Ideas for Monetizing a Website

Need more ways to monetize your site? Have a feeling there's more to site monetization than AdSense? Here are some suggestions:

If you're in the U.S. try http://publisher.yahoo.com/

If you're outside the U.S. try http://www.casalemedia.com/

If you have an extraordinary site, try http://www.gorillanation.com/

Is your site less than extraordinary but you have a desirable demographic? Try http://www.adbrite.com/ or http://web.blogads.com/ and the good folks at http://www.blogsvertise.com/

Do you author a highly popular blog with a thriving community? Try http://www.federatedmedia.net/

Or you can take control of your ad inventory and download OpenX to help you do it. Tim Cadogan, formerly of Yahoo is their new CEO. http://www.openx.org/

Tune in, Turn on, Link Out

Tune in...
A common complaint is that no one will link to a site if it's brand new. That's not unreasonable to think because after all, if your site is in it's own linkless little corner how is anybody going to find it to link to it? At this point of link building the challenge is to bring the site into view of those who do the linking. Get them to tune in to your site.

Throwing money at an AdWords campaign specifically targeting those who link is one way to go about it. It's bringing the site to the attention of those who want to find your site. I received a DMOZ listing in less than a week that way- without even submitting to the directory. Paying for exposure is one way for someone to discover the site and if it's link worthy then it may get a link. If you're not doing it already, add site exposure to your link building toolset. It's about getting your site in front of the people who do the linking so they can link to it.

Turn on...
Here's a recent example that got me thinking about this. I found a site last night that I liked. It happened to be a notable site and consequently had massive inbounds from news organizations and whatnot. But the topic related to one of the sections of my site so I followed his invitation to contact him and invited him to take a look at my site because I knew, I was absolutely certain, that my site would turn him on. The "turn on" is important. Will your opinion, review, overview, images, etc. turn them on? This man's entire site was about this sub-topic and my site was useful and helpful. This is the turn on. A different example would be, if you're going for links from student sites, how does your site turn them on? How is it student related?

This afternoon checking my referrers I found his site referring users to me. Apparently he woke up, read my email and gave me a link. If your site has the ability to turn someone on, then find those people with sites and turn them on. This includes getting stumbled, even if you have to pay for it.

Link Out
Who are the people you want to attract to your site, and where do they congregate on the web? Are they giving out awards, do they offer certifications, do they accept advertisers? Do they read newsletters? Who is linking out and where do they congregate?