The Lazy Git: Text Link Ads and AdSense

This post is adapted from a message I sent out to my mailing list. Might as well share it with all my readers.

Not too long ago, one of you asked me if I had some more
information about text link ads. As it happens, I really didn't
have much to say at the time, but I can talk more intelligently
about it now. It's timely for me because I had an unsolicited
request to display a text ad on one of my sites last week. So here
are my thoughts about text link ads, how they relate to AdSense,
and whether or not it's something you should be doing.

What Are Text Link Ads?

Let's first make sure we're all on the same page. When I say “text
link ads”, I'm referring to text links that someone PAYS you to put
on your sites. In other words, advertisers go around looking for
sites in their niche and buy links on those sites in order to direct
traffic to their own sites and/or to raise the search engine
rankings of their sites. While there is a company called Text Link
Ads out there, when I use the term “text link ads” I'm referring
to the generic concept of paid/sponsored links, not to the specific
company.

How Do Text Link Ads Work?

It's fairly simple. You and the advertiser (often mediated through
a third party like Text Link Ads) sign an advertising contract where
you agree to link to the advertiser's site for a fixed fee, usually
a monthly payment. The advertiser gets to choose the link and where
the link is placed, paying more for the top spots on well-trafficked
sites.

You can see how much sites are worth to advertisers using the
free Text Link Ads free calculator. Start by going to the Text Link Ads home page and select “Free Tools” from the “Make Money” tab. Click on the
“Text Link Ads Calculator” and you'll end up on a page that has
a simple form to fill out as well as something that looks very
much like an AdSense heat map. First fill out specifics about your
site on the left side. Then click the various areas of the heat
map on the right to see how much you could be making per month
by selling ad spots for text link ads.

For example, the TLA calculator tells me I could be making about
$70/month selling one ad spot on my AdSense blog. And I could make
more by selling more spots. Hmm.

So say I can get $100/month on average for selling links on a site.
If I had 5 sites like that, it would be $500/month in extra income
for very little work. Not a bad model.

Google Doesn't Like Text Ads

But there's a catch. The search engines, and Google in particular,
don't like paid links. Because it mucks up their algorithms. You
should read this post from Google guy Matt Cutts for some details.

Now, various people in the search marketing community think that
this is bull, that people have been selling links in one form or
another for a long time now and so what's all the fuss? They even
argue that Google does it themselves with AdWords, AdSense, etc.
(Mind you, their programs don't affect search engine rankings.)

I'm not going to get into the debate, mostly I just want to make
you aware of it.

Here's the problem, though. Much of a site's value to
advertisers is based on various third-party measures of how well
the site is trusted and how much traffic it gets. Google's PageRank
and the site's Alexa numbers are particularly important. So if
Google comes up with algorithm changes that force sites with paid
links to lose PageRank, and the value of those links is based (in
part) on PageRank values (all things being equal, advertisers will
pay more for links on a PR6 site vs. links on a PR5 site) then the
money you make from selling text links will decrease and maybe even
disappear. No, I can't predict the future, but it's something to
keep in mind.

The Lazy Git

After my interest in text link ads was piqued, I went looking for
some useful resources on the topic. The only one I've found so far
is an ebook called The Lazy Git Marketing Method (LGMM).

I had seen this promoted by other Internet marketers, but had not
bothered with it before because the sales page turned me off. When
I see pages with fancy sports cars and dollar bills flying around,
it just kind of says “scam” to me and off I got to other sites…

(A “lazy git”, by the way, is a British expression. A “git” is slang
for a stupid or unpleasant person. A “lazy git” is… well, you can
figure it out.)

What you don't see when you read the sales page for LGMM is any
mention of text link ads. That's what it's all about, though:
creating high-PageRank sites (PR4 or higher) and then monetizing
them via text link ads. It's pretty passive income once you've got
the sites set up.

Text Links Ads and AdSense

Of course, AdSense publishers know all about passive income. Once
you create a few AdSense sites, it's usually just a matter of
tweaking them once in a while (with new content, usually) and
basically letting Google do all the hard work for you. So displaying
text link ads on a site is really a close cousin to displaying
AdSense ads. It's almost a natural step for an AdSense publisher to
take.

Well, if it weren't for the search engines grumbling about paid
links. There is some risk to putting text link ads on a site that
is getting a lot of traffic from organic search queries. You might
want to think twice about doing that.

So I wouldn't go slapping text link ads on all your AdSense sites.
Try one or two sites, maybe. Or create some new sites specifically
for this experiment.

Back to the Lazy Git

If making money with text link ads interests you in a serious way,
then the Lazy Git Marketing Method is worth a look. It's not a big
ebook — it's very short, in fact — and it's not for short term
gains — the author tell you that up front. It will require
some work on your part to get the sites going and to get them
ranking well — kind of like AdSense. But that's what I like about
it, it's a complementary process to what you (as an AdSense
publisher) are already doing.

I actually learned something from this book. Not about text ads,
but about finding good domains, both new and expired, especially
about the tools you use to make that fairly easy. The parts of the
book about setting up sites and blogs is pretty basic and I don't
think you'll learn anything new there. Besides the domain stuff,
the most interesting parts of the book are the strategies you use
to get your sites to rank more highly and therefore make money from
selling links on them. Again, some duplication there with things
you already know, but there are some different twists.

Are Text Link Ads For You?

That's a good question. “Probably” is the answer if you're an
AdSense publisher. It's another income stream to consider for your
sites. I say go ahead and try it out with one site and see how well
it works for you. Again, it's a complementary strategy in many ways.
If you're more into affiliate marketing, though, then text link ads
probably aren't for you, not if you're looking to direct traffic
to vendor sites to make money as an affiliate — if you're not
putting AdSense ads on your affiliate sites, don't go putting text
link ads on those sites either.

Sponsored Link: The author of the famous Google Cash book has a free report available for download called Google Cash Strikes Back. He's trying to sell you on his system to automate the Google Cash method, but it's instructive in and of itself in showing you how much work is required to make money by promoting affiliate products with AdWords. AdSense is a lot easier in many ways, IMO.

Eric Giguere is the author of Uncommon AdSense and the award-nominated (that just means it lost!) blog Make Easy Money with Google and AdSense.

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