Why is my blogs revenue so low?

Those who blog partly because they want to earn some extra money often ask the question:”Why is my revenue so low?” There are people who think that blogs simply can not generate much money. They are wrong! Blog can generate you the same amount of money if not more compared to any other website. Now im talking about PPC (Pay per click) sorces of revenue such as google adsense here.

The main problem I have noticed is that people tend to concentrate on wider markets. If you are running a personal diary kind of blog, the chances are that there are thousands of similar blogs around. The more competition you have, the harder it will be for you to make some cash. Instead try concentrating on smaller markets also known as niche markets. Not only it will be easier for you to develop the traffic, the CPC (Cost per click) should also be higher due to advertisers demand exceeding publishers supply.

Secondly you need to have a unique selling point. You need to give your readers something that nobody else does. This should really help you get returning visitors.

Finally it’s the ads themselves. You should channel your ads. This way you will be able to measure your ad block’s performance. One of the most important things is to experiment. Try different ad formats, colours and positioning. Run your setup for a few weeks, note the performance and try something different. Even if you think you have found the optimum ad setup keep on trying to improve it. In most cases you can always tweak something to make your ad performance better.

If you need help finding traffic for your blog, you can always submit your blog stories to the new personal blog news publishing system designed especially for the blogging community at the blog reporter

Tags: Ads, Adsense, Blog, Google, Money, Revenue, Sell, Website

Can The Internet Businesses Survive Without Affiliate Marketing?

What is an affiliate program? I’ve been bombarded with this question from Internet business newbies since I got myself involved in this very interesting but challenging
online business.

Many years ago, ever since we started manufacturing products for sale in the offline physical world, we had been having sales agents representing different manufacturers to help the latter to expand their markets. The agents conclude sales without carrying inventory, handling payments, signing contracts, sorting, packing and shipping of the products. Their main focus had been to make the sale by getting the orders from the prospects and existing customers, which were then processed by the manufacturers or merchants.

In the Internet online world we have affiliates instead of agents. Affiliates are highly targeted pay-for-performance sales agents.

There are also some forms of Internet advertising that rewards the affiliates for driving traffic to the advertiser i.e. the manufacturers or the affiliate program owners. The advertiser pays the affiliates to place a link on their website, and the affiliate sends traffic to the advertiser in return. In other words, it’s about the affiliates receiving commissions for helping in making the sales.

The most common reward is pay-for-sale, where the merchant pays the affiliates who referred the paying customers.

Affiliates are being considered as a complementary but very important sales channel although the merchants themselves continue to get their own direct traffic in making their own sales.

The affiliates do not have to suffer from the occasional sleepless nights worrying about the processing of orders, packing and shipping etc because this are being taken care of by the merchants who usually have an effective tracking system to determine which affiliates drive which orders to them starting with the so-called affiliate links. These are
the links that the affiliates put on their websites, newsletters, ezines or emails.

How does an affiliate link look like? You may ask. The most common affiliate link is embedded in the linking URL. For example, if you see a link like “http://www.abcmerchant.com/?xxxx=3456″, you can be quite sure that the affiliate with the ID (identification) 3456 will receive money from ABC Merchant when someone places his order after clicking that link.

Other affiliate links are more complex and encrypted with some sites having their links masked so that the prospects won’t be able to detect that the URL they’re clicking is an affiliate link.

An excellent example of an affiliate program is that of Amazon.com who happens to have one of the oldest affiliate programs in the Internet. Other possible affiliate programs are as follows:

1) “Pay per click” – the merchant pays the affiliates for the driving the traffic and the resulted orders to them.

2) “Pay per lead” – the merchant pays the affiliates for directing the prospects to register their interest with a possibility of making the sales later.

3) “Pay per subscription” – if the merchant has a recurring revenue from the customer’s repeated orders, the affiliates will benefit accordingly.

Why bother about Affiliate Marketing at all then?

The following are some of the reasons why Internet marketers the world over swear by the affiliate marketing as a form of their Internet advertisement and strategy:

1. Low budget
Many are hesitant to venture into any home based businesses because of the lack of fund or the unwillingness to part with money due to uncertainties. In affiliate marketing, you don’t have to invest a lot financially to start pulling in profits.

2. No inventories
There is no need to keep and manage an inventory as this would be taken care of by the merchant.

3. Passive income through leverage
One could copy what the truly wealthy people are doing (or rather not doing). They earn their income through various leverage strategies which allow them to make money while they’re sleeping, meddling with hobbies, or having vacation in far away places such as the beautiful beaches in Hawaii or Malaysia.

Unlike a paid job, affiliates could just drive traffic to the merchants’ websites without having to sweat after having provided them your ad copy and links.

4. Minimal risk
The main reason for most successful Internet marketer&s extensive use of affiliate marketing is the low-risk nature of the program. This is especially attractive to those with low budget for advertising

5. Globalisation
With affiliate marketing, you are dealing with an unending global market place. All you have to do is study, research and select a niche product or service and prepare all the necessary marketing tools for your affiliates to direct traffic from just about anywhere around the world to your website.

6. Getting paid while you sleep
This system allows you to “recruit” thousands of “salesmen” who are willing to work for you 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. The best part is the fact that they’re willing to do so for nothing! This is a system that allows you to switch your business to “Autopilot” mode so that you could continue to earn money whether you’re awake, asleep or holidaying in Bangkok or Penang. It is a system that allows you to work from home or some places 10,000 km or more away from home.

Having said this, it must be stated that not all affiliate programs are successful. Many affiliate program owners fail because of their lack of the necessary investment, for instance, the merchant needs to invest in an effective tracking system, which is usually an outsourced affiliate network or an in-house affiliate software system. Another factor to consider is having sufficient human resources to recruit, manage, and motivate the affiliates with the right technical support and remuneration. Without a good support system in place, the affiliates will not stay long enough to produce the desired results.

Most online businesses use affiliate marketing strategy to sell their products which could include physical products, software or e-books. Service industry can also benefit from an affiliate program via a pay-per-lead program.

Before a merchant could establish an affiliate strategy, he should consider many factors among them are the answers to the following questions:

1) What are the benefits to the affiliates? What commission rate should be offered to affiliates to attract them and motivate them?

2) What are the competitors doing? Are there any innovative strategies that could produce product differentiation?

3) What pay-for-performance model should be adopted?

4) How to manage the affiliates and motivate them?

5) How are the affiliates paid using the latest technology without affecting their moral due, for instance, to delayed payment of their commission?

6) What affiliate software tracking systems are available and which is the best for the purpose?

A well designed affiliate program could bring very explosive positive results to the affiliate program owners’ business and the stream of income for the affiliates themselves.

An affiliate strategy done right can increase online sales tremendously. There are well over 30 affiliate software packages to choose from. There are also more than 200 features in affiliate software and network offerings.

With all these possibilities, no wonder many success stories of the Internet businesses today are the results of suitable application of affiliate programs. Indeed, most online businesses could not survive today without effective affiliate programs.

Tags: Affiliate, Income, Money, Profit, Register, Revenue, Sell, Website

Affiliated.net Announces the Launch of Peeker Video Ads

www.Affiliated.net, an Ad Network focused on ‘Web 2.0’ technologies, is announcing the initial launch of its first video ads combined with animations. Their unique approach has broken records and drastically increased CTR% and Conversion rates online. They have ‘broken free’ from embedded video, and create customized videos for advertisers and major brands. The approach is likened to many TV Networks, which they have termed “Peeker Ads”. The advertisements ‘peek’ or animate onto webpages much like you see on major TV Networks now. The new approach online is unobtrusive and visitors seem to enjoy watching these video ads to learn more without having to leave the page or open a new window.

“This approach is interesting as it has increased eCPM drastically when compared to any other form of creative,” says Ricky Ahjua, Director of Online Marketing at Affiliated.net. “The advertisers love it because it is customized video produced for their product or service. Video right now is very hot and publishers are ‘cashing in’ as well because of the new found space these peeker ads present. These give publishers the ability to instantly plug into true targeted video advertisements that are generating click through rate percentages 20% and higher. It is a new frontier of online advertising.”

Affiliated.net seems to have perfected the process, utilization and monetization of video advertisements and brings videos quickly and efficiently to any campaign to increase and enhance online campaigns. They are definitely on the front edge of the wave; large advertisers such as www.Google.com and www.MSN.com are both looking into like technologies.

Merchants and Publishers get these videos peeker advertisements absolutely free when they partner with the Affiliated, letting Affiliated shoulder the cost of production while increasing ROI and conversion rates for merchants, in most cases for a revenue share partnership.

“Publishers are often constrained by limited tools and services provided to them by their networks” says Chris Kautz, Director of Business Development at Affiliated.net. “Affiliated’s videos are provided with customizable players and peeker ads to blend in with sites and give a variety of options as to a video’s look and feel.” They have complete control over how many times these videos are played for a viewer, delay time, positioning and so on. These are merely the first options available, after the initial run of these videos; more options will be gradually added for the publishers benefit. Affiliated.net is constantly working to improve its offerings and provide more options for its partners.”

About Affiliated.net:
Affiliated.net has taken the next leap in Affiliate Marketing and produced the highest responding vehicle on the internet today – Video!
We have opened the world of online video advertising to Publishers and Advertisers with the launch of a Web 2.0 Ad Network. To learn more about Affiliated.net visit www.affiliated.net.

Tags: Ads, Affiliate, Google, MSN, Revenue, Web 2.0

My Reliable Hosting – Wide Selection

In addition to the many conveniences and headaches brought on by our increasing reliance on the world wide web, this new form of communication, advertising and commerce has brought with it an altered mindset for the new consumer; we want it fast, we want it now, we want it perfect. From small ecommerce web sites to large organizations, reliable hosting is the key to ensure that customers and viewers see the same site at the same speed every time they visit their favorites. Reliable web hosting services provide the space, along with support (often 24/7) and the all important bandwidth. Reliable hosting is key to success in that it gives the consumer a consistent experience while preventing down time, that could cost the company in question hundreds, and maybe thousands in revenue.

There is a fine selection of reliable web-hosting services online. Often these services host in a specific region. There is a multitude of web sites on the internet advertising the services of one or another reliable hosting company. Luckily, there are also a couple out there to help you choose what is right for your company. Netcraft and Web hosting Inspector are two examples of such sites.

Web hosting Inspector provides a comprehensive spreadsheet listing independent test results, awards, rankings services and prices for various reliable web hosters. Though helpful, Web hosting Inspector feels a lot like paid advertising. A better choice is Netcraft. Netcraft supplies a lot of the same info as Web hosting Inspector, but also gives in depth analysis regarding down time, a fate worse than death to any e-commerce entrepreneur. Very often, these companies are run from private homes, a low cost, high return way for the internet savvy to make an income. However, the very “under the radar” nature of some of these businesses makes it all the more crucial that sites such as Netcraft exist, providing checks and balances to an otherwise turbulent industry.

You cannot have a company on the internet without a reliable hosting provider, with a team of dependable customer service. Their services are important to keep your e-commerce site consistent; visually consistent, service oriented and most importantly, consistently lucrative.

As the use of the Internet increases every day, with more people than ever before utilizing the World Wide Web to find products and services they need, reliable web site hosting becomes a bigger issue. Consumers will not continue using companies who have web sites that are slow loading or are constantly having technical difficulties and down time. It could be the death of a growing online company to have a site that’s unavailable for any legthy time frame because of a server problem. The choice of a reliable web site hosting company is then imperative.

Online companies along with individuals will want to select a reliable web hosting company that also offers great customer service, fair and competitive pricing plus first class management. There are some suggestions you will want to remember when looking for a reliable web hosting company. If you are seeking quality and reliability you will want to do a some research before you make your final decision.

When you are ready to start a web site either for business or personal needs, you need to find a reliable hosting service. The reason for this is because that will be the place you keep the web pages for viewing by consumers and possible business clients. If you are just starting with an online presence either as an e-commerce venture or even as an individual you want to first understand the basics of web hosting. A server is a computer that gets the requests for pages or files from the Internet. When someone types in a domain name a server somewhere is accessed. It then shows the requested pages or files to the computer requesting the information. Another way to look at a reliable web host is, they are a landlord renting you space on their computer to others. You then have a choice between shared hosting or dedicated hosting. The difference is evident in the name. A shared host shares it’s server with more than one client and a dedicated host has one client on it’s server. Dedicated servers normally are used by e-commerce sites that require a large amount of space disk space and more personal management plus cost a little more.

As the Internet is growing so is the number of companies offering hosting services and the more competitive the market is becoming. Some offer inexpensive monthly prices, some even offer free hosting. As a business free web hosting may sound like a great solution however; having a website that is also shows advertising that may or may not compete with your online business is not a very good idea. In general a free web host does not have the quality of customer service a paid reliable web hosting company would have. These servers are also normally crowded with personal web pages and have limited options. Many have technical issues that may include down times which could have a negative effect on your new business. These are all factors you need to consider.

Paying more for a reliable web hosting company is a better option. You want to make a good entrance into the web and if you are already established you want to keep your appearance and your clients experiences positive. Another issue to think about is future expansion. A reliable web hosting company can offer a multitude of services and packages to grow as you do. When choosing a reliable web hosting company think of it as a long term business arrangement.

Before looking into reliable hosting options make a list of what is going to be important to you. This not only in regards to the web site, but to other aspects such as budgets, what you want to accomplish, short and long term goals. All these factors need to be considered. Sit down with other companies about their relationships involving several different reliable web hosting companies. This may give you a great place to start your search.

We mentioned budgets which most start up businesses need to deal with. A word of caution here, a reliable web host may not necessarily be the cheapest but you will get what you pay for. Reliable web hosting can be found at a price to fit just about every imaginable budget.

Tags: Ads, Domain, Income, Revenue, Website

Sports Betting Affiliates: Taking Affiliate Commissions Seriously

Affiliate schemes are not simply a way for big websites to get bigger and small affiliates to earn a couple of dollars here and there. It has become a multi-million dollar business, encouraging thousands of small site owners all around the world to give it a go. Like so many of the online ventures there is very little guarantee of success, but unlike so many others the price of failure is very slight. For little or no investment a site owner can turn their web space into an affiliate marketing forum. However like in most businesses the more time and money you invest the more likely the rewards are.

If you are going to become an affiliate you need to identify your market. Selecting the largest industries and reputable names can further your chances of picking up more visitors and thus heightening the possibility of making money. One of the largest industries in terms of current revenue and potential growth is that of online gaming. Within the gaming sector there is an equally impressive number of options at an affiliates disposal. One of the broadest and traditionally popular gambling forums is that of sports betting. Both the offline and online business of sports gambling have taken off in recent years, thanks in part to the explosion of the online industry. Now the Internet is full of sports betting sites, with each one clambering for users& custom and it is here that the affiliate industry provides the perfect partner.

Although the affiliate industry is largely separate from that of the world of sports betting, the two effectively need each other to continue to grow and make money. The affiliates earn money by encouraging visitors on their sites to join one of the sports betting sites that they advertise for. With affiliate sites being paid either a percentage of a players lifetime money generated or a flat rate one off figure, it stands to reason that they will be looking to attract more people to the sites they represent. Because the more clicks they get the more money they make. So from a business point of view this represents an intriguing opportunity. Because if you can get a small clientele of players each earning you between 15 and 30% each time they play, then you can earn a bit of money. But expand this further and create a site or a group of sites that can generate huge volumes of players and it doesn’t take much to realise that you can soon be earning a substantial amount of money.

The most successful affiliate offers people a service, using advertising as a faux subsidiary device. They may offer reviews on betting sites or just own a sports website that generates a good regular crowd. Just by having advertising visible or by selling the product in a hard sell atmosphere an affiliate can easily convert hits on their site in clicks on their banners. If your affiliate site can draw in just a few each and every day then it doesn’t take long until the site begins raking in serious amounts of custom and eventually cash.

Tags: Affiliate, Money, Revenue, Sell, Website

Adsense Alternatives For Your Blog Part 1

Adsense Alternatives For Your Blog Part 1

Many people have started using Google&s AdSense program to make cash on their blogs, but there are some who find it a bit too uncertain or simply not suiting their own requirements from an ad program.

But thankfully for such people, there are many alternatives to AdSense to help make you cash from your blog that attempt to alleviate some of the Adsense shortcomings. Here is a list of the most noteworthy ones from the lot with a description concerning each one.

AllFeeds (http://www.allfeeds.com/?action=publishers)
AllFeeds has a great pool of online advertisers to choose from to place on your blog. It also features many display formats that you can choose from. These include banners, buttons, XML feeds, DHTML pop-ups and so on. It also features real time reporting of your ad status. The site will mail a check every month, provided that you earn more then $25.00, while rolling over earnings for the next month if you don’t. Another interesting thing about AllFeeds is that it integrates with Google AdSense, maximizing your earnings with AdSense.

MarketBanker (http://www.marketbanker.com/mb/sell.php)
MarketBanker allows you the unique possibility to set the pricing for your blog. It also allows you to allow or reject any link that appears on your site (although AdSense itself does a very good job of this as well, with URL filters) There’s also a statistics section which will allow you to see how well your site is doing. The ads are small just like AdSense&s and they&re just as easy to set up. Also, registration for MarketBanker is free.

BidClix ( http://www.bidclix.com/PubTop.html)
BidClix is different because it has advertisers compete for clicks on your blog, which in turn is meant to generate the highest possible profits for your blogs pages. It also has a very large pool of advertisers which ensure there are plenty of people to choose your site. However, it does require more polish on site contents then AdSense. As most sites, real time statistics are available and its very easy to get started with this service, but it’s also very flexible.

Chitika (http://www.realcontext.com/index.php?option=RealContext:+Contextual+Targeting+Engine)
RealContext uses Artificial intelligence to retrieve the most relevant ads for your page. And there’s an extra feature which makes RealContext unique as well. Keywords are selected based upon which previous selections paid off and which didn’t. That means there’s a constant feedback process that ensures you gain better revenue from your ads. It also supports blocking certain adds and child-safe filtering and many more options.

AdHearus (http://adhearus.com/webmaster.php)
AdHearus is a very feature-packed contextual ad provider. As with AdSense, advertisements are targeted but it doesn’t stop here at all. The ads are very flexible, you can select from text-ads, banners, rectangles, pop-ups, pop-unders or skyscrapers. You can also display your own ads, through rotation, both on your site and on other affiliate sites, which makes AdHearus a hybrid with conventional advertising technologies. There’s a very comprehensive on-line real time reporting feature and, as usual with such services, starting out is free and it’s a breeze.

AffiliateSensor (http://www.affiliatesensor.com/)
AffiliateSensor has highly customizable ad blocks, which you can make for yourself with an easy to use on-line interface. You also get realtime reporting with clicks-by-domain, page and referrer. There’s integration with Google AdSense as well, through the google_alternate_ad_url so AffiliateSensor can be used as a substitute for Google PSA&s (Public Service Ads).

Kanoodle Bright Ads (http://www.kanoodle.com/about/brightads.cool)
Kanoodle&s offering allows publishers to get ads related to topics or segments, and not the traditional keyword oriented ads. The site also groups publisher sites with advertisers by hand to ensure high-revenue generating ads. And speaking of revenue, the amount of money you receive is a clear 50% share of the amount of money Kanoodle receives for an advertiser.

TargetPoint (http://publisher.targetpoint.com)
TargetPoint is oriented more towards content publishers. It offers full control over the look the ads, statistics over your site&s overall performance and better revenue. It’s free to register and you earn a guaranteed 60% of the total revenue. You can get paid with Paypal of Bank checks and (most times) wire transfers as well.

Clicksor (http://www.clicksor.com)
Clicksor will earn you as much as 60% from the amount of money your website produces. What you get is about the same as AdSense, there are targeted text ads, you can view the revenues from your website in real time. You can receive money via PayPal or through a check every two weeks, provided that you have earned more then $50. If you haven&t made that much, your earning roll over to the next period

Tags: Ads, Adsense, Affiliate, Blog, Domain, Google, Money, Profit, Register, Revenue, Sell, Website