I have probably posted my thoughts on this several times already but here goes again...

My first site was at Tripod years ago. It was a miltary site. I had some descent content, but half was special to me, and the other half boiler plate. I really didn't have the unique content then, nor the marketing skills.

We didn't have Ad Sense, or those other really great marketing tools they have today. The first thing was a PAY PER CLICK, thing I recall as Commission Junction. You placed a widget on your site and hoped visitors clicked on it. It was a total waste of time.

The other tool, was some sort of banner ad. Again a sort of PAY PER CLICK thing. All it did was clutter up the site and make it look like a used car lot!

Several years later, I revamped the military site, but this time, with a lot of niche content. It eventually grew to 150 pages or more. Commission Junction had folded and I got tired of the banner ads. I eventually added a BOOKSTORE, of my own making. I posted a note on the site, that said someone had a book and they sent it to me free of charge, I would read it, then post the review on my site. I actually received about 6 offers.

Next up was that online merchandise thing...uh...can't think of the name,...Cafe Press ? whereby you produce a design, then open your own store. If someone comes to it, they can purchase one item or a hundred..Antything from hats, Tee's to Coffee Mugs. A great idea, but another waste of time.

Later on I quit all marketing, except for my own bookstore idea. I concentrated on good, unique content and focused on keywords and SEO.

After some time, several people came to me wanting to advertise on the site. I actually made a few hundred bucks every six months, enough to pay for hosting and SEO.Unfortunatel I took on a partner to help with site, but he failed to hold up his end. Ieventually got fed up and quit the site, even though I had a high Google ranking and advertisers were starting to come by.

I am now working on revamping the site for a third time, but hoping to enhance it with Lisa's good advice and the new marketing stratagies now available.