Many people when thinking of how to monetize a site stop their search at banner ads. They might have a banner at the top, a skyscraper at the right, and another banner at the bottom, and go to sleep at night thinking that they’re doing all that they can to profit off their website. In reality there is much more to be done.
Now the number of banners you can use on a website is limited both by good taste, and by the amount of screen real estate available. If you want your website to fit in a 800×600 resolution and your content requires 700 pixels of horizontal room, then you don’t have many options for the side other than a skinny skyscraper.
So, to increase your profit per page view you need to think outside the box: not banners, but words. I previously discussed the business of selling text links and that is viable way to monetize your site while using very little screen real estate. You can also use text links from affiliate programs, which is a whole other topic and not one I wish to discuss today. Today I want to discuss my two favorite ways for turning a single word into money.
Both methods I am going to mention work by turning a single word (or phrase) from within your content into a link that points to another page on your site. In the first method that page is a search listing result set from a company like SearchFeed or RevenuePilot. These programs work like a combination of Google Adsense Adlinks and Google Adsense for Search. Basically these companies have their own database of pay-per-click listings and they allow you visitors to search through them from your site. They also allow you to link directly to search result sets on a keyword you choose, something Google does not allow. So while these programs don’t have the payouts you’d expect from Google, this little allowance makes them so very powerful.
The reason is simple, you can take a single word or phrase from your content, like web hosting, and turn it into a link that points to a result set of PPC listings on web hosting. When your visitors then click on those listings, you get a share of the revenue. This is one of the easiest ways I know to make money off a website without sacrificing any screen real estate to do it. Its not going to be great money, but on a large enough scale this practice can provide significant additional income for your site.
The other method I like to use is doing roughly the same thing but instead of linking to a page from RevenuePilot or SearchFeed I link to a page of Ebay listings. Ebay allows you to make page’s of their listings based on search words using a tool created for their affiliate program called the Editor Kit At first glance when signing up for Ebay’s Affiliate Program it doesn’t look like you can earn much, but that can be deceiving, and again even if its not much its not like you’re using a huge amount of pixels promoting it. This method of course is best for shopping related terms, or specifically things often sold on Ebay, so it will not be appropriate for all sites.
Either of the two methods I have mentioned can be a great way to provide an incremental increase to your revenue without the need to cram any more banner ads onto the screen. I really recommend you try implementing one or both features on your website.
Chris Beasley
