You may not have an e-commerce Web site that has an obvious monetization method. Instead, you may have a great Web site with unique, well-written content that generates a lot of traffic, and you may wonder how you can effectively monetize your traffic. The Internet opens up the door to making lots of money without having to actually sell anything. In fact, with revolutionary money-making models such as affiliate marketing, contextual advertising, and ad widgets, many Web site owners can make enough money to significantly supplement existing income or in some cases support lucrative full-time employment. The most commonly used tool for making money from your Web site traffic is Google AdSense.

Google AdSense is a contextual advertising technology that serves ads from the Google AdWords Content Network based on contextual relevance. All you have to do is insert a piece of code into your Web site where you want the ads to appear and Google does the rest. The most impressive thing about Google AdSense is the sophistication of the technology. Instead of having to worry that Google might serve ads unrelated to your content, Google’s technology has an incredible track record of serving highly relevant advertisements, which enhances the user experience and encourages visitors to come back to your Web site in the future. Even if they leave your Web site by clicking an ad, you get paid a percentage of the amount that the advertiser pays Google to display the ad. Other quality contextual ad networks include Yahoo’s Publisher Network and MSN’s Content Network.

Affiliate marketing is responsible for generating billions of dollars in e-commerce each year. Affiliate marketing allows you to monetize your Web site traffic by partnering with various merchants on a pay-for-performance basis. You get paid only when a lead or sale is referred through your Web site. Thousands of merchants, including many of the largest and most recognized brands in the United States such as Target, Apple, Dell, Amazon, and Wal-Mart, have affiliate programs.

These companies pay you a percentage of any sales referred when you promote them on your Web site. In addition, there are a number of businesses, including many notable insurance, real estate, and dating companies, that pay you a flat fee every time you refer a lead through your Web site. Top affiliates such as Upromise, CashBaq.com, and Clicks2Customers make millions of dollars per year in commission.

If you have a niche Web site or know how to effectively supplement your organic traffic with targeted payper- click traffic, you are likely to benefit significantly from promoting affiliate marketing offers. The big three affiliate networks are Commission Junction, LinkShare, and Performics. Other newer networks such as Azoogle, Hydra, and Pepperjam are using innovative approaches and technologies to help affiliates monetize Web site traffic and bank large commission checks.

SEO Plug-Ins

SEO plug-ins provide you with on-demand information about various aspects of search-engine optimization. Instead of having to run a specific program every time you want to learn more about a Web site, you simply install an SEO plug-in, such as the Google Toolbar, that directly interacts with your Web browser in real time to retrieve important technical information about the Web site you are visiting. SEO plug-ins typically display information in the form of a toolbar or by integrating with your Web browser or e-mail client. The Google Toolbar is a plug-in that interacts with your Web browser to provide useful information about the Web pages you visit.

The Google Toolbar includes a range of useful SEO features, including the PageRank of each page you visit, a tool to highlight a given keyword within a page, and an AutoFill option to cut down on the time you spend typing the same information over and over again. The Google Toolbar is free and is highly customizable based on your needs. Note that during installation you will be asked if you approve of Google collecting information about your user browsing behavior. Although Google may use this information to serve more relevant advertisements and deliver a more personalized search experience, you need to consider the benefits versus legitimate privacy concerns.

The Alexa Toolbar is a useful plug-in that provides information about the traffic ranking of Web sites. Note that Alexa collects information from users who have installed an Alexa Toolbar, allowing Alexa to provide statistics on Web site traffic. Because Alexa collects data only from individuals who install the Alexa Toolbar, many commentators have suggested that Alexa rankings are skewed toward the Webmaster community because a high proportion of Webmasters install the toolbar and the average person surfing the Web does not.

Despite this, the Alexa Toolbar allows you to perform multiple levels of competitive analysis and community research throughout your SEO campaigns, while also offering you a shortcut to the information provided on the www.alexa.com Web site.

One of the most useful and popular SEO browser extensions is SEO for Firefox, which gathers multiple pieces of marketing data about a Web site and displays that data within your browser alongside the search results from the Google or Yahoo search engines. Some of the statistics SEO for Firefox makes available for quick view include Google PageRank, Yahoo page and domain links, and number of backlinks. If you use WordPress to manage your blog, you can benefit from various plug-ins that assist the search-engineoptimization process.

For example, installing a WordPress Title Tag plug-in allows you to customize each title tag on your Web site. Installing a WordPress Description plug-in allows you to easily customize the description meta tag on each of your Web pages, and installing a WordPress Sitemap Generator makes sure that you are notifying the search engines each time content is updated on your Web site.