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Affiliate Alternatives; Google Adsense
by Sharon Housley
The Rise and Fall of Affiliate Programs
Affiliate
programs were once a great source of online revenue, a
savvy webmaster with an eye for marketing could easily parley a
site into a money making machine with a little luck and effort.
However, the evolution and growth of the Internet has hampered the
growth of fortune making affiliate programs. Constant search engine
algorithm changes,
along with the search engine's
clear distaste for sites participating in affiliate programs;
have made it a little more difficult to earn a healthy affiliate
revenue. An influx in the use of software programs that
terminate cookie tracking and privacy programs that prevent
webmasters from tracking referrers, have also hindered the
affiliate sales channel. While it is still possible to make
money through affiliate marketing, other alternatives ought to
be considered.
A Healthy Alternative or Supplement
Google's Adsense program allows approved websites to dynamically
serve Google's pay-per-click Adword results. This has become a
popular alternative and an effective revenue sharing program for
webmasters. Google's spider parses the adserving website and serves
ads that relate to the website's
content. While the Google's
Adsense program still has some issues, they are making efforts
to improve it.
The website maintenance related to Adsense is very easy and
requires very little effort. Webmasters need only to insert
javascript into the webpage or website template. The javascript
calls the ad from Google and will ensure that ads are served each
time a visitor goes to the webpage. If the visitor clicks one of
the Adsense ads served to the website, the website owner is
credited for the referral.
The implementation, while simple, has its drawbacks. Google
dictates the format of the ads. Webmasters can select from a
handful of preformatted text boxes that lack creativity. A recent
improvement allows webmasters to modify the ad boxes to resemble
the website's color scheme.
Still, a far cry from some of the
creative ads webmasters are accustom to.
The example below reflects how the color scheme can be modified
to match the look of the website, but the ads physically don't fit
well into the overall website design.
Sample modified to match sites color scheme:
.hospital-software.
com (scroll to the bottom)
Google determines the content of the ads that are shown/
Sometimes the ads are poorly targeted, and of no interest to the
website visitors.
Sample of poorly targeted ads:
.real-estate-supply.com
Adwords can be a great addition to a website, and when well
matched to the content the revenue stream from Google is consistent
and effortless.
Sample of effective Adsense program:
.police-supplies.com (scroll to the bottom)
.small-business-software.
net (scroll to the bottom)
Not that the Google Adsense program is not without its problems,
as the reporting provided by Google is lacking. Google has only
recently implemented channels as a way to track multiple sites that
serve ads. The general reporting simply shows the number of ads
served, the percentage of clicks received, and the revenue earned
each day. Google does not disclose the amount of the revenue they
share, what percentage of the revenue they earn and what someone
can expect to receive for each click.
Webmasters with multiple
sites will have difficulty determining which websites are producing
the money in the Adsense program.
With affiliate programs many webmasters implement a new browser
launch with each click off the site, Adsense removes the visitor
from the website and there is not currently an option to launch the
visitor into another browser.
Early on Google implemented a filtering system that allowed
webmasters to prevent a specific domain's ads from being served on
the website. Ad blocking meant that webmasters could prevent their
competitors ads from being dynamically served on their website.
Overall, adwords are great supplements to websites where
affiliate programs are either not performing or when affiliate
programs don't exist that target the sites content.
Give it a Try
Implementing and maintaing Google Adsense program on a content
site requires very little effort and can often bring a steady
stream of additional revenue for webmasters. Consider supplementing
content and see what happens.
About the Author:
Sharon Housley manages marketing for NotePage, Inc.
.notepage.net a company specializing
in alphanumeric paging, SMS and wireless messaging software
solutions. Other sites by Sharon can be found at
.
softwaremarketingresource.com , and
.monitoring- software.net
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