Making Money on the Internet

Tuesday January 17, 2006

Over the last year I've spent an increasing amount of time trying to figure out how I can make extra money to supplement my income. Obviously being a computer engineer the best route would seem to be online. These days more and more bloggers, and retailers are making a fortune from their websites. This website is more for fun than a money making opportunity, because this genre of website is already really impacted. However I wish to share what has worked for me so far, at least making this website pay for itself (and a little beer money on the side).

First and foremost, if you have any traffic at all, you must join Google Adsense. It's insanely easy, and by far generates the most income. Second to that would have to be Chitika MiniMalls. These fun little advertisements work fairly well if you have readers willing to click on retail sort of advertisements. Best of all you can target them to your focus audience. Finally, the last thing I've learned is that banner ads are pretty much out. They don't really work. At least for sites like mine. There are probably plenty of sites that pull off the big giant flashing banner ads and make money, but I'm guessing most do not. Especially the ones that pay only if a person clicks through, and BUYS something. Fat chance. I haven't gotten an invitation to BlogAds but I believe they would also work very well and is a definite option to explore.

Last, I found ProBlogger to be a very helpful site, and it's an interesting read. Good luck getting rich!