How to Get Paid for a Social Site

1. Charge a registration fee. People always prefer free sites, but if you have something to offer that other social sites don't, people will pay to use it. You can offer a trial period or offer free registration or charge only for extra features.

2. Charge for banner space. If you have a lot of traffic, people will want to advertise their business on your site. Place a message on any page of your site to let visitors know about the option and add an 'Advertise with us' page with prices and other relevant information, including means of contacting you.

3. Sign up for Google Adsense or any other contextual advertising program. These programs use targeted marketing by searching for keywords and providing site owners with adds that are relevant to the content on their site. Site owners receive a payment every time a visitor clicks on an add. It's very easy to sign up and placing adds on your pages is as simple as copying and pasting pieces of code.

4. Sign up for an affiliate marketing program. There are many affiliate marketing programs available. These programs work similarly to contextual advertising, but instead of advertising ads, you promote products and services. Many affiliate programs require your visitors to actually buy the product or fill out a form for you to receive payment. Read the affiliate agreement thoroughly to determine which affiliate program is right for you.

5. Sell your site. If you built a social site and don't want to run it, offer it for sale. This is usually the last step, as you will most likely have to show proof of significant traffic and revenue to any potential buyer in order to get a decent offer. You can offer your site for sale on the site itself or through websites such as WebsiteBroker, DealaSite or even Ebay. Before you list it, do your research to determine how much your website is worth.

How to Donate Through Google Ads

1. Click the 'Donate Now' button on the ad. This will take you to the NPO's Google Checkout page.

2. Sign into your Google account. You need a Google account to donate this way. If you don't have one, click the 'Create an account now' link and follow the instructions to set one up.

3. Direct where you want your donation money to go. Note that not all NPOs have a Google Adsense account through which you can donate.

4. Enter your payment information in the following window, then click 'Next' to confirm the purchase.

5. Click 'Submit' to make your donation.

How to Embed Google AdSense Within Posts on WordPress

1. Use a Web browser to log in to Google AdSense. Click the 'My Ads' link, then click the 'Get Code' button beneath the ad you wish to embed in your content.

2. Copy the code to your systems clipboard, then click 'Close' to leave the dialog. Navigate to your WordPress blog and use the WP-Admin interface to log in.

3. Click the 'Posts' button, then click 'Edit' next to the post that is going to hold your advertisement. Click the 'HTML' button, then scroll down to where you wish to place the ad.

4. Paste the Google Ad code from your clipboard into your content, then click the 'Preview' button to see your changes. Move the code, in its entirety, until you find the proper placement for your content, then click the 'Publish' button.

Google Money Making Opportunities

How Adsense Works

Website owners place a piece of Javascript code on their websites to generate and display ads from the Google AdWords program. Google charges Adwords advertisers every time someone clicks on an Adsense ad, then pays a portion of the advertising fee to the owner of the website that hosted the ad.

Contextual Adsense Ads

The most common Google money making opportunity is Google Adsense, which is meant to be placed on individual web pages. Once a website owner has placed the Google Javascript code on his web site, Google's Context robot crawls the pages and selects ads that match the content of the page.

Other Google Adsense Programs

In addition to contextual Adsense, Google also offers Adsense for Search, Adsense for Mobile, Adsense for Feeds and Adsense for Domains. Other Adsense applications are being developed, as of 2009.

Potential

The money making potential of Google Adsense is dependent on a combination of many different things. In order to make a good income using Google Adsense, you should understand how to choose good keywords, how to position Google ads to be effective and how to attract traffic to your website. Many people make thousands of dollars a month through the Google Adsense program.

Cost

It costs nothing to create an Google Adsense account or to serve Google Adsense ads on your web site, RSS feeds and other Google applications.

Warning

Google has stringent guidelines for participation in the Adsense program. If a website is suspected of violating those guidelines, Google will often ban the website from the program and remove it from their search engine entirely.

Contextual Advertising Options

Google AdSense

The largest contextual advertising service is Google's AdSense Content Network. It consists of websites of small and large businesses that place advertising blocks with embedded JavaScript code on their sites. Google then uses its search algorithm to direct text-based, display and video ads to those blocks. Advertisers can use demographic targeting and other strategies to potentially increase revenue. Google places ads based on keywords as well as the location and languages of visitors. For example, a user in London is unlikely to see ads for a restaurant in Des Moines.

Microsoft adCenter

Microsoft's adCenter, leveraging its own Bing search engine and the Yahoo! search engine, is another contextual advertising option for businesses. Microsoft adCenter analyzes the content of a website to determine its meaning and then matches keyword-targeted ads to display on the page. The U.S. ads appear on exclusive content pages on the Microsoft Content Ads Network. Microsoft states that its ads are more relevant because the technology 'delivers relevant ads at the right time.' Advertisers who were on the Yahoo! advertising network have transitioned to the Microsoft network after the partnership agreement was announced in early 2010.

Other Options

Microsoft and Google dominate the online advertising market. However, there are other contextual advertising service providers. America Online's advertising and data insights arm is Advertising.com, which uses the AdLearn platform for ad placements and management. Kontera creates links within the text by adding double underlining to keywords that trigger pop-up ad bubbles. Clicksor is another contextual advertising service that claims to pay out 85 percent of the advertising revenues.

Trends

Technological advances continue to change the way contextual advertising is used and managed. Developers now try to determine age and consumer behavior from the sites they visit. Interactive video can also help businesses understand their consumers. Behavioral advertising may allow advertisers to tailor their ads based on the user's Web surfing habits in prior sessions. Publishers can select more than one contextual advertising company and multiple ad categories to potentially increase site traffic and revenue.

How to Transfer an Amazon Associates Account

1. Go to the Amazon Associates website and log into your account.

2. Navigate to the 'Account Settings' page. Select 'Manage account users and select your primary e-mail address.'

3. Enter the email address of the person you would like to transfer primary responsibility for managing the account in the 'Enter E-mail Address' box provided in the 'Add a New User' section. Click the 'Send Invitation' button. Amazon will send an invitation to the email address, inviting the email recipient to become an Associates Central user with the Amazon Associates account.

4. Direct the email recipient to check their email for the Amazon Associates invitation. Once the email is received (it can take up to 24 hours), the recipient must follow the instructions outlined in the email to register the new account. You cannot move onto the next step until this registration is complete.

5. Log back into your Amazon Associates account using the same credentials entered in Step 1. Navigate to the 'Account Settings' page. Select 'Manage account users and select your primary e-mail address.'

6. Go to the 'Review Invitations' section of the Web page. Select 'Confirm' next to the email address you invited to join the account in Step 3. Click the 'Save Changes' button.

7. Scroll down to the 'Current Users' section of the Web page. Open the 'Change Primary' drop-down menu. Select the new email address. Click the 'Save Changes' button. The primary contact for the Amazon Associates account is now transferred to the newly registered account.

8. Sign out of the Amazon Associates account.

How to Have a Website on a Budget

1. I've written several eHow articles about sites that help you to create a website absolutely free. Some even host your pages on their servers free as well. Look for links to these articles in Resources below.

2. If you want regular websites with pages that don't change everyday, check out the services I've written about. Some of them include Edicy, Synthasite, SiteKreator and Tank.

3. Depending on the choice you make from the free website creators, you will be able to have a home page, inner pages, sometimes ordering forms or links to PayPal, forums, blogs, email and other assorted services. Decide what features you need and match that up with the available free creation and hosting sites.

4. If you want a blog, choose one that provides free hosting such as wordpress.com or blogger.com. Wordpress has the advantage of being able to create pages, just like a regular website, instead of being used as a blog. On Blogger you can make money with Google adSense ads.

5. Create an account with wordpress.com or blogger.com and start posting. Making the choice to use a blog means that you will post frequent updates.

6. Look for a site creation tool or blog that allows you to add widgets. Widgets can add things like Flickr photos, maps, RSS feeds and other useful elements to your pages.