Making technology easier to understand.
Over the past two months I have been testing out Chitika advertisements on Technically Easy. Unless you arrived from search engines you may have never seen these ads displayed on my blog. Similar to Google’s AdSense, Chitika pays you each time a visitor clicks an ad that they display.
While I had some high hopes for Chitika, I can’t say that I am impressed with the results of displaying their ads. In this post I will discuss my findings and thoughts about this ad network.
For many months now I have been using OIOpublisher to provide private advertising on Technically Easy. While I could easily do it myself without any help, using OIOpublisher has made offering private advertising very easy.
Last month the author of OIOpublisher released a new version that adds even more functionality to the already amazing tool. I have just upgraded to the lastest version and have had no issues since the upgrade. OIOpublisher is perhaps the most versatile private advertising tool available for both web sites and blogs.
Some time ago, I joined Entrecard, which allows you to advertise your blog’s business card (a 125×125 pixel image) on other blogs. You do this by earning Entrecard credits, and then spending those credits advertising on other blogs.
Recently, there has been talk about whether Entrecard is good to join, and whether traffic generated from it is good or bad traffic. Just as with other new ventures, Entrecard has both good and bad points that I will outline in this post.
There has been much talk on how to make money on the Internet. There are many ways to make money, and I will discuss some of the ways in this post.
If you have an existing Web site this is perhaps the easiest method to implement. There are many advertisers on the Internet that you can sign up with, and they will in turn provide you with code to add to any Web page. Once you add the code, advertisement will then start appearing on the page, usually specific to the topic discussed on the Web page. Many people choose Google’s AdSense for the advertisements, although there are many other companies that can also provide advertisments. After doing a search on the Internet you will find many people who have had great financial success with advertising on their Web site. See also I decided to name this point as “Auction Selling” and not “eBay Selling.” I did this because there are many other auction sites online that many people have chosen over eBay, most notably because the fees are lower. Regardless of the fees; however, online auction selling can be very profitable, any many people successfully run a home-based business just by selling on one of these sites. See also eBay. This is probably the most involved method of making money online, as it requires you to manage your inventory, setup merchant accounts, handle shipping, create a Web site storefront, and many other things that go along with a business. If you prefer to just create the Web site to sell the products, and have someone else do the inventory management and shipping you may want to look into dropshipping. See also Shopster.com. As with any business venture, those listed in this post require hardwork and time. Making money online is not a “get rich quick” scheme, and you may find that you will be working as many hours as a regular 9 to 5 job.
Advertising on a Web Site
Auction Selling
Online Store
Summary
There is much discussion on how to generate traffic to your Web site, but I decided to list a few points on the methods I like to use.
You may have heard that "content is king." What does this mean? Visitors to your site like to read updated and unique content. This means you must update your Web site on a regulary basis to keep your visitors coming back for more. Search engines also love unique content. The more content you have the more you will get listed in search engines. When you first start a site search engines may be your main traffic generator so it’s best to get listed in them. Also remember to check your spelling and grammar. When writing your content, write it for your visitors and not search engines. This means don’t load up the content with keywords that is hard to read and understand. You need your visitors to keep coming back and not the search engines. If you write unique content the search engines will list you…don’t worry. This is a big part of getting listed in search engines, and thus getting more traffic. The more quality Web sites that link to yours, the better search engine rank you will receive. You should have sites that share the same niche as your site link back to you. When a search engine indexes the other site, it will find the link to yours and then index your site. Besides search engines, there is another type of site you should get listed in: a directory. A directory is a list of Web sites that are organized into various categories. Many of these Web sites are very popular so getting listed in one of them can help you generate traffic. A bonus to getting listed in a directory is that they usually have a high page rank, which will help increase yours. Do a search for directories that contain your Web site niche and get added. See also Open Directory Project. I put these two into the same point because they essentially do the same thing: you leave comments and a link to your Web site. Let me explain. Do a search for a forum that is related to your niche, and sign up. Add your Web site name and URL in your signature to your profile. Now leave comments to some of the posts in the forum. Search engines will index forums, and at the same time will find the link in your signature which will once again act as a link back to your site. Leaving comments in blogs acts the same way as comments in forums. See also Website Babble. Ezine articles are similar to magazine articles except they appear online. There are several free Web sites that allow you to write your own article. These are great as you can become a well-known leader in your niche. You should then put a link at the end of your article to your Web site, so anyone reading it can click the link and go to your site. Search engines will also index any article you have written. Other sites that also enjoy your article may print your article with the link to your Web site included. You can’t get any better than that for something that cost you nothing but time. See also Ezine Articles. This one is important to get your visitors to return. Make sure your site is easy to read and navigate. Having light grey text on a white background may be hard for some to easily read, so use black instead. A visitor to your site should be able to understand how to navigate within the first few seconds of loading the page. Keep the navigation simple, such as a menu on one side of the page or across the top. If you have a blog make sure you submit your feed to various Web sites. A feed is the content that you have created in a specific format. You can also create feeds for a regular Web site as well. See also Feedburner or Ping-o-matic. This point is not one to generate traffic as much as revenue, but I felt it important to list, as it can reduce your traffic. Placing advertising on your site is a debatable issue. The issue that is up for debate is when should you place advertisment: when you first start your Web site, or when you get a large number of visitors? My take on the issue is that it is your choice, just don’t load your site with advertisment. I hate sites that display advertisement at almost all possible locations on a Web page: top, bottom, left and right. I prefer that the advertisement be in one location and blend into the site and not stand out.
