There are a few things to look out for when you start to monetize your blog or website. Primarily, you want ot be sure not to encourage your readers to click on your ppc ads. The metrics for google and other ad providers are very advanced and if you think you can get away with click fraud, think again. You won’t. Look up ‘banned from google adsense’ and see how many horror stories you will find. Typically, Google doesn’t let you know until you’ve reached that coveted $100 minimum payout either, so you pay in time spent and you get no return on your investment, plus you are not eligible to rejoin in many cases ever again. Just don’t do it.
using adsense and adwords
Secondly, if you are using Adwords to advertise your site, you want to make sure that your site is excluded from places your ad appears. Believe it or not, your site is probably optimized towards your ad and unless you tell Google not to run your ad on your site, you might find that your readers are clicking on your ad and costing you money to come back to the same place they already are. For example if you have a great ad that says ‘Earn money online’ and you don’t tell Google to exclude your site, your readers will be reading a post from you, then they come across your ad on your page, they click it, and they come back to your page, but that one click has cost you $6.50- $30 since you are bidding for ads in a very competitive niche. Ouch.

Another thing to worry about is sending your readers away for a very small return. Let’s say you’ve signed up with Kontera and you are getting 2 cents per click through….Is it worth it to you to lose a reader for 2 cents? Maybe they will come back, maybe not.

What about you? Do you have any good tips for people? Why not share them here? And then, be sure to sign up for some of the affiliate programs you see advertised in my sidebar. It’s a great way to get started making money online.