What I Know About Text-Link Ads

Text Link Ads have consistently been a top income earner for Genius Types, regularly competing for the top spot with Google AdSense. They are the logical next step for monetizing your website after you have built up a bit of traffic and page rank.

Advantages

Text-Link Ads have several advantages over Google AdSense and other ways to monetize your site including ease of use, certainty, faster payment, and competitive income.

Ease of Use

Installing Text-Link Ads is a snap. WordPress users can just download a plugin and place the ad code in your sidebar. The company does the rest for you.

My code is in the left sidebar under the heading “Featured Sites,” and I’ve barely touched it since I placed it there. By contrast, I’m constantly changing, moving, and re-designing my AdSense strategy to maximize click-through rates.

I have several AdSense channels and code based on where it appears on my site. Text-Link Ads pay me just about as much as Google without the hassle.

The Text-Links are unobtrusive, natural-looking, and less “spammy” than other types of advertising.

Certainty

Advertisers pay you a month at a time to place a link on your site. This gives you a lot more certainty when predicting your income for the month.

In pay-per-click advertising like AdSense, how much you’re going to make is always a bit of a mystery because it depends on your traffic, click-through rates, and the going rate for an AdSense click on your site.

Faster Payment

Unlike AdSense, Text-Link Ads will pay you even if you don’t earn $100. I get dependable deposits to my PayPal account shortly after the end of each month instead of waiting 30-45 days.

Competitive Income

Most bloggers can make as much (if not more) with Text-Link Ads than with AdSense. You have up to 10 slots to sell, and the company takes a 50% cut.

With rates starting at around $10-$20 per slot, the money can add up quickly.

Why Advertisers Want Text-Link Ads

A good publisher learns to think like an advertiser. There are two major reasons that someone might want to put a text-link on your site.

1. Traffic

The most obvious reason to advertise on your site is to drive traffic to their site. In this case, the advertiser might pick your site because of the subject matter you cover and the type of readers you have.

2. Search Engine Optimization

An advertiser may not care how much traffic they get from a link on your site. Instead, they may be more concerned with increasing their authority on search engines like Google.

Factors that Contribute to Earnings

Alexa Rank

Text-Link Ads advertises your Alexa rank to potential advertisers and an indication of the amount of traffic that your site gets. While Alexa ranks are not perfect, they offer a way to compare your site to the millions of other sites out there.

If your rank is in the top 300,000, you should be able to sell some links. Make sure you let Text-Link Ads know when your rank increases. I have found that they are slow to update, but it’s relatively easy to edit your publisher profile with your latest rank.

It’s important to keep an eye on this, because your rank may increase dramatically, making your site much more attractive to potential advertisers, but they will have no way of knowing it until you tell them.

Page Rank

To appeal to search engine minded advertisers, it’s important to have a decent Google pagerank. Increasing your pagerank is a science all it’s own, but it starts by setting up a webmaster account with Google and registering a sitemap.

I use a sitemap WordPress Plugin that does everything for me.

Under-Promise and Over-Deliver

To attract and maintain happy clients, it’s important to offer them the best product for their money.

1. Place your ad code in a prominent position, above the fold.
2. Make the links attractive by making them large enough and a vibrant color.
3. Use a title like “Featured Sites” instead of “Sponsored Links” or “Advertisers” to make them more enticing to clickers.
4. Put your code in your sidebar so it’s shown on all pages of your site instead of just a few.

More Money

As your Alexa and Google ranks increase, Text-Link Ads will increase the price for a link on your site. As your price increases, your total potential for income also increases.

Even though they take a 50% cut, they do all the work for you. They advertise your site to a market that they own, they deal with all of the administrative aspects, and they collect the money. All you have to do is sit back and collect your money.

Sign Up

If you’re new to blogging or monetizing your website, I would suggest that you start with Google Adsense. Once you have developed a bit of a reader base, the next step is to add Text-Link Ads to your arsenal.

I’ve been extremely pleased with my results and I’d recommend it to anyone who is serious about monetizing their website.

Click here to sign up for Text-Link Ads.