There are many ways to monetize your website, and by monetize, I mean make money. Monetize sounds likes a word that accountants use when they're trying to impress people. One of the best ways to earn more money from your website is from text link advertising. Text links can be a great source of income, while at the same time providing useful outgoing links to your visitors.

Selling text links on your site is not immoral, it's not illegal, and it's not against anyone's policies. It is a legitimate means to make money, and a way to help competing businesses generate extra traffic...for a price.

The Art Of The Sale

Before you start selling text links on your website, it is best to understand what the market is for text link sales. Now, there's nothing written in stone that tells you what you should charge for a link on your website, but keep in mind that your clients are looking for some sort of return on their dollar. They are either looking for traffic to their own website so that they can generate sales, leads, or otherwise promote their product or service.

Like any business, text link sales takes some finesse, and the client is looking for a deal as much as you are looking to make money. Can you offer the client a discount if he buys more links? Can you drop the price if he buys for a longer term?

How Much Money Can You Make?

Did you know that some sites can ask for (and get) up to $75/month for a single text link? How do I find out how much to charge for text links? There are a few ways to determine how much your links are worth.

You can ask other competing websites what they charge, but you may be faced with some challenges in getting competitors to release that sort of information. Although, many sites will have an advertising rates page that can help.

You can visit webmaster forums like Digital Point (in their Link Sales forum), Site Point Forums, DN Forums, Name Pros, or VN7 Forums. These forums require that you register before you can interact with other members. Webmaster forums are one of the best ways to connect yourself with paying clients who are interested in purchasing text links.

You can get in touch with text link brokers, the middle men of the text link sales business, and have them work out the value of your website. Typically, these brokers will take 50% of the money. The advantage is that they can get you the text link sales without you having to do any of the work. Some of the text link brokers are Text Link Ads, Text Link Brokers, and Linkworth. Keep in mind that these brokers have specific requirements for your website, which most likely means that they want your to have PageRank, Google's method of measuring the value of a website. If you don't know what PageRank is, I suggest you look it up in a search engine.

Where Do I Put My Text Links?

Clients again may have specific requirements as to where they would like their text links placed. Typically, you can place text links on your homepage, where most of your traffic comes from. You can place text links sitewide, on every page of your website. Or, you can place text links on single pages, pages inside your website, which may be a static page, a category, or maybe just a single popular article or story page.

Depending on the design of your website, you may offer to place text links in your navigation bar, somewhere in the header, somewhere in the content, or on the footer of your website. Some clients may pay more for a more prominently-placed text link where more website visitors can view it. Other clients will be satisfied with having the link anywhere on the page where it can be clicked or viewed. Again, these clients may be more interested in just having the backlink pointing to their own website.

Other Text Link Selling Factors

When you are selling text links on your site, it's best to keep in mind the type of websites that you wish to advertise. If you run a family-oriented website, you probably don't want to be placing text links that link to adult content, or drugs, or gambling. And of course, you always want to stay away from any links that might be illegal, that support warez (illegal downloading), or anything that is racist or defamatory. Ultimately, it is up to you to choose whether or not to link these sites (also known as bad neighborhoods). Now if you have an adult site, or an online pharmacy, then perhaps your thinking is different...

Also consider how many websites that you link to your site. You want to be able to add these additional revenue generating links without affecting the look or feel of your website. The extra money is great, but you don't want to lose all your visitors because your site starts to look like a giant advertisement.

Conclusion

Selling text links can be very profitable if you do your homework. Learn the value of text links both in the online market, and for what your website is worth. You will make more money if you price yourself accordingly. Good luck!