There are a ton of social media websites on the internet these days and everyday it seems like we see more popping up.  Some are a clone of another and some are something totally different that people are trying to adjust to.  My thoughts today were about being able to monetize the traffic you will get from a social media website.

Can it be done?

The answer, in short, is yes.  Monetizing traffic can be done whether it’s traffic from a high ranking post in search engine or if it’s a post that ranked high on a social media website.  The tricky part is that it’s not exactly the same traffic, but it’s a boat load of traffic, nonetheless.

How can it be done?

This question is the real deal.  How can you monetize traffic that isn’t going to be around on your site that long?  We all know from experience that social media sites send traffic, but the traffic comes, checks out what the “big deal” is and they are on their way.  Users of Digg.com will NOT be clicking on ads because they know better than that.  StumbleUpon.com traffic is another story.  If you are getting mega traffic from SU or you just created a post that you think will hit “popular” status on SU, then put an add or two on the post that is relevant to the information.  It’s always worth a try as long as it doesn’t get in the way of what the user wants to read or see when they arrive.

Promoting affiliate products, offers or even a top ten list of your posts.  Either way you get paid.  If someone clicks out of your blog from an affiliate offer you can get paid, but if you have a list of posts for them to click, to go deeper in your blog, you might gain a reader that subscribes later.  It is a win/win, but you have to do something!

Have I done it?

Yes I have.  I have traffic to 2 posts that ranked high on StumbleUpon at one point.  Since they have been on SU, they are now ranking a bit higher in the search engines for keywords and the ads are paying off better.  It has been a longer process than it should be, but the traffic is there, and so are the ads.

I also have 2 posts (here and here), for now, that are cruising up the ranks of Yahoo and Google search everyday.  Those are really paying off with adsense and simple text links.  These posts are just regular posts that I did NOT send to social media to get traffic.  Simple posts with keyword related to the topic and over the first month started gaining traffic.  Now I rank #1 and #2 for web address search terms on those posts and they get 200-300 uniques per day.

Summary

Affiliate marketing or promotion can work when you know how to monetize traffic you have coming in.  Social media traffic is HERE, right now!, then gone just like that.  Search engine traffic should be more targeted because they are searching for keywords.  If you have information regarding those terms you will see the traffic.  At least that way you know what they are on your blog to see.  Keep an eye on your blog stats, the answers are all there, you just have to be able to find them.  Once you do, it gets even easier to monetize that traffic!  Good luck!