Monetizing my blog using Adsense, Kontera, Text-Link-Ads, and Chitika
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I have found that there are relatively few (that can be found anyway) companies that make it easy to monetize your blog. I haven’t found all of them yet, but will share with you those that I use.
Of course, not all blogs are the same, and not all will have the same result. However, if you are diligent in your efforts, analyze your traffic, and write regularly, you can make money from your blog too!
First of all, the most widely used program is probably Google Adsense. They provide an easy interface to both retrieve online ad code, but also to receive money. I have my revenue sent directly to PayPal (mostly because it is easy to buy things using PayPal, but also because I can wire transfer directly to my bank account from PayPal’s interface.
Second, I think Kontera is very useful to publishers, especially because it doesn’t interfere with Google Adsense in any way. It is a keyword driven ad service that highlights certain words in your content, and when a visitor mouses over the double-underlined word, a ad layer pops up. Non-intrusive and relevant. A simple copy-and-paste of their code into your footer enables the ad serving ability.
Third, I think I would go with Text-Link-Ads. This is a simple link ad option that allows you to show advertising links (probably in a sidebar). The advertisers pay TLA to put them on your site, and then their link shows up after you have installed the code. The code install is not the simplest, but once you do it, and make it work, you can forget about it. You can have up to 10 advertisers, each paying varying amounts. Figure $25 each, which can be $125 for you.
I am currently trying out Chitika, which displays non-contextual ads, but only if someone comes to your site via a search engine, having typed in keywords. The keywords trigger the ads, and the ads only show up on the page if they come from that search result to your site. Otherwise no one knows you have the code in your pages. I tried this out on only about 300 pageviews/day, and have averaged $.50/day. Taht’s about $.05 per pageview. I am going to put it in all pages eventually, which should provide for $200/mo or so. Hey, who’s complaining?
Anyway, do a search for these programs, see what others are saying, and then let me know through comments what you think.