Adsense Alternatives: Part 3 of 4

Welcome to part 3 of my 4 part series on Adsense Alternatives.
Adsense Alternatives Part 1 and Adsense Alternatives Part 2 covered various types of monetizing programs readily available to publishers, varying in types of adverts, varying in site acceptance guidelines and varying in the type of program being offered.

Part 3 of this series will be no different other than, a brand new set of programs will be discussed and presented to you the reader.

So without further word, lets jump straight into the programs that make up part 3 of Adsense Alternatives.

ShareASale
ShareASale gives publishers access to a wide range of advertising merchants, each of which has a specific affiliate program in place. There are more than 2000 such merchants inside this program.

ShareASale affiliate programs come in three styles: pay per sale, pay per lead, and pay per click. The first two are CPA (cost per action), whereas the last is CPC (cost per click). The majority of merchants utilize the pay per sale style.

ShareaSale collect all payments from the merchants and then pays the publishers. The criteria to meet payout is a $50 threshold. If a publisher’s balance is less than this, then their balance carries over to the next month. Payment is sent out on or around the 20th day of the month for commissions from the previous month. Publishers can choose to be paid via direct deposit, check via FedEx ($20 surcharge), or check via US Postal Mail. There is no option for PayPal at this time.

There is a referral system in place. For every new merchant who signs up through a publisher’s affiliate link, the publisher earns a commission of $150. For every qualified publisher who signs up through a provided link, the referring publisher earns a commission of $1.


Adbrite
Adbrite offers its publishers a lot of control over their websites advertisement space by allowing them to sell ads through their own site and to approve and reject offers. As well Adbrite offers an alternative to doing this, If a publisher chooses, they can also set a reserve price (based on eCPM) for their AdBrite advert placements. If the advert served by AdBrite meets this reserve, it will be displayed. If it does not, the alternative code (provided by the publisher) will be displayed. This could be from Adsense, YPN(Yahoo Publisher Network), or any other ad network.

AdBrite offers text ads, which are sold on a CPC basis. These ads can be customized to fit the theme of the site in which they are being embedded.

Banner ads are also available on a CPM basis and typically have a higher payout than text ads.

AdBrite also offers a couple of other kinds of advertisement. Interstitial ads are shown in between pages of your site. Publishers can customize the header to match the look and feel of their site, and they can choose to display the ad after 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 page views. Publishers can use HTML coding to mark the portions of their site on which they would like to allow inline ads, but they cannot choose which words specifically become links. No more than 8 keywords will become inline ads and these pay on a CPC basis.

BritePic and InVideo are the final options available for advertising that AdBrite offers. These services present ways to make videos and pictures on a site interactive. In addition to embedding advertisements in the pictures and videos, publishers can use these features to add links, captions, and other extras to the media. For example, site visitors are able to embed the pictures (BritePic) and videos (InVideo) on their own sites, but the integrated ads are still those of the original publisher giving the publishers adverts a wider audience.

Adbrite offers a referral system. Anyone referred by a publisher will earn the publisher 50% of AdBrite’s profit’s from this new user for the first three months, and 10% of Adbrite's profits for nine months after that.

Payments are made at the end of each month for the 30 day period 2 months prior. AdBrite gives its publishers 70% of the revenues generated from their ad spaces and keeps 30%. Payments are made to publishers by checks, and the minimum threshold payment amount is $5, although by default $100 minimum threshold is put in place.

Review Me
ReviewMe pays blog publishers to write reviews of different products or services. Blog owners are paid based on their ranking system, which is based on Alexa, Technorati, and RSS subscribers and recalculated monthly.

Publishers must disclose that the post is a paid post in some way, Either designate it by "Sponsored Post", "Advertisement", or "Paid Review", it does not matter so long as it is clearly made known the post or article is paid for. Reviews must also be at least 200 words in length.

Publishers are paid 50% of revenue and ReviewMe allows publishers to price their own review, up to $600.

Some blogs charge as much as $2,500 per review, but the vast majority fall within the $60-$150 price range.

Price is automatically recalculated monthly, based on factors including theme, estimated traffic, estimated RSS subscribers, and link popularity. Or publishers can choose to set their own price.

Publishers are paid the first of every month via PayPal or check.

The referral system pays out $25 per advertiser referred to ReviewMe who purchases a review that makes it to completion.

Chitika

Provide publishers with ads that are highly targeted and are particularly effective for niche blogs that talk about the latest gadgets, the hottest games, or the coolest products on the market.

Chitika is similar to other shopping programs.

Signing up is straight forward and simple. Chitika does state that Chitika ads work best on sites that have at least 10,000 monthly page views. Although this is not a set in stone pre requisite and anyone can apply. Applications take about 2 days to be processed.

The referral program pays for the new referred member for 15 months. As publishers refer new publishers to the Chitika advertising network, they earn 10% of what the referrals earn.Again, only for 15 months though.

Chitika pays at the end of the month, based on the month prior. Payments are made by either paypal or check and the threshold varies depending on which you chose. paypal has a lower minimum payment set at $10 vs the $50 set for those receiving payment by check.

LinkShare

Offers publishers various affiliate programs.

When a publisher first applies, they are only able to use the referral program until their application is processed and approved.

The payout levels vary from program to program, possibly paying a flat fee for each referral or, alternatively, for a percentage of the total sale.

The Referral system commission paid, is $1.50 for every valid referral that registers as a publisher with LinkShare and generates at least one click-through within the first 30 days of registration.

LinkShare’s payment method is a check sent via standard mail. As well, publishers can opt for direct deposit to their bank accounts, but this option is only available to users in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, Switzerland, the UK, and the United States. LinkShare issues payments four times a month, but the payment withholding period varies across the different affiliate programs. Most are net-30 or faster.

Clickbooth

Is an advertising network that specializes in affiliate marketing.

Signing up is easy and the first page involves the standard things like name, address, email, fax etc. On the second page, applicants provide a phone number which then must be immediately verified. An automated phone call will be made to the number given and a pre-recorded voice will read off a short confirmation code. This code is then entered into the web interface.
The third and final page is where applicants provide specific information about the site where the Clickbooth ads will be displayed. According to Clickbooth, most applicants should receive a response within 72 hours. In practice, formal acceptance into the program was granted within a day. The confirmation email provides the username, password, and the affiliate tracking ID.

Most publishers payments are sent 15 days after the end of the month where they reach the minimum payment threshold of $50. For high volume publishers (those who earn a minimum of $1500 a week ) they can request a faster 7 day payment schedule.

There is a referral program in place. For every referral, publishers earn a 2% gross referral credit for life. As well a $10 bonus is also paid for every new referral into the Clickbooth program.

Kontera

Offers in-text content adverts or links, all that appears are two double lines for a keyword on your page. Making this a useful program to run alongside with your Adsense or another program if you wish.

Requirements for joining are simple and sign up is simple too. A minimum of 250,000 page impressions per month. Although my site had much less when I signed up and was accepted. English must be the primary language on the site. Each page you show Kontera in text links on should have a minimum of fifty words in order for it to work properly.

Payments are at the end of the month, with a $100 minimum threshold for payout and payments are made by check.

There is unfortunately no referral program for Kontera either.

Revenue Pilot

The Revenue Pilot advertising network is mostly based on the PPC/CPC model, meaning that publishers are paid each time a site visitor clicks on an advertisement.

XML Feed, Popouts, Interstitials, banners, error pages are popular types of adverts used

Signing up again is pretty simple and fast and approval of an application can come within th same day.

There is a referral program. Publishers are paid 10% of all earnings from accounts that are referred by that publisher and are subsequently accepted into Revenue Pilot. This is a lifetime reward paid to the Publisher.

Revenue Pilot pays its publishers 60% of the bid price. Payments are sent via check or paypal. Wire transfers can be done but there is a processing fee. Pyments are sent out between 30 and 60 days after the threshold for payout is reached at the end of a month. Minimum payout threshold level is $25.

RevenuePilot also offers a search like tool similar to that of Adsense link units. For an example click on the next link title "Adsense Alternatives". Adsense Alternatives

Searchfeed

Works on the pay per click (PPC) advertising model. Google Adsense and the Yahoo Publishers Network work on this model as well but Searchfeed is different. It takes on a search engine feel to serve up adverts. Similar to link units from Google Adsense.

There is a referral program. Publishers will receive a commission of between 2% and 5% of the net revenue generated by new publishers referred to the program.In the case of referring advertisers, they will earn a commission of 5%-7% of the initial deposit from a referred advertiser.

Payments are based on Net 30 days. They go out around the 20th of each month. Payments can come via check or paypal and the minimum threshold for payment sits at $25.

If you have a larger account and do well then you can arrange to have wire transfers as well.

This concludes the 3rd part of my Adsense Alternatives series of posts. Again comments are welcomed, so do feel free to discuss your thoughts about any of these programs. As well if you enjoyed this article then please subscribe to my feed and get some of my other posts as they become available. I thank you for your time and for stopping by.

Continue Reading...

Looking For Contest Prizes : Summer Kickoff

Hi everyone, thanks for stopping by Blog Me The Money.

I just wanted to put the message out, that I am looking for "prizes" to add to a contest that I am looking to hold. This contest will be held in about 2 weeks time and run for about 2-3 weeks before handing out the prizes etc. I felt like running this contest because it is almost summer here and I am in a ambitious mood! Time for a Summer Kickoff! Well that and the fact I really enjoy giving back to the blogging community who have given much to me in the short time Blog Me The Money has been around. This contest will include all the usual means of entry, earning "tickets" for completing various promotion tasks. So this is a good way for each prize submitter to earn good quality back links, awareness and audience reach. So if you can spare something in the form of a prize it will be much appreciated by the blogging community. Big or small.

These prizes can range from EntreCard credits (Any numerical amount), to 125x125 advertising for a set amount of time on your blog/site (Perhaps a month), to anything else you may have kicking around or are willing to put up. Maybe an Ebook you normally charge for? DVD? other forms of advertising? or material that you offer? course tuition/entrance? site membership? If you do have a prize that you would like to submit please drop me a line in my email which can be found on my contact page or leave me a comment with your email here and I will get back to you. Please include the prize and if applicable the monetary worth of the prize, a url link to your site/blog (Where you want people to come) with the anchor text you want used as well as your name. Hope Im not forgetting any information here.

Thank for your time and I look forward to hearing from you all.

Continue Reading...

Adsense Alternatives: Part 2 of 4

Welcome to part 2 of my 4 part series on Adsense Alternatives.
Adsense Alternatives Part 1 covered various types of monetizing programs readily available to publishers, varying in types of adverts, varying in site acceptance guidelines and varying in the type of program being offered.

Part 2 of this series will be no different other than, a brand new set of programs will be discussed and presented to you the reader.

So without further word, lets jump straight into the programs that make up part 2 of Adsense Alternatives.

Neverblue Ads
An affiliate marketing company from British Columbia, Canada. NeverblueAds contains well over 700 campaigns available to the publisher. Their offers are available in both CPL (Cost per Lead) and CPA (Cost-Per-Acquisition), many of which are high paying. Many of those campaigns ranging from $20-$40.

Signing up for Neverblue Ads is relatively easy and only takes minutes. A follow up phone call is usually placed within the first 2 days to finish the application process.

Neverblue Ads pays on a Net-30 pay period They pay by check although paypal is possible upon request.

Their minimum payment threshold is $25.

Neverblue Ads has a referral program. 2 options are available to the publisher. A $2 CPA option and a 2% commission option. Each option has its own separate referral URL, allowing publishers to use both options if desired. Both options have a wide selection of banners to choose from. In addition, the $2 CPA referral option can use SubID tracking. However, the 2% commission option does not, although it is in the works.

TNX.net

Tnx.net is an independent text link brokering service which helps advertisers and publishers buy and sell text links.

Tnx.net sells links on an individual page basis versus site wide. And use a point system which can then be converted into money.

TNX is easy to sign up for, and the code must be installed in your page to finish the application process. TNX will then approve (or reject) the website within 1-3 days.

A site must be indexed by Google to be allowed into the program and a site must be able to use TNX’s ad code which is only available in PHP, Perl, or ASP.

Payment is paid via PayPal with a minimum threshold of $5, which takes only 3 days to process.

They also have a referral system in place. The referral program pays out 13.3% of all TNX-points generated by a referred publisher, and 5% of all payments made by referred advertisers, for life.

As a side note, TNX also allows publishers who have a large site with impressive site statistics to contact them directly, as TNX does offer the buying of ad space directly for a fixed price.

AdToll
AdToll acts as the middleman between publishers and advertisers.

The publisher sets the price.

Publishers have the option to remove the ‘Powered by’ and ‘Advertise Here’ text shown at the bottom of AdToll banners. Publishers can even customize the ‘Advertise Here’ anchor text (but not the URL)

Signing up is really simple and there are no site pre-requisites for joining the AdToll program and applications are "approved instantly".

AdToll likes pays 75% of earnings from adverts.

Payments are on the 15th of every month for the previous month's earnings. Payments are made in the form of Check, PayPal, ePassporte, Bank Wire, or account credit.

Check and PayPal payments require a minimum of $20 in earnings. Wire Transfers require a minimum of $1,000 in earnings. ePassporte transfers require a $20 minimum, and account credit payments have no minimum. There is a $12 fee on checks, a $2 fee for ePassporte, and a $30 fee on Wire/Bank transfers.

There is a referral system in place. AdToll's referral program pays,

• 20% commission on profit made from Advertisers for 90 days
• 10% commission on profit made from Publishers for 365 days

Burst Media
Offers offer both CPC and CPM campaigns.

No Referral Program

All publishers using Burst Media’s networks must display a link to a demographic survey on their site, or else rotate this survey in with their normal advertisements.

The application process is easy although sites must generate at least 5000 pageviews per month in order to apply.

Payments are net 45 days, and paid by check only. The minimum threshold is set at $50 to be eligible for a payment.

BidVertiser
Is a contextual network advertiser. Bidvertiser differs from Google's Adsense in that they sell their publisher’s ads to the highest advertising bidder on a price-per-click basis and then display that advert on the publishers website.

Bidvertiser allows the publisher to fully customize adverts, be it color, size, font etc. The minimum payout threshold is set at 10 Dollars and payments are offered by check as well as paypal.

Signup is easy and instantaneous with ads running soon after.

No limit as to how many adverts can run on one page. Can Run alongside with Adsense.

There is a referral program,

• For the first $10 a referred advertiser spends, the referring publisher will receive $5. When that same referred advertiser spends $50, the referring publisher will receive an additional $20.
• For the first $10 a referred publisher earns $10, the referring publisher will receive $10. When that same referred publisher earns $50, the referring publisher will receive an additional $40.

Shopzilla
Shopzilla claims an index of over 30 million products from more than 92,000 stores.

Shopzilla is easy to apply to, and does not state any prerequisites but are known to turn down publishers with poor site content or poor traffic.

Shopzilla does not pay out in CPA or by commission, but instead pays out through CPC. (Similar to that of Adsense)

No referral program at the moment. Shopzilla is still in Beta.

Shopzilla pays out in monthly installments on a Net 30 payment term. There is a $50 minimum payment threshold, and payments can be made out via check or PayPal.

Copeac
Copeac offers CPA (Cost-Per-Acquisition), CPS (Cost-Per-Sale), and CPC (Cost-Per-Click)

Copeac offers its publishers gift cards as incentives. Currently they reward $50 once $25K is generated, $100 for $50K, $200 for $75, and $500 for $100K.

They also offer extra bonuses for super-affiliates who generate a lot of volume.

Copeac pays on a monthly schedule via Wire and Check. And the minimum threshold is set at $100, although those with a higher volume may set up a weekly payout schedule.

Copeac has a referral program and offers publishers 2% on every approved affiliate referred, for life.

Value Click Media

Value Click Media offers publishers CPMs, as well it offers its publishers some affiliate marketing opportunities.

Publishers have 3 ways to make money. Either by displaying of adverts, affiliate marketing, or by referrals. Multiple sites can be managed through a single account.

CPM display ads are offered as text, image, or video and come in the form of both in-page and window ads. As well, video ads can be displayed as in-banner, and also as in-stream, with the adverts being fit to the video window and beginning either before or after the site’s media content.

Affiliate marketing is also available. Which includes CPAs, CPSs, co-registrations, and promotional advertisements.

Referrals can provide additional revenue. Publishers get a bonus equivalent to 5% of the new user’s earnings for the first twelve months of service.

Signing up is quick and easy and a decision on the application is usually had within 2 days. Sites must have a minimum of 3000 page views per month. They must also display their content exclusively in English and own their own domain name. The site may not support or discuss anything of a profane, adult, or illegal nature, offer incentives for clicking on advertisements, consist largely of a forum or message board, or advertise excessively.

Value Click Media pays out on the 20th of each month for the previous month. The Minimum threshold for payout is $25. Publishers can be paid by check, PayPal, and direct deposit for Canadian and American citizens.

Ads4Dough

Affiliate network program with nearly 300 campaign offers available.

Many of these offers actually have fairly high payouts, paying as much as $35 per lead.

Ads4Dough also offers adult adverts.

They have a reward system that pays out,

• $25,000 - $50 Gift Card
• $50,000 - $100 Gift Card
• $75,000 - $200 Gift Card
• $100,000 - $500 Gift Card

Ads4Dough accepts traffic from sources such as PPC, forums, websites, blog, organic search, arbitrage, and incentive programs.

Minimum payout of $50 a month and payments are made every month on the 30th for the previous month's commission. Publishers who make over $1,000+ a week can arrange to be paid weekly. Payments are sent via check, and for larger affiliate marketers, bank wire.

Referral system that pays out 4% for life

ShoppingAds

Combines the displaying of live eBay auctions with the displaying of advertisements from online vendors.

The publisher enters their advertisement keywords to suit the topic of the page on which the advertisements will appear. Once this is completed, the advertisements can then be edited to suit the layout and design of the page, adjusting size and color. If the displayed advert is that of an eBay auction, then the publisher is paid on a CPA basis. If the displayed ad is that of an online vendor, then the publisher is paid on a CPC basis, much like many other shopping-focused ad networks. Visitors are sent directly to a product page where they can purchase the advertised product.

Signing up is very easy and can be quickly done. The account is activated almost immediately after email verification has been confirmed.

Payments are made the first of every month via PayPal. The payment is for all revenue generated in the previous month, including CPC, CPA, and referral revenue. The minimum threshold amount for payment is $50.

A referral system is in place. When a visitor clicks on a link and signs up for the service, the original publisher earns 5% of all revenue generated by the new user. (Each advert also has the referral code within as well) Referral revenue is valid for the first six months of the new account. And cookies are also used for 30 days meaning if the visitor returns not using your link you still get credit.

Text Link Ads

Text Link Ads offers three ways for publishers to make money from their sites: by posting text link advertisements on the site itself, by inserting ads into the site’s RSS feeds, or by becoming an affiliate.

Text link adverts sell for a flat rate per ad for a 30 day run on the site.

Payments made via PayPal have no minimum threshold and thus you get paid monthly. Payments are made on the first of the month for all revenue generated the previous month, including partially completed campaigns. For publishers who choose to receive their payments by check, will have to meet a $25 minimum threshold.

Referral system is quite simple. A one time $25 payment is made for any referred advertiser that results in a sale, or for any referred publisher who applies to be represented by the network and is approved.

Etology
Offers CPC advertising where the publisher decides whether or not to approve of the advertiser as well the publisher sets the price. The publisher can choose text ads, banners, buttons and various other types of advert space to sell. This program also has advert space for adult sites and those generally not accepted by other programs.

Signing up is really simple and is done within minutes.

Payments are made when a publisher meets a minimum threshold of $30 and payments can be made vis check by mail, wire transfer, paypal, epasseport and etology credit.

There is a referral program in place. A publisher can make 20% commision off each member they refer to the program. This commision is not based on all money made by the referral but the profit etology makes.

This concludes Part 2 of the 4 part series on Alternatives to Adsense. Again I hope that you found this article useful and to make sure you don't miss out on the next installments or any other articles in the future, please subscribe to my feed. I welcome your comments and thank you for taking the time to drop by.

Continue Reading...

10 Blog Traffic Tips

In every bloggers life comes a special day - the day they first launch a new blog. Now unless you went out and purchased someone else''s blog chances are your blog launched with only one very loyal reader - you. Maybe a few days later you received a few hits when you told your sister, father, girlfriend and best friend about your new blog but that''s about as far you went when it comes to finding readers.Here are the top 10 techniques new bloggers can use to find readers.

These are tips specifically for new bloggers, those people who have next-to-no audience at the moment and want to get the ball rolling.

It helps if you work on this list from top to bottom as each technique builds on the previous step to help you create momentum. Eventually once you establish enough momentum you gain what is called "traction", which is a large enough audience base (about 500 readers a day is good) that you no longer have to work too hard on finding new readers. Instead your current loyal readers do the work for you through word of mouth.Top 10 Tips

10. Write at least five major "pillar" articles. A pillar article is usually a tutorial style article aimed to teach your audience something. Generally they are longer than 500 words and have lots of very practical tips or advice. This article you are currently reading could be considered a pillar article since it is very practical and a good "how-to" lesson. This style of article has long term appeal, stays current (it isn''t news or time dependent) and offers real value and insight. The more pillars you have on your blog the better.

9. Write one new blog post per day minimum. Not every post has to be a pillar, but you should work on getting those five pillars done at the same time as you keep your blog fresh with a daily news or short article style post. The important thing here is to demonstrate to first time visitors that your blog is updated all the time so they feel that if they come back tomorrow they will likely find something new. This causes them to bookmark your site or subscribe to your blog feed.

You don''t have to produce one post per day all the time but it is important you do when your blog is brand new. Once you get traction you still need to keep the fresh content coming but your loyal audience will be more forgiving if you slow down to a few per week instead. The first few months are critical so the more content you can produce at this time the better.

8. Use a proper domain name. If you are serious about blogging be serious about what you call your blog. In order for people to easily spread the word about your blog you need an easily rememberable domain name. People often talk about blogs they like when they are speaking to friends in the real world (that''s the offline world, you remember that place right?) so you need to make it easy for them to spread the word and pass on your URL. Try and get a .com if you can and focus on small easy to remember domains rather than worry about having the correct keywords (of course if you can get great keywords and easy to remember then you''ve done a good job!).

7. Start commenting on other blogs. Once you have your pillar articles and your daily fresh smaller articles your blog is ready to be exposed to the world. One of the best ways to find the right type of reader for your blog is to comment on other people''s blogs. You should aim to comment on blogs focused on a similar niche topic to yours since the readers there will be more likely to be interested in your blog.

Most blog commenting systems allow you to have your name/title linked to your blog when you leave a comment. This is how people find your blog. If you are a prolific commentor and always have something valuable to say then people will be interested to read more of your work and hence click through to visit your blog.

6. Trackback and link to other blogs in your blog posts. A trackback is sort of like a blog conversation. When you write a new article to your blog and it links or references another blogger''s article you can do a trackback to their entry. What this does is leave a truncated summary of your blog post on their blog entry - it''s sort of like your blog telling someone else''s blog that you wrote an article mentioning them. Trackbacks often appear like comments.

This is a good technique because like leaving comments a trackback leaves a link from another blog back to yours for readers to follow, but it also does something very important - it gets the attention of another blogger. The other blogger will come and read your post eager to see what you wrote about them. They may then become a loyal reader of yours or at least monitor you and if you are lucky some time down the road they may do a post linking to your blog bringing in more new readers.

5. Encourage comments on your own blog. One of the most powerful ways to convince someone to become a loyal reader is to show there are other loyal readers already following your work. If they see people commenting on your blog then they infer that your content must be good since you have readers so they should stick around and see what all the fuss is about. To encourage comments you can simply pose a question in a blog post. Be sure to always respond to comments as well so you can keep the conversation going.

4. Submit your latest pillar article to a blog carnival. A blog carnival is a post in a blog that summarizes a collection of articles from many different blogs on a specific topic. The idea is to collect some of the best content on a topic in a given week. Often many other blogs link back to a carnival host and as such the people that have articles featured in the carnival enjoy a spike in new readers.

To find the right blog carnival for your blog, do a search at http://blogcarnival.com/.

3. Submit your blog to blogtopsites.com. To be honest this tip is not going to bring in a flood of new readers but it''s so easy to do and only takes five minutes so it''s worth the effort. Go to Blog Top Sites, find the appropriate category for your blog and submit it. You have to copy and paste a couple of lines of code on to your blog so you can rank and then sit back and watch the traffic come in. You will probably only get 1-10 incoming readers per day with this technique but over time it can build up as you climb the rankings. It all helps!

2. Submit your articles to EzineArticles.com. This is another tip that doesn''t bring in hundreds of new visitors immediately (although it can if you keep doing it) but it''s worthwhile because you simply leverage what you already have - your pillar articles. Once a week or so take one of your pillar articles and submit it to Ezine Articles. Your article then becomes available to other people who can republish your article on their website or in their newsletter.

How you benefit is through what is called your "Resource Box". You create your own resource box which is like a signature file where you include one to two sentences and link back to your website (or blog in this case). Anyone who publishes your article has to include your resource box so you get incoming links. If someone with a large newsletter publishes your article you can get a lot of new readers at once.

1. Write more pillar articles. Everything you do above will help you to find blog readers however all of the techniques I''ve listed only work when you have strong pillars in place. Without them if you do everything above you may bring in readers but they won''t stay or bother to come back. Aim for one solid pillar article per week and by the end of the year you will have a database of over 50 fantastic feature articles that will work hard for you to bring in more and more readers.

This article was by Yaro Starak, a professional blogger and my blog mentor. He is the leader of the Blog Mastermind mentoring program designed to teach bloggers how to earn a full time income blogging part time.To get more information about Blog Mastermind click this link:

http://www.blogmastermind.com/affiliates/index.php?af=788573

Continue Reading...

Adsense Alternatives: Part 1 of 4

Most people are quite aware of what Adsense is, as it is the single most used monetizing program out there. But often when browsing forums, other blogs or websites I often see an often asked question. "What else is there that I can use to make money besides Adsense?" or "What else can I use alongside Adsense?"

Well the straightforward answer here is, there are many programs one can choose from, ranging from contextual ads, text link ads, video adverts, Audio adverts, affiliate marketing, paid postings, as well as other possible options.

In fact there is an abundance of programs to choose from. And I would like to introduce as many of those programs to my readers as I can. I however will not put one program or another up front and center and try to push it onto you or promote one program as being better than another. What works for one blog or site and its audience, might very well not work for another. Some programs may even be niche specific in their usefulness. The best option for you the publisher is to test, test and thats right. Test some more.

What I desire to do with this article, is make my readers aware that there are other alternatives to Adsense for monetization, and who those alternatives are. And when possible, give you a brief summary of the program offered.

The information I have gotten on each program is from the program site itself, other blogs and posts put fourth in forums. But for the most part I have relied upon the actual programs site itself. Some programs I have used and have dealt with, others I have not. That said, I do not believe anyone should rely just on using Adsense alone to monetize your blog, site or blogs/sites. On the flip side, one should not over do it with the advertising either.

So enough of the chit chat, who are these alternatives?

Click2Sell
Is a program coming from Lithuania and caters to both merchants and affiliates.

Click2Sell coordinates merchant’s sales via 3rd-party payment processors which allow them to sell their own products and run their own affiliate programs. Click2Sell makes these merchant products and services available to their publishers, thus acting, as an affiliate network.

Many Merchants use Click2Sell as a platform to sell their own products. These Merchants most often being lesser known and smaller companies. Click2Sell contains many offers that are not normally available for affiliate marketers that deal with larger suppliers since merchants are typically smaller and lesser-known. As well Click2Sell allows the sales of digital products and subscriptions. Allowing an Affiliate Marketer a readily available source of marketable goods that are not already spread throughout the internet by means of other Affiliate programs.

Some other interesting Affiliate facts,

• Affiliates receive commission as long as the customer purchases within 6-months.
• Affiliates can receive commission rates up to 95%. Since merchants can choose their own commission rate up to 95%, there are a lot of offers available which pay very high commission rates.
• Payment can be made through either PayPal or Moneybookers.

Click2Sell has over 500 offers available and Affiliates will receive commissions for their sales within 3 weeks after the end of each month (Net-21). The exact payment date depends on the individual merchant (many will pay on the 1st of the month, for example).

Click2Sell offers a 30% referral fee for life. Offering 30% of its $1-3 profit per sale to the referrer. Not the actual value of the transaction but their profit from said transaction.

Signing up is quick and easy and takes only minutes where acceptance is immediate.

RevResponse
Works on the CPA (cost-per-action) model of advertising. RevResponse grants publishers the opportunity to supply their site visitors with free business-related resources and each qualifying registration results in a set-rate commission for the publisher.

RevResponse guarantees a payout of $1.50 for each qualifying signup, subscription, or registration. However, most advertisers offer more than this minimal amount, and some are said to pay publishers $20 or more for each qualifying lead.

There are many varying business-related resources available through RevResponse, all of which are free. When a visitor signs up for any of these services,a or downloads any of these resources, the publisher gets paid. The available resources range from white papers to real magazine subscriptions and podcasts.

Adverts come in a wide variety, most notably, the usual assortment of banner ads found all over webspace. RevResponse also offers pre-written promotional paragraphs, text links, and an unique Flash widget.

RevResponse pays by check in US currency. The minimum payout level is $50 and money will be sent approximately 45 days after the end of the month where a publisher meets the minimum threshold or requirements. PayPal is also available.

The referral program at RevResponse pays 20% of the earnings that a referral partner generates for the first six months of their partnership.

Advent (Motive Interactive)
Motive Media, which is their CPM display network, and Motive Network (also referred to as Advent) which is their performance-based (CPA, CPL, CPS) network. The Advent program typically has 200-250 campaigns under way for a publisher to choose from.

Sign up is fast and easy and is fast and easy, and publishers can expect to be approved within 1-2 business days. There is a $50 minimum threshold for getting paid and payment is sent out 30 days after that threshold has been met.

Payments can be made via check, bank wire, or PayPal. And as of date there is no referral system in place although there is rumored to be one in the works.

Market Leverage
Affiliate ad network based on the CPA (cost per action) model.

There are over 300 affiliate offers in the Market Leverage network in total. And Market Leverage says that they take a smaller portion of each conversion versus other industry players/programs. Meaning higher revenue for the publisher. They do not state their "cut".

Signing up for the program is two fold.
The first step involves filling out a simple registration form online.

The second step usually takes place within the next one or two days of application submission. A Market Leverage representative will call the applicant and during this five-minute phone call, the applicant is asked about his/her experience with other affiliate networks, how they will be using Market Leverage, and if there are any specific offers desired.

Approval comes a few minutes after the conclusion of this phone call. Market Leverage does not have any explicit minimum requirements for publishers.

Payments are issued by check and are delivered by FedEx. There is no minimum threshold or requirement to be met, so a $1 check will arrive on your doorstep if that is the case. Payments are on a Net-15 schedule and are typically sent out on the 13th of the month to ensure receipt by the publisher by the 15th.

There is a referral program in place. Referrers earn a 5% commission on every approved publisher that they refer to Market Leverage for the lifetime of the referred publisher. However, each referred publisher must continue to generate commissions without a lapse of three calendar months in order for the referrer to continue receiving the 5% commission from that publisher each month. So if they switch programs for a 3 month period, or do not do anything, then they no longer count in your referral calculations.

AzoogleAds

Is a growing Affiliate ad network that has been skyrocketing in popularity.

AzoogleAds offers publishers the ability of being automatically eligible for any campaign. Many ad networks require publishers to apply to each campaign individually, which can take anywhere from a matter of days to even possibly months before being accepted. With AzoogleAds, Publishers can start earning immediately from any campaign without having to wait or apply for anything.

A optional toolbar is also offered that automatically keeps publishers logged-in to their account and displays real-time report data, including daily clicks, leads, payout, and even eCPC.

Azoogle offers a reward program where a $50 bonus is paid if $5K is generated in a month, $100 for $10K, $250 for $25K, and $500 for $50K+.

The referral program was changed and only pays for the first 6-months after the first penny is earned. As well, referrers must also maintain a minimum revenue level of $1,000 on a monthly basis in order to receive referral payouts for that month. This revenue must consist of affiliate commissions and not come from referral income. Azoogle pays every 15 days in the form of check or direct deposit.

RealTechNetwork
Is geared towards larger sites and has a higher level regarding entrance to the program.

They offer only two types of advertisement, CPC and CPM which may include video adverts.

RealTechNetwork offers a referral program which requires a seperate application form to be filled out. Once accepted into the program, members receive 5% of referred advertisers’ expenditures and 5% of referred publishers’ earnings for life.

To be accepted into the RealTechNetwork program, sites must receive at least 25,000 impressions on average per month, with 12,500 of those being unique.

Sites also must have root level domains, and must be free of adult, illegal, or hateful content. Sites can only be written in English, cannot be blogs, and cannot offer incentives of any kind for viewing or clicking on ads.

Payments are processed on the 25th day of each month for the previous month’s revenues. Payments are made by direct deposit (US customers only but expanding soon), check, PayPal, or wire transfer. The network gives its publishers 70% of the revenues generated by their ad space, keeping 30% for themselves. The minimum payment threshold amount each month is $20.

Banner Connect

Offers publishers a wide array of adverts via banner ads. Most of which are flash based.

Bannerconnect says that they also offer pop-unders, popups, floating ads, interstitials, and pre-pops.

They offer no referral system or program.

Payments are made via net 60 days. And are made by either paypal or bank wire transfer with a minimum threshold of $30.

PayPerPost

PayPerPost’s program connects bloggers with advertisers. Advertisers get access to the many thousands of bloggers, and the opportunity to market their product or service through their readership. While bloggers get the opportunity to both earn money and provide content on their blogs at the same time.

Signing up for PayPerPost is easy.

• Bloggers must be prepared to disclose their relationship with PayPerPost advertisers and advise readers of any sponsored content via a disclosure policy or on a per post basis.
• Bloggers must be at least 18 or have written consent by a legal guardian.
• All posts must be written in English or on a blog written in the English language.
• Blogs must be at least 90 days old, verifiable by a third party index of the site. If over 90 days old, blogs must have at least 20 entries in the past 90 days. If just around 90 days old, blogs must have 20 pre-existing entries.
• No blogs with post gaps of over 30 days will be accepted.

There are 2 ways of connecting with an advertiser. The marketplace which pays aprox. between $5 and $25 per opportunity on average. And the second option which is PPP Direct, where a badge is placed on the blog and a potential advertisers stumbles upon this badge and clicks on it. A window then appears where a potential advertiser then fills out a form. The owner of the blog sets the price through this method which may be a better solution for larger blogs than the marketplace option.

PayPerPost takes a 10% cut, paid by the advertiser and not you the publisher. So if you negotiate a $50 fee, you keep all $50.

PayPerPost only pays via Paypal and does indeed offer a referral system for publishers. The referral system pays $15 per signup, which is paid 30 days after the first posted ad by the referral.

PayPerPost also has a "Review My Post" option which can replace the standard referral system.

PayPerPost’s Review My Post feature works by having reviewers display a small image (around 15x300 pixels) at the bottom of each post, which invites readers of the blog to review their blog posts! When someone signs up with PayPerPost, a special opportunity is created for which offers them $7.50 to write a post on their own blog to review a post on the referring blog.

Thus, both the referrer and referee receive $7.50. However, the referrer also benefits from a free backlink and exposure from the free reviewing post. PayPerPost does offer a full $15 for a standard referral, for bloggers who prefer more cash to backlinks.

Casale Media
Casale Media offers a 70% payout to publishers, which is arguably one of the highest payouts in the industry.

All of the adverts provided by Casale Media pay on a CPM basis. A variety of ad sizes are offered, in addition to pop unders, and the ads are generally both image and text, with some being simple animation.

To be accepted as a publisher by Casale Media, site owners must have a quality site that receives more than 10,000 unique visitors per month. It must be hosted under a root domain and have a primarily English-speaking audience. Site owners cannot spam other websites, email accounts, or forums in order to get enough hits, and they also cannot put anything of a profane, adult, or illegal nature on their site.

Casale Media does have a referral program. Referrers receive 5% of the referred publishers monthly earnings each month, or in the case of a referred advertiser, 5% of the amount the advertiser spends each month.

Casale Media pays by check and paypal and sets a $25 Minimum threshold for receiving payment. Payments are Net 30 Days.

Millnic Media
Is an affiliate Marketing program with a little over 200 campaigns to choose from.

Millnic Media offers a performance rewards program for well-performing affiliates, with prizes including jet skis and plasma televisions. Referrals for Millnic Media pay 6% of the revenue of anyone that was referred for the lifetime of that referral.

Application requirements include having an English-only site which owns its domain and receives at least 100,000 unique page views per month. No incentives may be offered for clicks.Forums are welcome to join, however Millnic Media does not allow any site whose content is of an adult, hateful, or illegal nature to join their network. Similar to most other programs.
Payments are processed weekly and a $100 threshold is required to receive payment, although it can be set higher, to a rate of up to $1000/week. Payments are available either by check or via PayPal.

Tribal Fusion
Tribal Fusion is a very large ad network offering CPM adverts.

The rich media ads that Tribal Fusion supports are banners in the following sizes: 728x90 leaderboard, 468x60 banner, 336x280 square, 300x250 square, 120x600 skyscraper, 160x600 leaderboard, and pop-unders which carry a higher CPM rate.

Signing up is somewhat easy and a follow email usually comes in 2 days or less. A minimum of 2000 unique visitors is required each day to the site where the ads are placed to be accepted. Sites with users must have an active user base and must have a professional site design with updated and good content relating to the category of the ad they display.

Payments are sent out Net 45 days. And payments are done by check. Tribal Fusion only pays Publishers 55% of the revenue they generate for your site although they also boast some of the highest CPM rates in the industry. Tribal Fusion does not have a referral program.



This concludes part 1 of my 4 part series on Alternatives to Adsense. Please check back for part 2 which will showcase more available options for monetizing your website or blog. If you found this article useful, I welcome you to subscribe to my feed. Thanks for stopping by and I welcome your comments. The other 3 parts can be found at, Adsense Alternatives Part 2, Adsense Alternatives Part 3, and Adsense Alternatives part 4.

Continue Reading...

Adsense Ready Blogger Templates For Monetization?

After recently writing a post featuring many Adsense ready themes for Wordpress, and seeing the visitors for that post steadily increasing almost daily, I began to ponder about Adsense ready themes for Blogger. Well that pondering only lasted a short while because Blogger, unlike Wordpress, lacks the ability to just click and add an Adsense publishers ID in an options tab like that available to Wordpress. Any inclusion of Adsense in a Blogger theme would have to be done by hand by coding the xml document, or through the use of the layout section. Which is easily done, and any template for Blogger can be modified, but nonetheless modification would need to be done unlike those I wrote about for Wordpress where all a user had to do was insert their Adsense ID. Making it not viable to write a post about Adsense ready themes for Blogger. So then I decided that I would simply put together a modest list of sites that I have come across and that others have suggested for getting Blogger templates. Again Adsense modification can be done to these templates as any other template and the use of the layout section in the dashboard can be used to add Adsense as well. (I should note that the last site on the list does indeed have some themes where you can enter your Adsense ID and get the template code generated for you with your adsense code inserted with some nifty "in post adsense advertising" in your template)

So with that said here is a list of places to look when trying to find templates for Blogger.

PanaSmontata Templates
Templates are temporarily down (Technical reasons)

The Style Contest
A template contest, but there were some impressive submissions nonetheless.

Blogger Templates
He has templates as well as blogger modifications detailed that you can use to enhance your current blogger template.

Blogger Buster
Amanda has designed some of her own templates and even put together a top 100 favorites list of Blogger Templates. her site is all about Blogger, from templates, widgets, hacks, and well a lot of really cool and neat stuff. Too much to list here.

Blogger Templates Directory
Many many templates. The owner of this site has been collecting templates from all over for ease of use to find.

SuckMyLolly
Sharnee creates her own templates and website themes. You can even find backgrounds or other goodies here that you wont find anywhere else.

To The PC
The Author here put together a list of sites that offer Blogger Templates, sites you will not find listed here in this list.

Blog And Web
Collection of Blogger Templates

BTemplates
Another good designer of Blogger Templates. In fact I have used some of their templates before and have really enjoyed them!

Fresh Blogger Templates
nice Collection of templates

Gisele Jaquenod
Designs her own unique Blogger and Wordpress templates.

JackBook
You can find his own custom designed Blogger Templates as well as many other Blogger applications, widgets, hacks and well sought after Blogger tips here.

Pyzam
This is a list of, well a monster list of Blogger Templates. Many I have never seen before and one of these days I'll have to sift through them all. Page after Page of templates!

Eblog Templates
You can find both Blogger and Wordpress templates here. As well as some monetization and other interesting articles.

Mashable
Nice list of templates

Tech Sagar
A nice collection similar to this one, but including links to others I have not posted. No sense in duplicating content .

Gosu Blogger
Some really nice templates found here. He even converts WordPress to Blogger. So suggest a theme youd like converted.

Blogger Template (Free Template)
Blogger templates, hacks and many other informational articles.

That concludes the list of sites that I have come across that one can goto to find Blogger templates. I know there are many more so if you ever come across more or know of anyone who has some. Perhaps yourself even, by all means comment and leave a link pointing to the site or to your site so others can find your templates as well. Thanks again in advance.

Continue Reading...

Weekend Quick Picks : Edition 2

A week ago I decided to add a "weekend quick picks" weekly carnival, to showcase those articles and posts that other bloggers have been writing. Mostly from the "make money online" niche as well as the "blog about blogging" niche. The interest in this has been quite strong and after a successful first edition of the weekend quick picks, this weeks edition proves to be an even larger list of well written articles and posts.

Most of these articles were submitted to me,and some I came across by chance, and as such, I thought I would share them. If you have any articles that fit the "Make Money" or "Blogs about Blogging" niche, be it tips, suggestions, lists, or general advice on SEO or internet marketing, feel free to submit it and I'll more than likely showcase it.

With that said the following articles have been submitted To Blog Me The Money to be showcased.

Second Edition (contains 17 submissions)

Want to find out how Marcus Hochstadt makes thousands of dollars online by simply using his knowledge? Marcus Hochstadt presents I Made $13,692.59 In Profits Last Month, So What? posted at Internet Business Guide.

John Lenaghan presents What Did You Do For Money When You Were 12? posted at Internet Marketing Chaos.

John Crickett presents Top 100 Internet Business Blogs | Business Opportunities And Ideas posted at Business Opportunities And Ideas.

Sean Reynolds presents his blog, Creativity posted at Creativity. (Not A specific Article but he did submit his blog to be included)

Ravi presents A good way to make money from your blog posted at Ravi's Blog.

Brian Terry presents Become A Genius Website Designer posted at Big Selling Website Design.

James Lee presents 9 Copywriting and Marketing “Aha’s”! posted at Online Business Freedom.

Tim Gary presents Your Mental Nooks and Crannies Hold the Keys to Success posted at Internet Success Bites.

Fred Black presents How to Improve Your Chances of Success by an Infinite Amount posted at Fred Black: Internet Business Blog..

Ravi presents Blogging for the money posted at Ravi's Blog.

Skyler Reep presents Buy Domains posted at Skyler Reep's Blog. Skyler also says, " I can think of no cheaper, more easily accessible asset for the small-time investor/entrepreneur to gather up."

yusep presents 10 Tips Make Money Online With Adsense posted at Make Money Online Using Blog.
yusep also describes his blog as one that is about "Free Resources How to Make Money Online, Blog for Making Money Online, Make Money Online Business, Good Mental to Make Money Online,Tips and Tricks."

Amanda says that "if your blog isn't reader friendly, they won't stick around - and they won't come back". Want to know other reasons as well that may drive away your visitors?
Amanda Moore presents 6 Things That Will Make Me Leave Your Blog posted at VagabondetteVA.

Stock Tips offers information on " Some investment mistakes that you need to avoid to make a lot of money."
Stock Tips presents Investment Mistakes To Avoid » Free Stock Market Investing Tips posted at Free Stock Tips.

Karthigeyen presents Wordpress Affiliate Marketing(WAM)-The Next Gen posted at My online Street.

The Stock Investor discusses and says, " Figure out if mutual funds are the right thing for you to invest in." Stock Investor presents Are Mutual Funds For You? posted at Stock Investment Resource.

Riggie Freyer presents Online List Building Tools to Build Your List posted at Internet Business.



And that concludes the submissions for this past week! A lot of reading to take in but some very entertaining, informational and inspiring reading at that. I hope you take the time to visit these various bloggers and do find some value from visiting their blogs. Feel free to subscribe to my feed so that you do not miss the next edition of the Weekend Quick Picks. And feel free to comment here about these articles or leave some comments on their sites as well. Have a great start to your week!

Continue Reading...

Looking To Score Entre Card Credits?

Well then you are just in luck!
EntreCard is holding a couple contests right now to do just that. Give away free credits for those who take the time to promote the many new changes that have taken place at EntreCard. Pretty quick ad easy way to possibly earn some credits.

How to win 2,000 credits?

All you have to do is to write in your site about the "ADD A NEW BLOG" feature of entrecard, post a link to their ebook and then leave a comment on their blog so they could see you have linked to them. Pretty easy enough right?

Do all this and come June 25th, these credits could be as good as yours. For the full details check out their blog.

Perhaps you are look to earn a chance at another 15,000 credits on top of this?

EntreCard is giving away 15,000 credits to people who add new blogs to their accounts. They will randomly select one winner in each of the following classes:

2-5 blogs in account
5-10 blogs in account
10-15 blogs in account
15-20 blogs in account
20-25 blogs in account

They are giving away a total of 75,000 credits, as there will be one 15,000 credit winner for each class. All you have to do is use their new feature to add EntreCard to your other blogs, or simply link your other blogs together using the “switch” button in the top right of the site. Winners will be picked on June 25th. Imagine the possibilities of what you can do with 15,000 credits!

EntreCard has also added some other new features recently as well. New features like, NEW HOMEPAGE, NEW CAMPAIGN PAGE TABS, and a TOP DROPPERS RSS FEED.

Continue Reading...

Thank You Money Maker Times

I would just like to take some time and thank Marty over at Money Maker Times dot com for putting up his generous prize in the recent contest held by Marcus at Hochstadt.com. And what a party and contest it was. If you missed it, you missed a big one, with many people coming away with some pretty impressive prizes. All thanks in part to generous people like Marty.

Blog Me The Money was fortunate enough to win the prize offered by Marty, and a 125 by 125 button featuring Blog Me The Money, can now be seen running on Money Maker Times.

For those who have never bee over to Marty's site, I suggest a quick click on over as he has a lot of interesting posts and readings that vary. The following, I borrowed straight from his site as it pretty much wraps up what you can find over at Money Maker Times.

Money Maker Times is your source for all kind of mon