Profiting Through Pay Per Click Advertising

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By Chet Brzezinski

Banner advertising is everywhere on the Internet, if you go to just about any Web site you will see what I mean. Hosting pay-per-click (PPC) banner ads is a good way to make additional income from your site. PPC is a term given to an affiliate program that will pay you every time a visitor from your site clicks on a banner. This takes the visitor to the advertiser's Web site where a product or a service is offered.

Targeted PPC Advertising

For a higher click through rate (CTR), it is recommended that you keep the PPC banners that you display related to your Web site content. For example, if you have a music related site, then you would want to keep music related banner ads on your site. Since you are already attracting visitors who are interested in music, they will be more inclined to click on music related banner ads. This will give you a higher CTR, thus generating more revenue.

Non-Targeted PPC Advertising

If your Web site is not particularly related to any single category, then non-targeted banner ads are better for you. This type of advertising is usually lower paying, since the advertiser is not willing to paying a lot of money to get their banner ads placed on various Web sites. Non-targeted advertising also usually generates a lower CTR, thus earning you a minimal amount of revenue. But then again, minimal revenue from your site is much better than no revenue.

Payout Rates

Generally, you can be paid in the range of 10 - 35 cents per click through depending on what type of PPC advertising you are running. The average rate for quality sites running non-targeted ads would be around 15 cents per click while sites running targeted PPC ads usually pay around 20 cents per click through. Your monthly total revenue would vary depending on the traffic that your site receives. For example, if your site gets 1,275,039 page views and you have a CTR of 0.56% with a payout rate of 17 cents per click, then that would give you $1,205.47 in revenue for that month. Again, this is just an example so please don't go to work tomorrow and tell your boss off just yet.

Placement Of The Banner Ads

The most common misconception in PPC advertising is someone thinking that the more banners they stick all over their Web site the better. This couldn't be more incorrect. Bunching banner ads up on your site could actually harm your chances of earning revenue because it can drive your visitors away. What you have to do is think of your site as a television program. No one likes a program that is filled with commercials. They will just change the channel. A good television station will spread out their commercials over a decent period of time keeping the viewers happy. So you should do the same thing with your Website. Perhaps one banner ad on the top of a page and one at the bottom of that page would be sufficient. Or maybe you can just place one single banner in an area that is viewed the most by your visitors. It doesn't make sense to burry an ad on a part of your site that no one ever sees.

Steps To Getting It Going