choice for most bloggers and is really a hassle-free method that’ll help you to make some extra money from your single post pages.

As I’ve written in my previous article on monetizing your archived posts, a large number of your blog posts are likely to be only viewed by search engine visitors and monetizing them with relevant advertising is an effective way to make more money from your blog.

My favorite method of monetizing single posts involves putting up a short one-line recommendation for an affiliate program that I’ve personally tried. Here are some reasons why:

• Unobtrusive. Text links within a sentence do not break the flow of the entire post, nor do they stand out like contextual ads. They naturally position themselves within overall framework of the post and are unoffensive to almost every reader.




• Recommendations encourage conversions. If you are a blogger who generally receives some respect or attention (however minimal) from your audience, recommendations of affiliate programs are by far the best way to monetize.

  Affiliate programs differ from most advertising programs, which do not allow you directly entice the reader to click through on an ad. It’s not abnormal to receive extremely high clickthrough rates if the program promoted is legit and highly relevant to the post itself.

3. Include a Customized Call for Subscriptions

A strong feed subscriber base has two correlations to making money with any blog. Monetary benefits can be directly derived from several feed-based monetization options after you’ve gained a decent amount of feed subscribers.

The indirect benefit is that feed and newsletter subscribers help you to grow your blog in the long run. Having a larger subscriber base means that you’ll have more people reading your every post, which increases your blog’s potential linkability and hence your referral traffic.

You can insert a simple one-liner asking for more feed subscribers if they’ve enjoyed the post. I would personally take it one step further by making the call to action more relevant to the post.

For example I have an article on how to make money from myspace, which receives a decent amount of search visitors everyday. A call for subscription could read like this: “Enjoyed this post? Subscribe to my blog feed for more future posts on how to make money with myspace”

Relevancy and appealing to the reader’s already piqued interest is a very important point that is often overlooked.

4. Sell Ads and Links after each Blog Post

As I’ve mentioned in my post on direct advertising methods, you can sell links or banner space to interested advertisers using the space under specific post pages.

Text Link Ads (aff) is an ad network which allows you to sell post-level ads but I personally do not fancy using them.

I believe that if you have a strong webpage with regular search traffic, it would be disadvantageous to go through an ad broker and therefore lose out in terms of commission.

You’ve spent all the time and effort in writing and promoting that great post, which is heavily linked and ranks well on the search engines. Do you really need to share the money you earn with middlemen who have done absolutely nothing for your blog?

The only advantage of using Text Link Ads or other advertising networks is convenience and if you want that more than anything else, by all means go through an ad broker.

There are many ways to find advertisers and direct ad sales is an easy and flexible way to make money from any post on your blog.

And that concludes the post..

Feel free to experiment with your single post pages by switching ad options and measuring their performance over a similar time frame. If you don’t know where to start, I would suggest tweaking your archived posts as they are largely invisible to your regular audience.

Don’t forget to target the popular blog posts which attract the most daily search traffic. These are the ones you’ll want to optimize first because they offer the biggest returns on investment.

Monetizing The Gap: Four Ways to Make Money from Your Single Blog Post Pages

Initially launched in January 2007, Job-a-matic might not be new to some of you out there. I’ve never written about Job Boards as a way to monetize a blog or website before and I’ll thought it’ll be interesting to examine their potential in general.

Part of the reason why I decided to focus on Job-a-matic was because they offered Feedburner flare integration. Many Dosh Dosh readers are bloggers and Feedburner users as well, so I thought this would be particularly relevant.

How does Job-a-matic Work?

It basically allows you to monetize your site’s audience by selling job listings on your own customized job board to employers who are looking for talents in a specific field.

According to Job-a-matic, putting up a job board on your site adds value to your readers because these targeted listings provides an additional service/feature that is directly beneficial for them.

While your readers will likely tolerate advertising, they’ll view targeted job listings as a valuable addition to your site. And revenue from job listings can quickly outpace that from standard CPC advertising programs as you build your base of listings customers.

How do I Make Money with Job-a-matic?

There are basically two ways you can monetize your site through Job-a-matic:

• Click-based revenue from paid job listings from Simply Hired’s database. You’ll earn 30% and they’ll keep 70%. It’s not clear whether if this is on a pay-per-click basis or you’ll earn only when the applicant you referred is hired by the employer.




• Sell listings on your own job board. You can set your own price per posting as well as the length of the posting period (E.G. $20 for a period of 30 days).

Job-a-matic is owned by Simply Hired, a vertical search engine which has a large online database of over five million jobs.

These job listings can be easily displayed below the listings that you’ve sold directly on your job board and allows your visitors to access more relevant jobs through your site.

The additional benefit of this is that you’ll also stand to make money by promoting the other paid job listings from Simply Hired’s database.

More information on why this is beneficial for you:

Simply Hired’s paid job listings will appear beneath those that you sell yourself. This feature ensures that the jobs section of your site is always full of listings that can earn you money, even if you don’t have time to sell as many listings as you’d like.

And your visitors always find interesting choices when visiting your jobs section, which keeps them coming back. Which makes it easier for you to sell listings in the future.

Creating A Job Board with Job-a-matic

I’ve signed up for the Job-a-matic and tried creating a job board for Dosh Dosh. The three step process was fairly straightforward and only took a few minutes.

I had the option of setting it on my own domain but I’ve used the default Job-a-matic domain so you can get a rough idea of how the job board looks. All of the current job listings on it come from Simply Hired’s database.

A look at Job-a-matic’s Features

Most of the functionalities available in Job-a-matic can be found in almost all of the other job board providers on the market.

• Custom header or footer for the Job Postings, Job Details and FAQ pages




• Multiple color themes from brown to green. Very simple and basic color schemes. Functional but not extraordinary.




• Use your own domain name through domain mapping. For example, this allows me to use jobs.doshdosh.com instead of the default jobs.jobamatic.com.




• Restrict job posts to certain regions in the U.S.A. For example, for New York you can limit jobs to regions like Long Island, Hudson Valley or the Metropolitan Area.




• Create custom categories which your jobs will fall under. This determines what types of listings you will get from employers.




• Determine if paid job listings or ‘back-fill jobs’ should show up on your job board or not. You can also choose to display a specific number of jobs to show.




• Ability to create dynamic widgets to display on your website’s side bar. Needs some tweaking before they can fit perfectly with your site theme. The default widgets are decent but don’t look very impressive.




• Promotional Banners and Links. There are currently only five types of promo banners available and I’ll really like to see more creativity and options in the near future.




• Feedburner Tools. You’ll be able to advertise your jobs in each feed entry using a Job-a-matic Feedflare.

Other Job Boards and Monetization Potential

The concept of site monetization through job boards isn’t exactly ground-breaking. Other similar companies like JobThread and JobCoin also offer webmasters an easy way to monetize their sites through the inclusion of sponsored job listings.

What stands out is Job-a-matic’s promotional strategy. Unlike other job board services, Simply Hired seems to have specifically targeted blogs through partnerships with Six Apart’s Typepad as well as Feedburner, which has a sizeable market of ready users.

An requirement for monetary success when using job boards is your niche and the size of your audience. If your site is about software programming and commands a very large readership, it won’t be hard to be imagine employers paying for job ads on your site.

Consequently, smaller blogs won’t do well with job boards, even though they might make a very small amount of money through occasional user clicks on other paid listings.

Then again, why would visitors use the job board on your website when they can use a dedicated job search engine like Indeed.com?

Are Collaborative Job Boards the way to go?

A few months ago in January, Techcrunch’s Michael Arrington wrote about Job-a-matic and job-boards in general, offering some insight into site monetization and the Job Board Bubble:

Tools to easily create a job board are great for bloggers who don’t want to spend a couple of thousand dollars to build it themselves. But it will only exacerbate the problem we already have – too many niche job boards all over the place.

Instead, I’d like to see a single job board for tech bloggers, one that we can all sell into, and share the revenues pro-rata. There’s no reason why TechCrunch, VentureBeat, GigaOm, Guy Kawasaki and the others should all have their data in separate silos, aggregated only at the SimplyHired or Edgeio level along with other less interesting listings from all over the planet.

Problogger, a giant in the professional blogging niche has one or two new listings almost everyday on its jobboard. Part of it has to do with Problogger’s overall popularity and part of it has to do with its tight niche focus (Part-time/Staff blogging jobs).

Unlike Arrington, I don’t really think that ready-made job board systems like Job-a-matic lead to the problem of an over-proliferation in niche job boards.

Job boards derive their attractiveness from the size of the host site and the popularization of ready-made job boards just accentuates the importance of having a large site audience AND a strong niche focus.

I do however agree that collaborative job boards can be useful. I’m quite sure that Dosh Dosh doesn’t yet have the leverage to attract advertisers en masse and so I thought of working with other like-minded bloggers to set up some sort of a collective job board.

Integration and revenue share would definitely require some planning and communal agreement, which can be time-consuming and difficult to engineer. But it does remain an attractive idea.

What if an advertiser paid $50 a month and were able to have their job ad replicated across 20 medium-sized blogs in different specific fields?

I’m sure it’s a rather attractive proposition and one that may even more effective than only having their job listing posted on one single large blog.

Using Job Boards to Monetize Your Website