• Does the network have plenty of advertisers?
• What is the quality of those advertisers?
• What are their payouts?
• Are the CPM’s average, low or above average in payouts?
• What type of reporting do they have?
• Do you meet their minimum application requirements?
• What types of ads are available?  Banners, Inline, etc.
• Do they offer CPM, CPC, CPA, CPL?
• Would you like a worldwide reach?

An example of an online ad network, is Mediashakers.  The international ad network has the potential to reach a large target audience with over five billion impressions served monthly.  Great for someone with an international presence on the web.  With this much opportunity, matched with their optimized campaigns and performance based targeting, a publisher could be quite happy with a variation of relevant ads served to their visitors, resulting in higher revenue.  MediaShakers also offers hourly reporting data, dynamic CPM pricing, same day trafficking adjustments and helpful strategic consulting and services.

Make sure to take a look at MediaShakers ad types, which are very similar to Google Adsense’s options, which is great.   But what is unique to this ad network is that they offer a new ad unit called the ‘iDent Ads’ which grabs the visitors eyes by placing a floating ad to the left hand column (if there is sufficent room).  The floated ads can increase CTR by more than 20% per MediaShakers – which I could believe.  It’s a new placement for ads, which is always good as most of us are “ad blind”.

If you do apply to MediaShakers or any new ad nework, evaluate what your needs are and what are the offerings of the new network to make sure it’s a win-win pairing for the two.

It appears that using the anchor text words “click here” has been proven to be a successful way to get people to click on a link.

Marketing Sherpa performed an experiment with their newsletter readers and found that wording used in hyperlinks influenced a difference in clickthrough rates (CTR). Changes to 2-3 link words was discovered to lift clickthrough rates by more than 8 percent.

Results:

• Click to continue: 8.53%
• Continue to article: 3.3%
• Read More: (-)1.8%

The results strongly revealed that leading a reader to click the appropriate anchor text would improve clickthrough rates (CTR).

I’ve seen some individuals who have placed links within the image and wondered why CTR is low – it’s because the reader obviously doesn’t know to click the image.

I’ve only played with using “Click Here”, “Url Here”, “Source”, “Product Link” but I haven’t toyed with it enough. The results from Marketing Sherpa has definitely inspired me to use ‘Click Here’ more often….. :)

Does this make you want to click?

Click here to find keywords tool to improve search or ad click conversion within your niche.

Not too long ago, I dipped my feet into these easy money discoveries which resulted in a flood of emails sitting in my inbox. Some of the companies fairly distributed cash, while others turned out to be a scam. Usually the scam sites requested you to do try a bunch of free trial offers and wouldn’t allow you cash out till you reached about $30-$50, which not too surprisingly the trial offers or surveys quit coming in around the $20 mark.

However, there are a few sites that do come through with the promise of making some dough. I’ve tried a few and I’ve gotten paid, nothing to make me rich by joining but definitely a few bucks…sometimes upwards of an extra $100-$200 per month.

From what I experienced, these guys were the most reliable and didn’t have ridiculous payments.

• Consumer Advisory Group
• DealsnCash
• Hits4Pay
• Inbox Dollar
• Donkey Mails
• Tesasteamails
• Treasure Trooper
• Zot Spot

Taking surveys, clicking on links or reading emails for money can be a good spare time hobby, while making money on the side. It’s just important to find the right program/company to not waste your time.

If you are interested for some more…there are a handful of other sites that are quite reliable for payment. You can check out eMoneyBuzz.com for more.

1. Didn’t have enough time
2. Discouraged with results
3. Pursuing other ventures
4. Lost the spirit

I won’t deny it, I’ve personally experienced each of these at one time. It usually takes a quick kick in the butt or an awesome day to inspire my spirit to keep at it.

Most bloggers are not like me. I’m extremely fortunate to be doing this full time – it’s my job and what I’m trying to grow into a living. Last year when I had my daughter Avery, I was planning to go back to work after my maternity leave. I did…but when I returned, I found that my priorities had changed. I had a hard time coping with the idea of not being there for my daughter for her first steps and first words… My job would require me to get home around 7pm and I would have to put her into bed without any quality mommy-daughter time. That wasn’t the relationship I wanted and I didn’t realize that till I had her.

I returned to work for 2 months and then decided to explore other opportunities of generating income from home around late May. Luckily, I could choose to leave my in-office career because of my husband’s income but it helps greatly that he is a very supportive husband.

Currently I run 5 blogs and I’m working on #6, #7 and #8. Understanding that most bloggers don’t have the same amount of time to run multiple blogs, I’ve listed some pointers to assist any busy blogger.

• Find Your Niche – Jot down industries or topics that interest you and will help you achieve your specific goals. Is your goal to make money, to share a laugh, to freelance, get your voice heard, meet friends, blow off steam, write an online journal, or network? Certain markets pay more per keyword on average, so if you are looking to make money within a niche choosing the write market is important.
• Research Keywords – The last 5 years would have been a great time to focus on the mortgage industry and ways to refinance or upgrade your home. Mortgage companies were throwing out cash to get those leads. How do I know? I personally bought and managed lead flow/budgeting for top companies. Typically I paid on average $37-60 per lead from affiliate companies…per click, it’s really competitive…and can be about $15 per click with Adsense depending on keyword of course. Although this market isn’t as strong anymore. Due to the housing market, foreclosures are becoming hot and I would expect demand for this keyword to grow if the bad news keeps coming in. Phoenix, AZ just experienced a 50% drop in housing prices…if this trend hits other regions it’s gonna get nasty. Check out of a list of easy to use keyword tools here.
• Choosing a Domain Name – Choosing the right domain name is important because it’ll represent the focus of your blog and help pull your listing in search results for the appropriate keywords. Even though .com extensions rule the internet, don’t lose the perfect domain name because the .com extension is taken. Also, hypens are actually okay to use! Search engines love them. When and if you choose what you feel to be the right keyword fit for you, always sleep on it! I can’t tell you the number of times where I felt that I had a great idea, rushed to buy the domain and woke up the next morning not too thrilled with the choice.

You can make money online. Anyone one can…it’s a matter of how much. I’m not a dot mogul, not near it. I wouldn’t use this site as a particularly high money maker. In truth, one of my other sites makes more than this one and I’m looking to branch out my ideas into more websites to further cover my interests. Why? Well, I personally don’t like to put all my eggs into one basket and writing on a blog topic like “make money online” already has enough aggressive competition, like the heavy hitters ShoeMoney, Problogger or John Chow. I’m not trying to compete with them. How can I? Or why should I? Thousands of fellow bloggers are reading the same content and many of them are jumping on the bandwagon by duplicating their path.

More importantly then ever, it’s great to read multiple blogs with many points of view without forgetting about your personal interests and things you love to do. Many people who find success do it because they followed something they loved.

Personally, blogging is fun to me. I get to read, research, write, read comments, surf the internet and network with great people.

As I enter my 5th month blogging, I’m making close to $10 a day and I’m hoping to grow that with more blogs and traffic. How can I run more blogs? Well, not all blogs need to be updated daily. There are only 2 blogs that I update quite frequently. As I go through this process of growing my network of websites, I hope to continually update on their progress. I’m not hoping to launch Susan Suarez dot come to high levels of John Chow popularity but instead retain this as a personal online journal to document my sites progress and share affiliate programs, traffic, ideas and anything else I come across with all of you.

I’m doing this full-time, so if you have any questions – feel free to contact me. Thanks again for reading, as always… :)

Popshops has created a new service that gives you the ability to make a virtual storefront using some of the most popular affiliate networks like CJ and LinkSynergy.

It’s extremely easy to use and eases the process of joining specific online merchant programs. I haven’t come across a program utilizing their lists that requires a manual approval from the advertiser as I’ve experienced with working with CJ directly. So it makes easy last minute changes to a store extremely easy.

The code can be placed within a widget on a blog hosted by WordPress, Blogger or Squidoo. An instant display of affiliate products related to your niche is shown for easy click and purchase.

Over 24 million products are available to be sold from other affiliate networks such as Commission Junction, ShareASale, LinkShare, Red Galoshes and Performics. It’s sorta of a one-stop shop site for using all major affiliate networks but you’ll need to sign-up with the major affiliates to retrieve an Account Id prior to finalizing. I double-checked to see if there was a fee to participate and was pleasantly surprised that there wasn’t.  You keep 100% of the commission sales.

There are 3 basic level of plans offered:

• Basic is Free
• Pro is $5/month
• Enterprise is $30/month

The basic free service allows you to establish up to 10 virtual stores and up to 100 products per store. There is only the risk of using your free time to setup the account and the company claims that it is easy enough for a 3-year old kid to do it.

If you find that you need more shops, the Pro plan can create unlimited shops and lets you add search engine-friendly code. The Enterprise plan allows you manage multiple affiliate IDs – useful if you have several websites. There is a 15-day free trial for both of these plans. I personally don’t have a need for over 10 virtual stores so haven’t upgraded from the Basic plan.

What Choices Do You Have?

Usually you’re left with 5 options, the first 3 being the most typical:

1) Renew the domain and do something with it

2) Renew it with the intention of doing something, but really don’t do anything with it

3) Don’t renew and let the domain expire

4) Sell the Domain

5) Park the Domain and utilize advertisings on behalf of hosting company

Sedo allows you to park your domain on their or GoDaddy’s servers and make money from it, but you also have the option to also sell the domain. Parking the domain allows you to keep the domain and have Sedo show related adverts, which you will get a percentage. It is an excellent way to get something in return while your domain is sitting in limbo – unused and unloved.

Selling your domain is fairly easy and you can list any domain you want to sell. They will take care of the whole transaction. Of course, if you want a good price for your domain, a little promotional effort doesn’t hurt. You could always include it on your blog site.

Emoneybuzz also takes the initiative to list some quick money sites such as getting paid to read emails, ads and playing games for cash.  It will be interesting to see how things pan out for the site but with the growing number of bloggers, affiliate marketers and stay at home moms or dads looking to make some extra cash filling out surveys.  Keep an eye on this site!

Lets start with the not-so-good four you shouldn’t waste your time on.

1) Amazon – Initially the affiliate program seems extraordinary. You get to sign-on with a superstore but the kick-back is between 4% to 8.5% of the purchase, with a maximum of $25 on personal computers, which otherwise be a great affiliate item to get a commission from. There are some people who are making money with Amazon, but most aren’t making a whole lot. Typically people will earn an average of .05-2 cents for every click they can send to Amazon.com. You’ll have to decide for yourself it that’s a good or bad number.

2) Chitika - You may find success with this affiliate program if your site is directly product related. If it isn’t…you may receive a poor performance from Chitika.

3) Auction Ads - Auction Ads gives 2% of referral revenue and many haven’t received much success per cut. Things may change as AuctionAds has just been sold to Media Whiz.

4) Clickxchange – Clickxchange’s interface is poor and their website performance is lousy. The quality of advertisers is low in comparison to the other alternatives, like CJ or ShareASale.

5 Great Programs/Networks

1) Text Link Ads – Text Link Ads lists your blog within their marketplace exposing your site to thousands of advertisers, allowing for easy payment. Upon referral, new advertisers get $100 worth of free text link ads if $125 is invested. That’s not too bad….and the referral program offers $25.

2) Commission Junction (CJ) - Commission Junction is an affiliate network bringing advertisers and publishers together. Best performing ads are listed first and a large variety of big advertisers utilize their system. They supply many advertiser text links and banner options to choose from. There are a few free offers on their site, such as Free Credit Report. A similar site to CJ but smaller is ShareASale, which offers some advertisers that CJ doesn’t list but their interface isn’t as easy to use.

3) Website Magazine - Website Magazine offers free magazines regarding internet news for a commission. The great thing about this magazine is that it has a lot of great information and news valuable to webmasters.

4) Bidvertiser – Besides Bidvertiser having a lower minimum payout of $10 versus Google’s $100 payout, Bidvertiser also allows you to categorize your listings instead of having them figure out which ads are best to place on your site like Google attempts to do. You can change the size and ad color, but make sure that they appear different than Google’s Adsense as Google’s TOS states that you cannot have other ads alongside it that look similar to your Adsense placement/format.

5) PayPerPost – PayPerPost is a great way for bloggers from time to time use to monetize their blog. I don’t suggest using it all the time, as your site will appear as a spam site (nothing other than reviews for money). Referrals are paid $15 per sign-up once the referrals first blog posting is approved.  ReviewMe also has a referral program and offers $25 for new advertisers but you’ll probably get my sign-ups with PayPerPost.

Of course, this isn’t a complete list and possibly you may be one of the few to obtain great success with the not-so-good affiliate programs. It’s important when evaluating an affiliate program to find one that has been established and been around for years. Find affiliate programs that pay good commissions since you are going to work hard at selling the product. You don’t want to end up in situation of being overworked and underpaid.

The best affiliate programs to maximize conversion and also attract people to your site, are usually free offers! So, if you can find a free offer that makes sense take advantage of it.

At one time I did create an account with MyLot, about 3-4 months ago. I’ve participated here and there but have only earned small cash. The community offers to pay a small amount but is it worth the time versus the amount paid?

MyLot thrives on having an active community engaging in starting discussions and participating in others. Discussions cover a variety of niche topics, so you could start discussions and possibly redirect people to your site under an alias name.

For my taste, earnings are very low unless you plan on spending a lot of time within the community posting questions and answers or if you plan on developing a referral program, as referrals will earn a bonus equal to 25% of that user’s earnings from MyLot. I’m guessing this is how Cash Quest primarily earned most of her money.

There are a few other sites like MyLot such as DayTipper.com (pays $3 per tip). These can be useful sites to receive answers or tips, but how many people do you think go to these sites for money making purposes versus visiting for true enjoyment and will that affect the site’s money making incentives and effectiveness? Hrmm….

Of the products offered, there are a few not as well known: LinkInTxt, LinkWorth Directory, LinkPost and LinkArt.

LinkInTxt

LinkWorth offers in-text static link advertising in which publishers can sell individual keywords and phrases within their existing content ranging from one instance or as frequent as you choose. There is an advantage to both publishers and advertisers as advertisers will be able to choose/buy relevant hand-picked keywords/phrases related to their site. While, publishers will be able to set competitive prices for each keyword phrase.

Link Directory

LinkWorth’s Directory submission service is a one-time fee to submit your website up to 300 of the largest and popular internet directories. LinkWorth claims to manually submit each website to ensure inclusion into relevant categories and will provide screenshots to show proof of completion.

There are a few plans to choose from, which can cost from $550 to $1,300 to include you into sites such as Jayde, DMOZ, SearchSight, Buzzle and more. Considering it takes about 10 minutes to complete each internet directory submission, it could make sense to pay someone else to perform this rich service as you may improve your rankings and receive more visitors.

LinkPost

LinkPost gives partners a chance to be paid for reviewing products or services from advertisers. It runs like many other pay-per-post type services like Payperpost and Blogsvertise. You can accept or decline offers and the review doesn’t have to be 100% positive.

LinkArt

LinkArt is another product offered which allows advertisers to submit articles to hundreds of publisher sites for a one-time fee. Their unique service includes an in-house writing team to create optimized articles which can make the most out of your article submissions. Optimization includes, preferred keywords/phrases, keyword density and search engine friendliness.

A good service?

Time will tell. They do have an impressive list of products on their site. If you are interested, you can sign up or visit here.