Sample Articles from the DNN Professor™ - Member Resource Center

Here are ten relatively easy ways to turn your DotNetNuke web site, forum, or blog into a profit center.

1. Google AdSense advertising - Google AdSense is a quick and easy way to add revenue generation to your blog or forum. To add Google AdSense ads, sign up with a Google AdSense account. Then create the size of ad you want on your site, and paste the code google provides into your site code, or ad revenue sharing menu. The Google AdSense code works perfectly inside a Text/HTML module.
   
    
2. Other pay-per-click advertising programs - in addition to Google AdSense, you might want to include ads from other pay-per-click services like http://www.bidvertiser.com, http://www.adbrite.com, http://www.kanoodle.com, http://www.textads.biz. Also look into Microsoft AdCenter and Yahoo Ads.
   
    
3. Amazon Affiliate Links - every mention of a book, DVD, or product on your site, should be a link to that product on Amazon with your affiliate ID attached. Creating affiliate text links to specific products on Amazon is easy to do. Just log into the Amazon Affiliate page, select 'build links and widgets', and choose the product to create the link for. Then paste that code into your blog article or post. Your links can look like DotNetNuke.
   
   Amazon also has some amazing widgets that add interest to your shopping page. For example their new carousel widget adds interesting appeal to your page.
    
4. Video - is increasingly becoming my favorite advertising venue. social video sites such as YouTube and MetaCafe are excellent sites to drive traffic back to your sales pages. MetaCafe will actually pay you for videos with high traffic views.
   
   Sites such as Longtail, co-founded by Jeroen Wijering the creator of the most popular video player on the Internet, enables small publishers to monetize their video today, either with their existing ad networks or with LongTail’s advertisers. You can choose to present these ads either as pre-rolls before the video, post-rolls after the video or mid-rolls layered over the bottom of the video.
   
   You can use my list of over 270 Social Video Site Links to start promoting your product or service today.
   
    
5. Other Affiliate Program Links - if your site frequently mentions products, workshops, DVDs not available through Amazon, you'll want to consider finding affiliate links for those items, so you can earn revenue when those links are clicked and customers make purchases.
   
    
6. Amazon Astore - if your site is about a particular hobby or topic which revolves around product purchases, you might want to create an Amazon aStore and fill it with the products your blog or forum visitors are likely to be interested in and place that store within your site. Example: DNNprofessor Audio and Video  Production Tools and the JustNorth Outdoors Shop.

   To create a store like this, log into the Amazon Affiliate page, and click aStore under the tools menu.

   You can then add as many products as you like to your aStore, and Amazon will present you with one line of code you can add to any page on your site, which will immediately display your Amazon Astore. Simply add this code to a Text/HTML module.
    

7. Digital Vending Products - products which can be downloaded and are related to the site, make for excellent digital vending products. These can include books, PDF files, audio files, video files, software templates, Xmod applications, DotNetNukee modules, and computer programs.

   Use either clickbank or paypall to accept payments, and offer instant downloads upon payment. You can use my Inventory Listings application to increase awareness of your product offerings.
   
    

8. Private Ads / Sponsors - if your site reaches a well defined market of potential consumers, it might be exactly what advertisers and sponsors are looking for. If you accept small (125X125) ads, you can usually charge at least $125 per month per ad (or a lot more depending on the number of visitors your site gets).

   Finding advertisers is a matter of knowing who wants to sell what to your target market, and letting them know about the availability and price of ad space on your site.

   The professional version of Active Forums also has the ability to link ads from theDotNetNukee core Banner Ad campaigns directly into your forums.
   
    

9. Sell Your Own Physical Merchandise - if you produce DVDs, videos, t-shirts, etc, selling them on your own site is a natural. If you have a merchant account, use that and the shopping cart software your merchant account provider offers, to create the shopping area.

   Or use print-on-demand services like www.kunkai.com   and  cafepress.com to take orders and ship your products for you.
    

10. Business Directory - Our clients are finding success using my Business Directory application as an additional revenue stream. You can use it on your own site as a  MarketPlace or create DotNetNuke web sites for various business associations, Chambers of Commerce, and organizations and cities that rely on tourism trade.
    
    When used in combination with Ventrian Subscription Tools, you have a source of income that runs on auto-pilot.

This is just the start

The list shown above is just a starting point, but if you have a fairly active site, the above could help your site generate $5,000 to $10,000 a month.

Adding advertising and revenue centers to your site has another upside. It makes your site more attractive to those who might want to present you a buy-out offer.

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