Generating Revenue
How do you make money from a website? One easy way to earn an income is to join an affiliate affiliate program and deliver banner advertisements from your site. There are many banner-advertising firms in business and several compensation models are in use. Some firms pay the "web publisher" each time an ad is displayed on his or her website. Some pay a flat fee when a visitor clicks on an advertisement. Other banner advertising companies pay commissions based on sales performance. For example, if a visitor to your website clicks on a banner ad and then subsequently purchases a product, you would receive a portion of the purchase price.
Although there are hundreds of banner advertising firms in operation today, there are a few "fly-by-night" companies that ought to be avoided. It is important to find a reputable company that pays reasonable rates and makes prompt payments. To be accepted as an affiliate, most of the major players in the banner advertising industry will require that your site meet some minimum requirements such as the following:
- The website must not be hosted on a "free" server. It must have its own virtual domain name.
- The website must receive a minimum number of hits per month
- The content must be original, legal, and socially acceptable.
When selecting a banner-advertising firm, the following questions should be asked:
- Which payment model do they use? e.g. cost per click (CPC), cost per 1000 displays (CPM), commission amount per sale
- Are payments made monthly or are payments held until a minimum threshold is reached?
- Which businesses does the banner advertiser company represent? What products do they sell? How compatible are those products with your website content?
- What statistics do they provide (e.g. ads displayed, click-through rate, revenue earned)?
- How fast and reliable are theiweb servers that host the banners?
- What types of ads do they support? (e.g. banners, buttons, cubes, pop-ups)
- Do they allow you to opt out of specific categories of advertisements? (e.g. alcohol, tobacco, gambling, pop-up ads)
