If you've been looking for a new way to monetize your site I've got some exciting news for you. With little fanfare Amazon has launched a new service for it's Associate advertisers. The service, "Context Links Beta," works a lot like Kontera and Intellitext in that it dynamically adds advertisements to your content using JavaScript.
Unlike Kontera and IntelliText, though, Amazon Context Links are actually CPA rather than CPC. You earn revenue when someone makes a purchase on Amazon.com after being referred by your site. Amazon Context Links also offers a much greater range of customization options. After reviewing everything, I'm about 90% certain I'll be switching from Kontera to Context Links this week.
Here's the lowdown as I've seen it. Read the Rest of this post
This one totally slipped under my radar until today.
Did you know that Google has added an "open results within my own page" option to their AdSense for Search program? Now, rather than sending readers to an off site search result page you can actually build a local template to handle search results on your site! Using some tricky JavaScript Google actually generates search results and places them within your own page.
One of the major reasons I wasn't using AdSense for Search originally was it's lack of customization options. Beside being unable to customize the search box I was also disappointed with the lack of options for customizing the results page. That's all changed today.
While Google still restricts a lot of your options for displaying results (you can't display results in a space smaller than 500px) they have opened up a lot of potential. On this site, for example, I've managed to build a new WordPress theme page specifically for handling Google Search Results. Using a custom page templates, a blank page, and some code from Google you too can get AdSense for Search working in WordPress!
Here's how it works: Read the Rest of this post
A few days ago I asked whether affiliate links might be a better solution for small and new bloggers. While I spoke mostly about the potential earning power of affiliate links for bloggers with low impression counts, I also hinted briefly about the value of truly contextual affiliate marketing.
While it can be easy to add links to your new posts, in a lot of cases you may already have untapped resources buried deep inside your blog's archives. Why let old posts, especially old posts containing information on products, go un-monetized? In this post I'm going to cover a couple quick tips for identifying and editing old posts to raise their potential value in your monthly blog earnings.
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One of the mistakes that I think most new bloggers make involves their reliance on AdSense. I myself have been blinded many times by the legendary AdSense paycheck. Let's be realistic though - if you're like me AdSense isn't a paycheck, on a good day it MIGHT be a bag of chips. In a good month it might be the AdSense sandwich. The point is that new bloggers, and even some long time bloggers with small audiences, probably aren't going to make significant money through Google.
Should you abandon the almighty Google? probably not. There might be a better direction to concentrate your efforts though.
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I recently stumbled upon a blog that covers one of my favorite topics... a topic I've been hesitant to write about until now.
Hop Talk, as all you hopheads can probably guess, is a blog which discusses various beer related topics. After discovering it the other day I immediately started thinking back to my days drinking at and working for The Gaslight in South Orange. While I've never been big on blogging beer Hop Talk has really sparked my interest. As a result I'll be adding a new category and semi-frequent beer related posts.
Just to be safe I also went ahead and confirmed that AdSense does condone beer reviews - as long as your not selling beer. Good news no?
If you're reading this now and have any beers you'd like to recommend please let me know. Beer posting should begin soon.
