When To Monetize A Website
The question of when to monetize a website keeps popping up in my inbox 
so here are my thoughts on this topic…
Hi Tomaz,
I just wanted to ask a question regarding affiliate links in a product review site. I’ve started my second site on _______ and have about 50 pages plus 20-30 C2 pages. At this point I do not have any affiliate links or any links to Amazon or any other product sellers.
Of course I would prefer to have 100-200 unique visitors daily before adding any affiliate links, but it seems odd to have reviews without leading the visitor to a purchase site. So when is the most appropriate time to add affiliate links?
Or do you recommend adding links without affiliate coding first? Or should I add Google ads first? That at least gives them a click option.
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Hi R…,
The “it seems odd to have reviews without leading the visitor to a purchase site.” shouldn’t bother you so much.
What It Takes To Succeed Online
I got an email a few days ago from a lady wondering whether it’s worth investing time in online business and whether this really works. Here’s her email and my reply below…
Hi Tomaz,
My name is S….. and I am a former SBI owner who is considering signing up again. I had a travel website that I did not follow through on because I got stuck on and frustrated with the technical aspects of building a website but I am willing to try again and push through the pain so to speak because I want financial independence.
I was also not sure how I would effectively monetize a travel website. I contacted SBI but the advisor I spoke to didn’t have concrete suggestions but I checked the results.sitesell.com page per our conversation and contacted the owner of ________.com since that is a travel website about the town of ___ at _____ island and my website would be about the island of ______.
Long story short he doesn’t endorse SBI per say and he doesn’t endorse doing a travel website either. He knows who you are from your postings in the forums and says you are a straight shooter. You guys started at the same time but you are a success and he is not.
I’m trying to figure out what went wrong for him. He did everything right from what I can tell. He followed the Action Guide, has lots of pages, did a video, has 500 unique visitors a day and yet he is not profitable. I find it hard to believe that it is impossible for him to make money with a travel website, especially about ______. He is considering a different topic.
I don’t want to sign up for SBI, do ALL OF THAT WORK only to get nowhere. Can you please weigh in on this.
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Knowing the Difference Between Search And Content Adsense Payout
If you even wanted to know, how much you can earn with Adsense, you know that you can get only half of the story. You can learn how much an advertiser would have to pay, to be at #1 in SEARCH Adsense for a specific term.
The search Adsense shows up only on Google search page results, like here:
The other way of Adsense is the one you’re interested in, because you want to insert it into your CONTENT. This Adsense shows on other websites – and the internet is full of it as you know. Read more
Have You Reached The Spanish Speaking World Yet?
I read a blog post in December 2008 on Clickbank’s blog about their expanded services for customers who speak Spanish, French and German.
The key section was this one:
We recommend selling your foreign language product as a completely separate product from the English version. ClickBank allows publishers to specify the language of their product when they submit their product for approval. When you do this, customers will automatically be sent to a ClickBank order form in the appropriate language. We also send out Spanish, German, and French receipts, as well as other notifications.
I also checked the Interned World Stats and came across this graph: Read more
How I Get Over 200 Daily Visitors With Only 9 Published Articles
If you’ve ever started a website from scratch, then you know that it takes a loooong time before you start getting some free search engine traffic.
It usually takes me around 5 to 6 months before I get 200 daily visitors. I need to add at least 50 pages of content – probably around 70 to 100 – and I need to get quality links to my site.
But look at these stats:
As you can see, that traffic is rising very fast; at the start of May the site just started receiving a few visitors and a few weeks later it was already getting over 200 daily visitors.
And that’s not all; I’ve only published 9 articles by that time on that site!
What’s the secret?
Buying a high pagerank domain or a website which already has many quality incoming links!
I knew for quite some time that there is a huge market of domain names which are being sold and bought all the time but I never knew how to make the best of this system. Read more
Worried About Being Accused Of Copying A Site?
John asks: I’m an SBI owner and have a travel/destination site and now want to build a product review site. Reverse engineering makes perfect sense to me and my only problem is how to avoid “copying” the site.
I’m not talking blatant cut and paste but the more subtle grey areas. Suppose I wanted to do a vacuum review site (I don’t, just an example) then a review of SuperDuper123 will be very similar as its major plusses and minuses are the same, the keywords will be the same etc.
Is it all down to voice etc. or have I missed something? I would hate to reverse a site then be accused of cheating or am I’m being over cautious?
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Is Online Business Sustainable In The Long Term?
Q: Dear Tomaz,
Your website is really inspiring. I am going to buy Site Build It pretty soon (off your link) and get started.
This might be a stupid question, but do you think that making a living online is sustainable? In other words, do you see yourself making a living online 15 years from now doing the same thing?
A: You’re welcome and thanks for a very interesting question. I’ve considered and contemplated on this before – whether online business will work in 15 years or more.
Here are some of my conclusions: Read more
How to Build Your Own Successful Website By Reverse Engineering Successful Sites
Building your own successful website is not as difficult as you may think.
The factors that enabled a successful website to get lots of free search engine traffic and earn lots of money are almost completely transparent – you can see exactly what it takes to build your own website that works.
This article will show you how to analyze successful websites, learn from them and apply this knowledge to your online business.
Step 1: Find successful websites
How do you know which websites get a lot of traffic and earn good money?
a) Sitesell.com lists their most successful websites, and you can study the top 5 from each category on this page. These sites definitely get a lot of traffic.
b) Find sites with an Alexa ranking below 100,000. While Alexa doesn’t tell you exactly how many visitors a particular site receives, in my experience all sites with a ranking below 100,000 have very good traffic. Install Search Status if you use Firefox for a quick glance at the Alexa ranking.
c) Look for success stories. Google has their Adsense success stories page, and if these sites earn a lot of money, they definitely get a lot of traffic. You can also learn where to position Adsense ads since these sites all get very good CTR and eCPM. Read more
Seven Reasons Why You Need A Website AND a Blog
In creating a successful online business, your goal should be a site with a great deal of content that will draw fresh, targeted daily visitors through free search engine traffic.
This is the basis of Ken Evoy’s ‘Site Build It’ program, and there are hundreds, if not thousands, of high traffic websites based on this model.
On the other hand, you have the bloggers. They stick to their model of running a blog, which is actually a website from the perspective of both search engines and most visitors. Blogs are typically updated more often than websites and are more time-oriented – meaning they write about something that is happening right now in their industry or field of interest.
I have found that using both, a large content website and a blog, is a great combination and others have also recommended this approach.
Consider Amazon Context Links Affiliate Program For Product Based Sites
I’ve been positively surprised by the Amazon affiliate program last month. When Chitika average CPC dropped a few months ago (now it’s back up!) I was looking for Chitika alternatives.
While I kept the main Chitika ads on my site, I saw that the Chitika Linx was not earning well.
So I tested the Amazon Context Links affiliate program. Since I use SBI Includes on my site I can change the javascript code for all pages of my site with only one upload so I simply replaced the Linx code with the Amazon Context Links javascript code.
