How Does Content Monetization Work and Does it Matter?
Guest Post by Murray Newlands
In short, content monetization is the process of earning money through written content.
There are a many ways to achieve this. You can earn money by either selling the actual content or by using internet-based writing tools. In the first method, potential buyers of your content can be anyone from news editors to artists to entertainment blogs. In the latter method, you can use one of the hundreds of possibilities available through the internet that enables you to make money from something aside from the actual content. Examples of some of these opportunities are the use of AdSense, sales of consultation or advertising for a small business.
It’s important to know these different techniques if you want to enhance your writing and reach your readers’ expectations. In order to grab the attention of your readers, you need to deliver the content while keeping your specific audience’s specific interests in mind. You need to convey to your readers the main reason you are writing the piece.
There are several ways that you are able to monetize your content. When writing for a newspaper, for examples, you need to write articles in a manner that can attract the reader’s attention. You earn money though writing a compelling piece that editors of the specific paper want to pay you for one time. You also need to make it an interesting, engaging article for those who want to advertise in the paper, so that the paper can earn from business relations, readers, advertisers, etc.
If you are an advertiser, you need to design the content according to the market—you need to make potential customers of your product or services know the qualities of your product. Your goal is to convince them to purchase your product or services.
If you want to sell your business ideas, you need to focus the content of the ideas. This enables your customers to see your ideas again and again and to get accustomed to them. And If you own a website, you can significantly raise your website’s income by advertising with the help of marketing tools such as Google’s AdSense, paid posts and link insertion.
But maybe you are a blogger that doesn’t make much money from your website. Why not earn money from your labor? Wouldn’t it be great if you could make money while working on your hobby? If you want to boost your blogging income, you can use link insertion as a simple tool for content monetization of your blog. All you have to do is to insert some java script code in your site and this can monetize your site automatically. The software will use words and phrases from blogs and use them to link it to relevant advertisers.
A useful tool for advertising is INTENTclick, which provides an alternative basis for your content monetization. This tool is especially useful for content, which are for advertisement of products or services in origin. You can find more details about these helpful internet advertisement techniques in the book “Content Monetization.”
So all said and done, content monetization really does matter, as it can be a great source of revenue for your website. Using the correct tools can help you reach optimization and make the most amount of money without upsetting your readers.
Disclosure: I am working for the company INTENTclick.
Read MoreOnline Marketing Glossary: Minimum Bid
Minimum Bid:
- The least amount that an advertiser can bid for a keyword or keyword phrase and still be active on the search ad network. This amount can range from $0.01 to $0.50 or more for highly competitive keywords, and is set by the search engines.
You must remember to keep money in your advertising account to meet these minimums. It’s a terrible feeling to see that a top performing campaign has been shut down because you’ve failed to meet the minimums. Most networks offer tools to assist in managing these minimums and avoiding any problems if you have to take an extended absence from monitoring your campaigns.
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Glossary Definition From ABC’s of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine
Online Marketing Glossary: AdSense
AdSense:
- An advertising program run by Google enabling website owners to display text and image advertisements. Revenue is generated on a pay-per-click basis. Google uses its search technology to serve ads based on website content and users’ geographical location.
AdSense is held as the golden standard of search marketing, above rival search engines Yahoo! and MSN. There are several gurus out there Joel Comm who write books on how to use AdSense with the highest effectiveness to generate revenue. I won a copy of his latest eBook AdSense Secrets 6 from blogger & super affiliate Zac Johnson, but I have yet to read it. Which is probably why my all-time AdSense earnings (ok all time is only the last couple of months) are sitting at a jealousy-inducing $6.56!
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Glossary Definition From ABC’s of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine
Joel Comm – Scummy or Chummy?
A bit of a scandal broke out last week regarding AdSense guru Joel Comm’s latest eBook offering – AdSense Secrets 4. The landing page as you can see is one of your typical sales pages that usually screams of scam – at least that’s my usual impression of pages like this. Mark Wielgus from 45n5.com noticed many trusted bloggers and affiliate marketers blogging about this book and it’s greatness – people like super affiliate Zac Johnson and Affiliate Summit co-founder Shawn Collins. Mark was ready to go ahead and buy the book, until he noticed the fine print (figuratively…) on the page – when you buy the $9.95 eBook you were also automatically enrolled in a $29.95/mo. program to receive a newsletter with more tips & such from Joel.
To make a long story short since I linked to Mark’s post in last Friday’s Cribbed Content, he called Joel & this offer out as a scam and was none too happy about it. Joel swung by 45n5.com to explain himself – apparently there were glitches with the landing page and the shopping cart process that combined what was originally intended to be an opt-in offer (the $29.95 newsletter) with the main offer of the eBook. Some of the commentator’s over there are still not convinced that Joel’s being honest about the mix up considering his many years in the field – the “he should have known better” argument.
But the good news is that Joel, in either an effort to make good by a screwy landing page or an effort to save his ass from bad PR, has offered to make it up to people who feel like they were duped. Zac Johnson seems to have the scoop – he corrected the landing pages (well, no duh), added some “Fast Action Bonuses”, and for the next two weeks will be donating 100% of the profits to charity. Wade Tonkin over at Christian Affiliate Marketers just today posted a podcast chat he had with Joel about the offer & spam accusations. Again, whether this is an honest apology or an attempt to save face, it’s still a good gesture and good deal.
The moral of the story? Accusing an internet marketer of spam is akin to accusing a home run hero of corking his bat. Keep this tale in mind the next time you formulate a marketing campaign or launch a new product. Do what you can to make sure that there’s nothing shady, underhanded, or illegal about your offer – or anything that could remotely be considered as such. It’s a good thing to have the blogosphere talking about you, but not when they’re roasting you on a spit.
Read MoreCribbed Content for April 18th
Some good stuff going on this week… and I’m going to throw in something fun that has some social media implications…
- Scott Jangro jumped into the podcasting world with a good set of rambles. He gets fairly personal, talking about the inspiration his daughter has given him & some general rambles about what’s going on in his life. I really like this type of podcasting. Great first effort… PodPress FTW! I hope more are coming.
- My new favorite term is Internet Rubbernecker. I may just changed this weekly post of mine from “Cribbed Content” to “Internet Rubbernecking”. The term was apparently coined by this article over at Wired.com (if it’s from somewhere else, my apologies – I’ve never heard it before). The article points out (yes, go READ it first) that this YouTube lash back video is probably not the best legal move the scorned wife could have made, but it makes me wonder how strong a factor the internet’s court of public opinion might now sway the case? Food for thought in this day & age of social media run rampant.
- Mark Wielgus from 45n5.com called out Joel Comm’s latest AdSense eBook marketing as shady and deceptive. The background basically is that all the ads say just $9.95 for this eBook but once you buy it you’re automatically enrolled in some other program that charges you $29.95 per month. NOT COOL and I have to agree with Mark’s assessment in his video.
I’m keeping it short & sweet this week and ended on what I hope is an uplifting note. Everyday I go to work and I have to reconcile two facets of myself to get through the day – the part of me that went to college and got my degree in theatre so I could make a living on my own terms – writing and telling stories and entertaining people – and the part of me that wants a better life than my parent’s had with more money and gadgets and opportunities and keeps me working in marketing- sitting at a desk all day working a set schedule on someone else’s terms. I know I’m not the only one out there with this daily grapple.
Earlier this week Sam Harrelson recorded an Affiliate Fortune Cookies episode that I just got around to listening to last night. In it, he describes his own college decisions, how high school superlatives have affected him, and how all that attempts to reconcile into who he is today. It was a tough listen for me only because of the state I was in on Thursday – wondering if this blog is worth putting so much energy into and assessing why I do this. This brought me to a good place and I’m okay with where I am… so if you’re finding yourself at a crisis of faith regarding your career, definitely give this a listen. At least you’ll understand that it’s not just you.
Read MoreMecha Googlezilla – AdManager Launched
Google is quick on the draw – it was only days ago that the deal for Google to buy DoubleClick was finalized and today Google’s Inside AdSense blog let the cat out of the bag.
They say it best, so straight from the horse’s mouth:
Ad Manager currently addresses the ad management and serving needs of publishers with smaller sales teams and effectively complements the DoubleClick Revenue Center, which is focused on publishers with large sales teams. We’re excited to add DART for Publishers to our suite of products,and we’re committed to the continued development and enhancement of DoubleClick’s offerings.
So basically all of the internet marketing industry’s speculation earlier this week about what this means has been swiftly answered. Sort of.
It’s still not clear the fate of affiliate network Performics, a DoubleClick company, and whether they’ll stick around or if it’ll be eventually swallowed. Personally I think it would be silly for them to absorb Performics. Instead they should pretty much do what DoubleClick did when they initially bought Peformics – just append the name.
Coming to an internet near you – Google Performics?
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