Earning Money

One of the big ways that a lot of big companies and websites get promotion for their site is that they hod a contest. I mean, look at all those big companies. Pepsi holds contests for hundreds of thousands of dollars because their intention is to bring in more money than they spent. It’s really a great way to get traffic to your site. But, there is a lot more to holding a contest than just randomly picking the item and saying, “if you post the most, you win.” There is a lot more to running a contest than just that. As much as it might seem to be easy, a lot of people can mess up on their contests. Here’s what to do.

The first thing that you need to determine is what you want to gain from the contest. If you’re running a blog contest, chances are, you’re looking to get more people to your site because the more readers is the more profit. So, you might say, “to be entered into this contest, you need to write about it on your blog.” You get link backs and people come to your site. That’s cool. But, everyone does that. So, you need to really try and determine what exactly you want to gain from your contest. If you’re looking to get a good boost in forums posts, make sure you really set that as the standard. You want to know what you are looking to achieve before starting.

The next thing that you want to do is offer something that goes along with your site. If I ran a blog about sports, I don’t want to offer makeup as a prize. If I run a forum all about video games, I don’t want to offer a gift card to a clothing store. When running a contest, the prize is what will drag people in. People are selfish (unfortunately). That means that people want to get something for doing something. If you offer a really good prize that is firm to your site, but still generic enough that a lot of people might want it, you will get a considerable number of people to participate in the contest. And the more people that participate, the better the return will be for you.

Now, my final thing to say is that I really do recommend contests as a form of promotion. They can be expensive, especially if you’re like a lot of site runners and you offer a Wii or a 360 or an iPod for the prize, but if you are willing to make an investment, you will make a return on it, I am sure. It all depends on how well you market the contest, what prize you offer, and how long you keep it going. Promotion and all of that is important. But remember one thing about contests…You are giving away something to gain something. And there are risks when running contests. But, I have found, the rewards outweigh the risks. Good luck with your contests.

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A lot of people probably don’t know it, but I actually do run a CPM (Cost Per Impression) ad on this site as a way to expand my profits. I do this because I believe as I have said probably a million times before that you should try and maximize the ways you profit on your site without taking away from the reader’s experience. While CPM ads don’t make as much money as CPC or CPA (to read up on these, read about the different types of ads), what they do offer is a form of income no matter what. Even if someone is against me making money and just wants to read what I have to say, they still make me money just by looking at the ad.

Now…There are two ways that one can use a CPM ad. You can either do what I do and use them as a form of profit. I keep the CPM ads up and I allow them to make a small income as my traffic increases. But, you can use CPM ads to make a profit as well. That is a very important thing to remember. Now, I want to go through the pros and cons of both quickly for you so you can decide if it is worth it. For some, CPM ads are a waste of time for both publishers as well as advertisers. But, allow me to give you some information about both.

If you are going to be a publisher, there are pros and cons for running CPM ads. In my opinion, though, the pros far outweigh the cons. So, the cons first…The biggest con is that since it is a CPM ad, if the ad is clicked, you get no boost in profit. The ad could be clicked 1000 times by 1000 different people and you wouldn’t be paid for the clicks, but for the impressions. That’s a downfall, especially if you run CPC ads. One other con is simply that sometimes, the CPM ads are pop-ups or pop-unders. Those suck, I must say. However, for a pro, you are making money whenever someone comes to look at your site. Just by looking at it, bam, you make some money. Granted, it’s the cheapest paying ad, but you’re always making money. Another pro is that some sites DON’T have pop-ups/unders. That’s always a great pro, eh?

As for being an advertiser, there are pros and there are cons. The cons are that you are paying for an ad spot and even if someone does not go to your site, you are still paying for that ad. It’s unfortunate because you are spending money and not making anything whatsoever. However, there is a great pro that people don’t think. Although you are paying for the ads and constantly spending, if you get a click to your site, you’re not having to pay a lot like CPC ads. A click could be worth a penny and that’s that because of that one person’s impression. So, in truth, for the cheapest ad possible, you could really get a great number of clicks if your ad looks good.

Do I think that people should use CPM ads as a publisher? Without a doubt. I think that it really can make some money if you are getting a considerable amount of traffic and you are signed up to the right ad network. Do I think that people should use CPM ads as an advertiser? That is a bit more hesitant. Because the ads are being paid for only when the ad is viewed, after a while, you could start losing a considerable amount of money even if you are getting no traffic to your site. But, at the same time, the clicks are all included in the impression cost. No matter what, there is money to be made and traffic to gain from using CPM ads. You just need to really find the best networks to sign up for to make the most and gain the most. Good luck.

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