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Monetize Your Site by Reviewing Products You Already Use

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If you want to make some extra money from your site, an effective monetization method is reviewing products that help you with your web work.

Make a list of products you use in your work and see if there is an affiliate program for that product. Then, write in-depth reviews of those products. Here are some ideas to get you started.

  • If you’re a web developer, you may have read some books that helped you learn how to code.
  • Are you satisfied with your web hosting? If you are, check to see if your host has an affiliate program.
  • If you’re a freelancer, you probably use software to help you run your business. Many web apps have an affiliate program and you can sell off-the-shelf software through Amazon.com.

SEO Tip

Don’t get too creative with your titles.  State the product and then add the word review. This will help you attract traffic from internet users searching for the product name.

So don’t use a title like Here is a Great Time Management Book. Instead, try Getting Things Done Book Review.

High Quality Traffic

Reviews may not get you a lot of traffic. However, the traffic that comes from reviews is high quality traffic.  People searching for reviews are usually more likely to buy than the average internet searcher. Search terms related to product reviews show an intent to buy whereas most other search terms are used by people only looking for information.

Compare tv american idol schedule guide with tv american idol dvd review. The person using the first keyword just wants to know when American Idol comes on TV while the person using the second keyword is thinking about buying.

This is why I like to call the phrases related to products “money keywords.”  Even if you don’t get a lot of traffic to your reviews, you’ll earn more money per visitor from that traffic than your other traffic.

How Much Traffic Can You Expect?

The success of this monetization strategy depends largely on two things: (1) how popular the product is and (2) how much authority your site has.

Reviewing a popular product should lead to more traffic. However, if a product is very popular, many people will review it so you’ll have a lot of competition on the search results pages.

This is where your site’s authority comes into play. Authority is basically how much the search engines like your site. Sites with more authority will rank higher than sites with lower authority. The main way to increase your authority is to get links from quality sites.

Over to You

What products could you review and recommend to other web workers?

How to monetize your blog without annoying your visitors

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We’ve all seen it: websites and blogs that offer up great content suddenly becoming littered with ads. Sometimes it happens overnight- but more often than not, it starts slowly: an ad here, some Adsense there, another ad here, and so on- until the blog looks like it’s almost all ads, but you really can’t tell, since the ads look so much like the content. Sound familiar? When this happens, there’s just one thing I want to do: leave the site.

Now I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with monetizing your blog- not at all. Just that you can do it without necessarily uglifying your previously clean and beautiful site. Here, some tips to keep in mind when monetizing your blog:

Keep the ads relevant. If you blog about web hosting, feature ads from web hosting companies. If you blog about your pet labrador Mimi a lot, you want ads that will appeal to other labrador owners- maybe ads for dog biscuits or training videos. Services like Google Adsense, of course, make this easy: they’ll target the ads for you based on your content.

Make it look like an ad. Okay, I know you’re likely to get paid more if an unsuspecting visitor clicks on something thinking it’s part of your content and not an ad. The problem I have is with the word “unsuspecting”: by doing this, you’re fooling that visitor- and nobody likes being fooled. Let people know when an ad is an ad.

Choose ads that suit your design. Yes, you should make the ads look like ads- but at the same time, you don’t want them to stand out too much. The key is placing ads that complement your site- and that’s your content and your design.

Consider using RSS advertising. There are lots of sites I love reading, but hardly ever visit; I subscribe to their RSS feeds instead. Somehow, ads in RSS feeds don’t bother me as much. They’re usually unobtrusive, and if you have a good RSS subscriber base, can bring in a decent amount of money.

Do not use pop-up advertising. Ever.

Find other methods of monetization. You don’t have to place ads to make money off your blog- consider merchandising (CafePress, for example), affiliate sales (especially of products you review), or simply asking for donations (e.g. “Liked this post? Buy me a beer!”)

The most important thing is to be selective. You want your visitors to become regular visitors, and the best way to do that is to give them what they came for: not a bunch of messy ads, but your posts, your voice, your content.

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