Chances are, if you have added some Adsense to your blog, and have sold off any spare advertising space then you might feel like you are running out of ways to generate advertising revenue from your blog. Right? Wrong! There are still several more ways to turn your blog into a money making machine. Actually, I am not fond of sensational claims like that, as I feel they are misleading for new bloggers who have been conned into buying e-books and software claiming to hold the secrets to making easy money overnight. The techniques that I am outlining this week can give you ways to earn money from your blog, but there is no guarantee of how much.
No matter what anyone tells you, a lot of the results that you get will be based on how much work you put in to content, design, SEO and promotion.
Fortunately, this next technique doesn't require too much work other than creating great content on a focused niche, which you should already be doing.
After you sign up with a company such as Text Link Ads, AdBrite and Kontera you install a snippet of code on your website. This code allows the company to scan your blog to find words and phrases that some advertisers want to use as anchor text links to their website. (If that sounds a bit technical then this is one monetizing strategy that you might want to leave till later.)
You might earn money per instance that a term is purchased (e.g. you earn 50c for every single occurrence of 'shampoo' that is bought and linked to a shampoo company), or a flat rate for a word across your site to be purchased for a defined amount of time (e.g. you get paid $7 per month for a shampoo company to be linked to every place the word 'shampoo' appears on your blog.) There are other payment options, with each advertising network doing things slightly differently, so check out a few before committing.
Pros:
- This type of advertising doesn't take up any extra space
- You can install the code and then forget about it (unless you want a more hands on management of which words are linked)
Cons
- Your site visitors may get confused about these links
- You may lose site visitors half way through a blog post if they click away
- Some people argue that these systems slow down blogs
As with selling advertising space on your blog, most advertising networks supplying in-text links will want to see that your site meets a quality standard, and has a good amount of traffic.
Top Tip for this money maker:
- Only use one company to sell anchor text links on your site to avoid confusion. Many advertising networks have this rule as part of their Terms and Conditions.
A Word of Caution:
Be transparent with this technique by notifying your visitors that it is being used. Also, make the difference between a regular link and a paid for anchor text link clear, so that your visitors do not get confused. It doesn't hurt to offer a brief explanation about your advertising in your footer or sidebar, and/or create a page that deals with the issue in depth. You should already have a Privacy Terms page on your blog to let you visitors know about cookies which may be used to serve ads throughout your site.

