Standard Advert

How it works

You contact potential advertisers and sell them advertising space at agreed prices for agreed time periods. The adverts are created and you place them on your website with a clickable link that takes the visitor to the advertiser's website.

Payment

Payment in advance for the period

• Payment up front
• You know what your income will be as you set the rates
• You get an income even if the advertiser sells nothing (although longer-term this may mean the advertiser ceases advertising)

• You need to actively seek advertisers
• If you don't have any adverts to start with, advertisers may be unwilling to be the first to advertise with you and you may need to offer concessions
• Your income is fixed even if the advertiser sells huge volumes

Google AdSense

How it works

You've seen the adverts on web pages. A box that says "Ads by Google" followed by some text or image adverts.

Google AdSense matches ads to your site's content, and you earn money whenever your visitors click on them.

Payment

Once you reach a certain balance (currently $50), Google will pay you either by cheque or Bank Transfer depending upon your Account Settings

• Easy to set up
• You can either have adverts or a Google Search box generating money when visitors click on search results
• Adverts are customised every time a page is loaded, allowing the page to show relevant (context-sensitive) adverts

• You only earn money if visitors click on the links
• Generally, payments are small, so a large number of clicks are needed to build up decent earnings
• Income depends on the rate for the advert, not the price of the items being sold, so a high value item sold via clicking will still only receive a small fee

Affiliate Schemes

How it works

An Affiliate Company has a list of advertisers. When you register, you request to subscribe to advertisers from the list that you feel are appropriate to your website. Once accepted (sometimes acceptance is automatic, sometimes the advertisers have to approve you) you have access to the code to produce the adverts for your website. If someone clicks an advert, they are tracked and if he or she subsequently buys something, you will get a commission.

Payment

Once you reach a certain threshold, you will get paid either by cheque or Bank Transfer depending upon your Account Settings

• Easy to setup
• No searching for advertisers - a list of active ones is immediately available
• Payment is often by commission, so if an expensive item is purchased, you stand to make more money than you would with a fixed-rate advert

• Income is via visitors clicking through and either registering or purchasing something. If they don't do this, then you don't earn.

Community Information Centres

How it works

Once registering, you can create a webpage (usually called something funky such as 'hub' or 'lens') about a topic close to your heart. You can create as many of these as you want, although you do need to keep them up to date.

You can put your oen advertising links in (e.g. Affiliate Links - see above) and earn. You can also link to ebay and Amazon products through the website and earn commission. Finally the hosting website placed relevant adverts on your page and you get a (generous) cut of the money earnt there as well.

Payment

Once you reach a certain threshold, you will get paid either by cheque or Bank Transfer depending upon your Account Settings

• Easy to set up
• You write about anything that interests you
• It's totally Free

• To maximise visitors and therefore revenue, don't just make it a page of advertising links - you need to write good Copy too.
• Popular topics will have competition - it's better to have a niche - See this one that we wrote, for instance

Affiliate Schemes. Here you need to register with an Affiliate distributor and then pick your adverts. Some are International, but will also carry Country-specific advertisers, such as Commission Junction. Others are country-specific (e.g. UK-based) and may have a better selection for your Country.

There is nothing to stop you registering with all the ones that take your fancy, especially as many advertisers will have relationships with only one at a time. However, bear in mind that if you are not generating much revenue, this will be spread out over the schemes that you have in place, payment will be slower and, in some instaces such as Commission Junction, you run the risk of having your membership cancelled if you do not generate any revenue within a siz month period.

Click on the following links or images for further information

Affiliate Future is a UK-based Affiliate scheme with several hundred advertisers registered. It categorises the advertisers so that you don't have to wade through them all. Adding an advert is as simple as copying and pasting the suggested code. Once you have added Affiliate Future, then any advertiser you select is automatically approved (no approval process).

Click the image for further information

Affiliate Window is a UK-based Affiliate Scheme. If has over 600 Merchants including top names such as PC World, Boots and Toyr 'r' us for example. It's interface is presentable and intuitive with no learning curve. The only downside is that when you apply, it will cost you £5 for them to review your website. If you are rejected, you have lost this. However, should you be accepted, then the £5 is credited against your Account so effectively it costs you nothig if you are accepted.

Commission Junction is based in the States and covers International advertisers as well as country-specific. It has a huge database and you can use a number of filters (such as country or type) to narrow down your choice.

With Commission Junction, you will need to apply to an Advertiser. Some approve/reject automatically after examining your profile (for instance some only approve UK sites, some explicitly do not approve UK sites). Others will manually approve and you will have to wait for someone to examine your website before deciding. This can take a while, so request as many appropriate ones as possible rather than one at a time. You are under no obligation to add them even if approved.

Click the link for further information

Trade Doubler is another UK-based Affiliate scheme. It is very good if you run an online store or want to sell specific items.

Click the image for further information