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Where's The Money? Adsense
vs. Affiliate Programs
The main question I get from my clients when
coaching them on building content sites is
wether they should use Adsense or affiliate
programs. It's a great question, and one that I
haven't seen addressed often. Hopefully this
information will help you in making your
decision.
My rule of thumb is always go where the money
is, but in making the decision to use Adsense or
affiliate programs, there are a few things you
should look at. Let's take a look at those
things right now, so you know exactly what you
should be putting on your site. Google Adsense
or affiliate programs.
First, it will depend on your niche. If there is
an affiliate program for your niche that
converts well and pays well, then you should
take the affiliate program route. I'm sure you
would rather make dollars than you would cents,
so using an affiliate program in this situation
would be your best bet. However, if there isn't
an affiliate program, using a pay-per-click
service such as Google Adsense will at least
allow you to earn a little money from your
content site.
This leads to another question though. How do
you tell if the affiliate program you are
looking at is a good one or not?
The answer to that question will take some
research, but will be well worth your time. The
first thing to do is to contact the site owner
or affiliate manager and ask what the average
conversion rate is for the affiliate program.
You could also ask if they have any affiliates
that would be willing to email you their
experiences with the product. Once you have the
answer to that question, visit a few affiliate
marketing forums and ask if anyone has promoted
the program before or if they have any
experience with the owner or affiliate manager
of the site. Usually if it's a bad program, many
people will tell you about it.
Now, if you don't find any affiliate programs
for your niche, then I would use Google Adsense
or any of the other programs like it. Always
check though to make sure you can't make more
money from something else. You don't want to be
making pennies on a site you could be making
dollars from. Most of the time Google Adsense
just pays pennies per click. So if you got 100
clicks on your Adsense ad, and made say $5, but
you got 100 clicks on an affiliate link and made
$50, wouldn't it make more send to use the
affiliate link on your site?
Using this as a guide will help you, but you
still must test and track what works best for
your site. You could put Adsense ads on your
site for a few weeks, and then replace them with
affiliate links for a few weeks. See what does
better, and use the one that makes you more
money. Just remember to keep testing and
tracking!
Source: Free Articles
About the Author
Liz Tomey runs a blog that educates visitors
about the different ways of making money through
affiliate marketing. You can enjoy reading tips,
tricks, and other information about affiliate
marketing on her site at http://affiliatemarketinginformation.wordpress.com
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