Direct advertising sales is arguably the best method to monetize a website. Finding advertisers for your site and actually closing the deals, however, is not as straight forward. Over the past 6 months I had more than 10 high profile companies sponsoring Daily Blog Tips, and through out this article I will share what I have learned along the way.
The Pros
More money: The first advantage of selling your own ads is the fact that you will cut the middlemen out, increasing your revenue potential. Suppose you sell text link ads on your sidebar through a certain company, and the text links sell for $50 monthly. Since you are using the company network to sell the ads, they will eat 50% of the price, and you will end up earning only $25 monthly for each text link. If someone is willing to pay $50 for a text link on your site, though, it means that they are getting $50 of value out of it. Why, then, should you share that with someone else?
Independence: Sure, large advertising networks have access to a wider pool of advertisers, and they have more credibility to close the deals. But if you have all the requirements in place (see the section below) and spend some time looking at the right places, I am sure that you will be sell your own ads just as efficiently as the larger networks.
Flexibility: The third advantage of selling direct advertising is that you will have much more control over where and how the ads will be displayed (i.e., you can avoid intrusive advertising). Google Adsense is nice, but unless you blend it with the content – annoying some of the readers – you will get terribly low click-through rates.
Credibility: Finally, having sponsors and direct advertisers on your blog might help your credibility. Even small and poorly crafted blogs can stick some Adsense units here and there. Having established companies that are willing to partnership with your site, on other hand, can signal that your content has quality and that the site is somewhat professional.
The Cons
Time consuming: While selling your own ads has many advantages, it is no panacea. The first drawback of this monetization option is the time that it will consume. This time will be spent optimizing your website for the ads, finding potential advertisers, negotiating with them, and handling the administrative matters (e.g., making payments, tracking statistics, delivering reports and so on).
Many requirements: Selling direct adverting is not as easy as making money from Google Adsense. As you can see from the section below, you will need to have a popular blog, a professional looking design, special software and the like.
Unstable: Unless you close deals for very long periods, which is unlikely, you will find your self looking for new advertisers or optimizing your website to attract new ones every other month. The opposite is true for most advertising networks, where you just need to plug some code and they will do the rest of the work. (If your site or blog is just a hobby, therefore, direct advertising might not be the best option)
What You Need to Have in Place
A popular website: Before landing direct advertising deals you will need to have a good amount of traffic on your site. There is no “magical” number here, but a good rule of thumb would be 1000 daily unique visitors. If you are below that mark you should focus on building traffic instead of looking for advertisers. Other factors like Google Pagerank, RSS subscribers and Alexa rank might also help. (Notice that small websites might also be able to sell direct advertising, but usually the time spent on that will not justify the results)
A clear focus: You might have the most popular site on the Internet (well, not as extreme as that, but you get the point), but unless your site also has a very clear niche and a defined audience, advertisers will not find it very attractive. This means that you should avoid rambling about 100 different topics on the website. Advertisers want to deliver a message to specific people, and the more specific the better.
A professional looking design: If you are planning to monetize your website through sponsors, you probably should invest some money into a professional looking design. Advertisers will be associating their product or service with your website, and not too many of them would be willing to get mixed with an ugly, MySpace looking site.
Give visibility to the sponsors: This point is connected to the previous one. Not all templates and themes will be suitable for selling direct advertising. Preferably you want to have an idea of what kind of advertising you will sell (e.g., 468×60 banners, 125×125 banners, text links) and design your website according to those objectives. Advertisers want visibility, so reserve a good spot for them.
Adserver software: In order to serve your ads, rotate banners and track statistics you will need to install an Adserver. If you are looking for a simple solution you should try WP-Ads. This Wordpress plugin will serve ads for specific ad zones that you create. The only drawback is that it does not count clicks (only impressions). If you need a more sophisticated solution check OpenAds. You will need to spend some time learning how to use it, but it offers virtually all the features you will ever need.
“Advertise Here” page: It is very important to have an “Advertise Here” page. On this page you want to give some details about the website, like audience, traffic and any other factor that might be of the interest of potential advertisers. Secondly, make sure that you have some link to that page on the navigation bar and if possible close to the zone where the ads will be displayed. You can see a perfect example of such layout on Copyblogger.com.
Standard letter to approach advertisers: While some advertisers will contact you after reading your “Advertise Here” page, the rest of them will need to be directly approached by you. In that case, it is a good idea to create a standard letter to contact the advertisers. There is no “one size fits all” solution here, but you can follow some general guidelines:
1. Introduce yourself and quickly explain what the email is about
2. Explain why you decided to contact them and what they have to gain
3. Give details about your site (traffic, subscribers, topic, audience)
4. Give details about the advertising options (location on the site, max number of advertisers, monthly price)
That is it, after that information the advertisers should be able to decide if they are interested or not. If they reply, then you will fix the details. Bear in mind that all the info I mentioned should be contained in 2 or 3 paragraphs. If you send an essay to potential advertisers they will just skip it altogether.
Accepting payments: You might have everything in place, but if you are not able to cash payments – or more importantly, if advertisers are not able to pay easily – you will end up losing deals. PayPal is the best option here. Notice, however, that a personal account will not suffice. You will need at least a premier account to be able to accept credit cards.
Where to Find the Advertisers
Once you have your direct advertising program established, you will start to receive inquiries from people. On the beginning, however, you will need to hunt advertisers down. Do not get discouraged if get turned down initially, provided you have all the aforementioned requirements, sooner or later you will find someone willing to take a shot on your site.
People linking to your site or articles: If a company is willing to link to your articles or to add your website under its “Links” or “Resources” section, it is also probably willing to discuss about advertising on your site. Keep track of those incoming links.
People leaving comments/e-mails: The same principle applies to people leaving comments on your blog or sending you e-mails. If among them you see an employee or the owner of a company that could be interested on your website, bingo! Contact him or her and get the conversation going.
AdWords advertisers: Through out your search for advertisers you will notice that most of the established companies are not aware of the benefits of online advertising. If a certain company is already spending money on Google AdWords, however, it is very likely that it would also be open to other forms of online advertising. Think about some keywords that are related to your topic and Google them. Check the sponsored links that will appear and contact them. (You can also check the advertisers that appear on the Adsense units of related websites)
Other advertising networks: While Google AdWords is by far the largest advertising network on the Internet, there are many others that could be useful. Check the companies that are spending money on AdBrite, Text-Link-Ads, BlogAds, SponsoredReviews and so on.
Banner advertisers on similar sites: Check out popular websites on your niche and see what companies are advertising there. Provided you offer them an interesting deal (i.e., a reasonable price for your size), I am pretty sure they will be interested.
Create a “Potential Sponsors” bookmark folder: This technique produced outstanding results for me. I have a bookmark folder on my browser called “Potential Sponsors.” Every time I come across a company or website that could be interested in sponsoring my website, I bookmark it. Currently I have over 100 bookmarked sites on that folder, and I have not approached half of them yet.
How Much to Charge
You need to provide value: It is all about value. A potential sponsor or advertiser will want to see some returns for the money he will be spending on your site, and this can be seen as visibility (impressions) and leads (clicks and possible sales). Make sure, therefore, that your advertising deals will deliver.
The numbers: Remember that there are some pretty cheap advertising options out there (e.g., Google AdWords), and you will need to be competitive. Provided you reserved a good spot for the sponsors (sidebar or header, preferably) you could start charging a $0,5 CPM (cost per 1000 impressions). If your blog is generating 100,000 monthly page views, therefore, a banner spot on your sidebar should cost around $50. Start low and build your way upwards. Popular blogs (e.g., TechCrunch) have a higher CPM, sometimes as high as $10, but you will need a huge credibility to arrive there.
Cross-check: You can easily check if you are charging a suitable rate by using Adsense units on the places where you will sell direct advertising. Analyze how much you would gain with Adsense, and adjust your rates accordingly. Secondly, you can also check similar sites that are already selling direct ads.
Be flexible regarding the terms: Flexibility is key. First of all make advertising agreements on a month-to-month basis. People don’t like to commit to something they are not completely sure about. If someone proposes you a longer deal, offer a discount in exchange.
Offer test periods: Unless you have a very popular website, you will find potential advertisers reluctant to spend real money. If you are confident that the deal will create value for both parties, however, you can use that on your favor. Offer a free test period whenever needed. Some of the times the advertiser will turn you down after it, but other times they will confirm the deal. Either way you have nothing to lose.
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Sep 6, 2007
How to Find Advertisers for Your Website: The Ultimate Guide
10 Ways to Monetize Your Blog
With that out of the way, let’s get started:
1. Contextual Advertising
Surprise, surprise. Advertising is easily the most popular blog monetization tactic, mostly due to it being the easiest thing to implement. Advertising comes in many forms, and contextual advertising is the most popular due to Google Adsense and it’s general success with blogs and niche sites.
I’m going to assume everyone reading this is familiar with it, but I think it should be mentioned that too many bloggers assume that Adsense is the best solution for their blog. For some blogs and topics it works great, for others, not very well at all.
My advice is to not limit your blog to one ad network or just one form of advertising. Other contextual options include the Yahoo Publisher Network, Chitika, Clicksor, AdSonar, and others. It’s not easy to manually test all these though if you’re shuffling ad tags around and randomly allocating your impressions to them, using a ad network management tool like RMX Direct can help you manage, evaluate, and control your various ad networks.
2. Display Advertising
As I mentioned above, contextual networks aren’t always the best solution for blogs. In some cases there aren’t enough advertisers in niche topics, and in others the users just isn’t likely to click. In this case, you want to be working with ad networks that provide CPM display advertising. This means you get paid something for every ad viewed, opposed to only getting paid per click.
Just like with contextual networks, it’s important to use multiple display ad networks to get more variety from your ads, to not let any one network control your inventory, and to make sure you’re earning the most amount of money possible.
3. Targeted Advertising
The most desirable form of advertising is having companies that wish to pay good rates to advertise on your blog directly whether it’s text or image ads. Many bloggers feel that this is a pipe dream, but I speak from experience from running a wakeboarding blog for many years that you can make solid income from targeted advertising without having insane amounts of traffic.
There are a number of key things you have to do though in order to get this type of advertising:
Have a blog with leading content in your niche and a professional design
Create a “media kit” which is essentially a page on your blog that explains that you take targeted advertising, what your rates are, demographics of your users, your traffic levels, examples of the types of ads people can run, testimonials from any companies that have advertised with you, and a phone number and email address they can use to get more information.
Have obvious “Advertise On This Blog” links in key places on your blog.
Give a company or two in your niche free or very low-cost advertising in order to get the ball rolling. When advertisers see their competitors or companies similar to them advertising, they get the idea that it’s available. If all they ever see is Adsense ads, they might not realize it’s an option.
Be willing to be creative to help your advertisers achieve their goals, and lower your price to get the deals.
Provide statistics and results to your advertisers. Use an ad server like RMX Direct, phpAdsNew, or something similar which has the ability to create reports per advertiser.
Once you’ve set your blog up properly, start approaching companies in your niche who will want to reach your traffic. You don’t need to go after the biggest companies, there are many small companies who are looking to get better results from the web, and they might not even know about your blog. You don’t need to be an ad sales professional, you just need to present your case well on why they’re missing out if they don’t advertise on your traffic. Make it easy on them to work with you, help them create ads, help them determine what sizes to use, and work with them to make sure they get the results they need. It seems like hard work at first, but after you get a solid base of advertisers going, it’s a great source of income and it starts to streamline.
4. Text Link Advertising
Another somewhat unobtrusive form of advertising is using services like Text Link Ads or Adbrite to sell text ads directly to companies. This is pretty low effort and often doesn’t take up too much space on a site, so it’s easy to implement and try out. It should be noted though that you need significant traffic for it to be a big source of income.
5. Affiliate Links
One of the older web monetization methods is still as good today as it’s always been. If you’ve got a blog in a specific area, there’s a very large chance that there are companies out there that sell products or services your users are interested in. You can earn some nice income recommending or linking to those products.
Amazon.com is probably the most common affiliate merchant used by bloggers, but I’d advise finding other unique merchants who may pay better and be more specific to your topic. Amazon is always there as an option, but you’re more likely to get more help from the merchant if you go with a smaller company.
Another nice thing about affiliate links is that they fit well with quality content. Reviewing products and services for your users is valuable content, and if you can make money off it as well it’s a great combination. A word of warning though that you shouldn’t change your reviews or be biased due to the fact you can make money off a referral.
While traffic also helps for affiliate links, it can sometimes be an easier way to generate income without high traffic levels like advertising requires. As an example I did a review of a web analytics application a couple of years ago, and this blog had very little traffic at that point. I referred two sales through that review though that still earn me $150 a month every month two years later.
6. Selling Your Content (Ebooks, Videos, DVDs)
If you’ve got great content, another option is to package it and sell it. There are numerous bloggers who have created ebooks and even real books based on their blog content and made great income selling them. You can also expand to infoproducts like videos, DVDs, audio CDs, and printed books on demand.
This can take some significant work and it requires great content to actually sell, but it can be a nice income stream that lasts a long time.
7. Consulting
Depending on your topic and your level of expertise, you can sell consulting services. If you’re a web analytics expert, you could offer web analytics consulting services on your blog for an hourly fee. This takes very little work to setup beyond creating a page outlining your services, getting a standard contract, and having a way to take payments from companies. Again though, it just takes a little bit of effort to let people know that consulting services are available.
8. Donations
Not quite as common as it once was, it used to be fairly common for bloggers to ask for donations on their blog through Paypal or some other service. This only works if you have a dedicated userbase, and a large enough number of users that their donations add up. I wouldn’t recommend this if you’re also putting a lot of advertising and other monetization methods on your blog. You’ll come off as a bit too greedy in that case.
9. Selling Products
Besides infoproducts, you can sell real products like t-shirts, bumper stickers, clothing, or whatever other kind of merchandise makes sense for your topic. Companies like Goodstorm, CafePress, Lulu, and others make it easy by creating the products based on your design and letting you set up a shop. There is no risk to bloggers, which makes it a great opportunity.
10. Selling Your Blog
Perhaps the most extreme of the blog monetization methods, but it can be lucrative! If you aren’t attached to your blog and are willing to part with it, you can usually find a buyer for it. Your blog must be pretty good, and have a level of traffic worth buying, and it really helps if you already have some income streams going for it. Blogs usually sell for 12-24 times monthly revenues, and there are numerous places you can sell them like eBay and the Sitepoint Marketplace.
Conclusion
It definitely takes some work to monetize your site well, and having good traffic really helps out. Work on building a blog with a solid userbase, and you should be on your way to generating income using any of the methods above. Good luck, and please share any blog monetization experiences you have in the comments.
Promote Your Blog with Blogg-Buzz
A funny thing happened the other day. When I was checking my website statistics for Monetize Your Blog, I noticed a heap of traffic from a referrer called Blogg-Buzz. Now I had not heard of Blogg-Buzz before then, but I headed over pretty quickly to find out what it was.
The following is the blurb from the Blogg-Buzz front page.
Blogg-Buzz is a blogger driven site, exclusively for bloggers like you, to share, discover and promote blog posts that you find interesting!
After looking into it further, it seems that you can use Blogg-Buzz to submit Blog Posts that you think are worthwhile sharing. Once you have registered with Blogg-Buzz, you canA submit blog posts, buzz (vote for) blog posts and make comments on blog posts. The idea is that the better posts will get a better ranking and bring them to the attention of other readers.
Upon reading the Blogg-Buzz FAQ, I found out that as well as submitting posts from other blogs, you can also submit your own posts. They stipulate (among other things) that you should only submit good quality posts, and this makes sense otherwise you might get yourself a reputation and no-one will read anything you buzz. But if you have a post which you think would be of interest to others, you could submit it and see if anyone else likes it.
Anyway, I found out on Blogg-Buzz that Chris from blog-op had buzzed my post on Adsense Section Targeting and it seems a number of other Blogg-Buzz readers liked it as well. My post was displayed in top spot on the main page. That explained all of the traffic.
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Sep 5, 2007
Make Money with money4blogs
money4blogs offers bloggers a chance to make money by adding a link from your blog to a web page belonging to one of their financial companies. You get paid just for the link, not for the number of times the link is clicked.
To find out how much you can get by placing a link on your blog, go to http://money4blogs.com/ and fill in the form on the main page. You will need to provide the following details:
- Your name
- Your email address
- Your blog's url
- The page rank of your blog
Payments are made via Paypal. The amount of the money you will be paid seems to vary according to the page rank of your blog. If your blog is still fairly new, it may pay to wait until your blog has a higher page rank as money4blogs is purchasing the link for one year.
http://monetize-your-blog.blogspot.com/2007/02/make-money-with-money4blogs.html
Sep 4, 2007
Blog Tips for Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization for a blog is similar to optimizing a website but since they are updated frequently and use very little html search engine results are much higher than static website pages.
Keyword(s) In Your Domain
When ever possible you should try and purchase a domain for you blog that uses a primary keyword you want to become optimize for. This is something that I did not give any thought too but have noticed that others that have used this method are more successful for being optimized for a particular keyword.
Primary Key Phrases
Primary key phrases such as “make money online” a key phrase that took the bloggingworld like the black plague. Insure your phrase is included in the title of your blog your phrase and it should also be included in post titles though out your site. Keep in mind though if you are optimizing for a key phrase such as the one above you will have steep competition - maybe consider using a different variation of it for better results.
Keywords In Your Post
Use keywords sporadically in your posts; body text, links to posts (deep linking), images, and outbound links. Now identify a keyword(s) that you hope to get indexed by Google. Keyword(s) should be used though out your article and insure that you use it in the title of the post and it’s within your first two sentences. Remember do not spam your articles with your keywords because it’s off putting to readers.
Get Backlinks
I been successful for get getting backlinks with the following methods; review blogs for link back, commenting dofollow sites, blog networks, free directories, good content and speed linking. Read more about these methods of getting backlinks for search engine optimization.
Update Regularly
Using the rules outlined above update your site daily with quality content. This principle is thoroughly taught by SEOs and they establish principles as to why this is beneficial to search engine optimization. My opinion on updating; it takes good content to keep you readers coming back, linking to your articles. Then eventually search engines will take a hint and index your article to the top by the amount of interest it has.
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Top Blogging Is Not For Everyone
Top Blogging is not for everyone! Starting a new top blog site has to be one of the hardest things that I can think of that someone can attempt to do in life. After you have the site completed and you think that all the bugs are worked out there are most times always extra things that have to be done. Such as with a Wordpress blog, I started this blog 10 February 2007 and I have been installing and tweaking almost everyday it seems.
Anyway so finally you think you are out of update hell and your site is ready to show the world but wait a minute there are 11.5 billion or more other websites on the net. Now being faced with that it is time to give up right, no this is where the hard work comes in and never stops it’s constant!
Take it harsh/blunt or however you like if you can not communicate/write then you should delete your blog now. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again content is key and with out it you will fail regardless if you want to make money or give advice/stories away free. If you have not deleted you blog just yet then I would suggest asking yourself a few questions such as:
Can I communicate well?
Can I write effectively?
How computer savvy am I?
How determined am I?
What is my blogs short & long term goals?
Answering questions on paper (or in word) is quite easy. Now all you have to do is come up with the content! The most important aspect of your site, original content that people want to read and then tell others about. The thing that makes a personal blog superior to other websites is that it’s a personal site that allows interaction and bond forming with readers.
Top Blogging is not for everyone and that’s why only a mere 1% out of 100% succeeds. Any Thoughts?
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Blogging and the Reality Time Management
When I decided to address time management I did some research and thought about the courses I have taken in the past in my university studies. This subject can be long and discussed forever but that is not truly necessary in my opinion. Personally I think when it comes right down to it everyone knows what it takes in order to effectively manage time but only a small percent of people actually take those steps. The number one reason in my opinion is laziness and the unwillingness to except change and work hard towards that specific path!
When it comes to blogging time management becomes something that you are hit with right in the face! My personal situation is I’m married with two children and work a full time job so time management plays a big part in making or breaking my continued rising success.
Blogging from looking from the outside may seem very easy to the untrained eye but to actually maintain a family, job and write one article daily can deem to be impossible sometimes with out the discipline of following a success plan.
What is my plan? Simple, kick myself in the a** and then an article takes me about an hour to write and at least thirty minutes to gather my thoughts before hand. When am I able to write my article? The average time that I am able to do this is between 7:30 p.m. & 9:00 p.m. Then any time I have free for; commenting, emails, tweaking, optimizing, researching and reading I take it.
Manage your time by making decisions and acting on them.
Establish a plan for success.
Decide what your priorities are and then concentrate on them.
Apply all to 80/20 Principle of Pareto / Juran.
Time Management Education:
Time management defined is simple just the management of your time into the most productive path for successful outcomes. As simply as it sounds it seems that so many people out there are lacking in this area to an instant that they reach the end of their lives without actually ever succeeding in this area. The time is now to take action and start making decisions that produce results.
There are many time management systems out there that try and entice you into paying money for what ever their given system may be at that time. The reality here is that these plans take your money and distract you from actually accomplishing what it is that you set out to do in the first place. The fact is until you establish a plan that you are willing to go forth with you will never successfully manage your time effectively. Start by finding out what you feel is your blogs purpose and use that reason to coerce yourself into making those needed improvements. Now decide what your blogging priorities are and then start concentrating on them.
Apply the 80/20 Rule by Pareto he established that 20 percent of people owned 80 percent of the wealth. In Juran’s work he identified that 20 percent of defects caused 80 percent of the problems. Ok so given this the 80/20 basically means that 20 percent is essential and 80 percent is inconsequential.
Using this method what you should do is remind yourself daily what 20 percent of blogging is important for success and begin focusing on it first. What are your thoughts on time management and blogging?
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5 Tips How to Find Advertisers
How do you find advertisers for your blog? This is the second most difficult problem you will be faced with in the blogging world if your goal is to become a top blogger! Original content is the most difficult in case you were wondering. There are two methods of finding advertisers; find them yourself and using ad networks. Below are some simple methods of finding advertisers yourself.
Premium Ad Locations
First you must determine the number of advertising spots that will available in your inventory. Then place an advertising page that is easily found on your site with clear instructions of what advertisements you offer. Key: people never liked to be first insure that you have added a few links or ads to sites of your choice to feel the emptiness of the ad location. It’s even possible to make money from blog posts!
Commentators
Most of the time readers that are commenting have a strong interest and a site that is related. Contact them and ask if they would be interested in advertising with your site.
Sites that link
When a company/site has already linked to your site or one of your articles the chances of discussing advertisement on your site has increased significantly. Always take the time to check out sites that link to you and then contact the related sites.
Sites That Advertise
Most companies use some form of advertisement and are already aware of SEO advantages. The key here is to pay close attention when surfing the net and start tracking these sites & related companies that are already advertising with companies such as; AdWords, BlogAds, ClickBank Ads, Text-Link-Ads, ReviewMe, Azoogle Ads and then contact them.
Search Niche Sites
This has been the most successful method for Ja Kel Daily. Simple & straight forward open up Google start your start with keywords that are related to your niche. When the search results return the key is to email every site that comes up in relation to your site and eventually you will get a sell – persistence pays off. On this method set up a goal of emailing 5 sites daily!
Stop paying ad networks to sell all of your advertisement and increase site profits by utilizing the simple methods above and start taking responsibility for selling a percentage of ads on your site. A healthy mix of you marketing your site and the ad networks will pay off in the long run - just stay persistence.
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Sep 3, 2007
How writing paid posts MAY increase Google Adsense
Many people are terribly afraid of the mention of ‘paid posts’. I have read and seen so many naysayers telling us that we are going to be struck down dead and left to rot by the Big G if they ever found us writing paid posts. A few probloggers have called us whoring for a few bucks. I don’t totally agree nor do I totally disagreed. It’s my business what I want to do with my own blog so they can jeer all they want.
I believe bloggers should have a balance number of non-paid posts and paid posts. Even a paid-post bloggers can make their blogs interesting if they have the flair for writing. And non-paid post bloggers do produce boring craps even when they are writing solely for the sake of blogging.
However, my topic today is how writing paid posts MAY increase our Google Adsense income. Note that I emphasize the MAY because it is just my own theory and based on what I noticed.
You see, if we are merely blogging about our dogs, our homes, our kids and stuffs like that, we hardly hit on any important keywords. Keywords make all the difference. There are magical keywords that will give you lots of moolah. And if you haven’t already noted, most of our paid posts have very high paying keywords. The advertisers asked us to insert those few terms like DUI, ohio lemon law, debt consolidation and etc. Do you realise that these are high paying keywords?
Let’s see what these keywords estimates are. I copy them from the Top Adsense Keywords. Pardon the wrong alignment. And don’t believe everything you see there.
Below are the top 50 highest paying keywords from our database.
Keyword Clicks / Day Average CPC
federal loan consolidation 2.2 $60.04
term life quotes 2.7 $58.40
indiana lemon law 0.9 $58.21
home equity loan rates 6.4 $57.26
equity loan rates 7.3 $56.98
mesothelioma lawyers 0.62 $56.01
life insurance quotes 22 $55.72
student loan consolidation 17 $55.15
home equity line credit 3.6 $54.90
equity line of credit 24 $54.17
term life insurance quotes 5.2 $53.39
miami dui lawyer 0.05 $53.15
donate car 45 $52.57
home equity line of credit 22 $52.30
term insurance quotes 2.3 $51.96
term life ins 3 $51.77
debt consolidation loan 15 $50.95
conference calling services 0.83 $50.51
home equity 37 $50.20
equity line 5.7 $49.79
student loan consolidations 0.76 $49.76
Now, I am sure many paid posts blogger notice these are familiar terms that we have used many times over in our paid posts. Do you see the benefits of taking the occassional paid posts on our blogs? If not for them, we probably are still writing about the foods we ate, the shoes we bought and never realised those loans and insurances keywords will make better income for us. If our post gets on the search engines and someone clicks on our adsense, we benefit. So, writing paid posts is actually a win-win situation in the long run. Just don’t over do it.
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“I make eggs (zero income) from my Google Adsense!”
I was in a group MSN chat the other day and wasn’t really paying attention to the whole topic until I saw that someone ‘have three eggs’ per day. I was like, WOW, those cholesterol! They only realised that I thought they really mean chicken eggs.
Actually, they were lamenting that sometimes, their Google Adsense have zero income, i.e. 0.00. Well, let me share a bit about my Google Adsense ride because I just realised that I have official earned USD8K in the last two years. I joined Google Adsense in August 2005. Before that I was banned once due to fradulent clicks. Yay! I earned the ‘Bad blogger’ status before.
Here are what you should know before having ideas that Google Adsense is the goose that lays the golden eggs. Hmmm..google, goose, adsense, no cents. Nice eh?
1) If you have no traffic you can ditch your Adsense or you may end up with depression and a serious issue with your self-esteem.
2) Google Adsense is like that ‘Exit’ door to many people who are noobs. So, if you are blogging for tech geeks and those who are in the more ‘literate’ group, you can forget about it. But if you are catering to kids and grandmas, then, it is worth putting that ‘Exit’ door. In fact, I have never clicked on a single Adsense for as long as I remember. LOL.
Why Exit? Because when someone ‘fell’ into your blog, they need to get out somewhere. So, those Adsense are their way of ‘going out’ of your blog.
3) Expect zero income for months if you have no niche topic.
4) If you read about people earning big money from Adsense, I can tell you that 80% of them are lying.
5) Google Adsense is like a time bomb, about to detonate anytime. You never know when your account is going to be suspended. And income is never stable. One day you get a lot, next whole week, nothing much, then it spikes and up and down it goes.
How to earn money from Adsense then?
a) Build your blog content, focus on specific topics;
b) Build your traffic;
c) Spy around those blogs that you look up to and try to use the same format they use;
d) Forget that you have the ads there;
e) Read my blog and especially those topics under the specific category related to making money
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Have you changed your Text Link Ads to tinyurl yet?
I didn’t get any email from TextLinkAds nor ReviewMe. I am not sure why but my email seems to have dropped off from their record and many times, they ended up in the spam bin.
I heard that Text Link Ads wants all their publishers to change their links to tinyurl. So far, I only managed to complete one blog. Sigh..so much work to do. I suspect the tinyurl will not look so obvious to Google. BTW, you are aware that TextLinkAds cannot be found on the first few pages of Google searches, right? I noticed that since June and had blogged about why TextLinkAds is not on Google searches.
You get LinkWorth if you Google text link ads. This is one reason why you should sign up with LinkWorth now because advertisers who are looking to buy text links are likely to stumble on LinkWorth. Or the other alternative is Kontera but this is the link placed within our posts.
TextLinkAds works very well for me on my other blogs and many of them have sold all the 10 slots. I get a constant income totalling USD700 from TLA alone, which is very good as I do not need to do anything except collect my payment at the end of each month.
Now, those of you who received the notification from TLA, can you tell me if I need to change my plugin as well? I only change my affiliate banner and links so far. I am not sure when I am going to get an email from TLA but I have asked them to mail to me the notice to change to tinyurl.
I have a category for TextLinkAds detailing how to sell your links successfully and how much I earn in the previous months. Give TLA a try. The company has been doing great until recently when they are dropped off Google. I heard some quarters said they are serving porn ads but I do not believe them because the publishers have the choice to select their advertisers. I used to have a penis enlargement ads in Spanish and I think it is mighty funny until one of my local advertiser mentioned they refused to advertise on my site. I told TLA and they took off the ad immediately without question. So, basically it is our choice, really.
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