There are 2 reasons for saying this:

1. The most obvious being – if you’re good at card games, gambling etc, you stand the potential of earning a lot of money (of course you also stand to lose a lot so be warned!)

2. Secondly and in my opinion, more important – casinos will pay a good commission for those people that send users to their websites. Yes, good old fashioned affiliate programs. The difference is with Casinos there are some big payouts.

One tool or website you might like to use is www.topcasinodirectory.com – Although linking to this won’t help you, it does provide a valuable list of all the top casino sites online in particular US online casinos.

The site and online casino directory is in effect a portal of gambling sites, but at least you have a trusted site which lists the reputable online casinos. I don’t know about you – but I don’t like referring people to things which don’t work even if I do make money out of it.

The site is also a very good resource for casino news which may help you. It does review each of the casinos it promotes and in turn this can help guide you to your preferred casino site.

Check it out at www.topcasinodirectory.com

Used Van Stats

Many companies approach me and ask….”Does PPC really work?”…or they might say “I sell van to builders…it wont work for me”. Well to all of you, I say “rubbish!”.

Here’s a great example of a traditional business seeing great times using modern technology. Wheels Van Centres based near Heathrow have been in business 25 years selling used vans. Traditionally they relied on press advertising to create their business.

However we convinced them to trial PPC and they haven’t looked back.

Why has it worked for them?

Their industry has been slow to respond to the success of PPC. Therefore the cost per click is quite low. Less than £0.50 per click. Terms such as ‘used vans‘ has a very high search volume so there is plenty of opportunity for lots of companies to get good traffic (because only those with deep pockets could expose themselves to all of the clicks).

Also the internet allows them to drill down and be incredibly specific in relation to what people are searching for. For example, Wheels can target those people searching just for ‘used transit vans‘ which will take them to information about their used transit stock.  You obviously can’t do this with traditional media.

Remember that with PPC users are highly targetted so you’re not wasting money advertising to people who don’t want to know about it.

Affiliate Networks are the companies which bring together all of the merchants (advertisers) who are willing to pay a commission for sales generated by the affiliates (publishers). The networks take a small fee for bringing the 2 parties together and administering everything.

If you own a website affiliate Networks are good sources of revenue. They will bring together companies willing to pay quite  a lot of money to in effect advertise on your website.

Here are my top 5:

1. Affiliate Window http://www.affiliatewindow.com
I’ve used these guys for years. Possibly not the widest spread of merchants to work with but the quality is very good. The merchants they have seem to work harder to support the affiliates and the result is much better payouts (which at the end of the day is what you are looking for!

2. Affiliate Future http://www.affiliatefuture.co.uk
Started as the underdog but over the last few years Affiliate Future has taken off. Particularly good if you want to promote travel services on your website, or if you’d like to create your own shopping comparison website. 300+ merchants to chose from.

3. Commission Junction http://www.cj.com
Probably the largest network. USA focused although you’ll find there are more and more UK companies now using them. Excellent range of tools to show you your income earning potential, which merchants are generating the most commission for affiliates and which adverts work the best. Use it wisely and earn loads!

4. Tradedoubler http://www.tradedoubler.com
Another large player. Not the widest range of merchants, but definitely some big names on board, companies such as Dell. UK and European focused.

5. ClixGalor http://www.clixgalore.co.uk
The lower end of the market. Entry level service for merchants but a great range of alternative companies to chose from.  You’ll find advertisers you’d never have considered using before. Work checking out.

If you know of other great affiliate networks please let me know as I’d like to expand my list.

ToshibaLife is a new site that Toshiba have just launched. I only happened upon it after looking at the Toshiba website having just bought by Dad a new Toshiba laptop.

Why is it good?
My dad definitily isn’t a geek and he’s for ever asking me questions about computers. Not so much the ‘how do I install a driver’ type of question, but questions about using Google, or cleaning or doing things I’ve never thought of.

That’s where Toshiba Life comes in. It’s all about making better use of your laptop. Not the geeky things but the every day life things. Websites to go to, things to do, how to clean it.

Anyway, worth a look if you’ve got parents or friends who are forever asking ….”how do I…?”

URL: www.toshibalife.com

So what is Sponsored blogging?
The basic concept is very sound. Advertisers want you to talk about their product, service or website. In return for you ‘blogging’ about them, they will pay you an agreed fee. They will expect at least one link back to their website and possibly a few other caveats included.

Why would someone pay for me to blog?
There are a number of very simple reasons a company will be willing to pay you to promote their website / product.

• Creates awareness
• Generates targeted traffic
• Generates relevant links for search engines

How much can I earn?
Most sponsored blog ‘networks’ operate a bidding principle where you bid to write a blog. The advertiser will then either accept or reject your bid depending upon whether or not they feel it is worth it. Typically bids start from $5 and will go up to in excess of $500 per blog! Yes $500 per blog if you’re lucky.

The amount you can bid is governed by the popularity and relevancy of your blog. For example if you’ve got a blog with a page rank of ‘0′ which talks about cheese, you’re not going to be able to bid very high for someone wanting you to talk about computers. Whereas if you have a computer related blog with a page rank of ‘5′ and 100,000 active readers - you’ll be able to bid a lot higher!

Is it legal?
Yes. There’s nothing to stop you charging a fee for writing a blog on your website

Are there any other terms or conditions?
Yes. Most of the ‘networks’ which managed sponsored reviews insist your blog is at least 3 months old, cached in Google and is relevant to the advertiser. They will also insist on a ratio of at least 2:1 non sponsored blogs i.e. they want your blog to have good quality genuine content which people are going to be reading.

It’s also important that your blogs (even the sponsored ones) are genuine i.e. not simply written as adverts for products.

Where can I find a sponsored blog network?
I’ve listed below a number of websites which managed sponsored blogging programs. I don’t support or endorse any. You need to look for yourself and see what you think:

1. SponsoredReviews
2. SocialSpark
3. PayU2Blog
4. ReviewMe
5. PayPerPost

Is there a downside?
Don’t let your blog be overtaken with paid for blogging…it’s simply not natural and your readers my take offense. However if you can write genuine reviews or blogs about something and earn money from it then why not.

As to whether or not it does improve an advertisers search position - I’ll let you be the judge of that.

If you’ve got experience of getting paid for blogging, please let me know and share your thoughts / comments.

Measure calls - measure ROI

Measure calls - measure ROI
Stolen ROI is a factor just about every web designer or online marketing professional needs to consider. I’ve written this post from the point of view of a web design, but it equally applies to a business owner looking to measure the true performance of their website.

What is Stolen ROI?
Stolen ROI could also be described as ‘return on investment’ which isn’t being apportioned to its correction origin. In essence you are not giving the website the true benefit it deserves because you are not including enquiries or sales information from all sources. For example you might only be measuring sales or enquiries made directly through the website, but not actually measuring the number of phone calls being received into a company, even though the caller got the phone number from the website.

How can I track stolen ROI?
It’s simple really, just look at ways to record points of contact with your client I.e. the methods with which your clients customers make contact with your client. This could be:

* Telephone
* Visiting a shop or showroom
* Completing a postal application / feedback form
* Text messages

In each situation you can measure how many times each of these features was used.

Use of technology:
Using technology is great, however don’t forget the basics. Nothing works better than a pen and paper. It does rely on your client recording the information correctly, but its a great starting point.

Most important – measure the number of phone calls your client receives. There are lots of ways to do this and I’ll write a separate post to explain some possible options.

For all new projects – try and measure offline KPI’s before you begin work on changing a website. This way you can see the true effect.
The True Test of Stolen ROI
What would happen if you turn your website off? What impact will it have on your business. Measure this and you have the true value how much business your website generates.

In fact, (although I don’t advocate this on a day to day basis), if you have a client who is a bad payer, doesn’t tell you how many ‘offline’ enquiries they receive, and tries to blame you for lack of results from the web, why not suggest you turn their website off and wait to see what effect it has on their business. Often those who are most secretive about their business and those who have the most to lose.

Over the coming 7 posts I will look at a number of revenue generating opportunities, their features and benefits, while seeing how they could be used within a blog.

• Adsense
• Sponsored blogs
• Affiliate marketing
• Contextual advertising
• Sponsorship
• Paid for links
• Advertising within feeds

Is advertising always good?
Adsense for example is not necessarily the best income stream for a website – in fact it can have a negative effect on both your income and the traffic to your site. Very few of the top blogs in the world actually use Adsense for revenue.

You need to consider the impact of advertising. For example if users are clicking an advert – are they in fact leaving  your website to go to another. Is that what you want or need?  If you have a blog on a corporate website – are you better keeping users within your corporate site in order to promote your product / service? Each case is different but its worth considering.

Target Audience / Choosing the right ads
It is also important to choose the right revenue stream to match your target audience. If your blog is about computers, don’t select advertising which is going to promote washing powder! Make your choice topical and relevant and you’ll find the number of clicks is much much higher.

Introducing advertising
Carefully consider how you introduce advertising into your blog. If your blog has a loyal readership, what will happen if you suddenly introduce advertising? Will then suddenly stop reading? No readers could mean no advertising revenue! It’s a careful balancing act. Make sure you measure impact and be prepared to react. Maybe introduce things subtly.

Adverting Overkill
Don’t make the mistake of going all out to make money online. How many sites have you been to where it seems like nothing but adverts. Make sure the content of your website is still most prominent and advertising doesn’t distract from that. Remember if people don’t read your content – they wont come back which means less advertising revenue!

I’ll be posting more blogs explaining different advertising opportunities over the coming days and update this blog with a link to the new posts.