I'd be happier with Rover's suggestion. I agree that
make is a strong collocation with
effort, but so is 'put a lot of ... into'
b
PS These came from BNC:
'make an ...' expressions with more than 50 hits:
1 MAKE AN ORDER 120
2 MAKE AN APPOINTMENT 101
3 MAKE AN EFFORT 89
4 MAKE AN IMPACT 72
5 MAKE AN OFFER 68
... etc etc
'make the ...' expressions with more than 50 hits:
1 MAKE THE POINT 136
2 MAKE THE DECISION 90
3 MAKE THE MISTAKE 66
4 MAKE THE EFFORT 63
5 MAKE THE FINAL 63
6 MAKE THE RIGHT 62
7 MAKE THE DIFFERENCE 61
8 MAKE THE GRADE 52
... etc etc.
The numbers here (for 'put a lot of *') are much smaller, but 'effort' is by far the most common:
1 PUT A LOT OF EFFORT 11
2 PUT A LOT OF TIME 7
3 PUT A LOT OF WORK 7
4 PUT A LOT OF MONEY 6
5 PUT A LOT OF PRESSURE 4
6 PUT A LOT OF THOUGHT 4
7 PUT A LOT OF MILK 2
8 PUT A LOT OF PEOPLE 2
9 PUT A LOT OF EMPHASIS 2
10 PUT A LOT OF ENERGY 2
11 PUT A LOT OF FAITH 2
... etc. These are the only ones with more than a single hit.