Making Money on the Internet

Adsense Earnings - Best Advert Position

2011-03-20T17:28:00.000Z

Adsense earnings can be affected by where your adverts are located on a web page. There are hotspots - where people are more likely to see and click on adsense ads. The top left of a page is a good hotspot for adsense ads.
I recentlt changed a whole website with about 150 pages - the adsense adverts were originally in a 120 by 60 skyscraper on the right of the page. I altered all the pages so that the adverts are now on the left side of the page.
This month - the CTR is 2.48% .In the month before the changeover - the clickthrough rate was 2.35% - so not a very significant increase in click through at all .
So - in this limited experiment nothing has really been proven - a slight CTR incrrease that may have been caused by repositioning of the adverts from the right side to the left side.

My best performing ads are those that are shown in the middle of a page - between the text. These always have a high click rate.

Amazon Associate Scheme

2009-10-25T13:55:00.000Z

Amazon call their affilliate scheme the "associates program" . The one big drawback of the Amazon scheme is that you only get commission if the user makes a purchase during the "session" - i.e during the visit to Amazon that came via your link. If they close down the browser and come back an hour later - you get no commission. Most affilliate schemes use cookies to track when visitors arrive from an affiliate link. Many sites will pay commission on any sales made for up to 30 days after the initial visit. There must be millions of clicks from Amazon associates that get nothing in commission - but the click may well result in a sale within a few days.
But - even with this drawback - the Amazon associate program can be a good money earner if used in the right way. By linking to specific products on pages that provide relevant information about those products. The commission paid by amazon starts at a low rate but rises to 9% for those associates that sell a lot of stuff. The maximum commission for electrical items is capped at £7 - which is another negative factor with Amazon. On a sale of £1000 - that works out at just 0.7% commission. Many online shoppers trust and know Amazon - so they are more likely to purchase from them than from a site they have never heard of before.

Keeping Top On Google

2009-10-24T23:20:00.000+01:00

Update your blog or website to ensure you maintain your position on Google results. A regular post at least once a week will keep the search engines interested. Stop updating - and you risk being slowly relegated down the results. If you have a post that is doing very well on Google - don't make any changes to it. Add new posts by all means. Keep checking your position on google - to see how you are doing. Things change all the time. The number of hits you get can drop by at least 100% if you drop from top position to second position on Google. Google is the major search engine - if you lose google traffic - the traffic from Live or Yahoo will be a small fraction of the google traffic.
Be careful of duplicating content. I had a new site on it's own domain which I set up to replace an existing blog on a free blogging site. Laziness and haste made me do a lot of copy and past to get the new site up and running while he old site was still online too. I suspect that was the main reason why it appears to have vanished from google after doing very well for a few months. A few attempts to get it back have failed - so I will have to start again.

A new Affiliate site for me - Paid On Results

2007-11-06T11:28:00.000Z

I discovered another affiliate site called Paid On Results - I have signed up and am happy with it so far. They have a few well known shops - like Reid Furniture, Grattans, Freemans - and more. Commissions are good and cookie lengths are also fairly long.

Irish Affilliate Schemes

2007-10-01T12:10:00.000+01:00

Affilliate schemes are a nice easy way to earn some money from your website or blog.
Tradedoubler have a site specifically for Irish based webmasters . Sign up to Tradedoubler for access to be able to sell products from companies such As Apple , Dell , Ebookers, Tesco, Skype, ITunes and Viking.

Search Engine Friendly Design

2006-11-07T11:16:00.000Z

Tips and Tricks for getting a web site ranked highly on search engines:
To buy your products or click on your adsense links - people have to find your website. Most traffic comes via search engines - so you have to cater for them.

Do consider search engines when designing your website
Do take time to get your content to be as user and search engine friendly as possible
URL names can be important for many search engines - if they contain keywords it can help but don't make them too long.
Do try to keep your content succinct and to the point. 300-500 words per page is ideal
Do use keywords and phrases intelligently throughout your content
Do use a unique Title and Description and Keyword Meta Tags on each individual page of your site
Do ensure that every page is linked within your website
Do try to include keywords or phrases around links in the text of your website
Do use thumbnails (smaller images that can be clicked on to enlarge) for photos that you want to present on your website
Don’t ignore search engines when designing your website – it is harder and more expensive to retro fit search engine friendly design after the site is live
Don’t publish reams of content on a page
Don’t publish massive photos or graphics just because you think they look good
Don’t cram lots of keywords into your meta tags – use them as they were meant to be used
Don’t copy content from another website and use it verbatim on yours – all content you or anyone else puts up is copyright to the author – respect that copyright.
Don’t copy a competitor’s meta tags and use them on your website
Don’t use any tricks like invisible text or keyword stuffing – they will only get you into trouble!

Get Listed on the Search engines

2006-11-07T10:56:00.000Z

Unless you plan to spend money advertising your web site - you need to get it listed on the major search engines.
The main search engines you need to consider as part of your online marketing campaign are as follows: Google, AOL, Yahoo!, Overture, Inktomi, Alltheweb, AltaVista, Ask Jeeves, Teoma and the ODP (Open Directory Project).
Some of the above are technically directories meaning that a human editor reviews your website before entry into their database. The most well known directory is Yahoo!.
The Open Directory Project is one of the least known but most important directories as it powers results to Google’s listings among others.
Yahoo! is the web’s most visited website.
Google feeds results to AOL and is one of the most popular search engines in the world.
If you focus the core of your online marketing efforts on Google, Yahoo and MSN you will be well on your way to getting access to over 90% of the search engine traffic that counts.
How to get indexed
All of the search engines have a facility to let you submit your site. For example, if you go to www.google.com/addurl.html you will be able to submit your website to Google. It may take up to 4 weeks before the Google robot (as called a spider) visits your site. However, it is also possible that you will get visited by the spider so long as there is a link on the web somewhere pointing to your site.

UK and Ireland Affiliate Schemes

2006-10-10T11:36:00.000+01:00

Affiliate Window operate a very good affiliate site for UK based web sites. They have hundreds of merchants on board - with several well known comanies like Comet, Paddy Power, Sainsburys, CD WoW and more.

Getting Top on Google

2006-02-22T12:16:00.000Z

Getting Top 10 on Google

If your web site is not getting visitors - then you will never make any money from it. Search engines probably account for more than half of all website visitors - and Google is the most widely used of all the search engines. If you can get your website listed near the top on the results pages on Google - then you are doing well. All sorts of search engine optimisation "experts" will offer to get you top on Google some will have the cheek to guarantee it! . Getting a site listed high on the search results on Google can be done - but if everyone is trying to do it for the same search term - then it is going to be difficult.

Top Ten Tps for getting in the top 10 on Google.

1.Concentrate on one or two main key terms or phrases for each page of your site. (Just one is best). The terms or words you choose must be what you expect your potential visitors to be searching for. Choose something that is likely to be entered as a search term - for example if your page is trying to sell widgets in Ondon then try "buy widgets London".
2.Make each key phrase at least 2 words long - preferably 3 or 4. Trying to compete on just a single word is not going to work - unless that word is something very rare. Don't place all your hopes on "widgets" if there are hundreds of other sites about "widgets" try things like "cheapest widgets UK" .
3. Use the selected key phrase(s) in the page title, early on in the page content, in the meta description and in the meta keywords.
4 Try and use some or all of the key phrase in the file name too if possible
5. Have unique and relevant content on the page. Do not copy other sites.
6. Don't repeat the key words too much.
7. Larger sites do better - so try and create several pages on the site .
8. Don't have more than 3 or four external links on the page.

9. Have a menu structure on the site so that all pages are linked together in a structured way.
10. Avoid fancy Flash animations on your main pages - keep it simple and with plenty of textual relevant content.

It can take a while for Google to pick your new pages up. Submitting the page to google might help. http://www.google.com/addurl.html.
An established site that is already well ranked on google will be scanned regularly and a new page can appear on google within 2 to 3 days sometimes.

HMV paying 4% commission

2006-02-19T20:31:00.000Z

The HMV affiliate scheme is currently paying 4% commission on all sales of Cds DVds and games. It's a fairly high rate - similar to Amazon's and higher than others like CD wow and Play. The best thing with HMV is the 30 day cookie - which means that if someone visits HMV from one of your website's links - than anything they purchase in the next 30 days will earn you commission. Amazon only pay out if the visitor buys something during his visit - if they return later in the day any purchase something then you get nothing. HMV use Tradedoubler for the administration of their affiliate scheme. You can sign up today and start selling.

Sell Web Hosting

2006-02-19T19:47:00.000Z

One and One are one of the biggest web hosting companies in Europe. You can earn money by selling hosting plans with 1+1 by signing up with Tradedoubler
The commission amounts are really good - you can get as much as £140 for some professional hosting packages. The basic web hosting pays a commission of £15 to £25 per sale.
If you have a European web site - or European visitors - this would be a good way of making money from your web site. Signing up with Tradedoubler allows you to join dozens of their other excellent affiliate schemes. Many major UK companies are partners with Tradedoubler. Payments are made direct to your bank account each month once you reach a certain level of earnings.

High paying Irish Affiliate Scheme

2006-02-16T15:06:00.000Z

Digiappz are offering 25% commission on sales of software - this is one of the highest commission rates I have seen on affiliate schemes. Most schemes usually payout less than 10%. They are also offering €0.05 cent for each click. Now the amount of pay per click schemes has drastically reduced in the last couple of years -so it's nice to see the odd one still being offered.
Digiappz are part of Digiweb - who are one of Europes major ISPs.
Digiappz was established with the mission of developing programs, scripts and solutions for internet developers, businesses, and organisations.
They are based in Ireland but service customers in 14 countries in Europe, United States, and Australia. They sell software for online hotel reservations and affiliate scheme management.
They are also offering 5% on all sales by affiliates that you sign up. Follow the link below for more details.

Digiappz affiliate scheme

Google Pay Per Click

2006-02-14T14:52:00.000Z

If you haven't heard of Google then you must be on a different planet! Google is the most used search tool on the internet - ahead of it's nearest rivals Yahoo and MSN . Getting a website to appear in the top page on Google is not easy - so companies and individuals can pay to advertise on the google results pages. Google can also display adverts on any other website that has signed up to it's adsense scheme.
Adsense is really simple to join and easy to add the small bit of Javascript into your web pages to allow the ads to be displayed. Adsense works out what adverts to display based on your web page content title and keywords. If a person clicks on an advert then you will get paid. The amount you get paid will depend on how much the advertiser has agreed to pay google. Some clicks might on;y get you two or three US cents - but others could bring in two or three dollars. There are "rumours" of payments per click of as much as $50 - but I don't believe them myself.
Sign up to Google Adsense by clicking the blue button on the right side.