When Google launched Adsense for webmasters way back in June 2003, Ad Words was still new, people had no clue what contextual advertising meant or how it worked, and most importantly, no one had provided a similar service for the average webmaster (like you and me) for free so far. Two and half years later, things have changed. For more detail go to: www.googleincomemachine.com. Adsense has become massive; more and more people everyday is buying into the possibility of earning money, serious money through Google Adsense. A lot of this has to do with the high competition for keywords on Ad Words – as advertisers bid higher and higher, clicks on your site’s Adsense ads become more and more valuable. In addition, a large number of services have sprung up to offer similar advertising services. Other pay-per-click advertising sites have been quick to follow the Google model, offering contextual advertisements just like Adsense. What’s more, alternative site advertising models have sprung up, most notable being the contextual algorithms used by Contra and Vibrant Media, and the product advertising by Chetek, Commission Junction and CBProSense, amongst others.
Google Adsense is still the largest revenue network, and with Ad Words being the most popular PPC program available, there’s still great potential for Adsense revenue on your website. Still, you may feel like Adsense is not the thing for you. Maybe you don’t like Google. Or maybe, like me, you’re looking to maximize the revenues from your website. In other words, you may have a number of reasons for looking at advertising alternatives to Google Adsense. In today’s lesson I’ve picked out three serious alternatives for you to consider in place of Adsense. These are:
Each occupies a different “niche” within the site advertising model – and it’s worth noting that all three may work best for one type of site, but not too well for others.
Yahoo! Publisher Network (or YPN for short) is Yahoo’s response to Google Adsense. In effect, YPN works almost exactly like Adsense – insert a piece of JavaScript code into your site pages, and then wait for the YPN boot to crawl your site and pretty soon you have contextually relevant ads being displayed on your site. YPN is still in beta, and in terms of features, it shows as there are several features available in Adsense that seem to be missing in YPN (lesser ad format options, clunker code generation, limited color palette options, a limit of 50 ad channels). However, YPN trumps Adsense with one feature that webmasters have been clamoring for ever since Google launched Adsense – the ability to transfer funds from YPN to Yahoo Search Marketing (YSM), for more detail go to:www.instant-adsense-dollars.com.provided that you use the same login/email information on both accounts. This is huge in terms of attracting webmasters, but since YSM is still a few steps behind Ad Words in popularity, Yahoo will need to do more to attract Adsense users.
My own tests coincide with what other search marketing experts have said about “Yahoo’s Adsense” – results are too varied to determine which service delivers better ads or better CTR/CPM. If you want to switch over to YPN just because you want to increase your site revenues, I’d suggest that you test it out on a small section of your site first. Both YPN and Adsense have comparable ad relevancy and average earnings per click. This means that at least for now, your choice between the two might be based on something as simple as a preference for either search engine (or if you are actively involved in PPC advertising using YSM).
If you own a high-quality content-rich site and enjoy considerable web traffic, you might want to consider a contextual, keyword-based advertising alternative to the Adsense model. Contra provides such a non-obtrusive, highly effective solution. Contra is unique in the sense that while it is provides ad banners similar to Adsense; it also uses keywords within your page text as ads – by underlining them and giving ads in the form of tool tips upon a mouse over of the underlined text (ad). An example of such ads is on SEO Chat (which actually uses a similar service from a different company, Vibrant Media, mentioned later in this section). Load any article on SEO Chat, and you’ll notice that certain keywords in the main article text are underlined. When you bring your mouse pointer over that keyword (don’t click), a simple tool tip will appear.