How Does Internet Radio Make Money

Costs Associated with Online Radio Stations

While there are options available that allow an individual to create and maintain simple and free Internet radio stations there are still costs associated with maintaining and running a station, no matter how large or small.

Equipment, Internet access, hosting fees and potential royalty payments to record labels (stations playing any copyrighted music must pay royalties) can turn even a free online station into a monthly expense for the owner, so it is in her best interest to find sources of income to help pay the bills.

Ad-Based Internet Radio

Internet radio stations can sell airtime to advertisers and play their ads during programming. For novice and smaller operations, web-based ads may work better. Programs such as Google AdSense allow anyone with a website to sign up for free and place Google-programmed ads on their station's websites.

Donations

Many stations solicit donations from loyal listeners to help pay the bills. Companies such as PayPal allow users to set up a free account and add a 'PayPal donation' button to their website.

Listeners can then donate a set amount or the amount of their choice or sign up to donate automatically on a monthly basis, giving listeners the ability to support radio programming they enjoy.

Payola Practices

Payola—when a band or record label pays a radio station or DJ to play its music—is illegal, as it has been dating back to the 1950s, when such scandals rocked the commercial-radio business. But it is technically legal for a band or record label to pay a station to play a song as long as the station announces that arrangement on air before playing the song, notes that the song does not constitute regular airplay, and states that the song is sponsored airtime.

Some consider this practice, even with full disclosure, to be unethical, so a station owner should decide where she stands on this issue.

How to Use a P.O. Box With Google Adsense

1. Login to your Google Adsense account and go to the 'My Account' tab. Click 'edit' under the 'Payee Information' section. Enter the P.O. Box information into the appropriate parts of the form and click 'Save Changes.' Google's system will likely accept the new changes. Changes are applied immediately, changing the mailing address to the the P.O. Box.

2. Open a Google Adsense account using a valid business or home address. Once the account is approved by Google, login to the account and change the address to a P.O. Box.

3. Contact Google and make them aware of your mailing address before applying for a Google Adsense Account. Exceptions are made for legitimate businesses since mail is often received at P.O. Boxes. Provide company information to verify your request.

4. Use the entire address of the United States Postal Service where the P.O. Box is located as the first address. Insert your P.O. Box number as the second address with just a number, i.e. 111 Main Street (the actual street address of the United States Post Office where you have a P.O. Box.), #99, Small Town, State, Zip Code.

5. Experiment with entering the entire address of your home or business as the first mailing addresses. Insert the P.O. Box as the second mailing address so the address would look like this: 222 Main Street, P.O. Box #99, Small Town, State, Zip Code.

6. Employ a legitimate home or business address to sign up for a Google Adsense account. Receive the pin number that's required to confirm the mailing address from Google. Enter the required Personal Identification Numbers (PIN) into your Google Adsense as required to confirm the mailing address. Change the mailing address in your Google Adsense account to a P.O. Box and sign up to get payments with Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) or Western Union.

7. Join a P.O. Box mailing center like The UPS Store or Postal Annex. Mailing centers offer real street addresses at legitimate businesses.

How to Make Money With Incentive Freebie Websites

1. Choose a catchy domain name and hire a reputable hosting company. Your domain name must be something easy to remember. The best freebie incentive domain names also center around a theme, such as CashDuck or GangsterGreed. The theme will lend itself to a cool logo that members are sure to remember.

2. Hire an individual or a company to create a custom script for you that goes along with your site's theme. The script must be able to allow you to input and manage all offers, manage your members, keep track of completed offers, send payments and send out emails to the members. You can find a freelance script writer from eLance, Odesk or FSRevolution.

3. Retain an affiliate manager. Affiliate managers keep track of companies that are willing to pay for completed offers or gathered personal information. For example, Company X may be willing to pay $1.00 for every name and email address collected when someone signs up with its website. You may offer your members $.50 for completing this task so that you can pocket the other $.50. It isn't profitable to take the time to search out hundreds of these companies yourself when an affiliate manager can do it for you in a matter of minutes. PointClickTrack and Adscend Media both offer this type of service.

4. Place Google Adsense ads on your website before you make it live. Once your freebie incentive website gains recognition, you will be able to get paid advertisements on your site for additional income. This is above the income you will be receiving from the completed incentives. A Google Adsense account is free.

5. Advertise your freebie incentive websites through Google Adwords, article marketing and by placing a link in your signature on like-minded forums. The key is to get your site noticed. Holding a referral contest is also an effective way to increase your beginning membership. Offer a gift card to the member with the highest number of referrals.

How to Know If You're a YouTube Partner

1. Browse your email inbox for a notification from YouTube whenever you check your email. YouTube sends you an email notification once your account has been approved or denied.

2. Log in to your YouTube account if you can't find or haven't received an email. Click your username in the upper right corner and click 'Inbox.' YouTube also sends a confirmation to your YouTube inbox, so search for it here if you can't find a message within your email inbox.

3. Click the 'Help' button at the bottom of the YouTube window, then click 'Partner Help Center.' Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click 'Contact Partner Support.' Click 'General Account Questions,' click 'None of These Issues Relate to My Question' and then click 'Email.' Write your inquiry, then click 'Send' to send an inquiry as to the status of your Partner account.

How to Set Up a Web Site and Make Money

1. Get hosting and a domain name at websites like Host Gator, Go Daddy---or look at the free hosting directory at Free Web Hosting.

2. Set up your site using a website-building platform like Microsoft Front Page, Dreamweaver, Word Press or use the website builder tool that comes with many paid web hosts. With Microsoft Front Page and Dreamweaver, you'll need to know about HTML code to build the site.

3. Focus on a specific topic for your site. Choose topics you are passionate or know a lot about. You can build a site around a topic that's popular on the Internet.To see what people are currently searching for, go to Google Trends.Write helpful content for the site or go to a freelance website and hire others to write content for you. The goal is to build a site people want to revisit.

4. Go to Google Adsense and sign up for an account. Login and create advertisements using the advanced setup tab. Copy the HTML code the website gives you for your specific Adsense ad. Place it in your website's template. Google ads will show up immediately.

5. Drive traffic to the site by submitting it to search engines, directories or commenting on related blogs and dropping a link to your site. Once the website gains daily traffic, you'll make money as people click on the ads.

How to Add Google Adsense to All of Your Pages

1. Log in to your Google AdSense account. Click on the 'Adsense Setup' tab after your AdSense home page loads. Choose the 'Adsense for content' option to generate code for your website. You can enter the name of the ad that you want. You should make this name unique and memorable so you can refer to it later, if needed.

2. Use the ad wizard to generate the exact type of ad block you want to put on your site. You can choose what colors, fonts and types of ads are shown in the ad block. Once you finish creating your ad block, you can click the 'Generate' button to generate the ad code that you will need to place on your website.

3. Copy the code and paste it into the HTML code for each page on your website. You may have to play around with the placement within the code in order to get the ad block to look just like you want. For each separate website that you create, generate a new block of code and use it for each page on the website.

Google Adsense Disabled: How to Appeal

1. Point your browser to the link listed in the Resources section.

2. Enter basic personal information into the first section of the form. Give your name, company's name, email address and AdSense publisher ID. Provide an example of a website where you'd posted your ads prior to your account being disabled, as well as the date your account was disabled and whether or not you've previously filed an appeal.

3. Enter information about your site's audience, content and maintenance. State its intended users, their geographical location(s), the source of your content and the means by which you promote your site, including whether or not you have directly purchased traffic.

4. Explain irregularities. Address the value of your site's traffic to advertisers, whether or not your audience would have incentive to deliberately increase your AdSense clicks and your site's compliance with the terms and conditions of the program. Provide Google with any and all information which might explain irregular click activity, including suspicious data in your site's traffic log.

5. Verify your information, then click the 'Submit' button.