Ads

Ads. Seen by some as a miricle for making money. It is for some to not see them as a miricle money maker. Some people see them as the most annoying thing in the world. Some look at them realisticly as a way to make back some of the costs of a website. Allow me to dispel some of the myths.

Anything that promises large dividends is likely a scam.

We all seen it. "Join our affilate progam and you make a million like Jo Schmo." Anything that promises any kind of money for no work is a scam. If no work were involved, who would be sharing the secret? I'd be more willing to bet, that if such a simple way were discovered, a person would spend every waking hour doing as much of it. People fall into all sorts of pitfalls involving these kinds of scams.

First, lets look at one. You buy a piece of software with "master resale rights." I don't know what happened to just plain resale rights, guess it didn't sound pompous enough. And once you have this software, you can sell it too right? Everyone wins right? Wrong. If I make a piece of software, and sell it with resale rights, I'll be sure a bunch of people will buy it, and hope to sell it sooner. Maybe a few of them make a small profit, but there comes a point where somebody is left holding the bag, because theres nobody left on the planet who hasn't bought it.

Now there are those who look at websites with ads, and just drool, thinking this website is making much bucks. There are even those who think, 'If I could make a website, and put ads on it, I'll be making lots of money, in short order." Again, another big mistake. Ads don't magically make money. You need people to come, and click on them for them to make money. To get people to come, you actually need soemthing they will come for. You need to create a quality website. Ouch, that sounds like work doesn't it?

It is. I can tell you that to date, this website has been up about a week and a half. I've put several hard days work into it. I'll be suprised if I get any kind of traffic, anytime soon. It takes time, to be found by the search engines. It takes more time for people to find you after that. And if you don't regulary add to your website, both the number of people coming, and search engine ranking will drop. Also don't think about copying everything that already exists, google is getting wise to copycat sites and not ranking them.

The bright side of ads

Those of you who are still with me, there is a bright side of ads. If you can write pages with well targeted writing, you will be served ads that match the content of the page. Perhaps then people will click on the ads, because if the article interests them, so does the ad. If you can make a good enough website, it will draw people, just because it is useful.

Patience is the key. To date, I have made about 30 cents, which is about nothing. If you look at yourself, and ask how often do I click on an ad, multiply it by the number of people who visit your site, you'll begin to get an idea of what you'll be getting. Right now you can see, I'm with google. Maybe in the future I'll try out yahoo. But until I get more done, I'm staying as I am. Even if nobody else ever clicks on my ads, I've made my 30 cents. So I'll just throw my two cents worth back. Build a site you'd be proud of without the ads, not a site google would be proud of for the ads. If you don't like it, likely nobody else will eiher.