Make Money with Top Spots

As most of you know I have been on an extended vacation and will be returning home tomorrow. To get back in the swing of things I thought I would post a quick money making tip today.

Top Spots

I have been talking about SEO techniques and why targeted Google traffic is important for months now but it is only recently that people have started to pay attention. This is due in extremely large part to the fact that Vic who pens a real "make money online" site called Blogger Unleashed pulled out a big stick and whacked a good chunk of the blogger community over their collective heads in order to get their attention. SEO matters and Google matters if you really want to make money online. Vic's efforts have been greatly aided by Court's Internet Marketing site and his keyword sniping series. Now that people are starting to apply some of these techniques the inevitable hurdle of how to monetize your site is cropping up.

There is no single answer when it comes to monetization as every site deals with different niches and has a varied mix of traffic sources. As a whole I have found that most bloggers are not innate marketers and to illustrate this I want to show you how marketers think in order to get you to start seeing things from a different perspective. When you start to think like a marketer you will begin to see monetization in a whole new light and ultimately find your own monetization models for your particular situation.

The Top Spots widget has been out for a month or so now and as much as I hate pointing this out to all of you because it will invite more competition - I have to ask why none of you have taken advantage of it. I don't mean taking out a $2 ad on every site with the widget in order to advertise your blog. I mean why aren't you all running affiliate links on as many sites as you can find? While I have been testing out one product after another (clickbank links) on as many sites as I can find it has only been this week that I've seen others doing this as well.

For a measly buck or two I have been pasting affiliate links on various sites and while some have done little others have made sales. I haven't been able to spend a hundred bucks yet as most of my ads stay on each site 2 weeks or more (for a buck!) but I have made over $600 in sales this week alone. I bought all the spots on one site that has been particularly fruitful. A hint - try and find sites that rank well for their main keywords and hence draws search traffic and then find a suitable clickbank product and buy the spot. Don't just buy spots on sites with high Alexa ranking or impressive RSS numbers as this just means they get a lot of un-targeted traffic that isn't likely to buy.

A few affiliate links have shown up on my widget lately and because the owners know how to write appealing come-ons for a "make money online" blog they are getting 5-6 clicks a day on my site. 70% of my traffic is from Google for make money online terms. They will likely get a week or more exposure here which means 35 or more shots at making a sale from my traffic all for a $2 investment. If this doesn't sound like a deal you are confused as one affiliate sale will bring in considerably more revenue than the expense. If you don't succeed you're out $2 - big deal. Work on your link wording and try again.

The Top Spots program is crap for advertising your site but as a marketng tool it's great. Do you know a better way to place your affiliate link on another site for a buck? This is the cheapest way you will ever find to hone your marketing skills so get to it!

Griz