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.

Text link Ads have a new Homepage Layout

Text Link Ads' new Homepage layout doesn't really affect anything, I mean its one page, on one site. So why am I even bothering to mention it? Because I strongly believe thatText Link Ads is going to get big, well I am it's a bit late for that 'belief' because they are already pretty massive.

They probably changed the Homepage for a number of reasons. On the old page their was some info about it's founders and not much about what Text link ads actually did. The plan behind this was to create trust with the early advertisers/publishers by showing some friendly faces including that of the co-founder Darren Rowse who is well known among the blogging community. Now that they have built up thousands of users they can rely on the strength of the brand name and they now boast about the number of users by saying"Join over 10,000+ publishers monetizing their sites.".

They have also maximised their income streams by starting up "Featured Publishers" who presumably pay to get on the homepage. The new Homepage also displays a new-found sense of confidence in their product e.g.

"Advertisers: Improve your traffic and search engine rankings.
Only TLA can deliver an ad that does both."

"Publishers: Make more money by selling text based ads.
Join over 10,000+ publishers monetizing their sites."

So as I said at the beginning, Text link ads are on the way up and we can learn from the techniques they used to become successful.

Text link Ads - Payment

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Yesterday I received my first ever check from Text Link Ads (aff link). The image is blurry but readable which what is important, just in case you thought I am telling porkies. I covered up my address and Text link ads address with pieces of paper. It is for $25 for a single referral I made on January 10th.

Text link ads place static HTML links of high quality, high traffic sites. They rejected this blog because of its lack of Google Pagerank, which it will get at the next update (I’m hoping for a PR4!!). If you are rejected to display ads you can still join their affiliate program and make money like I did. You make $25 for each member you refer who becomes an accepted publisher.

Text link ads are the first company I have actually received my payment from, they have been reliable and easy to promote due to their co-founder Darren Rowse' respectable public image as the problogger. The only bad thing I can think about them is that the print on my check is slightly smudged.... but that’s about it!

You can sign up to Text link ads through my affiliate link

Text Link Ads - Summary

It seems like years ago I last posted about Text Link Ads. For bloggers with page rank 4 or more they are a MUST HAVE. This is how they work:

"Text Link Ads are priced at a flat rate per month per link. You prepay for a 30 day run of your ad. Your ad will never be turned off if it gets too many impressions or clicks. Our pricing algorithm factors in a website's: traffic, theme, ad position, and link popularity when setting the flat ad rate per month".

This flat rate gives the advantage of PREDICTABILITY which is non-existent with AdSense and other Pay per Click advertising schemes. This is great if you are a publisher (blogger) but even better if you are an advertiser because you can be guaranteed not to go over your budget which can be a major problem with Google AdWords if say the site you by links on gets Dugg and receives an unexpected horde of traffic.

One of the founders is Darren Rowse, the Problogger who is known for his wisdom and is considered an all-round blogger Guru. Text link ads can be used with Google AdSense ads which means that you can generate a substantial income overall (I have previously posted about the importance of DIVERSIFICATION; i.e. not putting all your eggs in one basket). To apply for Text Link Ads click here.