How to add AdSense to WordPress

With WordPress you can easily add your AdSense code to your blog. In order to do this, first login to the administrative end of your website. Then, go to the Appearance -> Widgets menu.

In this page select to add a "Text" widget and click on the "Add" button next to it.

Then a new window with your widget will open. Click on the edit link in its right part in order to open the edit panel of the widget. You should add a title (in our case - Advertisement) and right under it the actual code that you have obtained from Google. Next, click on the "Done" button and after that on the "Save Changes" button right under it.

Well done! You have just added your AdSense code to your WordPress blog.

WordPress Plugin for Simple Google Adsense Insertion/Integration

Easy to use WordPress plugin to insert Google Adsense to your posts, pages and sidebar by using a trigger text or calling the php function.

There are many plugins and services which can add Google Adsense to your WordPress site. However I found that even though something like Adsense Manager or Adsense Deluxe provides a lot of customizable options, it can be overwhelming and isn’t really simple enough for people who are new to WordPress or for people who simply want to insert Google Adsense to their site in a few clicks.

I found that most of the time I only use two or three types of Google Adsense units in various places and posts throughout my sites. Google’s Adsense policy mentions to not have more than three adsense block in one page anyway. That’s why I wrote my own Simple Adsense Insertion Plugin for WordPress, to focus on having 1-3 Google Adsense codes saved and use them where ever I want on my site by inserting a simple trigger text to my posts,pages and sidebar.

Installation

1. Unzip and Upload the folder ‘WP-Simple-Adsense-Insertion’ to the ‘/wp-content/plugins/’ directory.
2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress.
3. Go to Settings and configure the options eg. Copy and paste the Google Adsense code that you want to use.
4. Add the trigger text [wp_ad_camp_1] to a post or page where u want it to appear.

Usage

There are two ways you can use this plugin:

1. Add one of the following shortcodes (trigger text) on a post or page

• [wp_ad_camp_1]
• [wp_ad_camp_2]
• [wp_ad_camp_3]
• [wp_ad_camp_4]

2. Call one of the functions from your theme’s template file:

• <?php echo show_ad_camp_1(); ?>
• <?php echo show_ad_camp_2(); ?>
• <?php echo show_ad_camp_3(); ?>
• <?php echo show_ad_camp_4(); ?>

Change Log

• Version 1.1
  • Fixed an issue whereby sometimes Google Adsense code were disappearing from the settings page in some WordPress themes.
• Version 1.2
• • Devlin from wptheming.com added proper shortcode implementation for placing the ads (this way you don’t have to use the old filtering options anymore)
• Version 1.3
• • Added shortcode filtering on sidebar
• Version 1.4
• • Added shortcode filtering on widget text and excerpt

Additional Documentation

How to Add Google Adsense to the Sidebar

You can use the shortcodes (example: [wp_ad_camp_1]) in the sidebar to show Google Adsense ad in the sidebar widget. Simply ad a text widget to your sidebar and place the shortcode in there.

Alternatively, you can add Google Adsense on the sidebar using the ‘Simple Adsense Integration’ Plugin by using the following PHP function:

<?php echo show_ad_camp_1(); ?>

If you are calling the function from the theme’s template file (sidebar.php) then you are fine but there is another way to do this using the widgets which could be more practical in some cases.

1. Download and activate the Executable PHP code plugin if you don’t have it already. This plugin lets you call php functions from the widgets (it’s similar to the Text widget but it lets you execute PHP code too).

2. Go to the widgets menu and add a ‘PHP Code’ widget to the sidebar (where you want to display the Google Adsense block). Now add the following line of code and save the settings:

<?php echo show_ad_camp_1(); ?>

This will display an The Google Adesne ad that is saved in the number one textarea of this plugin.

How to Wrap Text Around a Google Adsense Block

To left align the Adsense block and wrap text around it just use the following div for the Adsense unit in HTML view:

<div style=”float: left;”>
Adsense Goes Here
</div>

To right align the Adsense block and wrap text just change “float: left;” to “float: right;”. So for an example, the following will left align the Adsense Unit that is saved in the Ad Campaign 1 box and wrap text around it.

<div style=”float: left;”>
[wp_ad_camp_1]
</div>

If you need help with this plugin or want to suggest an enhancement/feature then please let me know by leaving a comment in the comment area below.

Also, checkout the list of best WordPress plugins to find out what other plugins you should be using.

Make Money on Blogger with Google AdSense

An introduction to Google AdSense for Blogger users.

How To Make Money With Google Adsense

If you have a website or a blog, you should definitely sign up for Google Adsense. It’s one of the few programs you can truly ‘set and forget’ – once it’s there you don’t really need to do much else with it.

But there are ways and means to maximize your income from Google Adsense, and as you get to know more about it you can start to generate a decent income from it that will keep rolling in month after month. It’s a true passive income, which is why so many people are using it.

Most people have heard of Google Adsense, but not everyone understands exactly how to use it to its best advantage. So we’ll start with how to use it in its most basic sense and then progress to the more advanced benefits you can get from the program.

Basically if you have a website or blog you can sign up for a free account at Google Adsense and start putting contextual ads on your website. What do I mean by contextual? It means quite simply that the ads which appear on your site will be relevant to your content. So let’s say for example that your website is about tropical fish. The Google ads will then be related to tropical fish in some way. And because of the information that you give to Google, they will also display adverts that are relevant to your area. So if you are based in the UK the ads that appear will be relevant to UK buyers; if your site or business is based in Australia the ads will appeal to Australian buyers.

All of this is carefully worked out for you in order to attract the maximum click through possible for your website and your ads. Every time someone clicks on an ad you will get a few cents into your Adsense account, so it makes sense that the more attractive and relevant your ads are to your visitors, the more money you will make.

Let’s have a look at the appearance of your ads now, since this can affect the amount of click throughs you get. You can choose the color and borders of your ads to fit right in with the color scheme on your site if you wish, but it’s worth experimenting with having no borders at all around your adverts since this makes them blend in with your content more seamlessly and may encourage more click throughs in a subtle but effective manner.

However well you integrate Google Adsense into your current blog or website though, there is obviously a limit to the amount of money you can make from one site. If you get thousands of people visiting your site every day then you can expect to get a good income from it but many people don’t get this number of visitors and that’s where you need a separate strategy to try and up your numbers.

In this case you can go to the advanced level of Adsense income and think about starting several sites, all based around a different yet popular subject. You should think of these essentially as being content sites, since they are often chock full of articles and useful content which is carefully keyworded to attract plenty of search engine traffic on that particular subject. The Adsense ads are then placed in the optimum positions to achieve the best click through (the Adsense pages will give you ideas on where to position them but it’s worth experimenting to see what works best for you), and the site goes live for people to find and read through.

You can also insert affiliate links for products into these sites in order to gain even more income if you wish, but they are often known as Adsense sites simply because they are set up to attract visitors and click throughs on a specific subject.

Some people end up with dozens of sites like this, and the beauty of them is that once they are built and you have bought your domain name and hosting plan you don’t really need to do too much with them except for promote them. Updating them fairly regularly is good if you want to get to a higher position in the search engine results though, which will gain you more visitors as a result.

You can also keep your site updated more regularly (and encourage repeat visitors) by inserting RSS feeds of news stories related to the subject of your website. Anything that will get people returning to read more – and possibly click on more ads as a result – is worth a try.

One final note here – choose the subjects of your Adsense sites wisely. It’s tempting to go for whatever is in the news at the moment, but once the stories die down so will your traffic. You want something that people will always want to know about – saving money, getting a better job, earning more, and various other more personal subjects such as skin care and successful dating for example. There are plenty of options to choose from; you just need to get your thinking cap on to find them.

In short the best place to start making money from Google Adsense is to integrate it into your existing website or blog. As you gain experience and discover the best ways to use it you can start thinking about adding extra sites into the mix. You might end up being an Adsense guru and raking in plenty of money for very little work indeed. That’s the best thing about it – the ‘set and forget’ benefit that keeps on working even when you’re not.

If you enjoyed this article or have any questions or comments about it, please leave them by using the form below. Once you’ve done that it will be time to visit Google’s Adsense site to get started! Good luck.

How do I get started making money with Google AdSense?

I've been reading a bit about how people can make money off their Web site by joining up with the Google AdSense program, but I really don't understand how it all works. Do I need to find advertisers? Do I bill them for showing up on my site? Or does Google do all this? Thanks a million (hopefully!)
Dave's Answer:

You're not alone in being interested in the terrific Google AdSense program. Leveraging its powerful page analysis system, Google's AdSense program automatically matches the best possible advertisements with the content on your Web page, making the ads magically quite relevant to your content.

Behind the scenes, it works like this: an advertiser goes to the Google AdWords system, signs up, and creates one or more advertisements that they want to pay to have appear either on Google's search result pages or on "content pages". Those content pages are Web sites run by individuals and organizations that include AdSense, which is the "consume" side of this equation.

What makes this more interesting is that advertisers don't pay to have their adverts show up on either Google or separate content sites, but instead pay when the ads are clicked by customers, what we call "pay per click" or PPC. A percentage of the amount that the company pays Google for displaying the ad is then shared with the AdSense-enabled web site owner.

If, say, the advertiser pays $1.00 for a visitor to their site through AdWords, then Google will pay a percentage of that amount (the exactly amount has not been stated by the company) to you, perhaps $0.20, perhaps more.

I realize that $0.20 doesn't sound like much money, but if you have a few hundred visitors a week, and some percentage of them click on these adverts, you could easily make $20-$50 or much (much!) more from your site each week, without having to do any work other than add the special AdSense code to the pages in the first place.

It's simple, easy to accomplish, you never have to negotiate (or even talk) with advertisers, you don't have to bill anyone at all, and every month or two you'll get a nice little check from Google corporate. Nice!

So let's talk about the exact steps required to actually get going with the AdSense program. First and foremost, you need to sign up for the AdSense program, which you can do by clicking in the cheery button:

Note that when you sign up, you'll need to specify a Web site or weblog that you plan on incorporating AdSense: not every site is approved, however, so make sure yours has valuable and unique content and a design that doesn't include too many advertisements.

Once you're approved, it's time to log in and configure your new AdSense advertisement to include on your site!

When you first log in, you'll see the following navigational bar:

Google AdSense Navigational Bar

Click on "AdSense for Content" and you'll be ready to configure your ad. Now, don't worry: configuration is pretty easy and kinda fun too, you get to pick colors, sizes, and much more.

Once you've clicked on the "AdSense for Content" tab, your next step will be to decide what type of advertisements you want Google to serve up on your own pages:

Google AdSense Ad Types

I suggest you start out with a text "Ad unit", as shown here: the other type of content adverts are less generally useful, less flexible, and typically also have a much lower payout, according to the grapevine. When you are ready, note that you can learn more about the different formats by clicking on any of the last three lines in that view.

The next section of your task is to specify the format and layout of your AdSense ad, and there are a rather amazing number of different size and format options. Google has a helpful AdSense Ad Format Reference Page that's worth a quick peek.

Here at Ask Dave Taylor, I use a Leaderboard (728x90) on the top of the home page and a Large Rectangle (336x280) on this very page. Your layout will inevitably be different and you might choose a different layout entirely. Further, you are allowed to have up to three different ad units on a given page, so you can experiment with them one atop the other, adjacent to each other, or interspersed with your content. Just try to remember that if there's no content, there's no page. :-)

Now that you've picked an ad layout size (and yes, you can change it at any time too) it's time to have the most fun: changing the color scheme of the ad itself. My handy tip: use a border color that's the same as the background color of your page (as I do on this page) so that it's less overt that the ads are actually advertisements. It helps people not gloss over them and, hopefully, click on the ads a bit more frequently.

The built-in color schemes are nice too, of course, if you want to use them, but just as with the sizes, I strongly recommend that you experiment with different color schemes and see if you get a better percentage of clickthrus and greater revenue. Perhaps every Sunday night you can change to another color scheme and then track week-by-week what works best?

The next step is to specify an alternate Ad URL or color, and a specific channel for your ad:

Google AdSense Channels

The idea behind alternate ads is that sometimes no advertisers have bid on advertising for the keywords, leading Google to a pickle: what to display? By default, it instead displays public service ads (PSAs), but if you want to create an HTML snippet that produces the same size content, you can use that instead, or, you can simply have a solid box in the color of your choice that blends into the design of your site.

I am a much stronger supporter of channels, however. Channels let you organize your AdSense results by Web site (if you have more than one site) or by areas of your site. On this site, for example, I have a channel for "home page leaderboard" and another for "large rectangle" so I can compare how each format is doing, rather than just guessing in the aggregate. It's much easier to start correctly than to retrofit this sort of thing, so take the time and set up a basic channel or two to begin categorizing your results.

Finally, you've made all the settings you need and it's time to grab the HTML snippet that'll generate the ad block on your own site!

Google AdSense Ad Code

Your specifics will be a bit different from what you see in this screen shot, but the code will generally look identical. Just select all the text in the box, then use Edit --> Copy to get that code into your copy/paste buffer.

Now open up a page where you'd like to include the AdSense code, or a template if you're working with something like a weblog system, and paste in the new code by using Edit --> Paste.

Save your template and rebuild your site, or, if it's just a page, save the page back onto the server and bring it up in your web browser. That's it!

Important Warning: do not click on your ads!

I think one of the most common mistakes that new AdSense participants make is to click on an advert or three to "make a quick buck". Sounds good in theory, but you'll end up kicked out of the AdSense program if you click on ads shown on your own pages, which is not a good strategy for earning money!

Anyway, that's the basic set of steps. Don't delay and don't wait for tomorrow: pop back up to the beginning of this article to sign up for AdSense, then go through these steps and you can start turning your cost center of a Web site into a revenue generation system, modest or otherwise!

.. and who knows, maybe you'll see one of my own advertisements on your site!

One final tip: If you're serious about increasing your AdSense earnings, you might want to consider buying a copy of my friend Joel Comm's AdSense Secrets. It's jam-packed with great advice and ideas about maximizing your clickthru rate and traffic.

Top 15 Reasons You Aren’t Making Money With Google Adsense

15. Your don’t understand how to brainstorm for keywords. This isn’t meant to offend anyone, but there’s a solid chance that you consistently choose the same keywords as everyone else. Niche keywords that you wouldn’t easily think of are by far the best keywords for Adsense and ‘make money online’ keywords are probably some of the worst.

14. Your ad placement is poor. I still see a lot of people that are only using vertical banners in their sidebars. These honestly don’t get clicked nearly as often as larger, rectangle units. Inserting large and medium rectangles in your posts will almost always lead to getting more clicks. Vertical banners are a nice addition but are best used as a supplement – not as the primary unit.

13. You have Adsense on too many pages. Yes, I said you have Adsense on too many pages. Adsense should be on pages that do a good job of targeting keywords. When you put it up on pages and posts that don’t target keywords well, you will have poorly targeted traffic that either won’t click an ad or won’t convert well for the advertiser. When your clicks don’t convert well for advertisers you get SMART PRICED.

12. Your pages aren’t Adsense optimized. If the ads that show up on a page don’t match the topical content of the page/post, you have a problem that needs to be fixed. The ads that show up should be very similar to the ones that you’re trying to get traffic with. If they aren’t, they won’t convert well for the advertiser and this leads to you getting SMART PRICED.

Adsense relevancy optimization and onsite SEO are alike in a lot of different ways. To trigger the right ads on a page you should include your keyword in the HTML title, page headings, throughout the text of the page, and probably as a tag or label if your site is a blog.

11. You aren’t testing which of your pages convert well. I have started using an Adsense channel on each page that gets search traffic – at least until I know that it converts well. I know that there are a limited amount of testing channels available, but you can run a channel on a page until you know that it’s doing well. You can then remove it so that you can test the next page. If a page is converting at a low CTR, you probably have a problem with your Adsense optimization or you have a keyword that doesn’t have advertiser bids.

When I implemented channels I was blown away by which pages were doing well. Pages that I counted out were doing well and pages I thought were amazing were terrible. That led to me looking deeper into why some pages couldn’t convert to clicks while others could.

10. You target keywords with extremely low CPCs. I generally try to target keywords that have Adwords CPCs over $1. This can be checked with the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. The higher the CPC, the higher the potential to get higher paying clicks.  You can learn more about keywords in our free eBook.

9. Your focus is far too wide. I talk to people all the time that tell me how they’re adding 5-10 new articles to their sites each day. This generally leads to a site eventually having thousands of pages, most of which can’t ever produce a search visitor let alone a valuable Adsense click. Most people would do a lot better by focusing on a few key keyword targeted pages and getting people to link to them. Ask yourself what types of articles you’re adding – what is their purpose? I understand that sometimes we create articles to influence, entertain, etc. You probably shouldn’t have Adsense on those articles/pages.

8. Your ads don’t blend well with your site. Unless you have a very strange niche, matching the background color of your ads to the background color of your site will almost always generate more clicks. The color of the titles of your ads (the click-able part) should match the link color of your site or should be blue. There are exceptions but I would challenge you to test this and then try to beat it. You usually can’t.

7. You don’t know how to get people to link to your pages/posts. If you can’t generate links, you can’t get ranked. Most people spend all day working on their sites while they should be spending all day trying to figure out how to get linked to. 90/10 is the rule and that leaves you with 10% of your time to spend on your site itself and the rest figuring out how to get linked to.

6. You don’t understand how to target a keyword with a post page. This is why you generate almost all of your Adsense clicks on your home page. This problem combined with not understanding how to get linked to causes a nasty inability to get traffic and clicks.

5. You struggle to choose profitable topics. You will therefore probably choose to do ‘make money online’ because everyone else is doing it. Understanding the metrics of choosing solid keywords is a crucial aspect of making money with Adsense.

4. You don’t know how to judge your competition. That means you’ll get yourself into trying to rank for keywords that are above your skill set and this causes you to get discouraged and stop working. After a few months you will get more determined and will then continue to pursue the keywords that are above your skill set. This vicious cycle repeats again and again.

3. You have information addiction. Instead of acting on what you know, you try to add to what you know. You know who you are – you argue SEO theory on every site imaginable even though you’ve never made enough money through SEO to buy a new computer. At some point you need to walk away from the sites you love and start making it happen.

2. You’re too lazy to test. There are a lot of metrics you can test while using Adsense. You can test your ad placement, background color, link color, text color, and ad size. If you’re too lazy to do performance optimization on any of your sites, you are probably seriously under-performing. I can’t stress this enough – every single site will be different. One theme will work great in one niche, and terribly on another. One unit will work great on one site, and bad on another.

1. You’re a blogger. Yes, this can be a huge problem when you’re trying to make money with Adsense. It’s very easy to get caught up in becoming famous and as a result, you may sacrifice your original goal – to make money. Blogging and Adsense don’t work together as well as many people believe and if you lose focus you may lose your ability to make money.

Blogging can work very well with Adsense if you do proper testing, have the right focus, and use it on the right pages. In my opinion most bloggers are probably getting smart priced. Some can still make money and some can’t. The ones that do make money could make a lot more if they got their account under control.

Making Money from Your Website/blog with Google AdSense

Google AdSense is the Google program where you can host pay-per-click ads on your Website. When someone clicks an ad, you earn money. Simple as that.

Is it really as easy to make money with Google AdSense as many would lead you to believe? Now that I've become heavily involved with managing Google AdSense programs for my clients, I can see it's not all play and no work.

Unfortunately, a lot of people bought into the idea that there was a lot of easy money to be made and they are now finding out they aren't making nearly as much as they thought they would. Additionally, Google has a lot of prohibited practices when it comes to AdSense, and too many Webmasters are finding out they violated Google's policies after the fact - often because they never bothered to read the AdSense policies in the first place.

Webmasters must not only comply with AdSense policies, but their Websites must also comply with Google's webmaster policies.

Prerequisites for Making Money with AdSense

To make money with Google AdSense you need plenty of traffic coming in to your site or there won't be anyone to click the ads. Website promotion techniques, especially search engine optimization and article marketing will bring more traffic to your site. You also need to have content that will attract the ads with the highest Pay Per Click (PPC) rate that are relevant to that content. Then, you need to lay out your web pages so the ads blend in with your site. Studies have revealed that people who visit sites that contain ads that use colors that are not in harmony with the actual Web site tend to develop "ad blindness". Meaning no matter how much traffic comes into your site, chances are no one will click the ads because they'll be ignoring them. If no one clicks, you make nothing.

Dealing with Competitors' Advertisements

If you offer products or services on your Website, the first thing you'll notice when you begin hosting PPC ads is that many of the ads are coming from your competitors. Therefore, you'll want to put ads on pages that aren't earning you any money, or do like I did and not put ads on your site until you're so busy anyway you'd rather make a few dollars off of your competitors than to continue turning business away with nothing to show for it.

Google AdSense allows you to specify up to 200 URLs for sites you want to bar from placing ads on your pages. The problem is that most times you won't know the competitors are out there until their ads appear.

Google Money Making Ad Options

Google offers three ways to make money from them:

• Google AdSense for Content - A variety of size and shape ads for placing in your content are available. These can be text or image ads or both - you specify what you'll allow. Ad units are full ads. Link units are simply a strip of text links that your visitors might want to click. Google allows you to put up to 3 Ad Units and 1 Link unit on each page of your Web site, provided you follow its policies - both for AdSense and for Webmasters.
• Google AdSense for Search - This places a search box on your Web site. When a user enters a term and conducts a search, a search results page opens, that hosts more pay-per-click ads. You can customize the color scheme of the search results page to harmonize with your web site.
• Google Referrals - Here you make money by referring visitors to use a Google product, like AdSense, AdWords, the Google Toolbar and other Google software. Just like Google AdSense for Content and AdSense for Search, Google generates the code that you paste into the desired location on your web page. You can choose from a wide variety of buttons and text links of different colors. As an example of how Google Referrals works, if someone goes to your site and clicks the link and signs up for an AdSense account, when that person earns a $100 from Google AdSense and receives a payout from Google, you'll also receive $100 for referring them. This is a great idea to me, because you can be the world's worst Google AdSense advertiser, but if an ad dynamo happens to visit your site and uses your referral link, you can make money anyway!

Google AdSense Payments

Google will not issue an AdSense payment until your earnings exceed $100. Unfortunately, there are loads of Google AdSense Forum entries about website operators who accumulated $90 or more in click through earnings only to get banned from Google and not get paid anything at all before they ever reached $100. This may be because Google doesn't take a close look to see if you're complying with their guidelines until it comes time to pay you. So yes, there's a lot more to the story than meets the eye.

Other Programs Besides AdSense

Yahoo and MSN have similar programs, although those programs aren't as well-developed as Google AdSense and there aren't as many available advertisers to display ads on your site. The fundamentals for making money are the same: You still need plenty of traffic, you still need high-paying ads, and you still need to design your site to harmonize with the ads to get people to click.

28 leading ways to make money online with your blog/website

There are several lists with “ways to make money with a website” on the Internet, but none of them seem to be complete. That is why I decided to create this one. If you know a method that is not listed below, just let us know and we’ll update it.
Notice that ways to make money with a website are different from ways to make more money from it. Methods to increase your traffic or click-through rate will help you make more money, but they do not represent a method of making money perse.

For example, one could suggest that blending AdSense ads with the content is a way to make money from a website. In reality it’s not; it’s just a way to make more money by improving your ad click-through rate. The real monetization method behind it is a PPC ad network.

The list is divided into direct and indirect methods, and examples and links are provided for each point. Enjoy!

Direct Methods
1. PPC Advertising Networks

Google AdSense is the mo st popular option under this category, but there are also others. Basically you need to sign up with the network and paste some code snippets on your website. The network will then serve contextual ads (either text or images) relevant to your website, and you will earn a certain amount of money for every click.

The profitability of PPC advertising depends on the general traffic levels of the website and, most importantly, on the click-through rate (CTR) and cost per click (CPC). The CTR depends on the design of the website. Ads placed abode the fold or blended with content, for instance, tend to get higher CTRs. The CPC, on the other hand, depends on the nice of the website. Mortgages, financial products and college education are examples of profitable niches (clicks worth a couple of dollars are not rare), while tech-related topics tend to receive a smaller CPC (sometimes as low as a couple of cents per click).

The source of the traffic can also affect the overall CTR rate. Organic traffic (the one that comes from search engines) tends to perform well because these visitors were already looking for something, and they tend to click on ads more often. Social media traffic, on the other hand, presents terribly low CTRs because these visitors are tech-savvy and they just ignore ads.

List of popular CPC advertising networks:

Google Adsense
Yahoo! Publisher Network (YPN)
BidVertiser
Chitika
Clicksor

2. CPM Advertising Networks

CPM advertising networks behave pretty much as PPC networks, except that you get paid according to the number of impressions (i.e., page views) that the ads displayed on your site will generate. CPM stands for Cost per Mille, and it refers to the cost for 1,000 impressions.

A blog that generates 100,000 page views monthly displaying an advertising banner with a $1 CPM, therefore, will earn $100 monthly.

CPM rates vary w ith the network, the position of the ad and the format. The better the network, the higher the CPM rate (because they have access to more advertisers). The closer you put the ad to the top of the page, the higher the CPM. The bigger the format (in terms of pixels), the higher the CPM.

You can get as low as $0,10 and as high as $10 per 1,000 impressions (more in some special cases). CPM advertising tends to work well on websites with a high page views per visitor ratio (e.g., online forums, magazines and so on).

List of popular CPM advertising networks:

Casale Media
Burst Media
Value Click
Advertising.com
Tribal Fusion
Right Media

3. Direct Banner Advertising

Selling your own advertising space is one of the most lucrative monetization methods. First and foremost because it enables you to cut out the middleman commissions and to determine your own rates. The most popular banner formats on the web are the 72890 leaderboard, the 120600 skyscraper, the 300250 rectangle and the 125125 button.

The downside of direct banner advertising is that you need to have a big audience to get qualified advertisers, and you will need to spend time managing the sales process, the banners and the payments.

Related links:

How to Find Advertisers for Your Website
Finding Advertisers for Your Blog
Direct Advertising Sales for Beginners
Openads Ad Server
OIO Publisher Ad Platform

4. Text Link Ads

After Google declared that sites selling text links without the nofollow tag would be penalized, this monetization method became less popular.

Many website owners are still using text links to monetize their sites, though, some using the nofollow tag and some not.

The advantage of this method is that it is not intrusive. One can sell text links directly through his website or use specialized networks like Text-Link-Ads and Text-Link-Brokers to automate the process.

Text link marketplaces and networks:

DigitalPoint Link Sales Forum
Text-Link-Ads
Text-Link-Brokers
TNX
LinkWorth

5. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a very popular practice on the Internet. Under this system you have a merchant that is willing to let other people (the affiliates) sell directly or indirectly its products and services, in exchange for a commission. Sometimes this type of advertising is also called CPA (cost per action) or CPL (cost per lead) based.

Affiliates can send potential customers to the merchant using several tools, from banners to text links and product reviews.

In order to find suitable affiliate programs you can turn to individual companies and publishers like Dreamhost and SEOBook, or join affiliate marketplaces and networks.

List of popular affiliate marketplaces and n etworks:

Commission Junction
ClickBank
Azoogle Ads
Link Share

6. Monetization Widgets

The latest trend on the web are widgets that let you monetize your website. Examples include Widgetbucks and SmartLinks. Some of these services operate under a PPC scheme, others behave like text link ads, others yet leverage affiliate links.

Their main differentiator, however, is the fact that they work as web widgets, making it easier for the user to plug and play the service on its website.

List of companies that provide monetization widgets:

WidgetBucks
ScratchBack
SmartLinks

7. Sponsored Reviews

PayPerPost pioneered this model, with much controversy on the beginning (related to the fact that they did not require disclosure on paid posts). Soon other companies followed, most notably Sponsored Reviews and ReviewMe, refining the process and expanding the paid blogging model.
Joining one of these sponsored reviews marketplaces will give you the opportunity to write sponsored posts on a wide range of topics. Not all bloggers are willing to get paid to write about a specific product or website (because it might compromise the editorial credibility), but the ones who do are making good money out of it.

If your blog has a big audience you could also offer sponsored reviews directly, cutting off the commissions of the middleman.

List of sponsored reviews and paid blogging networks:

PayPerPost
Sponsored Reviews
ReviewMe
BlogVertise
Smorty

8. RSS Feed Ads

With the quick adoption of the RSS technology by millions of Internet users, website owners are starting to find ways to monetize this new content distribution channel.

Feedburber already has its own publisher network, and you can sign-up to start displaying CPM based advertising on your feed footer. Bidvertiser recently introduced a RSS feed ad option as well, with a PPC scheme.

Finally, some blogs are also opting to sell banners or sponsored messages on their feed directly. John Chow and Marketing Pilgrim are two examples.

Related links:

Feedburner
BidVertiser
Pheedo

9. Sponsors for Single Columns or Events

If you website has specific columns or events (e.g., a weekly podcast, an interview series, a monthly survey, a special project) you could find companies to sponsor them individually.

This method increases the monetization options for website owner, while giving advertisers the possibility to target a more specific audience and with a reduced commitment.

Mashable illustrates the case well. They have several advertising options on the site, including the possibility to sponsor specific columns and articles, including the “Daily Poll” and the “Web 2.0 Invites.”

Problogger also runs g roup writing projects occasionally, and before proceeding he publicly announce the project asking for sponsors.

10.Premium Content

Some websites and blogs give away part of their content for free, and charge for access to the premium content and exclusive tools.

SEOMoz is a good example. They have a very popular blog that gives advice and information on wide range of SEO related topics. On top of that visitors can decide to become premium members. It costs $48 monthly and it grants them access to guides, tools and other exclusive material.

11. Private Forums

While the Internet is populated with free forums, there is also the possibility to create a private one where members need to pay a single or recurring fee to join.

SEO Blackhat charges $100 monthly from its members, and they have thousands of them. Obviously in order to charge such a price for a forum membership you need to provide real value for the memb ers (e.g., secret techniques, tools, and so on).

Performancing also launched a private forum recently, focused on the networking aspect. It is called The Hive, and the monthly cost is $10.

These are just two examples. There are many possibilities to create a private and profitable forum, you just need to find an appealing angle that will make it worth for the members.

List of popular forum software:

vBulletin
Simple Machines Forum
phpBB
Vanilla

12. Job Boards

All the popular blogs are trying to leverage job boards to make some extra income. Guy Kawasaki, ReadWriteWeb, Problogger you name it.

Needless to say that in order to create an active and profitable job board you need first to have a blog focused on a specific niche, and a decent amount traffic.

The advantage of this method is that it is passive. Once you have the structure in place, the job listings will come natural ly, and you can charge anywhere from $10 up to $100 for each.

List of popular job board software:

JobThread
Web Scribe Job Board
SimplyHired Job-o-matic
Jobbex

13. Marketplaces

Sitepoint is the online marketplace by excellence. Some websites and blogs, however, are trying to replicate that model on a smaller scale.

Depending on your niche, a market place that allows your visitors to buy, sell and trade products could work well. Over the time you could start charging a small fee for new product listings.

The problem with this method is that there are no standard software on the web, so you would need to hire a coder to get a marketplace integrated into your website.

You can see an example of a marketplaces being used on EasyWordpress and on Mashable.

14. Paid Surveys and Polls

There are services that will pay you money to run a small survey or poll on your website . The most popular one is called Vizu Answers.

Basically you need to sign up with them, and select the kind of polls that you want to run your site. Most of these services operate under a CPM model.

15. Selling or Renting Internal Pages

Million Dollar Wiki made this concept popular, but it was being used on the web for a long time around (check Pagerank10.co.uk for instance).

These websites sell for a single fee or rent for a recurring fee internal pages on their domain. Usually they have either high Pagerak or high traffic, so that people purchasing a page will be able to benefit in some way.

Implementing this method on a small blog would be difficult, but the concept is interesting and could be explored further.

16. Highlighted Posts from Sponsors

Techmeme probably pioneered this idea, but somehow it has not spread to other websites. The tech news aggregator displays editorial posts on the left co lumn, and on the sidebar they have a section titled “Techmeme Sponsor Posts.”

On that section posts from the blog of the advertisers get highlighted, sending qualified traffic their way. Considering that the monthly cost for one spot is $5000 and that they have around 6 sponsors at any given time, it must be working well.

17. Donations

Placing a “Donate” link or button on a website can be an efficient way to earn money, especially if your blog is on a niche where readers learn and gain value from your content.

Personal development and productivity blogs, for instance, tend to perform well with donation based systems (one good example being Steve Pavlina).

A small variation of this method appeared sometime ago with the Buy Me a Beer plugin. This WordPress plugin enables you to insert a customized message at the bottom of each article, asking the readers to chip in for a beer or coffee.

18. In-text Adverting

In-text adverting networks like Kontera and Vibrant Media will place sponsored links inside your text. These links come with a double underline to differentiate them from normal links, and once the user rolls the mouse over the link the advertising will pop. Should the user click on it the site owner will make some money.

Some people make good money with this method, but others refrain from using it due to its intrusiveness. It is also interesting to note that very few mainstream websites have experimented with in-text advertising.

19. Pop-ups and Pop-unders

Pop-ups are a common yet annoying form of advertising on the Internet. If you are just trying to make a much money as possible from your website, you could experiment with them.

If you are trying to grow the traffic and generate loyal visitors, however, you probably should stay away from them. Just consider the hundreds of pop-up blockers out there: there is a reason wh y they are so popular.

Ad networks that use pop-ups:

Tribal Fusion
PayPopup
PopupAd
Adversal

20. Audio Ads

Also called PPP (Pay Per Play), this advertising method was introduce by Net Audio Ads. the concept is pretty simple: play a small audio advertising (usually 5 seconds) every time a visitor enters into your website. The user should not be able to stop it, creating a 100% conversion rate based on unique visitors.

The company is still rolling tests, but some users are reporting to get from a $4 to a $6 CPM. Regardless of the pay rate, though, this is a very intrusive form of advertising, so think twice before using it.

21. Selling the Website

Selling your website could be your last resource, but it has the potential to generate a big sum of money in a short period of time.

Market places on online forums like DigitalPoint and Sitepoint are always active with website buyer s and sellers. Keep in mind that they most used parameter to determine the value of a website is the monthly revenue that it generates, multiplied by a certain number (the multiplier can be anything from 5 to 30, depending on the expectations of the seller, on the quality of the site, on the niche and other factors).

Some people also make money trading and flipping websites. They either create them from scratch or buy existing ones, and after some revamping they sell them for a profit.

Related links:

How To Buy A Website And Flip It For Profit
How To Sell A Website – How Much Is Your Website Worth?
Where to sell a website? How to go about selling it?

Indirect Methods
22. Selling an Ebook

Perhaps one of the oldest money making strategies on the web, using a website to promote a related ebook is a very efficient way to generate revenue.

You could either structure the website around the book itself , like SEOBook.com, or launch the ebook based on the success of the website, like FreelanceSwitch did we the book How to be a Rockstar Freelancer.

Related links:

Writing an ebook for your blog
How to sell ebooks
Processing payments for your ebook
How to sell digital products online
List of ebook selling software

23. Selling a Hardcover Book

Many authors and journalists leverage their blogs or websites to sell copies of hardcover books. Examples include Guy Kawasaki, Seth Godin and Malcolm Gladwell.

While most of these people were already renowned authors before they created their website, one could also follow the other way around. Lorelle VanFossen did exactly that with her Blogging Tips book. First she built her authority on the subject via her blog, and afterwards she published the book.

List of self publishing and publishing services:

Lulu
Self Publishing
iUniverse< br />WordClay

24. Selling Templates or WordPress Themes

As more and more people decide to get an online presence, website templates and WordPress themes become hotter and hotter.

On this segment you have mainstream websites like TemplateMonster, as well as individual designers who decide to promote and sell their work independently.

Brian Gardner and Unique Blog Designs are two examples of websites that make money with the sales of premium and custom WordPress themes.

25. Offering Consulting and Related Services

Depending on your niche, you could make money by offering consulting and related services. If you are also the author of your blog, the articles and information that you will share will build your profile and possibly certify your expertise on that niche, making it easier to gain customers.

Chris Garrett used a similar strategy. First he created a highly influential blog on the blogging and new media niche, and afterwards he started offering consulting services to clients with related problems and needs.

26. Creating an Email List or Newsletter

Email lists and newsletters represent one of the most powerful marketing and money making tools on the Internet. They offer incredible conversion rates, and the possibility to call people to action in a very efficient way.

Creating a big list is a difficult task though, so if you have a popular website you could leverage it to increase the number of subscribers on your list.

Yaro Starak is a famous Internet marketer, and if you visit his blog you will notice that right on top he has a section encouraging visitors to subscribe to his email newsletter. Yaro generates five figures in revenues each month from his email newsletters, proving that this method works.

List of software to manage email newsletters:

AWeber
SendStudio NX
PHP Autoresponder
Constant Contact

27. Mentoring programs

People are willing to pay for someone or something that will teach them and give them knowledge (as opposed to mere information). Education is one of the biggest industries in the world, and the online landscape behaves in a similar way.

Creating a mentoring program related to the niche of your website could be very profitable if you manage to structure and promote it adequately. There is a wide range of media and tools that you can use to deliver the information, from text articles to audio and video lessons.

Brian Clark leveraged the success of Copyblogger to launch a mentoring program teaching people how to build membership and how to sell content online. The program is titled Teaching Sells, and it costs $97 monthly. Sounds expensive, but they have over 1,000 members.

28. Creating a conference around the website.