Actually, my headline is a little misleading, since this type of text link advertising is not contextual, and therefor can actually probably be run right alongside Adsense.

The operators of this site think that is ok, at least. To be on the safe side, you might want to check with Adsense, but to the best of my knowledge, you are ok running other types of ads on your site, as long as they are not served contextually, and can't be easily confused with Google's ads. And of course, if you run these instead of AdSense or YPN (which, by the way, is about to come out of beta), then it is entirely up to you.

I first learned about this alternative form of web site monetization as an Adsense alternative. You know how sometimes there just aren't enough ads to fill up all that space on your site? Some people sign up for this program, and then use it in place of the public service announcements that Google sometimes feeds you.

A lot of people overlook the "alternate URL" function in their Adsense account, not realizing that it is up to you, the advertiser, as to what will happen when there are no ads available that are suitable for your web site. There is no reason you can't run your own text link advertising there, too.

The best part of this may well be the free "feedvertising" plug-in you can get for your WordPress blog's RSS feed. It allows you to run text ads in your RSS feed, thereby monetizing those visitors who simply read your feed, instead of coming to your blog.

You can put anything that you want to into your "feedvertising". Want to run ads for your own products? No problem. Or maybe you'd rather run an affiliate ad, or even a CPA offer (check the TOS on those – some prohibit this)

You can run one or several of these text ads in your feed, and they are fully configurable. You can also list your feed in their marketplace, and sell the ad space in your "feedvertising".

By the way, if you have a large, high traffic web site, you can also sell the ad space on it and/or your RSS feed directly through this service.

Check it out!

Technorati Tags: web site monetization, text link advertising, feedvertising

Lots of people, myself included, are initially reluctant to try monetizing a website with contextual advertising for fear that it will reduce their sales. They reason that the ads will take visitors off their site, and thus reduce their chances of getting a sale.

That was my reaction, too, when I first heard about Adsense. After all, I had built my sites to sell my own products, and/or to promote affiliate products. I didn't want people clicking away from my site too quickly.

What I and others have found, however, is that this generally is not the case. Why? Well, for one thing, if somebody really likes your site, they are not going to click away on an ad, until they are convinced they cannot find what they want right there on the site.

The flip side of that is that if they do not find what they want, they are going to leave anyway. Why not have the chance to make a little bit when they leave? You might provide them a Google Search box, some text link units, or a block of the standard ads. Any of those can earn you anywhere from a few cents to several dollars, depending on how many ads the person clicks.

My own experience has been that adsense has not reduced the other revenues from my websites. The best way to find out, of course, is to keep careful records of your sales from a period of several months, and continue to track them before and after putting the contextual ads on your site. Some people find a slight reduction in sales, but see it made up by the increased advertising revenue. Others see nothing but an increase in overall revenue due to the advertising, but no real reduction in sales.

The only way you will know for sure is to track your subscriptions and sales carefully, and see for yourself how well contextual advertising works on your web site.

Technorati Tags: Adsense, contextual advertising