The best way to monetize traffic

[st_hart]

If your website get nice steady traffic, what is the best way to take advantage on it? Is it better to increase (direct) income from ads (pay per click or pay per impression), or do more effort to utilize it to sell your own products or services?

[jimbo]

It depends on the type of site that you have and what type of visitors you have. I would start out with some affiliate programs and with Adsense.

[dianar]

I would track where the traffic is coming from first, then compare that with your content.

From there, I would start looking for affiliate programs.

[lorianna]

I would suggest checking out affiliate programs, too. Depending on your site's content, you can sign up with Amazon Associates, for example, and earn commission when someone buys Amazon's products through your links.

[jimbo]

I have never had much luck with the Amazon program. I tried selling some travel related books through them on my travel sites but without much success.

[tonyknuckles]

The problem that most dont realize with amazon is that the cookie lasts only 1 day per visit. Basically, if the visitor clicks your amazon link has to make the purchase right then and there. More fruitful programs can be found that help your cookie to stay around up to 45 days.

[loyalknight10]

I think selling products can work in most cases. If you are getting a high quality traffic then you could easily sell products because most of the people would eventually buy products if it is attractive and useful. One of my friend is selling a minimum of one product per day through his site.

[billmcintosh]

I'd suggest starting out with affiliate programs & AdSense.

Place your ads prominently & actually "sell" your affiliate products by promoting them and aggressively recommending them.

If you can create a decent income with AdSense & affiliates then you might consider creating your own product and going through the trouble of selling it yourself.

After all, if you cannot make any money with affiliate programs or AdSense then it's unlikely you'll actually sell much of your own product. Just keep tweaking and fixing your site until you start making money, or move on to something else.

This way you don't waste a lot of time creating and trying to sell a product that will never sell on your site. Consider affiliate programs as part of your market test.