What can be better than to make money when you sleep? For example Adsense - check your balance before sleep, make up in the morning and see how nicely the number grew up while you were snoring, just like a classical bamboo tree. There are only 2 categories of people who can make money while sleeping - webmasters with monetized websites, or big company / factories owners that go to sleep while the workers continue their job and the “machine” keeps rolling. However, while opening a factory is definitely not something you can do with minimum effort, expenses and time - opening a site is THE solution.
What do you actually need? A good domain name for a start, as having your own name guarantees you will never lose traffic + it looks a lot more respectable. You can start off with a free host and a decent free web layout if you cannot make your own and get the business going. Of course it’s time consuming, it will eat up many hours, but believe me it’s worth it. After all, how hard is this job? Sitting in your socks at your desk, drinking coffee and writing some content for your blog readers of website visitors? Hard manual labor? I don’t think so.
Choosing marketing strategy.
This is the most important and most essential step - choosing HOW will you monetize your website. If you choose the wrong strategy - no harm, unless we count in the loss of time, disappointment and low / lack income for longer then expected. Before you start getting creative - face one fact: online marketing has been prospering for years now, many blooming years and all the possible and impossible ways to make money online has been invented by now. There is a very slim chance that you will manage to come up with some ground breaking strategy, which will change the world’s perception on Marketing. So, don’t re-invent the wheel, a good and smoothly rolling wheel has already been invented, tested and successfully produced before you, all you need is to take the model and apply to your site. After all, there are not all that many ways to make money online, however the countless are the sources.
Wasting time and working out everything by yourself, testing it all on your skin, is yet another good way to throw the time away and lose precious energy. Go to some big forums, ask for help, or ask friends - how do they make money? What affiliate program pays and which did never paid them? What ads bring good revenue and which are useless? You really don’t need to go by the trial and error path. Find a successful website that is similar to yours in both niche and layout. See how other successful website owners implemented Adsense, AdBrite and other other income streams on their websites. See also, WHAT do they actually use? For example blogs rarely use Adbrite, because I can say from personal experience that it does not pay out to keep a huge square for ads that might never be purchased while contextual ads like AdSense will generate a massive income depending on your keywords.
All or nothing?
Many people tend to think that since they have already employed one type of ads, what they earn from it reflects their website’s potential revenue. No, it does not. You can combine as many income streams as you wish, see what works best for your site’s layout, niche and traffic. I personally never tried Amazon and eBay affiliate programs, neither Chikita eMini, because all my websites are freebies oriented, and it’s a lot easier to make a freebies seeker to click on an advert, rather than make him buy a laptop for only 700$. Study your traffic, perhaps if most of your traffic comes from a particular country you might want to take advantage of it? Whatever you decide, my point is - do not rely on one income opportunity solemnly. If one did not work for you, it does not mean your site is crap and it’s time to shut it down. Try as many options as you can.
I will give you an example. For the past 1,5 years I was “faithful” to Adsense and did not even try anything else. Of course not forgetting that up until recently competitive ads were not allowed together with Google (they still prohibited for YPN), but still and all I was very narrow minded. A couple of weeks ago I was introduced to Text Links Ads and ReviewMe. Both sites are run by the same owner, and I got 4 links sold at TLA within 2 weeks and one very nice review offer from RM last week so I can only but hope this will double itself text month. Text Links Ads has just covered my annual hosting fee for this blog in mere 2 weeks of absolutely passive participation (once you install the script you really need not worry about anything anymore) and if I’d not have tried, I could miss this opportunity.
Most important is to be open minded yet cautious to new offers, ideas and revenue streams. Experiment with design, ads position and colours, and see what works best for you.
