If I find 10,000 ways something won’t work, I haven’t failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward. -Thomas Edison

Everybody fails. Everybody fails before he/she succeeds. There will be pitfalls on the road to success. I wonder is it possible to succeed in our lives and businesses without a failure.

Do you fear your failure to achieve the next month’s sales target? Do you fear the failure of your company’s new product? You may fail but you cannot stop innovations and its implementations to achieve your goals. Stop worrying about the failure and instead execute your plans.

Fear gives an opportunity to plan in advance about a failure and anticipate the failure suitably. If there’s a failure then it’s not the end of the road. Instead failure is a part of the journey to success. It’s good to know about the roles of fear and failure in achieving our goals.

It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. -Theodore Roosevelt

It is foolish to fear what you cannot avoid. -Publius Syrus

The greatest mistake you can make in life is to continually be afraid you will make one. -Elbert Hubbard

There is no failure. Only feedback. -Robert Allen

Do you need a free blog or a paid blog? Before you make a decision consider the benefits and drawbacks of free blogging and paid blogging, know the costs involved in paid blogging, and compare the features of both blogging types.

You will be able to decide whether to go for a free blogging or a paid blogging after reading this article. If you are using a free blogging site then the article also helps you to decide whether to switch to a paid blogging site or not.

Basically, a blog (a blend of the term web log) is a special type of website with regular content updates (text, images, links, videos, or other media) by an individual or an organization. Blog applications support the authoring, editing, and publishing of blog posts and comments, with special functions for image management, web syndication, and moderation of posts and comments.

There are free (or open source) and proprietary blogging software. Open source blog software are free to use, modify, and redistribute. Proprietary software must be licensed and involves purchase of the software. Most of the organizations utilize the open source applications. Blogger and WordPress are the most widely used free blogging tools. Both the blogging tools offer free web hosting space and bandwidth if you utilize their sub domain (for example yourname12345.wordpress.com). You can register your own branded domain name and host open source blog at a shared hosting or a dedicated hosting server.

Usually, freely hosted blogs at blogger and wordpress are termed as free blogging sites while the blogs hosted with an own domain name are called as paid blogging sites.

Benefits of Free Blogging

• It’s free. You need not pay for domain name, web space, bandwidth, and design templates.
• It’s easy. You need minimal internet skills to set up a blog.
• It’s fast. You can set up a blog within few minutes.
• It saves time. You need not worry about the technical aspects like site up time, spam control, and regular software updates.
• Best solution for personal blogs. It’s suitable for personal blogs (with no intention of building a brand, promoting a product, or making money). It also suits for the people (beginners and advanced users) who want to experiment with the blogs without spending money.

Drawbacks of Free Blogging

• It’s unprofessional. Your own domain name like yourname12345.com is better than yourname12345.wordpress.com.
• Its functionality is limited. You cannot extend the functionality of a self hosted blog with much needed plugins.
• It’s not customizable. You have very limited control over the design and layout.
• No ad revenue. You cannot show revenue generating ads in a self hosted blog.
• Irrelevant ads. Self hosted blogs may place ads (ads may be irrelevant to your site’s content) in your blog.
• Limited customer support. You have to rely on online documentation, online tutorials, online forums, and other online resources for any issues rather than getting help from a dedicated support team to assist you.
• Loss during upgrade. It causes a confusion over URL to your site visitors when you decide to upgrade to a paid blogging platform. Also you have to start afresh online promotion activities for your new blog with a new URL.

Benefits of Paid Blogging

• It’s professional. You can get the domain name like yourname12345.com.
• Extended functionality. You can extend the functionality of your blog with the help of free plugins (like WordPress Database Backup, Google XML Sitemaps, WP Super Cache, and WP Minify) and paid plugins.
• Highly customizable. You can customize your blog with custom coding or integrating with free and paid design themes (like thesis theme).
• Ad revenue. You can generate additional revenue by placing google ads and advertisements. Read The Power of Google Adsense about google adsense.
• Web hosting choice. You can choose your web hosting provider and upgrade to virtual private server (VPS) or dedicated server for better performance of you blog.

Drawbacks of Paid Blogging

• It’s not free. It costs about $10 per year for a domain name. Good shared web hosting package may cost you anywhere between $4 and $10 per month depending on the company you choose.
• It’s not easy. After domain name registration and web hosting account set up you need to install the blogging tool on your hosting account.
• It’s not fast. It may take few minutes to many hours to set up a complete site depending on the features you like to implement.
• Need more time. You need to regularly monitor the blog, upgrade the blog software, and plug-ins.
• Not suitable for novice users. You may need to take the help of professionals to register a domain name, set up a web hosting account, install the blog, customize the design, install plug-ins (to extend the blog functionality), and maintain the blog.

Conclusion

• If you are looking to set up a free blogging site then visit blogger.com or wordpress.com and sign up for a free account. For paid blogging solutions visit wordpress.org and follow the instructions.
• If you are an occasional blogger and wants to blog for your personal purposes then choose free blogging. If you are a beginner and not confident enough in blogging then free blogging is for you.
• If you want to build a brand name, promote your products and services, and make money then choose paid blogging. If you are a beginner or want to set up personal blog but have enough money to spend then choose paid blogging.
• Choosing a wrong web hosting company may land your blog in trouble very soon. I recommend hostgator linux hosting for your blog.

INCREASE your adsense revenue by improving Click Through Rate (CTC) and Cost Per Click (CPC) of your ads. I was surprised when I first learnt the tricks. I was amazed when I implemented the tricks on our sites and saw the awesome results.

The contextual google adsense revenue improves by implementing many simple optimization tips. I will outline the most crucial basic and advanced  topics briefly.

1. Rich Text Content: High quality text content attracts more ads to your web page and there will be more competition among ads. Competing ads increase Cost Per Click (CPC). Good content also increases the number of page impressions. More page views boost Click Through Rate (CTR) of ads. Specific topic targeted content also increases search engine rankings of your website in search engine results page (SERP) driving more users to your website! Your reputation increases. Thus rich text has many benefits!

Google Heat Map

2. Ad Location: Ads on top and left of the page perform better. The ads near/embedded in content, near site navigation aides, and after articles on article based sites yield good results. As a result, good ad location improves CTR.

It is very important to place the ads where users see them. The heat map illustrates the ideal placing of ads on a sample page layout. The colors fade from dark orange (strongest performance) to light yellow (weakest performance).

3. Ad Appearance: Lot of people have seen excellent results by choosing blending, complementing, and contrasting ads based on the design of a web page. To blend, make the background and borders of your ads the same color as the background of your page where the ad is placed. To complement, use colors that already exist on your site, but don’t match the background and borders exactly where the ads are placed.  To contrast, choose colors that stand out against the background of your site. Provide sufficient breathing space around the ads. I have got better results on our sites with blend and complement ads.

Blend

Complement

Contrast

Experts have advised that the ads that match the look and feel of your site’s design perform better than ads with alien colors. Even ads on our sites have shown good results after implementing this advice.

4. Ad Size: Bigger and wider ad formats have done well as they are easier for users to read and show more ads in a single unit. Large Rectangle (336 x 280), Leaderboard (728 x 90), and Wide Skyscraper (160×600) have shown better results than others. Other ad formats like Medium Rectangle (300 x 250), Banner (468 x 60), and Skyscraper (120×600) have performed well at appropriate positions. So consider migrating from narrower ads to broader ads where ever possible in your web site.

5. Multiple Ad Units: Google Adsense allows you to put 3 standard AdSense for content ad units, 3 link units, and 2 AdSense for search boxes on each page of your site. Utilize appropriate number of ad units in your web site to increase CTR.

6. Filter Less: You can filter the type of ads to be displayed from your control panel. Try avoiding filtering ads to increase CPC since more filtering may avoid displaying better paying ads. It is advised to opt-in for text and image ads.

7. Section Targeting: Consider section targeting to emphasize or ignore the page content for better ads targeting and performance.

<!– google_ad_section_start –>
Article content
<!– google_ad_section_end –>

<!– google_ad_section_start(weight=ignore) –>
Related articles / Navigation
<!– google_ad_section_end –>

8. Targetable Custom Channels (Ad Placements): Setting up custom channels helps in tracking the performance of the ads. Set up your custom channels so that they are targetable by advertisers with high quality ads thus increasing the CPC & CTR. This is one of the important tips that you cannot afford to neglect.

9. Links from Relevant Sites: The hyper text links from relevant websites to your site not only increases search engine rankings of your website in SERP but also influences the contextual google ads. A referral URL is one of many signals google uses to deliver contextually relevant ads on your website. The referral URL contains information about the link a user followed to arrive at your website, whether from a search engine or another site on the Internet. Google also considers few hours of browsing history of a user to deliver google ads on your site. Google tries various methods as described above to match the ads to your content and improve CTR and CPC.

10. Link Units: Consider link units when there is a space constraint and your content is specific to certain topics. You can choose a variety of link unit formats.

11. AdSense for Search Ads Only: Monetize your site’s own non-Google search results with AdSense for Search Ads Only. It requires you to add just a few lines of javascript code to your pages. You can also customize the ads that suits the look and feel of your web site. AdSense for Search Ads Only is a permission-only product. Visit AdSense for Search Ads Only to request permission.

12. AdSense for Ajax: AdSense for Ajax allows you to serve the content targeted ads whenever there’s a context change even without requiring a page to be reloaded. It is a permission-only feature. Visit AdSense for Ajax to request permission.

13. Better User Experience: Give prime importance to the users of your site. Design the web site in such a way that it should be easy for your users to find the content they are looking for. Better user experience allows them to visit your web site again. Don’t mislead your users by placing the ads inappropriately to deceive them. Users click on the ads when the ads properly complement the content on your web site.

14. Miscellaneous: Read google adsense program policies and obey them in order to avoid public service ads and other undesirable things to happen that hinder your adsense revenue. Place the ads on pages that receive the most traffic. Choose a web hosting company that serves ads and pages without much delay.

Visit AdSense Help to learn more about google adsense program.
Related Post: The Power of Google Adsense

Google Adsense offers the best deal for the owners of basic static websites to feature rich portals. It is one of the easiest ways to make money online today.

I have a very simple & effective formula to start making money online with google adsense program for the people who don’t have their own products and services.

Content Rich Site + Google Adsense + Traffic = MONEY

Know the role google adsense may play at How Do I Monetize My Blog?

Write about your area of interest and expertise. Publish it with a website or a blog. This step requires you to register a domain name and set up a web hosting account.

Integrate google adsense program into your website. The program displays targeted ads on your website. You can customize the ads based on your site’s look and feel. You can track the clicks and earnings. It’s FREE to join. It’s EASY to start earning. You may wish to take a short Google Adsense Tour.

The last and the crucial part is promoting your website online. Check out Promoting Your Website/Blog for online promotion basics.

A small website like www.freevastushastra.com on Vastu or a big empire like about.com shows google ads for their users. Google Adsense program is the best option to start earning online. But as your website/blog receives more traffic, adsense may be just a part of your overall business model.

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Oh, today is the 1st day of the year 2011. I wish you and your dear ones a very happy and successful year ahead! HAPPY NEW YEAR 2011.

Promoting your website online brings more visitors to your website or blog and in turn increases sales/earnings from your site. There are many FREE and EASY ways to  market/promote your website online. I will explore few options briefly.

You can get lot of users to your website from search engines since many people use search engines to discover the information they need. So number 1 task is getting your website listed in top search engines. Your website must and should be listed in Google, Yahoo, Bing, and Ask search engines to get more online visitors. The four search engines mentioned bring more than 90% of total search engine traffic.

Next best place to get listed is in online business directories, online yellow pages, and online trade directories. List your website in appropriate category to get targeted users. Users visit your websites with the help of your website links in those directories. Listing in directories also increases your website ranking in search engine results page (SERP). Top ranking helps your website get more hits. I am sure you will discover online directories with the help of search engines!

Similarly you can post information about your website at online classified sites, online article directories, and online press release sites. These posts bring more users to your website as well as increase website ranking in SERP. You have to post fresh content (along with a link to your website) to these sites regularly for better results.

Another attractive way to promote your blogs or websites is through social media marketing. Creating and promoting facebook fan page and twitter account are good places to start.

Implementing the above methods ensures your earnings increase many folds.

The monetizing options for a start up blog (similar to the one you are online!) are very limited. I am going to explore couple of programs that are working during those times.

Pay per click (PPC) is an online advertising model used on websites, where publishers earn from their ppc providers when an ad is clicked. Few of my static sites are heavily relying on pay per click programs. One among such programs is Google Adsense and is one of the revenue sources of my blog. Google Adsense program offers a variety of tools to customize the ads displaying on the websites. Read more about adsense program at Google Adsense Tour.  Other such popular programs are Adbrite, Bidvertiser, Chitika, and Clicksor.

Affiliate Marketing typically refers to an electronic commerce version of the traditional agent/referral fee sales channel concept. An affiliate is a website which links back to an e-commerce site with the goal of making a commission for referred sales.

I recommend products whose benefits are seen first hand by me and our clients. I recommend Thesis WordPress Theme (Thesis Theme offers airtight SEO, incredible design flexibility, and lightning-fast loading times) and Hostgator Web Hosting (Hostgator offers EASY and AFFORDABLE web hosting) for your website and blog hosting.

More monetizing options open up when my blog traffic picks up and I hope to write about them very soon. -:) I am very curious to know (kindly comment to this post) if there are other good earning models available for start up blogs.

Once up on a time I was wondering do people really make money online. Now, I am confident enough to spread the word with a website dedicated to that topic. I earn money online with selling and reselling products/services, affiliate marketing, and pay per click adverts. The websites on Bulk SMS, Job Sites, and Vastu make sufficient online earning for me. Don’t forget the one you are online now!

There are numerous ways to make money online. The best method to earn online is selling your own products and services. The next best way is reselling the products of others. Another business model is to become an affiliate. It is also possible to earn based on pay per click model. Hmm… there are countless ways to make money in the world of internet.

What is required to set up an online business? The requirements are very less if you compare with brick and mortar business. The task becomes much easier if you plan to sell online products and services; the services can be rendered online. For example, you can write an eBook on your area of expertise and start selling, or if you are good at a language then you can offer copy writing services. I advise you to register a domain name in your’s/company’s name and set up a small website with the details of your products and services. You can promote your website with various cost effective means to grow your business. If you set up a successful business then you earn more money than reselling or displaying adverts of other products.

Reselling the products of other companies is easier than creating and maintaining your own products. Usually, reselling involves tying up with a reputable company and selling their products with your brand name. For example, you can resell web hosting solution, software, or an online service. The challenge is to the find the market place that consumes those products. You can sell the products at a premium price with your value added services.

There is an easiest method to make handsome money without investment. People earn good money by affiliate marketing and pay per click adverts. There are many websites which review the products of various companies and guide the users to suitable products. Affiliate marketers earn the commission on per sale basis. Pay per click pays the owner of the website/blog based on the number of clicks on the adverts displayed on his/her website.

WHICH METHODS OR PRODUCTS WORK OUT FOR ME? You are more confident in promoting the products that you use and benefit from them. You believe in them. You earnings are more with them. So it is very important to sell, resell, or affiliate with products that you believe. For instance, this website is built with the premium Thesis wordpress theme. It is highly flexible with hell lot of options and I love it.

I highly recommend Thesis theme if you are setting up a wordpress blog. Also, I recommend hostgator web hosting for your blog or website. Use the coupon code DISCOUNT0994 to get web hosting at only 0.01 USD.

This is the first article in the blog and I appreciate your comments. Happy making money online!