Monetize Your Website

 There are two principle ways you can monetize your site:

• Affiliate Programs
• PPC advertising i.e. Google Adwords

Affiliate Programs

  Affiliate programs were up until recently (2004) the number 1 way web site owners started to make money with their websites. Although affiliate programs can be very lucrative they are not the easiest method to use for beginners.

Contextual  Advertising i.e Google Adsense

PPC advertising (Google Adwords) is by far the easiest method for website owners to begin to monetize their website. It is the easiest because all you need to do is to paste a small bit of code (Google provide it) into your web pages and Viola-it's done.

 There is no code to update no special offers to promote, you just keep writing web pages and include the Google code. You don't need to monitor multiple affiliate programs and cash lots of small checks. You just get a single check from Google.

Not only does Contextual  Advertising generate revenue for the website owner it also provides valuable resources for the website visitor, as the adverts are target adverts that relate to the web page content ( so called contextual ads).

So if you haven't already started with PPC adverts then your letting money slip through your fingers and denying your visitors access to related resources.

Choosing a Method

Most websites operate a mixture of both affiliate programs and PPC advertising. The decision then comes down to the mixture. One of the most common questions people ask is should I mix affiliate links and PPC advertising on the same page?

Unfortunately there is no clear answer to this but I would err on side of caution and leave those pages that are written to promote a particular affiliate product free from PPC advertising or place the advertising at the bottom of the page.