I recently submitted this site to a third-party link sales site (who shall remain nameless for reasons that should become clear - but use your imagination) and I was approved not only for their regular program but also for some special new program they’re trialling. The whole operation seemed pretty top secret and before I was told what the new program was I had to check a box to confirm that I wouldn’t let the cat out of the bag (oops!). I don’t tend to blog about new products and stuff like that so I clicked the box and was taken to the next step.

The new program, it turns out, involves allowing advertisers to purchase words that are already a part of my content to turn them into links. Fine… seems ok. That’s something that already goes on with companies like Kontera. I think their program works by detecting desirable keywords, turning them automatically into links and then having a pay per click type setup. Kontera links are easily identifiable because they have double lines under the words and I think a window pops up as well when they’re scrolled over.

So far, so good but as I carried on reading things started getting a bit dodgy. The program description stated that links they sold would look exactly the same as other links on my site. There would be no distinction between the paid hyperlinks and those that I’d added myself. Plus, with this veil of secrecy, it looks like site owners aren’t even allowed to make their readers aware of the existence of the paid links. It would therefore look like every paid link is a recommendation by the site’s owner and I’ve got a big problem with that.

There’s something sleazy about this whole operation. I’m not totally against people putting paid or pay per click links within their content (although I find them distracting) but having paid links that are indiscernible from regular links is deceptive to me. The fact that the company doesn’t allow the site owners to discuss the program is just plain shifty. They say that this new program will pay a lot more than their regular one but is abusing the trust of your readers worth a few extra bucks? Not for me.

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Last week I got an email from a guy called Justin who, I suspect, works for an SEO type company. Initially he was after a link on my Ireland page and later came back with a list of more pages on Travoholic.com he wanted to advertise on.

I know I talk about direct link sales a lot but I thought it might be interesting to use this example to give an idea of what sorts of things I look at when considering whether or not to sell off a chunk of my site for a quick buck.

• Does the ad make my site look spammy? - Usually people only want to buy text links but in this case the guy was after a short paragraph with several links so making sure I could pull it off without it looking to spammy becomes important.
• Does the link point to a quality site? - For some reason some of the links point to NASA and I have a sneaking suspicion he doesn’t own that site so I’m not too sure what’s going on there. The other links are all pretty decent sites so I can’t complain too much.
• Am I getting a fair price? - He originally asked for a permanent link for $35 on one page and I instead offered only a year for that price which he agreed. But then he found a few more pages of interest and offered $175 for six ads. I refused to put links on two of the pages but agreed the others (here, here and here). He then sent me the anchor text and it turned out that he was after paragraphs with 5 links in each. I’m not too keen on these types of links but offered to do them all for $250. He countered with $200 which I accepted. If he would have been after links on my main page I would have bargained harder but for those pages the price is fine.
• Will it take a lot of effort to add? - Because of the archaic way my sites are set up, some things are a huge pain in the arse to add, like site wide links and certain other things. The reason I turned down ads on the other two pages is because they wouldn’t have fit well with the page setup. All up, adding these four ads took about 20 minutes. That’s an hourly wage I can appreciate!
• Is the ad deceptive? - I think he would have preferred just having the paragraph in amongst the content of my site but I requested a ‘Sponsored Link’ type image be put above the ad.
• Will the link have a negative effect on SEO? - I don’t know what I’ve done right with Travoholic.com but nothing seems to have an effect on it in the SERPs (I am knocking on wood as I type this… or on something that looks like wood). I think the site is trust by Google because it’s so old and adding links, so far, hasn’t had any effect. Believe me, I’ve added lots.

My thinking behind my recent bout of link whoring is that the site is pretty neglected and going nowhere at the moment anyways, so if someone wants to buy links then I might as well let them. Once I start to put a little bit of tender loving care back into it then I’m sure I’ll be a bit pickier with who I sell links to and in what format. I have some major plans for this site that will involve phasing out paid links. I won’t be doing this anytime soon though so for now I might as well take advantage of the real estate!

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I submitted my Living in London website to Text-Link-Ads about a year ago when it was very crappy and it was turned down. I overhauled the entire thing about 4 months ago and since then it has become my most popular and highest earning site. When I tried to resubmit it to TLA I got an email saying that it would automatically be reviewed each month and that they would contact me when the site qualified for the program.

So I’ve waited and waited and waited some more and waited again and no word from TLA despite some good traffic numbers. I had assumed that the reason for the site’s exclusion was that it is only rated PR2 (my other sites are PR4) and resigned myself to having to wait for Google’s phantom update.

Well this afternoon I shot off a quick email to the people at TLA asking them if they would consider the site for inclusion because I was sick of waiting and, low and behold, I just got an email welcoming the site into their program. Happy days! They’re only willing to sell a maximum of 5 links (as opposed to 10) at between $10-25 each (before their 50% cut) so it’s not exactly going to make me rich but every little bit helps.

So if you’ve got a site that you’ve already submitted to TLA and feel like it’s lost in some dusty filing cabinet in a broom closet of in a back alley of the internet then it might be worth sending them an email to ask what the story is. I’m guessing they might have become a bit more flexible about their minimum PR requirements since Google havn’t updated in ages.

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This was going to be a short little post with a few random thoughts on selling direct links and it has somehow grown into a beast with a mind of its own! Direct link sales rock my work. I think it’s fun wheeling and dealing and it can be very lucrative as well and here’s pretty much everything I have to say on the matter…

Setting Links Prices

• Don’t undervalue a link on your site - Link sales can seem like easy money when an offer is made and I think people, me included, have a tendency to undervalue them. It only takes a couple of minutes to physically add the link to your site but you shouldn’t forget about how many hours it’s taken to get your site to the point where people actually want to advertise on it.
• Look at what Text Links Ads sells your links for - If you’re signed up with TLA and have most of your links sold then that tells me that people are willing to pay whatever that price is before TLA take their 50% cut. I offer links at TLA prices but since I’m making the sale myself I get to be greedy and keep the whole amount.
• Look at what similar websites are charging - Have a look at your competition and see if they’ve got a page with advertising rates. If they don’t, get in touch and ask what they charge. You can either do this in a friendly up front way or, if that doesn’t work, you can always be evil and pretend you’re interested in buying a link and get their prices that way.

Setting the Link’s Duration

• Have discounts for buying long term links - You will earn less overall this way if you look at the yearly totals but keep in mind that there’s also a chance that the buyer will cancel after one month and it might be a safer bet to grab the cash up front. Plus locking in a deal for a year means less chasing people to renew and less work is always good.
• Don’t sell permanent links - I don’t think there’s such a thing as forever with the internet but when you sell permanent links, it’s implied that they’re locked in for a long time. When you do this you lose a bit of control over your site and prices aren’t usually high enough to justify this.

When Someone Approaches You to Buy a Link

• Try to get a higher price than they first offer - When a company approaches you looking to buy a link on your site don’t be afraid to talk them up. What would you do if you wanted to buy a link on another person’s site? Probably go in with a low price and hope for the best. In the past I’ve been so excited to discover that people actually wanted to pay me for links that I’d eagerly take their first offer. I was afraid that if I had the cheek to ask for more they’d get pissed off and go off in search of another site to advertise on but it turns out that most people are willing to bargain.
• Turn link exchange offers into link sales - If someone gets in touch offering a link exchange that doesn’t really appeal that much to you, send back an offer to sell them a link. This has worked a few times for me. Remember that often these link exchange requests come from companies that are working for the site doing SEO. If the site’s owners are willing to pay someone to do SEO for them then they’d probably be willing to pay for some links as well.

My Experiences with Link Sales

My main site for link sales is Travoholic.com and so far I’ve had very few people tell me to stick it when I’ve told them my prices which leads me to believe they’re fair. I currently have nine TLA links on the right side of the main page. Their price is $15/month but I only see $7.50 of that amount. I charge $15/month for text links in the same area and that suits me fine because I get to keep all the money when I make the sale myself.

When someone contacts me about buying a link I give them the price of $15/month but make it clear that I’m willing to negotiate if they can pay in advance. I’ll usually knock the price down to $10/month if they pay a year in advance and I do the same thing with my footer links. I offer those links for $8/month when first approached but drop to $60 for the year if they’re willing to pay in advance. For reasons unknown people seem to approach me fairly regularly now looking to buy links on my sites and most of the time the contact results in a sale.

 If you’re just starting out with direct link sales and haven’t been accepted to TLA yet, have a poke around the Digital Point link sales forum. I don’t tend to look for sales in there anymore because the sites can sometimes be a bit spammy, but it’s a great place to find your feet and see what sorts of prices other similar sites are offering. Selling my first few links through that site was really encouraging and it also put a bit of money in my Paypal account that I could use towards reinvesting in my sites.

I’m a huge fan of selling links directly to other webmasters and major companies. If you’ve got a quality website with a well defined target market then this is an area I would recommend for some fast cash. There are rumblings that Google aren’t happy about this practice but screw them! I love that webmasters have all the power when it comes to direct links sales and nobody else is getting a cut.

Stick it to the man and get out there and make some sales!

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I had just about resigned myself to the fact that my meager web empire would never break through that elusive $100/month earnings barrier and then suddenly my eyes were opened to the wonderful world of selling links directly to other sites. I’ve had a bit of success doing this and here’s a bit of information that might be handy to people who are just getting started in this area.

Where to Look for Buyers

Digital Point has a very busy link sales forum that has served me well in the past. There are all types of links on offer and it’s a great place to start. Most posts are from sellers but buyers will occasionally post what they’re looking for so it’s worth trolling through a few pages worth of posts before submitting your own offers.

Most of my large sales have come from contacting companies directly. If you have a well targeted niche site and can find companies who want to reach you target market then you should do well in this area. It’s interesting to note that none of the people I sold links to even asked me for any information on how many visitors I was getting. I think marketing online is still a new area for smaller businesses and many aren’t sure of what questions to ask and have no idea how much ads should cost. They still have a marketing budget to spend though and you can use their lack of experience to your advantage.

If you are having trouble finding companies to approach, try looking through some magazines that cater to your target market and focus in on the ads. Make a list of each company you think would fit well with your site and send out some emails. These companies will be paying big bucks for ads in most magazines so if you offer them a reasonable price for a link or ad on a well targeted site then there is a good chance they can swing some of that advertising budget your way.

Setting Your Link Price

When I had to set my first price I was totally clueless. I posted a ‘help me, I’m clueless, how much should I charge for links’ messages in the forum but nobody came to my rescue. I was going to pull a price out of my ass but thought it might be a better idea to have a look around the forum to see what sites similar to my own where charging.

Initially I wanted to set up monthly payments but decided that the hassle was too much effort and instead tried for sales in 3, 6 and 12 month slots paid into my Paypal account. The more months purchased, the better the price per month. I’ve since found this site that makes setting up monthly Paypal payments really easy so I don’t mind selling monthly links anymore. I actually prefer it because it’s all automated and I don’t need to chase people for renewals.

Your best bet is to hang around the Digital Point forum for awhile to get a feel for what your site is worth and then submit a post with your prices and hope for the best. Aim high at first but stay flexible. If you don’t get any sales you can always lower your price but. If you set your prices too low and sell out then you’re selling yourself short.

Keeping Track of Link Sales and Renewals

Once you’ve sold a bunch of links, keeping track of expiry dates can be a bit of a headache, especially when you have a lot of sites. You have to keep on top of expiry dates so you can chase people for renewals. I’ve had mixed results with renewals. About half always renew and the other half are one offs but filling empty ad slots isn’t too difficult.

To help me keep track of things I’ve done the truly nerdy thing and whipped up a simple spreadsheet to track the link’s URL, location on my site, price, expiry date and the contact details of whoever bought it. I would be completely lost without it so once you start selling links, have a think about how you want to keep track of them.

The Importance of Google Page Rank

Travoholic.com had somehow stumbled and bumbled its way to a PR5 ranking over the years and I soon learned that links on my site were in demand. Because of this, all of my link spaces were sold out a few hours after I placed my first ad and I was pretty happy with myself.

That site’s PR has since fallen to 4 and suddenly it doesn’t stand out from the crowd quite as much. When my PR dropped, so did my prices and the number of replies to my ads. The crowd over at Digital Point are pretty savvy so if you’re looking to sell links there then PR matters a lot.

My Experiences

I’ve had some success in this area and it’s something I wish I would have explored a lot earlier. The money I earned through link sales in December 2007 was the easiest money ever and I was in shock at all the extra cash that was rolling in. Things have since slowed down but it’s nice to know that if I need to pad the ol’ Paylpal account a bit I can make space for a few more ads and more than likely fill them fairly easily.

On the down side, I feel like a bit of a sell out. The main page of Travoholic.com is covered in ads: Adsense in the middle, Text Link Ads on the right, and a bunch of random links in the footer. Having all these outgoing links not only looks terrible, I also suspect it has a negative impact on my PR. There are also some rumblings that the almighty Google is attempting to crack down on this by devaluing links that have been purchased. How they’ll do this is anyone’s guess but Google knows all and sees all so I don’t doubt they’ll find a way. If this happens then the bottom could drop out of the market pretty quickly.

So while direct link sales can be easy money, there are tradeoffs. The trick I think is to find a few companies that are perfect matches for your site’s readers and then build long term relationships with them that will hopefully benefit you both.

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Text Link Ads (TLA) and Linkworth are two companies that act as the middlemen in the world of selling links. If you have a quality site, a reasonable amount of traffic and a good Google Page Rank (PR) then there are people out there who want to pay you to put a link on your site. How do these people find you? Well they can either hunt you down on their own and email you (very time consuming) or they can do things the easy way by signing up to one of these programs and browsing through member sites to see if they can find a good match.

Text Link Ads

I had a hard time setting this up because all of my sites were built ages ago with good ol’ HTML and TLA won’t run on .htm or .html pages. So I had to figure out how to convert my sites to PHP which was a bit tricky since I didn’t even know what PHP was! But once things are up and running you don’t have to do a thing except approve or deny ads. Or if you change the settings you don’t even need to do that. The main problem I have with TLA is that they set the price without any input from you and then take 50% of the link price.

It can also be pretty difficult to get accepted into this program. I submitted my Living in London site to TLA about 6 months ago and it was rejected. Granted, 6 months ago the site was complete poop and barely got any traffic. Now that I’ve overhauled it though it’s my top performing site as far as traffic goes and is in an area that I think would attract lots of advertisers. TLA say they review sites that have previously been rejected each month but I have yet to hear anything from them. It’s very frustrating since I’m not allowed to resubmit my site - they just tell me to wait… and wait… and wait…

I would advise you to make very sure your site is up to scratch before submitting it to TLA . I’m not sure what their minimum requirements are but based on my experience I would aim for at least 100 visitors per month and PR4 before submitting to try to avoid getting stuck in the no man’s land that my London site seems to be in at the moment.

TLA also run an affiliate program that I’ve just signed up to as I’m writing this post. They pay $25 for each approved sign up so if you’re thinking of joining TLA why not use my link to earn me a few bucks. Or you’ll often see the image to the right on people’s sites. If you click on it and sign up then they’ll earn $25. So if you’re planning on registering with TLA, head to your favourite blog, click on that image and the author will get a commission. Affiliate sales in action!

Linkworth

Linkworth gives you more control since you can set your own price, put your link anywhere, and they only take 30% of the link price. Rather than placing PHP code like TLA, you can add the link to your HTML code meaning you can put it anywhere and format it however you like. It’s more flexible but it also means that it’s more hands on and you can’t automate the process as with TLA.

I’ve had a couple problems with Linkworth when advertisers’ creditcards were declined and I didn’t receive payment when I was supposed to. Linkworth didn’t let me know so I had these ads up for free for several weeks which is pretty poor on their part. Keep an eye on payments to make sure you’re getting what you’re owed and if you notice a missing payment contact Linkworth to see what their story is.

Text Link Ads and Linkworth Earnings

TLA have managed to sell 9 out of the 10 slots on Travoholic.com and 1 slot on Working Holiday Info. The prices have been pretty low at $12-15, meaning I only get $6-7.50 a month per link sale. That’s much lower than I was expecting but it feels like money for nothing since once things are set up I just wait for the money to roll in. I’m not sure if TLA ever raise their prices or what so as my sites grow, if the prices stay the same I will probably abandon TLA in favour of private link sales.

Linkworth started off great and I was earning $35/month straight off the bat from January 2007. In May I earned $56 but all of my advertisers have since jumped ship for reasons unknown. I’m wondering if Linkworth is losing advertisers as they head over to Text Link Ads or maybe they just don’t like my site anymore. *sob* I’ve lowered my price a bit but so far nobody’s biting.

So in summary, both of these programs are great ways to get started monotising your websites. Linkworth offers more flexibility but TLA is automated and once you get accepted and add the code there’s not much else to do. There’s no reason not to participate in both programs to try to fill up all your ad space.

Both programs take pretty hefty cuts though so if you have the time and a good, well targeted site then I’d suggest you try to sell links privately. More on that in the next post!

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