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Affiliate Alternative; 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:
http://www.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:
http://www.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:
http://www.police-supplies.com (scroll
to the bottom)
http://www.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 not implemented any
way to track multiple sites that serve ads;
they simply show 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.
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