Adsense Vs. Affiliate Marketing

You are probably already familiar with Google Adsense if you are a blogger. Although some "purist" bloggers prefer to make their blogs free from the distraction of ads, some bloggers want to earn through their blogs. If you have a high-traffic or popular blog, you have better chance of earning from the ads that you put on your blog. Integrating Google Adsense in your blog, especially if you are using the free Google Blogger.com platform, is the most convenient way to monetize your blog. You can earn some money by simply luring visitors to view or read your blog. Visitors do not even need to click on an Adsense ad for you to earn. Although, you may only earn a few pennies or less for every one thousand visitors, these can accumulate over time.

Aside from the relatively small earning potential, another main disadvantage of Google Adsense is the required threshold of earnings that you must earn before you get paid. Presently, you need to earn at least $100 before you can be paid.

If you want a better way to monetize you blog or website, you can try affiliate marketing. In principle, it is similar to Adsense but the big difference is the earning potential. Unlike Adsense that mainly offers effective cost per miller (eCPM) commissions, many affiliate marketing programs offer more than 50% commissions per transaction. Some affiliate programs also do not have (or at least have lower) minimum earning threshold required and they pay immediately through PayPal.

Unlike Adsense, which is typically radom, generalized or content dependent, affiliate marketing can be highly focused on product niches. A product niche is a specific category of product that target specific group of customers, such as weight loss products. The more specific or targeted your product niche, the more chance you have to succeed because you can minimize competition by narrowing down the product category and attract the customers that are really looking for the products you are selling. For instance, instead of simply promoting "generic" weight loss products, you can focus on organic, ingestible weight loss products that accelerate metabolism.

Basically, affiliate marketing is promoting or selling the products of other people or business entities. In return, affiliate marketers are paid commissions. There are several ways you can promote affiliate products.

• You can post the links in your blog, either on the sidebars or as part of the blog posts. 


• You can create a dedicated "niche" website for specific affiliate products. 


• You can write a feature article about a particular product and submit it to article directories and community websites, such as Squidoo.com and Hubpages.com. 


• You can use the affiliate links in your email signature.


• You can join forums and several social networking media, such as Facebook.com, to promote the affiliate products.

Here are some online businesses that offer excellent affiliate marketing programs:

ClickBank.com -- This site offers various digital products, such as e-books and software application programs.

AmazonAssociates program-- This is part of Amazon.com that allows members to promote Amazon.com-listed products. You can choose from a wide range of consumer good products (e.g., gadgets), books and digital or software products that you can directly promote in your blog or website.

AffiliateScouts.com -- This is a directory of various online businesses offering affiliate programs.

AffiliatePrograms.com -- This is a more comprehensive directory of online businesses offering affiliate programs. Categories range from adult affiliate programs to web development affiliate programs.

Source: http://homartemplatepractice.blogspot.com/2010/07/adsense-and-affiliate-marketing.html