Your site gets a lot of traffic but not quite the amount of clicks that you desire. You may also feel the need to replace those ugly contextual text ads with some cool flash banners. In these cases, CPM (cost per thousand impressions) networks are definitely your best choice.

So what exactly is a CPM network? CPM networks are revenue programs that will pay you to display certain ads on your website. Usually these are flash/image ads. For every 1000 impressions, the network will pay you a certain amount of money.

CPM networks are much more selective about which sites they allow in their programs. The top networks are Tribal Fusion, Burst Media, and Casale Media. These networks are referred to as top tier networks because only the highest and most-trafficked websites can be selected. Tribal Fusion has the best rates for CPM ads, but they are also the hardest network to enter. Unless your site is bringing in 100,000 unique visitors per month, it will be hard to be admitted into Tribal Fusion. The other two, Casale Media and Burst Media, are also very selective, but they do admit more sites into their program than Tribal Fusion. Rest assured, if your site gets admitted into any of these CPM programs then you are set to make cash.

This brings us to the second-tier networks. These networks are decent, but they will not bring in as much money. The upside is that they don’t have requirements that are as strict as those of top-tier networks. One of the best 2nd tier networks is RealTechNetwork, which is the closest thing to top-tier that a second-tier can get. If you must choose a second-tier network, try your hardest to get into RealTech. If you are denied, then look at this site for a good list of CPM networks. I won’t go into detail about each second-tier network since I have yet to try all of them.

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So you want to start monetizing that website but you’re not sure how. If you’re selling something then you would make money off your sales, but we are going to assume that your site is an information based site (such as my blog). The best way you will make money is through an affiliate program.

So how do you choose the right affiliate program? Hopefully you’ve heard of Google Adsense, and if you haven’t then its about time you heard. Adsense is a CPC affiliate program, meaning you will place some of their ad code on your site and earn revenue everytime someone clicks on one of the ads that is being displayed on your website. CPC affiliate programs are good for smaller sites, since their traffic will not make a CPM-based affiliate program worthwhile (we’ll cover CPM shortly). Below I will list the best CPC ad programs and what makes them so good.

#1 - Google Adsense - Google Adsense is one of the top affiliate programs because they serve the most advertisers and they actually provide ads that are relevant to your website, meaning there will be more incentive for users to click on your ads. Furthermore, they allow sites to display relevant images next to ads, which has shown to be a good method of increasing ad revenue.

#2 - YPN - Yahoo’s ad network. It is comparable to Google and the contextual ads look very similar, but the only negative side to YPN is that the relevancy of the ads is sometimes not quite as well targeted as Google Adsense. The upside is that Yahoo generally pays a better RPC (revenue per click). It’s definitely a great alternative to Google. Also, they only allow certain sites into their beta program for now, but they should soon end the beta.

#3 - Adbrite - Not quite as good as either Google or Yahoo, but the benefit to Adbrite is that their ads can be formatted well, meaning it is easier to blend in with your site, meaning you will generate more clicks (remember, better blended ads = better revenue). Another benefit to Adbrite is that they allow advertisers to directly sell links on your website, which is a service that Google Adsense has as well (but not YPN as of now). Adbrite is also very lenient on its restrictions, which is why the affiliate program has been popular with many publishers. Be aware that you can run Adbrite with Yahoo, but not with Google Adsense.

Other Affiliate Programs - There are others, but it seems like most publishers will agree that if you are going for CPC ads, the top three are your best bets. The others will provide less revenue, and should be avoided. This page has a list of some of the better known CPC programs if you are interested.

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I think it’s best to start off the blog with a comprehensive listing of some webmaster resources that you may or may not have known. All these sites will have some very valuable information that will help you increase traffic, increase your search engine rankings, and most importantly, monetize your online business.

SitePoint - Although I cannot say it’s the #1 resource on the web, it sure comes close. If you aren’t a member of Sitepoint Forums then you are definitely missing out on some great knowledge. Not only does Sitepoint contain hundreds of articles related to everything about webmastering, it is a very good resource to ask questions of other webmasters. Many big earners spend their time on this site, and you can also buy/sell/trade online properties such as advertising, templates, sites, and domains.

ProBlogger - This site is mainly aimed at helping bloggers make money, and to be honest, this was the site that initiated my interest in creating the blog you see here. Personally, I like making actual websites over blogs, but I felt that it was time to delve deeper into the online business world. Although this site is for blogs, it has many hints and tips about site monetization, generating traffic, SEO, and the like. Definitely worth a read.

Webmaster Talk - A site similar to Sitepoint. Actually, it’s almost like a clone of Sitepoint, but this is a good site to use to get more opinions, share your links, or sell/trade online properties.

Webhosting Talk - If you have questions about webhosting, this is the only site you’ll ever need. Great activity and many helpful members here to assist in helping you pick a host, find deals, and the determine the difference between a VPS and a shared server.

StevePavlina - Another blogger just like myself, and he’s quite a big earner. He has some very useful articles about blogging and webmastering, but most importantly, his site informs about personal development as a whole.

MattCutts - Matt is one of the most trusted experts on SEO and Google. This is definitely the place you want to go for helpful SEO information.

ShoeMoney - A lot of random stuff, but he has a lot of good information about online businesses and websites.

Wicked Fire Forums - A webmaster forum with, but the best part is that there aren’t many rules. It’s not as uptight of a community as Sitepoint, and the result is that you will have a lot more fun. The downside is that some members aren’t very professional and you may not get the answers that you want.

Hopefully I can add to this list as time goes by. If you think there’s a site that I completely missed, feel free to e-mail me and reccomend the site. However, I give no guarantee that I will add the link.

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Well, this blog will be my new experiment and hopefully I can provide users with information while generating revenue for myself. I’ve been skeptical about making money with blogs because I didn’t think it could be done, but after reading and seeing tons of blogs make money I decided to make one myself. Since I’m pretty proficient with webmastering, I thought I’d make my blog on monetizing websites, forums, and tips for building your online business.

First let me give you a little background about myself. I made my first website when I was merely eight years old. At the time I liked Pokemon so it was a Pokemon website, and you can actually view it at http://maxpages.com/mew2spokegym

Haha so that website really sucks, but you must admit it was pretty ambitious for an eight-year old, and it even received 3600 visitors total. When I began making serious websites, meaning off of Maxpages and Geocities, I started learning the real basics of HTML and PHP. At such a young age it really gave me a great background for learning how to make good websites.

I started making websites for fun as a hobby, but it wasn’t until I found out that websites can actually make money did I start monetizing my sites. Back then, Google adsense wasn’t even created, so it was a lot harder to make money online, especially if you weren’t selling something or providing a service. For a while I just made websites to become popular, but I began to make money by selling designs.

Luckily I was pretty talented with designing. After initially starting with Paint Shop Pro, I began to become proficient with Adobe Photoshop. I was too lazy to make a nice design for this blog though, but this is mainly because I still haven’t looked through the Wordpress templating system.

After many years of making websites, I’m currently the owner of several online sites which are bringing in some pretty substantial spending money. Sorry, but I can’t reveal them in this blog, but if you search hard enough you can probably find out what sites they are.

I hope this blog will become very helpful for any aspiring work-at-home people, and this will also be another one of my projects. Although still quite a new blog, I’ll keep you updated on how much this blog is making to also assist you in making a blog like this of your own and monetizing it.

Good luck with all your web endeavors, and until next time. - Zen

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