I was surprised to see an email from Text Link Ads yesterday singing the praises of their new CPC ad network, Shopping Ads. I was actually a bit excited to see the unveiling of this new product.

Angel, as a current TLA publisher I wanted to send you a private invite to our first ever CPC ad program called ShoppingAds! ShoppingAds is a cost per click ad product powered by the major shopping comparison sites. SA allows you to display relevant merchant offers in the form of an image and a text description to your audience and every time a visitor clicks on the ad, you get paid.

I followed the link and tried to sign up right away. I was, apparently, already a member. As it turns out, this looks to be a joint venture between Auction Ads and Text Link Ads, but the difference between this and Auction Ads is that you are paid per click, an average of $0.20 they say. Also, the ads aren’t going to auctions; they’re pointed at online stores, so you don’t need people to buy anything to make money.

As with Auction Ads, you select an ad block, customize the colors and then choose the keyworks you want to target. I think this service shows great promise because it doesn’t rely on conversion like the ailing Auction Ads. As you can see, the ads look quite swish and I’d except a high click-thru rate with a bit of tweaking.

I’m going to jump right in and replace Adsense with Shopping Ads on one of my blogs because I like the idea of getting paid per click. It will be interesting to see how Shopping Ads does competing head to head with TTZ Media.

Tags: Monetize your blog by Angel
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One of my favorite ways to make money blogging is through affiliate programs. There is a common misconception that to take advantage of affiliate sales you need to have masses of traffic. Sure, having the readership of some of the bigger blogs is going to mean that you earn more money, but if you use the right services and target the right people, you can still make a tidy sum.

I’ve been promoting five main affiliate services on this blog and others. They are Text Links Ads, Review Me, Pay Per Post, Linkworth and Bidvertiser. Not all of these perform as well as each other.

For me, by far the best affiliate program I use is Text Link Ads. The appeal of signing up for Text Link Ads is the ease with which it is possible to make money. I use Text Link Ads on a few blogs, and every time an ad is sold on my behalf it’s easy money. Even easier money is the $25 you get for referring someone who signs up to use the service too.

Text Link Ads is incredibly popular and there are always new bloggers out there who can benefit from joining. As an advertiser, Text Link Ads offers an easy way to buy links on other blogs. It’s a complete package.

Another good performer for me is Bidvertsier. Bidvertiser is a popular Adsense alterative that offers the same kind of service, but with $10, Paypal payouts. I use Bidvertiser on one of my blogs and I like the service because you can choose which ads you want to show up. You also get to select your niche, and so providing you don’t write about an obscure topic, you can get relevant ads served up to your blog.

The affiliate program with Bidvertsier is great because when you refer a publisher, you get $10 when they make their first $10. Then when they make their first $50, you get $40. With advertisers, you get $5 when ad advertiser spends $10, and $20 when an advertiser spend $50. You only need to hook up a couple of decent publishers and advertisers before you start to see some Paypal coming in.

The other three services I mentioned, Review Me, Pay Per Post and Linkworth, I’ve had far less success with. The problem with Pay Per Post isn’t getting people to sign up; it’s getting them to actually write that first post so that you then get your $15 referral payment. I don’t see why anybody wouldn’t sign up for Pay Per Post because new publishers get a guaranteed $20 for their first post at the moment.

Review Me I can understand because it isn’t as easy to make money with if you are new to blogging. Linkworth, on the other hand, is a great service and one that I highly recommend for both publishers and advertisers. The affiliate program has the potential to be a big money spinner, paying you $50 for each person you sign up who goes on to earn $100. Getting people to sign up can be tricky, though, because Linkworth’s service is a little confusing. To overcome this problem, you could write a guide to Linkworth like I did.

There are heaps of affiliate options out there and anyone can make money from them. I’d start plugging affiliates right away, even before you have a lot of traffic.

Tags: Monetize your blog by Angel
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After a great August that saw me turn in several hundred dollars, things have slowed down a little but money is still trickling in. A couple of link sales here and there nabbed me about $120, and Adsense ticks over 10 bucks or so a day. The real test will be once my two secondary blogs (including this one) mature and reach a certain age and have more posts indexed. That’s when I can really start to use them.

My two free blogs are rolling over slowly, and another blog will be up and running once my freelancer start submitting content. I started a personal journal too, with the intention of bringing it up to speed and writing paid reviews for it.

One thing that I’m working on is seeing if it is possible to buy a dropped domain with high Page Rank and quickly turn it into something that can make money. I’ll have something to say about that in a couple of months or so. I’m also experimenting with buying existing websites. Although this costs money, the potential is there to make a lot of money without too much work.

For now, I’m close to my second $1,000, and its coming. Slowly but surely, it is coming.

Tags: Monetize your blog by Angel
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