Text link Ads Calculator

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As you may or may not know, this blog doesn't have a pagerank, (what’s the point in trying to hind it?). It should be getting a PR 4 or 5 at the next update which will enable me to make money as a publisher with Text Link Ads. I have been clicking around trying to find out how much I will be able to earn (call me sad) and I stumbled upon the Text Link Ads calculator. This is a simple tool that allows you to work out what you will be able to earn and how many links it would be best to sell etc. If you take a look its quite self-explanatory.

As you can see in the screen shot, if I were to sell a single link for a month on the top right region; right now with the blog in its current state it would go for $10. This confused me a little, because if you look to the right of this post you will see a link saying 'advertise here for just $3 a month', yet no one has bought that link (that is an advolcano link).

So what is going on?
- Either Text Link Ads are getting my hopes up just to knock me down and a link on my site isn't really worth $10 a month.
- Or people don't realise the value of a link on this site and are missing out on a great deal to buy one for $3 (my favourite option :p).
- Or people haven’t even noticed that link because it’s dwarfed by the Spicypage’s 'vote-o-matic'.

Anyway, all of that is irrelevant unless you want to buy a link, but anyone can make money with Text Link Ads even if they are rejected by the publisher program (like I was). You get paid $25 for each referral you make who is accepted by the publisher program or buys a link as an advertiser. I made received my first check from Text Link Ads in January and you can check out my proof of payment in case you think I’m yanking your chain.

Stay Tuned for my First Google Analytics Weekly Overview and my First Weekly Earnings Report (I am shifting from monthly reports).

Affiliate Marketing - Behind the Links

Affiliate marketing has become a major source of revenue for lots of major sites. Buy WHY is this and why isn't EVERYONE being successful?

A simple answer would be that people often choose the wrong affiliate program. Unfortunately there is no single 'magical' affiliate program that spans every niche and can be used by everyone, although I think Text Link Ads comes pretty close. That's because it is for advertisers and publishers, which is just about everyone.

So, Text Link Ads is a good start, but what are it's pros + cons?

Cons

- High Entry Requirements for publishers (this is a con for publishers + affiliates...in the short term). For a publisher to be accepted their site must have a high enough Google Page Rank, enough traffic and must rank high enough in Alexa. This means at a lot of people who click your link and sign up still won’t make you a dime.

- For you to receive payment a publisher must install an advertising script for a minimum of seven days. Some publishers will fail in this department and again will earn you nothing.


Pros

- Commissions are high, you make $25 for every advertiser/publisher you successfully refer.

- Advertisers are much easier to refer. This is because TLA offers $100 in free links as a 'starter package' for advertisers, which gets them very, exited. Due to the high entry requirements for publishers the standard of websites available for advertisers is kept high, which is appealing. Also the wait for you to earn from advertisers you refer is just 24 hours after they purchase a link.

- Text Link Ads provide you with some well designed text links and banners that you can use for promotion like the one below:


So, thats a little about Text Link Ads. Remember if you are publisher and are rejected you can always make money using the affiliate program. If you were to make just 1 referral a day it would add up to $750 a month and that says it all really.