Google Adsense

What To Do Before You Apply To Google

noreply@blogger.com (TN - houkwing) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 10:12:00 +0000

Guidelines for new web publishers

Google has a reputation to live up to. A reputation for providing quality content, targeted traffic and good value for money to their advertisers.

The way to meet these requirements is to provide content that meets their requirements and goes one step further to add something unique, which other websites might not offer.

Before you apply to Google AdSense, make sure you haven't cut corners on the layout and the quality of content. Google is quick to reject websites that are built specifically to attract search spiders or that trick people into clicking AdSense Ads.

To make a sizable income from AdSense, you need unique content, a true commitment to your visitors and focused content — which makes it easy for advertisers to target their audience.

To sum up, here are a few quick Do's and Don'ts before you apply:

Don't Build A Website That Specifically Targets Search Spiders, With Nothing Unique To Offer Human Visitors.

I’ve already discussed the importance of creating content that your users are genuinely going to find interesting. If you have interesting content, you’ll have higher CTR and higher revenues.

With so many legitimate ways of creating revenue-generating content, you’re only cheating yourself when you take a short-cut. You reduce your CTR and you increase the odds of being banned by Google.

Don't Build A Website Just To Make Money From AdSense

The easiest way to produce genuinely interesting content is to produce content that genuinely interests you!

You might feel that the more pages that you can throw up, the more money you’ll make but if you can’t produce the sort of content that can compete with companies who produce genuinely good material, you’re not going to get the traffic or the revenues.

But there are plenty of topics that you know about and enjoy. That’s the kind of material that can give you money. It will also make earning that money a lot more fun.

Provide Targeted Content That Will Help Google Advertisers To Capitalize Your Traffic

But writing about what you enjoy rather than what can help you earn doesn’t mean you should forget about using your content to bring you targeted ads.

If you know that there are certain keywords in your topic that are worth more, then you can certainly write about those. You can also make sure that you toss in plenty of keywords and headings to keep those ads targeted.

DON’T Build A Website Specifically To Target High-Value Keywords Unless You Plan On Developing Quality Content!

Not all advertisers bid high on the same keywords. Just as it’s a bad idea to create more content simply to create more money, so it’s a mistake to focus on particular keywords to create lots
of money!

If you are prepared to produce good content and want that content to include high value keywords, one VERY useful report reveals those high-value keywords. You can find it at:
adsense-secrets.com

If you want to aggressively build sites, another very useful tool you might want to look at is Top Keyword Lists.
This is a 'plug and play' monthly membership service offering twenty-five high-paying AdSense markets each and every week. With a simple page generating application, you can turn out twenty-five sites quickly and easily
from each week's updates. If you prefer to spend a little more time building your site with articles, they offer a unique keyword research tool that allows you to pinpoint the key phrases you should concentrate your articles on for maximum payout through AdSense. Read more about it at Adsensesecrets.com

Websites That Rank Higher In A Google Search (SERPS) Will Get A Better Per-Click Payout Than Websites Which Rank Lower For The Same Search Term

I don’t know if that’s because Google just wants to reward sites who meet their criteria for high search listings or because they assume that sites that rank higher are going to have better users for advertisers than lower-ranked sites.

Most likely though, is that it’s all about content relevance. A topranking website is considered more relevant than a lower-ranking one. So keep an eye on your Google Search Ranking for your targeted search terms and work continuously to optimize your website. The upshot is that when you’ve created your site, you need to pay attention to search engine
optimization.
That won’t only win you free traffic, it will also get you more money for the traffic you receive.

Increase 'Readiness to Buy'

Advertisers prefer websites that qualify visitors for the purchase. Allow me to explain with this simple example: A search for "cell phones" can throw up a page about the perils of cell phone radiation, a university professor's treatise about messaging technologies and a buyer's guide that compares features and prices of top-selling cell phone models. For an advertiser looking to target cell phone buyers, the buyer's guide offers the most relevant (and therefore valuable) advertising space.

This is part of targeting your content.
You want people to click on your ads. So do your advertisers. If you can keep your content focused on the products your advertisers are selling then you should be able to increase your CTR.

Of course, it’s also Google’s job to make sure that your ads match your content, but if you’re writing about DVD’s it makes sense to produce content that encourages people to buy DVD’s because those are the sort of ads you know you’re going to be served!

If you were writing about homebuying, you can be sure that you’d get ads about mortgages and real estate agents. Put up pages about finding the right mortgage or how to pick a real estate agent and not only do the ads look even more relevant, they’ll also appear more attractive.

Triple your Adsense Revenue With Less Google Adsense Ads

noreply@blogger.com (TN - houkwing) — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 11:56:00 +0000

I saw this method described in a web blog I was accidentally go there and then I suppose to experiment it by myself. After I experiment it with my own I thought to add more good article about this method than I found on the net.

If you have good content site with good ads positioning then don't think twice to add this method to your adsense blog or web.

Ok first of all see my site add structure and get familiar with it.It's the best I think.Use maximum ad units with including minimum adds in them. You can understand what am I said in above sentence After studying my site ad structures.

There's no magic Just place the ad’s where you get most of the clicks( also look for prevention of invalid clicks) and place only appropriate ad units with less content ads structures and earn money !!

Also there's a Theory with this case:

The theory is that sites bid for their ads to be placed on contextually relevant web sites with the highest bidders getting the best adsense spots (the higher the better). If you only show 4 ads in 1 block, then adsense will place the highest 4 bidding advertisers in those spaces netting you the highest profit. The more ads you show, the more lower-bidding advertisers show up on your page that when those get clicked, your cpc becomes lower than it could be if they weren’t on your page to begin with.

This's Really great and working for me well.....

How To Boost Your Marketing Campaign With Visitor Tracking

noreply@blogger.com (TN - houkwing) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:55:00 +0000

Who cares, as long as they visit your site, right?

Wrong!

It is a fact that traffic, or the number of people who visit your site, could make or break an online business. After all, we cannot sell our products if no one would get to know about them. The problem is, most webmasters would rather concentrate on generating more traffic by dabbling in countless marketing strategies instead of honing a particular one to perfection. The former is susceptible to new risks, while the latter eliminates old problems for improved performance. Clearly, tweaking your site is the way to go. And you could do this efficiently with the aid of visitor tracking.

Visitor tracking has long been hailed as a science, and for good reasons! The accurate findings that visitor tracking can provide is the key to creating a site that is both friendly to everyone who would grace its pages, and enticing to everyone so that they may try its features.

How is visitor tracking capable of all these, you might ask. Consider the powerful deeds that visitor tracking is capable of:

* With visitor tracking, you would be able to know where your visitors are coming from. With this knowledge, you could make corresponding adjustments to your marketing campaign. Know what area to target, what kind of people to focus your attention on, and how to win their interest so that they would come to your site.

* With visitor tracking, you would also be able to know the sites your visitors would go to after lingering in yours. You would be able to ascertain an aspect that has eluded even the best socio-oriented marketers in the world: consumer behavior. Visitor tracking would allow you to determine a pattern based on the conduct of online users, and you could make this work to your advantage.

* With visitor tracking, you would know how much time your visitors spend in your site. If their visits last for mere seconds, then such is a telltale sign that something is wrong with your pages, and adjustments need to be made to sustain their interest and make them stay longer.

* With visitor tracking, you’d know which links work best. This is awesome for two reasons:

A. You’ll be able to find out which of your links are producing the best results, and you could pattern subsequent campaigns based on that method; and

B. You’ll be able to increase your Google AdSense revenue by knowing which ad links are actually being clicked and which ones are just collecting dust.

* With visitor tracking, you would be able to know how your visitors go about in every visit to your site. Which pages do they open first? Where do they go next? Where do they stay longer? This is an invaluable knowledge as it would help you tweak your site to lead your visitors where you want them to go, instead of relying on where they would rather proceed.

It has been said that success can only be attained and sustained by constantly improving ourselves to meet every challenge thrown our way. With all the benefits that visitor tracking provides, success won’t be that far away.

Improving Your Conversion Reduces the Need to Constantly Promote Your Sites

noreply@blogger.com (TN - houkwing) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:54:00 +0000

I just got off the phone with Michael Fortin, one of the top copywriters and conversion experts on the web.

We were doing a teleseminar for our members on conversion and testing for website owners wanting more out of the traffic they already enjoy, rather than constantly having to promote their sites to support low conversion rates. Specifically, we were talking about all the things you can do to test different "calls to action."

A call to action is anything you are trying to get people to do on any particular site or page of a site. It could be buying a product or service, getting people on an announcement list or newsletter, or getting people to click on your advertising links.

Most web publishers are so happy when they finally have a site up that they consider their work done and get right to marketing it. Once the traffic rolls in, they enjoy whatever sales or clicks they get and try to make more money by driving MORE traffic to the site.

Then they start building another site. And another. And another.

This is a disturbing trend that is creating a massive amount of waste. Both in resources and time. Especially when it comes to niche publishers who are building massive networks of sites on different topics in order to capture emails, generate advertising revenue, sell affiliated products and services, or to build their lists to generate backend sales to their subscribers.

The waste is generated when people are in too big a hurry to build more sites, add more products, and get more traffic to sites that can convert sometimes 1000% BETTER than they do now.

They are moving at a hectic pace, in this scenario, to build build build, when their income goals can most often easily be met without so much waste.

One example of waste is when someone builds a content-dry site that has nothing but Adsense and some links on it. People hit that kind of site and can't wait to find a reason to leave. The thinking is, "Great! My 'click thru ratio' is sky high! I am getting almost everyone to click on my ads!"

But here's what's happening in reality: you are working VERY hard to get traffic to such a site, only to "burn" it on a 35 cent click! No email capture, no followup, and most importantly no desire on the part of the visitor to EVER see your site again!

Would you rather have someone come through your site and click immediately on an advertiser's link, never to return? Or would you rather have someone come to your site, read some great content, sign up for your list and not click on ANY links that first time?

I will take scenario #2 any day of the week. And I won't have made a single penny off of that person with that initial action. But I will in the future!

If you have a site that you constantly test and tweak for performance (beyond its ability to repulse your visitors into clicking on an advertisement just to get to a QUALITY site) then you have a real business.

You can test and track SO MANY variables to make a site more profitable than it is now. Every site on the web can perform better than it does right now. Every single one!

The people who understand this never stop testing their calls to action to get their visitors to do more than something that results in a one-time action.

Traffic is the most expensive thing on the web both in the time it takes to get it and the resources you have to use up for each and every hit.

The traffic you have now might be all the traffic you EVER need on a daily basis to make a killing with your site. You will never know until you test and track everything about your site.

The headlines, the offers, the opt-in forms, the guarantees, testimonials, bullets, adsense placement, followup... In short, every webmaster on the net has a lot of work to do on every site they own if they really want to reap the kinds of profits their sites are actually capable of pulling in.

Most people get a site up and are happy with the sales or clicks they get and move on. NO! You are leaving so much money on the table thinking you are done with a site right after you put it up.

That site is the worst it should ever be! Wasting another domain fee, hosting fee, bandwidth and the costs associated with getting traffic to a brand new site before you have optimized your current site for the very best conversion it can pull is NOT good business practice.

I know people who have literally thousands of domains. And one thing I can guarantee you is this: They are making a pittance, even if they are making $60,000 a DAY, in comparison to what they COULD be making with far fewer sites and more testing and tweaking of that smaller group!

And Fortin seems to agree. He is going to be at my seminar in New Orleans September 9th - 11th, 2005 to expose everyone who attends to just how much money they have left on the table over the years because they have never tested different aspects of their calls to action.

It is enlightening, as well as depressing to find out how much money you COULD have made all this time had you tested from the beginning!

But the point is, you cannot go back to get all those lost subscribers, sales, or clicks. You can only start testing today to capture more money from each site you own. Thereby alleviating the need to have a massive network of sites all performing at half their potential or much less!

Eyes on your eCommerce Website

noreply@blogger.com (TN - houkwing) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:54:00 +0000

In a recent article I talked about Google AdSense placement based on eye-tracking research. However, research by The Poynter Institute, Eyetools and the Estlow Center for Journalism and New Media has a lot to say about more than where to put an AdSense block.

Designing an eCommerce site is more than making it pretty. You have certain desired actions you're looking for from your visitors. You have specific things you want to be sure they see and hopefully act on. Now, there's some research that can guide your design. Certainly you want your site to look professional, but you want it to do its job as effectively as possible too.

People are surprisingly alike in some of their basic visual behavior. It's been argued that our evolution as hunter-gatherers has shaped much of our ingrained visual patterns. Whether you buy that particular argument or not there are still important commonalities.

Typical behavior on initially viewing a site is to do a fast scan of the entire visible screen with short focusing periods around the areas that attract attention. First pass tends to include headlines, the page logo, photo captions, subheads, links and menu items. And the big hot spot is the upper left corner of the screen. I haven't seen any definitive research on whether these patterns also hold for users with native languages that read any way except left to right, but I'm assuming most of you are building sites for left-to-right readers.

The clear message is that your most important real estate is in that upper left area and that the lower right (particularly if it's below the fold) is the least likely to receive much attention.

How you use your words in a headline, paragraph or link can make a huge difference in your success at capturing a visitor's attention. The concept is called frontloading. Wherever you can make sure your critical terms appear at the very beginning of headlines, links and other text. It's still got to make sense, but the first few words are far more likely to be at least scanned then the middle or end of a headline or link or the inside of a paragraph.

The exact same words can have drastically different capture rates depending on their order. You want to maximize the probability that the visitor will read a whole headline or link and then act on it. So put the most significant, enticing words first - the ones that are the best grabbers and convey the subject immediately.

You don't have a lot of time to mess about. It's been reported that a typical surfer may be off your page in well under 14 seconds unless something grabs his or her attention fast. Remember the upper-left? You want to do an especially good job with headlines, link and text in that area.

Dropcaps (where the first capitalized letter in a line is in a different, often unusual, font and extends below the normal text base-line), bolding, font changes and color changes can also serve as strong eye-attractors. If you try these techniques you need to be careful that you don't overuse them (your page will look like a mess), and it's extremely important that you test whether or not they're actually doing what you want. Annoying as it may be, running tests is the only way to make sure it's an improvement.

Do you use lists? Have you made sure that they're in-line and as close to the left margin as possible? Don't ever use an outline format with multiple indents. People scan down, not across and they tend to scan close to the left margin. Indent too much and it might as well be invisible.

An interesting testing result that I read somewhere said that somewhere between 10 and 20 percent of site visitors don't even see centered headlines. Sure they look nice and a lot of sites use them, but if they're totally missed by even 3 percent of your visitors, you're paying a major price to look good. Suggestion? Put those headlines up against your left margin.

This also applies to links. Put those links up against the left margin, not inside a paragraph, centered or off to the right. And if you want any clicks on a link, never put it in that nearly unseen lower right area. Might as well just leave it off your page.

How about indented paragraphs? Now there's a great way to start an argument. Some argue that it attracts the eye, it's different, few sites use it so you stand out. Others insist that you're far better off staying left justified and frontloading each paragraph. There's only one way to resolve it for yourself, yeah, run some tests and see what works with your visitors on your site.

The bottom line is that once you get beyond the basics of placement, frontloading, and left-justified links and headlines, you need to test if you want to fully maximize the effectiveness of your website design. I wish there were a simpler answer too, but in the end only testing will tell you what works best for your site.

First it was banner ads, then Google AdSense and now, the latest way to make money on your web site could very well be RSS feeds. Say what? I said: RS

noreply@blogger.com (TN - houkwing) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:54:00 +0000

The recent Forrester Research study, which claims that only 2% of online households in North America use RSS, took the internet marketing world by storm. Does this data really mean that marketers can still afford to ignore this channel?

Soon after the Forrrester study became public, I received a press enquiery asking whether marketers should be interested in RSS now that so few online adults use it.

Is this the correct question to ask? Let’s take a look at the bigger picture …

1. THE FORRESTER STUDY VALIDITY

The Forrester study is just one of those available and cannot be considered as the only relevant study, although it was conducted on a sample of 68,000 households.

Jupiter Research estimates RSS penetration at 12% of the American online population, while the latest report from PEW shows that 9% of the American online population has a good idea of what RSS is. An October 2004 PEW study actually estimated RSS penetration at 5%.

It is also important to understand that Forrester data does not include those that might not even be aware they are using RSS, especially through services such as My.Yahoo, which is actually the most popular RSS reader.

Also, at the same time, Forrester Vice President Henry Harteveldt says that »RSS is critical for any organization that wants to reach out to people under the age of 30«.

2. THE FUTURE GROWTH OF RSS

Regardless of the numbers we put our faith in, the future growth of RSS is without question. Microsoft just recently announced full RSS support in the next edition of their Internet Explorer browser and full RSS integration in the next edition of their operating system, the Windows Vista.

Once RSS becomes easily available to most internet users out-of-the-box and becomes as widely spread as bookmarks, its adoption will grow at an incredible rate. Microsoft has now made sure this in fact will happen.

Consequently, the time for marketers to not only become interested in RSS but also master it is now. Those that test and discover the best possible ways of using RSS for marketing will be ahead of their competition once everyone starts using RSS.

Furthermore, since RSS implementation can actually be free of any charge, there’s no reason not to start providing your content in RSS feeds now.

3. GOOGLE SHOWS THE WAY

Microsoft and Yahoo! aren’t the only big players to show support for RSS. Google recently launched RSS advertising as part of their Google AdSense program, giving publishers reason to start their own RSS feeds to generate direct revenues.

Those that depend on Google AdSense for part or all of their online revenues actually need to provide RSS feeds, or stand to lose some of those revenues due to their visitors switching to sites and feeds from their competitors.

Face it, today many users are already starting to request publishers provide them with RSS to subscribe to their content. This trend will only continue, with many users selecting RSS as their primary channel of receiving and reading online content.

4. THE QUESTIONABLE RELIABILITY OF E-MAIL

All marketers today are experiencing e-mail delivery problems, constantly wondering whether their messages are getting through or not. Simply put, e-mail can no longer be relied on.

For one, offering your content via RSS as a supplement to e-mail will help you make certain that at least a portion of your visitors, those that decide for the RSS option, will be receiving all of your content without any doubt.

Lockergnome.com decided to start pushing RSS instead of e-mail some time ago, and as a result saw that their RSS feeds are outperforming e-mail when it comes to clickthrough rates for about 500%. Also an interesting fact, they today have 5 times more RSS subscribers than e-mail subscribers.

And two, for your most important content updates, RSS really is becoming a must, especially if you need to be in contact with your existing customers, partners and other key audiences. If you want to be 100% certain that your messages reach your audience, RSS is the way to go.

5. OTHER BENEFITS OF RSS

But all of the above don’t even touch all the reasons why marketers should start using RSS today …

a) RSS will help you generate additional traffic and reach new audiences. Considering the low cost of RSS implementation, this is reason enough to get started with RSS today.

b) RSS helps you to easily get your content published on other sites, thus generating you more credibility and visitors.

c) As a publisher you can use RSS to display content from other sources, thus making your site more relevant and interesting to your existing visitors.

And the list goes on and on.

RSS may not be mainstream yet, but it provides enough advantages even today to make it a must-choice for marketers.

Making money with RSS Feeds

noreply@blogger.com (TN - houkwing) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:53:00 +0000

First it was banner ads, then Google AdSense and now, the latest way to make money on your web site could very well be RSS feeds. Say what? I said: RSS is hot and you should be using it to drive eyeballs to your site. Here's how it works:

Depending upon who you ask, RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication" or "Rich Site Summary". Regardless of what you call it, RSS is a way to automatically publish (syndicate) someone else's content on your web site. Now don't worry, that's not the same as stealing someone else's content. There is nothing illegal about using RSS feeds. In fact, the publisher of the content wants you to have it show up on your site and that's why he or she makes it available as an RSS feed to begin with.

So what's in it for all parties concerned?

Using RSS is a win-win for both the publisher of the content, who gets their name out to potentially millions of sites and you, the web site owner who is pulling the content onto your site.

Content, by the way, means anything that a publisher decides it means. Typical content includes news headlines, new product update notices, blog summaries and lots of other stuff. It's the "content" portion of the equation that's good news for you.

Show me the money

One of the best features of hosting RSS feeds is that it gives your site an endless source of freshly updated and relevant content. This content acts as natural search engine spider bait which they will fill their little tummies on and come back for more every day. Their appetite for fresh content keep your rankings up.

Sticky Loyalty isn't a new Ben & Jerry's flavor, but it should be the goal of any serious webmaster who wants to create a web site that visitors return to over and over again. The use of carefully selected RSS feeds can make that happen by offering unique content which can't be found anywhere else.

Now please don't make the mistake of thinking "But they can get that same content at the publisher's site, why should they come to mine?". Just build it and they will come! Sorry, I couldn't resist saying that, but it's true. In addition to the RSS content, which they surely can get somewhere else, you are going to add your own sticky loyalty stuff that's all about whatever your site is all about to begin with. That combination of your own content and the RSS feed makes visiting you a purely unique experience that can't be found anywhere else.

You don't have to be a member of the Geek Squad to start showing RSS feeds on your site. Just visit any of the links below and get busy using RSS to make mo' money.

Free RSS to HTML PHP Script

Carp - Free Rss script

RSS Equalizer

Clickbank Profits RSS Feed Generator

Can You Really Make Money From Blogging

noreply@blogger.com (TN - houkwing) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:52:00 +0000

One of the questions I see frequently asked on online discussion forums is, "Can You Really Make Money From Blogging?" People want to know if there's some way to profit from the time they spend maintaining their weblogs or personal online journals.

My answer is an emphatic "YES," because I do it... everyday!

Today I'll share with you how I do it.

Let me begin by saying that I don't make thousands per month from MOST of my blogs. However, I do have many making hundreds. Since I don't put in a lot of time maintaining them, and I enjoy blogging, I consider the money a bonus. I blog while sitting in my yard with my laptop (on a wireless connection)... watching the clouds roll by.

Another bonus I get from blogging is that it helps my regular websites that are set up as my "money machines."

The search engines visit my blogs more often than they visit my regular sites, and they follow the links from my blogs pointing to other sites. Some of these links point to my sites, and some point to sites of partners. This does help the search engine rankings of these sites MASSIVELY.

How Do I Monetize My Blogs?

I monetize my blogs by creating blogs on topics people are searching for... and that they are spending money on. I know which niches are hot to an extent based upon what my research proves pay-per-click advertisers are willing to spend their advertising dollars on.

I run Google AdSense ads on my blogs. I simply insert these ads in my menu bar and other strategic places on the webpage. I also experiment with other paid advertising on my blogs.

I sell affiliate products from my blogs. I simply find affiliate products at places like PayDotCom.com and Commission Junction. I incorporate these into my blogs. I do things like product reviews, how-to articles, etc. You can also locate suitable affiliate products by typing your target keywords + "affiliate program" at any major search engine. This should point out numerous websites with suitable affiliate programs to you.

How Do I Setup/Host My Blogs?

I have blog hosted on some of my own domains using Moveable Type. This is just one of many great pieces of blogging software. You have other choices... my programmer recommended this one to me.

I also have blogs hosted for free on Blogger.com. I have them on Blogger.com because they are incredibly easy to set up and maintain. A secondary reason I have them on Blogger.com is that Google OWNS Blogger.com and they index webpages hosted on their servers OFTEN and FAST!

The secret to getting Google and Yahoo! to visit your blogs often is a technique called "blogging and pinging." It's a method of notifying all of the major search engines, and blog directories, each time that you update your blog. The search engines come to take a look and they follow links from your blog to spider other blogs/sites. It's very powerful.

I won't go into too much details on blogging and pinging here. If you want more information on that topic I invite you to drop by my free, Internet marketing discussion board and ask any and all questions! It's at:
http://WillieCrawford.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi

Examples Of Profitable Blogs?

I know, you want to see examples of profitable blogs :-)

To show you how simple it can be I'll show you just ONE. It’s less than 2 months old :-)

The problem is that as soon as I show a site to anyone as an example, it's instantly ripped off. So, I'm going to "sacrifice" one making me about $60 per day from affiliate product sales and about $20 per day in AdSense revenue. That site is at:
http://cure-nail-fungus.blogspot.com

The above site currently ranks Number 6 on Yahoo for the term "cure nail fungus." It's a small niche but one that makes me $2400 per month... just from that one blog.

If you searched on the same term at Google, this site is not very highly ranked. However, THIS page is Num ber4:
http://www.chitterlings.com/no-more-nail-fungus.html

That happens to be one of my pages too :-) I won't tell you what ALL I'm up to on that page... that's another article. The technique involves using your own domains to promote affiliate products rather than advertising someone else's domain... so it improves your link popularity.

I'm not going to show more of my blogs because that just invites competition. Instead, I'm going to answer another question you have to be wondering...

"How do I find time to maintain all of these blogs, even if they are profitable?"

Well, first of all, I don't really need a lot like the "sacrificial lamb" that I showed you above to keep me satisfied.

I do have a number of secret weapons though. One is called AutoBlogger. You can check it out at:
http://WillieCrawford.com/auto-blogger.html

What AutoBlogger does is allow me to queue up a number of posts for my various blogs in advance. It lets you queue up "articles" which can really be anything you want. Then you tell the software at what frequency to make a post.

My AutoBlogger account allows me to automatically post to an UNLIMITED number of blogs.

WARNING: A program like AutoBlogger can get you in trouble if you misuse it! If you use it to spam or abuse the search engines, it's just going to get you banned. If you use it to abuse the blog hosts, they're just going to delete your blogs.

Here's how I use AutoBlogger:

I have sites where I discuss Internet marketing... as just one example. On these sites I share many of my articles and tidbits. I simply queue up these articles/tidbits to post at a given frequency. This frequency can be a set number of hours, days, weeks, or months. So theoretically, I can set up a blog, pre-schedule 50 posts, and not touch it in months, while it is automatically posted to for the next 50 intervals.

AutoBlogger even lets you set it to start rotating through the posts again when they run out, if you want to. I personally wouldn't do this since you'd just be posting duplicate content.

AutoBlogger allows you to insert RSS feeds right into your blog posts. So in addition to posting articles you can also auto-update by adding new RSS feeds at a set interval. Since I HATE sending my traffic to other sites (without reciprocation), these RSS feeds generally pull from MY sites. That way, my traffic is only sent to my other sites.

If you don't even feel like queuing up a lot of posts, you can go to a site like Elance.com and hire someone else to do it for you... or just hired your kids to do it for you. It can be as easy as you want to make it.

OK, I've just proven to you that you can make money off of blogs. In-fact, you can make more money than many people make off of their REGULAR websites. It just takes a little thinking outside the box!

It also takes not being too greedy. What I just showed you works for me because I'm not doing anything that's likely to get me banned from the search engines, Google AdSense, Blogger.com, or any affiliate program. It's only when you get carried away, and do things that harm the search engines that you "shoot yourself in the foot."

Set up blogs providing useful content. Make regular posts to these blogs but not in a manner that seems unnatural. By that, I mean don't auto-post twenty times in an hour, or post every hour for a month! No human can possible post to a blog at these rates for long, so the search engines detect something is "wrong." They don't generally prohibit you from using tools to make your job easier... just don't get carried away!

There are actually, thousands of people earning a living doing things similar to what I just shared... but with little twists. I'm meeting up with many of them in New Orleans in September. You're invited to join us. We'll basically be sharing how we make a fortune off of niche websites and programs such as Google AdSense. You can register today at:
http://WillieCrawford.com/meet-in-new-orleans.html

Make Money Blogging

noreply@blogger.com (TN - houkwing) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:51:00 +0000

You have created a blog and your blog is dedicated to a niche industry. Have you ever thought that the blog could make money for you? We would look here in this article, ways and means, to make money blogging. Lets first have a look at what are the prerequisites for a blog needed to make money:

1. Blog needs to be dedicated to a niche market.
2. Updated regularly.
3. Enough back links (Don't worry for it. Directory submission would be enough to begin with)
4. Good blog host or application (blogger, Xanga or typepad recommended), and
5. High quality articles or news items supported with images.

Get the above criteria in place and Hurrah... You are ready to Make Money Blogging.

Top 5 Ways to Make Money Blogging

Lets now take a look at top 5 ways using which you could make money blogging:

1. Google Adsense
Google Adsense delivers text and image ads to the authorized websites/blogs depending on the content of the website. Small code is required to be pasted at proper locations on a webpage and Google automatically recognizes the page. Google shares the revenue it gets from the advertisers whenever a visitor clicks on these ads.

Google bills advertisers on price per click basis (PPC). Advertisers are required to pay only when any visitor clicks on their ads. They bid against each other for the keywords in order to receive better placement and thus prices for each keyword differ from one another. It is better to choose keywords for your blog which pays high $ per click.

2. Amazon
Amazon Associate program is another important way to make money blogging. The Amazon Associate program gives opportunity to website/blog publishers to promote any product from its inventory by adding a predefined code to their website/blog, which, when clicked by a visitor, takes them to the relevant product page. Once the visitor buys the product, the blog owner will be compensated with a commission.

3. Blogads
You can use Blogads as an effective tool to have a better control over the advertisers in your blogs. You can analyze and compare your profits with any one of your online agencies. Blogads can be simply specified as an advertising service used for the web logs or blogs. From the total money generated by Blogads, it retains 20% of it and the remaining money is paid to you through PayPal or checks.

Alternative Services:

• Crispads is another useful network focused on the blogs. You can put your advertisements in their blogs using Crispads. You can move through their RSS/ATOM feeds that help in generating revenues.
• Tagword – It is similar to Blogads. It makes you select the ads and their price.

Users can place their text-based ads in the site within minutes and the ads will be displayed instantly on the website.

4. Affiliate Programs
Your affiliate programs can help you earn a lot of money for selected products and services. Lot of websites offers you to become affiliate members. These affiliate programs can provide a better reach and an in-depth exposure to the products. The commissions for the sales differ according to the quality of the product, sales and marketing strategy involved. You can gather information related to the commissions by looking into the catalogues of Link Share and Commission junctions.

5. Text Links
Text links has emerged out to be the best form of moneymaking source that you can use instead of cluttering or crowding the page with ads. You don’t have to make these text links prominent within your website. This link can act as an extra value to your site and will also help to promote the rankings of other sites. In most of the cases you will find these text links placed in the bottom of the web pages. The best part of this strategy is that the publishers send and accept links as the market continues to grow.

What Your Momma Never Told You About Online Press Releases

noreply@blogger.com (TN - houkwing) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:51:00 +0000

If you market ANYTHING online, you need to send out an online press release. They are easy to write and can potentially bring you much desired media publicity… which, in most cases, will increase sales.

But that’s not what this article is about.

I’m going to show you how using low cost online press release services will get your sites indexed into the major search engines fast.

The Strategy:

Write a simple online press release and submit it to Prweb.com.

When writing your press release, be sure to add include your URL at least twice on the body of the release with your primary keyword as anchor text, and then once again in your signature.

Sounds simple, huh? It is… but I’m going to break it down into 9 easy as taking candy from a baby steps.

The How To:

1. Write your press release. There’s software available which is intuitive to use and will guide you through the proper process

2. Once written, double-check it for errors.

3. Register for an account on Prweb.com.

4. Once registered, you will automatically be logged in. Now click ‘Submit News Release’.

5. Input your release into the appropriate fields.

6. Click ‘Save Press Release’.

7. You will be taken to page offering upgrades. While not necessary, you will gain MAXIMUM benefit using the $80 submission service. I want to stress again that this is entirely optional and NOT necessary. I personally use the $10 option.

8. If you choose any of the paid services, input your credit card information, then hit continue.

9. Once payment is processed, you’re done!

If you want to categorize your submitted releases, you can do that on the page following payment acceptance.

When I implemented this strategy, I had Inktomi visit my site within 2 days, then Google and MSN within a week after that.

This service not only distributes your message to the media, but provides additional links back to your site and is regularly crawled by all major search engines.

Do you have a Blog or Personal Online Journal? If the answer is yes, did you know that it’s possible

noreply@blogger.com (TN - houkwing) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:51:00 +0000

I have written it as a response to some criticism in my forum this week. A couple
of people said that I don't produce enough original content. Right now that's
true. I'm not writing a lot.

But I'll tell you what. I'm doing what works.

The sites I've been building for the past few months are producing results. Big
results.

My sites, whether they're mini sites or big sites, work. And they bring in a
huge income every week from Google Adsense, Searchfeed, and affiliate programs.

So should I care what people are saying?

Yes I should.

Not just because I've been criticized, which is never nice, but because I still
believe that the key to long term success is running on-topic content which is
unique to your own web site.

I don't believe the sites I've built over the past few months are going to keep
producing an income for years, where the original content sites I've got will
keep working for years.

But I'm making hay while the sun shines and you should too.

Here's how I'm doing it:

Many of the sites that people were talking about were created with Traffic
Equalizer and heavily modified with templates, and by changing things with
search and replace, to add individuality. Just one of these sites makes more
every week than I used to earn working full time in my old newspaper job.
(interestingly this site now gets more traffic from the new Yahoo search engine
than it does from Google, where just a few months ago it was nearly all from
Google).

I hardly write anything on these sites, just an article on the index pages of
each folder/sub directory.

In case you don't know, Traffic Equalizer http://www.ozemedia.com/trafficeq is, in essence, an automated directory
builder taking search engine results from your keyword list and building pages
around them. Lots of big name marketers are using it to make a lot of money.

I run Google Adsense on the pages, and also put at least one affiliate program
on a page. Very often it will be an ebook sold through Clickbank.

On some sites I put a number of Searchfeed links on the pages
http://www.ozemedia.com/searchfeed.htm but I'm a bit worried about using
Searchfeed and Adsense together so I don't do it often, but Searchfeed still
send me a check for a $1000 plus each month - which is a nice little side
income.

My main concern with Traffic Equalizer has always been that someone else
building a page on the same search term could have an almost identical page to
mine. Search engines don't like this.

But the good news is that Traffic Equalizer has just been improved. A few weeks
ago Jeff Alderson, the programmer, asked me if I had any ideas on how to make it
better, and I suggested he try and find a way of getting the site content from
more sources and then randomizing the output. This would make it less of a
chance that two users would build identical pages. Well he's a fast worker and
the new improved version came out a couple of days ago, and though I haven't had
a chance to try it yet, I'm sure it's going to work. At least short term to mid
term.

The bad news is that I'm not certain of the long term viability of the sites.
They do well for a few months, but if you can't continue getting high quality
links to them they tend to drop down the rankings. Also I'm sure that Google
won't want the search results to be totally clogged with sites built with
Traffic Equalizer, and will eventually change their algorithms to make the pages
rank a lot lower than they currently do. If they did this by targeting pages
with lots of outbound links but few inbound links it would be damaging to the TE
pages.

Having said that, these sites DO work. And Google allow their Adsense Ads to be
run on them.

Some people don't like the idea of building writes using Traffic Equalizer
because it somehow seems wrong to them. They don't like the "quality" of the
sites it produces. But the search engines LOVE the sites. Many of the pages they
produce rank very high, and unlike the quite short lived fad of building
"smartpages" they don't do anything against the search engines rules. They don't
redirect, they don't mislead people. They just build simple directories.

I'm not going to name anyone, but some REALLY famous people in the internet
marketing world are doing very well with TE. These people consistently make a
huge income year after year by doing what works at the moment. In other words
they use the tools which bring them an income.

You should be doing it too Bill

http://www.ozemedia.com/trafficeq

Just one thing to mentally make a note of.

You have to be patient. Unless you already have a few high Pagerank sites you
can link to them from, these sites take a few months to take off. During those
months you need to keep build new sites. If you get despondent because the sites
look like they not going to do well you'll stop building them, and then curse
yourself a few months down the track when you realize you could have had 20 more
sites steadily coming online. In other words you don't see instant results, but
you have to keep building sites and pages. There is no easy option, no quick
work around. You work hard at building these sites and success will come.

_________________________________

So - seeing I think Traffic EQ sites won't keep working for years - what about
long term sites?

Well contrary to what a few people said in my forum I do still build sites full
of articles that I write or pay someone to write.
Right now I'm building a network of travel sites which will be full of articles
and photographs of places I've visited. They're going to be mini sites of
between 5 and 12 pages, though perhaps as high as 20 pages on some of them
because the photographs are going to take up quite a bit of space.

This week Kate has spent most of her time writing touristy type, personal
experience articles on London and York. Next week she's moving on to write about
Japan. After that it's going to be France. Then she's doing Malaysia, before
working on a big site about Australia. We'll be using photographs that I've shot
in the past few years in each of these places. And I'll also put together a site
on Bangkok in Thailand, which I visited recently.

All the content, both photographs and articles, will be totally unique to the
sites we build. They'll be keyword rich and the sites properly structured to
please the search engines. I haven't yet decided if I'll build the sites with
Traffic Equalizer. If I use TE http://www.ozemedia.com/trafficeq I'll just use
it to provide the structure of the site - pages, linking structure - then remove
most or all of the outbound links and replacing them with the articles and
photos.

Rather than just putting all the content up on one domain I've registered a
whole bunch of domain names and I'm hosting them in the countries the site is
about ( except Japan because I can't find a low cost Japanese web host ). The
sites will then be interlinked to help improve their search rankings - as
detailed in Michael Campbell's Revenge of the Mininet
http://www.ozemedia.com/mininet.htm I'm going to the trouble of finding hosts in
each country because I think it just might improve the web ranking chances a
little. Though I'm not certain on this. I'm quite certain, however, that if
they're linked together the way Michael describes they need to be on different
web hosts in a different IP range.

Here's what's involved ( so you can see why I take the easy option sometimes and
just do sites built with TE http://www.ozemedia.com/trafficeq )

* First of all I had to do the traveling and suffer all that jetlag.

* Carry a pile of heavy camera gear around everywhere.

* Spend hours at the computer editing the pictures.

* Research the keywords so that I can build pages around search terms that
people are actually looking for ( I use Wordtracker to do this
http://www.ozemedia.com/wordtracker )

* Pay Kate to write most of the articles, and get my weary brain into action to
write some myself for the places for Bangkok which she hasn't yet visited.

* Decide on whether to run with Adsense, or an affiliate program or both. (I've
yet to find a travel affiliate program I'm happy with, but some pages might
carry affiliate ads for luggage or books)

* Choose domain names and find web hosts.

* Build the sites and link them together as in Mininet
http://www.ozemedia.com/mininet.htm

* Upload them to the hosts by FTP

* List them with Google and Yahoo ( I don't bother about the rest, AOL, MSN and
the others will quickly find you from Google.)

______________________________________

By the way I'll probably use Traffic Equalizer on different domains to build
pages to direct traffic to my travel network sites. The same way I now use
Traffic Equalizer to send traffic to my other mini sites.

______________________________________

So what do you do if you want to build content sites like my travel sites but
you can't write and don't have an employee who can quickly churn out words?

I think the best way is to sub contract.

There's a lot of talk in the media about how people are losing their jobs
because a lot of American companies, as well as many in England and Australia,
are outsourcing jobs to India.

Have you thought of joining them and outsourcing your web content to India?

I've just taken my first steps to doing it. But unlike big companies I'm not
putting anyone out of a job, just helping create jobs.

Wages are very low in India, a country which has some of the best educated
English speaking people in the world. And to us Westerners people work for
peanuts in India. According to an article in Computerworld magazine
http://www.computerworld.com/careertopics/careers/story/0,10801,91916,00.html?from=story_kc
a programmer in India earns around US$7500 a year. ( A programmer in China
earns around 20 to 30% less, but it's hard to outsource content creation to
China because, unlike India, few people write English well enough)

I'm not the first to think of using people in India to write my web content.
While I was researching this piece I found that the giant builder.com has
started offshoring authoring of many of its articles to India
http://www.newsforge.com/trends/04/03/18/2240229.shtml

So how do you find people in these countries? The easiest way is to use an
outsourcing web site. Try these.

http://www.elance.com
http://www.rentacoder.com
http://www.guru.com
http://www.smarterwork.com

Do a search on them for "search engine optimised web content ", "content
writing" or just "web content". When I looked on elance last week I saw bids as
low $5 per page, but the lowest I saw today was $10 a page. This is still
incredibly cheap.
Here's the $10 a page bid - "Thanks for the opportunity to bid on your project!
My quote is based on a rate of $10 per article (350-500 words). I'm a marketing
professional with over 10 years of experience."

_____________________________

Another possible way to use these sites is to hire people to create new products
for you. At the time of writing this letter there are 5 bids for writing a
recipe ebook. The lowest bidder is willing to do the whole project for just
US$400. In fact the highest bid is just $450. Someone else is willing to write a
50 page ebook on stopping headaches for $8 a page, which also adds up to $400.

Here's another for an ebook about looking after your skin.

Wanted: A ghostwriter for an Informational eBook entitled ""Perfect Skin:
Cleansing, Nourishing, Prot ..."

And again someone is willing to write it for just $8 per page "Our bid is based
on US$8 per page (250-300 words) with minimum billing of 50 pages (additional
pages will be billed at the rate of US$8 per pages) and includes all necessary
research and revisions. You will own full copyrights. Completion Time: 16
working days."

Is It Possible To Make Money From Blogging?

noreply@blogger.com (TN - houkwing) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:50:00 +0000

Do you have a Blog or Personal Online Journal? If the answer is yes, did you know that it’s possible to earn money from your Blog? I earn plenty from my own Blogspots – maybe not enough to think of retiring in the near future, but enough to allow me some extra luxuries in life and who knows how much I’ll be earning in a few years or even just a few months!

I love writing Blogs because I love passing on information that I’ve researched myself. Best of all, I only spend a couple of hours each week writing on my blogspots – I spend several more hours researching information because I also love to learn and believe that no matter how much I think I know about a subject, there’s always new stuff to learn – I’m a bit of an information junkie!!

If you already know plenty about a particular subject then it won’t take long at all to write a few paragraphs about it and have your blog up and running. Obviously, writing about what you love helps because, in the beginning, the money you earn is a bonus rather than an income that will allow you to give up your day job. Mind you, I’ve read about many people that earn fantastic incomes from their blogs so maybe you’ll be one of the lucky ones that can give up the day job in the very near future.

Search engines visit blogs so your site will probably get listed quickly – Google actually own www.blogger.com so if you want traffic this is a good site to start your blog on. It’s a good idea to also insert GoogleAdSense and even a Google Search box because you’ll also earn money when any of your visitors decide to click an ad or do a search – more bonus cash for little effort. Blogger also has a tool that you can use to notify all the search engines when you update your site. Make no mistake, this is a very powerful tool because the search engines take a look at your blog and follows the links to other websites. This makes getting listed on the top search engines like Google a breeze.

Another way to make cash from your blog is to add a few affiliate links – find products that fit in with the theme of your blog, sign up as an affiliate, put a link on your blog and hopefully watch some more bonus cash roll in – again, it’s simple but effective! If you’re not familiar with affiliate marketing then let me tell you right now that this is an extremely good earner. I usually get my affiliate links at www.cj.com, www.clickbank.com and www.affiliatefuture.com so pay them a visit and get some links to get started.

I recently set up 2 new blogspots and you are welcome to take a look by visiting www.mindpowersuccess.blogspot.com and www.jibechick.blogspot.com. These are 2 completely different subjects but I’m really interested in both so enjoyed creating them.
I also post my monthly JC Newsletter at www.jugglingmumsclub.blogspot.com and always invite people to take a look at the current JCN before signing up.

I’m not worried about getting competition from anyone looking at my blogs – there’s more than enough blogs, niche markets, etc. to go round and if it helps you get ideas then that’s great. Remember I’ve already stated that “I love writing Blogs because I love passing on information that I’ve researched myself.”

Another way to get traffic to your blog is to ask visitors to sign up to your own newsletter and then send them a link each time you make a new post. – once a week is plenty otherwise they may get fed up with you bombarding their inbox.

That’s about all there is to it – it’s quick, it’s easy and it has the potential to earn you a fairly decent income. If you have the time to spare then don’t stop at one blog because the more sites you have the more visitors you’ll get and the more money you’ll earn.

There are many people earning a very good living writing their blogs. The biggest tips are to find niche areas that not many others are promoting, get some affiliate links and some good quality content information. Remember to add GoogleAdSense and possibly a Google search box to your site and then just check your visitors and earnings each day.

BLOG…PING…OPT-IN…SIG FILE…EZINE!

noreply@blogger.com (TN - houkwing) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:50:00 +0000

In the beginning…

I recently started my own “money-making, home business” which I signed up to with the understanding that I was going to earn money for doing nothing. Others (affiliates) were going to pay me commission for referring new sign-ups to their sites. This sounded like a fantastic opportunity to make lots of money without really selling anything. No stocks holding, postage etc.

My signup included (among other items) a guide which covers 30 days. I also had to sign-up to 5 online marketing sites (you receive the enrolment fee back in no time) and join a web-hosting company.

Massive amounts of information are fed to you but in an absorbable manner. It was very exiting. I would liken this information to reading a suspense novel…can’t wait to see what happens next!

Anyway this article is not meant to be about that…it’s meant to cover some of the terminology and their definitions, some of which I had never heard before.

AdSense

AdSense is a fast and easy way for website publishers of all sizes to display relevant ads on their website's content pages and earn money. Because the ads are related to what your visitors are looking for on your site — or matched to the characteristics and interests of the visitors your content attracts — you'll finally have a way to both monetise and enhance your content pages.
It's also a way for website publishers to provide web and site search to their visitors, and to earn money by displaying ads on the search results pages.

Adwords

With AdWords you create your own ads, choose keywords to help us match your ads to your audience and pay only when someone clicks on them.

Affiliate

A person, organization, or establishment associated with another as a subordinate, subsidiary, or member: network affiliates.

Auto-Responder

This is a clever marketing tool. It automates your emails and follows-up on potential clients after they have signed up to your newsletter etc.

Blog

An online diary or personal chronological log of thoughts published on a Web page; also called Weblog, Web log. Typically updated daily, blogs often reflect the personality of the author. It is a shortened form of Weblog.

Ezine

A magazine that is published electronically, especially on the Internet.

Keyword

A word used as a reference point for finding other words or information. See Adwords.

Off-line Marketing

As an example, advertising in newspapers, radio and television. Using the phone as a off-line marketing tool has also become very popular.

On-line Marketing

Advertising using the internet, examples may include…email, banners, popups etc.

Opt-In/Opt-out Subscribers

This is when you choose you receive newsletters etc. via email. Example:

By doing this you opt-in to an email mailing list. These lists are sold over the internet by various marketing companies. Most emails sent via the opt-in method also have an opt-out choice. Use this when you no longer wish to receive email from the marketer. When you have no choice it is referred to as SPAM.

Ping

A protocol that sends a message to another computer and waits for acknowledgment, often used to check if another computer on a network is reachable.
You need to use ping your blog to get it online. (easy as pie)

Sig File

A block of text at the end of a message identifying the sender and providing additional information for instance, web/e-mail address.

Solo Ad

This is advertising via email attached to an ezine. This is only one ad (as apposed to many small ads from various companies), thus giving you maximum exposure.

Viral Marketing

This works similar to a virus but instead of being destructive it encourages people to pass along a marketing message.

Is Click Fraud Really a Problem?

noreply@blogger.com (TN - houkwing) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:49:00 +0000

Click fraud is currently a major topic in online advertising. Many argue that it presents a threat to the stability and viability of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, the key revenue generator for both Google and Overture. In actuality, click fraud is not a significant issue at all.

Click fraud occurs when ads are clicked for reasons other than a genuine interest in learning more about the product or service advertised. Click fraud occurs in two forms. In one instance, fraud arises from competitors trying to sabotage each other. One competitor clicks on the ads of another just to drain the budget of that company. The other instance occurs when webmasters (or people associated with the webmaster) repeatedly click Google AdSense ads (which are syndications of others’ ads) on their own web pages in order to generate more revenue. While both Overture and Google have developed sophisticated technologies to detect click fraud, their systems are, and may never be, foolproof.

The real question is how much does click fraud actually damage the PPC industry? Gross fraud, i.e., when one person or technology consistently and repeatedly clicks on an ad, aside, which Overture and Google can easily detect, we believe that click fraud has no real impact on the industry. The following explains why.

Efficient market theory says that it is impossible to “beat a market” because prices already incorporate and reflect all relevant information. As the PPC industry has matured, efficiency has begun to take root. That is, the price of each keyword has been driven up to the point where it reflects the highest price an advertiser is willing to pay for a click.

For instance, a book retailer may pay $1.00 per click based on internal metrics. These metrics dictate, for example, that on average 30% of clickers purchase a book and the average profit per sale is $4.00. So, for every 100 clicks ($100 cost), they make 30 sales ($120 revenue) and generate a $20.00 (20%) profit. Note that years ago, the same retailer may have been able to pay only $0.50 per click, but as the market matured and more retailers began advertising, competitive bidding forced the price up to $1.00 where the highest return the most advertisers can make is 20%.

The key point is that click fraud is already taken into effect when advertisers select the highest amount they will bid. For instance, there is no difference whether an advertiser pays $0.83/click for 121 clicks with 21 being fraudulent, or $1.00/click for 100 clicks when there is absolutely no fraud. In either case, the advertiser pays $100 and generates a profit of $20, and Overture and/or Google make $100. What changes is the advertiser’s yield (e.g., the percent of clickers who purchased the book) which in turn effects their highest bid price. That is, with fraud, 30 out of 121 clickers (24.8%) purchased the book, and without fraud 30 out of 100 clickers (30%) purchased it. Without fraud, the bid price in an efficient market will rise from $0.83 to $1.00.

In summary, online advertisers must focus on analyzing and improving their internal metrics (e.g., conversions) and not worry about click fraud as it is already incorporated into keyword bid prices. Hopefully, the frivolous lawsuits and refund requests spawned by apparent click fraud will end as those in the industry recognize this undeniable fact.

How to save money on the Adwords network

noreply@blogger.com (TN - houkwing) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:49:00 +0000

Over the years I have had many accounts with Adwords, spending a small fortune with the Adwords service. So naturally I have picked up many cost saving tricks. I am aware that most people feel Adwords costs too much and delivers little results, this is completely untrue. Adwords is a service that is here to help us, so I have written this article to help web developers make the most out of the service.

1) Set your currency,
First and foremost, select the currency of which you locally trade in. You may think its wise to start your Adwords account in USD, but if you do not live in the USA you may get a shock when you find how much you have been charged.

2) Use negative keywords,
You are using the Adwords service to generate website traffic, so obviously you want the right traffic to generate revenue. Start by using negative keywords for people whom you do not want to click on your advert, the best place to start is the keyword “free”. As I doubt you want to waste money on traffic that will not generate revenue.

3) Make a strict daily budget
Make sure you have set out a daily budget, Adwords generally advise a way out of proportion budget. After all most new Adwords customers have no idea how effective the advertising will be. Do not start off with a bang, your pocket will feel it.

Just as important as the budget, be careful with the CPC rate. I advise you to start with a low number, each click soon adds up very quickly. I actually found that by lowering my CPC rate by 50% I doubled my visitor count…

4) Check those clicks!
One of the most talked about problem with Adwords is, click fraud. There are two main types of click fraud: the first is when any one starts clicking away at your advertisements trying to waste your money. It is very hard to stop this kind of fraud, if you are a victim stop your ads and file a report to Google ASAP.

The second main issue is now that google allows Web Developers to earn money off their websites by placing ads (Adsense) .some Web Developers try to cheat the system by clicking on their ads as much as possible. The best way to stop this kind of fraud is check your page log, Adwords allow you to block out websites that you do
not want your advert to be placed on.

Adwords does not have many protections against Click fraud, although they do disable Adsense accounts who cheat. Google are very hesitant to refund the victims, if at all. Reports tell many organisations are actually suing Google to get their money back, so be careful.

In this article I have illustrated some of the most beneficial ways to save money when advertising with Adwords. My main advice to you is, do not go crazy with your spending. You may not see the results you are after, it does take a while to get to know Adwords. I have had many successful ad campaigns using the Adwords network. However I do advise to look around, with the ever growing popularity of MSN search you may actually find it much more affordable.

The Basics of Blogging to Niche Markets

noreply@blogger.com (TN - houkwing) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:48:00 +0000

In the previous article, we discussed how blogs can help you generate traffic for your main website. But what if you don’t have another site? Or what if you want your blog to be your main website, the exclusive carrier of your moneymaking ventures?

This can be achieved, of course. Such is the versatility of web logs.

Standalone blogs are best utilized for online businessmen or women who have decided to pursue what many people call as nicheing. Yes, the word is ungrammatical, but it is a term that many Internet marketers have come to embrace with fondness. Nicheing involves the creation of many sites that cater to particular niches. Niches, of course, are very specialized markets, most of which are so obscure that they do not garner the attention of businesses, hence creating high demands with low supplies. The purpose of nicheing is to find these markets and provide for their needs. These enterprising businessmen would earn through the following ways:

* Creating and eventually selling products that aim to serve the said niches.

* Selling existing products that the said niches need.

* Providing for information that the members of the said niches can access for free, and enrolling the site that contains the information in a Pay Per Click (PPC) program like Google AdSense.

Regardless of what path the online entrepreneur decides to take, he should first create a site that serves as the repository of his commercial methods. Niches can be very rewarding. Since there is but a few competitions in the field, your search engine placement is sure to be higher than usual. Traffic should also be at a sustainable level since the members of a niche have nothing else to visit. This will mean a greater possibility for more sales, if you’re selling a product, or a higher Click Through Rate (CTR) if you’re enrolled in a PPC program.

Now, making a site can be quite cumbersome. You have to deal with the aspects of web design, graphic creation, and content writing among other concerns. What more when you have to create numerous sites for numerous niches?

Thankfully, blogs will make things a whole lot easier for you. Every online marketer who has attained success with niche marketing can attribute this to their proper exploitation of blogs. Whereas it would take you a couple of weeks to come up with 10 websites, it would only take you a couple of hours to come up with 10 blog sites. The sheer convenience and ease of web logs have made nicheing a very potent business model.

Blogs can very much substitute for a regular website. As we have previously discussed, high quality content is, ultimately, what will drive traffic to your site, and this kind of content can easily be carried through a blog. Also, you don’t have to change the entire page whenever you want to update your content, as you would with a regular website. With blogs, all you have to do is to write your update in a designated box and press the publish button. Of course, different blogging software have various features, but none comes more loaded than Wordpress (www.wordpress.com).

Blogging is the way to go if you want to create, and maintain, several niche sites. And Wordpress is the weapon of choice for most Internet marketers. To fully realize the potentials of the medium, therefore, you should be able to exploit all the features that Wordpress does offer. Again, David Pankhurst’s excellent report on powerful Wordpress secrets (http://www.malkeenan.com/top10tricks) will help you excel in this area.

Look out for the next article, where we’re going to discuss how you could efficiently integrate the Google AdSense program into your blog, and make it a passive income generating machine.

The No-Work, Money-Making Website

noreply@blogger.com (TN - houkwing) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:48:00 +0000

While growing up on the farm in North Carolina, I loved gardening. There was something magical about planting a dollar's worth of seeds, watching them germinate, and then feeding the family for a entire season with my efforts.

The only part I didn't enjoy was the weeding and cultivating. That was the WORK! So I was thrilled when I discovered "The Ruth Stout No Work Garden Book." That book taught me how to get all of those great vegetables with no weeding, very little cultivating, and little watering. It really did teach you how to garden with literally no work.

Twenty year later, I discovered just as fertile a garden on the Internet. With practically no investment other than my time, I could put up a website, nurture it, build traffic to it, and in time, harvest lots of sales from it.

Just like with the vegetable garden, there was a lot of maintenance required if you wanted a good harvest.

The site needed to be constantly updated so that the search engines "learned" that they should visit this "fresh" site often.

The site needed to have lots of keyword rich webpages so that it would rank high for relevant keywords, and attract organic search engine traffic. Since I was taught that "content is king" that meant the more content-rich, tightly-focused webpages you had, the better. The content-rich pages meant you could make sales, get new subscribers, and even earn pay-per-click revenue from programs such as Google AdSense.

The only problem with the above model is... it's a lot of WORK.

Then I discovered, "The No-work, Money-making Website. It wasn't completely no work, but it was probably 1/10th the work that I had been doing.

The no-work website encompasses building a content-rich website using automated tools. These tools allow you to gather relevant content (articles, RSS feeds, etc.) from all over the Internet and then instantly generate hundreds ... even thousands of content rich webpages in minutes.

The no-work website encompasses using other tools to automatically update your site, so that each time the search engine spiders visit, they notice new content. Noticing new content on each visit, the search engine spiders make a note to visit more often.

Now here's where this gets really powerful...

As these search engine spiders visit more often, they don't just crawl your current no-work, money-making site. They also follow links to other sites you want to get indexed. So now you can put up your no-work site, teach the search engines to come back often, and then go on to build other sites knowing that getting them indexed is as simple as linking to them from your old sites. It really is that easy :-)

By now you're probably asking what are some of these magic tools I use to build these amazing, no-work sites that literally takes on a life of their own.

Here's are just a few of the tools I personally use:

1) Blogs. Blogs hosted on Blogger.com get noticed very quickly by Google because Google owns Blogger.com By pinging blog directories (and Yahoo using your "My Yahoo" page) lots of other sites take notice of your blog. They visit your blog and follow links to other target sites.

2) I'm a charter member of Content Desk. Content Desk has a tool that allows me to query databases containing tens of thousands of articles (based upon keywords). I can automatically sort the list of articles that is returned based upon keyword density, or a number of other criteria. Then, I can have the software itself create webpages for me using a template I've designed using the template tool built right into Content Desk.

Content Desk is probably my favorite tool because I can, quite literally, add hundreds of article pages to my sites in minutes. My templates also include ads for a "pet" product and/or Google AdSense. I can add content-rich, relevant, very nice-looking pages to my sites in minute, and then move on to the next project, knowing that these pages WILL make me money.

Content Desk limited its charter membership to a total of only 400 members, and that quickly sold out. However, since it's a monthly membership, not all members renew and there are probably some openings. To check on openings, simply visit:
http://WillieCrawford.com/content-desk.html

After arriving at the site, click on the "Charter Membership" link in the upper left menu bar. This will tell you if there are any current openings.

3) RSS Feeds. By incorporating RSS feeds into your webpages, you can set them up so that the content is constantly updated. This gives your visitors something fresh to read each time they visit. This gives the search engines fresh content each time that they visit ... and trains them to visit often.

Content Desk incorporates a feature that works very similar to regular RSS feeds EXCEPT that it doesn't send your website traffic away. With a normal RSS feed, the content automatically added to your site contains links inviting your visitors to click away. It allows you to automatically update your pages, but it also siphons off traffic. Content Desk does this in a way that automatically updates your site without sending your visitors away.

4) Traffic On Steroids. This is another system for automatically updating/changing content on your site. Traffic On Steroids actually takes a core database of articles/content that you set up and then rotates it in your target webpages. The net effect is that each time a visitor (or search engine) visits a page, the page is different. This is very effective at training the search engines to come back often... and increasing your pages' ranking. Incorporate Google AdSense into these pages and you have another hands-off money magnet.

You can also incorporate a product data-feed into your page using Secret Money Generator and have pages that are constantly updates AND have a catalog of products built in that all pay you an affiliate commission. Secret Money Generator is at:
http://WillieCrawford.com/money-secret.html

You can check out Traffic On Steroids at
http://WillieCrawford.com/traffic-on-steroids.html

I've just shared with you a few of the dozens of tools I use to create nearly-hands-off websites. I do still look at some of them from time to time to see if I can make them perform better. However, you could LITERALLY never touch many of your sites created with these tools for years... and you'd still have a nice revenue stream from them.

It’s all about working smarter, not harder. It's all about using technology to leverage your time.

A Website Model That Makes Money

noreply@blogger.com (TN - houkwing) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:48:00 +0000

I would like to share with you one simple stratergy in creating income with your own website. This is just one method out of simply millions that you could create for yourself. Remember the internet provides no limits. This is one example that does work for me, and may give you an insight into exactly a website model, that you may like to put into action for yourself. Affiliate marketing and/or sales of any kind on the internet, requires a real commitment, as I am sure you do already realize. The internet is really one of the greatest training grounds in the world for sales. You can try and fail many times, until you find that system and approach that will work for you. But the commitment that you show in meeting this challenge, will be a lesson that you will always remember. Success is always achieved in no matter what you do, through simple hard work. There is no easy path to success, but when you achieve the success you are after, there is no greater feeling. So lets begin. In this example my website, which for the purposes of this article i will call '????'. I will give you the exact profit breakdowns.

With this website I treat all my affiliate products as purely residual income, much like adsense. Adsense itself generates for me, on this website, on average around $2 per day. I also use various other companies affiliate products, which generate around $200 per month. Also within the website, I sell e-book informational products, which I own the full resale rights for, which generate around $700 per month. And here lies the answer to making money online, no matter what you sell. The products, that generate the most income, are the ones that you will own yourself. Certainly I should be making more from the affiliate info products that I sell. But I lose commissions through simple affiliate url tampering. Commissions that are stolen or lost are a real pain. You can try every method in the book to protect your affiliate codes. But after all the hard work is done, you still lose that valuable income. The people who sell the original affiliate product know this, which is mostly why a high percentage of the sales price is offered to an affiliate to begin with. Because they realize that a very high ratio of sales made on their products will give them the total profit back. The reasons why people change affiliate product codes etc, could run into pages. Lets just say it is inevitable. This is the reason why I treat all my affiliate based products as purely residual income.

But as you can see in this example clearly where the highest return on investment lies. And that is in the products that you actually own. You can purchase resale rights for info products easily, and it involves not much money at all, most products are available for under $50. Or if you have the time and patience to search the internet. You can find amazing e-books that have free resell rights and the information they contain is really valuable. You will find these types of treasures occasionally, and the lights will start flashing in your eyes when you do. The information that you have just discovered is of value and that is a real key to success. This is why I, at this point, strongly emphasize the importance of this one principle. Only sell products that you feel strongly about and you know that will be of great value to the person who may purchase it. That includes products you have bought the resale rights for, or a free product, you have discovered with resale rights.

If you sell strong products with real informational value consistently you will always succeed. Your customers will return, quite simply because they know where the value of the information they seek is the greatest. And that is at your website. Always remember to put yourself into your visitors shoes. Ask yourself the question? Would you buy the products you are selling? Answer this question with a Yes. And you will be really on the start too online success.

Creating A Blog To Promote An Existing Business

noreply@blogger.com (TN - houkwing) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:47:00 +0000

If you belong to any of the following groups, then this article is for you.

* You already have a business and a website that serves as the official hub for your online sales. The website may be serving as an online store for your enterprise.

* You need a venue wherein you can promote your affiliate links.

* Your already have a website, which may not necessarily be a commercial one, and it is enrolled with a Pay Per Click (PPC) program, like Google AdSense.

Success in these fields depends on one essential principle which you might have already realized: traffic is the key to your online business thriving.

You may have in your digital inventory the best products in the world, but they won’t mean squat if no one would get to see them. This is why each and every online businessman will fight tooth and nail just to have a piece of the Internet traffic. After all, the more visitors who get to visit your site, the more potential clients you have.

And blogs can most definitely help you drive visitors to your pages. Here is how you could use them to achieve such a purpose:

1. Download the Wordpress blogging software, which is available for free at www.wordpress.com . An alternative is to go with blogger.com. I have posted instructions for setting up a Blogger blog at your own server in this PDF file:
http://www.pluginprofitstraining.com/blogsetup.pdf

2. Remember that good content is always at the heart of a progressive online traffic stream. People are always looking for information, and if you will give them that, they would read what you have to offer. Dedicate your blog to the subject of your main website. Publish informative entries that would hook your readers and make them come back for updates. In between purely educational entries, strategically include a link to your site by suggesting their importance to your readers.

3. Using the above mentioned strategy, you could also include your affiliate links to pre-sell your affiliate products. The more traffic you drive to your affiliate merchant’s site or sales page, the more chances you will have of effectuating a successful sale and bigger commissions.

4. Links from blogs are unilateral, meaning, they are one way links to your websites. The more traffic a unilateral link generates, the more it becomes prominent in online searches. Avoid reciprocal links at all costs! Do not include a link to your blog from your website. Search engines abhor reciprocal linking.

5. 80% of your traffic will come from the search engines. You have to tweak your blog to attract the attention of the search engine spiders. Now, blogs are already search engine friendly. However, there is a very big possibility that you would be competing with other blogs on the same subject. You have to make sure that once you upload your blog, it is able to outperform its competitors in the search engine rankings.

One way you can do this is by using the title of your post to match the keyword phrases you are targeting, plus put a sprinkling of your keyword phrase in the post itself. I am doing this with great results.

6. Check your blog offline. It should be as readable and as navigable as possible for your prospective readers. Make appropriate adjustments if necessary.

7. Upload your blog to a reliable server that has enough bandwidth to accommodate many viewers.

8. Constantly update your blog. Search engines love regularly updated content, so publishing new entries will greatly increase your blog’s page rank, and consequently, your main website’s traffic.

9. Accepting links from other related blogs will also bring to your site some traffic from sources other then search engines. The way that a blog is designed fosters the building of a community of blog sites, and this will provide for an added stream of visitors for you.

10. You could also decide to enroll your blog site in the Google AdSense advertising program. This will give you an additional income stream. We will discuss this in future articles.

Blogs are excellent promotional tools for your existing business. Use them well and you will harvest the rewards in a matter of weeks.

My Top 7 Favorite Ecommerce Tools

noreply@blogger.com (TN - houkwing) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:43:00 +0000

When you make your living on the Internet, you sometimes forget that the resources you use every day (and take for granted) might rate an incredible discovery to anyone who doesn't already know they exist.

Whether they help you make money, save time, save money, or avoid frustration, these ecommerce tools and services rate my highest recommendation for anyone who conducts any form of ecommerce online.

ClickBank.com -

If you sell a downloadable product such as an ebook, report, or software, you can't beat ClickBank for processing credit card payments. Not only do they take the payments and send you a check twice a month, they also plug your product into an existing network with tens-of-thousands of affiliates who can sell it for you. Also, unlike a traditional merchant credit card processing account, ClickBank assumes all the fraud risk and prevents many of the "horror" stories you hear in connection with online credit card processing.

MySiteSales.com -

Since ClickBank only allows the sale of downloadable products, MySiteSales.com comes to the rescue for anyone selling a physical product or service. Offering a suite of integrated product catalogs, follow up autoresponders, advertising tracking, a secure server, and even limited-time coupon offers, this tool rates a "must have" for setting up and integrating a professional ecommerce solution on virtually any size website.

Aweber.com -

If you need an unlimited number of follow up autoresponders and the ability to send an email "broadcast" to all your contacts at one time, Aweber offers an excellent managed solution. Specializing in helping small to medium-sized Web businesses implement an effective email follow-up strategy without complicated software, Aweber gets our highest marks for service and dependability.

GoDaddy.com -

Cheap, reliable, easy-to-use domain name registrar that only charges $8.95 per year for each domain name you register. Godaddy rates cheaper and just as, if not more, reliable than any other domain registrar. They also offer a "private registration" option that allows you to keep your identity as the domain owner a secret from unscrupulous people who exploit domain name records to compile mailing lists, spam databases or worse.

FrontierPowerHosting.com -

Any successful ecommerce endeavor begins with a solid website hosting service. Nothing shuts you down faster than an unreliable web host because, the second they go offline, your business goes offline. I host one of my servers at FrontierPowerHosting.com because of great customer service and guaranteed up-time.

ClipArt.com -

Ever pulled your hair out searching for that perfect image, photo, or piece of clipart for your website? Once you exhaust the Microsoft collection on your computer, the next stop (if you want to find something fast) is Clipart.com. With thousands of images searchable by keyword, you can always find the perfect image in less time and without the worries of copyright infringement if you just pull something off the Web.

Google.com/Adsense/ -

Website got traffic but no making much money? Open a free account with Google AdSense and earn a commission any time someone clicks on any of the targeted ads. An excellent way to earn extra cash on virtually any website.

Huge Content Rich Websites for Profit

noreply@blogger.com (TN - houkwing) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:36:00 +0000

Here is the bare bone - no hype information and a link to the website I built using these techniques. So I not going to lie to you about how much money you can make or how much I made. Simply put, people are making money with these kinds of sites, I just want a piece of the action. This article assumes you have a basic knowledge of HTML, Google Adsense, and Affiliate Advertising.

We've all heard the phrases "Content is King" and "If content is King, then relevance is Queen!". So I'm going to share with you how to build a site based on these principles for profit! I built a 1000+ page content rich website in about 2 days. Check it out at http://articleupdates.com

Website Building tools:

I used DreamWeaver as my html editor. Any good html editor will work such as Frontpage. Go to download.com and search for "html editor". Coffeecup is a very popular free editor. Basically you need a good editor that will update links site wide automatically. Give you reports on broken links, and do search and replace site wide, file specific, and etc... Also very important is a good table building capability.

For the content I pulled articles from various free content sites. As long as you adhere to the terms of fair use, you will have access to thousands of content rich articles that you can put in your own website.

Get a simple clipart cd with 150,000 royalty free images from Bestbuy for $20.

Then plug in your affiliate codes for google adsense, clickbank, and commission junction.

You don't have to be an html expert. Just having some basic programming knowlege is enough. For example, understanding head, body, and building tables. Inserting variables and doing global changes. Any good html editor will help with that. You really need to become an expert at building tables. They are fast loading and can really make an impact on a site. If you are into css, even better!

Key Features for SEO: Keyword Rich and Relevant!

Building with SEO (search engine optimization) in mind. Use these techniques when building your site!

Niche Site: Pick a very specific topic. I chose "Making Money Online with Content Rich Sites" for this example.

Use a simple structure. Index page to "Index of Articles". Then "Index of Articles" to each individual article page. Two levels, easy to manage, easy to spider!

Make your site surfer friendly: No hidden pages, re-directs, pop-ups, spyware, java, or scripts. Just use ".html" files with text links to full text content rich pages which are also easily spidered with useful relevant information for the visitor. Include lots of articles including a few unique pages that you have written yourself.

Now start building your basic template for all the pages on your site. How you build your template will greatly depend on what editor and tools you'll be using. For example: most times you'll do something like Huge Content Rich Websites for Profit. When you go to build your 1000+ page site, the editor will replace the title tag with the appropriate text dynamically.

Title Tag and Description Tags and all other meta tags should be relevant and keyword rich.

Page Title
- Use relevant keywords on each index page to the articles
- Use the article title which will have additional relevant keywords for each article page.

H1 Tags - Keyword rich and relevant ex: "Make Money Online", "Home Based Business"

H2 Tags - Use the article title in the article pages. ex: "10 Ways To Make Money Online"

robot.txt file for spiders - just a simple two line file in your root directory
User-agent: *
Disallow:

Body text - Use content rich articles. Also use high color contrast between the text and the background so the search engine doesn't think your trying to hide anything and penalize you. Plus it's just plain easier to read. Use arial or verdana font.

URLs, File Names, and Directories - use the article title
ex: http://articleupdates.com/i-home-business/five-ways-to-increase-your-affiliate-sales.html

Inbound links: Set up link partners. If you can, have them place the link to your site using a keyword instead of the domain name itself. ex: Make Money Online Click Here.

Outbound links: Do the same for your link partners. Set up links using text that is relevant to their topic which should be relevant to your site but not competing if possible. If you sell computers, link to a company that sells computer desks.

Make same site links with relevant text. ex: "make money at home" will link to a page within your own site.

Make Image alt text use primary keywords. ex: "money online"

Add HTML comment tags that use primary keywords. These are not seen buy the surfer, but can be seen by search engine spiders. No one has proven this helps, but it doesn't hurt!

Now add money making adsense and affiliate links on every page. Put them top center between the article title and article content. Adjust the colors so that is blends in with your web page content.

Google adsense will pick up the page title, h1 and h2 tags to target the ad. When someone clicks on it, you get paid!.

Once you have these basic things set up in your template, you need to use a powerful tool called Article Equalizer. With a little practice, you'll be able to build 1000+ page websites in just a day or two. The link to Article Equalizer is http://hop.clickbank.net/?mark6188/articleeq

Another important thing you can do: Add dynamic RSS content by keyword. I'll follow up on this in my next article.

Google's own AdSense Tips

noreply@blogger.com (TN - houkwing) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:35:00 +0000

Google is at least as interested as you are in having your ads perform well on your site. And they've gone to some work to provide the information you need to optimize your AdSense.

What's fascinating to me is that apparently not everyone bothers to read their tips. And even some that do, fail to apply it.

That said, you need to be aware that simply using their tips doesn't guarantee successful ads and decent CTR (Click Through Rate). How many times have you heard this? You have to test. You have to try alternatives and see what really works best for you, on your pages, with your content and your visitors. Test, test, test some more. Track your results, analyze them, try variations. Too many of us don't test. We hear the mantra, but we don't do the work.

First, let's see if we can get an idea about location. (The graphic is included in the article on my site or you can take a look at it at the Google link included below) Generally, above the fold, at the top center of your content, below top navigation is the hottest location. Not immediately below which is good but not quite as hot. In a left sidebar, to the immediate left of primary content or below the primary content are also good. Most other locations are generally cooler.

Again, you need to test and you need to consider your users behavior - and their behavior may vary on different pages with different kinds of content. Google suggests that in some cases, such as articles, the best location can be at the end of the article. To quote Google, "It's almost as if users finish reading and ask themselves, What can I do next?" Well targeted relevant ads right there can provide the answer.

Don't blindly assume that sticking a nice big rectangle in the center above the fold will do it. It may, but depending on your content, it may annoy or inconvenience your users.

Users tend to focus on content, navigation and to a lesser extent graphics. Positioning your ads near these elements will often work well -- if those ads are targeted to your visitors needs.

The top three performers among the Google ad formats are the 336X280 large rectangle, the 300X250 inline rectangle and the 160X600 wide skyscraper. Google reports that the wider formats tend to do better than the taller ones. One reason may be that these are, perhaps, easier to read since they have fewer line breaks and require less eye movement. But, you need to use formats that fit your pages well. Once again, you need to test, but redoing your pages to suit a particular ad format may not be a reasonable alternative and you may discover that a different format actually gets better results.

Now we come to color. Conventional wisdom says that colors which tend to blend into your content do better. Some go so far as to suggest that colors which make the ads look like part of the content are best. Personally, I think anybody really believes those ads are anything but ads, but who knows. Google suggests that you may find that colors that standout from your content do better - or maybe the opposite. This is absolutely an area where you need to test alternative color schemes. Going with the conventional wisdom usually works fairly well, but without testing you could be leaving a lot of money on the table.

Google allows you to have up to three ad units and one link unit on your pages. If you have long pages with lots of text, can only use small ad units or are in a niche with a large ad inventory, multiple units can pay off. Keep in mind that the way ad serving works is that the higher value ads are delivered to the first ad unit block encountered in your code. Always make sure that this first ad unit is displayed in the best location (yeah - test). You want the higher paying ads to be in the prime hot location on your page. Weaker locations can get the lower priced ads. And if none are available, then nothing will display unless you've included an alternate ad URL in your Google code. To maximize monetization you should be including alternate ad URLs, especially if you are putting multiple units on a page. The use of an alternate ad URL also eliminates the possibility of being served PSAs (Public Service Announcements). It's your real estate, maximize your returns.

Nothing here is secret. Except for using the alternate ad URL, all of this information is available from Google's Optimization Tips page - http://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/static.py?page=tips.html . You can buy books and courses, visit a dozen forums and, in the end it comes down to what your visitors do on your site. The best you can get is general guidance. This means averaged outcomes over many sites, many types of content. If you are serious about doing whatever you can to really optimize your AdSense returns, there is only one thing to do - test. Whether it's AdSense, opt-ins, copy, headlines - anything with a measurable outcome that you can track - then the way to improve is to test and keep on testing.

Optimizing AdSense™ by User Behaviour

noreply@blogger.com (TN - houkwing) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:35:00 +0000

If web surfers behaved all alike, if there were strict patterns in users' behaviour, wouldn't all publishers be on a sunny beach right now, with a fancy-colored cocktail, worring not about AdSense™ optimization matters?

Web user's behaviour depends on two main groups of variables: the user-related one and the website-related one.

A) User-related Behavior Variables

Though people react very differently at various stimuli, we can identify some peculiarities specific to web surfers. The behaviour is much like yours. Have you considered watching your own actions while surfing on the web? This might help if you want to improve your site's appeal to readers, especially if you sell something or if you want your visitors to click on your ads.

Several groups of variables that influence users' behaviour can be identified:

* Components of the mental processes involved while searching and browsing on the Internet: attention, awareness, language, mental imagery etc.
* The behavior of websurfers is influenced also by their subjective approach to matters, determined by temperamental characteristics, such as mood, patience and their purpose and degree of interest.
* Also, users act differently varying with how used they are to web surfing.

Let's see how we can tweak our websites to turn these to our advantage (and turn visitors into “clickers”):

1. Mental processes

Attention - The web designer keeps the tools to direct readers' attention. A simple design, without unnecessary loading will prevent the reader from being distracted by unimportant elements. The ads placement must be done strategically, in a place impossible to overlook (recommended in the first paragraph, usually in the upper-left area). Pictures and graphics are considered attention-grabbers and will also be considered when choosing your ads' placement.

Awareness - This is a very debated topic. Opinions differ on readers' ads awareness. Some sustain that the more blended into content, the better, others say that this formatting will induce the readers the feeling of being “tricked” into clicking on ads, which they resent. I incline to say that blend-in ads work only for very well targeted ads, coming naturally as if belonging to the content. Positioning ads outside the content area would be effective mostly with advertising that builds brand awareness, based on image impressions.

Mental Imagery - Again, a pleasant, uncluttered design, a balanced look of the page contribute to a positive perception of the page from the part of the reader and to a more open state of mind. A professional layout is important. It inspires confidence, people don't want to purchase from a just any backyard business.

2. Subjectiveness

Patience - A golden rule: don't abuse your readers' patience (for they usually don't have one)! Web pages must load quickly, ads must not be placed in readers' way and should be kept to a reasonable number.

Purpose and Mood - Are more related to the topic of your site and the type of content you publish. The idea is that users' purpose and mood can be influenced by copy.

Degree of Interest - Besides relevant, good content, that answers questions, the reader's interest is influenced by involvement and interaction. Keep your reader involved, integrate your ads into an interaction environment: these will work wonders on your CTR.

3. User's Degree of Acquaintace with Web Surfing

Net savvy users have developed certain immunities, such as ad-blindness. These are less likely to click on any ads. Customizing ads for this type of readers means harder work; the result must be ads of high relevance (and remarkable ad texts!), with an aspect as close to the rest of the page as possible, as if they were a natural continuation of your ideas. Important! avoid default formats.

B) Site-related Variables

The type of the site and the topic attract visitors with different interests with different behavioral patterns.

1. Site Type — Readers vs Browsers

Whether the visitor is a “reader” or a “scanner/browser” depends also on the site type — content and topic. Generally, readers are regular visitors while “scanners” are the ones who look for information and will not spend too much time on the same site. Site topic and content are most times factors in bringing more “uniques” or more regular visitors. Though not as a rule, these apply to many sites:

Sites Attracting Unique Visitors - These are mostly commercial sites, content sites. Statistics say that unique visitors are more likely to be your clickers, for regular readers are more used to your pages' look and your ads. Contextual advertising works well with these sites. If you're headed for unique visitors, make your site “SE-friendly”. They come mostly from search engines and are said to be “pre-qualified” clickers. So, your efforts should be directed towards keywords and keyword phrases optimization. The ideal would be to go beyond the technicalities, that is finding out what are the most searched for keywords in your area of preoccupations and try to find out why these are popular, try to find a behavioral pattern. This can be achieved by statistics and analysis. Find out some niches in your area and the users' behaviour within them — that is, lists of searches and then see what is it customers want. This will solve your puzzle and give you exact hints towards what works best for your site. Keep in mind: unique visitors are mostly "browsers". Use ad placement and ad customization techniques that apply best for this type of users.

Sites with Regular Visitors - These are mostly forums, blogs and news sections (though news are somewhere in between). If you own sites with many bookmarks, that attract especially repeat visitors, then either you will be very imaginative in customizing your ads and finding new ways to interest your readers into clicking or if not the case, better use CPM based advertising. Brand bulding/reinforcement advertising works better in this case.

2. Site Theme Relates to Visitor's Mood and Purpose

Commercial Sites - Sites selling and promoting products are more suitable for CPC advertising. By their specific, this type of site will attract visitors looking for a specific product/service/business opportunity. Thus, users are more in a buying mood, are looking for a way to spend their money profitably. These are clickers.

Content Sites, Blogs, Forums - Unless you market specific products, your readers will land on your page without the express purpose of buying something. However, you can influence your reader's mood and needs thru witty, sales-directed copywriting. You just need to know some basic things that sell. One is that people are more likely to buy from persons they know, like and trust.

So, what will help you build these? Good content and structure. Especially with content sites, these are fundamental issues to focus on (unlike commercial sites that focus more on products). Good content, profesionally written and formatted for the web, containing information that is of high interest and relevance for the reader, within an easily manageable structure and good targeting on a specific theme are imperatives. On one hand these mean bulding confidence, the first step in selling. On the other hand they will attract well-targeted ads, more likely to interest your reader.

Great content will give you credit to your reader. Once you've gained trust, it's easy to direct your readers: you just give recommendations and the results will appear. (Avoid being too explicit in recommendations, though — for example, directing readers towards clicking on ads is against AdSense™ Program Policies.)

With blogs and forums, it is a different story. Not all forums and blogs are accepted for AdSense™ (or even if accepted, they must be also profitable). Only genuine, specifically-themed blogs and forums, with highly interesting content are suitable. These conditions being fulfilled, forums and blogs are perfect as a source of advertising money — they have what is very difficult for others to achieve: reader's trust, liking and involvement.

4 Steps To Unleashing Profits In Your Online Business

noreply@blogger.com (TN - houkwing) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:34:00 +0000

Ever wonder how the thousands of "under the radar" web businesses that earn well over $100,000/year (many with much higher sales) out of their own home do it?

Over the last year I've had the great fortune to speak with many of these true, hidden entrepreneurs at conferences, seminars, e.t.c.

What I'm about to share with you also came true for me, and is outlined in more detail in my Ultimate Information Entrepreneur's Success Package

Here's an example of their business model:

1. Information Products. Without a doubt, each one of the successes I know market their own infoproducts. For some, it's an ebook. Others have special reports. Still others run online coaching programs, membership sites, paid newsletters, teleseminars, or produce digital audio or video products. It's not their only source of income, but is a MAJOR source of income, and more important, brands them an expert in their field leading to success with 2 and 3 below.

2. Market related Affiliate Products. Again, in almost every case, these online success stories become experts at finding and creating joint venture deals with partners.

But, they work differently than most affiliates.

They start by ALWAYS reviewing the product they will market. Second, they look for a different way to present the product or service - a more beneficial way to show users the real benefit in the affiliate product. Third, they use the branding from 1 to negotiate higher commissions and focus on high commission programs only.

3. They monetize their traffic using Adsense or selling advertising on their sites. For high traffic pages where adding paid ads or Google's Adsense will not impact their own sales, they will run ads to further monetize their sites.

4. Sell their time. You will find that truly successful people online LOVE to help people succeed. But...for every person who is really dedicated to succeeding there are 10 "tire kickers" who want someone to hand them success on a silver platter. It doesn't work that way, nothing works that way. So, in order to leave time to help those who really want it, coaching programs are formed. Yes - you have to pay big money, but you should easily be able to get 10X the value for money spent.

So as you can see, there is no ONE single way to build
your wealth online.

Instead, you build a diversified, rich and healthy business by focusing on these 4 pillars. Not only will you earn more money, but your business will be stronger and build momentum faster when you do

Article on the timing of events with Site Build It

noreply@blogger.com (TN - houkwing) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:34:00 +0000

Firstly let me say that I think Site Build It, it rocks. When I started on this journey, that I am still on, I started reading everything about mail marketing, web marketing etc etc. I had already been ripped off with the developers of my first site so I was not going to let that happen again. But then I was shown SBI and I have not looked back.

However, there are ways that you can make you use of SBI better, not by using something else, not by not reading the manual, which you should do about 5 times. (The devil is in the detail!!), but if this is your first site then you can maximize your SBI investment with timing. Why, well when you start you are probably going to go through stages, reading the manual, research, writing, reading, putting up pages, adding links etc etc, it is at this stage, prior to monitorising your site that timing is everything to maximize what site build it does for you and what you can do for yourself FREE. Here is the timing.

Buy site build it and stop reading any other web marketing stuff
Read the manual
Re-read the manual
Do the Brain thing
Document everything
Write loads of copy
Start putting the copy up
When you get to 40 pages
Become a Zealot (See Hints and Tips at Site Central)
Start doing the mini hum thing
Ask for a DMOZ listing
Write some articles and send them off
Apply for Google Adesense
Get as many links as you can
Then Monitorise your site with Google
Then add your newsletter stuff
Then add your affiliate links.
Now read all the other SBI products
(keep re-reading the manual)

OK, OK now you are asking why that order. Well a lot of it is covered in the manual so a lot of it I will just glance over, but the middle bit I will dwell on. Now I am supposing you want the best results for the cheapest price – right.

OK If you are new to this you probably either want to put up loads of content or a sales page. If you read the manual you will see the content must come first, content, content and more content.

Now I presume you have bought your site, you have done the brainstorm thing and got everything in hand, you have loads of content. OK now you have built the site to about 30 to 40 pages, make sure they are spell check, linked and look good.

Now go off and become a Zealot. Details are on the tip and hint’s site build it site. Just go to the site and do the quiz, if you fail do it again, if you fail read the answers and keep going until you pass, one you do then put forward you site.

Now why do things in this order, because as soon as you have put up any adds or a few links to affiliates the webmasters they deem you as a commercial website and say you have to pay. If you have no ads etc, then you get in if you have a good content site.

Now do not just put up you main page, put up every page in every section you can. Try doing three pages a day until you start getting the replies back saying you have been accepted.

Now do the same things with DMOZ

(News just in – Value Exchange started Excellent – I got an email prior to Ken's Newsletter so I went straight in and so far I have got three ‘good’ links)

Now build your E-bay page and link to your site from that – see details in MYNAS at Site Central Hints and Tip’s

Now apply for Google Adsense, follow the instructions at site build it. Again if you do this in this order you will avoid not getting onto Adsense because you are already advertising one of their clients. Just one of the things that can fail you.

OK now go for the mini hubs that are also in the tips and hints.

OK, now that has probably taken a bit of time and during that time Site Build It, your new links and other work have probably now got you up in the Alexa rankings, now is time to add your Newsletter forms, your Google Adsense code and start the work on the affiliates site.