When your site begins to take off and you are faced with the option to place ads on your site there are a few things you should consider. First of all, ads can sometimes make your site look cluttered and ugly. Secondly, your ad space might be worth more to you than to your potential advertisers. What I mean by this is that you could be using your site to promote other websites and services that you have to offer. Eventually you’ll have to sell ad space one one of your sites if you want to turn a profit, but when you are just starting out it’s sometimes more beneficial to keep your traffic within your own websites.

I suggest building a small network of sites. Link them to each other and before you know it you will have steady traffic on more than one site. The trick is to never expand until you have your current sites off the ground. Nobody wants to go to a network of empty sites, but, people will definitely be more likely to show up and stay if you have several well established websites full of content.


You’ll notice that on a lot of my websites I have a network bar at the top of the page. This is a very subtle way to promote your network from within. It’s unobtrusive and if your members like one of your sites they are likely to check out others. Why not make this as easy as possible for them?

Another benefit of linking to your own sites instead of to advertiser sites is that you will be sending search engine spiders back and forth between your sites. I’ve been running a network of sites for a few years now and I have noticed a dramatic increase in crossover traffic. If your websites are of a similar feel or if they compliment each other, why not make them all part of a network?