Diversity Is The Key to Monetizing Your Blogby: David Gridley (dgridley)
Banned by Google Adsense? It could happen without warning and has to many unsuspecting (and some not quite so unsuspecting) Adsense publishers who’ve somehow managed to run afoul of the Adsense TOS (terms of service).
It’s beyond the scope of this article to discuss the possible reasons why your blog or web site might be or has been banned but suffice to say that if you’ve put all your eggs in one basket by using Adsense as your only or primary source of revenue, you could be temporarily bankrupt, cast adrift in a sea of mistakes you could have easily avoided.
Sure, as a contextual ad server, Adsense is far and away tough to beat. Their range and depth in advertisers is their strength making them the top choice for monetizing the average blog or web site.
Ok, now re-read the preceding paragraph and take a closer look. I’ll repeat: (Adsense’s) range and depth in advertisers is their strength.
It’s the diversity in the sheer number and type of advertiser and ads they offer that make Adsense numbero uno in their field.
So, in other words, if you’ve been banned by Google, you’ve just lost access to that huge database of ads and advertisers. What do you do?
And, maybe you haven’t yet been banned from the Adsense program and just want to “hedge your bets” and add some additional streams of revenue?
Let me tell you this: the absolute key to monetizing your blog (or web site) is DIVERSITY.
Everyone likes a choice and the more choices you can offer your visitors translates directly into those “additional streams of revenue” we mentioned earlier.
Let me suggest a few no-cost ways we can accomplish this quickly and with the least amount of “muss and fuss”, using my favorite blogging platform, WordPress.
(By the way, if you’re not blogging as a way of branding either your name or product, you should be. Blogs tend to get more traffic and page rank, as well as faster indexing by the search engines, than almost any other online platform. A regularly updated blog with relevant content can easily go from PR 0 to PR 4 (or better) in just a few months. Higher page rank translates into more $$ for you!)
First of all, why use WordPress? Three reasons: reliability, free support, and loads and loads of free WordPress themes and plugins to choose from. In addition, WordPress itself is free and is included in most hosting packages as part of the Fantastico module in your CPanel. For most of us, WordPress is readily available and can be installed with just a few clicks of the mouse.
If you don’t have hosting of your own, you can also sign up for a free WordPress blog at www.wordpress.com.
Because this article is primarily about methods you can use to monetize your blog or web site, we won’t go into adding themes to WordPress other than to say there are hundreds of free themes available, allowing you to literally change the look of your WordPress blog with the click of a button.
Let’s say you just installed WordPress (or even if you’ve already been using WordPress), what can you now do to add those additional streams of revenue to your blog?
Here’s a short list of essential plugins you’ll immediately want to install to monetize your blog and why:
1. Martin Laine’s excellent Audio Player
Martin’s plugin allows you to easily add MP3 audio files to your posts allowing visitors to feel your enthusiasm as you explain the benefits of visiting your blog, or using your service or product. Audio increases visitor interest and promotes sales by allowing you to personalize the experience of visiting your site or blog. Adding audio to your site is as easy as uploading the audio file to a specified directory, then posting the link to your post. Laine’s Audio Player plugin automatically transforms your MP3 links into an audio player.
In short, you can commercialize, brand, and monetize your blog by using audio effectively.
2. Rich Manalang’s WP-Amazon plugin for WordPress
Amazon.com associates should immediately install this handy plugin. WP-Amazon allows you to easily search for and add branded Amazon links and images to your posts right from within the WordPress control panel.
3. Wayne Walrath’s WP-AdSense-Deluxe plugin
Assuming you haven’t been banned from Google Adsense, WP-AdSense-Deluxe lets you define one or more Google adsense ad blocks (or Yahoo Publisher Network-YPN ads) which can then be easily inserted into any post (including multiple ad blocks per post) simply by adding a pre-defined comment within your post.
4. Angsuman Chakraborty’s Ad Rotator
Ad Rotator is an ad rotating solution for your ads, including Adsense, Clicksor, Chitika, etc. Ad Rotator displays an advertisement (which is randomly selected from a group of advertisements specified in a text file) at your chosen location.
5. Thom Skrtich’s Auto Translator
Here’s a No-Brainer: translating your blog automatically into one of several different languages can significantly increase readership and sales. Auto Translator helps you accomplish this by allowing visitors to select a flag from your WordPress sidebar and automatically translating your post or page into the visitor’s language. Think of the possibilities!
6. Edna Melendez’s WPCashLinksLite
This is my personal favorite tool and WordPress plugin. Available as both a free or paid version, WPCashLinksLite (free version) allows you to enter up to ten keywords with destination URLs that you want linkable throughout your blog posts and comments. What makes this so great is your destination URLS can go anywhere you specify for any keyword or keyword phrase you choose. For example, on my www.iPlayGolf.info, I’ve used WPCashLinksLite to direct the keyword “swing” to a specific golfing-related Clickbank ebook affiliate link. Best of all, WPCashLinksLite can be used in addition to Adsense so it’s a win-win situation.
So there you have it.. six of the best, in my opinion, ways you can diversify and monetize your WordPress blog.
But before I go, let me suggest just one more application you’ll definitely want to add to your revenue enhancing repertoire, Qumana Desktop Blog Editor with Adgenta.
First of all, Adgenta (or Q-Ads) is an easy and powerful way for you to enhance the revenue potential of your website or blog. Q-Ads is a unique way for you to embed ads anywhere you can place an image. These images will look “familiar”.. in fact, they are images similar in appearance to the text ads served by Adsense and Yahoo Publisher Network.
Two things that make Q-Ads an awesome revenue tool: YOU choose the keywords used to display the image ads AND Q-Ads can be used in conjunction with your Adsense! Q-Ads and Adsense equal “the best of two worlds” in my book!
Downloading and using Qumana Desktop Blog Editor allows you to write, save, and post your blog entries to a variety of platforms, including WordPress. Q-Ads (or Adgenta) is integrated into the application, allowing you to insert Q-Ads anywhere into your blog with the click of your mouse.
To sum up, using these tools I’ve described will allow you to expand and diversify your blog’s revenue streams and free you from depending on Adsense alone!
=====================================================
About The Author:
David Gridley (dgridley) is a daily visitor to www.webloggers.org and the Namepros.com domain discussion forum (with over 8000 posts) and has been selected NamePros Member of the Month twice. He is also author of the www.lookwhatdavefound.info blog and a host of others. To reprint this article in whole or part, request permission by email to dave@davidgridley.com .
For over 16,000 pages of free articles just like this one, visit: www.articlesites.info
Look What Dave Found
Filed under: Commentary, Miscellaneous
by: David Gridley (dgridley)
Banned by Google Adsense? It could happen without warning and has to many unsuspecting (and some not quite so unsuspecting) Adsense publishers who’ve somehow managed to run afoul of the Adsense TOS (terms of service).
It’s beyond the scope of this article to discuss the possible reasons why your blog or web site might be or has been banned but suffice to say that if you’ve put all your eggs in one basket by using Adsense as your only or primary source of revenue, you could be temporarily bankrupt, cast adrift in a sea of mistakes you could have easily avoided.
Sure, as a contextual ad server, Adsense is far and away tough to beat. Their range and depth in advertisers is their strength making them the top choice for monetizing the average blog or web site.
Ok, now re-read the preceding paragraph and take a closer look. I’ll repeat: (Adsense’s) range and depth in advertisers is their strength.
It’s the diversity in the sheer number and type of advertiser and ads they offer that make Adsense numbero uno in their field.
So, in other words, if you’ve been banned by Google, you’ve just lost access to that huge database of ads and advertisers. What do you do?
And, maybe you haven’t yet been banned from the Adsense program and just want to “hedge your bets” and add some additional streams of revenue?
Let me tell you this: the absolute key to monetizing your blog (or web site) is DIVERSITY.
Everyone likes a choice and the more choices you can offer your visitors translates directly into those “additional streams of revenue” we mentioned earlier.
Let me suggest a few no-cost ways we can accomplish this quickly and with the least amount of “muss and fuss”, using my favorite blogging platform, WordPress.
(By the way, if you’re not blogging as a way of branding either your name or product, you should be. Blogs tend to get more traffic and page rank, as well as faster indexing by the search engines, than almost any other online platform. A regularly updated blog with relevant content can easily go from PR 0 to PR 4 (or better) in just a few months. Higher page rank translates into more $$ for you!)
First of all, why use WordPress? Three reasons: reliability, free support, and loads and loads of free WordPress themes and plugins to choose from. In addition, WordPress itself is free and is included in most hosting packages as part of the Fantastico module in your CPanel. For most of us, WordPress is readily available and can be installed with just a few clicks of the mouse.
If you don’t have hosting of your own, you can also sign up for a free WordPress blog at www.wordpress.com.
Because this article is primarily about methods you can use to monetize your blog or web site, we won’t go into adding themes to WordPress other than to say there are hundreds of free themes available, allowing you to literally change the look of your WordPress blog with the click of a button.
Let’s say you just installed WordPress (or even if you’ve already been using WordPress), what can you now do to add those additional streams of revenue to your blog?
Here’s a short list of essential plugins you’ll immediately want to install to monetize your blog and why:
1. Martin Laine’s excellent Audio Player
Martin’s plugin allows you to easily add MP3 audio files to your posts allowing visitors to feel your enthusiasm as you explain the benefits of visiting your blog, or using your service or product. Audio increases visitor interest and promotes sales by allowing you to personalize the experience of visiting your site or blog. Adding audio to your site is as easy as uploading the audio file to a specified directory, then posting the link to your post. Laine’s Audio Player plugin automatically transforms your MP3 links into an audio player.
In short, you can commercialize, brand, and monetize your blog by using audio effectively.
2. Rich Manalang’s WP-Amazon plugin for WordPress
Amazon.com associates should immediately install this handy plugin. WP-Amazon allows you to easily search for and add branded Amazon links and images to your posts right from within the WordPress control panel.
3. Wayne Walrath’s WP-AdSense-Deluxe plugin
Assuming you haven’t been banned from Google Adsense, WP-AdSense-Deluxe lets you define one or more Google adsense ad blocks (or Yahoo Publisher Network-YPN ads) which can then be easily inserted into any post (including multiple ad blocks per post) simply by adding a pre-defined comment within your post.
4. Angsuman Chakraborty’s Ad Rotator
Ad Rotator is an ad rotating solution for your ads, including Adsense, Clicksor, Chitika, etc. Ad Rotator displays an advertisement (which is randomly selected from a group of advertisements specified in a text file) at your chosen location.
5. Thom Skrtich’s Auto Translator
Here’s a No-Brainer: translating your blog automatically into one of several different languages can significantly increase readership and sales. Auto Translator helps you accomplish this by allowing visitors to select a flag from your WordPress sidebar and automatically translating your post or page into the visitor’s language. Think of the possibilities!
6. Edna Melendez’s WPCashLinksLite
This is my personal favorite tool and WordPress plugin. Available as both a free or paid version, WPCashLinksLite (free version) allows you to enter up to ten keywords with destination URLs that you want linkable throughout your blog posts and comments. What makes this so great is your destination URLS can go anywhere you specify for any keyword or keyword phrase you choose. For example, on my www.iPlayGolf.info, I’ve used WPCashLinksLite to direct the keyword “swing” to a specific golfing-related Clickbank ebook affiliate link. Best of all, WPCashLinksLite can be used in addition to Adsense so it’s a win-win situation.
So there you have it.. six of the best, in my opinion, ways you can diversify and monetize your WordPress blog.
But before I go, let me suggest just one more application you’ll definitely want to add to your revenue enhancing repertoire, Qumana Desktop Blog Editor with Adgenta.
First of all, Adgenta (or Q-Ads) is an easy and powerful way for you to enhance the revenue potential of your website or blog. Q-Ads is a unique way for you to embed ads anywhere you can place an image. These images will look “familiar”.. in fact, they are images similar in appearance to the text ads served by Adsense and Yahoo Publisher Network.
Two things that make Q-Ads an awesome revenue tool: YOU choose the keywords used to display the image ads AND Q-Ads can be used in conjunction with your Adsense! Q-Ads and Adsense equal “the best of two worlds” in my book!
Downloading and using Qumana Desktop Blog Editor allows you to write, save, and post your blog entries to a variety of platforms, including WordPress. Q-Ads (or Adgenta) is integrated into the application, allowing you to insert Q-Ads anywhere into your blog with the click of your mouse.
To sum up, using these tools I’ve described will allow you to expand and diversify your blog’s revenue streams and free you from depending on Adsense alone!
=====================================================
About The Author:
David Gridley (dgridley) is a daily visitor to www.webloggers.org and the Namepros.com domain discussion forum (with over 8000 posts) and has been selected NamePros Member of the Month twice. He is also author of the www.lookwhatdavefound.info blog and a host of others. To reprint this article in whole or part, request permission by email to dave@davidgridley.com .
For over 16,000 pages of free articles just like this one, visit: www.articlesites.info
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