Getting Rid Of The Middleman
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Most bloggers/writers I know use Text Link Ads to sell text links and increase their income (maybe you do?), but the thing is, TLA takes a huge cut, so if you sell a link for $30, you usually end up getting just $15 (more or less).
Don’t get me wrong, I really like TLA, basically because the support is great and they are well-known and have a lot of sites/blogs in their marketplace, but still… what if I could get that whole $30 instead of just $15?
Other Ways? Sure! Ebay!
I haven’t tried that yet, but will definitely do really soon (probably right after writing this). Basically you put your links on Ebay, and people can bid or use the “buy it now” feature and voila! You get the money through Paypal, and you put the link on your blog. As simple as that.
Discussion Boards/Forums
Another great way to sell text links, and keep all the profits, is to announce it in forums like DigitalPoint. Problem is: people are cheap. And you’ll find a lot of people selling text links for under $35/year. But you can still give this a shot.
Many Many Other Ways
Have you tried selling text links on Ebay? That probably works really well if you have a high page rank, or at least a decent page rank. What about forums? Have you tried that? What else have you tried, what worked, what didn’t? Let us know, we could all benefit from your experience :)
Don’t be afraid to experiment, never know, you might end up making a little more money!
*****
Conversation with myself:
Question To Jon: Jon, why are you still using TLA?
Answer From Jon: ’cause it’s easy! :)
Question To Jon: Do you think you could make more money selling links on Ebay and other sites?
Answer From Jon: Yeah baby!
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40 Responses to “Getting Rid Of The Middleman”
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I haven’t tried selling text link at eBay but, it worth trying.
eBay is a really good idea! Think I will wait till I get PR 5.
Come on Google!
Hey Calvin, lemme know if you try it (you’re a pretty good ebayer from what I know :)
Thomas, nice, have you tried any PR prediction tools? (I’m supposed to get a PR5 this update)
Hi Jonathan, thank you for linking to my blog. I hope you will sell lots of links through Ebay. Let me know how you go…
Hi Sandra, you’re very welcome, thanx for posting about this, I wanted to list my links on ebay yesterday (like I wrote in my post) but haven’t had time, ebay site was acting funny, will do that tonight :)
Some good ideas here :-)
that is crazy I have never thought of that - and it does make sense - ebay has already that traffic that is needed - I wouldnt think of selling marketing things on ebay or such ideas about that
but that goes back to Jons post about being an entrepreneur
They also have this OIOpublisher which also cuts the middle man out its a wordpress plugin as well - i wrote a review on it and so has john chow
it is very simple and great to use - but ebay I will have to look into
Hi Jarle, thank Sandra ;)
Ian, lemme know how it goes if you do post text-links on ebay! :) I will probably try that plugin you mentioned, looks promising, there’s also the “wp-text-ads” plugin which I’ve yet to try out, but will do soon :)
Jonathan,
What a great idea! I have been less than thrilled with TLA’s ability to sell links on either of my two primary blogs, so I’d love to have an alternative.
So….does this mean you are going to be the official guinea pig for this experiment, and then let us all know how it went??? LOL
Hey Jon,
I’m in the process of doing likewise. I have some TLA on my site, and some private text ads. All it takes is a little effort to turn them all private, but people are lazy, and that’s why TLA continue taking huge cuts.
Aaron, hehe you know how I love to try new ideas and new stuff, so I will definitely let you know how it goes, I like being the guinea pig ;)
David, totally, I haven’t had a lot of success with selling text links privately, or maybe it’s cause of lack of time, but ebay seems like a great alternative ;)
I’ve sold text link in several Places liek eBay, or Digital Point, but I never tried TLA.
I never thought of eBay for selling links, what a brainstorm! Of course most people are lazy and TLA is an easy way out. Is it really worth it to give up 50% of your profits for the service they provide? Probably not, but most people want the path of least resistance,
Good idea!
Later this week I am publishing a post about cutting out the middleman as well…. I’m ditching all the ad networks! (shhh…. nobody knows yet) :)
Great site… keep up the good work.
Hey George, that’s cool, how was it? the process. Have you sold many? (curious here :) )
Steve, I totally agree, I’m using TLA simply because it’s easy and not time-consuming, but of course the more time and efforts you put into something the better are you chances of making it work, so I’ll spend some time checking out ebay.
SiteFever, hehe, will look forward to that post! Thanx for stopping by!
that is a nice idea, selling text links on Ebay!
Now that you’ve mentioned it here, im sure many will try that.. me included.. too bad my PR dropped from 4 to 2. :(
I was actually just thinking about TLA the other day. They keep sending me emails and offering coupons. You make a lot of good points; why go through a middleman?!
Although I haven’t tried it myself, SitePoint and DigitalPoint both have a very lively marketplace and I’m sure you could get more money for your links there.
Hi Jon!
Glad I’m not the only one who has conversations with myself! ha ha…
I haven’t used TLA yet, but I do like the idea of selling my own text links and keeping the profit. I’ve done it with a couple blogs and it’s worked out pretty nice. I simply post an ad on Craigslist! How easy is that ;)
I never thought about ebay. Duh!
I would have never thought of selling ads on Ebay.
Elizar, humm, from 4 to 2, well you can still try ebay out, never know, it might work, ebay gets way more traffic than TLA ;)
Wally, yeah TLA is great, but I think the cut they take is quite astronomical (I just sold a link yesterday through TLA, and I got $3.60 from the $30,00 sales price, I was like “what???”)
Hi Maric, haha I often talk to myself, I’m happy to hear we’re two now hehe. Craigslist, that’s a great idea ;)
Steven, if you do sell some on ebay, lemme know (I’m trying to do some sort of “case study”)
;)
A good idea, although for me at the moment I might be better off buying a text link than selling one. I wolud imagine you need a reasonably high PR before anyone would want to buy a link.
I wonder how many people actually search for text links on eBay on a daily basis? It’s a great idea! I don’t like TLA because they get so much of your cut.
I’ve also tried posting on sitepoint, digital point, dnscoop, and other forums…You’re right about others offering cheap links. I don’t even think I got one email from an interested buyer. :(
-Gregg
Hi Vic, well it depends, I just sold a link on my other blog (www.freelancefolder.com) through TLA, and that blog has no PR, and is about 3 weeks old ;)
Hey Gregg, I just bought a link on Ebay, for under $5, for 1 month. It’s definitely cheap, although I see no traffic coming from them so far… we’ll see, I’m still at 0bids for a link on SWR ;(
Hi Jon,
Did you ever think of doing some “link arbitrage”? Buying the links from DP sellers for under $35/year and them selling them instantly on ebay?
Now that would be extremely fun :)
Jon, have you tried your experiment yet????
Mikael, humm, now that’s a great idea, I’m not sure how if it would work really good, but it could be interesting to try it ;)
Robyn, my text-link is listed on Ebay, but 0 bids so far, will keep you folks posted ;)
I’d love to see a comparison of revenue between eBay, DP, and TLA. How many slots sold, what total revenue generated, etc. If anyone has the data, it would make a killer post.
Hi Shahid, I plan on writing about the results soon, I just need to collect more data :)
[…] visited the blog with the appealing name SmartWealthyRich and I came across a post about “getting rid of the middleman“. Now who don’t want that (??), so I began to read. Basically the idea was to skip […]
Hey Jon-
Starting today, I’m ad network and affiliate free! Everything will be done in-house! I can do everything the other guys can- CPC, CPM and time based ads. You can keep track of how I do- check it out:
http://sitefever.com/you-can-succeed-without-ad-networks-ill-prove-it/
Hi Sitefever, that’s awesome, I’m really looking forward to seeing the results of your experiment :)
Hey Jon, I had actually been on Ebay a while ago looking at the Ads. Some of them seem a bit questionable. I did however see quite a few high ranking ones.
I suppose if the seller(you) have a good rating ibe a higher probability of being a good link…I just think a lot of people are skeptical.
I do love the other options, and am not totally against selling on EBAY, just skeptical.
[…] bud Jon over at SmartWealthyRich.com is looking at different ways to sell text links, and is considering selling them on […]
wow so many ideas my pagrank will be 9 in few days…lol
Adam, my ad is on ebay, got 1 bid, but I have a feeling my reserve price is a little too high ($20), will have to try different approach :)
meditation, hehe, mine is 4, but I wouldn’t mine 9 :)
You might want to check out the new site I just created for just this thing in mind.
http://www.forsalebypublisher.com
A directory of websites that sell advertisements on their websites directly to advertisers, cutting out the middle man!
Mubs
Hi Mubashar, thanx for the link, I listed my blogs ;)
[…]A couple weeks ago I wrote a post titled Getting Rid Of The Middleman, and promised I would write a follow-up post on that. So here it is, short, but to the point! […]
I agree with selling that on ebay. I have seen some PR8 sites on there for 100 bucks for 3 months I think..
Might be something to consider.
My last ebay auction got pulled because it was for a domain name - sarcastictwat.com. Would you believe that the name breached their terms? ;o(