4 Easy Ways to Get Advertisers on Your Site

Pump up your profit margin with these simple tips for attracting advertisers.

Contributed By:

Derek Gehl is the CEO of the Internet Marketing Center, an internet marketing firm that has helped thousands of people learn to start and run their own online businesses.IMC hosts a new Search Marketing Lab Forum, where members have their strategy questions answered by search marketing specialists. Source: Entrepreneur.

If you're just getting started on the internet--or simply looking for ways to add new revenue streams to your business--you might be considering accepting ads for other companies' products on your website.

Who wouldn't like to make a few extra bucks without any effort? You just put up a few ads on your site and wait for the cash to roll in, right?

Not necessarily.

To make your site attractive to companies looking for ad space, you'll need to have a great niche market, tons of traffic and the promise of good ad placement on your site. However, if you don't have all these elements in place yet, there are still ways for you to make money from ads on your site. The easiest--and often the most successful--include:

1. Promote an affiliate product on your site.
Joining another company's affiliate program is one of the simplest ways to get started with internet advertising. While affiliate links aren't technically ads, they allow you to make money by promoting someone else's product. As an affiliate, you earn a commission each time someone you've referred makes a purchase. To encourage sales, you might post a banner on your site that links to the affiliate site or publish a newsletter article about their product.

Different affiliate programs offer different payout options. Some might offer 10 percent commission for each sale, while others pay up to 50 percent of each sale. You'll want to shop around for the best deal for you and the best fit for your site. To find good affiliate programs, check out the following directories:

·         Associate Programs

·         Affiliates Directory

·         Refer-It

Some internet advertising pros are actually making all their income from signing on with multiple affiliate programs. They don't even have a product of their own! This isn't a strategy for beginners, however, so take some time to check out different programs before committing to this option.

2. Use targeted advertising with Google AdSense.
Google's AdSense program allows you to make money advertising on your site by placing targeted text ads generated by Google on your pages. The ads appear in rectangular boxes running down the side or across the bottom of a web page with the words "Ads by Google" over the top. These ads are paid for by businesses that use Google's pay-per-click program, AdWords. These ads reflect the content on your site, so if your site sells a book on how to recognize authentic baseball cards, for example, the ads that appear on your site might be for baseball card retailers.

As a Google AdSense publisher, you earn money every time a visitor to your site clicks on one of the AdWords ads on your site. If you're getting a lot of targeted traffic--and if these visitors are interested in the products being advertised--that could mean a healthy new source of extra income for you.

Best of all, Google AdSense is free to join. It's easy, too. Google does all the work of finding relevant ads for your site--you just collect the payments.

A word of warning: Google ads don't work for all sites, so if you add them, be sure to test them. You don't want to lose credibility with your target market.

3. Approach companies directly to ask if you can advertise for them.
If your site is already getting lots of traffic, try looking for sites that offer complementary products and target the same niche market as you do. For instance, if you own a bridal shop, you could approach a local florist to see if they'd like to advertise their wedding bouquets on your site. An ad on your site would also be seen as an implicit recommendation of their product, and it could send a ton of brides to their site. And the more successful your ads are, the more you can charge for them.

Be sure to contact potential internet advertising partners in a professional manner. Call them on the phone instead of just e-mailing them so your communication is more personal and professional. Be ready to supply them with information about your business and your site traffic. The more information you can give them, the more likely they'll be to consider your offer. And above all, make sure they have a solid reputation. If you partner with a questionable company, their activities could reflect poorly on your business.

4. Sign up for a blog-specific ad program.
If you have a blog, consider signing up to feature blog-specific ads on your site. The key is to consider the kinds of ads your target audience will find valuable. Here are some great ways to attract advertisers to your blog:

·         Sign up with a context-based ad program like Google's AdSense that will automatically generate ads for your site that you can put up within minutes of being accepted to their program. Crisp Ads offers a similar program, but only for blogs.

·         Place Amazon Associates ads on your site, and feature ads for products you personally use or are happy to endorse. That way, your customers are responding to your recommendations.

·         Get advertisers interested in your blog with a link they can use to contact you for rates and requirements. This link can be a simple message saying "Click here to find out how to advertise on this blog!" That way, anyone visiting your site is free to discuss advertising opportunities with you.

·         Sign up with an advertiser-publisher connection program like BlogAds or AdBrite, and get listed in their publishers' directory. One important note: With these types of ads, the advertisers look through listings of thousands of blogs to choose the right people to promote their products. Unless you're getting thousands of visitors a day, they might not be all that interested in doing business with you.

Making money from your site isn't a matter of putting up a few ads and grabbing a paycheck--it takes a lot of research and testing on an already established site to make even the best internet advertising strategies truly pay off.

Even then, you may find that your audience resists the presence of ads. If you're putting people off by placing ads on your pages, you could end up losing more customers and revenue than you actually gain. To make sure this doesn't happen, test every aspect of each new ad campaign you run.

Once you do discover the internet advertising strategies that work best for your site, you can try promoting another product, and then another. Soon, all those added revenue streams will combine to swell your profits.

25 Features Every Business Website Must Have in 2017 (Infographic)

Building your online business? Here are some things to remember.

Contributed By:

Rose Leadem

Online Editorial Assistant

Source: Entrepreneur

Even though online businesses are becoming more prevalent, they haven't become any easier to launch.

To give your online business a greater chance to succeed, there are certain things you need to incorporate on its website. Of course, there are the simple things such as an easy domain name, a phone number and a logo, but it’s also vital to think about the content, links and navigation that will go onto your site.

Related: Create an SEO-compliant professional website for your business at an affordable cost. Check in now for details.

When building your website, sometimes it’s helpful to think of its setup like that of a newspaper -- organizing the most important content “above the fold,” and the less exciting material “below the fold.” In addition, having a strong call to action will help hook potential customers.

For help building your business website, check out U.K. Web Host Review’s infographic below.

Related: Create an SEO-compliant professional website for your business at an affordable cost. Check in now for details.

5 Tips for Starting Your Own Online Publishing Company

With good content and the help of talented writers and artists, there is nothing stopping your blog from growing into a publishing empire.

Contributed By:

 ALICE GOLDSTEIN

GUEST WRITER

Entrepreneur, business owner, entertainment manager

Source: Entrepreneur

With audiences rapidly moving online for their content, using mobile devices, ereaders and tablets for books and other types of content, the world of online publishing has grown in response to provide more content and offer new opportunities for writers to get in front of a larger audience. It’s also been a way to formalize and monetize content production within a larger business model to serve as a structure for fledgling creatives. Whatever your overall goal may be, those within the online publishing industry have the experience to provide great tips for those just starting out.

For example, take Library of Miss Gadish founder Tali Gadish who has found success creating what’s been positioned as a virtual library for kids but that also operates as an online publishing company, working with numerous writers and artists to create the digital books that are offered through the library. Here, she shares five of her top tips that have helped her develop and manage a successful online publishing company:

1. Follow your passion.

Gadish started off as a child obsessed with “Sesame Street” because it gave her the entertainment and love of learning that has remained throughout her adult life. This passion led Gadish to spend time working with children’s entertainment and production companies to develop similar learning opportunities for kids. It was this desire that led her to the idea to create an online publishing company that could offer the same type of creative content that kids loved but that also taught them important linguistic skills and enhanced their general knowledge. She suggests, “Find something that gets you excited and you love doing and then make that the core of your online content production. This enthusiasm will carry you through the hard work and hurdles that go into building an online business.”

Related: Pointers for a Publisher Planning to Launch an Online Magazine

2. Make plenty of contacts.

These contacts provide a beneficial network that can fill in the skills gaps, provide ideas and resources to remove some of the challenges along the way, and lead to connections that can propel your business forward. For Gadish, contacts she had made from previous employers, particularly Dreamworks, were for helping to develop high quality, creative content because it allowed her to tap into great talent that had worked on similar projects. This talent could help launch the online publishing company with the best content possible to attract and retain an audience from the start. Gadish notes, “Always look to those around you because they know people and have connections so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. My contacts helped me launch much more quickly than if I had to go it alone.”

3. Spot a gap in the market.

Gadish started the Library of Miss Gadish because all she saw everywhere was low-grade, non-education content for kids. No one had thought about the idea that kids actually do like learning when you can create something fun and useful for them. Gadish explains, “I spent considerable time researching was out there and that helped me identify what was missing. While my demographic may not have been able to speak up and demand what they wanted, I could see from experience working with children that they would love something that would be similar to what other generations of kids used to enjoy on TV or at the library. You can do the same with your online publishing company and locate a niche that remains untouched. Find the audience, exploit that, and they will want your content.”

Related: How the Publishing Industry Has Learned to Thrive With the Social Media Industry

4. Focus on quality.

Gadish saw there was so much poorly written and developed content for children in the digital space and, like content for adults, there was a definite need for something that was creative and helped its audience. She thought about why people fell in love with the animation from Dreamworks and realized it was because it was well done, unique, and fully developed in its characterization, visuals, music and plot. She states, “Those same ingredients were necessary for children’s digital content. They want quality just like every other age group. That meant I had to locate and bring in talented artists, animators, writers, voices and musicians to create the perfect formula for high-quality content for my virtual library. That same formula applies to any type of online publishing company. Make it incredible or don’t do it. Your audience deserves the best.”

5. Develop what your target audience wants more of.

Gadish notes that the reason books like the Harry Potter did so well was because it gave kids something magical and wonderful to fall in love with to the point where they wanted to read more about Harry Potter and his adventures. There was enough detail but plenty of room for readers to use their imagination. The same goes with the stories created for the virtual library. Additionally, Gadish has added a rewards component that encourages the audience to collect groups of stories and incentivizes them with ‘stars’ and planets “stickers.” Whether it is for kids or adults, focus on creating series within your online publishing company that hooks the audience and gives them the promise of much more to come. With that, they will keep coming back in search of more content related to those characters and adventures.

While your online publishing company also must be guided by knowledge of basic business operations, including marketing, accounting, hiring and training, and overall daily planning, these five tips provide an excellent framework for conceptualizing the type of company you could create and grow.

Do You Have What It Takes to Start an Online Business? Ask Yourself These 6 Questions.

Contributed By:

SHELBY LARSON

GUEST WRITER

Co-Owner of Content Divas

Source: Entrepreneur

Shelby Larson presents the most reliable and proven ways you can create an extra paycheck for the short term and establish a continual revenue stream for the long term with your own website. In this edited excerpt, Larson reviews the six questions you must answer before attempting to start making money online.

When you decide to start on online business, you need to ask yourself a number of questions to determine whether this is the right path for you. Let’s explore six of them.

1. Do you want to work for yourself or own your own business?

While working for yourself does mean having your own business, the distinction is that you’re relying on your skills, talents, or resources for your monetization. A great example of this is being a freelance writer. You’re writing content for money, and your income is dependent on your ability to write quality content.

By contrast, if you were to choose to try your hand at ecommerce, you’d be developing channels online to sell products, either digital or physical. So you’re definitely still working for yourself, especially in the beginning, but the “thing” you’re selling doesn’t rely on your individual work, generally speaking. While you’re still putting time and effort into your company, and therefore working for yourself, your point of monetization is something outside the work you do.

2. What are your personal skills and talents?

Everyone has marketable skills. By creating a list of your skills and talents, as you evaluate different opportunities, you’ll more quickly be able to assess what things you’ll need to hire or acquire to be successful, and if that’s realistic for you at this time.

Everything should be taken into consideration. This should be a fact-based list without emotion attached to it. Even if you don’t understand how a particular skill or experience could be beneficial, write it down. Also write them down without respect to whether you enjoy doing them.

Next, rate your skills and talents based on how much you enjoy doing each of them:

1.      I LOVE doing this.

2.      It’s not my first choice, but I’m good at it, so if it needs to get done, I can do it.

3.      I’m neutral. I could take it or leave it.

4.      While I’m good at this, I don’t want to do it any longer than it takes to replace myself.

5.      I’d rather eat dog food than do this skill for any length of time; it’s a deal breaker.

Being aware of the skills you bring to the table and how you feel about each of them helps you make long-term and short-term decisions and set goals. It gives you clarity about whom you might need to hire when looking at any specific business and helps you evaluate what areas you may need to finance vs. sweat equity. It also helps you make outsourcing and partnering decisions, and will greatly impact how you look at your implementation timelines and processes.

3. What are your hobbies, passions and experience?

Making money online is exciting. Making money online about a topic you love is even better. That’s when your work doesn’t feel like work. For this reason, listing your hobbies, interests, and topics so you’re aware of niches and industries you have some advanced knowledge in will be very helpful to you.

There’s no interest that doesn’t count. Here are a few ideas to help you brainstorm.

·         Hobbies. Do you have hobbies about which you’re passionate? Perhaps you belly dance or sail or are really into massively multi­player online role-playing games (MMORPG) games like World of Warcraft. Do you show dogs? Do you run a playgroup for moms? Are you an artist? Do you play any sports? Do you love to travel? Are you an avid photographer? Do you sew?

·         Education. Do you have a degree or certification in anything? Do you have a psychology degree? Are you a certified doula? Did you get a certification or training program in something else?

·         Profession. Are you or were you at any time a nurse? Have you worked as a dental hygienist? Did you work in a flower shop and can make wicked flower arrangements? Do you have experience in event planning? Have you worked in real estate off and on your whole life?

·         Everyday life. Are you a fashionista? Do you follow the current music scene? Are you interested in politics? Are you a parent? Are you a corporate executive? Are you an extreme couponer?

These are just a few examples to get your juices flowing. Trust me, if you have something you are passionate about or interested in, there are tons of other people who are, too. There very well may be a business in that industry for you, so be thorough!

Related: : Do you desire to know how to buy an establishedbusiness with very little capital and start making money right away? Then, seedetails here!

4. What are your financial resources?

Your first step is to take inventory of what capital you could draw from should you need or choose to. Then ask yourself: Are you good at managing money? In my opinion, whether or not you’re naturally gifted at managing money isn’t as important as knowing whether you are. So whether you’re “good” or “bad” with finances is less important than whether you have a realistic understanding of your strengths or weaknesses in this area so that if, by chance, you tend to be bad with finances, you can compensate for that weakness. If your answer is yes, then great. If your answer is no, then it needs to be on your radar so you can put a financial plan in place.

5. What are your personal limitations and lifestyle?

Time is by far one of the most precious, sought-after commodities you possess. You may not think of your time as a currency, but you absolutely must while working to make money online. For most people, their time is more valuable than money. It must be treated as the treasure it really is.

How much time do you realistically have to spend each week creating your new profit path? Can you carve out one hour per week? Two? Five? More? If the opportunity were good enough, could you temporarily devote more time to it? Remember, “no” is an acceptable answer. The point of this process is to know what resources you have available to you and how you’d get them if you needed or chose to.

Patience is another currency that’s not infinite. The more you’re balancing on your plate, the more patience will be demanded of you. Add to this list positivity, coping ability, and energy -- these are all critical in all areas of our life. I bring this up because burnout is a very real possibility. Wherever you’re spending your various currencies, you’re taking away from another area of your life.

Think carefully about how you’ll stay balanced, and how you’ll know when you’re not. Sometimes you’ll choose to run with your time and resources unbalanced in the short term to get a dream off the ground. That’s OK. The point is, you’re doing it deliberately. Trust me when I tell you it’s not pleasant to crash because you’ve been running unbalanced for too long and you have no idea how to course correct.

Who’s your support system? Is it a spouse? A best friend? Does your dog help you stay balanced and happy? Who can you lean on? Who’s a resounding voice of reason who can help you evaluate what you’re doing and how you’re doing it when things get stressful? Everyone needs a support structure, so who’s on your “Team Awesome”?

6. What are your deal breakers?

The last thing to evaluate are your deal breakers and/or limitations. For instance, you may have an allotted amount of time you’re willing to devote to your profit path, and if it consistently requires more time than that, then it’s not a good match for you. Another example is travel. For some people, having to travel frequently would be a deal breaker. For others, the thought of being required to do any public speaking would kill the deal.

So what are your non-negotiable and personal limitations? Take some time to compose your own list of deal breakers. Ultimately, this deep dive into your skills and resources is about really understanding what’s important to you and what you bring to the table that you can leverage to make the most intelligent plans for moving forward.

Related: : Do you desire to know how to buy an establishedbusiness with very little capital and start making money right away? Then, seedetails here!

LinkedIn Your Way to Your Next Deal

Contributed By:

HOWIE BUSCH

  GUEST WRITER

  Inventor, Entrepreneur & Amp; Attorney

  Source: Entrepreneur

What do you do when you need to get to a person or a company?

It used to be that when you needed to get through to somebody you didn't already know you had to pick up the phone and persuade that skeptical receptionist/gatekeeper. Remember the movie "Wall Street," when Bud Fox called Gordon Gekko for 30 days straight, each time trying to charm Gekko's secretary to put him through?

Gatekeepers can be pretty tough (besides, when Bud Fox did get through the gatekeeper to Gekko, he lost everything and almost wound up in jail. But we digress).

Cold calling is not dead -- but it is on life support. Sure, the cold call still has its place but, fortunately, we now have some other tools in our arsenal that make cold calls a lot warmer. Today, that means using LinkedIn (and sometimes Facebook and Google) to try to get to someone. And going in warm is almost always better than going in cold.

 

How to Linkedin your way to success.

Used correctly, LinkedIn is a powerful tool that can lead to plenty of great contacts and successful sales and deals. You can literally get deals done on LinkedIn -- if you just know how to navigate it.

Related: 18 Tips to Create Your Perfect LinkedIn Profile (Infographic)

Here's how you do it.

Your Profile: Make sure you have a professional looking Linkedin profile. It goes a long way to someone wanting to do business with you. That includes a profile picture, summary, job history and your education. Plus, if you can get some good recommendations from colleagues, that's a big help. Make it look good so people want to do business with you.

Getting to someone: If you want to get to a specific person, type his or her name into LinkedIn. When you get to their profile, see if you have any "common connections."

If you find a common connection, congratulations. Now you have two options.

1.      Ask your common connection to make an introduction for you. If they're willing to do so, that's great. But remember, you're now on their timetable. And besides, they may not know each other very well... they may just be "LinkedIn friends."

2.      Your other option is to simply reach out to the person you're trying to get to. Of course they may not respond, but...and it's a big but, when they see that you have a common connection or two, they'll assume that you're someone worth being connected to. In other words, that common connection is essentially vouching for you without even knowing it.

Pretty cool, huh?

If you don't know anyone in common, that's ok. Now you just have to dig a little deeper. Go through their profile and maybe you have something in common with them, whether it's their college, a previous job or an interest.

Related: The One Thing You're Doing Wrong on LinkedIn

Still nothing? Dig deeper.

Company search: If they work or used to work for a decent sized company, you can search that company on LinkedIn. You'll get a list of everyone on LinkedIn at that company -- as well as what level of connection you are to each of them.

You can even connect with random people at a company, so that when you try to connect to the person you really want to get to, it appears to them that you already know people at the company, so they are more likely to accept your request.

The Pro version of LinkedIn, while not cheap, is worth the investment if you're serious about connecting with people and building your network. You can even test it free for one month. You can use that month to expand you base of contacts and see if it's a worthwhile investment for you.

Another benefit of the Pro version is that you can see when someone looks at your profile. Not everyone you reach out to will look at your profile, but it's nice to know when someone does. At least you know you've got their attention.

Related: 5 Steps to Generating High Quality Leads on LinkedIn

For some reason, the mobile app lets you send connection requests with fewer steps and to more people than using the website. Strange as that may seem, it does appear to be the case.

To start you off in the right direction, send me a connection request on LinkedIn -- that way, you'll be one step closer to my 1,365 contacts and your own LinkedIn success story.

4 Emotional Struggles You Must Confront as an Entrepreneur

Contributed By:

KIMANZI CONSTABLE

VIP CONTRIBUTOR

Author, Consultant, Owner of KimanziConstable.com

Source: Entrepreneur

Entrepreneurship can be a wonderful path to a life of freedom. You have the opportunity to earn an income doing something you love. You can help the people your business serves. Entrepreneurship is not for everyone, but if it is for you, you can accomplish your major life goals.

A lot of what is written and talked about when it comes to entrepreneurship is a pretty picture of nothing but good days, success and cool opportunities fulfilled. The reality is that life is not always pretty. Building a successful business is a real struggle to stay motivated to do the work required to succeed. Here are five struggles that you must address and have a plan to deal with.

 

1. Rejection

It doesn't matter who you are or how good you are at what you do, at some point, you will experience some sort of rejection in your business. In that moment of rejection, your emotions will tempt you to make a quick decision that could have long-term consequences.

 Your emotions in that moment are natural. Embrace them. Admit to yourself how you feel. Take a quiet moment to go through what you're feeling and process everything that's happened. Once you do, you'll be able to see what you could have done differently and/or what you'll change the next time. Understand what's in your control and what isn't. Maybe there was nothing you could have done. I'm not going to give you the fluffy advice that you have to embrace rejection and seek it out. Rejection is bound to happen but it can be avoided in certain situations. Have a plan to deal with it emotionally and practically will help your business in the long run.

Related: 5 Ways Criticism and Rejection Builds Your Capacity to Succeed

2. Envy

Social media and the Internet allow us to instantly witness the success of other entrepreneurs. As entrepreneurs, we're happy but, if we're very honest, the human side of us gets a little envious. We want that win for our business. We might even think negative thoughts about how they achieved that success. Envy is a very real struggle. Be honest about it but don't allow into your life. Envy will take you down the wrong path and distract you from what will help you achieve success. Acknowledge them and quickly get refocused on your "why." Don't let envy distract your from what you're doing about you and who your business serves.

Related: 3 Positive Ways to Harness Career Envy

3. Loneliness

An entrepreneur can be lonely at times despite being surrounded by people. It doesn't make sense but it happens often. Sometimes it's hard for people to understand our vision. Sometimes it seems impossible because people are conditioned to what they know. As you chase these big dreams and build your business, you feel like no one gets it and you're alone in this journey. You don't have to be. Even if you are a solopreneur who spends most of your time alone working on projects, there are ways for you to get out into the world and connect with other like-minded entrepreneurs. Don't put yourself on an island. Get out. Join a mastermind group. Go to Starbucks to work. There are many options for you today online and offline.

Related: Don't Let the Loneliness of Entrepreneurship Kill You

4. Success 

Marianne Williamson has a long quote which starts with “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure." Reaching success is a silent fear and struggle of many entrepreneurs -- especially when most of what you have experienced has been somewhat negative. That feeling of accomplishment and having people respect you and your business terrifies you. It may be different and it may be an experience you have to get used to, but you don't have to struggle with success. Always keep your focus on why you started your business and who you want to help. Stay humble and treat people right.

There are many other struggles you will face as an entrepreneur. Some of these struggles and situations may be out of your control but the important thing to remember is that you have a choice to make. You control your actions and reactions. You don't have to let your emotions and struggles make decisions or run your life- -- you are in control. If you can find a way to handle struggles and overcome, you will build a successful business and accomplish your major life goals.