AdSense Tip #1: Find your keywords
Before serving ads on a web page, check its keyword density. A free and advanced tool for finding the most prominent keywords in a page can be found here: SEO Density Analyzer. Copy the most important keywords to a text file ([web page name]-adsense-keywords.txt).
AdSense Tip #2:
Get keyword suggestions from Overture Search Inventory and from Google AdWords Sandbox. Get new keywords that can help you improve your ad relevance. Enter the keywords from [web page name]-adsense-keywords.txt and save the suggestions to [web page name]-adsense-suggestions.txt.
AdSense Tip #3: Keep your website focused on a theme
Use the keyword suggestions to enhance your web pages and to build theme-based content. And also try to get your keywords into the anchor text of your incoming links as much as possible. Don't forget that Google AdSense is keyword-targeted advertising: Google AdSense bases its advert topics on your websites content, this means that content-rich websites of a popular topic should attract a large amount of ads.
AdSense Tip #4: Write a new page every day
One of the best tips is to add a new page to your web site every day. The more content you have, the more visitors you will get. Put an Adsense unit on each and every content page of your site. But where? You will find more about that from the next AdSense tips.
AdSense Tip #5: Choose the right AdSense format
Wider formats are successful because the ads are compact, easy to read and are complementary to the content. The top three AdSense formats are:
336x280 large rectangle
300x250 medium rectangle
160x600 wide skyscraper
Another successful format is the 468x15 horizontal ad links, that can be placed under your navigation bar.
AdSense Tip #6: Color tips
When creating your Google AdSense ads it is recommended to use the color scheme and style of your website so that the ads blend in well. Ads without background color and borders perfom better than ads within borders with background color.
Create a custom AdSense palette:
border color = background color of your web site
background color = background color of your web site
link color = blue, color of your links
url color = black, #999999
text color = black, #333333, color of your main content
You can also rotate your color palette: select multiple color palettes that blend with your site to create variety.
AdSense Tip #7: Position tips
Visitors tend to look at the big headlines to see if your page is worth reading. If you get them interested, they will read the text and look for your navigation links.
Place the AdSense ads in a prominent place around the top/left part of your page or under your headlines, where your visitors are most likely to look at.
If you have an article page with a long body of text, the bottom of that article is a good place for AdSense ads because your visitors read the text and then they want more resources.
AdSense Tip #8: Increase the number of ads, but not too much
If you have a lot of text on a page, use multiple AdSense units. You can use up to three AdSense units on a page, two AdSense search boxes and one unit of ad links.
Link units allow the user to refine what they're interested in. So if they may not be interested in specific ads on your page, they might be interested in a particular topic, and by clicking on a link unit and a link in the link unit, they'll be able to specify that they're interested in that specific topic and get a lot more options and variety on the ads that might appear.
AdSense for Search allows visitors to search Google.com or your sites (up to 3 domains). You earn money whenever they click on the ads that come up on the search results. If you click the Open search results in a new browser window checkbox in the AdSense for Search settings, you won't lose your visitors.
AdSense Tip #9: Preview Google ads
You can find out what ads will be served by Google AdSense if you install Google AdSense Preview Tool, a very simple tool available only for Internet Explorer 6.0. Click to advertiser sites without generating invalid clicks, and easily add their URLs to your URL filter list. Because AdSense uses geo-targeting, Google serves different ads for other countries. Instead of faking your IP or travelling abroad to test your ads, use this AdSense tool to see what ads see your visitors from France, Germany or other countries.
There may be no Google AdSense ads available for your webpage, so Googlw will display Public Service Ads. You can hide them using alternate colors or images. Make sure you include the image in a simple html file as a link (use target="_top"). The image size should be the same as the dimension of AdSense units. In the alternate url box, enter the absolute url of the html file.
Read more about alternate ads.
AdSense Tip #10: What not to do
Don't click on your own ads
Don't ask others to click on your Google ads
Don't manually change AdSense code
Don't place Google ads on sites that include prohibited content (e.g.: adult sites)
Don't employ cloaking, hidden text or farm links
Don't use AdSense ads on the same page with similar ads (e.g.: Yahoo Publisher Network)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Get the Highest Paying Google AdSense Keywords For Free
There is a great tool available that allows you to check out the highest cost-per-click (HCPC) keywords for Google AdSense, allowing you to write content with the highest-paying keywords in mind.
It is the Google Adwords Keyword Tool and it allows anybody to view the highest CPC keywords, for free, without having to log in or sign up. It was created to help people come up with new ideas for their AdWords campaigns, but you can use it to see which AdSense keywords will pay you the most so you can target your site's content for high CPC and generate higher advertising revenue.
This tutorial will show you how to find these keywords with the AdSense preview tool and how to use that information to increase your cost per click.
The AdSense preview tool is ABSOLUTELY FREE and is hosted by Google, check it out here. I will show two important things in this tutorial. First we will run a preliminary check against your website's current content to see the highest paying keywords related to your current content.
After that we will explore individual keywords to find the very best keyword combinations and phrases so you can write new content (and rewrite old content if you wish) to display AdSense ads that pay much more than your current ads.
Finding the Highest Paying Keywords for Your Current Website
First you need to figure out what keywords Google has targeted for your current website. Then you can use this information to tweak your current content to display higher-paying keyword ads.
1.Browse to Google's Keyword Tool
2.Select Website Content
3.Enter your website URL (you can also enter a specific web page)
4.Click Get keyword ideas
5.Select Show All from the dropdown box
6.Make sure Group keywords by common terms is checked
7.Under Calculate Estimates using Max CPC: select $USD (or whatever currency you use)
8.Enter 100 in the empty box (or the equivelent of $100USD in your currency)
9.Click Recalculate
10.Now the columns below will display the estimated cost per click (CPC) for each keyword!
11.Click the column title Estimated Avg. CPC to sort by price. Click it one more time to sort from highest to lowest.
12.You can now browse down the page to get an idea for which keyword phrases pay the most amount of money.
13.Now you can go back to your current articles and rewrite bits of the content, organizing phrases and keywords so they match up with the highest paying AdSense keywords. This will make a big difference, helping AdSense to place similar ads that pay much more instead of low cost per click ads.
14.If you really want to get serious, the ideal solution would be to enter the URL of each article on your website and repeat this process, then rewrite your content to match the highest paying adsense keywords for each page.
------------------------------------------------------
Finding New Keywords That Pay More Than Your Current Keywords
Now that you have a good idea of what your website is currently capable of, it is time to explore new keywords. You'll be able to find keywords and keyword combinations that you aren't currently using to raise your CPC even higher.
1.Browse to Google's Keyword Tool
2.Select Descriptive words or phrases
3.Enter a keyword or keyword phrase into the textbox
4.Make sure the Use synonyms checkbox is checked
5.Type the CAPTCHA word into the bottom textbox and click Get keyword ideas
6.Select Show All from the dropdown box
7.Under Calculate Estimates using Max CPC: select $USD (or whatever currency you use)
8.Enter 100 in the empty box (or the equivelent of $100USD in your currency)
9.Click Recalculate to display the estimated CPC for each keyword
10.Click the column title Estimated Avg. CPC to sort by price. Click it one more time to sort from highest to lowest.
11.You can now see several keyword phrases, ordered by highest CPC. You can go back and adjust your existing articles to contain some of these higher paying keyword phrases, and use these phrases for content you write in the future.
12.For all future content you write, do a little research with this tool to find the best keywords available before you write your articles. You can make subtle tweaks to your content keywords to drastically increase your CPC and overal AdSense revenue. You can also use this tool to find profitable topics, and base your articles on the higher paying keywords.
It is the Google Adwords Keyword Tool and it allows anybody to view the highest CPC keywords, for free, without having to log in or sign up. It was created to help people come up with new ideas for their AdWords campaigns, but you can use it to see which AdSense keywords will pay you the most so you can target your site's content for high CPC and generate higher advertising revenue.
This tutorial will show you how to find these keywords with the AdSense preview tool and how to use that information to increase your cost per click.
The AdSense preview tool is ABSOLUTELY FREE and is hosted by Google, check it out here. I will show two important things in this tutorial. First we will run a preliminary check against your website's current content to see the highest paying keywords related to your current content.
After that we will explore individual keywords to find the very best keyword combinations and phrases so you can write new content (and rewrite old content if you wish) to display AdSense ads that pay much more than your current ads.
Finding the Highest Paying Keywords for Your Current Website
First you need to figure out what keywords Google has targeted for your current website. Then you can use this information to tweak your current content to display higher-paying keyword ads.
1.Browse to Google's Keyword Tool
2.Select Website Content
3.Enter your website URL (you can also enter a specific web page)
4.Click Get keyword ideas
5.Select Show All from the dropdown box
6.Make sure Group keywords by common terms is checked
7.Under Calculate Estimates using Max CPC: select $USD (or whatever currency you use)
8.Enter 100 in the empty box (or the equivelent of $100USD in your currency)
9.Click Recalculate
10.Now the columns below will display the estimated cost per click (CPC) for each keyword!
11.Click the column title Estimated Avg. CPC to sort by price. Click it one more time to sort from highest to lowest.
12.You can now browse down the page to get an idea for which keyword phrases pay the most amount of money.
13.Now you can go back to your current articles and rewrite bits of the content, organizing phrases and keywords so they match up with the highest paying AdSense keywords. This will make a big difference, helping AdSense to place similar ads that pay much more instead of low cost per click ads.
14.If you really want to get serious, the ideal solution would be to enter the URL of each article on your website and repeat this process, then rewrite your content to match the highest paying adsense keywords for each page.
------------------------------------------------------
Finding New Keywords That Pay More Than Your Current Keywords
Now that you have a good idea of what your website is currently capable of, it is time to explore new keywords. You'll be able to find keywords and keyword combinations that you aren't currently using to raise your CPC even higher.
1.Browse to Google's Keyword Tool
2.Select Descriptive words or phrases
3.Enter a keyword or keyword phrase into the textbox
4.Make sure the Use synonyms checkbox is checked
5.Type the CAPTCHA word into the bottom textbox and click Get keyword ideas
6.Select Show All from the dropdown box
7.Under Calculate Estimates using Max CPC: select $USD (or whatever currency you use)
8.Enter 100 in the empty box (or the equivelent of $100USD in your currency)
9.Click Recalculate to display the estimated CPC for each keyword
10.Click the column title Estimated Avg. CPC to sort by price. Click it one more time to sort from highest to lowest.
11.You can now see several keyword phrases, ordered by highest CPC. You can go back and adjust your existing articles to contain some of these higher paying keyword phrases, and use these phrases for content you write in the future.
12.For all future content you write, do a little research with this tool to find the best keywords available before you write your articles. You can make subtle tweaks to your content keywords to drastically increase your CPC and overal AdSense revenue. You can also use this tool to find profitable topics, and base your articles on the higher paying keywords.
Make Money Online with Google Adsense
Read carefully the contents of this site.
I received an email from many guys, who was asking me how to get his Adsense working on his blog, but refuses to tell me the blog address and i respected him,though i am not sure why he was so relucant but i did give him the solutions as to how set up his Adsense properly before placing the code to his blog. The fact is adsense is simple to understand and use!
Adsense is one of the easiest PPC program you can actually signup for and make money out of it though many bloggers, who have given them up on their blog and even made comments that Adsense don't make as much money as sponsors do. They have their point there, but the question is are you getting that sort of traffic per day to even think about getting sponsors to monetize your blog?
Google Adsense Made for the young and Old
Google Adsense are for everyone, regardless whether you are a newbie or a pro blogger with vast experiences, Adsense can make you money. It is very simple to apply for an account and all you need to do is signup and start to generate revenue from Adsense.
Many says Adsense don't make money so i follow
There are tons of ways to make money online and using Adsense is just one of the many. They can be many reasons why bloggers say they are not making money with Adsense.
They expect to make $1/day when their blog is not even 1 month old
They expect to make $100/mth when they have less than 1000 visitors per month
They are not making as much as John chow so they give up on Adsense
They do invalid clicks and got ban so they say Adsense don't make money
They don't even have an Adsense account but they say they don't make money
The fact is these are what others say, have you tried it for yourself and be convinced that they don't work for you? If they serious don't work for you, then change to another PayPerClick Program, like i say there are many alternatives out there. Try every program and see which suits you.
I received an email from many guys, who was asking me how to get his Adsense working on his blog, but refuses to tell me the blog address and i respected him,though i am not sure why he was so relucant but i did give him the solutions as to how set up his Adsense properly before placing the code to his blog. The fact is adsense is simple to understand and use!
Adsense is one of the easiest PPC program you can actually signup for and make money out of it though many bloggers, who have given them up on their blog and even made comments that Adsense don't make as much money as sponsors do. They have their point there, but the question is are you getting that sort of traffic per day to even think about getting sponsors to monetize your blog?
Google Adsense Made for the young and Old
Google Adsense are for everyone, regardless whether you are a newbie or a pro blogger with vast experiences, Adsense can make you money. It is very simple to apply for an account and all you need to do is signup and start to generate revenue from Adsense.
Many says Adsense don't make money so i follow
There are tons of ways to make money online and using Adsense is just one of the many. They can be many reasons why bloggers say they are not making money with Adsense.
The fact is these are what others say, have you tried it for yourself and be convinced that they don't work for you? If they serious don't work for you, then change to another PayPerClick Program, like i say there are many alternatives out there. Try every program and see which suits you.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Top Directory in google com and SEO Free Links Directory
Search Engine Optimization Friendly Web Directory
Google Search Engine - Search Engine Marketing - Search Engine Ranking
Search Engine Submission - Free Sites Submission
Web Directory - Add Url Free - http://www.addurleasy.com (PR3)
Submit Now:
SEO Friendly Web Directory - http://www.seo-friend.com (PR3)
SEO Friendly Directory - http://directory.ezweb-tools.com (PR3)
The Best SEO Friendly Directory - http://www.bestdirectorysites.com (PR1)
SEO Directory At Easy Article Search - http://directory.ez-article-search.com (PR2)
Your Friendly SEO Directory - http://www.seodirectoryworld.com (PR2)
SEO Friendly Directory - http://www.seo-friendly-directory.com (PR1)
SEO Free Links Directory - http://www.seofreelinks.com (PR2)
Search Engine Friendly Directory - http://www.webfriendlydir.com (PR2)
Quality SEO Friendly Links - http://www.theseolinks.com (PR2)
Google Search Engine - Search Engine Marketing - Search Engine Ranking
Search Engine Submission - Free Sites Submission
Web Directory - Add Url Free - http://www.addurleasy.com (PR3)
Submit Now:
SEO Friendly Web Directory - http://www.seo-friend.com (PR3)
SEO Friendly Directory - http://directory.ezweb-tools.com (PR3)
The Best SEO Friendly Directory - http://www.bestdirectorysites.com (PR1)
SEO Directory At Easy Article Search - http://directory.ez-article-search.com (PR2)
Your Friendly SEO Directory - http://www.seodirectoryworld.com (PR2)
SEO Friendly Directory - http://www.seo-friendly-directory.com (PR1)
SEO Free Links Directory - http://www.seofreelinks.com (PR2)
Search Engine Friendly Directory - http://www.webfriendlydir.com (PR2)
Quality SEO Friendly Links - http://www.theseolinks.com (PR2)
Ad Placement for high click through rate
You may have amazing traffic, you may get 10000 unique visitors per day, Imaging if you didn't got a single click on it.
YES, Placing the ads in the page plays a vital roll in the adsense earning. The visitors of your site will not search for the ads to click and you also cannot say to click the ads. You must make your ads more visible to your visitors. I saw several blogs with Google ads but they will be at the very bottom of the blog or anywhere in the page that cannot be seen. or in the side bar which will never going get a single click on it.
So you have a question, Then where I place the ads? The placing ads must be within the content and as the content. you can place the ads in the starting of the blog post. this will grab the attention of the readers. When they try to read the blog post the will look for the starting of the article, when they do this they will see the ads so now you have a chance to get clicked.
The best method that will help you to get maximum clicks is to blend the ads with the content. The content is attached to the ads. Some blogger templates does not support this format, however you can do this in your own HTML web design.
Some people place all the here and there in their blog. I saw a blog with the ads all placed in the right side of the blog. This seams like the blogger posted the links of his favorites, in the next second you will get at least one click. Like this there are several bloggers who are using a different king of techniques to get maximum clicks from their visitors.
The biggest advantage is we can place 3 ad units and 3 adsense for content. So we have a variety of choice to place ads.
Many people don't uses the ad units. They are very powerful medium of ads, so use the link units were ever you can.
YES, Placing the ads in the page plays a vital roll in the adsense earning. The visitors of your site will not search for the ads to click and you also cannot say to click the ads. You must make your ads more visible to your visitors. I saw several blogs with Google ads but they will be at the very bottom of the blog or anywhere in the page that cannot be seen. or in the side bar which will never going get a single click on it.
So you have a question, Then where I place the ads? The placing ads must be within the content and as the content. you can place the ads in the starting of the blog post. this will grab the attention of the readers. When they try to read the blog post the will look for the starting of the article, when they do this they will see the ads so now you have a chance to get clicked.
The best method that will help you to get maximum clicks is to blend the ads with the content. The content is attached to the ads. Some blogger templates does not support this format, however you can do this in your own HTML web design.
Some people place all the here and there in their blog. I saw a blog with the ads all placed in the right side of the blog. This seams like the blogger posted the links of his favorites, in the next second you will get at least one click. Like this there are several bloggers who are using a different king of techniques to get maximum clicks from their visitors.
The biggest advantage is we can place 3 ad units and 3 adsense for content. So we have a variety of choice to place ads.
Many people don't uses the ad units. They are very powerful medium of ads, so use the link units were ever you can.
Adsense Black List Increase Your Adsense Revenue
I think you have heard/seen somewhere over the net while you are looking for tips to increase your Google adsense revenue something called MFA [Made For Adsense] websites made by some adwords advertisers who advertise their websites only for Adsense and try to make money normally called as arbitrage.
You can name those websites as bad websites because they are low paying advertisers ($0.01-$0.05) while you can get more from other advertisers.
I’m sure now you want to block those websites from your ads, well there is an option in your Adsense account which is called as the “Competitive Ad Filter”
This feature allow you to add all these bad sites or low paying advertisers and your website’s competitors in order to increase your eCPM and your overall total income .
The Competitive Ad Filter enables you to block specific ads, such as competitors’ ads, from appearing on your pages. Entering a more general URL will block a wider range of ads; entering a more specific URL will block a smaller range of ads. For example, by entering a top level domain such as “example.com”, you’ll also block all ads that link to any sub-directories of that domain, like “forums.example.com”. Review the examples below to learn how you can create filters that will block only the range of ads you want.
I know that everyone would be interested in receiving $0.50/click on an average, if you are one of them, then I’m sure that you have to work on your adsense ads placement (Targeting aswell) & block these adverts which pay very low.
Well you will not close this page and go with nothing, I’d help you to complete this step of increasing your revenue. Here I got with me some advertisers which should be blocked using the “Competitive Ad Filter” option, because many of these are just MFA sites.
blogspot.com
12-bestsites.com
dbmoz.biz
oemji.com
e-isn.com
searchignite.com
info.com
reviewsbykrystal.com
shopping.com
ez-tracks.com
8-TopWebSites.com
shopica.com
faster-results.com
ringringmobile.com
e-nternet.com
clobo.com
toseeka.com
Also I got with me a useful website for this option, you can generate your own block list.
Website link: http://www.blogger.com/www.adsblacklist.com
If you find this article useful feel free to bookmark it and share it with others/your friends.
Make sure to not copy the article and paste in your blog .
You can name those websites as bad websites because they are low paying advertisers ($0.01-$0.05) while you can get more from other advertisers.
I’m sure now you want to block those websites from your ads, well there is an option in your Adsense account which is called as the “Competitive Ad Filter”
This feature allow you to add all these bad sites or low paying advertisers and your website’s competitors in order to increase your eCPM and your overall total income .
The Competitive Ad Filter enables you to block specific ads, such as competitors’ ads, from appearing on your pages. Entering a more general URL will block a wider range of ads; entering a more specific URL will block a smaller range of ads. For example, by entering a top level domain such as “example.com”, you’ll also block all ads that link to any sub-directories of that domain, like “forums.example.com”. Review the examples below to learn how you can create filters that will block only the range of ads you want.
I know that everyone would be interested in receiving $0.50/click on an average, if you are one of them, then I’m sure that you have to work on your adsense ads placement (Targeting aswell) & block these adverts which pay very low.
Well you will not close this page and go with nothing, I’d help you to complete this step of increasing your revenue. Here I got with me some advertisers which should be blocked using the “Competitive Ad Filter” option, because many of these are just MFA sites.
blogspot.com
12-bestsites.com
dbmoz.biz
oemji.com
e-isn.com
searchignite.com
info.com
reviewsbykrystal.com
shopping.com
ez-tracks.com
8-TopWebSites.com
shopica.com
faster-results.com
ringringmobile.com
e-nternet.com
clobo.com
toseeka.com
Also I got with me a useful website for this option, you can generate your own block list.
Website link: http://www.blogger.com/www.adsblacklist.com
If you find this article useful feel free to bookmark it and share it with others/your friends.
Make sure to not copy the article and paste in your blog .
Google Adsense Policies (Must read rules)
Publishers participating in the AdSense program are required to adhere to the following policies. We ask that you read these policies carefully and refer to this document often. If you fail to comply with these policies, we may disable ad serving to your site and/or disable your AdSense account. While in many cases we prefer to work with publishers to achieve policy compliance, we reserve the right to disable any account at any time. If your account is disabled, you will not be eligible for further participation in the AdSense program.
Please note that we may change our policies at any time, and pursuant to our Terms and Conditions, it is your responsibility to keep up to date with and adhere to the policies posted here.
Invalid Clicks and Impressions
Clicks on Google ads must result from genuine user interest. Any method that artificially generates clicks or impressions on your Google ads is strictly prohibited. These prohibited methods include but are not limited to repeated manual clicks or impressions, using robots, automated click and impression generating tools, third-party services that generate clicks or impressions such as paid-to-click, paid-to-surf, autosurf, and click-exchange programs, or any deceptive software. Please note that clicking on your own ads for any reason is prohibited. Failure to comply with this policy may lead to your account being disabled.
Encouraging clicks
In order to ensure a good experience for users and advertisers, publishers may not request that users click the ads on their sites or rely on deceptive implementation methods to obtain clicks. Publishers participating in the AdSense program:
May not encourage users to click the Google ads by using phrases such as "click the ads," "support us," "visit these links," or other similar language
May not direct user attention to the ads via arrows or other graphical gimmicks
May not place misleading images alongside individual ads
May not promote sites displaying ads through unsolicited mass emails or unwanted advertisements on third-party websites
May not compensate users for viewing ads or performing searches, or promise compensation to a third party for such behavior
May not place misleading labels above Google ad units - for instance, ads may be labeled "Sponsored Links" but not "Favorite Sites"
Site Content
While Google offers broad access to a variety of content in the search index, publishers in the AdSense program may only place Google ads on sites that adhere to our content guidelines, and ads must not be displayed on any page with content primarily in an unsupported language. View a list of supported languages.
Sites displaying Google ads may not include:
Violent content, racial intolerance, or advocacy against any individual, group, or organization
Pornography, adult, or mature content
Hacking/cracking content
Illicit drugs and drug paraphernalia
Excessive profanity
Gambling or casino-related content
Content regarding programs which compensate users for clicking on ads or offers, performing searches, surfing websites, or reading emails
Excessive, repetitive, or irrelevant keywords in the content or code of web pages
Deceptive or manipulative content or construction to improve your site's search engine ranking, e.g., your site's PageRank
Sales or promotion of weapons or ammunition (e.g., firearms, fighting knives, stun guns)
Sales or promotion of beer or hard alcohol
Sales or promotion of tobacco or tobacco-related products
Sales or promotion of prescription drugs
Sales or promotion of products that are replicas or imitations of designer goods
Sales or distribution of term papers or student essays
Any other content that is illegal, promotes illegal activity, or infringes on the legal rights of others
Copyrighted Material
Website publishers may not display Google ads on web pages with content protected by copyright law unless they have the necessary legal rights to display that content. Please see our DMCA policy for more information.
Webmaster Guidelines
AdSense publishers are required to adhere to the webmaster quality guidelines posted at http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html#quality.
Site and Ad Behavior
Sites showing Google ads should be easy for users to navigate and should not contain excessive pop-ups. AdSense code may not be altered, nor may standard ad behavior be manipulated in any way that is not explicitly permitted by Google.
Sites showing Google ads may not contain pop-ups or pop-unders that interfere with site navigation, change user preferences, or initiate downloads.
Any AdSense code must be pasted directly into webpages without modification. AdSense participants are not allowed to alter any portion of the code or change the behavior, targeting, or delivery of ads. For instance, clicks on Google ads may not result in a new browser window being launched.
A site or third party cannot display our ads, search box, search results, or referral buttons as a result of the actions of any software application such as a toolbar.
No AdSense code may be integrated into a software application.
Webpages containing AdSense code may not be loaded by any software that can trigger pop-ups, redirect users to unwanted websites, modify browser settings, or otherwise interfere with site navigation. It is your responsibility to ensure that no ad network or affiliate uses such methods to direct traffic to pages that contain your AdSense code.
Referral offerings must be made without any obligation or requirement to end users. Publishers may not solicit email addresses from users in conjunction with AdSense referral units.
Publishers using online advertising to drive traffic to pages showing Google ads must comply with the spirit of Google's Landing Page Quality Guidelines. For instance, if you advertise for sites participating in the AdSense program, the advertising should not be deceptive to users.
Ad Placement
AdSense offers a number of ad formats and advertising products. Publishers are encouraged to experiment with a variety of placements, provided the following policies are respected:
Up to three ad units may be displayed on each page.
A maximum of two Google AdSense for search boxes may be placed on a page.
Up to three link units may also be placed on each page.
Up to three referral units may be displayed on a page, in addition to the ad units, search boxes, and link units specified above.
AdSense for search results pages may show only a single ad link unit in addition to the ads Google serves with the search results. No other ads may be displayed on your search results page.
No Google ad or Google search box may be displayed in a pop-up, pop-under, or in an email.
Elements on a page must not obscure any portion of the ads.
No Google ad may be placed on any non-content-based pages.
No Google ad may be placed on pages published specifically for the purpose of showing ads, whether or not the page content is relevant.
Competitive Ads and Services
In order to prevent user confusion, we do not permit Google ads or search boxes to be published on websites that also contain other ads or services formatted to use the same layout and colors as the Google ads or search boxes on that site. Although you may sell ads directly on your site, it is your responsibility to ensure these ads cannot be confused with Google ads.
Product-Specific Policies
Some AdSense products have additional policies that apply specifically to their use. Please review them in full if you use the products listed below.
Please note that we may change our policies at any time, and pursuant to our Terms and Conditions, it is your responsibility to keep up to date with and adhere to the policies posted here.
Invalid Clicks and Impressions
Clicks on Google ads must result from genuine user interest. Any method that artificially generates clicks or impressions on your Google ads is strictly prohibited. These prohibited methods include but are not limited to repeated manual clicks or impressions, using robots, automated click and impression generating tools, third-party services that generate clicks or impressions such as paid-to-click, paid-to-surf, autosurf, and click-exchange programs, or any deceptive software. Please note that clicking on your own ads for any reason is prohibited. Failure to comply with this policy may lead to your account being disabled.
Encouraging clicks
In order to ensure a good experience for users and advertisers, publishers may not request that users click the ads on their sites or rely on deceptive implementation methods to obtain clicks. Publishers participating in the AdSense program:
Site Content
While Google offers broad access to a variety of content in the search index, publishers in the AdSense program may only place Google ads on sites that adhere to our content guidelines, and ads must not be displayed on any page with content primarily in an unsupported language. View a list of supported languages.
Sites displaying Google ads may not include:
Copyrighted Material
Website publishers may not display Google ads on web pages with content protected by copyright law unless they have the necessary legal rights to display that content. Please see our DMCA policy for more information.
Webmaster Guidelines
AdSense publishers are required to adhere to the webmaster quality guidelines posted at http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html#quality.
Site and Ad Behavior
Sites showing Google ads should be easy for users to navigate and should not contain excessive pop-ups. AdSense code may not be altered, nor may standard ad behavior be manipulated in any way that is not explicitly permitted by Google.
Ad Placement
AdSense offers a number of ad formats and advertising products. Publishers are encouraged to experiment with a variety of placements, provided the following policies are respected:
Competitive Ads and Services
In order to prevent user confusion, we do not permit Google ads or search boxes to be published on websites that also contain other ads or services formatted to use the same layout and colors as the Google ads or search boxes on that site. Although you may sell ads directly on your site, it is your responsibility to ensure these ads cannot be confused with Google ads.
Product-Specific Policies
Some AdSense products have additional policies that apply specifically to their use. Please review them in full if you use the products listed below.
Google AdSense Account Blocked What Should You Do ?
Once you have decided to take your marketing campaign to Google's AdSense pay per click program, you agree to a number of rules including:
- No hidden pages. You must have a clear hierarchy and each page needs at least one link to get there.
- No broken links. If you link outside of your site, make sure you check your links often. No more than 100 links per page.
- When designing your site, create one that is helpful to a user; don't design a page for search engines. Make sure you clearly define what your site is about.
- Your TITLE and ALT tags should be precise and descriptive.
- You need a site map to help users find what they are looking for if your menu doesn't.
- No hidden text.
- No redirection of your site
Even if you follow all these design rules, you may still be at risk of losing your AdSense advertiser account or have temporarily been fined a penalty in the form of your ads being removed from rotation on other sites. The penalty may go away with time, but it's best to double and triple check your site then file a re-inclusion request (instructions below.) Include in your request which changes you've made and that it won't happen again.
Your competitors might have a plan that could get you banned. It's called "click bombing" and it's against Google's policy.
Click bombing happens when someone, be it a competitor or not, repeatedly clicks the pay per click ad for a business in order to raise flags with Google. Google rates their ads based on relevance, so the more an ad is clicked, the more relevant it becomes, and the higher up the list it moves. This has made it very easy for business owners to move themselves up the relevance list, so Google countered this practice by red flagging any business that has a significant spike in AdSense hits. If the hits all trace back to the same IP address or addresses, the advertiser is removed for "invalid clicks".
Finding out about this strength in Google's search engine, sneaky competitors have started to exploit it by purposely clicking the competitions ad again and again, in order to ban the ad.
If this has happened to you, or if you've been banned for violation of any of the design or technological terms of your contract, you can sometimes have it overturned by contacting customer support. You can contact Google support by visiting http://www.google.com/support/bin/request.py. Make sure you type "Re-inclusion Request" in the subject of the email. Keep your request simple, short and to the point. No need to threaten Google that you'll stop advertising with them or list how long you've been a customer.
It is imperative, though, that you run reports frequently and store the data outside of your Google account. This will help prove to Google that a click bombing happened should you be removed. You are not guaranteed a reversal, however. In fact, most pleas to Google to have a banned account go unheard.
If you don't get a positive response from Google, you may want to check out some of the other pay per click programs, like Yahoo! Publisher Network or the many affiliate programs online.
- No hidden pages. You must have a clear hierarchy and each page needs at least one link to get there.
- No broken links. If you link outside of your site, make sure you check your links often. No more than 100 links per page.
- When designing your site, create one that is helpful to a user; don't design a page for search engines. Make sure you clearly define what your site is about.
- Your TITLE and ALT tags should be precise and descriptive.
- You need a site map to help users find what they are looking for if your menu doesn't.
- No hidden text.
- No redirection of your site
Even if you follow all these design rules, you may still be at risk of losing your AdSense advertiser account or have temporarily been fined a penalty in the form of your ads being removed from rotation on other sites. The penalty may go away with time, but it's best to double and triple check your site then file a re-inclusion request (instructions below.) Include in your request which changes you've made and that it won't happen again.
Your competitors might have a plan that could get you banned. It's called "click bombing" and it's against Google's policy.
Click bombing happens when someone, be it a competitor or not, repeatedly clicks the pay per click ad for a business in order to raise flags with Google. Google rates their ads based on relevance, so the more an ad is clicked, the more relevant it becomes, and the higher up the list it moves. This has made it very easy for business owners to move themselves up the relevance list, so Google countered this practice by red flagging any business that has a significant spike in AdSense hits. If the hits all trace back to the same IP address or addresses, the advertiser is removed for "invalid clicks".
Finding out about this strength in Google's search engine, sneaky competitors have started to exploit it by purposely clicking the competitions ad again and again, in order to ban the ad.
If this has happened to you, or if you've been banned for violation of any of the design or technological terms of your contract, you can sometimes have it overturned by contacting customer support. You can contact Google support by visiting http://www.google.com/support/bin/request.py. Make sure you type "Re-inclusion Request" in the subject of the email. Keep your request simple, short and to the point. No need to threaten Google that you'll stop advertising with them or list how long you've been a customer.
It is imperative, though, that you run reports frequently and store the data outside of your Google account. This will help prove to Google that a click bombing happened should you be removed. You are not guaranteed a reversal, however. In fact, most pleas to Google to have a banned account go unheard.
If you don't get a positive response from Google, you may want to check out some of the other pay per click programs, like Yahoo! Publisher Network or the many affiliate programs online.
4 Steps to Creating A Website Specifically to Earn AdSense Revenue
Building a website to earn Google AdSense advertising revenue has become a popular way to make extra money online nowadays. It is easier to earn AdSense income versus generating sales by selling products or services online. However it does involve work, time and money before you start earning the Adsense program. Below are the steps to creat a content rich website for earning AdSense revenue.
Step 1
Decide the content of your website. You can select a subject relating to your interests, hobbies or experience. You can also provide educational information and provide advice through your website if you are an expert on a certain subject.
Step 2
Use a website builder to create your website. One of the easy-to-use website builders who can help you build a website is Bluevoda website builder. Bluevoda site builder allows users to build a website without technical knowledge. You don’t need to build your site from the scratch. The trick is to use a free professional template provided by the site builder and then start adding your text and links to your website. You can add some graphics and pictures to make your site look nicer. After completing your website project, your next step is to register a domain name and sign up for a hosting account to publish your website on the Internet.
Step 3
Join Google AdSense program. It will usually take several days for Google AdSense team to review and approve your site. If Google accepts your application. You can start learning how to generate AdSense code to insert it to your website to generate Adsense revenue. If your site was rejected by Google, don’t get upset. Google will let you know the reasons for the rejection. You can fix the problems and apply again.
Step 4
You need to drive targeted Visitors/Traffic to your website to generate Adsense revenue. The higher your website’s traffic the greater your Adsense earning will be. Below are some of the ways that can help you to get in some traffic whithin a short period of time.
advertising. The two most popular PPC search engines are Google and Yahoo. Google and Yahoo can deliver instant traffic to your website but it is costly to advertise on Google and Yahoo. There are other alternatives like Bidvertise.com and Clicksor.com which are cheaper to advertise with.
with a link to your website on the resource box and submit them to article directories. You can find a list of article directories by going to Google and entering the search term 'article directory'.
with a link to your site on the signature of each message posted.
7 Steps Of Mega Adsense Earners
The Google AdSense program is like finding money in the street.
Kids in High School are making thousands of dollars a month with Adsense... Housewives, Retiree's, Mom and Pop's who've never made a dime on the Internet have created full time incomes by simply placing AdSense Ads on their web site or blog.
Then you have the "Super AdSense" earners. We have all heard of them... the Elite few who are on track to make half a million dollars a year or more promoting AdSense sites.
Do not be mistaken though... these people are not building like your Mom and Pop's do. They have systems in place that create sites for them... people who build sites for them... they have outsourced and automated many of the tedious tasks such as posting to blogs and searching for keywords.
While most people cannot emulate everything these Super AdSense earners do... many of them you can.
Here are 7 Required Steps you can implement today to copy their success.
1) Starting today... treat your AdSense business like it is a REAL business and track what you do.
Begin tracking what you are doing that works... as well as what you are doing that does not work. This will keep you from making the same mistakes over and over, and you can repeat the steps that have worked in the past. As simple as this step seems... most people do not know the reason(s) to their success or failure.
2) Utilize the latest tools and software available.
The Super AdSense earners are not any smarter than your average person. I know many people think they are... but for the most part, they are regular non techie people.
They are smarter in one respect though... they use the latest tools available to them to automate most of the tasks involved with researching and creating sites. They use the latest keyword, site creation and search engine optimization tools available. The tools they use are their secret weapons.
3) Quit chasing the Mega Dollar keywords.
You cannot compete with the search engine experts who create sites for the $80 payout keywords. You may get lucky every now and then... but in the long run, you are better off building sites for the low to mid range payout keywords. The competition is less, and your chance of success is much higher over the long term.
4) Choose broad niches and break it down.
Choose a broad subject as your main theme (lets use computers for an example). From there... break it down into as many sub niches as possible.
Using Computers as the example... you could build sub niches/sites like laptop computers, computer hard drives, computer keyboards, etc, etc. You could literally build hundreds of sites around one major theme and stay totally focused. Once you have exhausted every possible sub niche of that major theme... choose another main theme and repeat the process.
5) KISS
Keep your sites easy to navigate and forget the fancy graphics that distract your visitors attention. Unless you are just building AdSense sites for the fun of it and to impress your friends... the purpose of having the site is to have people click on one of the ads, right? Then keep the site layout simple... dump the scrolling banners, dancing chickens and colored scroll bars... they are distractions.
6) What is the purpose of your web site?
Your web site cannot be everything to everybody. If you have a full fledged ecommerce site, with products for sale... links to other products, it is not a good site for AdSense. If the primary focus of the site is to sell products... let it do that.
Do not distract or confuse your visitor with to many options or choices. The best AdSense sites are AdSense only content sites that sell nothing. They are sites that "Tell"... not "Sell."
7) Be consistent.
This is not one of those deals where you build one site and you are done. Refer back to Step #4. You must continuously build in order to be successful.
Think of it as planting a crop that you will harvest in a month or two, and the sites you build are seeds. Once the seeds have grown and matured... you will reap the harvest. The more seeds you plant... the larger the harvest.
To sum it up... utilize the tools available to automate as much of the process of building sites - doing research and building keyword lists as you can. This alone will help keep you organized and on track. Be consistent in building... treat it like the business it is and you will reap the rewards of your harvest.
Google Adsense - RULES!
Here are a few things you should know before signing up with AdSense.
1 - Do not click on your own links. Even to test them out. Even if you're genuinely interested in the product. Don't do it.
2 - Don't encourage anyone to click on your links. The clicks will probably get disqualified and if it happens enough, you will probably get banned. Google has very advanced click-fraud detection so no matter how curious you are, DON'T DO IT.
3 - Email Google AdSense immediately if you notice a sudden surge in activity. If one day you have over a 30% jump in activity, let Google know. It might be a competitor trying to shut your AdSense account down by repeatedly clicking on your links, or it might be genuine activity. Letting Google know, helps you out.
4 - Make sure the number of ads you have on a page are in compliance with the terms. You may only have three ads on a page.
5 - If you're not sure you can do it, don't do it. Or at least, ask Google first.
Review Google Adsense Terms and Conditions
1 - Do not click on your own links. Even to test them out. Even if you're genuinely interested in the product. Don't do it.
2 - Don't encourage anyone to click on your links. The clicks will probably get disqualified and if it happens enough, you will probably get banned. Google has very advanced click-fraud detection so no matter how curious you are, DON'T DO IT.
3 - Email Google AdSense immediately if you notice a sudden surge in activity. If one day you have over a 30% jump in activity, let Google know. It might be a competitor trying to shut your AdSense account down by repeatedly clicking on your links, or it might be genuine activity. Letting Google know, helps you out.
4 - Make sure the number of ads you have on a page are in compliance with the terms. You may only have three ads on a page.
5 - If you're not sure you can do it, don't do it. Or at least, ask Google first.
Review Google Adsense Terms and Conditions
Make Money Online
If you can write well and you easily churn out short articles and/or blog posts, one of the very best sites to sell your writing is Constant Content. I can tell you I've written articles for them for years and they are completely legitimate.
You can sell articles you've already written and published elsewhere or you can respond to specific requests from buyers for articles. You set your own price and you can actually sell an article more than once if you like. Check out Constant Content for yourself. You'll love them.
(story cont. below)
Softwarejudge.com pays up to $50 for honest reviews of software listed on their site. They also say your review has to be very good to get the full fifty and you may get paid as low as $1.00.
Pickydomains.com will pay you via PayPal to name domains. Essentially they are a broker between you and clients who pay them to name their domains. They get a portion of the price paid and so do you.
If there is a topic about which you are passionate, you should have a website. In today's world, there is no reason any one who has a heart for something can't own a website. I use Homestead and I have happily used them since 2001. When I started I had no idea how to build a website and now I own approximately 20 websites. Do yourself a favor and take advantage of their free trial. I'm betting you'll be hooked just like I was.
Once you have your website, you'll want to earn additional income with it,right? One of my favorite affiliates is Linkshare. It's incredibly popular among webmasters and very easy to learn. Linkshare is one of the best ways to earn money with your website. Sign up, choose the companies you love (like Wal-Mart and Target) and you're on your way.
Softwarejudge.com pays up to $50 for honest reviews of software listed on their site. They also say your review has to be very good to get the full fifty and you may get paid as low as $1.00.
Pickydomains.com will pay you via PayPal to name domains. Essentially they are a broker between you and clients who pay them to name their domains. They get a portion of the price paid and so do you.
If there is a topic about which you are passionate, you should have a website. In today's world, there is no reason any one who has a heart for something can't own a website. I use Homestead and I have happily used them since 2001. When I started I had no idea how to build a website and now I own approximately 20 websites. Do yourself a favor and take advantage of their free trial. I'm betting you'll be hooked just like I was.
Once you have your website, you'll want to earn additional income with it,right? One of my favorite affiliates is Linkshare. It's incredibly popular among webmasters and very easy to learn. Linkshare is one of the best ways to earn money with your website. Sign up, choose the companies you love (like Wal-Mart and Target) and you're on your way.
Good luck!
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Free SEO Guide to Improve Your Search Engine Ranking
Traffic volume is the most important parameter when it comes to monetizing your blog (more visitors = more money). A large portion of traffic volume comes from search engines. To monetize efficiently, it's crucial to get your blog contents in the top list of any search engine result pages (SERP). Search Engine Optimization (SEO) helps you to achieve this goal.
There are two types of search results:
Natural (a.k.a organic).
Paid (e.g. sponsored links in Google SERP).
We'll focus on improving your ranking for the natural search results. Getting in the first few pages of the SERP will ensure that most people will find your content.
Search engines basically need one thing to know where to put your blog on their list - your rank on the keyword(s) used to search. For example, if your blog title is Tiki Tiki Guide to Making Money, you might be ranked high if people search for the keywords 'tiki tiki guide'. But you might be far beneath the thousands of other pages on the keywords 'making money online'. The question is, which of these two keyword phrases people will most likely search for. The answer is obvious.
The key to performing SEO lies in knowing what keywords to use and how to optimize their use. Be warned that heavily searched keywords are usually targeted by millions of sites and blogs, whom you have to compete against to move up the SERP. Finding a balance between highly competitive and highly searched keywords is a challenge.
Keyword and SEO research takes time. Even professional bloggers take a few months to move up the SERP right into the first few pages. Above all, content is the heart of a blog. If the content isn't good, no SEO research will do you any good.
Target the Right Keywords
Deciding what to blog is the most critical part. You must do research on keywords prior to deciding your niche. Here are some list of what to check on:
Search volumes on those keywords.
Number of competitors writing in the same niche.
Ads served based on those keywords, so that you don't blog on the ones serving very low cost-per-click(CPC).
Variations of these keywords: their synonyms and related words or phrases (see which get searched more with less competitor).
The best tool to help you with this is Wordtracker, available at a price. The site offers free trial and limited functions available for free. There are other keyword tools available with different functionalities.
Choose Suitable Domain Name
SEO keywords begin from the URL. The best domain name is the one with keyword(s) in it. It's great to have a URL like www.yourownname.com, but you'll loose out on getting better SERP rank if it doesn't contain any keywords. Isn't it obvious that www.iwanttomakemoneyonline.com helps SEO better than www.johnjohnnyjonathan.com. Unless of course, you've built some high reputation and your name gets searched a lot.
The other perspective on domain naming is that building a brand name is better in the long run, with something easy and catchy to remember. So there's two side of the coin: you might want to flip on it. But once you've built your blog to a certain level, it's not good to change the domain name. Having a URL that's both catchy and keyword-friendly is ultimately the best. Problogger.net is both catchy and keyword-friendly. Use whois lookup to check if a domain is available.
Use Keywords in Other Sections
The idea is to maximize the use of keywords wherever you can (don't overdo it though). These are the places that you must put keywords in them:
Blog Title - Search engines weigh your blog title heavily. Again, it's best to find a name that is both catchy and keyword-rich.
Blog Description - This is where you want to write phrases that catches attention, but rich with keywords too. If you're ranked even at No.1, but your description is as dull as a bull, nobody is going to click to your blog.
File Names - Use keywords to name files, pictures, photos, graphs, videos, etc that you're using in your blog.
Internal Links - Some sites use image maps with hotspot hyperlinks, images, or buttons to navigate within the sites. This works against SEO. It's better to use text links instead of images as text links carry more weight when getting ranked in search engines.
Tags or Labels - Each posts should be tagged or labelled with keywords to help strengthen SEO. Some prominent blog directories, like Technorati, uses these tags to identify your blog for others to search.
Blog titles, descriptions, and keywords can be enhanced by using META tags. Here's an article on how to use META tags efficiently.
Use Keywords Often in Content
How do search engine algorithms decide what each post is about? They'll scan for the the most-used keywords in the post, with different weights given to different elements. To make your posts 'acknowledged' as being related to any particular keywords, use and repeat them often in the posts. But don't do this too excessively to the point of being straight-out blunt and annoying. Having the right keyword-density in your posts have two benefits:
Draws in more related ads to the post pages. Related ads have better click-through-rates (CTR).
Contributes more towards getting higher rank on those keywords.
Build Links from External Sites
One way to get linked to is by exchanging links, commonly done in Blogrolls. Higher-ranking external sites helps your blog more in terms of SEO. Another way to do this is to submit your blog to directories (here's a tool for an automatic submission for multiple directories). Another highly trusted free directory is DMOZ. Posts can also be submitted to social media directories (e.g. Digg, StumbleUpon) that get voted up/down. Two benefits of submitting to directories:
You're building links on external sites to your blog/posts.
Others may stumble on your blog/posts in these directories and visit your blog from there.
Use Keywords to Anchor Hyperlinks
Don't use the term 'click here' to anchor hyperlinks - use keywords instead. Hyperlinks are valued more by ranking algorithms than the normal content text. Keyword anchors contribute better to SEO compared to the clickhere anchors.
Create Efficient Site Navigation Map
How to influence your readers to stay longer in your blog? Make it easy for them to see what's in your blog. To do this is to build efficient site map, something like an Archives or Categories lists. Even better is to list Related Posts items at the end of each post. Use keywords to anchor all links. This practice helps SEO as it build links to your own blog using keywords, albeit internally, and helps spiders to crawl up your pages easily.
--------
This article has been adapted from an article by Randy DuerMyer at About.com (Alexa rank: 144). The main key points was summarized to shorten the text and expanded to include new and valuable information not available in the original article. The new article (1134 words) is much shorter by 40% compared to the original article (1880 words).
There are two types of search results:
We'll focus on improving your ranking for the natural search results. Getting in the first few pages of the SERP will ensure that most people will find your content.
Search engines basically need one thing to know where to put your blog on their list - your rank on the keyword(s) used to search. For example, if your blog title is Tiki Tiki Guide to Making Money, you might be ranked high if people search for the keywords 'tiki tiki guide'. But you might be far beneath the thousands of other pages on the keywords 'making money online'. The question is, which of these two keyword phrases people will most likely search for. The answer is obvious.
The key to performing SEO lies in knowing what keywords to use and how to optimize their use. Be warned that heavily searched keywords are usually targeted by millions of sites and blogs, whom you have to compete against to move up the SERP. Finding a balance between highly competitive and highly searched keywords is a challenge.
Keyword and SEO research takes time. Even professional bloggers take a few months to move up the SERP right into the first few pages. Above all, content is the heart of a blog. If the content isn't good, no SEO research will do you any good.
Target the Right Keywords
Deciding what to blog is the most critical part. You must do research on keywords prior to deciding your niche. Here are some list of what to check on:
The best tool to help you with this is Wordtracker, available at a price. The site offers free trial and limited functions available for free. There are other keyword tools available with different functionalities.
Choose Suitable Domain Name
SEO keywords begin from the URL. The best domain name is the one with keyword(s) in it. It's great to have a URL like www.yourownname.com, but you'll loose out on getting better SERP rank if it doesn't contain any keywords. Isn't it obvious that www.iwanttomakemoneyonline.com helps SEO better than www.johnjohnnyjonathan.com. Unless of course, you've built some high reputation and your name gets searched a lot.
The other perspective on domain naming is that building a brand name is better in the long run, with something easy and catchy to remember. So there's two side of the coin: you might want to flip on it. But once you've built your blog to a certain level, it's not good to change the domain name. Having a URL that's both catchy and keyword-friendly is ultimately the best. Problogger.net is both catchy and keyword-friendly. Use whois lookup to check if a domain is available.
Use Keywords in Other Sections
The idea is to maximize the use of keywords wherever you can (don't overdo it though). These are the places that you must put keywords in them:
Blog Title - Search engines weigh your blog title heavily. Again, it's best to find a name that is both catchy and keyword-rich.
Blog Description - This is where you want to write phrases that catches attention, but rich with keywords too. If you're ranked even at No.1, but your description is as dull as a bull, nobody is going to click to your blog.
File Names - Use keywords to name files, pictures, photos, graphs, videos, etc that you're using in your blog.
Internal Links - Some sites use image maps with hotspot hyperlinks, images, or buttons to navigate within the sites. This works against SEO. It's better to use text links instead of images as text links carry more weight when getting ranked in search engines.
Tags or Labels - Each posts should be tagged or labelled with keywords to help strengthen SEO. Some prominent blog directories, like Technorati, uses these tags to identify your blog for others to search.
Blog titles, descriptions, and keywords can be enhanced by using META tags. Here's an article on how to use META tags efficiently.
Use Keywords Often in Content
How do search engine algorithms decide what each post is about? They'll scan for the the most-used keywords in the post, with different weights given to different elements. To make your posts 'acknowledged' as being related to any particular keywords, use and repeat them often in the posts. But don't do this too excessively to the point of being straight-out blunt and annoying. Having the right keyword-density in your posts have two benefits:
Build Links from External Sites
One way to get linked to is by exchanging links, commonly done in Blogrolls. Higher-ranking external sites helps your blog more in terms of SEO. Another way to do this is to submit your blog to directories (here's a tool for an automatic submission for multiple directories). Another highly trusted free directory is DMOZ. Posts can also be submitted to social media directories (e.g. Digg, StumbleUpon) that get voted up/down. Two benefits of submitting to directories:
You're building links on external sites to your blog/posts.
Others may stumble on your blog/posts in these directories and visit your blog from there.
Use Keywords to Anchor Hyperlinks
Don't use the term 'click here' to anchor hyperlinks - use keywords instead. Hyperlinks are valued more by ranking algorithms than the normal content text. Keyword anchors contribute better to SEO compared to the clickhere anchors.
Create Efficient Site Navigation Map
How to influence your readers to stay longer in your blog? Make it easy for them to see what's in your blog. To do this is to build efficient site map, something like an Archives or Categories lists. Even better is to list Related Posts items at the end of each post. Use keywords to anchor all links. This practice helps SEO as it build links to your own blog using keywords, albeit internally, and helps spiders to crawl up your pages easily.
This article has been adapted from an article by Randy DuerMyer at About.com (Alexa rank: 144). The main key points was summarized to shorten the text and expanded to include new and valuable information not available in the original article. The new article (1134 words) is much shorter by 40% compared to the original article (1880 words).
How to Produce Persuasive Writing?
If you're blogging with a serious goal in mind - building reputation, making money, selling products - you'll want to be heard and trusted. To achieve this you must first be able to persuade your readers. Telling them what your ideas are seems pretty straight forward, but making them believe what you're saying is a completely different thing. It is this ability of persuasion that will put you ahead.
In essence, people tend to agree with others when it benefits them more. The challenge to writers when persuading audience is to create a win-win situation and to present their case well and clear. Below are guides to improve yourself to become a more persuasive writer:
Repeat your ideas - Not everybody gets it the first time. Repeat your ideas, again and again. But do it in different forms so that it doesn't get boring. Use examples, stories, analogies, or rewording to restate your ideas.
Give reasons - People will ask 'Why?' to anything. Support your ideas or products with good reasons why they're so or why they're built. This isn't as easy as it sounds. Reasons that make sense convince people. The ones that don't invite debate and trouble. Think carefully before giving any reasons.
Be consistent - Inconsistent thoughts show confusion, uncertainty, hesitation, and many other bad things. Being consistent shows that you have sound logic, rational thinking, and believable character. A powerful technique to show you're consistent is to present your case at the beginning. Then, convince your readers by supporting your case with evidence, examples, and proof throughout your writing consistently, while repeatedly referring back to the initial argument at the beginning of the article.
Support with authority - An idea that has been well accepted socially, supported with scientific facts, or backed by prominent figures with strong credentials will easily get accepted by others. Your challenge is to convincingly show them how your case is supported.
Compare with established ideas - Comparing or relating your case to the ones already established can help convince people. It helps to use metaphors, similes, and analogies. Readers are convinced more easily this way as they only need to see the connection between your ideas to those already established as true.
Relate to your readers - When you're posting an article as a solution to a problem, don't just solve it. Present the problems clearly and make your readers know that you know well the stakes at hand and empathize with their trouble. Your readers will likely be reading your post because they're facing that problem. They'll trust you more if you can show them that you've dealt with the same situation before and know exactly how to solve it.
Belong to a group - When you're writing on articles that target specific demographics (group of people), get into their heads and be (or try to be) part of them. You'll be more persuasive if you understand the specific needs and wants of your target group. Then focus your writing to fulfill those needs, rather than trying to generalize your writing to target the whole masses.
Address disagreements - Not everyone will agree with your ideas. There'll be objections, counter-arguments, and debates. Assessing what those disagreements are and addressing them immediately will save you some trouble and improves people's perception towards your credibility on the subject matter, which increases your persuasive ability. Of course, you can't always think of everything that people will object.
Tell stories - Unfolding your ideas gradually by telling stories first and relating them back to your core ideas is an effective technique. People believes in stories much easier than they do with dreary arguments. The challenge is for you to tell good stories and to relate them to your ideas. The better the stories you tell, the easier it is to get people to believe you. Hope that you're telling them the right thing then.
--------
This article is a shorter adaptation from a longer version Ten Timeless Persuasive Writing Techniques by Brian Clark at CopyBlogger.com (Alexa rank: 12,307). The original post of 1043 words has been reduced by 38% to 647 words.
In essence, people tend to agree with others when it benefits them more. The challenge to writers when persuading audience is to create a win-win situation and to present their case well and clear. Below are guides to improve yourself to become a more persuasive writer:
Address disagreements - Not everyone will agree with your ideas. There'll be objections, counter-arguments, and debates. Assessing what those disagreements are and addressing them immediately will save you some trouble and improves people's perception towards your credibility on the subject matter, which increases your persuasive ability. Of course, you can't always think of everything that people will object.
This article is a shorter adaptation from a longer version Ten Timeless Persuasive Writing Techniques by Brian Clark at CopyBlogger.com (Alexa rank: 12,307). The original post of 1043 words has been reduced by 38% to 647 words.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Amount of Traffic Social Media Sites Can Send
Submitting your content to social media sites can be quite an effective technique to drive large traffic volume and promote your blog. Provided that the content you submit is of high quality and reaches the site's front page, traffic sent to your blog can reach between a few thousand to tens of thousands within a short period of time (a few days). Here's a list of some of the popular/emerging social media sites and the volume of traffic their front-pages are capable of sending.
StumbleUpon can send traffic in the amount of 1,000 to 40,000 within 3 days after getting around 50 stumbles.
You can expect between 1,500 to 30,000 visitors to your blog if your post is approved in Slashdot and gets to its front page.
A popular post on Digg's front page can get between 3,000 to 35,000 visitors within a short period of time.
The aptly chosen name I Am Bored can send traffic of around 2,000 to 15,000 of its bored members to your blog if your post gets to its front page.
Ebaum's World is a humor site with the ability to send its front page landers a good traffic volume of 2,500 to 20,000.
Posts on the community-based news site Fark's frontpage can get around 2,000 to 20,000 traffic volume.
News/stories on Reddit's frontpage receive traffic of about 2,500 to 15,000, depending on how far up and how long it stays on the front page.
Submission to MetaFilter requires a subscription fee, but once your post hits the front page, you can expect around 1,000 to 5,000 visitors.
The traffic that the social tagging site Del.icio.us sends is spread over time. Given that your article hit its front page, you can get between 500 to 5,000 visitors within a short period of time.
Front page landers on Propeller are not guaranteed much to receive high traffic, unless you're in the Top 5, which can send around 50 to 3,500 visitors.
Breaking news that hit the frontpage of Newsvine gets around 500 to 2,000 traffic volume.
ShoutWire, an internet news site, sends about 500 to 1,500 traffic volume to submissions that get to the frontpage.
The new social news site Mixx has a steady trend of increasing traffic. Currently, its frontpage landers can receive around 50 to 250 visitors.
Sphinn, an internet marketing social site, is capable to drive traffic of about 75 to 200 in less than 24 hours to articles on the front page.
--------
This post is an adaptation on a rough guide provided by SEOCO (Alexa rank: 138,950) mainly based on client's statistics and data on Google Analytics. The original post of 744 words has been cut down by 44% to 421 words.
StumbleUpon can send traffic in the amount of 1,000 to 40,000 within 3 days after getting around 50 stumbles.
You can expect between 1,500 to 30,000 visitors to your blog if your post is approved in Slashdot and gets to its front page.
A popular post on Digg's front page can get between 3,000 to 35,000 visitors within a short period of time.
The aptly chosen name I Am Bored can send traffic of around 2,000 to 15,000 of its bored members to your blog if your post gets to its front page.
Ebaum's World is a humor site with the ability to send its front page landers a good traffic volume of 2,500 to 20,000.
Posts on the community-based news site Fark's frontpage can get around 2,000 to 20,000 traffic volume.
News/stories on Reddit's frontpage receive traffic of about 2,500 to 15,000, depending on how far up and how long it stays on the front page.
Submission to MetaFilter requires a subscription fee, but once your post hits the front page, you can expect around 1,000 to 5,000 visitors.
The traffic that the social tagging site Del.icio.us sends is spread over time. Given that your article hit its front page, you can get between 500 to 5,000 visitors within a short period of time.
Front page landers on Propeller are not guaranteed much to receive high traffic, unless you're in the Top 5, which can send around 50 to 3,500 visitors.
Breaking news that hit the frontpage of Newsvine gets around 500 to 2,000 traffic volume.
ShoutWire, an internet news site, sends about 500 to 1,500 traffic volume to submissions that get to the frontpage.
The new social news site Mixx has a steady trend of increasing traffic. Currently, its frontpage landers can receive around 50 to 250 visitors.
Sphinn, an internet marketing social site, is capable to drive traffic of about 75 to 200 in less than 24 hours to articles on the front page.
This post is an adaptation on a rough guide provided by SEOCO (Alexa rank: 138,950) mainly based on client's statistics and data on Google Analytics. The original post of 744 words has been cut down by 44% to 421 words.
Adsense Smart Pricing is Bad but How to Avoid It?
The first thing you should know before blogging for money is the Adsense smart-pricing. It's a technique to improve value to advertisers by reducing the price they pay per adclick, ultimately reducing the pay publishers get per adclick. If you are in the categories whose blogs are smart-priced, then you'll be earning much less than what you were supposed to if you're not smart-priced. This article explains what smart-pricing is, what factors affect blogs to be smart-priced, and how to avoid being smart-priced. This guide is a summary based on Google facts and best tips on smart-pricing from top blogs.
What is Smart Pricing from Google standpoint?
Smart pricing was intoduced in April 2004 to improve advertisers Return On Investment (ROI) by adjusting the price of certain clicks. Here are some facts and implications on smart pricing based on the Goggle AdWords announcement:
Prices per click for advertisers are adjusted based on Google network's data of click conversion to advertisers' business actions (e.g. sales, registration, etc).
Cost-per-click (CPC) is reduced if that action improves value to advertisers.
Ad price estimation is affected by many factors such as keywords and types of blogs. For example, an adclick on videocam placed on a general photography tips blog may cost less than a click on the same ad placed next to specs and reviews on videocam.
The estimation of click values is done continuously and on an ongoing basis that ultimately saves advertisers time and money.
Advertisers get greater value and performance as the ad costs are appropriately set based on the quality and relevancy of information provided by sites/blogs to their customers.
Google explained further in its official Adsense blog about the facts on smart pricing as there are some misconceptions to how it's being implemented:
Ad prices are determined based on many factors: advertisers bid, quality of ad, other competing ads, ad campaign time period, and advertisers' conversion rate.
Click-through-rate (CTR) doesn't affect advertisers' ROI. Smart pricing is introduced to benefit advertisers, and the only thing that matters is the percentage of click conversion to ROI. Publishers' CTR has nothing to do with advertisers' ROI. What matters is clicks that bring in highly relevant customers that result in business actions.
Advertisers gain more from sites that bring in quality clicks (due to readers interest in their quality and relevant content). Generic clicks do not convert much to value for the advertisers. To gain most from Adsense, publishers should improve content quality, bring in targeted traffic, and improves the relevancy of content to ads.
The system of determining ad prices is updated regularly to improve the value to advertisers.
How Smart Pricing Affects Bloggers/Publishers?
Many bloggers have had some experiences on Adsense smart-pricing that affect the type of niche they choose and how they blog. Some of these experiences weren't highlighted by Google's guides. In essence, bloggers need to be aware of smart pricing and careful when first finding a niche to blog about if they want to gain the most from Adsense. I have compiled the most important 'facts' about Adsense smart-pricing based on these experiences around the blogosphere:
Reduced earning - Smart price means that the earning per click is reduced if your blog is being smart-priced. For example, you might earn $0.05 per click on an ad that could actually bring you $0.50 if you're not smart-priced. It also means that the advertisers pay less per click on ads these ads than the actual bidding price.
Affects entire account - Smart-pricing affects the entire Adsense account. If you have multiple blogs and only one of them is actually being smart-priced because it brings in low conversion rate to advertisers, then all the other blogs under the same Adsense account will be affected also eventhough these other ones converts well.
Won't know if you're being smart priced - You won't know which sites are being smart-priced and which are not, and you don't have any data to make any correct guess. What you can do to know whether your blog is being smart priced is by observing its performance or make educated guesses based on your earning per click or CTR.
Smart-pricing can be reversed - If your account is affected, remove Adsense ads from sites that you think are actually being smart-priced to avoid being smart-priced on sites that convert well.
Updated on weekly basis - Smart pricing is evaluated on a weekly basis. Changes are likely to occur the week after you've made any changes that affect smart-pricing.
Setup additional account - Some bloggers have set up additional Adsense account to serve different sites so that well-converting sites are not affected by smart pricing. But this requires approval from Google and actually difficult to get. Publishers need to provide additional company details or have different names for different accounts.
Does CTR Affect Smart Pricing?
Some bloggers say that blogs with low CTR will be smart-priced. This is contradictory to Google's statement. But many have experienced that the earnings per click is less when they have lower CTR, which then forced them to delete Adsense from these accounts so that it won't affects other blogs that do well on CTR. Courtney gave a tip that blogs with CTR less than 3% should not put Adsense to avoid getting smart-priced on the entire accounts.
Although Google says that CTR doesn't affect smart pricing, it can affect smart pricing indirectly. Blogs that have low CTR most likely are serving ads poorly targeted to the content. Some readers that do click on these ads tend to not be interested by the services/products offered on the advertiser sites as they're not targeted to the readers interest. So, in a way, low CTR blogs do seem to be smart-priced because of their poorly targeted ads. Accidental clicks on poorly targeted ads also convert to low CTR.
Traffic from social networks are well known to convert to low CTR compared to traffic from search engines. Visitors from social networks come across blogs/posts because of their reputation or popularity, not entirely because they are searching for them. They are not likely to click on ads. On the other hand, visitors from search engines come across blogs/posts because they are searching for those targeted contents and are likely to click on targeted ads to know more about those products/services that interest them.
Blogs about blogging (e.g. making money using blogs, blog tips) typically also convert to low CTR as bloggers are more familiar with the concept of contextual advertising and aren't likely to click on ads (hint: think about your tendency of clicking ads on blogs about blogging). This is not to say that these blogs will automatically be smart-priced, but many bloggers blogging on these topics do experience a huge drop on CTR and earnings per click compared to blogs on other niche topics. The key is about bringing quality customers that convert to advertisers business. If your blogs do provide high quality content and do bring in quality customers that improve advertisers' ROI, then there's no good reason for your blog to be smart-priced.
Tips To Avoid Being Smart-Priced
These are tips that have been compiled from many top blogs on the topics of smart pricing:
Create highly targeted content to search engine traffic.
Improves blog with highly targeted content and high quality articles that draw more interest to visitors on products/services being discussed or reviewed.
Improves Adsense design and placement to improves CTR.
Avoid blogging about blogs to avoid audience that don't tend to click ads (i.e. don't target us!).
Avoid building contents with the intention of targeting only social networks.
Delete Adsense on blogs that are being smart-priced, have low CTR (less than 3%), or generate low earnings per click (around $0.10 or less).
If possible (but extremely difficult), ask permission to create multiple Adsense accounts - one for blogs that convert well, and another for blogs that you suspect are being smart-priced.
--------
This post is a summary based on Google announcement and tips on smart pricing from top blogs. The post length is 1342 words.
What is Smart Pricing from Google standpoint?
Smart pricing was intoduced in April 2004 to improve advertisers Return On Investment (ROI) by adjusting the price of certain clicks. Here are some facts and implications on smart pricing based on the Goggle AdWords announcement:
Google explained further in its official Adsense blog about the facts on smart pricing as there are some misconceptions to how it's being implemented:
How Smart Pricing Affects Bloggers/Publishers?
Many bloggers have had some experiences on Adsense smart-pricing that affect the type of niche they choose and how they blog. Some of these experiences weren't highlighted by Google's guides. In essence, bloggers need to be aware of smart pricing and careful when first finding a niche to blog about if they want to gain the most from Adsense. I have compiled the most important 'facts' about Adsense smart-pricing based on these experiences around the blogosphere:
Does CTR Affect Smart Pricing?
Some bloggers say that blogs with low CTR will be smart-priced. This is contradictory to Google's statement. But many have experienced that the earnings per click is less when they have lower CTR, which then forced them to delete Adsense from these accounts so that it won't affects other blogs that do well on CTR. Courtney gave a tip that blogs with CTR less than 3% should not put Adsense to avoid getting smart-priced on the entire accounts.
Although Google says that CTR doesn't affect smart pricing, it can affect smart pricing indirectly. Blogs that have low CTR most likely are serving ads poorly targeted to the content. Some readers that do click on these ads tend to not be interested by the services/products offered on the advertiser sites as they're not targeted to the readers interest. So, in a way, low CTR blogs do seem to be smart-priced because of their poorly targeted ads. Accidental clicks on poorly targeted ads also convert to low CTR.
Traffic from social networks are well known to convert to low CTR compared to traffic from search engines. Visitors from social networks come across blogs/posts because of their reputation or popularity, not entirely because they are searching for them. They are not likely to click on ads. On the other hand, visitors from search engines come across blogs/posts because they are searching for those targeted contents and are likely to click on targeted ads to know more about those products/services that interest them.
Blogs about blogging (e.g. making money using blogs, blog tips) typically also convert to low CTR as bloggers are more familiar with the concept of contextual advertising and aren't likely to click on ads (hint: think about your tendency of clicking ads on blogs about blogging). This is not to say that these blogs will automatically be smart-priced, but many bloggers blogging on these topics do experience a huge drop on CTR and earnings per click compared to blogs on other niche topics. The key is about bringing quality customers that convert to advertisers business. If your blogs do provide high quality content and do bring in quality customers that improve advertisers' ROI, then there's no good reason for your blog to be smart-priced.
Tips To Avoid Being Smart-Priced
These are tips that have been compiled from many top blogs on the topics of smart pricing:
This post is a summary based on Google announcement and tips on smart pricing from top blogs. The post length is 1342 words.
Methods to Make Money Online from Blogs
Darren Rowse has written a long article describing methods available for bloggers to earn money online directly from their blogs. The essence of this guide to making money online, added with some entry of my own, is summarized below.
A number of different monetizing methods are available for bloggers to use. Selection of which methods to use depends on blogs' niche, number of visitors/subscribers, impressions and expertise, among other things.
1. Advertising
Contextual Ads - This is a pay-per-click (PPC) or cost-per-click (CPC) ads system based on blog contents (e.g. Adsense, YPN). It is a good system for blogs with specific niche topic. General blogs or blogs without any niche will not work well because the systems do not have any context to 'lock' on to when selecting what ads to display (resulting in displays of some very general ads).
Non-contextual CPC ads - Display ads without having to relate to context, such as Chitika’s eMiniMalls.
Impression-based ads - Payment are made based on the number of people viewing the ads; only good for blogs with large traffic). Examples: Fastclick and Tribal Fusion.
Text Ads - A text-link on your blog sold as ads by text-link ads programs (such as AdBrite, Text Link Ads, and Bidvertiser). These programs sell your text-links to their own pool of advertisers; the benefit is that you don’t have to go through the hassle of finding your own advertisers. You also have a degree of control over what ads to run and what prices to set.
RSS Ads – Many ads programs display ads in RSS feeds. Some programs only offer this option to blogs with a certain number of traffic, impressions, or subscribers.
2. Sponsorship
Well established blogs with large traffic have better chances of directly finding their own advertisers or sponsors to display ads. Typically, blogs with specific niche have more chances of getting sponsors with the same niche (e.g. blogs about camera getting Nikon or Kodak as sponsors). Ads are sold in the form of banners, text-links, buttons, or newsletters. Another type of sponsorship is sponsored posts: bloggers are paid to write specific posts as required by sponsors, or posts reviewing sponsors’ own blogs (positively I suppose).
3. Affiliate Programs
Affiliate program providers (e.g. Amazon, eBay, Linkshare, Commision Junction, Clickbank) pay you commissions for sending readers to purchase their products/services. Participating in these programs may require you to put more effort (than needed to setup ads in your blog) to influence readers to buy the products or services.
4. Selling BlogsWell established and profitable blogs may be (and have been) sold at lucrative prices. An example is Weblogs Inc. which were sold to AOL for $25 million. But, to reach that level of success is extremely difficult and rare. Some smaller blogs have been sold at auction sites like eBay and SitePoint.
5. Donations
Only a very small number of blogs have been successful at making profitable income through donations. Most of them have large number of loyal readers.
6. Merchandising
Successful bloggers have used their influential blogs as brand names to be sold as merchandises (T-shirts, mugs, stickers, etc).
7. Paid Subscriptions
Selling blog contents to subscribers is an option to bloggers but a difficult one to profit from because similar contents are available free online. Bloggers would need a certain degree of expertise or exclusivity to have readers wanting to pay for these contents.
8. Blog Networks
There are two ways to profit from these methods: (1) Start your own network and pay bloggers to write in your network while profiting from the seven methods above. (2) Join other networks as a paid writer.
My Comments
If you're new to this, getting too excited to try everything on the list at the same time would be a big mistake. Building your blog from the basics up the ladder - with patience - is the key. It's tempting to try all the different monetizing methods and see if it works more than others, but you'll end up wasting your time too much learning on how to get the most out of the different methods. It's best to start from the most common ones (most likely Adsense) and build up your experience getting the most out of it. Your experience then will make it easier for you to learn other new methods in time. Anyway, Adsense has been reported to bring in the biggest chunk of revenues to many popular bloggers.
--------
This post is a summary of an original post by Darren Rowse at Problogger.net (Alexa rank: 3185). The original post length of 1993 words has been cut down to 624 words (69% reduction).
A number of different monetizing methods are available for bloggers to use. Selection of which methods to use depends on blogs' niche, number of visitors/subscribers, impressions and expertise, among other things.
1. Advertising
2. Sponsorship
Well established blogs with large traffic have better chances of directly finding their own advertisers or sponsors to display ads. Typically, blogs with specific niche have more chances of getting sponsors with the same niche (e.g. blogs about camera getting Nikon or Kodak as sponsors). Ads are sold in the form of banners, text-links, buttons, or newsletters. Another type of sponsorship is sponsored posts: bloggers are paid to write specific posts as required by sponsors, or posts reviewing sponsors’ own blogs (positively I suppose).
3. Affiliate Programs
Affiliate program providers (e.g. Amazon, eBay, Linkshare, Commision Junction, Clickbank) pay you commissions for sending readers to purchase their products/services. Participating in these programs may require you to put more effort (than needed to setup ads in your blog) to influence readers to buy the products or services.
4. Selling BlogsWell established and profitable blogs may be (and have been) sold at lucrative prices. An example is Weblogs Inc. which were sold to AOL for $25 million. But, to reach that level of success is extremely difficult and rare. Some smaller blogs have been sold at auction sites like eBay and SitePoint.
5. Donations
Only a very small number of blogs have been successful at making profitable income through donations. Most of them have large number of loyal readers.
6. Merchandising
Successful bloggers have used their influential blogs as brand names to be sold as merchandises (T-shirts, mugs, stickers, etc).
7. Paid Subscriptions
Selling blog contents to subscribers is an option to bloggers but a difficult one to profit from because similar contents are available free online. Bloggers would need a certain degree of expertise or exclusivity to have readers wanting to pay for these contents.
8. Blog Networks
There are two ways to profit from these methods: (1) Start your own network and pay bloggers to write in your network while profiting from the seven methods above. (2) Join other networks as a paid writer.
My Comments
If you're new to this, getting too excited to try everything on the list at the same time would be a big mistake. Building your blog from the basics up the ladder - with patience - is the key. It's tempting to try all the different monetizing methods and see if it works more than others, but you'll end up wasting your time too much learning on how to get the most out of the different methods. It's best to start from the most common ones (most likely Adsense) and build up your experience getting the most out of it. Your experience then will make it easier for you to learn other new methods in time. Anyway, Adsense has been reported to bring in the biggest chunk of revenues to many popular bloggers.
This post is a summary of an original post by Darren Rowse at Problogger.net (Alexa rank: 3185). The original post length of 1993 words has been cut down to 624 words (69% reduction).
Articles Related to Monetizing Blogs
Here's the list of articles I've posted that can help you learn the tips and tricks to make money using your blogs. The essence of these articles come from the best tips out there written by successful bloggers. They're not listed in particular orders but the top one, 'Methods to Make Money Online from Blogs', is a good place to start. The rest of the articles covers most of the big topics in monetizing blogs as listed above.
Methods to Make Money Online from Blogs.
Adsense Smart Pricing is Bad but How to Avoid It?
Amount of Traffic Social Media Sites Can Send You.
How to Produce Persuasive Writing?
Free SEO Guide to Improve Your Search Engine Ranking.
Guides to Building Quality & Original Content.
What It Takes to Build a Successful Money-Making Blog.
Optimizing Adsense for Higher Money Returns.
Advice on Promoting Blog.
How to Reduce Ad-Blindness.
Great Money Making Schemes for Your Blog.
SEO-Related Mistakes You Must Avoid.
Adsense vs. BidVertiser - Which is the Best?
Best Tips to Generate Money from Adsense.
Tips to Increase Your Blog's Traffic.
How to Get 1000+ Subscribers in 3 Months?
How to Get 2000+ Subscribers in 3 Months?
Making Money Efficiently from Blogs
The chance is that you know about Adsense and how to make money from it using your blog. If you haven't heard about it, well, you can generate money from your blog and the most popular way of doing that is using the Google Adsense Program. In fact, successful bloggers earn more than $100,000 per year from their blogs.
In this blog I've posted some articles to guide you generate money from blogs. Most of the tips come from extremely long articles of successful bloggers that I've compressed to make the readings much much shorter for you. Trust me, if you have no idea about monetizing blogs, learning to do it from the basics can take a really long time. Having short articles that compresses all the important points can help you a lot, because you don't want to spend too much time on learning how to do it. There are 3 basic questions you should be asking yourself when learning to build a monetizing blog:
How to get more visitors to your blog?
What's the best programs to monetize your blog?
How to optimize your blog and ad designs to maximize your earning?
If you're a first timer on this, I'll give you some quick pointers on what are some of the major things you should know if you want to successfully monetize your blog. It can hurt you a lot if you don't know these things (hurt = cost you time and energy with little in return). This list isn't the most comprehensive ones on the subject, but will give you the big picture on what to learn.
Adsense - Know Adsense and learn how to optimize its use in your blog. Using Adsense isn't just about putting the codes in your blog. There are tips on how to maximize your earnings by optimizing you Adsense placement, colors, and overall design.
SEO - Learn Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This is needed to help you get your blog to rank high on search engines, e.g. Google. In other words, you'd want your blog to be in the first page of Google search result when somebody googles keywords related to your blog.
Keyword Research and Niche - Think carefully on what niche area you want to blog about and what keywords are the best for your blog URL, titles, descriptions, and post titles. Simply using www.yourname.com as a URL will put you at a huge disadvantage at getting rank well, unless your name is Paris Hilton, which gets search the most (to learn from what she has to say about life, I guess).
Blog Promotion - Money only comes in when there are visitors to your blog, thousands of them. How to get them to your blog isn't easy. You have to learn how to promote your blog.
Monetizing Programs - Bloggers out there don't just use Adsense. There are tons of other programs, affiliates, and sponsorships. The trick is to know which is the best for you and how to optimize their use in your blog.
Quality Blog Content - Anybody can write anything on their blogs. But what articles attract the most readers? Blogging isn't just about posting articles. You have to learn the tips and tricks to get others read what you write.
What NOT to do - There are things that if you do will hurt your monetizing effort. For example, if you have Adsense put in blogs that are 'smart-priced' by Adsense, you'll earn very little. Read also the Adsense Terms and Conditions so that you don't do anything that'll get you banned from the program. 'Smart-pricing' is explained below.
Social Media - One way of promoting your blog is through networking inside social media networks, such as Digg.com, StumbleUpon.com, etc. There are tricks to get the most out of them.
Getting Visitor Traffic - How to bring visitors to your blog? And how to get more and more of them, over time? There are many ways to get people to your blog - social media, search engines, word-of-mouth, recommendations. The more you know about this the better.
RSS Subscribers - People will subscribe to your blog if you have good contents, which means you'll get more readers, more visitors, and most importantly more exposure. Are there tips out there how to increase the number of subscribers? Yes, there are (read some of the articles below).
In this blog I've posted some articles to guide you generate money from blogs. Most of the tips come from extremely long articles of successful bloggers that I've compressed to make the readings much much shorter for you. Trust me, if you have no idea about monetizing blogs, learning to do it from the basics can take a really long time. Having short articles that compresses all the important points can help you a lot, because you don't want to spend too much time on learning how to do it. There are 3 basic questions you should be asking yourself when learning to build a monetizing blog:
If you're a first timer on this, I'll give you some quick pointers on what are some of the major things you should know if you want to successfully monetize your blog. It can hurt you a lot if you don't know these things (hurt = cost you time and energy with little in return). This list isn't the most comprehensive ones on the subject, but will give you the big picture on what to learn.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Blogging Tips : Make your Good Start!
Did you ever wish the whole world knew what you are thinking? Are you opinionated and fond of writing? Do you want to be read by people who share your interest? If you say yes to any of these, then you should put up your own blogsite now. Or you could blog it here at Tambayan Central.
A blog is a term coined from “Web log” that is owned and managed by an individual containing commentary entries, description of things, pictures, texts, and videos. Blogs have many different types. Your blog can either be an online journal, a photoblog, a sketchblog, a video blog and many others. The most essential thing about a blog is that it is used by an individual to express his sentiments and expertise on things.
Before you get yourself read, you have to be sure that your blog will catch the interest of your visitors. To make sure that your blog is as creative and interesting as it can get, follow these blogging tips.
1. Choose a topic and stay on it
A blog is a usual hub for personal opinions and these opinions are generally accepted as a blog content. However, you should make sure that you stay on the topic you chose. Your readers will find interest in the content related to a specific theme. You cannot go about talking about different things in just one blog entry. Define your topic and work on it. Be specific. You will only get loyal readers once your entries are coherent with your theme.
2. Be informed.
If your blog is intended to showcase your expertise on one thing, make sure that your knowledge is up-to-date. Do your research and watch the news to not get out-dated with facts. If you are giving out your opinion on one thing or if you are trying to sell a product, be sure to check the facts. You do not want to ruin your reputation with erroneous information.
3. Be clear and simple.
You are not assured that your general audience is educated and knowledgeable of technical facts. To make sure that you are understood by your readers, keep your entries clear and simple. Draw away from the use of complex words, acronyms and idioms because readers are not always expected to comprehend your words. A simple explanation will go a long way.
4. Proofreading pays
It is always best to check your spelling and grammar before posting your blog entries. It will only take you a few moments to check if there is faulty content in your posts. You do not want to have to explain about your errors and you surely do not want to humiliate yourself to the world. If you are not confident enough with your proofreading skills, ask a friend to do it for you.
Now you know how to get yourself read. The next thing you should do is start scribbling words that will make people read you. Blogging is fun and simple when you put your heart into it.
A blog is a term coined from “Web log” that is owned and managed by an individual containing commentary entries, description of things, pictures, texts, and videos. Blogs have many different types. Your blog can either be an online journal, a photoblog, a sketchblog, a video blog and many others. The most essential thing about a blog is that it is used by an individual to express his sentiments and expertise on things.
Before you get yourself read, you have to be sure that your blog will catch the interest of your visitors. To make sure that your blog is as creative and interesting as it can get, follow these blogging tips.
1. Choose a topic and stay on it
A blog is a usual hub for personal opinions and these opinions are generally accepted as a blog content. However, you should make sure that you stay on the topic you chose. Your readers will find interest in the content related to a specific theme. You cannot go about talking about different things in just one blog entry. Define your topic and work on it. Be specific. You will only get loyal readers once your entries are coherent with your theme.
2. Be informed.
If your blog is intended to showcase your expertise on one thing, make sure that your knowledge is up-to-date. Do your research and watch the news to not get out-dated with facts. If you are giving out your opinion on one thing or if you are trying to sell a product, be sure to check the facts. You do not want to ruin your reputation with erroneous information.
3. Be clear and simple.
You are not assured that your general audience is educated and knowledgeable of technical facts. To make sure that you are understood by your readers, keep your entries clear and simple. Draw away from the use of complex words, acronyms and idioms because readers are not always expected to comprehend your words. A simple explanation will go a long way.
4. Proofreading pays
It is always best to check your spelling and grammar before posting your blog entries. It will only take you a few moments to check if there is faulty content in your posts. You do not want to have to explain about your errors and you surely do not want to humiliate yourself to the world. If you are not confident enough with your proofreading skills, ask a friend to do it for you.
Now you know how to get yourself read. The next thing you should do is start scribbling words that will make people read you. Blogging is fun and simple when you put your heart into it.
Search Engine Ranking Factors
Aileen was telling me and Marc that her old and widely linked personal blog had a PR3 while her newer less linked work blog had a PR4. I tried explaining that it’s not the volume of links but the quality and (topical) relevance. Marc counters that relevance may not be part of the algorithmic factor in determining Page Rank. He had some real-life examples to show it. I have mine that proves the contrary.
Anyway, thanks to Eric Salas for emailing me this link from SEOMoz (didn’t have much time to check my feeds):
Top 10 Positive Factors
1. Keyword Use in Title Tag
2. Global Link Popularity of Site
3. Anchor Text of Inbound Link
4. Link Popularity within the Site’s Internal Link Structure
5. Age of Site
6. Topical Relevance of Inbound Links to Site
7. Link Popularity of Site in Topical Community
8. Keyword Use in Body Text
9. Global Link Popularity of Linking Site
10. Rate of New Inbound Links to Site
The survey represents the collective wisdom of 37 leaders in the world of organic search engine optimization. You can read details and the comments here.
Anyway, thanks to Eric Salas for emailing me this link from SEOMoz (didn’t have much time to check my feeds):
Top 10 Positive Factors
1. Keyword Use in Title Tag
2. Global Link Popularity of Site
3. Anchor Text of Inbound Link
4. Link Popularity within the Site’s Internal Link Structure
5. Age of Site
6. Topical Relevance of Inbound Links to Site
7. Link Popularity of Site in Topical Community
8. Keyword Use in Body Text
9. Global Link Popularity of Linking Site
10. Rate of New Inbound Links to Site
The survey represents the collective wisdom of 37 leaders in the world of organic search engine optimization. You can read details and the comments here.
Rickey’s $100-a-day Adsense Challenge
For a couple of days now, I’ve been chatting with Rickey and helping him optimize his Adsense ads on his main blog. With over 100,000 page views on a hot day, he reckons he could have lost thousands of problogging dollars last year for an under-optimized ad layout.
My approach is simple. Set a target based on your existing stats and plug in your ideal figures to see how much you ought to be earning from your blog.
Total Monthly Revenue = total daily page views x CTR x CPC x 30 days
* CTR - click through rate
* CPC - cost per click
So, in his case, our target is a CTR of 1% and a CPC of $0.10 (all figures here are hypothetical and does not reflect any of Rickey’s actual Adsense stats). That gives us 100,000 x 1% x $0.10 or $100/day which gives us $3,000 a month. (Note to Rickey: Sorry my original computation was wrong when I said it was $900/day. My math failed me there.)
How to increase CTR?
1) Ad-blending
2) Increase ad relevance by using section targeting
3) Changing ad layouts or positioning
4) Using ad channels for tracking
These are very basic methods but if you use them very well and by tracking your ad performance, you could hit that good mix which will yield you the highest possible CTR. After just a day of tweaking (if you have 100k page views, a 24-hour experiment is enough), we increased his eCPM by 50% and his CTR by close to 90%.
How to increase CPC?
1) Reducing total number of ads
2) Positioning the first ad to get the highest CTR
3) Targeting higher paying but relevant keywords
This is a bit tricky and more risky to experiment with but once you hit the sweet spot, the returns could be two or three-folds.
So, when Rickey mentioned that we probloggers don’t share the secret sauce like them SEO guys (put name here), I’d like to prove him wrong by inviting bloggers to send in their blog for an AdSense Makeover. Of course, I will not guarantee that I could increase your earnings but I will try my best. Again, I think it’s easier to do this if you have a sizable traffic already (say 1,000 pageviews or higher). And yes, we will also discuss here how we did it and what changes we’ve made and how much we gained from the make-over. Anybody up for it?
My approach is simple. Set a target based on your existing stats and plug in your ideal figures to see how much you ought to be earning from your blog.
Total Monthly Revenue = total daily page views x CTR x CPC x 30 days
* CTR - click through rate
* CPC - cost per click
So, in his case, our target is a CTR of 1% and a CPC of $0.10 (all figures here are hypothetical and does not reflect any of Rickey’s actual Adsense stats). That gives us 100,000 x 1% x $0.10 or $100/day which gives us $3,000 a month. (Note to Rickey: Sorry my original computation was wrong when I said it was $900/day. My math failed me there.)
How to increase CTR?
1) Ad-blending
2) Increase ad relevance by using section targeting
3) Changing ad layouts or positioning
4) Using ad channels for tracking
These are very basic methods but if you use them very well and by tracking your ad performance, you could hit that good mix which will yield you the highest possible CTR. After just a day of tweaking (if you have 100k page views, a 24-hour experiment is enough), we increased his eCPM by 50% and his CTR by close to 90%.
How to increase CPC?
1) Reducing total number of ads
2) Positioning the first ad to get the highest CTR
3) Targeting higher paying but relevant keywords
This is a bit tricky and more risky to experiment with but once you hit the sweet spot, the returns could be two or three-folds.
So, when Rickey mentioned that we probloggers don’t share the secret sauce like them SEO guys (put name here), I’d like to prove him wrong by inviting bloggers to send in their blog for an AdSense Makeover. Of course, I will not guarantee that I could increase your earnings but I will try my best. Again, I think it’s easier to do this if you have a sizable traffic already (say 1,000 pageviews or higher). And yes, we will also discuss here how we did it and what changes we’ve made and how much we gained from the make-over. Anybody up for it?
Sunday, December 14, 2008
How To Use Blogspot with Your Custom Domain
I've known for some time now that blogger or blogspot does their own domain sale. You can easily find this option by going to your dashboard >> settings> publishing. However what I did not know was that they were offering USD10 for a domain name plus a private domain registration and that means your private data will be not visible when people do a whois search. I personally don't mind it but for you who might, this is a great add on. Godaddy actually charge you something like USD9 for this. Blogger would also do all the necessary blog forwarding so no hassle there. What I am not sure is how the dashboard would look like and how easy it would be if you decide to change your platform later, say to wordpress for instance.
That being said, I am very comfortable with GoDaddy and forwarding can be done in a matter of steps as I would highlight below:
Let me first congratulate you on your wonderful new domain. It is a wonderful and exhilarating experience as I'm sure my BFF, Mariuca, who just earlier today did her own move, can attest to :)...
This short tutorial is for those of you who, like me, actually prefer the blogger platform to wordpress simply because of its ease of use [though I'm sure lots of wordpress user might dispute.. but hey.. lets agree to disagree ok ]...:)
Ok.. once you bought your domain...make sure now you are on the GoDaddy dashboard that looks like this:
1. Look for "Forwarding" and click on that.
2. On the next page, click on "Enable Forwarding"
3. In the first box, enter the text "http://www.xxx.xxx where" "xxx' is your domain name. Don't forget the "www"
4. Click on "301 Move permanently"
5. Enter save.
6. This process might take a while so it's best to get it out of the way first
7. Next click on "Total DNS Control and MX Records"
8. This would bring you to another screen where you will see all your domain information
9. In the second table, "CNAMES", look under the "Host" for "www"
10. Follow the line to the right and click on the pencil icon
11. The next message that would appear next is a warning. Just ignore that and click yes
12. In the first box now the letters "www" should already be there
13. In the "Points to Host Name" box replace the "@" with the text: ghs.google.com
14. Click: OK
15. And we are done on GoDaddy side.
Now off to the blogspot side:
1. From your dashboard, go to Settings>>Publishing
2. Click on "Custom Domain"
3. Click on "Switch to Advance Settings"
4. In the Domain box, enter your new domain name so that it would show: http://www.xxx.xxx
5. Very important : Do not forget the "www"
6. Click on Save settings
You are now done! Now that wasn't too painful right?
What you have done is basically forward your existing blog at blogspot to the new domain you have bought! So blogging is as what you are used to before the redirect. No changes at all. All you have to do now is change your feed url and your technorati link.
Let me know if you have any questions ok :)
That being said, I am very comfortable with GoDaddy and forwarding can be done in a matter of steps as I would highlight below:
Let me first congratulate you on your wonderful new domain. It is a wonderful and exhilarating experience as I'm sure my BFF, Mariuca, who just earlier today did her own move, can attest to :)...
This short tutorial is for those of you who, like me, actually prefer the blogger platform to wordpress simply because of its ease of use [though I'm sure lots of wordpress user might dispute.. but hey.. lets agree to disagree ok ]...:)
Ok.. once you bought your domain...make sure now you are on the GoDaddy dashboard that looks like this:
1. Look for "Forwarding" and click on that.
2. On the next page, click on "Enable Forwarding"
3. In the first box, enter the text "http://www.xxx.xxx where" "xxx' is your domain name. Don't forget the "www"
4. Click on "301 Move permanently"
5. Enter save.
6. This process might take a while so it's best to get it out of the way first
7. Next click on "Total DNS Control and MX Records"
8. This would bring you to another screen where you will see all your domain information
9. In the second table, "CNAMES", look under the "Host" for "www"
10. Follow the line to the right and click on the pencil icon
11. The next message that would appear next is a warning. Just ignore that and click yes
12. In the first box now the letters "www" should already be there
13. In the "Points to Host Name" box replace the "@" with the text: ghs.google.com
14. Click: OK
15. And we are done on GoDaddy side.
Now off to the blogspot side:
1. From your dashboard, go to Settings>>Publishing
2. Click on "Custom Domain"
3. Click on "Switch to Advance Settings"
4. In the Domain box, enter your new domain name so that it would show: http://www.xxx.xxx
5. Very important : Do not forget the "www"
6. Click on Save settings
You are now done! Now that wasn't too painful right?
What you have done is basically forward your existing blog at blogspot to the new domain you have bought! So blogging is as what you are used to before the redirect. No changes at all. All you have to do now is change your feed url and your technorati link.
Let me know if you have any questions ok :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
