Web Design Jamaica Blog Post : How to Make Money Online

Web Design Jamaica Blog Post : How to Make Money Online

Date: September 7th, 2010

Introduction

In this day and age a website is more than just a static online entity. It is an organism that can either be stagnant and get lost in the online jungle or it can be a revenue-generating powerhouse whose worth rivals that of many ‘brick-and-mortar’ business operations (the net worth of www.facebook.com is currently priced in excess of $9 billion US dollars and the value of the Huffington Post blog was estimated at 70 million US dollars in 2008 ).
The main factors that drive up the value of an online company, particularly a blog, are site traffic, private investment and advertising revenue. Of these factors the main determinant is site traffic - number of unique visitors and number of page views - as this bit of information influences the level of investment that the website can attract as well as the premium that can be charged for advertising space. Sites with consistently high unique visitor numbers tend to enjoy steady streams of revenue if the advertising infrastructure is there to capitalize on this traffic. One of the advertising options that allow website owners to benefit from high site traffic is Google AdSense.

Google AdSense

Google AdSense is a marketing strategy which allows the advertiser to earn for every click that a site visitor makes on the ad link in that particular web site. This tool helps advertisers to display their ads to a wide customer base. Most sites that are monetized opt to display banner ads that are associated with their specific content, and hence, internet users who access these sites are exposed those specific ads that target products and services that they are inclined to have an interest in.
AdSense is equally dynamic and its wide range of advertising content offers website operators the ability to target their specific audiences and site visitors. It also helps to divert the traffic flow of customers to that particular site during searches, thus increasing the revenue earned via ‘click-through’ ads.

Payment starts as soon as the process of identifying and publishing suitable ads is completed and the process of receiving clicks on these ads begins. Also, Google AdSense offers greater percentage of payment to the publisher than most other web site advertising solutions. It follows an easy and reliable payment system. There are no checks or money orders in this process, and the mode of payment is ETF (Electronic Fund Transfer) to the host's bank account.
While Blitz Web Design does not guarantee any specific levels of income from this facility, many cases exist online and even within the family of Blitz websites where AdSense revenue is generated with very little input from the site owners/administrators. In the specific case of a particular news website that is currently hosted and maintained by Blitz Web Design, the site currently enjoys residual income of $350-$400 US monthly, which amply covers their hosting and maintenance charges.
Online Banner Advertising

Advertisers generally hope a banner ad will do one of three things. Ideally, a visitor to the site that has published the banner ad will click on that ad and go to the advertiser’s website. In this case, the banner ad has brought a visitor to the advertiser’s site that he/she otherwise would not have been able to have. However, the ad really becomes a success if that visitor becomes a consumer and either purchases something from the advertiser or books his/her services (depending on the industry and the nature of the advertiser’s business). At the very least, the ad has accomplished one of its objectives if the site visitor takes note of the contents of the banner ad and it somehow registers in their heads, which might mean that the visitor might decide to visit the advertiser’s site at some point in the future.
In the pursuit of these three objectives as well as the intrinsic benefits associated with branding, advertisers are willing to pay for banner ad space on websites that have high volumes of traffic, particularly if a large volume of this traffic matches their target demographic.

So there are several ways a banner ad can be successful. Consequently, there are several ways through which advertisers measure banner ad success. Advertisers look at:
• Clicks/Click-throughs: The number of visitors who click on the banner ad linking to the advertiser's Web site (publisher sites often sell banner ad space on a cost-per-click [CPC] basis).
• Page views: Also called page impressions, this is the number of times a particular Web page has been requested from the server. Advertisers are interested in page views because they indicate the number of visitors who could have seen the banner ad. Although they don't measure the effectiveness of a branding campaign, they do measure how many visitors were exposed to it. The most common way to sell banner ad space is by cost per thousand impressions or CPM (In roman numerals, M equals a thousand).
• Click-through rate (CTR): This describes the ratio of page views to clicks. It is expressed as the percentage of total visitors to a particular page who actually clicked on the banner ad. The typical click-through-rate is something under 1 percent, and click-through rates significantly higher than that are very rare.
• Cost per sale: This is the measure of how much advertising money is spent on making one sale. Advertisers use different means to calculate this, depending on the ad and the product or service. Many advertisers keep track of visitor activity using Internet cookies. This technology allows the site to combine shopping history with information about how the visitor originally came to the site.

However banner advertising revenue is generated, or however it is calculated, the reality is that the publisher of these ads stands to earn real income from hosting these ads on his/her website and from taking the appropriate steps to promote their online presence and drive traffic to their site. Locally, banner ad rates range from an average monthly range of $10,000.00 upwards . A reputable news related blog with international traffic stands to be able to attract banner ads from major business entities who target these markets and thus can earn even more substantial income over the long run.

Conclusion

While Blitz Web Design offers a banner ad application that includes Google AdSense elements in order to shore up the possibilities of earning revenue in the relatively short run, it does not guarantee any level of profit in any particular period of time. Neither does Blitz Web Design take responsibility if, for any reason whatsoever, the client is forced to shut down operations due to any financial losses incurred.

The most important and defining factor of the financial viability of owning and operating a website is the rate at which the volume of traffic is expected to increase over the first year and how this traffic will continue to grow after crossing that first hurdle. Tied in with this will be how much effort goes into the constant development and evolution of the online entity itself. In short, the ultimate determinant of the profitability of a website is the input of the operator of said online portal – the amount of effort that he/she puts into the development of the website and the level of investment that they are willing and able to undertake (and attract) at the outset in order to make this business work.

Visit Blitz Web Design Jamaica for all your website development needs. Go to our homepage at http://www.blitzwebdesign.com and view samples from our portfolio.