What would be the best to to monetize an informational site?

The easiest and most common answer would of course be Adsense. It's simple - just place and forget.

But I believe you can still squeeze a lot out of your visitors by doing more.
What would you do? CPA definitely does not work and converts crap on informational site. After all, information is free.

Tried adding Amazon too but earned my pennies, Adsense was making 100x more than what Amazon would make me. Clickbank isn't exactly the best either (somewhat like Amazon) unless it's a review site.

So what would you do? I have a few informational sites that I plan to use Adsense on them but was just thinking how I can use them to their maximum potential. Any opinions\advice would be appreciated.

No idea, i got my adsense canned years back and have never found a decent alternative really. Just trying out media.net as a possible, but not had any chance to try it yet.

FuryKyle said:

The easiest and most common answer would of course be Adsense. It's simple - just place and forget.

But I believe you can still squeeze a lot out of your visitors by doing more.
What would you do? CPA definitely does not work and converts crap on informational site. After all, information is free.

Tried adding Amazon too but earned my pennies, Adsense was making 100x more than what Amazon would make me. Clickbank isn't exactly the best either (somewhat like Amazon) unless it's a review site.

So what would you do? I have a few informational sites that I plan to use Adsense on them but was just thinking how I can use them to their maximum potential. Any opinions\advice would be appreciated.

Click to expand...

What kind of informational site is it? You could always add this little snippet to the end of your articles/tutorials:

For a more comprehensive course on Photoshop click here <-- link to your lynda or clickbank affiliate product.

Another technique you can use is to give your readers useful but incomplete information. Give them tips on how to do stuff and then promote products that make those tips easier/faster/better.

Let's take scrapebox as an example. You could write a tutorial on how to get backlinks by commenting on peoples blogs.

Then at the end of that tutorial, you tell them that they CAN do this manually if they have the time and energy but that there is a software called scrapebox that can automate it for them. This is the most effective technique for getting people to buy.

GimmeMoney said:

What kind of informational site is it? You could always add this little snippet to the end of your articles/tutorials:

For a more comprehensive course on Photoshop click here <-- link to your lynda or clickbank affiliate product.

Another technique you can use is to give your readers useful but incomplete information. Give them tips on how to do stuff and then promote products that make those tips easier/faster/better.

Let's take scrapebox as an example. You could write a tutorial on how to get backlinks by commenting on peoples blogs.

Then at the end of that tutorial, you tell them that they CAN do this manually if they have the time and energy but that there is a software called scrapebox that can automate it for them. This is the most effective technique for getting people to buy.

Click to expand...

Great strategy :slap: How do I find direct advertisers instead of going through a 3rd party though? I don't think CB would have the items I'm writing about.

FuryKyle said:

Great strategy :slap: How do I find direct advertisers instead of going through a 3rd party though? I don't think CB would have the items I'm writing about.

Click to expand...

Lynda.com has a huge selection of information products to choose from and they give you a 40% commission if I'm not mistaken.

GimmeMoney said:

Lynda.com has a huge selection of information products to choose from and they give you a 40% commission if I'm not mistaken.

Click to expand...

Excellent idea, will give this a try.

Still need to find something for my non targeted sites though.
Adbrite is just plain crap, paying 1 cent a click, then posting my a cheque to the UK that costs more to post than its value!

Still yet to try media.net, but im not hopeful.

I read often the (probably good) advice of seeing what adsense adverts appear consistently then use a similar offer from a network, but when you no longer have an adsense account to use, thats not really viable.

And adbrite ads dont seem targeted very well at all, which probably explains the crap payout.

In addition to adsense you can also sell ad space to clients or if your sites have high PR you can sell links also.

I was considering trying media.net myself as I found my competition is using them. Try to check your competition and copy them. Copy cat works and that is what I do till I learn better

Rank the site well and sell it?