Make Money on Your Blog or Site With WidgetBucks
October 22, 2007 – 11:19 am
For those writers who are earning a portion of their income by writing for their own sites and blogs, you may want to consider trying WidgetBucks as a new income stream. Similar to Adsense, WidgetBucks is a pay-per-click (PPC) advertising option. There are a few differences though:
- WidgetBucks focuses on products exclusively from what I can see.
- The payment threshold is $50 instead of Google’s $100.
- WidgetBucks will pay you via Paypal.
- WidgetBucks will give you $25 as a signup bonus (putting you halfway to your first payment from the start).
- You can put as many Widgets on your site as you’d like (from what I can see - view the site to verify that, as it can obviously change).
- The ads rotate on the same pageview, giving you more chances that someone’s going to be interested in a product and click.
I’ve been looking for a decent substitute for Adsense for a while now, so I have high hopes for Widgetbucks. Given, not all sites and blogs will lend themselves well to product-oriented ads. For example, there weren’t many options for a writing-related site like this one, and the categories currently don’t seem to let you narrow them down very far. Yet for some sites they have potential to work really well. For example, I wasn’t having an easy time finding products to promote on my green living blog, but Widgetbucks has a green living product category that works really well.
You can see an example of a widget on this site above any post (or above the first post on the homepage). There are other sizes as well. For example, I’m using their leaderboard and skyscraper ads on my business blog to replace Adsense.
Another benefit to Widgetbucks is that you can promote them affiliate-style, and earn a portion of the revenue of people that you refer (and yes, I have their referral links in this post as well).
I don’t know how well it’s going to work, but I’m hoping it will be a good substitute on my business blog at the very least. If you have any feedback to share from trying it out yourself, please let us know. I’ll certainly revisit the topic when I see how the program stacks up against Adsense.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links.
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4 Responses to “Make Money on Your Blog or Site With WidgetBucks”
I tried using widgetbucks on my site but had a lot of people begging me to take it down because of the lad time that it caused. I didn’t even like it. You can rack up money fast from it but it takes sooooo long for your page to show when it is on there.
By Rosa on Oct 23, 2007
I’ve heard that, but haven’t had a problem yet. I believe they’re still in beta as well, so I probably wouldn’t remove them right away, and would give them a chance to work out the kinks. If anything, it’s a great time to play with them and offer your feedback to help improve them while they’re still new.
I just wish that there were decent ads for a writing-related site, or at least a way to better narrow down books shown (unless there is and I just missed it).
By Jenn on Oct 23, 2007
I wouldn’t even consider trying Widget Bucks. Not after the reports I heard of them canceling accounts at the last minute before payout.
Plus, the load times might make your opportunity for clicks go downhill, and I only have around a 1% CTR as it is on average.
If Widget Bucks did more than just selling products, I might actually give them a try. I don’t really like the idea of only appealing to people who want to buy something.
By Zachary S. on Dec 10, 2007
I signed up for them, but never utilized their service.
By Jessica Mousseau on Dec 10, 2007