The alternative to charging for content – and still make money

Publishers are faced with an ever growing challenge as print sales slip and readers largely reluctant to pay for content online.

Sure they could start simply churning out advertorial. That would surely keep the advertisers happy, but where’s the editorial credibility or ethics?

A new tool could well be the much sought after holy grail offering to monetise content both ‘seamlessly’ and ‘ethically’.

It comes from Skimlinks, a content monetisation service that we picked up on UTalkMarketing some time ago, and now operating on more than a half million sites - blogs, newspapers, content networks and forums - worldwide.

Fans include the Mirror.co.uk, whose Head of Digital, “SkimKit places the content and the commercial opportunity together,” said Paul Hood, has praised the content and the commercial mash-up.

“The editors have complete control over the content that they’re selecting and the commercial happens automatically. We’re not missing any opportunities,” he adds cheerfully.

Skimlinks helps website publishers by automatically turning normal retailer links in their editorial content into affiliate links. Each time a user clicks through and makes a purchase, the website earns a commission from the retailer. Simples, eh?

So why is it important? Well, the service is ideal for publishers lacking the resources or capacity to harness affiliate marketing as a revenue source, in a market that industry analysts predict will grow to $4 billion in the U.S. by 2014.

Now a new desktop tool – SkimKit – aims to empower editors and bloggers to easily produce revenue-generating content in a way that critically distances them from the commercial side of the process.

The tool offers a live, searchable database of millions of products from Skimlinks’ merchants. The tool lets publishers research, find and link to products they are writing about, with immediate access to deeplinks and image URLs.

It also features a service that creates shortened, monetised links for use in Twitter and email newsletters, turning a means of communication into a potential revenue source.

While SkimKit makes the creation of content more efficient for publishers, it is also more lucrative. So, if a publisher chooses to feature a product found in the tool, they earn a commission on the sale.

“Skimlinks gives publishers a way to generate revenue streams beyond banner ads and text ad units by making the most of the commercial value of the content they are already writing,” says Alicia Navarro, CEO and co-founder of Skimlinks.

“SkimKit makes it even easier by allowing editors and bloggers to actively play a role in the monetisation process without feeling any impact on their integrity or impartiality, as they are still writing about the kinds of products and retailers they normally write about.”