Without a doubt, Google Adsense is the go-to source of income for most bloggers. Most new blogs with some decent traffic set up Google ads on their website.
But there are times when Google Adsense becomes a less-than-ideal option for your blog. Here are some scenarios:
- Your Adsense account doesn’t get approved
- You’re not happy with what you’re making with Adsense and want to explore new ways
- Your account is disabled or banned for reasons unbeknown to you
Whatever the reason, there are some Google Adsense alternatives that you can keep handy for future or start using them once you’ve done reading this post.
6 ways to make money with advertising
There are many ways to make money blogging. Here are some of the ways to make money with advertising on your blog.
- Pay per click advertising
- Sell your own advertising on your blog
- Sell text links on your blog
- CPM ad networks
- Pop-ups
- Paid reviews
Some facts on blogs that make money
Blogging has moved from the tech geeks domain to “new media”. It is now cool and can be very lucrative. Before we dive in here are some interesting facts about some blogs that make serious money.
1. Pay per click advertising
Pay-Per-Click ads, also known as Cost Per Click or CPC, is one of the most common models of internet advertising. It simply means an advertiser will pay you once someone clicks on their ad.
Infolinks
Infolinks is one of the best ways to implement in-text advertising on your blog. It offers publishers a 70% revenue share and follows a PPC (pay-per-click) model. In-text ads are double-underlined words on a page that show up as ads when clicked.
Infolinks also offers other options such as insearch ads, intag ads and inframe ads. They pay you via Paypal, Wire Transfer, ACH, Payoneer, eCheck or Western Union once you reach the initial limit of $50 for Paypal or eCheck or $100 for Wire Transfer and WU, so it depends on the mode of payment you’ve chosen.
Media.net
Media.net is another big alternative to Adsense and is powered by the Yahoo Bing Network. The ads featured are contextual focusing on relevant keywords and that takes some time before they are optimized for your site. As you keep using this network, soon the algorithm will determine the best keywords for your audience based on the clicks.
As opposed to Adsense, Media.net assigns a dedicated Account rep who can also suggest you ways to making more revenues from your ads. The money transfer options are wire transfer or Paypal. Minimum threshold for payouts is $100.
Chitika
Chitika is another alternative that only serves contextual ads and offers a CPC program. You can customize your ads and use them along with, if not instead of, Google Adsense with no problems.
The best thing? They have a small minimum threshold of $10 if getting paid via Paypal. If you’re opting to get paid via check, the threshold is $50.
2. Sell ads on your blog
If you’re already getting a decent traffic, you may want to take things in your control and sell direct ads on your website. All you need is an “Advertise with us” page on your blog listing out the different formats of ads available and how much it costs per month. Make sure to mention your Alexa rank, Google PageRank, and other traffic stats for buyers to know.
But if you want to save yourself the hassle of selling, you can use the following third-party alternatives to sell ads on your blog:
BuySellAds
BuySellAds is an online ad-marketplace where you can list your ads for others to buy. They don’t accept low traffic blogs so if you’re just starting out, you may want to wait for at least a few months before you start generating good traffic.
BuySellAds gives 75% of the total earnings to its publishers, which is pretty decent. There is no minimum threshold for payouts and you can remove money two times every month to your Paypal.
BlogAds
BlogAds works in a similar manner as BuySellAds. They keep 30% of all ad sales as their commission. If you refer new users, you can earn a cool 15% of the earnings also.
If you’re receiving money via Paypal, you need to have minimum funds of $75 and for Check or Wire Transfer, it’s $750.
3. Sell text links on your blog
If you get good organic traffic on your blog, you can try text-link ads where you link a piece of text on your site to another page on a different site.
Before you try these, make sure you use the Nofollow tag to combat any possible Google penalty.
LinkWorth
LinkWorth is a popular text-link network where you’ll also find options to use rotating text ads, paid reviews etc.
Minimum threshold for payouts is $25 if you’re using Paypal, and $100 for Check, Wire Transfer and EFT.
4. “Cost per Click” ad networks
So far we’ve been looking at mostly CPC (Cost Per Click) model for ads. CPC means the advertiser pays you when someone clicks through their ads. An alternative to this is CPM (Cost per Thousand) where you are paid for every 1,000 ad impressions served.
With CPC, your income can vary hugely but that isn’t the case with CPM. If your CPM network sets your CPM at, let’s say, $5 per 100,000 impressions then you will make $500 in total when that number is reached.
PulsePoint
PulsePoint is a popular CPM network where you can set your own CPM prices. In order to be accepted in their network your site needs to have good amount of original content. They mostly sell to a US-based traffic. When setting the price, set a higher price than you make on your backup (example Adsense). If they can’t beat that price, your backup is displayed.
You receive your earnings every 45 days via EFT, Paypal or check.
5. Pop-ups
Granted, many advertisers and bloggers dislike popup ads but it’s still an option. You can display these ads as pop-ups or pop-unders
PopAds
PopAds offers pop-under ads and works quite well with an English-speaking traffic. You set your own price and the popunder frequency for each visitor.
You can get paid via AlertPay, Paypal, and Wire Transfer, and you can withdraw payments any time. They also run a referral program at 10% of the earnings.
6. Paid reviews
You can make some good money by publishing reviews on various products and services that you trust. The best thing about this arrangement is you command a price per review. I’ve seen websites asking anywhere from $150 to $500 for reviews. Of course it depends on your rank and incoming traffic as well as your niche.
SponsoredReviews
SponsoredReviews allows advertisers to build backlinks and bloggers to make money. It connects bloggers with Search Engine Optimizers, Marketers and Advertisers who want to build traffic.
You can offer writing paid posts on your blog to their network of hundreds of advertisers. Set your own price per piece. And you’re not expected to write positive reviews only – honest and in-depth posts are welcome.
Payments are made bi-weekly via Paypal.
PayU2Blog
PayU2Blog is another alternative for getting paid to write blog posts on your site. Not all blogs are taken in, so you may want to sign up and wait before you know.
PayU2Blog works a little differently in that they assign you a blog post topic in areas such as real estate, health, retail, etc. You don’t have to write glorious reviews or endorse anything if you don’t believe in a product or service.Personal experience, honest opinions are encouraged.
You get paid via Paypal every two weeks.
Over to you
There you go. Some of these are ad networks while others are sponsored posts and reviews that don’t use ads at all.
There are still other ways to make money, such as using affiliate networks such as Amazon Associates, so your options are wide open.
The secret is to continuously “diversify” your income streams. And the best part? Most of these options can still be used along with Google Adsense. Which ones are your favorites?
Author bio: Pooja Lohana is an Online Business Coach + Writer & Editor. She helps entrepreneurs shine their blog and copy, and simplifies online marketing so they can make more sales and live the Un-9-5 life. Check out her step-by-step course on breaking into freelance writing.
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