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When
Google launched AdSense for webmasters way back in June 2003,
AdWords was still new, people had no clue what contextual advertising
meant or how it worked, and most importantly, no one had provided
a similar service for the average webmaster (like you and me)
for free so far.
Two and half
years later, things have changed. AdSense has become massive;
more and more people everyday are buying into the possibility
of earning money, serious money through Google AdSense. A lot
of this has to do with the high competition for keywords on AdWords
- as advertisers bid higher and higher, clicks on your site's
AdSense ads become more and more valuable.
In addition,
a large number of services have sprung up to offer similar advertising
services. Other pay-per-click advertising sites have been quick
to follow the Google model, offering contextual advertisements
just like AdSense. What's more, alternative site advertising models
have sprung up, most notable being the contextual algorithms used
by Kontera and Vibrant Media, and the product advertising by Chitika,
Commission Junction and CBProSense, amongst others.
Google AdSense
is still the largest revenue network, and with AdWords being the
most popular PPC program available, there's still great potential
for AdSense revenue on your website. Still, you may feel like
AdSense is not the thing for you. Maybe you don't like Google.
Or maybe,
like me, you're looking to maximize the revenues from your website.
In other words,
you may have a number of reasons for looking at advertising alternatives
to Google AdSense. In today's lesson I've picked out three
serious alternatives for you to consider in place of AdSense.
These are:
Each occupies a different "niche" within the site advertising
model - and it's worth noting that all three may work best for
one type of site, but not too well for others.
Yahoo! Publisher
Network (or YPN for short) is Yahoo's response to Google AdSense.
In effect, YPN works almost exactly like AdSense - insert a piece
of JavaScript code into your site pages, and then wait for the
YPN bot to crawl your site and pretty soon you have contextually
relevant ads being displayed on your site.
YPN is
still in beta, and in terms of features, it shows as there
are several features available in AdSense that seem to be missing
in YPN (lesser ad format options, clunkier code generation, limited
color palette options, a limit of 50 ad channels). However, YPN
trumps AdSense with one feature that webmasters have been clamoring
for ever since Google launched AdSense - the ability to transfer
funds from YPN to Yahoo Search Marketing (YSM), provided that
you use the same login/email information on both accounts. This
is huge in terms of attracting webmasters, but since YSM is still
a few steps behind AdWords in popularity, Yahoo will need to do
more to attract AdSense users.
My own tests
coincide with what other search marketing experts have said about
"Yahoo's AdSense" - results are too varied to determine
which service delivers better ads or better CTR/CPM. If you
want to switch over to YPN just because you want to increase your
site revenues, I'd suggest that you test it out on a small section
of your site first.
Both YPN and
AdSense have comparable ad relevancy and average earnings per
click. This means that at least for now, your choice between the
two might be based on something as simple as a preference for
either search engine (or if you are actively involved in PPC advertising
using YSM).
If you own a high-quality content-rich site and enjoy considerable
web traffic, you might want to consider a contextual, keyword-based
advertising alternative to the AdSense model. Kontera provides
such a non-obtrusive, highly effective solution. Kontera is unique
in the sense that while it is provides ad banners similar to AdSense,
it also uses keywords within your page text as ads - by underlining
them and giving ads in the form of tool tips upon a mouse over
of the underlined text (ad).
An example
of such ads is on SEO
Chat (which actually uses a similar service from a different
company, Vibrant Media, mentioned later in this section). Load
any article on SEO Chat, and you'll notice that certain keywords
in the main article text are underlined. When you bring your mouse
pointer over that keyword (don't click), a simple tool tip will
appear.
(Kontera's
AdLink page - explains how keyword-tagged advertising works)
Kontera's
biggest draw, in my view, is their qualification requirements
(150,000 page views per month and 100+ words on a majority of
the site pages) which ensure that only content-rich, high quality
websites become members of their publishing network. 150,000 page
views per month translates into 5,000 page views daily - let's
face it, to get to that level of web traffic, you would need to
put in some effort.
All in all,
the requirements serve to bring in only the best content sites
into the program - sites that are focused on providing quality
to the customers. In the end, this quality focus also translates
into advertisers that are willing to pay big bucks to generate
leads from theses sites, thus earning you high EPC (earnings per
click) on average.
On the plus
side, if you are dedicated to producing quality content and have
the help of a powerful SEO
tool like SEO
Elite, your goal of getting 5,000 page views daily is a lot
easier.
If you have
a site that meets Kontera's requirements and are interested in
seriously exploring unobtrusive, effective contextual advertising,
then I would suggest that you snap up a copy of Joel
Comm's Kontera Secrets and use it as your guide in implementing
Kontera's advertising algorithms on your website. Selling at $47
(as of 18th Nov 2005), the e-book is a quick but extremely informative
and invaluable read at just 29 pages.
For more information,
visit www.kontera.com.
You can also sign up directly through this
link.
Another option
in contextual, keyword-tagged advertising in Vibrant
Media. It offers similar services to Kontera, with one important
distinction - its minimum qualification is 500,000 page views
per month. Vibrant Media is the company that powers the ads on
SEO Chat.
Strictly speaking,
Chitika is a product-advertising service that uses both
contextual and keyword specific advertising (you can choose one
of two) to display product information on your website. Revenue
is generated through leads (i.e. clicks), and Chitika pays website
owners 60% of their revenue (e.g. if an advertiser bids $1 for
an ad for Nike running shoes, and a visitor on your site clicks
on that ad, you get $.60).
Chitika ads
are better known as eMiniMalls - a reference to how convenient
it becomes for users to browse through the product advertisement
while remaining on your site. This is better seen than explained,
so make sure you check the "demo" on the front page
of www.chitika.com.
eMiniMalls
can be configured to run both contextually or by manually specifying
keywords. Contextual advertising is great if you have a highly
targeted content site but if you are just looking to put up ads
on a few product review pages (or if you just want to test out
eMiniMalls), you can also manually specify keywords for which
to show ads. The keyword option also allows you to run eMiniMalls
alongside AdSense and YPN (as both prohibit the use of other contextual
advertising running simultaneously with their ads).
A key point
to keep in mind when trying out Chitika is that running "product
ads" on your website (no matter how informative they might
be) is that you have to do your research on which products
and keywords have the best paying ads. Otherwise, if the coffeemaker
ads on your coffee secrets website only pay you $.05 per click,
you might want to switch to something else.
To learn more
about Chitika eMiniMalls, read the Chitika
FAQ, or go to the main Chitika
website and try it out on your website.
Remember that
if you display too many ads on your website, you will lose the
trust of your visitors. Also, once it becomes obvious that you're
trying to sell to people, it immediately brings up psychological
barriers - Just as people are now starting to ignore AdWords listings
in search engines, your ads may well be ignored if they get into
your visitors' faces.
All
the best,
Brad Callen
Professional SEO
http://www.seoelite.com
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