Right from the start.

If you have ads on your site from the beginning, your readers aren’t going to complain when you add them in. (Though my advice to the whiners would be to read the article in their RSS aggregator.)

Unfortunately, when you’re starting out, there aren’t a lot of options for ads. You have the ubiquitous AdSense, then you have affiliate programs, and a sprinkling of smaller ad networks.

My advice: Use AdSense in the beginning, and see how well it works with your site. Use some affiliate programs lightly as well (for products you recommend, not just because it’s an affiliate program). Eventually, when your site gets to a reasonable level, transition from AdSense to direct-selling ads (e.g. 125×125 ads).

Affiliate programs are one of the oldest methods used to monetize web sites, and promote online product sales. By offering a commission, site owners are baited into linking to and promoting a product. This practice has a lot of good and bad implications. However, we’re not going to talk about that today. No, today we are going to discuss why affiliate programs don’t work.

There are two types of personalities, when it comes to buying things. There are impulse buyers, and those who debate whether or not they should purchase something before they do (I fall into the latter group). Affiliate programs are designed with impulse buyers in mind. The goal is to turn a user on one website into a customer on another. (more…)