Surprisingly, many people still haven't learned how to monetize a website, in spite of how simple it is.  My goal here is to show you how it's done, and refer you to some of the best resources available.  I'll be reviewing products, software, ebooks, and membership sites related to website monetization.

For starters, let's review our terms.  "Monetization" as used here refers to providing valuable free content to your readers, but providing various avenues whereby you can be paid.  This could be as simple as a link that people can click to offer a donation, but more commonly involves displaying ads such as Google Adsense or Yahoo Publisher Network ads.

It doesn't stop there, though.  You can and should join several affiliate programs.  A simple way to do that is to join  Clickbank which allows you to promote over 10,000 products already in their database, and more to come as time goes on.  The main drawback to Clickbank is the fact that the products are all digital.

Another good affiliate program to think about is Commission Junction, which serves as a clearing house for numerous affiliate programs ranging from entirely digital ones, to products such as mortgage, credit card, and insurance quotes, and physical products as well.

And of course, don't overlook Amazon.com, which is said to have had the very first online affiliate program.  These days, Amazon is much more than a book store, since they sell a wide and ever-growing array of physical products as well.

You may also want to look into CPA networks. These are basically just large affiliate networks where you can pick up banners and links from commercial advertisers, and get paid when your site visitors take an action, sometimes nothing more than submitting their zip code on a form, or submitting their name and email address.

There are tricks to doing various kinds of affiliate marketing effectively, and part of what we're here for is to teach you some of the best.  You'll be learning about data feeds, RSS, and optimizing your site for the best keyword exposure, to name just a few of the topics we cover.

You will learn how to optimize your income from contextual advertising such as Google Adsense and Yahoo Publisher ads, how best to market affiliate products, and you'll even learn about how to use datafeeds from the likes of Amazon and Clickbank to incorporate into your site and maximize your affiliate revenues.

Come back often, and spend some serious time learning how to monetize a website.  Eventually, you may want to develop and sell your own product or service, but some people find that they make so much from affiliate marketing that it remains their primary business. That is website monetization at its best.

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